People seem to have their soup memories from growing up. I have a friend whose soup memories are chicken soup. A lot of mine involve ham and bean soup.
My late father was the soup maker growing up. My mother will tell you it was her, but it really wasn’t. Every winter he would make a ham and bean soup. It would have cabbage, ham, beans, sometimes he would even dice up a hard, Italian salami, and vegetables.
When my vegetable box came this week, there was a beautiful cabbage in it. I realized from my recent pork share order that I had a big smoked ham hock in the freezer. I also had some leftover ham that I had frozen when we had not eaten all of a ham for just this purpose.
Yesterday I started with the dried beans. I boiled water and poured it over the beans and a big mixing bowl with some herbs and spices and salt. I left the beans to soak overnight and this morning I began the soup.
First I sautéed garlic, onion, celery, and the ham hock and ham. Then I added, cut up baby carrots because that’s what I had in the refrigerator. After that had all cooked together for a few minutes I poured in the liquid the dried beans were soaking in. I also added a 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. (Mutti, my favorite tomato brand.)
After that cooked together for a bit, I added a container of bone broth, the cabbage I had gotten in my vegetable box all diced up, and water. Note when you dice the cabbage small for a soup it’s sort of melts away and it’s not obtrusive.
To this, I added herbs. I still have sage and thyme growing in some of the pots in my garden, believe it or not. I also added some Herbes de Provence, and a couple dashes of New Mexico chili powder. I also added a salt free pepper blend that I use called Pennsylvania pepper.
And two cheese rinds. I can’t forget that! I save them in little baggies in the freezer for sauces and soups, and things like macaroni and cheese.
I brought the soup up to a boil, then I turned it down to just above a simmer, and just kept checking on it throughout the day and giving it a stir. I did not do it with the lid completely off because I wanted the beans to cook properly. I used one of my little pot lid risers and had the lid on but up a smidge.
The soup because it has cooked low and slow all day has thickened and reduced and melded together beautifully.
You know you don’t really necessarily need a specific recipe for a lot of these soups. It’s what you have on hand.
While looking for items in WVT’s bills lists that may pertain to the commercially-marketed-venue-in-my-residential-neighborhood, I found this one. It stood out as a new vendor and had a weird description (“security check”). It was also around the time my personal email and social media had gotten hacked.
Cowan Investigations is a NJ PI firm of ex-cops that promotes assisting with marital issues (cheating spouses, alimony, bug sweeps, etc.) with some “private sector” business thrown in (litigation support, background checks).
On August 6, 2025, my position was eliminated. Tom left the building that morning and had the treasurer and an attorney deliver the news. I was asked to sign a separation agreement, which I did not do; I said I wanted to have my attorney look at it (spoiler: I never signed it). I gave up keys and passwords for various accounts before I left that day, except for one. I was asked to turn over the username and password to the WVT FB page: a request for something that does not exist specific to that page.
Back in July, Tom had asked me for that same info, and I explained to him that there IS no username/password specific to that page; I was just an admin of the page through my personal FB account. I did not create the page. It was created many years ago by Erica, a former township manager (at least that was what I was told). Through the years, various folks had been added/removed as administrators of that page. However, those folks had to have active FB user accounts because that is who FB holds accountable for the postings. That July, Tom admitted he did not understand social media because he didn’t have accounts. However, he said his daughters did, and he would have them create an account for him. But he never did that before I left.
So, on my last day, I was asked for my PERSONAL username and password for FB. I declined, but I did offer to immediately add anyone else as an administrator to the township FB page before I left. The treasurer shook her head “no”, and the permit clerk said he didn’t use social media. There was no one else. I said to contact me later that day with an account to add. That day passed with no contact.
Three weeks later, after back-and-forth with the attorneys, the treasurer contacted me directly about the FB account and was told per my attorney that all communication was supposed to be through him.
I do not think the township liked that response because on September 23, I got a notification from Google that someone was accessing my personal email on a computer located at the township building during township hours. MY PERSONAL EMAIL. I clicked that it was “not me” but that person was already into my personal account.
