Photos and italicized text are from a Malvern business owner. I feel very badly for them.
📌Ok Malvern we need help with the kids! The kids sit out front of the butcher shop, which we don’t mind. What I do mind is they constantly leave tons of trash on the bench, the ground and the window sills, dump their drinks on the ground and smash up food that I go out and pick up. It’s not a good image when customers are coming into the store or walking the shopping center. I have reminded the kids multiple times to pick up their trash before they leave. I even went out one day and screamed across the parking lot for them to come back and clean up after seeing the huge mess they left out there. Now yesterday I went and bought a trash can and sat it right next to the bench so it’s convenient for them. Tonight we go to leave to find more trash (we already picked some up before I took a picture) and they punched in the lid of the can and kicked the can in. I am at my wits end and need suggestions?? What else can we do? I don’t want to be a meanie, but I also refuse to let these kids continue trashing the shopping center and me having to clean up after them every day, multiple times a day! HELP!!! I’m waving the I surrender flag 🏳📌
Ok I don’t get these kids and also do not understand why Malvern Borough hasn’t done anything or the Malvern Business Association? I am sharing this out there so hopefully people can help these small businesses out.
A friend is working on a local treasures booth for an upcoming fall fair. In the middle of a box of things being priced, was this ratty envelope full of recipes. Mostly cut out of The Washington Post. A few were handwritten.
The fair ladies didn’t know what to do with the envelope, so she gave them to me. I scanned them mostly into a PDF which I will upload at the end of this post, for all to enjoy.
The personal collections of recipes are often a fun culinary history of trends years ago, combined with what people hung onto. I did not keep all of the recipes because well…the endless gelatin molds of all sorts of combinations of foods is not my jam.
There are some great recipes in the pile and quirky things like how to make mint julips.
I received word today that a gentleman from Tredyffrin who was a much loved Supervisor for many years has passed away. If you read his obituary which I will post, it shows what we are losing in today’s hyper-partisan times. Where are our community leaders today? People that quietly serve to forward the greater good?
In 2011 a reader editorial was written and published in then Main Line Suburban Life by then Chair of the Tredyffrin Supervisors Bob Lamina. I actually remembered this and went looking for it today. I am going to quote liberally:
Thomas Jefferson once said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” For the better part of 13 years, I’ve had the great pleasure of serving with my friend and colleague Paul Olson on the Tredyffrin Township Board of Supervisors. During that time, Paul has dedicated himself in his public pursuits to ensuring our local government is watchful of tax dollars, preventing wasteful taxpayer-funded expenditures for more government services that his constituents haven’t asked for, or that didn’t support public safety or promote the general welfare of our community…..During our budget deliberations, while many first seek mechanisms to raise revenues to fund additional township services, we can always count on Paul to act like taxpayers do at home: asking where we might first trim expenses.
Paul is also a small-business owner and knows firsthand what it takes to promote economic growth and development and, if we’re not careful, how local government can impede it. He knows from experience the importance of fiscal responsibility and what it takes to make a payroll…..Paul has also been an active volunteer in our community in many ways other than in his elected capacity. A resident since 1968, Paul was president of the Devon-Strafford Little League for five years and also coached the Strafford Eagles youth-football program, now the Conestoga Generals, for seven years. He serves on the Board of Directors of Surrey Services for Seniors, and was co-chair for the wildly successful capital campaign for Tredyffrin Township’s main library in Strafford, raising over $4.8 million in a private-public partnership in the truest sense of the term.
In the spirit of volunteerism that sets him apart from equally well-meaning citizens, Paul was recently honored by the Chester County commissioners for his 400th donation of blood and blood platelets to the American Red Cross, making him the region’s top donor. I asked Paul recently why he’s been dedicated to donating blood platelets for so long. He hesitated, and then told me that he had a very good friend who died some years ago who required this form of blood transfusion. He has committed himself to donate his time, and his blood, to help others who could literally have their lives touched unknowingly by Paul’s unselfish acts of kindness.
A public servant is best defined as one who is a team player who works to achieve goals through compromise and mutual respect. Our public servants are also typically resourceful since often funding is limited and in today’s reality perhaps not available at all. But above all, the best characteristic of a public servant is that of being selfless; that is, placing the needs of others before themselves. Thomas Jefferson also said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Paul Olson is the embodiment of a true public servant who has given much more than he has ever received from our community.
~ By Bob Lamina
Paul Olson was a true public servant. I never knew him personally, never even met him, but he always put community before self. He put community before political parties.
