Rebecca Hood Rabenold, 91, of West Grove, died Thursday, July 30, at the Jennersville Regional Hospital. She was the wife of Donald M. Rabenold, who passed away in 2003, and with whom she shared 60 years of marriage.
Born in West Grove, she was the daughter of the late Roland P. and Eliza “Annie” Norton Hood. She was a 1935 graduate of Avon Grove High School.
She was the past owner of the Knitting Basket in Kennett Square, PA. She was very well known for her knitting, needlework and finishing work on knitwear and clothing.
She is survived by one son, Donald R. “Buster” Rabenold of West Grove; one daughter, Tanis A. Maher and her husband Donald of Strasburg; one sister, Maude Shumake of Oxford; four grandchildren, Sandra Martini of New Jersey, Krista Grzywacz of Lititz, Steven Maher of Strasburg, Michael Maher of Arlington, Va., and five great-grandchildren.
Her service and burial will be private.
In memory of Rebecca, a contribution may be made to the S P C A of Chester County, 1212 Phoenixville Pike, West Chester, PA 19380 or to Ware Presbyterian Village, Alzheimer’s Unit, 7 Locust Street, Oxford, PA 19363.
Arrangements by the Foulk & Grieco Funeral Home, West Grove.
Online condolences may be made by visiting www.griecofuneralhomes.com.
A lightening strike is one possible cause for a fire that destroyed a home under construction on Magnolia Way in the Estates of Chadds Ford, the Toll Bros. development off of Hillman Drive in Chadds Ford Township. There were no injuries reported.
Firefighters from at least five different companies responded to the blaze that broke out during a thunderstorm at approximately 6:55 p.m. Friday, July 25. Rob Griffin, the assistant fire chief from Concordville Fire Co. said the fire was officially under control by 7:45 p.m.
The house was on home site 32 at the corner of Magnolia Way and Evergreen Place. While the cause is still under investigation, area residents believe the cause was a lightening strike. Fire Chief Tom Nelling said nothing is being ruled out at this time. State police Fire Marshal Jay Stewart was called in on the case according to other officials at Concordville Fire Co.
Assisting Concordville were units from Longwood, Bethel, Media and Chester Heights.
ChaddsFordLive thanks the resident who phoned in the tip about the fire.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
The day was decades in the making for a group of former students forever connected to Chadds Ford through the person of Chris Sanderson.
Those former students—now adults—attended the Booth School in Rosemont, Pa., a school that closed down in 1977. But from 1944 to 1966, Sanderson, a musician, amateur historian and longtime Chadds Ford resident, taught square dancing at the school at the request of owner and headmistress Phoebe Barsby Booth.
Chip Lohmann, a member of the Sanderson Museum Board of Directors, was a student of Sanderson’s at the school, as was Sandy Dechert, the granddaughter of the former headmistress.
The two planned a reunion of Booth School graduates for last Saturday, July 25. Dozens of former Booth students had a picnic on the grounds of the old school, now the site of the Hill Top School. They then came into Chadds Ford to tour the museum and have dinner at Brandywine Prime.
“Chris was friends with everybody, even those [my grandmother] didn’t like,” said Dechert who now lives in Chicago. “He brought out a person’s individualism. He knew the name of every kid who doe-si-doed. He saw the human side of them.“
Dechert said she does not know for certain how her grandmother and Sanderson became friends, but she theorized that they met during a time when Sanderson and his group, the Pocopson Valley Boys, were doing radio shows.
She said Sanderson started teaching at the Booth School sometime after 1944.
“He became ‘the’ square dance guy and local historian. He took kids for tours to Brandywine. He took us all over the battlefield and showed us all the stuff that’s there. He took us to Gettysburg and told us all about the Devil’s Den… He’d draw maps, hand-drawn maps,” she said. “That’s how we learned about local history.”
Lohmann agrees that Booth hired Sanderson to teach square dancing, but Sanderson did more than that, Lohmann said. Sanderson was always showing musket balls and arrowheads he had found while living in Chadds Ford.
“He taught history between square dance lessons. The history lessons were informal,” Lohmann said.
Lohmann’s relationship with Sanderson went beyond the classroom. Lohmann recalled times when his parents would take Sanderson with the family on trips to Gettysburg.
“He’d take us to all the out of the way places,” Lohmann said.
As did Dechert, Lohmann also remembered one of Sanderson’s talents. He said that they would often stop at a restaurant on the way to Gettysburg and Sanderson would draw a map of parts of the battle area on the back of a place mat.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
There was a little of something for everyone at Anson. B. Nixon Park in Kennett Square Saturday. The eighth annual Family Fun Fest featured a dog jumping contest, children’s identification fingerprinting, live music and a chance for kids to make some free-form art and more.