That night, I saw notifications via my personal FB account that there was activity going on with the WVT FB page (which I had never accessed since the day I left). Namely, someone had gone in as me and re-activated Kathy Shillenn’s administration rights to that page (Kathy was the township secretary before me), and between the 2 accounts had deleted each and every post I had made on the Township FB page since I had started (a big no-no per Sunshine Law), AND they were attempting to post as Kathy… using HER personal FB account. I contacted Kathy… and it was not her. She asked me to get her off that page again. It took quite a while of interacting with the person posing as her to get it to stop. I believe it was around 11:30pm.
The next day, Kathy and I filed police reports with the WVTPD. I confirmed that accessing someone else’s personal email and social media is ILLEGAL even if you have access to the passwords.
But as you might have figured out, Tom apparently does what he wants regardless of the law… until he gets caught. So just like when he was told about having to send RTK requests electronically for electronic copies that already exist (not doing so is ILLEGAL), he was also told that he and/or his “people” had to stop ILLEGALLY going into our accounts. And it all stopped. And the deleted FB posts were restored (but not by the township).
The township administration is not technologically savvy. That was seen when it took months to remove my name from the township videos of the BOS meetings. And it took them until early January 2026 to reach out to my attorney with a new FB account to add as an administrator: Thomas Ryan (manager@westvincenttwp.org). On January 5, I sent an invitation to that account to be an administrator to the township FB page. My attorney got a response on January 15 that they needed a password to that page. THERE IS NO PASSWORD. But I sent the invitation AGAIN. I confirmed with Kathy that there was not a password needed when she originally added me. I have never been prompted for a password for that page EVER. The only password for FB is for my PERSONAL ACCOUNT.
Okay, so let’s jump back to Cowan Investigations. Their website talks about things like getting electronic items from “cheating spouses” and such. Maybe THIS company had something to do with illegally accessing my email and social media?? Because it doesn’t seem like the administration has the ability to figure these things out on their own.
So I asked about it last night at the meeting. The BOS was NOT surprised to hear that the township was involved in illegally accessing my personal accounts (good to know that they seem to be okay with that… watch how the chair turns to Tom to question if it was related to “something” and Tom quickly shuts her down… just like the RTK situation).
So the whole group refused to answer my question: WHAT EXACTLY WAS THIS $2500 “SECURITY CHECK” DONE BY THIS NJ PI COMPANY THAT OUR CURRENT SECURITY PROVIDERS AND/OR WVPD COULDN’T HAVE HANDLED?
Silence. I expected that because they are full of secrecy. So I will submit the RTKs for my questions. But it is another bad look for this township manager and the board that hired him.
——————
And on a side note, my neighbors got some of the info we requested on our RTK about the venue. SOME. Luckily, I had other feelers out and was able to get some missing emails…. Once the attorney finishes the paperwork, expect to see more… much more…
And on a final note, in case anyone wants to play the “disgruntled ex-employee” card… that is far from the case. I disclosed none of this on social media until the township decided to play fast and loose on the zoning in my neighborhood. If that never happened, you would not have heard from me. But having this issue of a “commercially advertised event venue in my residential neighborhood” be repeatedly ignored by the manager and the board made me decide to make some noise because people need to see just who is running our township. And it ain’t pretty…
So it is a cold night and I went old school. Casserole called essentially no peek chicken.
You cook boneless skinless breasts or thighs in uncooked rice broth Campbell’s condensed soup with vegetables and basically this is my own invention because I had sort of southwestern on the brain and I had cilantro to use.
I used a can of the diced chilies and tomatoes from Aldi, a can of the condensed Campbell’s cream of cheddar soup, one of those little small wheels of queso fresco, a small onion diced up, a small bag of thawed frozen corn, oregano, salt-free chili powder, 1 1/2 cups of dry rice, 1 1/2 cups chicken broth, and four boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Basically you preheat your oven to 350°, and while you’re doing that you grease a rectangular baking dish and you put your chicken breasts in the bottom. I add a slight drizzle of olive oil to the chicken breasts.
