[

                     HENRY STERNER

     Henry William Sterner, Uncle Henry to me, has already
had his early life at least touched upon when I covered
his father Paul.  That covered the period up to the time he
entered Millersville.  He graduated from that school in
1880 and, from the time he secured his first school in
Wilkesbarre to the day he retired on his meager teacher's
pension in 1920 he was, with one brief exception, an edu-
cator.  He had left Wilkesbarre for a higher position in
Centralia when he decided to join my father at Ocean Beach
where there was a clerical opening of some sort in Harry
Yard's office.  Dad got the place for him and in 1886 he
moved down there with his wife Mary whom he had married
in 1882.  What attracted poor Uncle Henry to this woman I
could never fathom; she had the coldest pale blue eyes I
have ever seen and I have always hated her.
     The job at Yard's did not interest him long and when
an opening occurred in the little school at Como, he took
it.  By the time I was born he was principal of the Bri-
elle school and was building himself a house in Manasquan.
     But in 1894 came a chance to be principal of the
High School at Barnegat so he moved there with the daught-
er of his sister Sarah whom he and Mary had meanwhile ad-
opted - your Cousin Catherine.  And at Barnegat he spent
the rest of his life until his retirement in 1920, his wife
Mary having died some time prior to the First World War.
     During all those years he had kept his love of the
soil, putting all his little money into land and more land,
even borrowing from Dad to make his payments.  Shortly af-
ter his retirement, he and Catherine moved up to Belmar
where he worked as a clerk in Dad's Lumber Yard, paying
back this ancient debt at the age of 68.  When this was
finally accomplished in 1926, he and Catherine moved back
to the old house in Barnegat, where he cultivated the land
which had got him so into debt, utterly worthless land as

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                    HENRY STERNER

it turned out later.  It was from where he wrote the letters
which follow.  And it was here, in 1937, that he had the
first of a series of strokes which eventually reduced him
to a senseless mumbling shell of his former self.  Before
long gangrene started in his toes and spread so rapidly
that they had to amputate.  He died in a little nursing
home at Forked River and was buried at Barnegat in 1939.
     And now for the letters.

                        * * *

                                        Barnegat, N.J.
                                       August 18th, 1926.
My dear Brother:
                 I must indeed set about to answer your
reasonable and natural inquiry about our family history.
     As a little fellow, neighbors in teasing me would
Say - `du bist 'n Schwope'.  Translated - `you are a Sue-
vian'.  Men of learning like ministers and professors
among the German-American colonials of course would know
that as well as whether one were a Saxon or a Prussian,
two other tribes of Teutons.  The discrimination was as
easy as to tell the natives of Boston, Philadelphia, New
Orleans, and London apart although they all used the Eng-
lish tongue.
     A fact to prove first-hand our ancestors' early mi-
gration to America is found in the tradition of our Grand-
parents - I asked Grandparent Ritter about their fathers
and grandfathers.  He and his wife both stated that these
had lived in Philadelphia and the Reading neighborhood
in their respective childhoods.  Let us see how far back
that takes us.  A boy of less than ten years talking with
a man of more than three score and ten in the early six-
ties of the 19th Century would reach back to the very be-
ginning of the 19th Century.  Now this same old man then
was in his early teens or less.  His interest in what he

                        119

                    HENRY STERNER

heard his grandfather say - assuming a corresponding age -
carries back to the 18th Century somewhere about the year
1740 - fifteen years before Braddock's Defeat near Fort
Duquense...... Our grandfather's grandfather could hardly
escape the military obligations of that period.  It is
quite probable the last Intercolonial War which resulted
in Canada's passing from French to British sovereignty,
found our male ancestry involved.  (This is Uncle Henry's
idea of `facts'.)
     United States histories of our school days created
the impression quite generally that the colonists and la-
ter the Americans were a homogeneous population - all
speaking English.  The fact is, they were of several dif-
ferent nationalities, of many different languages, customs,
religions.  Jealousies and distrust ran high.....
     Holland had hospitably sheltered and protected from
English persecution the Puritans or Pilgrims from 1608
to 1620 when they migrated to America.  (Where does he get
these misinformations and dates?)  A few decades later
they (the government of Charles II, not the colonists) re-
paid the Dutch hospitality by sending a military expedi-
tion to drive out the Dutch from the Connecticut River
Valley (what expedition? The English had been settled
there since 1636, our Nicholas among them) notwithstand-
ing that the Dutch claims were as good as the British.
     During the Revolution the same hostility was in ev-
idence by New England politicians, opposing General Phi-
lip Schuyler, a Dutchman of New York, and plotting with
others in the `Conway Cabal' to remove the Virginian
General Washington from the supreme command.
     I first met Grandmother Sterner in May 1862 - only
her name was Houser then for she had married three times
and Houser was her third husband.  We were living at Ind-
ian Hill then and I stopped off to see her on my way to

