Eiland Arts Pop-Up Dinner, Merchantville, NJ - SPECIAL EVENT CHECK IT OUT!

Fall Pop up dinner October 12th, 6:30pm

Meet the Farmer:
Derek and Vicky Zember, D&V Organics, Swedesboro, NJ

We welcome Derek and Vicky to join us in enjoying the best of the fall harvest from their farm. Chefs Justin Lingl and Matt Moon will head down to the farm to pick produce and then prepare a 4 course dinner.

This meal will be focus on D&V's amazing products and be vegetarian as always, and entirely Gluten-Free for this event. *tentative menu, pending on harvest
First
Lentil Croquette: baby bok choy, yogurt
Second
Charred Little Gem Ceasar: baby romaine, mixed radish, miso-ceasar dressing, cured yolk, parmesan
Third
Harvest Risotto: hearty greens, root vegetables, pea shoots
Dessert
Autumn Baked Alaska: Sweet potato ice cream, torched meringue, salted caramel *Served with coffee or tea.
$55 per person (tax/gratuity included). Reservations limited and are accepted now - email Nicole at ni@eilandarts.com to reserve your seat.

All seating will be communal at large tables, outside (weather permitting). **If weather is poor, dinner will be held inside**

Fun thing to do on Sat. Sept. 28, 2019

If you are looking for a fun thing to do this Saturday, consider driving over to Creek Road in Rancocas Woods for the Craft Show:

Rancocas Woods Craft Co-Op
and Antique Attic

Is that time again!!
Rancocas Woods Craft Show
Saturday, Sept 28th
10-4
handmade crafts, live music 
stroll the woods and
enjoy shopping in all of our 
awesome shops!

Don't forget to stop by the
Craft Co-Op for a chance to 
win our amazing scarecrow!! 
No purchase necessary!!

Save the date...
Rancocas Woods Antique Show will be held 
Sunday, Oct 13th 
9-3

Unfortunately, I have plans for this Saturday and can't go but I can make the 13th and I will because this is such a fun
event.  I was just as Rancocas with a friend two days ago.  She was looking for a table.  I love that place!

Happy Trails,
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

A Pine Barrens Festival - Middle of NoWhere

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE 2019 Whitesbog Village.  September 28th. 5-11:45pm. This Saturday!! In collaboration with Atlas Obscura and Whitesbog Preservation Trust, we bring you MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, one-evening outdoor music, site-specific art, and film screening event and a month-long visual art exhibition. Conceived and curated by David Scott Kessler https://www.facebook.com/events/743006486120469/ Featuring: The Pine Barrens feature-length film by David Scott Kessler with live score by The Ruins of Friendship Orchestra. Laraaji - multi-instrumentalist and ambient pioneer, known for his collaboration with Brian Eno Jackson Pines -  a duo from the pine barrens, indie folk, drawing on the melodies and arrangements of bluegrass and mountain music. Grassland - Local bluegrass and regulars of Albert Hall Erik Ruin's Ominous Cloud Ensemble - Shadow performance and musical accompaniment, been lauded by the New York Times for his "spell-binding cut-paper animations." Artwork by: Nancy Holt - 1975 film, "Pine Barrens" seen for the first time in the land that originally inspired it. Kristen Neville Taylor, Emily Carris, Nick Lenker, Raúl Romero, Rebecca Saylor Sack, J. Alex Schechter, Jacob Lunderby, Steven Earl Weber, Theo Mullen, Megan Biddle, Tory Fair, Austen Camille Weymueller, John Vigg, Sarah E. Brook, Steph Mantis, J. Makary, Christina P. Day, Kaitlin Pomerantz, and Rita Leduc co-curator, Jen Brown Optional camping available at Mt. Misery after the event. more info at www.middleofnowhere.us Tickets:  PURCHASE HERE Please note: Tickets are limited! Discounted tickets are available to neighbors of the Pine Barrens. See ticket link for details. Camping:  (add-on price at checkout) We have partnered with Pinelands Center at Mt. Misery to provide a site for attendees to camp after the event. Additional entertainment (to be announced) and breakfast is included Guests will need to provide their own tents and camping supplies.