Then, in a big mixing bowl, I put the dried rice, the onion, the can of chilies and tomatoes, the can of condensed soup a bunch of cilantro I had chopped up and the chicken broth and I mix it all together. I don’t add salt. I add oregano and sprinkle a little salt free chili powder.
I pour everything over the chicken breasts, add one of those little wheels of queso fresco all crumbled up and cover the pan tightly with nonstick foil.
You put it in your preheated oven for an 1 1/2 hours, maybe less depending upon your oven and you do not ever take the tinfoil off to peek, but as it’s getting close to done, you can stick a thermometer into the foil through one of the breast to check your temperature.
Yes it’s a little 1960s housewife but it tastes pretty good. Last time I did it with cream of mushroom soup and fresh mushrooms, etc.
I’ve decided that this must be some kind of seasonal disorder. They’re not being paid attention to, and they love their ridiculous. They’re all some form of Klanned Karenhood, and yes, I have mocked some of them. They are like caricatures of adult mean girls.
They like to project their behavior onto everyone else.
If you are not like them, you are bad.
If you don’t share their precise politics, you are bad.
Essentially, if you are not just like them, you are bad.
Some of these women have been coming at me for years. They are women who feel emboldened in a MAGA world. They are very limited in their world view , and they can’t handle anything that’s different or disagrees with their crazy.
When these women are online, they are extraordinarily emboldened. In person I wouldn’t know as obviously we don’t move in the same social circles or world.
Generally speaking, they’re just obnoxious. And I decided years ago I didn’t have to put up with it. Mostly I just blocked them then I don’t have to deal with them, but then they pop up again. And when they pop up it’s new gaslighting city.
I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but this seems to be the time when the people that I just choose not to know like to gaslight me. Last year when it happened, someone acted on it, and it ended up being a real life police thing that the district attorney took to court and prosecuted. It’s like it’s a seasonal disorder for keyboard warriors.
Yesterday, the woman in West Goshen/West Chester we still refer to as the QAnon princess Anonymous Ada decided she was going to throw up her version of fake news.
She conveniently left out what I said, and what I said when I updated the post. I didn’t hide that. I corrected the original post which was essentially that people thought ice had been spotted in Coatesville the other day.
I wasn’t chasing ICE vehicles in my vehicle with a whistle or waving a sign on a street corner. I shared a post. What I shared was not a responsible it was just what people thought they saw.
What I first said was:
Then, when I received updated information, this is what I said, and I will note you can check the edit history because all I did was update the original post:
So there you have it. The simple, unvarnished truth.
Ada Nestor, who is a failed politician vis-à-vis a bad attempt at joining WCSAD school board and she is at present, vice chair of West Goshen Republican Committee is ridiculous. Of course it’s not the first time she’s been the QAnon Princess of alternative reality is it?
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Also I take issue with the way she denigrated my friend Barry and his WCHE “All Politics Are Local” show.
Here allow me yet more screenshots which will also contain the 200+ ridiculous, gaslighting comments :
You notice she doesn’t want to say what radio station it is? Probably because Barry’s shows are great. That would be a threat to her as she apparently tries to play radio, right? According to her Barry is disloyal to Republicans because I am sometimes a guest. And she stupidly refers to him as a “committee member” as in she doesn’t even know the hierarchy of her own political party. He’s an area vice chair, actually. Oh and his show is “All Politics Are Local.”
The show is not one political party. It’s welcoming to all. It’s about the stories NOT being told in our communities. Barry is helping us cross the local news desert. She should say thank you. And of course the West Goshen Republican Committee should be ashamed to have her as one of them, but they are fairly consistently a train wreck with multiple scandals so will they do anything? Probably not.
Then there are the others. All of these lovely women who talk a good game about supporting other women….but only if you agree with them, right?
A peek into the past:
So these two women? Nasty. Why? Because I am not part of their group. Basically what they represent is distasteful. And they are not about supporting other women. They both used to make scenes at school board meetings. They were caught on video quite a few times yes? One used to brandish a bible and calling down the devil or something in Downingtown and her pal would wear a gas mask. The other one would sputter and spit whilst pointing her finger.