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                    HENRY STERNER

Uncle Solomon Hoyberger's; I was there only a few days on
that trip.  How lovely was that first trip in May from
Mauch Chunk to Unionville where Grandmother lived - green
fields, blooming orchards, cattle, calves, colts, sheep
feeding in pastures - it seemed every house had flowering
bulbs in bloom.  It was like a ride through fairy-land.
     Uncle Solomon's wife, Matilda, wanted me to look
after children - think of a boy of not eight years taking
charge of a brood of young ones.  Uncle was a carpenter,
away during the working days - home Sundays.  I was there
six weeks.  It was a summer of terrible freshets in the
Lehigh region, the Canal destroyed, many lives lost -
not unlike the Johnston Flood.  I remember the rains -
every day for a week!  The Canal was washed out from
White Haven to Easton.
     When Mother heard of the `Flood' she had no rest
till Father fetched me home.  Indian Hill was in Franklin
Township, Carbon County, a hamlet four miles south-east
of Mauch Chunk back from the Lehigh.  Trains and boats
were not running and we walked fifteen miles plus - my
earliest and longest walk!..... I remember the havoc vis-
ible along that line of march.
     At the beginning of the winter of 1862 I made my
second trip to Grandmother Sterner (Houser).  Both trips
were made by stage - as common then as are taxis now in
the city.  It was a cold, dreary day in December this
time with some falling snow.  The effect of the Civil War
was everywhere visible or felt - a season of hardship
from 1861 to at least 1875.  Children didn't know it.
Those old enough could hear tales of wars of the past.
The old people talked in a matter-of-fact way as if it
were nothing new.  They did not seem worried much, I re-
member.
     I have a distinct recollection of the Battle of

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                    HENRY STERNER

Gettysburg, the first three days of July 1863.  Those
days were bright, clear, and warm.  Everybody was excited
then.  It was - is - only eighty miles from Gettysburg to
Unionville.  People spoke of the roar and smoke of the battle.
I did not observe either.  These observers were watching
and listening from the heights around us.  It is an estab-
lished fact that, under favorable atmospheric conditions,
cannonading has been heard one hundred miles from the
scene of the action.  Neighbors came in from time to time
with newspapers for Grandmother.  Her son, Edwin Houser,
was in the battle and received a wound - not serious.
     By the way, Grandmother Sterner was not only married
three times but she survived her third husband by many
years.  Her first husband was John Sterner (Actually Abra-
ham, remember).  He lived only a few years - died from an
injury.  I think from what Grandmother said that what we
today would call blood poisoning set in.  She had three
children by John (Abraham) - Mary, Sarah, and Paul.  Her
second husband was Joseph Saunders by whom she had one
child, Joseph.  Her third husband was Houser by whom she
had one child, Edwin Houser.  My impression is that the
last two husbands were both of British origin, descend-
ants of English who had settled among the Pennsylvania
Germans and adopted the language and customs of their
neighbors.  All these men had means and each left Grand-
mother in good circumstances, considering the times in
which she lived.  I well remember three different parties
coming once a year to pay her the interest on the `Dow-
ery'.
     She lived on a little farm of three acres.  On it
were a small stone house with four rooms and a cellar;
and a summer log house with two large rooms.  A barn,
corn-crib, hen house and pig stable, a large fenced-in
garden, and four little fields also well fenced.  She

