The "History Of Lancaster Is Part Of My Life" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just found an etching of what at one time was known as Meiskey's Wholesale Jewelry Store on the corner of West King Street and North Mulberry Streets in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Back in the late 1940s my father, Paul Woods, worked for Meiskey's Wholesale Jewelry Store which at the time was located in the first block of West Chestnut Street, across from the Lancaster Post Office.  As a child my father would take me with him on weekends when he would have to go to work to get caught up with all the wholesale orders.  Eventually, Mr. Meiskey moved his business to West King and North Mulberry, which at one time was a cigar box manufacturer.  

Henry Krasukopf Cigar Box Store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

The company supplied cigar boxes to all the businesses in Lancaster that made cigars during the time when tobacco was one of the best businesses in the city of Lancaster.  The building on the corner of West King and North Mulberry was built in 1874 and was illustrated in the 1875 atlas of Lancaster City.  The original owner was Henry Krauskopf.  Sometime after Mr. Meiskey moved his business to King and Mulberry, he sold the business and building to Mr. George Opp.  By now my dad was the head watchmaker as well as manager of the store.

An advertisement for the cigar box manufacturer.

I can still remember some of the people that worked there.  Paul Yeager, known to all as Red, worked at the store filling orders from retail jewelry stores.  I later found out that Red's step son was a fellow by the name of G. Terry Madonna who today is the Director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs as well as the Director of the Franklin and Marshall College Poll.  Jim Sheely, my dad's 2nd cousin, also worked there doing the same thing that Red did.  I can remember going with my dad to the store as a teenager to help him box and label orders for customers.  One week I entered and another employee was there waiting on customers.  Her name was Grace Baker.  While in my junior year at Millersville State Teacher's College, my dad came home one day and asked if I might be interested in a blind date with Mrs. Baker's daughter.  She was a few years younger than me, but I agreed to a date.  

What the location looks like today.

At the time they lived only a block away from us in the Grandview Heights area of Manheim Township.  The young girl's name was Carol and I arrived on my Honda motorcycle for our first date.  We hit it off right away and decided to take a ride on my cycle.  Ten minutes later it began to pour and we headed back to her place.  Talked and watched TV for some time and I headed home.  A little over a year later we were married.  During that year when I dated her, we took quite a few rides on her dad's Harley motorcycle.  Often wonder what might have happened in my life had my dad not worked at Meiskey's Jewelry store and they had not moved to the corner of West King and North Mulberry and the lady I got to know as Mrs. Baker had not begun working there and convinced my dad that her daughter and I would be a good match for each other.  Every time I drive past that store on King Street, I think of the time back in the mid-1970s when we first met.  So glad that the location that was at one time home to a place that made cigar boxes turned out to be the location that I got to know my dear wife of over 50 years.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.