He was by all accounts, a consistent champion of the Mt. Pleasant section of Tredyffrin in the panhandle. This historic black community is too often overlooked and he helped with things like the Carr School/Mt. Pleasant Chapel, Main Line Mentoring, and getting a park named for Mazie B. Hall. Also active with the Red Cross, Surrey Services for Seniors, and so much more including but not limited to the huge capital campaign back a bunch of years for the Tredyffrin Library.
Paul Olson served as a Supervisor in Tredyffrin Township beginning in 1976 until 2019. FORTY THREE YEARS. That is amazing. That is awe-inspiring. I know I could never do something like that. Rest in peace, Mr. Olson.
Paul Wendell Olson DECEMBER 6, 1931 – SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 Paul Olson was a husband, father, brother, friend, and mentor. He was a community volunteer and leader who served on the Tredyffrin Township Board of Supervisors for more than 40 years. He passed away on Friday September 10, 2021. He was 89 years old.
He loved basketball, which he played through his early 60s, including at the Senior Olympics in Salt Lake City. He loved all kinds of candy, which often filled his pockets and always his briefcase and office drawers. And he loved his wife, Andrea, a high school Fiesta Queen and college salutatorian at Iowa State University, whom he married on September 17, 1960, and with whom he raised three children.
He was a small town Minnesota boy, born and raised in Dawson, a close knit rural community in the southwestern corner of the state, the second son of Clarence Eugene Olson and Ouida Rue Olson. He took lifelong pride in his first job, sweeping floors at Hovland Drug Store as a pre-teen, and in his role on the 1948 Dawson High School basketball team that went to the state tournament. He talked fondly of his graduating class of 18 boys and 18 girls and stayed in touch with many of them throughout his life.
He attended Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, where he studied business administration and history and started at center on the football team. He served active duty in the Counterintelligence Corps of the Army in Fort Hood, Texas, during the Korean War. He made a career in sales and marketing and managed and then owned several small firms in the laboratory testing business. His career took him through Minneapolis, Kansas City, Peoria, and New York, before landing him and his family of five in Devon in 1969.
He made his most lasting impact in life, though, as a family man and as a community volunteer and leader. In addition to his service on the Tredyffrin Township Board, he was active as a member of his church, St. Luke Lutheran in Devon, and in youth sports. He coached for the Strafford Eagles, the Paoli Wildcats, Teegarden summer basketball, and the Devon Strafford Little League, where he also served as President for a number of years in the late 1970s. He served on the board of directors for both Red Cross of Philadelphia, through whom he donated blood on more than 600 occasions, and for Surrey Services for Seniors.
Paul believed that community service, in addition to improving the community, could enrich the lives of those serving and had the power to connect people of different backgrounds and experiences. He would often encourage friends, neighbors, and acquaintances to participate in community life. He was not an enemies person, and there was not a person he served with, worshipped with, or coached who he would not greet with a warm smile and, more often than not, a firm handshake or a hug. Among Paul’s proudest achievements in township government were saving the Strafford Library, establishing Mazie Hall Park in Mount Pleasant, and helping to secure a triple-A rating on the Township’s bonds.
He is survived by his ever loving wife Andrea; his children Mike (Marilyn) of San Diego, Dave (Judi) of San Mateo, and Kris (Bob) of Paoli; five grandchildren Carly, Miles, Michael, Hunter, Jack, Sam, and Maddie; and his brother Don (Barbara).
Services will be held on Saturday, September 25th, at 11AM at St. Luke Lutheran Church in Devon, located on 203 North Valley Forge Road. The family requests that those wishing to express sympathy consider making donations to the American Red Cross.
A few years ago I went to a Smithfield Barn on-site estate sale in Coatesville. It was out of the center of town, and it was in neighborhoods which I guess started to go up post World War II.
It was this cute little two-story house with a really big garden out back. I remember that the man who lived there must have worked for Lukens Steel, because there was memorabilia from there. This house also had these cases in a library-type room full of Dicken’s Village houses.
Anyway, in this estate sale there was some great kitchen stuff, including vintage cookbooks which I love. Vintage cookbooks are simply more helpful a lot of the time. At this sale I bought a vintage canning book. I have been experimenting more and more with canning since I moved to Chester County. And a lot of it is to use produce that I grow in my own garden.
Inside this cookbook were two recipes for tomato jam. Well one is for tomato marmalade and I’m not sure if the recipe is complete or not but I am going to transcribe both recipes for all of you today.