                        122

                    HENRY STERNER

kept cows, pigs, chickens.  She had an orchard of eleven
apple trees, four cherry trees, two quinces, and two
large chestnut trees.  She always planted wheat, potatoes,
corn, rye - besides the garden.  She had a long bed of
many kinds of flowers running the whole length of her
large garden.  Of course, no garden would be complete or
worth the name without currants, gooseberries and rhu-
barb.
     Grandmother had her faults.  She was a taker of
snuff - inhaled it.  She had only one eye - cause of this
loss I do not know.  She kept a bottle of brandy on hand
constantly.  She told me never to taste it, for she would
send me to the store a quarter mile down the road to buy
the groceries and brandy for her and some candy for me
with the butter and eggs.  She was a devoted member of
the Lutheran Church and made me go to Sunday School whe-
ther I would or not.  I took a fancy to the burning
stuff in that brandy bottle one day but did not like the
taste and thereafter let it alone.  The only intoxicating
drink I ever did like was wine - the home-made kind.
     Grandmother's childhood was spent in `Druka Land',
a place not far from Bethlehem.  Her name was Yukel - it
sounded like that but of course the spelling was differ-
ent - it is likely it would be J”kel.  I know from her
talk with German people that her ancestors had been in
America - father, grandparents, and earlier.  I have my-
self often thought of tracing our ancestry.  The name
Sterner is found wherever Germans have settled in large
numbers.  It would correspond to the English name Starr.
There are many communities between the Delaware and
Schuylkill where it is well known.  Documentary evidence
of military service is often impossible to find, partic-
ularly when writing was not a universal accomplishment.
These people of ours did not attach the same importance

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                    HENRY STERNER

to soldiering as those of British ancestry are wont to do.
     Another word on our two grandmothers.  Did you ever
think of Grandmother Ritter's wonderful record?  Mother
of twelve children who reached an age of sixty or better.
Seven sons - Daniel, John, Martin, Hiram, Henry, Emanuel,
and Enoch; five daughters - Barbara, Matilda, Elizabeth,
Rebecca, and Louise.  Every single one of them was a good
citizen - men and women.  Not one of them addicted to
dope of any kind, not even tobacco.  The mother of these
was always amiable, considerate, kind, sympathetic, wise,
tactful, never hysterical, absolutely truthful, patient,
just, humble before God!  She died at the advanced age of
eighty eight.
     My impression of Grandmother Sterner (Houser) was
quite otherwise.  Disabuse your mind at once if you think
she drank'.  She did not.  She took a tablespoonful of
liquor once or twice a day - never more to my knowledge.
She was industrious, thrifty, energetic, critical, exact-
ing, impatient and unsympathetic in her treatment of Chil-
dren and the young, it seems to me.
     We know which of these two characters is the more
congenial and companionable but we cannot say who is good
or who is better.  But if I may venture an opinion upon
myself and others of the same blood, I think we have, on
the whole, more of the Sterner or Yukel stuff than of the
Ritter.  (Rebecca Ritter was actually Kirkendall.)
     War lets loose the worst of the evil passions.  At the
beginning of the Civil War great premiums were offered
men to get up companies of volunteers.  The government
made no distinction between men with families and those
without.  Father was induced to join the Army as a Shoe-
maker - to make shoes and keep them in repair.  I remem-
ber his talking to Mother about it and how much money he
could make.  She didn't believe it and advised him not

                        124

                    HENRY STERNER

to do it.  when he reached Harrisburg he found himself in
a regular line division - he protected against the decep-
tion and fraud but to no avail - anything to get men into
the Army in 1862.  His indignant resentment made him to
be classed as a deserter.  This is the real fact.
                           Affectionately yours
                                             Henry.

                        * * *

     The letter which follows has had the heading torn
from the first page so I do not know the date and, natur-
ally part of the text is missing.  It is obviously, how-
ever, a continuation of the previous letter and was prob-
ably written shortly after it.