Pam Carter, chairman of the Kennett Area Park Authority said the funfest got started when KAPA was thinking about activities for kids to do in the summer when they were running out of things to do.
As with many such events, Family Fun fest has grown and evolved over the years.
“It was meant to be for the enjoyment of children in the community,” Carter said. “It’s grown a little bit [over the years.] The dog jump is one end of the event that attracts dog lovers. Sometimes they stay around. Sometimes the dog people go away and the kids come in. So, we probably attract 200 or three hundred families here every summer.”
The day began with the annual dog jumping contest where dogs of all sizes get the chance to jump standard hurdles. The winner in the large breed competition was Mark, a 4-year-old German shorthaired pointer owned by Geoff Brutcher of Pocopson Township. The medium breed winner was perennial winner Misty, an 8-year-old Llewellin setter owned by Norris Myers of Kennett Square.
Of a more serious nature was the child identification and fingerprinting. Tpr. Corey Monthei, the community services officer from Pennsylvania State Police Troop J, of Avondale was on hand to take the fingerprints. It’s the parents who keep the prints.
“Parents appreciate the resource,” Monthei said while fingerprinting 6-year-old Tucker Aliberti from London Britain Township.
“I went on-line and there are local pedophiles. I want to have the back up just in case something would happen,” Julie Aliberti said. “I try to teach him not to talk to strangers, but it’s difficult.”
Also on hand was Peacework, a 14-year-old art program for kids who are homeless, neglected or who have been victims of abuse.
Barbara DesJardins is the founder of Peacework.
“We love for kids to be able to paint,” DesJardins said, “and outdoors is the most fun at creating art at all.”
DesJardins said they also invited the group of children Peacework usually deals with.
“They can be anonymous here, they can come and be just like everyday kids and no one knows who they are. They mix with the whole population, which they should be able to do,” DesJardins said,
The purpose of Peacework, she said, is “to help children heal through art.”
She said it’s a form of art therapy, though not everyone associated are therapists. “But we know about children and we know how it feels to be hurt.”
The Peacework program is free for the kids.
Family Fun Fest also included a disc golf demonstration and live music with Daria–who also did a drum circle.
Radio station WJBR was on hand to help with a food collection for the Kennett Community Food Cupboard.
Family Fun Fest is always held the last Saturday of July. For he last four years, state Rep. Chris Ross, R-158, of East Marlborough has helped sponsor the event and bring in some state resources, such as the child ID program.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
Health care can’t be a right. Neither can education or food. But, why? Just what are rights?
Most people would likely think of rights as entitlements or privileges. But, rights and privileges are entirely different things. Privileges are those actions stemming from permissions granted by those in authority. Rights come to us by the very nature of our existence as humans and their exercise does not require permission or any affirming action by anyone else. Not only do rights not require permission of others, or oblige others to take any action, they also do not infringe on the right’s of others.
The first definition is statist in nature and grants supremacy to the government. The second definition is libertarian in nature and much more consistent with the philosophy expressed by the U.S. founding documents that tell us of inalienable rights and that people have rights beyond those that are expressed in those documents.
But that does not imply a right to health care. All people have the right to seek out health care, to find those who are capable of providing that care. Health care requires two parties, patient and a doctor. And those two entities must come together and agree to terms on payment for service. The agreement would not be a competition of two parties haggling. Rather, it would be a cooperative understanding based on the thousands of other pairs of entities reaching accord. It’s called the market place.
Health care is a commodity and should be treated that way.
Yes, healthcare is a necessity, too. So is food. And food is also a commodity and there is an abundance of it in this country. There could even be more if it weren’t for government intervention, but there is food and there’s no call for national food provision, with or without a public option.
But what would happen if it were decreed that healthcare is a right and that the might of the federal government would enforce that right? Since people must provide healthcare, those people would be forced into servitude, forced to work for whatever the government regulations say. In short, doctors would have their livelihood controlled. Soon, there would be fewer doctors. And those that remain would either be ideologues or of lesser talent. Regulation stifles quality and growth.
Innovation would decline and new technologies would never come into existence. The level of care would drop while taxes would go higher to pay for a scarcer service.
Instead of universal healthcare, the government should be looking into what keeps healthcare costs artificially high. Congress should stop listening to lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry who agitate for their products and profits while keeping lesser priced materials from the public. Congress should properly exercise its power to regulate interstate commerce by eliminating laws that prevent residents in one state from buying health insurance from carriers in other states.
Cutting the artificial legislative and bureaucratic fat will do more to improve healthcare than anything else. And it will leave individuals alone to make their best choices.
I just flew back from Louisiana from a visit with very dear friends in the small-town of New Iberia. Just find Lafayette on a map of southern Louisiana, go slightly to the southeast and there it is. From my first visit years ago, I have always felt welcomed and very much at home in their tradition of southern hospitality.