There is more, but no point, it’s just the wash, rinse, and repeat of ugliness. If you aren’t them, you are bad.
So I am bad I suppose.
Whatever.
But what is really fascinating is that they are almost obsessed with me. I had forgotten about most of them because that’s the joy of being able to block people you don’t care for on social media. It’s literally out of sight out of mind.
I was perfectly content to lead my life and to leave them to the annals of time. After all, they’re not important to me, I don’t want them as friends.
But I wasn’t counting on their somewhat ridiculous interest in me at this point. Yes I’m a blogger. I’m not a public figure. I live my life. They are not part of it. Yet here they are in all their truth stretching, gaslighting glory.
To them I am a bad, crazy person.
I am always amused as they refer to me as this like die hard total completely over-the-top liberal. And I’m actually not. I’m a moderate and politically, I’m an independent. I know plenty of very liberal people and I don’t have a problem with that or them. It’s what they believe, just like I have plenty of friends who are true conservatives, it’s what they believe, and we all coexist quite nicely. It’s actually kind of sad that they don’t have those kind of relationships, but it’s not my job to help them.
And I have zero desire to know any of them. They are human dumpster fires.
At the end of the day, I’m considering the source or sources. I have made a conscious choice not to know people like that.
I marvel at them, but I am truly grateful I am not like them.
Yep. That’s part of the regular view at 249-269 Lancaster Avenue in Malvern, East Whiteland. This week it’s a dumped mattress and some other stuff a couple of weeks ago. It was bags of trash, just sitting in the middle of their property. As in somebody dumped trash, it wasn’t collected there. A lot were white kitchen trash bags.
The property is rotting. It looks like hell. Why should residence and anyone that drives by look at new slumlord city there? And what about the businesses nearby? Don’t they deserve better?
I seem to remember that when the property sold around 2019, we knew that the buildings were going to be torn down and at first we were told a Lidl Market was going there.
Lidl went elsewhere. Then there was this whole thing about putting apartments there. East Whiteland Township did not want that and I don’t remember what happened but the apartments didn’t happen (thank goodness.)
So every once in a while, you hear a little rumor but mostly it just sits in rots and becomes a trash dump.
I took some moody photos in 2020 because I wanted to record the vintageness of both locations.
I don’t know about my readers, but I am of the opinion that these developers and property owners shouldn’t just be allowed to let locations rot because they can’t get their own way. Can you agree on that? I mean, if you want another example, look at one of my favorites, the farmhouse at Clews and Strawbridge with boats in front of it half of the time, right?
Would it be too much to ask if they would tidy up their properties while they are pending whatever is going to happen? And is there other stuff going on with that property that people need to know about?
Would the property owner like to look at this if it was sitting on his front lawn or whatever?
And apparently I am rude for thinking Mattel is creating a new series of Pandering Barbies?
That’s my OPINION.
My opinion is based upon the fact I feel Mattel is ONLY creating these dolls to sell toys. It’s not about awareness or anything altruistic, it’s like people producing pink plastic garbage during breast cancer awareness month. It’s about profit.
After all, you’re seeing them talking about this doll they developed but not that they are, for example, donating a significant portion of proceeds of sales of dolls to organizations that help families and kids and adults with autism and other things are they?
They aren’t that I can find, so again this is Pandering Barbie and it’s all about profit. They will literally tell you what they think you want to hear and see to sell dolls. I think that’s wrong.
It’s not about raising awareness.
It’s about them making more money on Barbie.
You don’t have to like my opinion and you can think I’m harsh or whatever you choose. I am not responsible for what goes on in your heads.
But I’m not going to sit and take a bunch of crap off of people, either.
Read their press release. Do they say they’re donating significant money as in profits from these dolls to anything that actually helps people with any of these disorders? In my opinion, this is just about corporate profit. And in this case, they are profiting off of a disability thing and I find that objectionable.