Peachfields Event Oct. 6, 2019

First Sunday Series:  Susan B. Anthony

October 6, 2019

2:00-4:00 pm

Join us this season in celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Suffrage in the United States with the signing of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Susan B. Anthony (portrayed by Marjorie Goldman) was an important suffragist who had a lively sense of humor and a passion for justice.  Ms. Anthony's commitment included the abolition of slavery, women's rights to their own property and earnings, and women's right to vote.  

Admission is $10 per person.  Friends of Peachfield are admitted free.  Please make checks payable to: NSCDA-NJ and mail to Peachfield, 180 Burrs Road, Westampton, NJ  08060.  Tickets also available at the door.  Please call (609) 267-6996, or send an email to colonialdamesnj@comcast.net.

      

This event takes place at Peachfield, 180 Burrs Road in Westampton, the Headquarters of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The State of New Jersey.

Funding has been made possible in part by the New Jersey Historical Commission, Department of State and the Burlington County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Department of Resource Conservation, Division of Parks.

Additiona info to Stone House Lane Blog post

Just got around to reading the Sunday Inquirer which was dropped off in my drive either by accident or as some marketing ploy.  Every once in awhile, a copy is left here although my regular delivery is the Sunday New York Times.  I used to read the Courier.  I don't read the Inquirer because it isn't as interesting or well informed as the Times and the Courier, same thing.

Anyhow a front page story was about the plans to expand the Phlladelphia airport which as the article states, was built on a series of islands that were the river estuary.  This was interesting to me for two reasons, one of which was the 'islands' they referred to were the farms drained from the swamp by the farmers in the 1700's who created what was called by us South Philadelphia neighbors, "the Neck."  Now at least the farmers used canals and allowed some natural river estuary action to continue but paving it over to make the airport does not allow for ebb and flow with storm surge or natural drainage of flood waters.

They also stated that the river and ocean along the shore has risen 12 inches due to climate change in the 2000's, so they are talking about building "up" the airport, whatever that means.

I am simply a well informed citizen.  I read upwards of half a dozen magazines on news, history, archaeology and science, and the aforementioned Sunday New York Times, but I understand how blocking up the river estuaries has caused such horrors as the Mississippi Flood and the terrible floods in New Orleans where the tidal lands were destroyed and the estuaries filled in.  I don't understand how these planners seem to be uninformed by experts in river ecology and environmental science.

Just found my copy of Rick Atkinson's THE BRITISH ARE COMING which I bought after the book review was published but never got around to reading yet.  After visiting Red Bank, I went looking for it because now I am interested again!

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

ps.  isn't it interesting how history and news intersect!

Box of Barbies

It was a fun day in many ways for my old childhood friend, Liz and me.  Our intention for the day was to go to Merchantville for the "town-wide yard sale and exhibition of vintage toys."  We had no idea what to expect and never expected what we saw.

First we stopped off at Salad Works in Collingswood for the super healthy "Pick two" lunch which is soup, salad and a delicious hot wheat roll.  Parking can be a challenge, but I always manage.

My pal, Liz and I take turns driving and since my car is the older and more worse for the wear, Liz is kind enough to take the longer drives while I do the short runs, so today was my turn.  Liz is also very flexible about where we go and how we hop around, a very valuable trait in a travel companion.  

The yard sale turned out to be about 20 or 30 white top kiosks under which were displayed pyramids of plastic modern toys:  super heroes, matchbox cars, and the vintage (I presume) lay in the vast array of Star Wars characters: droids, and one exceptionally interesting item, a three foot tall Darth Vader.  I imagine he was outraged at the low price taped on his chest $15!  Darth Vader, the Lord of the Dark Force, Skywalker's father, discounted down to a ten dollar bill and five ones.  He stood there sulking but he couldn't compare with the pathos of the box of Barbies.

To my friend Liz, I said "Oh Barby has it come to this?  Cast off naked by the dozens in a cardboard box, all that glamour, the ice cream shoppe' and the hair salon, the rock studio, the Bar B'Que shop, the red convertible, the outings on the yacht with playboy Ken - all down to being dumped in a cardboard box with 30 lookalikes.  I almost wanted to buy them and dress them up and give them a little room of their own.

