My father and I both grew up on farms. He loved it. I hated it. Farms are dirty, messy, and a lot of work. If your father has a lot of work responsibilities, taking care of a farm and fixing up an old farmhouse leaves little time for a childhood of family fun. My parents had the same fight year after year from 1978 until 1998 where at the end of the argument they would announce to my brother and I that we were selling and moving to Easton. This was usually accompanied by the “whooshing” sound of me flying up to my room to pack my suitcase. I couldn’t get off that damn place fast enough. But we never moved to Easton and I always had to unpack my bags.
As soon as I graduated from Moravian and was on my own, I moved to 10th and Linden in Center City Allentown. I didn’t care if there were shootings on either side of my block within the same year, I was in the city where you could walk everywhere and there were people and noise and traffic and I was far away from steer and albino peacocks and sweet corn sold out of the driveway.
But now that I’m the same age my father was when he bought our farm, I look at things differently. I went away to Miami for eight years, one of the most urban places in the country, and I returned to the place of my childhood, Northampton County. I was shocked, honestly, because so much of what made the area special disappeared so quickly.
There was an old farm on the corner of 512 and Stoke Park Rd. All the kids used to sleigh ride down that hill in the winter and then come back to my house and dry their fannies on our radiators. The farmhouse was torn down but the barn survived for many years serving as the push off point for the sledders. Now there is a Wegman’s there: not even a Wegman’s, but a Wegman’s sign letting you know that a Wegman’s is nearby.
The Pharo Estate on the other side of the road had a ton of land. The house reminded me of Tara in Gone With the Wind with its columns dating back to 1804. Old Mrs. Pharo lived there for many years and there used to be a small splice of a road that was “Old Stoke Park Road”, surviving from the 1800s before they re-directed Stoke Park Rd. to meet more cleanly with 512. The house still exists, the barn morphed into some modern office space and the old farm that went on for acres is all condos.
Koehler’s Corners on the corner of Jacksonville Rd. and Stoke Park was a definite landmark and almost like a visual petting zoo. Since the late 1700s, the same family lived here and this farm offered Hanover Township residents a visual petting zoo as we drove by gazing at the various farm animals and horses being ridden by their riders. That’s gone too. I don’t even remember what’s there now it’s so forgettable.
Dr. Gene Witiak had his beautiful historic early 19th Century Goetz Homestead on 512 and the barn housed his veterinarian practice. I remember sitting outside on the back porch drinking lemonade with his twin daughters, who went to Asa Packer with me, as we looked out on the fields and he examined my cat. That land is all developed now and the Witiaks actually had to physically move their home to another location to save it. I applaud them for that. The barn was torn down.
The Diefenderfer farm on the southwest corner Jacksonville and Hanoverville is gone now too. So are the Uliana’s and Fehnel’s farms that bordered ours. I was doing research on Historic Hanover Township and found the brochure from the Sept. 20, 1998 Historic Hanover Trolley Tour and was shocked to see that of the 12 historic farms and homes on this tour, 25% of them don’t exist anymore, and that’s just in the last ten years since I moved to Miami.
Now don’t get me wrong. Before we moved to Melody Ranch - our Stoke Park Rd. farm - we lived in a development in Hanover Farms. I’m not saying our neighborhood’s lime green aluminum sided 1969 split levels with brown shutters and plastic Bicentennial eagles above the front doors didn’t have their charm; that was part of my childhood, too. But it doesn’t seem to hold the fascination, the memories, or the uniqueness that the old farms and farmhouses gave to the township where I was raised. I worry that townships like Hanover are in danger of turning into Central Jersey where you know not where one town begins and another ends except for the clues that the freeway exits and entrances give you.
The friends I made when I was living in Miami love to visit Pennsylvania. They think it’s beautiful. They love New Hope, Bethlehem, Easton, Jim Thorpe. Nazareth and Bangor have their charms, too. But Hanover Township? Yes, my hometown - where I grew up - does have its charm to my Miami friends. That charm? Wegmans (because there is no Wegmans in Miami.) I wish I could take them back in time and show them Hanover Township in the old days. Hanover Township is much more than a Wegmans. If I could take them back in time, they’d remember more than just Wegmans.
So even though I might have been my father’s hardest convert to open space programs because of my childhood spreading manure and selling sweet corn, I think I’ve come around after visiting where I grew up ten years later. Traveling around Pennsylvania, I see that we are far behind Lehigh, Bucks, and Lancaster Counties in open space preservation, but it’s not too late. I’d give anything to bring that hill back for the kids to sleigh ride on like we did in the 70s and 80s with that big red 19th century imposing barn. Where do kids in Hanover Township sleigh ride now?
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