Of course in the lovely world of social media I have people that say I’m saying what autism should look like. What does that even mean? That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I find it objectionable that they’re creating dolls based on disabilities to profit off of them. Period.
And people are already reselling at Molly Markup on places like eBay and Poshmark. Yep disability currency.
And then I find this little video on YouTube that must be from some kind of influencer who is gifted the doll, but she’s not an ad. OK, I’m the tooth fairy.
Again, if Mattel was donating 50% of the proceeds of the sales of these dolls to worthy nonprofits that help disadvantage individuals I wouldn’t say anything, but this is all about the money, honey, and nothing else.
The woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis has been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to the city.
She was a prize-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, who city leaders have said was there as a legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities.
But the Trump administration has called her a “domestic terrorist”….She had two children, who are now teenagers, with her first husband. Speaking to US media on condition that his name was not used, he said that Good was not an activist and that she was a devoted Christian who went to Northern Ireland on youth missions when she was younger.
She hosted a podcast with her second husband, Tim Macklin, who died in 2023. They had a son together, who is now six years old….Her third marriage was to Rebecca Good, with whom she moved to Minneapolis just last year, from Kansas City…. “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Rebecca Good said in a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday…..Several state leaders have said that Good was at the scene of an ICE raid in the south of Minneapolis as a legal observer – a volunteer who monitors police and security forces at protests and operations…..Good “weaponised her vehicle”, Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers “in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.
The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and “fired defensive shots”….But the city’s mayor said the agent who shot Good had acted recklessly.
“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” Jacob Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
So Renee Good was just a mom. She was also apparently a legal observer of protests, etc. She was literally a community volunteer. A volunteer. Let that sink in.
Why was she shot? Very good question. I don’t have any answers but I have to wonder is a woman who is a mom married to another woman driving a not brand new Honda Pilot with a big old lab looking dog in the backseat really a threat to national security?
Personally I am appalled. Carrying a weapon is a responsibility, and these ICE agents? I can’t wrap my head around these people who are behaving like thugs under the guise of law enforcement can you? Ok sure they have a job to do, but look at how they do it? Look at all these crazy incidents and how they are ratcheting up including to anything other than accidental death and aren’t you horrified? So do you not see parallels between this and World War II Europe?
This. Is. Not. O.k.
So the country has erupted into more protests. Now my feelings about protests have nothing to do with the ability to protest, it’s the way it has changed an evolved today because there are problems. And sometimes violence. It’s scary and hard. And whenever you hear about somebody going to a protest, you hold your breath until you know they’re all home safe and sound.
And the rhetoric being tossed everywhere from Washington DC after the unnecessary violent death of Renee Good is appallingly predictable, isn’t it? And again, it’s like political state propaganda.
Literally, it is turning into all Pravda on this bus. They are creating a narrative to defend the indefensible which is quite possibly murder, right? They are creating a narrative to suit their needs. And it’s not truthful and it’s horrible and somewhere in the back of my head because this woman was living an alternative lifestyle compared to what many of those people are comfortable with, did that have something to do with it?
It’s so hard to write about this. Because even if you’re trying to process it, someone’s going to take you to task and some of the comments have been downright crazy. And ugly. And these comments you see on social media are driven by the Washington D.C. rhetoric to fit the uncomfortable narrative of what actually happened.
This is not our country. And yet somehow it is becoming the new normal. It’s not acceptable normal. It’s a terrifying normal.
And then you wonder even for me as a blogger, trying to wrap my head around this, am I going to be punished somehow or attacked or threatened or harassed for writing this?
I just have one last comment and it’s a simple question: is this the country we want to live in?
Historical Gladwyne Photo belonging to Lower Merion Historical Society.
Yasswyne? Really?
Gladwyne, is kind of a special to me. Circa 1975 was my introduction, and it was magical. Sledding on crazy hills off of Monk Road and Rose Glen. Free range kid wandering from the historic village through to the haunted feeling sanatorium buildings of the once “Gladwyne Colony”. Halloween and sleepovers and birthday parties with my friend whose dad went to high school together. The Gladwyne Library and its wonderful stacks and things like the plant sale. (And the cookbook fundraiser- I still have a copy!)