I imagined Darth Vader and the Barbies bemoaning their fallen state in 2019.  They weren't broken or damaged, simply unwanted and cast-off like Donald Trumps' wives.  

However, being at the age where I am divesting myself (or wishing I were divesting myself) of the accumulated flotsam and jetsam of a long life-time, I couldn't rescue these forlorn figures who once led movie marvelous lives, who once were loved and even feared, coveted and purchased and now- - -

We went to the Railroad Station Cafe' and I had a large gelato to drown my sorrows then we drove to a Wawa for a couple of coffee pic-me-ups which we enjoyed down at Red Bank Battlefield, watching the sun glint over the mighty Delaware River.  I ran into an old volunteer friend there, Harry Schaeffer and we caught up on some of the James and Ann Whittal House news, then we headed home.  I had cats and a dog to feed, and Liz had a hungry son to make dinner for.  We agreed we had a marvelous day.  Sometimes the simplest things nearby can be the most fun.  You don't have to take a cruise or a jet to a foreign city to be delighted or to see beautiful scenery or a foreign bazaar, just drive to  a nearby town or river!

Happy Trails,
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Stone House Lane, South Philadelphia, Pa. - a Lost 'Venice'

Lens: Finding Stonehouse Lane, South Philly’s lost neighborhood

By
• Jake Blumgart
September 2, 2016

(Evening Bulletin | Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

A trip through the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin archives reveals detail on the otherwise lost neighborhood Stonehouse Lane, in deepest southeast Philly, where residents lived on the fringe of city life in semi-rural conditions into the mid-20th century. Hop in the wayback machine with Jake Blumgart:

It’s hard to imagine that South Philly was ever anything besides a great expanse of concrete and brick, with row homes stretching off to the horizon.

But the city fought its way southward through the marshes and farms that used to occupy that land. By the 20th century, the battle was largely over. The exception lay in deepest South Philly, below Oregon Avenue, where an incongruous community of farmers and squatters hung on until the 1950s.

Stonehouse Lane is one of the dozens of forgotten neighborhoods in this old city that have been bulldozed, burned, or otherwise brutalized. One origin story alleges that this particular corner of Philadelphia was formed by Hessian mercenaries who weren’t quite sure what to do when General Cornwallis surrendered.

Despite Stonehouse Lane’s murky origins, by the 20th century it seemed a clear anachronism in a modernizing, industrial city. The road that formed the spine of the community wound its way down from Oregon Avenue past Pattison Avenue to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. It was flanked on both sides by canals. Each house featured a bridge that would allow residents to cross from the street to their front doors. There was no running water and the sewer system didn’t stretch down that far south either. The closest trolleys were a mile to the north on Oregon Avenue, and burning piles of trash on its northern border hemmed in the community. This, just six miles from City Hall., Nonetheless, the denizens of Stonehouse Lane kept animals in great abundance until the neighborhood’s destruction. Their micro-herds included cattle, pigs, goats, ducks, horses, and what one reporter described as “an unbelievable number of mongrel dogs romp[ing] among the tin cans that are scattered everywhere.”

The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin periodically sent journalists to Stonehouse Lane for either slice of life stories or to cover the latest eviction attempt.

Stonehouse Lane is “the Venice of Philadelphia, and has the distinction of being the only part of the city that has waterways instead of sidewalk,” enthused one reporter, in the typically florid prose of the 1920s and 1930s. “It is reminiscent of the older days when castles were built with drawbridges, but the knights of long ago never cared more for their pretentious abodes than the inhabitants of these odd little houses care for theirs.”As the edge of the city, the water running past the residents’ doorsteps wasn’t drinkable. There wasn’t much potable water at all, as the wells contained dangerous levels of rust. Instead the residents got it from a fire hydrant on Pattison Avenue.

The other staples of municipal infrastructure weren’t up to snuff either. As late as the 1920s, electricity wasn’t commonplace in Stonehouse Lane yet. All the houses were all lit with kerosene lamps, while the neighborhood’s general store was surrounded by highly flammable barrels of the fuel.

