Lancaster County Pennsylvania

For the past several years, I (Annette) have spent a week each July in Dallastown Pennsylvania working with teachers on integrating technology into the classroom.

As usual, I had a great summer. This fall each elementary teacher will receive four classroom laptops, so teachers were looking for ideas. In the photo on the left you can see a wall of laptop boxes getting ready to be processed.

Lancaster County Adventure

This year I spent two weeks doing workshops. My mom, Nancy decided to join me for a visit. Although Nancy stayed for a week, we only really had the weekend to play. We spent Saturday exploring Lancaster County.

Weaverland

Much of the day involved family history. Jakob (Weber) and Anna Bauman Weaver were the first settlers in this area of Lancaster County. In 1717, they came from Switzerland to establish a Mennonite community called Weaverland.

Nancy had been to the family cemetery before and knew it was in the center of a field. But she had previously visited the area after crops had been harvested. Now the area looked quite different. The photo on the right shows the dirt lane we took to get to the cemetery.

Exploring Lancaster County

In addition to the Weavers, many other family members originated in this area. The Stauffers originally built the Goodville Mill (below left) and the home (below right). The Stauffer house was particularly interesting because a new wood house was built around a stone home.

Stops at the Morganville and Mennonite bookstores were particularly interesting. We were looking for possible connections between the Weavers and the early underground railroad.

We ended their day with a fantastic meal at the Bird-in-Hand Restaurant including turkey, lima beans, noodles, potatoes, carrots, rolls, pie, and on and on. We had to waddle back to the car.