                        * * *

......... reports.  He sailed from Philadelphia and was
never heard of again.
     I am writing to continue some further comments on
my child-life while living in Lehigh County where I was
born.  Father had a lime kiln and burned lime stone for
the farm and building trades.  He employed at least one
man regularly.  He lived with us.  Nights Father made and
repaired shoes; he was an expert in this line, had served
an apprenticeship.
     In the Spring of 1859 the family removed to Indian
Hill, Franklin Township, Carbon County.  It was on the
frontier of civilization - on the eastern edge of a forest
of pine, spruce, hemlock, oak that extended north and
west beyond White Haven, Gouldsboro, Tobyhana.....
     Well, the Tale:  Indian Hill was so named by early
chroniclers because hostile Indians had made it a Rendez-
vous!  The Algonquin tribes were always unfriendly in
this section and the Iroquois were not constant in their

                        125

                    HENRY STERNER

fidelity to the English.  The township was named after
Dr. Benjamin Franklin because he had led a body of armed
workmen and troops to what is now Weisport, and there
constructed a Fort and a palisade to protect the settlers.
This fort was built about 1750, immediately after the
close of King George's War in 1748.  Historians we have
read are silent about Franklin's organizing and equipping
the entire Expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne.
Braddock's men had arms but all other supplies were fur-
nished by Pennsylvania under Franklin's initiative and di-
rection.  (Where did he get all this mis-information?
Where was Virginia?)
     In that colonial period, necessity found every man
living outside a well protected town, to be a hunter,
trapper, soldier, as well as a pioneer farmer, lumberman,
tradesman, or minor.  In 1859/62 men 90 years of age or
more were living in Franklin Township.
     I remember one distinctly - `Old Meyer'.  He had a
log hut and other log buildings for his live-stock about
two miles away in the dense forest.  He owned a large
tract of land, had a lot of cleared spaces, open glades
for pasture, cultivated very little ground - a man after
the Daniel Boone type, always wore some home-made fur gar-
ments, was an expert shot with the rifle which he always
carried, always had game in season in a great basket that
hung from the rafters of his hut.  I went with Mother and
some neighbors to see the Meyers several times.  `Was has
du in dem Karb?' was the question invariably asked by the
visitors.  He would take it down!  Wild pigeons, quail,
pheasants, wild turkeys, and sometimes hawks and owls
would be seen.  Animals he had skinned were not in sight
but their pelts stretched out to cure - those for food
in containers.  In summer trout were the chief food of
this hunter and his wife.

                        126

                    HENRY STERNER

     If there were children they had already left home.
The reason for going to the Meyer place was mainly to get
wild cherries, huckleberries, cranberries on bushes, Win-
tergreen berries and pheasant berries.  All these wild
fruits as well as wild plums and crab apples were abundant
and very large in Meyer's woods and swamp.
     Other neighbors were the Hates, Rose, Walks, Bookers,
Ziegenfoos, Markles and Sensingers.  The Hates lived only
about a hundred feet from us southward across the road
that was a short cut to Mauch Chunk five miles away thro'
one continuous unbroken forest.  Some of the Hate children
had settled in Wilkesbarre, only the old man and his wife
remained, living alone in a log house at the base of Ind-
ian Hill which ended abruptly in a crest overlooking an
extensive valley.  Years since I have seen a Judge Hate
mentioned in the press and I believe that he was one of
these.  I remember meeting some of the Hate grandchildren
at their grandparent's.  these children spoke only Eng-
lish.  At that time I could not, nor could the grandpar-
ents.  I remember eating some dried cherries.  Young Hate
asked me for some, saying that he would give me something.
He went home without paying the debt.  I remember a few
cherries dropped on the ground.  He said `I won't eat them -
I'd be a pig.'
     You say - `I do not know much about our family his-
tory'.  It is not strange.  It is mainly due to the vi-
cissitudes of the Civil War.  Another cause I adverted
to in my last letter, the fact that the children and
youth are absorbed in their own affairs, are impatient of
any interruptions, care little for those who are old or
for adults generally.  Their only interest (in such) is
centered on some peculiarity of dress, speech, manner,
habit, or personal appearance so their comments are
tinged with ridicule, contempt, derision.  Also those in