The residents did not own the land but they dutifully voted for the Republican machine—their division was famous because no Democratic vote was ever tallied there until the later 1930s—which no doubt helped them fight off repeated eviction attempts.

One of the attempted dispossession campaigns resulted from a misbegotten attempt to replace the community with a private airport. Many of the residents on Stonehouse Lane owned their homes, but they didn’t own the land underneath it (trailer parks today are operated in much the same way).  But with protest and political support the campaign was defeated. A later attempt resulted in the constables who attempted to enforce the evictions being beaten. The police declined to enforce the evictions themselves, perhaps.

After World War Two, Stonehouse Lane made its last stand. The community had stopped paying even nominal ground rents in the late 1930s.  They were still stealing water from the city and they also weren’t paying taxes. But the neighborhood kept on receiving public services. The houses didn’t bear any addresses, but the mail was delivered to 3500 Stonehouse Lane and the postman knew all the families well enough that the 200 households each got what was coming to them. The school bus picked up those who went to public school, while those in Catholic school walked to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in what is now the Whitman neighborhood.

Despite their antiquated circumstances, the residents also took part in the postwar boom. Those interviewed by the Bulletin included truckers, factory workers, mechanics, train engineers, and longshoremen.  These same families struggled through the Depression years, but by the mid-1950s most on Stonehouse Lane enjoyed telephones, television sets and automobiles (including one family with a Cadillac, the bulletin noted). However, many of these appliances were supported by pirated electricity.

The helter-skelter infrastructure resulted in headaches for any who tried to intervene. A favorite hazing ritual of the Department o Licenses & Inspections was to send rookies down to Stonehouse Lane, where they would spend days writing up all the violations. Then their supervisors would laugh it off, and throw the stacks of paper away.

The Walt Whitman Bridge finally did in Stonehouse Lane because the approaches along Pattison Avenue cut right through the neighborhood. “We always drove away those pests who tried to dispossess us,” a longshoreman told a Bulletin reporter in 1955, “but what can you do against a bulldozer?”

Although there had been calls for the squatter-farmers eviction for the previous fifty years, this time they couldn’t muster the political wherewithal to fight back. By 1955 only 274 people remained, less than half the former population. A 1955 census by the city found 97 occupied houses with 809 violations of the housing code among them. About half had no indoor toilets or proper plumbing, and almost as many relied on dangerous kerosene stoves for heat. Indeed, the neighborhood’s demise was also sped by the deaths of four children in 1954, who were consumed in a fire caused by a jerry-rigged electrical system.  

By the end of 1956 everyone had moved out, or been moved out. The city burned all of the homes. Today Stonehouse Lane is completely paved over. The Oregon diner sits on the northern stretch of where the neighborhood stood. The built environment still bends slightly to its old contours as the blog The Necessity for Ruins once pointed out.  But no other trace remains of the last rural community that survived the forward march of urban South Philadelphia.

Looking for fun close to home tomorrow, Saturday 9/20?

The forecast is calling for warm weather this Saturday, which will be perfect for Merchantville's town-wide yard sale AND Merchantville's annual Toy and Collectible Street Fair.

Eiland Arts in the old railroad station will be open from 7:30am - 9pm serving coffee, food, and best of all, gelatoall day!

And don't forget there is a nice rails to trails paved path right through the heart of town to stretch your legs after the gelato!

Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Greenwich Fair!

It isn't often that Crossroads has events listed that are being held own inner neck of the woods, but here is one that is a favorite of mine:

September 28 and 29

Greenwich Artisans Faire and Marketplace in Greenwich. Colonial-era demonstrations, works from local artists and more on historic Ye Greate Street. Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  If you don't know where Greenwich is, it is as far south as you can go, down below Bridgeton, south of Shiloh and Shephardstown and Rhodestown.  It is a beautiful small town with a great historical society, and the site of a tea burning during the Revolution.

I have attended this fair several times and enjoyed it very much!

Hope you do too - Happy Trails!

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Ethnic people in early Philadelphia

Thrilled to receive in the mail today, THE PEOPLES OF PHILADELPHIA; A history of Ethnic Groups and Lower Class Life, published in 1973 by Temple Univ. It is a collection of essays derived from the papers presented at a conference on the same subject held at Temple in 1972.  The editors Davis and Haller collected the essays, edited and expanded them and produced this invaluable book.