And the horses. Gladwyne then was still an equestrian hub. Sledding and carriaging with Mr. Gwinn. Leaning how to ride. Watching pony club. I didn’t belong to that I was not good enough.
The old village. It was just so nice. One of my friends was related literally to founding fathers of the village. Tree lined streets and marvelous old houses from so many eras. Whimsical Victorians. Charming Bungalows. And even 18th and early 19th century houses, mostly frame.
I realized this morning that the Gladwyne I stumbled upon as a kid was actually reminiscent of parts of Chester County I love so much. And to that end, sprucing up the village is not a bad idea, but this mass appropriation of buildings in the center as well as talks of tearing things down including one of the houses near the library I guess that was purchased? My opinion is a HELL NO.
It’s hell no to Peddlers Village-lite complete with all those absurd picnic tables scattered about the village that will not in my opinion be maintained long term. It’s hell no to making it a faux tourist attraction bringing lots of traffic to little streets with barely enough parking for residents.
Look I felt something was up in the fall, when I went digging into who supposedly was doing this, and that was not when any of us knew a big contributor to the destruction of the White House and the East Wing and the McMansioning of the people’s house.
I remember when I first started nosing around about this Gladwyne thing people on the Main Line were really odd with their reactions and I even had my comments taken down in places. And literally what I was sharing was who bought the place and was on the deed records with Montgomery County. That was before anyone even knew Yass was involved. But now I wonder what Gladwyne’s new commissioner knew and when?
And I remember when I figured out who these Bryn Mawr people were without knowing that anyone else was involved, I had reservations. Mostly because they just seemed like they were about themselves.
So they live over on Rock Creek Road and I knew a lot of people growing up and into adulthood that lived on that winding road and it had cool houses and beautiful trees and gardens, still does. So they restored their house and reinvented it and that’s their right but I remember looking at it thinking it’s really brown and it’s not quite here but I could appreciate some of the design elements.
But the Historic Village of Gladwyne, and it is a historic district, turned into some odd thing that it’s not? That’s not worth the renovation of the older buildings in my humble opinion thank goodness I don’t live there. 
But I had no idea the scope of this project until I saw the website and some of what the people who want to do this were posting:
To follow are four screenshots from their public website below. Go onto their website and read every word.
It’s Gladwyne Village as in the Village of because literally that’s what it is. Then I noticed that they magically weren’t doing a zoom of the meeting and when you don’t want to record a meeting that always set up red flags in my head. If you’ve got nothing to hide on a project, you put it out there for the world to see, including the meetings don’t you?
And now, it seems, historic Gladwyne has Jeff Yass.
The richest man in Pennsylvania, and his wife, Janine, have partnered with a younger husband-and-wife development/design team to both turn back the clock on Gladwyne village AND propel it into the next century.
The partnership spent millions over the last several months to buy or lease key properties in the heart of historic Gladwyne: the former Gladwyne Market, Gladwyne Village Shoppes (which house the beloved pharmacy and Homeroom luncheonette), Gladwyne Post Office, the former longtime OMG Salon building and, as of Dec. 31, a private home in the Village….The designated face of the partnership, Andre Golsorkhi revealed the quartet’s vision….At the outset, Golsorkhi (below) emphasized that his investor/development group is 100-percent local and, believe it or not, was NOT doing this to make money….The first resident who spoke felt blindsided….Another speaker feared the conformity of a Gladwyne Square. “It’s going to end up looking like Nantucket, she said. “This presentation makes me even more nervous about what you guys are doing …You’re saying Gladwyne needs branding… it’s gonna be a certain architecture that you think is important when you’re destroying a quirky Walter Durham house… I like communities that are organic and grow up in different ways. We have other buildings in Gladwyne that are just as important for the community that are not owned by Mr. Yass. I just wonder what the end game is. There’s always a price for this.”….Architect Ed Lewis (below), a 60-year Gladwyne resident told Golsorkhi that he “started the historic district in my living room with a meeting of neighbors concerned about overdevelopment.”