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                    HENRY STERNER

the prime of early and later life - parents, teachers,
workers, are so completely absorbed in their daily pur-
suits of business, profit, pleasure, as not to think it
worth while to take the time to look about them and back
at people and times that largely made them what they are.
     Consider what an indescribably interesting picture
Mrs. Higgins could have given of New York, in which city
she lived nearly a century ago.  Of course you and Lou
and Jennie were too busy to give her much time for that.
The chief reason that old people who are not trained psy-
chologists do not talk much and are reticent about their
past is the obvious impression of dis-appreciation on the
part of their hearers.
     The Meyer just mentioned must have been born about
1770.  His recollections of what his father and grandfa-
ther knew of their own history and that of the State
would carry back well into the 17th Century.  When I
first went to live on `The Hill', two men in the neighbor-
hood, a Hertzel and a Lutz, were well into their nineties
hale, hearty, mentally strong.  What a fund of authentic
history these men could have given had anyone tried to
start them on their relations.  They too dated back like
Meyer, only they were the regular tradesmen and farmer
type.
     What was true then of the absolute apathy about the
past and its human relics is just as true today and in
your own family I'll warrant that every one of your chil-
dren and grandchildren know more about `The Little Red
Hen', `Goldilocks and the Three Bears', `Cinderella', than
they do about their own families.  How much more impor-
tant and worth while would be a minute and faithful account
of what Jay and Don have passed through than even gems of
literature.
     Even these literary gems are not fully and complete-

                        128

                    HENRY STERNER

ly taught.  They are not even told that while `The Little
Red Hen' is a `Modern Classic', `Cinderella' can be traced
back through centuries, civilizations, races, till we
lose track of it in the ancient Sanskrit, the classic lan-
guage of India, the language that furnished the roots of
our own English speech and nearly all languages of
modern and ancient Europe.
     I saw Grandmother Sterner (Lizbette Houser) in June
1873.  She was then in good health, with a clear mind,
well advanced in her eighties.  What a fund of informa-
tion I could have obtained first hand and absolutely au-
thentic!  The cost of getting that now in time and money
would cost thousands.  What a stupid fool I was!  Her own
experience and knowledge of the past would mean vastly
more to us as a family than the `Age of Particles' or the
reign of King John of England and the Magna Carta.
     What is true in our case is true of every family
and every community.  I have yet to know a community that
makes even the faintest effort to utilize the stores of
intellectual wealth in the life experience, romance, and
genius of many an inhabitant, citizen, or resident, both
transient and permanent.  We are all too busy.  Business,
clubs, movies, motor cars, schools, churches, politics,
and radios.
     How fleeting is fame!  I remarked to a prominent
member of our Board of Education some time ago, with
pained emotion - `Why! John Enright is dead!'  He an-
swered, `Let me see - I don't think I know him.'
     I lived in Barnegat over twenty years before I lear-
ned that a certain large, quaint old house had, for more
than ten years the summer residence of several of
Napoleon's brothers and sisters, their wives, husbands,
children and intimate friends with their servants.  (Here
we go again.  Jerome Bounapart and his family did summer

                        129

                    HENRY STERNER

there before his big brother had the Pope dissolve his
American marriage and ordered him back to France.)  So
narrowed in mind and buried in routine school-room work
that I could not or did not know what place I was in or
what I had best do to stir and wake up my mind.  I am
ashamed of myself and despise my indolence, ignorance,
and want of initiative.
     Even among the noted writers of history, the judi-
cial, historic minds are rare.  Almost universally we care
little for truth unless it accords with our view-point,
our opinion, bias, prejudice and desires.  To tell or to
describe, narrate things, facts, events as they are and
have been without exaggeration, depreciation, fear, or
favor, is so rare as to be almost non-existent.  Nearly
all histories of our Western Civilization are a gross in-
sult to Arab, Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese civilizations.
It seems the writers start out to prove certain things;
then they bring everything favorable to bear on their
view-point and omit all that is distasteful or opposed.
They act like tricky salesmen.
     This American trait is expanding.  I will enclose
a clipping that satirizes American boasts and glorying.
Glenn Frank, former editor of the Century magazine, now
President of Wisconsin State University, remarks - ``The
great American pastime is counting, measuring, weighing.
Each individual American calls himself `great' if he
builds large in wealth, learning, `pull' - any one or
more of these.''
     Another reason why you know so little of the past
is because you always had many more social distractions
than I.  From the age of seven on to manhood, my life was
passed in almost daily contact with rather old people.
Their remnicent talking moods were as interesting to me
as Cooper, Aesop, or Sinbad.  The spirit of the times