Mrs. Stull’s Tomato Jam
1 tablespoons pickling spices
1 teaspoons ginger root
4 cups sugar
2 thin sliced lemons
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 quarts / 2 pounds firm ripe tomatoes
Tie spices in a cheese cloth bag. Add to sugar, lemon, and water in a big pot. Simmer 15 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook gently ‘til tomatoes clear.
Stir, cover, and let stand 12/18 hours in a cool place.
Next heat up water in a canner pot.
Ladle tomatoes into jars leaving 1/4” head space. Add extra syrup from jam pot over tomatoes. Can with a 20 minute hot water bath.
6 1/2 pints.
Mrs. Stull’s Tomato Marmalade
3 pounds tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut in pieces
1 orange seeded and sliced thin
1/2 lemon seeded and sliced thin
1 1/2 pounds white granulated sugar (or around 3 1/2 cups)
Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook slowly – three hours – stir frequently until thick. Pour in hot sterilized jars and seal in a water bath.
Now I have transcribed the recipes for you verbatim. And I made a batch of tomato jam yesterday. I used both recipes to put it into one. I use the tomato jam recipe as the base, and then the tomato marmalade recipe was used for inspiration.
The extra ingredients I added were as follows: a small thinly sliced lime, a teaspoon or so of ground cumin, one Vidalia onion chopped fine, and one red hatch chili pepper minced.The extra ingredients I added were as follows: a small Finley sliced lime, a teaspoon or so of ground cumin, one Vidalia onion chopped fine, and one red hatch chili pepper minced. I used half a cup of water and a quarter cup of cider vinegar, instead of 3/4 cup of water.
Before I put everything into the jam pot I blanched and peeled all my tomatoes. While not difficult to do, it is labor-intensive. But I blanched the tomatoes and then I let them cool off for an hour or so. I kept some of the “tomato water“ back to use in the jam.
I will note I cooked the jam down for a few hours. Over a low heat like when I make apple butter. I really am pleased with the flavor profile of the jam and I just sort of had to fiddle with the cooking of it because it really wasn’t clear on the handwritten recipes. But handwritten recipes hidden away in vintage cookbooks are like kitchen gold.
After cooking the jam down I jarred and tidied everything up and did a hot water bath for about 20 minutes. I let everything sit out on the counter on wooden cutting boards overnight and cool, tightened the lids this morning and labeled.
Photo from The Marshallton Conservation Trust (MCT) Facebook page which promotes the preservation and improvement of the Marshallton community
It’s like development Whack-a-mole. We hear the news that Crebilly is safe for now and about literally like 5 minutes later this spectacular property on the outskirts of Marshallton is threatened by development given the sales and marketing materials on the listing. As per The Marshallton Conservation Trust’s Facebook page:
“1451 and 1452 Camp Linden Road and is often referred to as “Tarad Hill” and sometimes as the Bunny Meister Farm. It consists of 136 acres and includes land spanning from Northbrook Road on the west to North Wawaset Road on the East.”
~ Marshallton Conservation Trust September 9th, 2021
I do not know the property, but I have been by the approximate location in the past. What is left of horse country in Chester County (not being flippant but development eats up the land like a giant game of PAC-MAN in this county) is upset my sources tell me. This property is being big ass big time marketed and there is a website up called “The Brandywine.“
Here are some screen shots:
The Realtor has serious chops. It’s Lavinia Smerconish, yes as in Michael Smerconish’s wife. Sadly, I wouldn’t expect him to necessarily be sympathetic to preservationists because real estate is quite simply in his blood, but wow, what if this was happening in Bucks County where he hails from originally? Would it resonate?
Realtors just have a job to do like anyone else, but wow just wow.
So here we go again, Chester County. A trust owns the land per the deed (and the name of the Trust shows up in Pocopson Meeting Minutes from February, 2021), but the address is oddly familiar isn’t it? Shame on them, but am I surprised? Nope.
Above is what the Marshallton Conservation Trust has to say. They left out expressing concern to the Realtor or famous husband. All I have to say is if you contact any of these people, be polite. It’s all sharks and lawyers.
I don’t know all (or a lot) of these horse-associated properties. However, the name of this place “Tarad Hill”, kept dinging in my brain. I knew I had heard of it, so I dug around to find the reference and it is Radnor Hunt Club. So not all who belong to Radnor Hunt belong to the foxhunt part, and not all who ride with the hunt are club members…but anyway, that is the reference and one can’t help but wonder, wonder, wonder what the foxhunters think? After all if this parcel gets developed in any manner, chances are they lose another prime location to ride in, right?
