In 1979, Judge Robert E. Woodside (1904-1998), of Millersburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, one of the most successful natives of the Lykens Valley area, self-published a memoir, My Life and Town, in which he reflected on events in his life, his personal genealogy, the various government positions he held, and the history of his hometown.
Throughout his life, Woodside took an active part in promoting Millersburg’s history, including acting as an official in the Sesquicentennial celebration in 1957, assisting with the history book published for that event, and later in serving as a charter member of the Historical Society of Millersburg and Upper Paxton Township.
The book is difficult to find as it is out of print, but it is available at several libraries including the Free Library of Philadelphia. For anyone interested in doing further research on the life of Robert E. Woodside or any of the topics he covered in his memoir, the Table of Contents is provided below.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PROLOGUE
MY TOWN
THE BOY
- Railroads
- The Susquehanna
- Nellie and Grandma
- Thoughts on Thinking
- Wedding Serenades
- A Human Torqch
- Diptheria and Spanking
- Flu (1918)
- Figures Lie
HIGH SCHOOL DAYS
- We Were Good
- Talent Lost
- A Half Century Later
- Dropouts
- Teachers
BUFF AND EDE
A FIREMAN
AEROPLANES
K. K. K. [Ku Klux Klan]
RUBY
- A Democrat Becomes a Republican
- The Mail Went Through
- Penn Harris Hotel
ROUND TABLE
SPORTS
RYANS
AUNTIE CAL AND UNCLE JAKE ALVORD
TRANSPORTATION
- Bicycles
- Trains
- Aeroplanes
- Ships
A PAGE
- The Retirement Act
- The Civil Rights Bill
DICKINSON COLLEGE AND LAW SCHOOL
- College and Phi Kappa Sigma
- College Politics
- A Newspaperman in Law School
- Lindbergh Lands
A LAWYER MARRIES
- Bill, Bob and Jane
- Sisters
CHRISTMAS DINNER
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
- Education
- Offices
- Judge
- What Might Have Been
MILLERSBURG
- Sesquicentennial
- The Future of Millersburg
CHIT AND CHAT
- The First Phonograph
- Daring Drivers
- Visit Millersburg – The Devil He Did!
- Three Well-Known Millersburgers
- A Hotel and Its Owner
- The Circus and Sin
- High Silk Hats and Funerals
- Burglars and an Automobile
- Chatauqua
- War Officers
- Good and Bad Visitors
- Water
- Shippen Dam
- The Ferry
- The Bridge That Never Was
- A Rally for Honest Abe
- The Borough Centennial
- The Band Stand
- First Millersburg High School Basketball Team
- Bells
- “The Stole Our Church”
- Solomon Neitz
- A Few Trees That Grew in the Valley
- The Woodsides
- Millers – Nicholas, Phillip, Benjamin
- Millers – Daniel
- Addresses
- Nation’s Bicentennial
- Millersburg’s Sesquicentennial
EPILOGUE AND POST EPILOGUE
FAMILY ALBUM
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