                        130

                    HENRY STERNER

stimulated such reviews.  Old folks found me attentive
and an appreciative listener.  Many a one remarked, `He
likes old folks'.
     I want to correct a statement.  Two Uncles Ritter,
Henry and Emanuel, were lost to record.  Henry went for
gold in `49, Emanuel escaped from a Southern Civil War
prison and escaped to the West.  Trace of both lost.
     I have sometimes wondered whether you know the ad-
venture and romance that attaches to the Kirkendall fa-
mily - not legend, but hard facts.  A party of the Scot-
tish Douglas family were sailing for pleasure off the
coast of the Hebrides when a piratical craft hailed them,
boarded them and took off a youth and his sister and sail-
ed away.  All effort at rescue or even word of their fate
came to nought.  Years passed.
     Finally came a report that a ship similar to the
pirate's had appeared in New York Harbor and the captain
had sold the girl as a slave - a household servant.
There was never a trace of the boy.  After her term was
served the girl had married a man whom a Dutch New Jersey
farmer had picked up, a tiny baby, in a furrow as he was
plowing.  This Dutchman called himself Cuykendahl and
this fondling bore his name.  This boy's racial status
was never fixed but the Scottish side was without quest-
ion.
     Such lawlessness was very common in pre-Revolution-
ary days.  Wars, feuds, revolts, and family quarrels and
tribal dissensions among the higher-ups often led to ban-
ishment, kidnapping, and selling into slavery in lieu of
heavy ransom.  For over half a century the Kirkendall fa-
mily were interested in a claim for a large inheritance
due this Douglass girl and her descendants in America.
Nothing ever materialized but the facts were well establi-
shed.
                         Affectionately,   Henry.

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                    HENRY STERNER

     This letter is addressed to John Norman Sterner on
the happy occasion of his birth.  It is dated

                                         Barnegat, N.J.
                                         May 31st, 1926.

My dear Great-Nephew:

                    When your arrival on this Planet
April 10th, 1926 was announced, it struck me that a note
addressed to you would be a fitting thing, even though it
would be quite unusual, to express pleasure and congrat-
ulation.
     We are glad you came to the Earth and did not go to
any one of the other billions of worlds Science says are
whirling through space - that you came to the House of
Sterner and did not join some other tribe or clan - and
also that you have taken the name of John - a name once
well known in this family.  You are John the Third and
may appropriately write your Title - John III.
     Hear me about these Johns.  Your paternal grand-dad's
grand-dad was John;  (Why, oh why is it that Uncle Henry
seems completely unaware that his grandfather's name was
Abraham; it was his great-grandfather who was a John and
it was his father who was the Revolutionary veteran.)
that man's father was John.  In other words, your Great-
Great and also your Great-Great-Great Grandfather's name
was John.  (Boy, oh Boy, the trouble this caused me till I
found out about Abraham.)
     This last named John was one of the soldiers in Gen-
eral John Muhlenberg's Division of the Revolutionary
troops that were under Washington in his campaigns in
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.  Washington great-
ly praised General Muhlenberg's troops.  These generals
were particular friends.  Washington in his private corr-
espondence lauds the constancy, fortitude, and loyalty
of the `Pennsylvania German Soldiers'.  He could always

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                    HENRY STERNER

depend on them!     They never wavered in loyalty.  They
had no English ties as had the English colonists between
34ø - 38ø and 41ø - 45ø latitude.
     These English descendants often hesitated, doubted,
and were skeptical about the expediency, justice, or final
issue of their cause.  Quite different was the attitude
of the colonists of German, Dutch, Irish and French ori-
gin.  These latter troops were the invincible nucleus of
the American Army in the Revolution.
     Of course envy and jealousy were rife among the
other elements.  Having a common language and origin and,
being much more numerous than either of the other racial
groups, they would unite to oppose them.  These had the
votes and the historians and the running of the military
machine so that, in the final outcome, their defections
were concealed and the virtues and patriotic deeds of the
men who were of Un-English descent, ignored.  Letters,
diaries, reports prove this beyond question.  The Ameri-
can - German would say - `Georg der Dritt ist auch ein
Deutscher!' - but there the attachment ended!  (Thus spake
Uncle Henry - upon what authority, I know not.)
     Norman, however, was not a part of the Sterner name,
nor in racial blood.  These Johns traced their ancestry
to that land east of the Upper Rhine inhabited by the
Suevi - noted by Roman historians as bold and fearless
marauders.  The Normans came on a millennium later and
made an equally notorious record in Europe's history.  No
one now is proud of the predatory propensities of these
two remarkable peoples, but even then they had qualities
admired by their enemies, the Roman and the French hist-
orians who have told us about them.....
     They say you are healthy:  Good!  It would not surp-
rise me if otherwise, the way your immediate paternal
progenitor keeps late hours, indulges in exhausting amuse-