I don’t know. Chester County is kind of a development sh*t show at this point, so I don’t know if miracles will happen here and a conservation/preservation buyer will be found because when you read the marketing materials, it’s a just a fancy git’ r’ done and sold site, isn’t it? That is how it reads exactly – see it translated to Coldwell Banker, Opus Elite (and isn’t that company name absurdly pretentious AF?), Monument Southeby’s, ReMax in York, etc., etc.
Tarad Hill as a property is spoken about by people — apparently there is so much wildlife on that farm. Wild turkeys, bald eagles, herons, the list goes on. It is reportedly (and looks) magical. There is also historical importance. I was told the Hessians went through the property crossing at Trimble’s Ford on their way to defeat the “colonists” at the Battle of the Brandywine, causing Washington to retreat to Valley Forge for the winter. Yep, it’s more than just “Washington slept here”. Does it have bog turtles?
This property could indeed find a conservation/preservation buyer even from within the Chester County foxhunting ranks, but people have to want to save and preserve this. Of course all of the Chester County Realtors who go to Radnor, Devon, Polo matches etc, etc might have a client…you just never know, do you?
People are saying Toll Brothers is no longer the equitable owner of Crebilly because the contract was terminated, as per the group Neighbors for Crebilly/Brandywine in White. Therefore, Westtown Township Board of Supervisors then ruled tonight to deny the conditional use to build all those hideous houses.
I mean pinch me. I did have my third COVID-19 shot today so am I hallucinating? Or did this actually happen?
It happened.
Damn. It happened. A municipality actually said NO to a developer in Chester County. The only media reporting that I can see is Chaddsford Live which has covered this from the beginning.
For all you naysayers out there, this is what the power of the people can do. I have no idea what will happen next for this property. This isn’t the first development plan that has been proposed for Crebilly over the years and I don’t think it’ll be the last.
But for now, Crebilly is safe.
I would suggest in closing, that people in communities all over Chester County take the spirit of Crebilly into their municipality boardrooms and fight to preserve where they call home.
Time waits for no man and no woman. This is the year that is the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
As I have said before, there is more that unites us versus divides us, and we learned that from 9/11 and that it’s hard for us to see it sometimes. We are still a country divided. We can’t remain a country divided and this somber 20th anniversary is the best example why.
The news is full of stories of families who lost people on 9/11. Children who grew up without parents because they died on 9/11. This is unimaginable loss, and all of these people have gone forward with their lives which has to be so hard at some moments. Graduations, weddings, first days of school and more.
Again for this upcoming 9/11 I am also going to pause and remember two men I went to college with. I’m not going to be some kind of weird death hypocrite and say I really knew them or they were my close friends because they weren’t. They were both people I met a couple of times, but people I never really knew who were close to people important to me to this very day. They lost their lives in 9/11.
Doug Cherry worked for AON. I remember when I found out that he had died in the trade center because I worked for then Wachovia Securities, and AON had a large office literally across the hall. Someone I knew from that office had oddly remembered I went to Ohio Weslyan. So they told me when they learned the names of those who had died in their company. But that wasn’t on 9/11 that was in the days that followed. I remember afterwards the days that followed when you started to see the roll call of names of people lost. I remember when I heard about Doug I kind of felt old and felt my own mortality for the first time. He was my class, and although he wasn’t a close friend or somebody I even really knew back then, we went to a small school so you remembered the faces even if you didn’t remember the people. That was the case with Ted Luckett. He was the class ahead, and again somebody I didn’t know but remembered. But I remembered back then is he liked to sail — there were a lot of guys who went to Ohio Weslyan who were amazing sailors. Even on America’s Cup crews.
I remember when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. It was at this moment I was pulling into my garage back then where I worked for then Wachovia Securities in Conshohocken. I was listening to the radio. I remember the tears just starting to roll down my face because I knew, I knew they (terrorists) came back because I had walked out of the World Trade Center shopping concourse in 1993 when they blew up the garage. And when I say when, as the bomb detonated I was standing on the sidewalk outside looking at Century 21. If life has been different I might still have been working in New York City on September 11, 2001.
I also remember as I walked into my office that fateful day in 2001, and all the brokers were riveted to television screens in their offices and their computers, at that point in time most people didn’t believe those were terrorist attacks. They just thought like a small plane had gone into the trade center. It was a crazy surreal morning as the news started to unfold. It’s crazy how clearly I can still remember it. I think this is like it was for our parents the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. You remember where you were and what you were doing.