My photo
Read the entire Savvy article. It is very long and gives a lot of detail and thank you Caroline for what you do.
OK, I’m going to be 62 years old this year so why mince words? I think this plan is bullshit. This is about someone’s sanitizing and reinventing a place that first and foremost is a historic district.
I have no problems with people restoring things, but this isn’t about restoring. This is about changing history. And it’s not really the history of the people who bought the buildings.
To these four individuals, this is about making money. It’s not necessarily so all realistic, and I am allowed to have that opinion.
Again, I have no problem with someone fixing up old buildings and creating an adaptive reuses. But when you start to want to add parking lots and a random nouveau village green with lots of picnic tables that never existed within the history or framework of this village, it stops being about preservation and switches to just being about profit, doesn’t it?
Now I will agree the Walter Durham buildings that comprise the pharmacy, etc. are awkward. I’m really familiar with them. My mother was a realtor with a real estate office that was in the lower level years ago and for all the years that I banked at PNC, my branch was Gladwyne because they were the nicest people. And Gladwyne Pharmacy was our first pharmacy out here when we moved here and I still used to use them here and there until I moved to Chester county because I wanted to support them because they were independent like Parvins in Bryn Mawr.
I also have to admit when the Union League club took over the Guard House, I wondered what the future held for Gladwyne because that was a big change. But I didn’t anticipate this. And I have to say that The Union League respects the village. They have done a fine job with the place, although I do miss the ability to just go in there on a Friday or Saturday because I don’t belong to the Union League. I have been there for dinner several times since it reopened as part of the club and I love it and why do I love it because it’s still retains what we knew as its history. Even down to some of the dishes that were signature to Albert Breuers.
Found this on Wikipedia and I can’t find my photos and I have tons of The Guard House somewhere 
I know change will happen, but the change doesn’t have to be this drastic and it shouldn’t be. These people have the money to restore what they bought in the village of Gladwyne without making it look like Disney or a more expensive Peddler’s Village with insufficient parking.
I did dig out some of my photos of Gladwyne and why is still so special to me. And a lot of that includes things like the Memorial Day Parade. or walking down the little streets in the village and hearing the ghosts of my childhood passed and it’s a simple as knowing who lived where and things we explored St. John Vianney was our parish. Our first vet was Gladwyne vet. And the library. That library is still my favorite library anywhere. I won a Martha Stewart cookbook years ago as an adult in a raffle, I used to bury myself in corners as a kid and read, and I loved the plant sale. And I have a copy of their cookbook they used as a fundraiser. They could’ve had more than one cookbook over time, but I have the original one. and at one point in time, one of their librarians was actually a princess.
Yes a princess. She died in 2005 and her name was Maria de Pasquale. She was a friend of my parents along with her husband, Joe, who was one of the famous DePasquale brothers of the Philadelphia Orchestra and my friend’s aunt. She was a descendent of Napoleon‘s first wife, Josephine and Czar Nicholas I. She was born Maria Madgelena, Duchess von Leuchtenberg in Nice, France, daughter of Duke Serge Nicolaievitch and Duchess Anna. She renounced her title somewhere around 1949 to marry Joe.
So yes, my childhood librarian was once a princess. And she was tough. You didn’t have your books over to you returned them on time. but she always had books to recommend, even to kids. She also spoke five languages. and I remember being in the library one time when her inner princess came out because she was annoyed with someone on the phone.
I found her fascinating. So these are the little things that make up the history of Gladwyne that creating some artificial version of a Nouveau Gladwyne will never capture.
Of course, I bet they don’t know about things like in the early 2000s when the pharmacist went to jail.
Or all the contretemps over the years with a now deceased member of a founding family of Gladwyne who at one time owned a lot of the things in the village. He’s long deceased now and could be so cranky.
Or the whole controversy over the Gladwyne lunch years ago or Barker Mill or Oddfellows.