In the Introduction, the editors state that little had been written or studied on the subject previous to the conference and publication of this book and that is certainly true if you ever try to find out anything specific about, say, German immigrants in Philadelphia, or the early Swedes.

My interest was ignited by my having attended Gloria Dei, Old Swedes Church, as a child.  My mother taught Sunday school there and her mother was a lifelong attender.  I found this in a quick search just now:

"A visible reminder of the colony’s original influence and lasting impact is the Gloria Dei Church, or Old Swedes’ Church, in South Philadelphia. Constructed during the last years of the seventeenth century, its religious services continued more than three hundred years later."

An essay by Mark L. Thompson 

Recently, I had posted about STONE HOUSE LANE a forgotten village of farms and canals hewn from the swamps below my old neighborhood in South Philadelphia.  I had lived on Warnock Street, below Johnson and a few blocks west of 10th Street.  I wrote about the hucksters who came up from what we called "The Neck" with horse drawn wagons of produce for sale.  Poking around on the internet had provided many unsubstantiated theories about the origins of the people in ''The Neck" including that they were originally Hessians left behind after the Revolution.  They drained the swamps into canals and small farms and raised pigs, chickens, goats, and dairy cows there until they were driven off by eminent domain for the airport and other industrial usage.  

My new book also discusses how there has been so little study or publication about the lives of the ordinary working class people of Philadelphia.  My mother and father were both born and raised in Philadelphia.  My father came from German immigrants and research on them described them as brewers, seamstresses, tailors, watchmakers, and bakers.  My father worked in construction after the second World War.  He was an Ironworker.  

My mother's people were Irish and her grandfather had a stable and hostelry on the waterfront and delivered goods from the ships to the markets.  Her mother was Episcopalian and attended Gloria Dei on the riverfront, which was then a small remnant of the early Swedish community.  I was aware from early childhood of the extreme age of the church and its uniqueness to the history of the city.

Hopefully as I delve into this treasure of a book, I will find bits to share with you on my blog.  Meantime, I wanted to let you know this book exists!

Happy Trails,

Jo Ann

Though I have been a happy New Jersey resident most of my adult life, I think we all carry the roots of the city of our birth with us!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Recurring themes on this blog - family history research

As you may recall, I recently attended three EXCELLENT lectures on family history research provided by Camden County Historical Society and given by Bonnie Beth Elwell, a wonderful researcher and guide.

The lecture consisted of the resources available at CCHS, and how to use your DNA results, as well as many other useful topics.  Bonnie used examples from her own vast research experience to illustrate her points.

Bonnie is President of the  Genealogy Society of Salem County and they hold regular meetings filled with useful information to aid your research.  Here is a notice on an upcoming meeting:

Greetings--
The Genealogical Society of Salem County invites you to a program entitled “Become a Probate Detective: Rejoicing in the Probate Files of Our Ancestors” presented by Dawn Carson on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 7:00 pm in the Friends Village Auditorium in Woodstown, NJ.
The probate files our ancestors have left behind not only served their immediate families and relations, but also us, the contemporary family historians. In this lecture, you’ll learn how to locate the probate files of your ancestors, examine the bounty of information they may contain, and what other documents they may lead us to in order to further our research.
Dawn Carson is a professional genealogist and has been involved in genealogical research since 2000. Her research is focused in the Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey areas. She is a member of the National Genealogical Society and the Association of Professional Genealogists. She holds a certificate in genealogical research from Boston University and is a member of ProGen 24.
This program is free and open to the public. For more info, call 609-670-0407. Hope to see you there!

--Bonny Beth Elwell

VP of GSSC

Cemetery Time in Camden County

Always about this time of year, I find myself driving to Haleigh Cemetery to visit Walt Whitman's Tomb.  When the leaves begin to change color, and fall cools the mornings and darkens the evenings, I drift spontaneously to Haleigh and find Whitman's tomb.