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                   HENRY STERNER

ments, soaks himself in sea-water long enough at a time
to make loose and tender the skin of a hippopotamus, irr-
egular meals, and his attempts at times to rival another
nameless pachyderm in the consumption of grub.
     Yes, John, nothing like health!  Wealth is not much
much without it.  Force your attendants to call in the Health
Expert when you are well - laughing, crowing, kicking,
striking etc.  Make repairs before the house crashes upon
your head!  Don't let `em put it off till you are sick, as
a mother did about whom I shall tell you now.
     Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was eminent as a scholar,
poet, writer, and most of all an expert physician.  He
just dabbed in the other things.  His big hobby was ma-
king furniture down in his cellar.  Well, the story!  He
was summoned to visit a sick boy.  The mother said -
`Restore my child to health - perfect health.'  Dr. Holmes
said - `You are far too late for that.'  `Why', said the di-
stracted mother, `I sent for you at the appearance of the
first symptom.'  `Yes', said Dr. Holmes, `You should have
begun with the boy's grandfather when he was a youngster'
- implying the established fact that physical fitness and
the opposite are transmitted to posterity - a law nature
is sure to enforce.
     How your own paternal Grand Dad lived almost ex-
clusively in the open air and the sunshine - not in play
but in actual work that one from the age of eight years
might well do - less than five months was the maximum
time spent in school; work mornings and evenings of each
school day was always required; ball playing except dur-
ing recess on school days was almost unknown.  When the
`public school course was finished' he earned by his own
hands the money to pay his school expenses in higher in-
stitutions of learning; the lure and charm of social di-
versions were not allowed to make serious inroads on his

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                   HENRY STERNER

time and health - not a single habit to dull brain or
weaken stamina did he have.  He had the high stamina of
Dr. Holmes and his successors of the present day.
     Sages of learning and wisdom like Eliot, Hadley,
Frank, Hodges, each had and all agree that such training
is the best possible.  They measure such men as your
Grand Dad by what they do and what difficulties they
overcome.  Give him a `Tiger'.
     Your Grand Dad's five sons (male descendants) have
some decided handicaps - they live in a pleasure resort,
everything is done for them, and they set their hopes on
the prestige and success of the father.
     I do not expect you to reply.  The figures you de-
scribe now in the air with feet and hands, I am too stu-
pid to decipher.  Some day you will learn the articulate
language and how to write it.  Then we can exchange ideas.
     I am glad you are here.  Be sure to stay.
                             Sincerely,
                                      Uncle Henry Sterner.

                        * * *

                               Barnegat, N.J.
                                      December 19th, 1932.

Dear Brother:
              I was delighted to get your letter Saturday
the 17th, dated 10th, postmarked 16th - that made every
word well seasoned, fully ripe.  I am always glad to hear
from relatives and friends, especially when their words
carry one over a wide space of time and place.  The `af-
ternoon' of life seems just the season best suited for re-
flection, remniscense.  There is reason why one's own
personal experience should stand first in interest rather
than those of history or fiction.
     The Kirkendalls found their interest in the Sterner
boys a well-paying asset!  Alfred's employers particularly.

