A photo of Millersburg at the Atlantic City beach, 1950s.
Summer is approaching. For the next few months I will be taking a vacation from writing and go back to enjoying some time at the beach, doing some traveling to historical sites, and organizing the volumes of material I have accumulated on the history of my family and its roots in the Lykens Valley.
At about age 12, my mother, Kathryn [Dietrich] Gasbarro, (pictured standing at right) had to stop taking me and my brothers to my grandparent’s home & farm in Specktown for the summer. My paternal grandmother, who owned and operated a hotel in Atlantic City took ill and my mother had to step in and do the work of hotel manager. We all had to pull together to make the family business work in what was then a rapidly declining resort town.
My mother started advertising in the Lykens Standard and Elizabethville Echo. As a result dozens of families from the Lykens Valley area arrived at “The Verona,” which was a block and a half from the boardwalk and beach, had free parking, and was in the center of everything that Atlantic City had to offer.
My job was to help guests with their luggage, take them on tours of the city, and accompany them to the beach. I’m sure I appear in many Lykens Valley area vacation photos as the unidentified kid. And, I may have taken the photos as a courtesy to the visitors.
The snap-shot photo above shows a Millersburg group from the 1950s. My brothers and I are kneeling at right. I know the second girl from left is Marlene [Dietrich] Young (1943-2015), a 1961 graduate of Millersburg High School. She is buried at St. John’s Lutheran Church Cemetery, Berrysburg. Her parents, Marlin Dietrich (1908-1987) and Marie [Lark] Dietrich (1915-1988) are standing at right. As for the others, I believe the two other kneeling girls are members of the Lehman family of Millersburg. I think the parents of the girls are standing behind them. If so, who is the other man?
Occasionally, I might add some posts to the blog, but for the most part you might not hear from me much until the summer is over. In this pause, there are are more than 14,000 posts in the archive of the Lykens Valley Blog, and an additional 1500 in the Civil War Blog – thousands of images and stories to go through – all of which will remain on line!
Enjoy the summer and stay safe.
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Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
You have such an invaluable resource with these blogs, and I have gathered a lot of great photos and family history through them. So thank you for all the hard work and hours and hours it takes you to do this. Enjoy your vacation/break! 🙂
Thank you. I shall return!
Hi, I am Rose Ann (Lehman) Shipp , I am the first girl on the left, my sister Leonice is the third girl from left. My father Paul Lehman is first on left standing and his cousin Richard Carper and his wife Christine Carper beside him. My mother Mary Ellen Lehman must have taken the picture.