Today, our senior group was talking about the labor movement in memorial to Labor Day and I showed  some photos of the grave of Peter J. Maguire in Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken.  I visit his memorial monument every Labor Day and leave a wreath or flowers at the foot of his statue.  

One of the most interesting essays on Camden Cemeteries was written by Hoag Levins many years ago.  I had gone searching for information on the Cemetery in Collingswood alongside the railroad and the old railroad station.  I came across it when I was working on one-room schools and there is one on the corner of the street across from the railroad station.  Research led me to Hoag Levins essay and that led me to another essay of his on the deteriorated cemetery where many of the Newton Meeting Quakers were buried.  They are also buried at the Collingswood cemetery.  They are the original settlers from along Newton Creek in what is now Collingswood.  

On this visit to Whitman's tomb in Haleigh Cemetery, I was astonished to find the the wrought iron gate and the door to the tomb open and an empty chair seated inside.  

I went back to search for Hoag Levin's original essay and found many many more at this web site:
http://historiccamdencounty.com/index.shtml

There were so many interesting essay at this link that I hastened to post about it here on my blog.  Some of the ones I had to stop and read were the one on Slave Ships on the Delaware, Camden's Most Neglected Cemetery, Camden's Oldest Cemetery, and many essays on Civil War burials.

It was shocking to me during my family history work to find the cemetery of my paternal Grandfather had also been completely abandoned.  Even though I had the plot number and area number, Mount Moriah was so overgrown, it was a jungle, and the original and once beautiful office building and archway were burned and destroyed.  Somehow I hadn't imagined such a thing could happen, that on one was responsible for maintaining the graves of family loved ones after time has caused original management to somehow evaporate.  Fortunately the other cemeteries of family were intact and well maintained, Laurelview and New Cathedral in Philadelphia.

There has been much outrage about the vandalism and decrepitude of the Camden City cemeteries but apparently not much action.
Perhaps some legal forethought could have been applied to insure proper care of cemeteries when the original operators died out or disappeared.  Most people, I assume, today, go in for cremation instead of burial.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Anyone remember "The Neck" in South Philadelphia?

When I was a little girl, hucksters would come up the alleys and lanes of our neighborhoods selling produce from horse drawn wagons.  I was fascinated by the horse that pulled the wagons.  

The hucksters came from what my grandmother called "The Neck"
and later I found out it had been Stone House Lane a community of farmers who reclaimed swamp land by making canals and dykes and created small farms.  They had pigs, goats, some dairy cows and chickens and horses. 

Here is what I found on one google search recently:

A trip through the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin archives reveals detail on the otherwise lost neighborhood Stonehouse Lane, in deepest southeast Philly, where residents lived on the fringe of city life in semi-rural conditions into the mid-20th century. Hop in the wayback machine with Jake Blumgart:

It’s hard to imagine that South Philly was ever anything besides a great expanse of concrete and brick, with row homes stretching off to the horizon.

But the city fought its way southward through the marshes and farms that used to occupy that land. By the 20th century, the battle was largely over. The exception lay in deepest South Philly, below Oregon Avenue, where an incongruous community of farmers and squatters hung on until the 1950s.

Stonehouse Lane is one of the dozens of forgotten neighborhoods in this old city that have been bulldozed, burned, or otherwise brutalized. One origin story alleges that this particular corner of Philadelphia was formed by Hessian mercenaries who weren’t quite sure what to do when General Cornwallis surrendered.

Despite Stonehouse Lane’s murky origins, by the 20th century it seemed a clear anachronism in a modernizing, industrial city. The road that formed the spine of the community wound its way down from Oregon Avenue past Pattison Avenue to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. It was flanked on both sides by canals. Each house featured a bridge that would allow residents to cross from the street to their front doors. There was no running water and the sewer system didn’t stretch down that far south either. The closest trolleys were a mile to the north on Oregon Avenue, and burning piles of trash on its northern border hemmed in the community. This, just six miles from City Hall.

It made me think of all the lost neighborhoods of South Philadelphia, the Jewish haberdashers and tailors, the German brewers and bakers, the Italian Market.