New Iberia is situated on a noted waterway, the Bayou Teche site of an 1863 Civil War battle. Its population centers around a Main Street that’s right out of a 1940’s movie. In the morning the powers that be, as well as ordinary folk, gather for breakfast at Victors, the neighborhood café where great coffee and freshly made southern biscuits go hand in hand with gossip and political discussions. In addition, the town holds a major three-day festival in September to celebrate their sugar cane harvest.
As the “Queen City of the Teche”, New Iberia is also a cultural center. It’s the hometown of noted author James Lee Burke as well as artists like Paul Shexnayder and George Rodrigue of “Blue Dog” fame. It boasts the Essanee Theater, home of the Iberia Performing Arts League as well as the stately National Trust property, the antebellum plantation “Shadows on the Teche.”
So why do I feel so much at home in New Iberia? Let’s see, it’s a small town on the Bayou, the site of an historic battle, it’s a cultural center with historic homes, a great breakfast café, resident artists, a major September festival and good friends. Dare I say it? Could it be the Chadds Ford of the deep south?
On Monday morning I went over to the “power table” at Victors Café.
I asked them about their local political problems. One answer…Sewers! Sound familiar?
The original system, laid out in 1907, had recently begun to spring leaks. When the town balked at putting in a new system, the federal government moved in and threatened to jail the mayor and city council. At that point a brand new system was hastily installed and was immediately found to be woefully inadequate.
Almost as an afterthought, one of the men at the power table lamented New Iberia had not grown in 40 years, while the population of neighboring Lafayette had tripled.
To an outsider, particularly this unabashed northerner, New Iberia’s small town naivety and seeming lack of global thinking can at times be alarming. Anti Semitic and anti feminist comments come so casually and easily to people’s conversation as to be shocking. (Particularly noteworthy since several of their mayors have been women.)
And racism? The very first time I visited I was quickly educated about Mulattos, Quadroons and Octoroons. What can I say–it’s a Louisiana thing.
I treasure my friendships in New Iberia. Indeed during the fall of 2005, New Iberian’s opened their private homes, town resources and schools to those fleeing the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Generosity is a New Iberian trademark.
On the surface, it’s the picture perfect town, and a visit is like stepping back to the gentility and lifestyle of a time long gone. But perhaps it’s time to realize the 21st century is here.
Cultural and historic preservation alone cannot keep a town alive. The mindset of the people as well as those who lead must grow in order for a town to thrive.
Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”
Two juveniles, one reportedly from Chadds Ford, face a host of charges after they allegedly tried stealing cigars from the Wawa at routes 421 and 202. State police say the 15-yar-old from West Chester and the 14-year-old from Chadds Ford were seen attempting the theft on a store security camera. A check of their bags–in a car in which they had been riding–revealed them to be in possession of an automatic rolling box, a marijuana pipe and a small amount of marijuana, the police report said. Charges of retail theft, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and conspiracy will be filed in juvenile court.
• The Chadds Ford Tavern was the scene of a smash and grab from a parked vehicle on July 23. State police report the incident happened sometime between 7:45 and 8:30 p.m. According to the report, a Sony Vaio laptop and an HP camera and accessories were stolen from the car after someone smashed a side window to gain access to the car’s interior.
• No injuries were reported following a three-vehicle accident on Route 1 near Dilworthtown Road in Chadds Ford Township. State police said the accident happened at 1:50 p.m. on July 26. The report said a 2009 Ford 350 and a 1999 Volkswagen Beetle were traveling northbound in the middle lane of Route 202. The VW was behind the Ford. The 18-year-old driver of the VW shifted to the right lane and the 53-year-old driver of the Ford tried to make a right turn from the middle lane, striking the VW, according to the report. The Ford then went into a parking lot hitting a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan.
• A 25-year-old man from Wilmington was arrested on DUI charges following a traffic stop on Route 1, a state police report said. According to the police, David Walker was stopped because he was observed making an illegal U-turn on Route 1 at State Farm Drive just before 2 a.m. on July 27.
• A 15-inch Dell computer and a 19-inch Polaroid television were stolen from a property on Johnson Farm Road in Concord Township. A state police report said the burglary took place between 9 p.m. on July 26 and 8 a.m. on July 27.
• A 24-year-old woman from Exton was the victim of theft on July 18 when someone broke into her car and stole her cell phone. The incident happened on Ivy Mills Road in Concord Township, according to a police report.
• A Nintendo Wii, a Wii Fit and a DVD player were reported stolen from a home in the 1700 block of Newark Road in West Marlborough Township. State police said the burglary took place between 8:30 a.m. and noon on July 22. Anyone with information is asked to call the state police Avondale barracks at 610-268-2022.