So it’s been 20 years, what have we learned? I found this blog post of someone’s memories of 9/11. Please read it. Someone else I went to school with and don’t remember. They were fraternity brothers with Doug Cherry. It’s heartbreaking to read.
Another of the other things I remember on this day now twenty years ago, two sisters I grew up with who were close childhood family friends and still are. One, at the time, worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The other I think worked for Marsh and McLennan at the time (can’t remember for sure), but she did work somewhere in the World Trade Center. I remember being in a panic for days until I found out they were OK. They were both out of state visiting their parents.
One of the sisters if not both were posted on missing persons lists that kept coming out back then at a rapid-fire pace. You have no idea how surreal it was to see familiar names on the missing persons lists. Especially because at this point the missing persons list were also presumed dead lists.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I am also going to pause for a moment to remember the OTHER terrorist attempt on the World Trade Center. February 26, 1993.
In 1993, I worked in New York at that time at an office located downtown in the financial district. 44 Wall Street. Gabriele Hueglin & Cashman.
On that day, I had accompanied my office friend Deirdre to the World Trade Center to grab an early lunch and to check out some stores in the shopping concourse. We were back outside of the World Trade Center buildings, getting ready to cross the street, when suddenly the ground shook and moved. I remember that we were looking directly across the street at Century 21, a department store in Lower Manhattan.
Then something happened that rarely happens in New York: Everything went eerily still and quiet. We looked up at what we first thought were snowflakes beginning to float and fall from the sky. After all, it was February.
Then car alarms began to go off one by one like the cacophony of many distorted bells. The snowflakes, we soon discovered, were in reality ashes.
People began yelling and screaming. It became very confusing and chaotic all at once, like someone flipped a switch to “on.” At first, we both felt rooted to the sidewalk, unable to move. I remember feeling a sense of panic at the unknown.
We had absolutely no idea what had happened, and hurried back to our office. Reaching it, we were greeted by worried coworkers who told us that someone had set off a bomb underground in the World Trade Center garage.
I will never forget the crazy kaleidoscope of images, throughout that afternoon, of all the people who were related to or knew people in my office who sought refuge in our office after walking down the innumerable flights of steps in the dark to exit the World Trade Center Towers. They arrived with soot all over their faces, hands and clothes. They all wore zombie looks of shock, disbelief and panic.
Of course, the oddest thing about the first terrorist attack on New York City is that I don’t remember much lasting fuss about it. I do remember that President Bill Clinton was newly sworn into office, but I don’t remember him coming to visit New York after the attack.
Everything was back to normal in Lower Manhattan in about a month, maybe two. After a while, unless you had worked in New York, or lived in New York, you simply forgot about this “incident.”
Except if you were there, like I was, you always remember that day as well. And I am sure I am not the only one who was in New York City downtown in February 1993 who felt as I did on September 11, 2001: that immediate “they came back” feeling.
Within the last couple of years I found my work friend Deirdre again, and we are reconnected. She still in the New York metropolitan area and has a beautiful family. It is so nice to be able to know her again after all of these years.
Life must go on and time can’t stand still, but all in all I can’t help but wonder: What have we learned since about our country and about ourselves? TWENTY years after 9/11 what have we learned and what have we forgotten? What do we need to remember?
We never forget this day and never should. But what have we learned? I think we need to pay it forward as a country in memory of all of those first responders and others who lost their lives. We need to be better versions of ourselves. We need to come together as a country.
We need peace, and less racial divide and polarizing, divisive politics. Is that possible? I don’t know. But we can try.
That is a photo of a history book about Lower Merion Township from 1988. It was this great book that was privately printed that only had 1000 copies ever printed on the original publication, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen this book out there for sale other than on eBay. I bought it for $10 at an estate sale.
Inside the book was a treasure trove of articles mostly about things in Lower Merion Township but one about Radnor Township as well. The articles were from The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Main Line Times when it was still advertised as an independent newspaper.
I have only just started to read the book but I am sharing screenshots with all of you fellow history buffs that I hope you will find of interest. One thing I loved in particular is a screenshot about things in Gladwyne. it was obviously an old map and it was lent to the folks who put this book out by the father of a childhood friend.
There is so much about the history of the Main Line and Chester County the disappears year-by-year. This is why I love when I can get my hands on one of these really good local history books. I don’t know who owned this particular copy of this book but it’s a wonderful book, and the articles are fabulous.
