Extraordinary Stories

1944 (1) Act of kindness (12) Acting (2) Adoption (4) Adventure (766) Advertisement (6) Africa (1) Aging (14) Agriculture (47) Airplanes (9) Alphabet (5) American Red Cross (1) Americana (116) Amish (43) Ancestry (5) Ancesty (2) Animals (43) Anniversary (4) Antigua (10) Antiques (14) Apron (1) architcture (1) Architecture (36) Art (175) Art? (8) Arts and Crafts (69) Athletics (6) Automobiles (40) Awards (7) Banking (2) Barn raising (2) Baseball (103) Basketball (3) Batik (1) Beaches (89) Becoming A Citizen (1) Bed & Breakfast (2) Bee Keeping (6) Beer & Breweries (2) Bikes (3) Birds (9) Birthdays (34) Blindness (1) Blogging (5) Bookbinding (5) Books (12) Boxing (2) Brother Steve (12) Buisiness (3) Business (5) Canals (1) Cancer (14) Candy (30) Caribbean Islands (9) Caribbean Villas (15) Cats (5) Caves (1) Census (1) Chesapeake Bay (61) Children (28) Chocolate (4) Christmas (57) Church Adventures (122) Cigars (1) Circus (3) Civil Rights (8) Civil War (6) Classic Cars (7) Climate Change (5) Clubs (1) Coin club (2) Coins (1) Collections (73) Comedy (3) Comic Books (5) Commercials (1) Comnservation (2) Conservation (41) Covered Bridges (3) Craftsmanship (12) Creamsicle the Cat (11) Crime (16) Crisis (312) Cruise Travel (6) Crying (1) Culture (4) Dancing (1) Danger (16) Daughter Brynn (58) Daughter-In-Law Barb (7) Death (5) Death and Dying (65) Destruction (2) Donuts (1) Downsizing (2) Dunking (5) Easter (3) Eavesdropping (1) Education (48) Energy (15) Entertainment (165) Entrepreneurial (62) Ephrata (1) Etchings (1) Eternal Life (4) Facebook (5) Factories (4) Fads (6) Family (261) Farming (37) Father (42) Father Time (68) Favorites (88) Firefighting (1) Flora and Fauna (28) Fond Memories (490) Food and Cooking (171) Food and Drink (111) Football (16) Forgetfullness (3) Former Students (10) Framing (30) Friends (359) Fruits and Vegetables (3) Fun (4) Fundraiser (6) Furniture (1) Games (7) Generations (3) Gifts (1) Gingerbread houses (1) Giving (8) Globes (1) Golf (3) Good Luck (2) Graduation (1) Grandkids (136) Grandparents (3) Grandview Heights (29) Great service (3) Growing Old (8) Growing Up (187) Guns (2) Handwriting (3) Hat Making (2) Hawaii (49) Health and Well Being (61) Health Care (4) Health Hazards (110) Heartbreak (7) Heroes (26) High School (142) History (777) HO Railroading (4) Hockey (4) Holidays (134) Home construction (7) Horses (2) Housing (3) Humorous (71) Hurricanes (1) Ice and Preservation (2) Ice Cream (8) Inventions (34) Islands (4) Italy (12) Jewelry (3) Job Related (62) Just Bloggin' (56) Just Wondering (19) Juvenile Diabetes (5) Labor (3) Lancaster County (542) Law Breakers (8) LDubs In-Laws (3) Lefties (1) Libraries (1) Life's Lessons (175) Lightning (1) Lists (72) Lititz (18) Locomotives (1) Lodging (1) Love (4) Magazines (2) Magic (1) Maps (2) Marching (2) Market (5) Medical (161) Memories (28) Middle School (3) Milk (2) Minorities (1) Money (3) Mother (54) Movies (6) Mt. Gretna (1) Music (118) My Brother (19) My Wife (260) Neighbors (7) New Year's Day (5) Newspapers (4) Nicknames (2) Nuisance (3) Obsolescence (5) Occupations (2) Old Age (1) oldies (1) Pain and Suffering (12) Panama Canal Cruise (13) Parish Resource Center (14) Patriotism (3) Penmanship (1) Pets and Animals (99) Photography (220) Pizza (1) Plastic (2) Playing Trains (2) Poetry (2) Politics (27) Polution (3) Postal Service (2) Predators (2) Presidents (11) Pride (4) Printing (81) Protesting (3) Public Service (65) Questionnaire (1) Quilts (1) Race relations (6) Rain (1) Reading (4) Records (2) Religion (10) Retirement (4) Revolutionary War (3) Robotics (1) Rock & Roll (4) Rodents (2) Saints (4) Sand (1) Scouting (2) Sex (1) Shakespeare (1) Shelling (2) Shopping (24) Simple Pleasures (122) Slavery (6) Small Towns (4) Smoking (1) Snickedoodle (1) Snow (1) Son Derek (27) Son Tad (33) Son-In-Law Dave (27) Soup (1) Spices and Herbs (1) Sports (139) Sports and collectibles (1) Spring Break (1) St. James (2) St. Martin/Sint Maarten (306) Stained Glass (3) Stone Harbor (4) Story-Telling (26) Stragers (2) Strangers (4) Strasburg Railroad (1) Stress (3) Stuff (4) Suicide (2) Sun (1) Surfing (1) Tattoos (4) Teaching (49) Technology (90) Television (6) Thanksgiving (2) The Arts (6) The Beach House (62) The Flag (1) The Future (5) The Shore (78) This and That (23) Timekeeping (7) Tools and Machines (25) Tours (2) Toys and Games (31) Track & Field (1) Tragedy (8) Trains (19) Transportation (18) Travel (16) Trees (2) Trending (2) TV Favorites (23) Underground Railroad (10) Unit of Measurement (1) USA (2) Vacation and Travel (545) Vehicles (80) Vison and Eyesight (2) War (14) Watches and Watchmaking (5) Weather (48) Weddings (3) White House (1) Wisdom (3) Yearbooks (12) York County (3)