                        135

                   HENRY STERNER

You have probably known how thoroughly his services were
utilized.  When the progress of these three boys was no-
ted later their pride stepped in and they said - `What a
chance they had from us.'  A common human episode.  The
Kirkendalls were more more generous and appreciative than
their cousins in New England and New Jersey.  They were
actuated at first by self-interest only but, after some
time, became friends with their young employees and took
great satisfaction in keeping the tie unbroken.
     Their name was originally likely the Dutch name
Kuykendahl, afterwards fully Anglicized.  Then the `mix-
ing' went on, allied with Copes, Patterson, Bellas, Pecks,
Pollocks, Grouers, Fortners.  Will's great-grandmother on
the father's side was a Patterson.  The list shows Dutch,
Scotch, English - the latter finally dominating - that is
the old stock that you did not come in touch with much -
they had nearly all died before you were grown up.
     But the `English' we knew were of a very different
(sort) from those of states north and east of Pennsylvania.
You will find this treated philosophically by James Trustlow
Adams in his `Epic of America'.  This old Kirkendall set
would say, `Up York State the women don't milk!  Don't do
any out-door work.  The men do much of their own cooking.
They sew not neither do they spin, nor weave!' - and
other unbelievable charges were made.
     Yet this same Harvard Dean of History tells the
world that the settlers of Pennsylvania created the sen-
timent and government of Democracy - and not those of New
England!  The few leading men of the Mayflower compelled
the compliance of it all.  To show how grateful they were
to Holland for giving them shelter and security from the
Anglicans in their own native land, they proceeded to
drive all the Dutch settlers out of the Connecticut Valley
and appropriated to themselves the Dutch property.  But

                        136

                   HENRY STERNER

their piety invoked God's blessing on every blow struck.
     Along this 41ø line through Stroudsburg, Berwick,
Bloomsburg and on west raged the battle-ground between
Penn's adherents and the New England Puritans who claim-
ed all of Pennsylvania north of 41ø - kept up off and on
until 1770 when war loomed larger with England!
     The name Gillin calls up many things in the early
years of my sojourn in New Jersey.  Gillin was a pleasant
man to work with in the clerical position I held in Bel-
mar with H.H. Yard.  My own personal relations with the
two men just named, together with Allen and Warman, were
as pleasant and agreeable as with any other group, since
or before.  The serious fault in the eyes of the world
that these four men had was their failure to make great
sums of money.  How many thousands of men united in the
past decade to make vast sums of money, to secure great
wealth, have ended by bringing on the greatest financial
slump of history.  The pity is that many saved themselves
at the expense and loss of millions of their fellows.
     It has often seemed to me that this trio - Harry
Yard, W.E. Allen and Thos. E. Warman were away dealing
in stocks while we were so often left to deal with the
local business.  It seems now that Stock Brokers would
have been a proper title for them.  I cannot imagine any
other reason for Warman's and Yard's almost daily ab-
sence from their Belmar business.
     Beaver Valley is just south of McCauley Mountain,
a huge mound of earth and rock that once covered a mass
of the richest anthracite.  I am wondering how many tons
of that coal did I break at the school house in the Hol-
low and at home.  The coal was delivered at the entrance
to the mines in its crudest form - pieces weighing wo to
80 pounds and more! and sold at a dollar per load -
sometimes more but never as much as $2.00.  Mount Grove

                        137

                   HENRY STERNER

is a village at the east end of Mount McCauley.  The coal
has long since been exhausted.  The soil in these vallies
of Pennsylvania, between mountains containing coal, is
very rich and not easily enhausted.
     I have been doing a lot of work in my ground that I
usually leave for spring.  But since I have Asparagus to
cut for market the infavorable weather in March and April
makes winter work necessary - clearing off weeds, stalks,
plowing, harrowing, even `starting out', making furrows
for potatoes and applying stable manure, bone meal and
lime.
     I am restricting myself to a much smaller area....
Winter is here in earnest.  It will now be probably three
months before plowing and harrowing can be done.  Only
certain conditions of weather will permit these operations
in soil.
     I should be delighted to be with you Sunday.  Christ-
mas would come Saturday.  Don't bother about the chair and
the plate till I come.  Severely inclement weather would
make my stay at home imperative - to keep water and plants
from freezing up.  At any rate, may you all be happy be-
fore - at - and after Christmas.
      Please give the enclosed note to Dorothy.

                             Affectionately,

                                             Henry.

                       FINIS

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