Now, of course, the 19035 has become known in recent years as being the home of shall we say Main Line grifters, correct ? And the McMansion ridiculousness?
And we can’t forget about all of the controversy surrounding what will be the redevelopment I guess eventually of the Dorrance estate on Monk Road. Course I was also on that property as a kid and it’s nothing sort of spectacular even if the old apple orchard no longer exists.
And I remember when the estate on Waverley Road was sold to become Waverly Heights. And there were other surrounding properties that got fed into it and when I was a kid, there were lots of horses with swishy tails hoping for a pat at the fence or maybe an apple. The Junkin Estate.
The Gladwyne I grew up with was always a mixed bag originally it had been like mills and farmers and people with grand estates who owned lots of horses. It was very much like parts of Chester County, including Willistown.
Or my one friend‘s house across the street from St. John Vianney which was sold and bulldozed and it had the nicest pool. It was the best house. In its place? A McMansion so big I don’t even say you can. I don’t even know how you can say they have green space or a garden. Of course Lower Merion planning really didn’t say much about that. Did they? and that will be a definite hurdle here because that planning department is so pro-development, along with the fact that the new commissioners, including the one for Gladwyne have not been there long enough to understand the place. And that even includes River Road.
Again, I know, change happens, but here it shouldn’t be so drastic. It should truly be keeping the history in mind and the current plans in my opinion do not.
I saw this earlier today and literally started to cry. This is my friend Lisa’s business. I started out as a customer years ago when I met Lisa at one of the first Clover Markets in Ardmore all of those years ago. Literally we met in 2010 and became friends, I am not jut a customer. And I am a happy customer.
Lisa the owner is a wonderful warm hearted person who would give someone a hand up if they needed help. She has a rare generosity of spirit that someone or several someones has decimated. I think there should be a special place in hell for people like that.
Even Martha Stewart has been to her store. She has a great eye and a wonderful mix of new, vintage, and antiques. And this is a very historic property and fabulous adaptive reuse.
In case people can’t read her message via my screenshot, here it is in her words:
Dear Friends.
I am sorry. I need to close the store for a bit. I have tried so HARD the last couple of months to try to keep it together. In almost 30 yrs of doing what I ABSOLUTELY LOVE to save, we had a very bad robbery. They pulled in the back driveway with a van, and uhaul. I don’t understand how, but they managed to override the system. They had at it. The basement, attics, backyard, shop, and my office. Let alone a constant supply out of my vehicle, and trailer. I believe this was over time, LOADS of vtg xmas, art work, costume, jewerly, primatives, salvage, garden, paper, glass, minitures, mirrors etc.. many collections and memories in boxes.
I IMMEDIATELY shut our social media down, and was trying to work through the trauma. It HURTS so bad. I watched it go through auctions, area consignments shops, in the antique shops as well as marketplace. I feel so LOST, betrayed, and mentally EXHAUSTED. We work so HARD at being a small business, let alone save 2 old houses over 200 yrs old. It is so SAD we live in this kind of world.
Take pictures, do inventory it will save u in the long run. Don’t keep keys out, let alone how you store your valuables. Keep your guard up. DON’T think it WON’T happen to you.
I CAN’T THANK my family and friends, state police ENOUGH for helping me work through this. Esp. my husband Spencer. Quite tough loosing the bits and pieces of your life’s work. I know the man upstairs has a plan. I TRUST him. I look forward to being, and feeling our happy place again. “Three floors, have fun. ”
I thought it was bad enough when the losers stole her hydrangeas outside a few years ago. But this? This is like someone raped her. This is her business, livelihood, dreams, hopes, hard work.
This is the kind of crap stuff that is a joy sucker. What she sells can’t be magically replaced like it is an Amazon warehouse.
What I am asking of readers, especially fellow antique and vintage dealers is keep an eye out. Be wary of too good to be true and unknowns wanting to peddle things like she describes. If you are a dealer be aware, this could happen to you.
Lisa will rebuild and we will all support her. I firmly believe there is a special place in hell for people who do things like this to wonderful people and small businesses.