Sunday, January 25, 2015

The "Die Bibel" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Trying to shut the top on our antique desk in the dining room.  Darn thing hasn't closed right since Carol did her Christmas decorating in mid-December.  Opened it and found that the large German Bible which I brought back from my mom and dad's when I was getting ready to sell their home was keeping the top from closing.  Bible must be at least six inches thick with a leather cover and kept closed with one strap.  Pulled it from the desk and began to examine it.  I've had it in the desk for a few years and must admit that I never opened it to explore what might be in it.  On the spine is a colored red band with the Old English lettering "Die Bibel."  
The hand-made marble paper is remarkable in this bible.
Beautiful hand bound Bible with unbeliev- able hand-marbled end sheets in blue, brown and red ink.  The musty smelling Bible states that it was made by the Wentz and Rovoudt Printing House in Philadelphia in 1846.  As I started to turn the pages of the Bible, written entirely in German, I couldn't help but think who else in the past has done the same thing as I am doing.  
Right-hand page titled Familien Regifter.
I passed through the early Books of the Old Testament until, when I reached page 900, I found four pages marked Familien Regifter which I assume meant Family Register in English.   There, in blue ink hand writing which is symbolic of the script longhand of the era, was a birth notice of one Lorenz N. Speidel.  The entire page, detailing the date of his birth and the city, is all written in German.  The other three pages of the register are all written in English and list other member of the Speidel family and dates of birth and in some cases death dates.  
The story of Moses is depicted in the beautiful etching.
I continued to page through more of the Bible, looking at the pages and pages of beautiful type and dotted with single-sided pages that featured etched prints that illustrated Bible stories.  Then I came upon a few pages with a slight bump in the pages.  Found a pressed carnation flower amongst the pages.  Maybe from a funeral or wedding was my assumption.  
Pressed between a page of the Bible and the family register
was a flattened carnation, probably from a family funeral.
Closer to the end were a few loose pages with more register information as well as a newspaper death notice for Mrs. Catharine Speidel who was listed as the widow of Lorenz Speidel and whom died at the residence of her daughter Mrs. Kate Bushong at No. 465 South Plum Street.  Aha!  Starting to see the light.  My father's mother's maiden name was Bushong.  
For those who can read German, this is one of the pages
from the Bible showing what is probably hand-set type
used to print this 1846 edition of the Bible in Philadelphia.
Carol told me to dig out the envelope that had the genea- logical information and there I found information telling me about one John Bushong, a French Huguenot, who arrived in Philadelphia in September of 1731 and immediately moved to Lancaster County.  So I was able to tie the Speidel and Bushong families together and sort of understand the names listed on the Familien Regifter pages of the Bible.  So, now you see, I really have a family Bible from another century that was the entire reason that the desk top wouldn't close.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.   

2 comments:

  1. Hello LDub,

    A fun discovery! What a beautiful bible. The genealogical information you found that states "John Bushong, a French Huguenot..." is incorrect. The French Huguenot Bushongs are an old myth and they were really German and German-Swiss who became part of the Pennsylvania Dutch. There's much more about this on Bushong United.
    Respectfully,
    Rick Bushong

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the information. I will have to checkout Bushong United! The Bible I wrote about belonged to one of my father's relatives who in turn gave it to my dad. As I said I found it in their home when I was cleaning out all the cabinets after they both had died. Sorry, but I have no one to talk to about it to find out more about who entered the original information in the Bible. Thanks for reading my story and entering in a comment.

    ReplyDelete