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Something fun to do on Sunday

Rancocas Woods Antique Show

Rancocas Woods  Antique Show this Sunday,
Sept 8th 9-3 pm
Shop antiques, vintage and collectibles
Food Trucks will be there along
with a some special crafters
and live entertainment!!
Don't forget to visit all the
local shops and eateries!!

So there you have it - a whole weekend of fun.  Come to the Art opening at Eiland Arts (Merchantville Train Station) Friday Night at 7.  The Sunflower festival posted earlier today on Saturday, and Rancocas Antique Show on Sunday!

Happy Trails!

Jo Ann

Up for a little mystery?

The Ritz Theatre Company Presents: The Ghosts of Ravenswood Manor

September 13 - 29 | Times Vary
Ritz Theatre Company, Haddon Township

  

This September, the Ritz Theatre Company is presenting an original production: The Ghosts of Ravenswood Manor. This brand new comedy was written by Ritz veteran Kumar Dari, and will be directed by Bruce Curless. The show previews Thursday, September 12, opens Friday September 13 and runs through Sunday September 29! Grab your tickets today! 

Festival of Sunflowers! & More!

Festival of Sunflowers

September 7 & 8 | 10 AM - 7 PM
Dalton Farms, Swedesboro

 

Join Dalton Farms for their first Sunflower Festival! They have close to 30 acres planted with 18 varieties of flowers available for the picking. This will be the first of several weekend festival dates throughout the fall. Enjoy tons of activities including paddle boats, hot air balloon rides, hayrides and so much more! 

Also, tomorrow night at 7:00 is the opening for the Group Art Show at the Merchantville Railroad Station Gallery (Eiland Arts) just off Centre Street in Merchantville at the railroad (turned into a rails to trails!)  I have 3 paintings in the show, the theme of which was trees and flowers, and two of my Art Club buddies (we went to college together in the 80's) have work in the show too! Hope to see you there!

Happy Trails!

Jo Ann

September, National Suicide Prevention Month

Interesting how signing up for a protest against the internment of immigrant children in camps in the Southwest, brought me e-mail from organizations I had never encountered before.

Today one came on suicide which is, of course, connected to gun laws.  At first I thought I didn't know anyone who had ever committed suicide but I remembered a woman I knew whose son had killed himself.  He was at the end of his ability to cope and everyone had grown tired of his ceaseless drama.  His wife had divorced him and she was re-marrying.  Mainly, his loved ones, a brother and a mother and a distant father had taken the "Pull oyourself together and move on" kind of advice.  It isn't substantially different, I think, from what I might have thought and said.  But, so full of despair, he couldn't do that, he went to a motel and overdosed on pills instead.

Sometimes all we need to do is listen with sympathy and empathy and not with judgement, not something I have found it particularly easy to do in the past.  Anyhow I am passing on the e-mail I received today because I think it is worth thinking about - a little kindness today could save someone's life and give that person the peace and calm they need to carry on a little longer.

"Love you, miss you, and blow a kiss."

That's how my dad ended all of our phone calls. I still have the urge to dial his number and talk. I wish I could. But nine years ago, he took his own life with a gun.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. My story, and the story of so many others like my dad, are far too common. Claiming the lives of over 22,000 Americans every year, including over 1,000 children and teens, firearm suicide is a significant public health crisis in the US. Nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths in the US are suicides, resulting in an average of 61 deaths a day. It's by far the most lethal method of self-harm; less than 5 percent of suicide attempts using methods other than a gun result in death.

This month, please read Moments That Survive stories and remember those who have been affected by firearm suicide.

September is a month to remember people like my dad, and to resolve to do what we can to save the lives of others. We can share their stories so they are never forgotten. We can pass stronger gun safety laws that limit access to people in crisis. We can make sure that our loved ones receive the care they need.

My dad was the ultimate caregiver of our family, neighbors and friends. Life has forever changed without him. Now, I end my phone calls with my two sons the same way he did with me: "Love you, miss you, and blow a kiss."

Thank you for helping to spread awareness of firearm suicide this month. And thank you for everything, Dad.

Together, I know that we can end this crisis and save lives.

Together we care,

Debbie Weir
National Senior Managing Director, Organizing and Engagement
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

P.S. – If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline at 1-800-273-TALK or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741 for free, confidential support, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.