The "A Little Bit Of This & That" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Totally ordinary!  Not much going on.  So, I did some clean-up on my desktop and found a variety of items I had been saving from the past couple of years for no particular reason.  Time to get rid of them, so I thought I would post a few of them today and put the rest in the trash can at the bottom of my MacBook Air screen.  Hope you can find something that may interest you amongst the mishmash of today's story.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

#1 - This is a postcard showing the original grave of Barbara Fritchie from Frederick, Maryland.  The postcard is marked Circa 1910.  Barbara was born Barbara Hauer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and married John Casper Fritchie, a glove maker, on May 6, 1806.  She became famous as the heroine of the 1863 poem "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier, in which she pleads with an occupying Confederate General to "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag."  There months after this alleged incident, Barbara died.  She was buried alongside her husband, who had died in 1849, in the German Reformed Cemetery in Frederick.  Then, in 1914, her remains were moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery along with a new memorial.

#2 - Above is pictured what is most likely the only polling place in the state of Pennsylvania at which a President, or former President of the United States voted.  The picture is of Engleside during the time James Buchanan was in Lancaster.  The Hotel in the center of the photograph, so far as could be determined has always been used as the polling place for the people of Lancaster County.  Search of court records shed no definitive information on the subject, but it is reasonable to believe that James Buchanan voted here before he was elected and after he had retired as President of The United States.
  

#3 - The date of this photograph in the Lancaster Newspaper was May 28, 1918.  It shows new recruits leaving for the Army.

#4 - Distinguished Visitor - Lancaster crowded around the old train depot when the Liberty Bell, mounted on a flat car, passed through Lancaster in 1915 en route to the California exposition.  Today, heavily guarded, but unprotected from air raids, the old bell is attracting unprecendented crowds to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where thousands come just to see and touch it.

#5 - The top drawing was the home of Dr.  H. B. Bowman who lived in the home in nearby Neffsville, Pennsylvania and had a store to the right side of the home.  The bottom photo is a more recent photograph of the same location and was the home of the Nissley's.  They too owned and operated an automotive shop to the left of the house.  Today is still remains an automobile shop.