PennDOT announced on Friday, April 17, in a press release that it will utilize general contractors under an emergency authorization to supplement state maintenance crews with the repair of pavement damage on state highways in the five-county Philadelphia region.
“The past two winters delivered extreme weather conditions that resulted in severe pavement damage and a substantially high number of potholes,” PennDOT Acting District Executive Christine Reilly said in the release. “We are adding additional crews to our pavement repair operation so we can improve state highways faster and provide motorists with smoother road surfaces.”
Contractor crews will work the next several weeks to repair deteriorated pavements on nearly 100 state highways in the region. Some contractors will begin work on Saturday, April 18, and all are expected to start Monday, April 20, weather permitting. Crews will work Mondays through Saturdays, with operations taking place during daytime and overnight hours. The patching operation will result in traffic slowdowns as lane closures will be in effect where crews are working.
In addition, PennDOT maintenance crews in the region will continue to repair potholes aggressively, including patching state roads on Saturday. April 18. State crews have placed 5,600 tons of patching material on state roads in the Philadelphia region since Dec. 1, including 3,900 tons since March 9.
Pavement repair operations by state and contractor crews are contingent on the weather.
This year’s severe outbreak of potholes resulted from snow, ice and rain seeping into pavements and temperature swings above and below the freezing mark.
Citizens can report potholes on state highways by calling 1-800-FIX-ROAD (1-800-349-7623) or visiting www.dot.state.pa.us and clicking on “submit feedback.”
PennDOT has announced the following road projects, which are weather-dependent and could affect residents in the greater Chadds Ford area during the week of April 19 through April 26. The department recommends that motorists allow extra time if they are traveling through one of the construction zones.
Patching will require lane restrictions on Route 926 between Creek Road and Route 352 in Birmingham, Westtown and Thornbury townships from Monday, April 20, through Tuesday, April 21. The work will be done from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Potholes on Parkersville Road in Pennsbury Township are also scheduled to be addressed this week between Route 1 and Route 926. Lane restrictions will be in effect from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Monday, April 20, through Wednesday, April 22.
Motorists on Route 202 in both directions in West Goshen, Westtown, Thornbury, and Birmingham townships will continue to experience intermittent lane closures from Monday, April 20, through Thursday, April 23, for patching. The work will be done between Matlack Street and the Delaware County line from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Utility installation will require a lane shift on Route 1 between Conchester and Concord roads in Concord Township through Monday, April 20, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Marshall Street in West Chester Borough will be closed and detoured between High Street and Montgomery Avenue for trench restoration from until Thursday, April 30. The work will be done from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Detours are posted.
Traffic signal installation in Kennett Square Borough will continue to require lane closures on Cypress Street at State, Broad, Meredith and Union streets and on State Street at Broad and Union streets. Crews are scheduled to work from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Monday, April 20, through Friday, April 24.
Burnt Mill Road in Kennett Township is closed and detoured between Norway and Spring Mill roads indefinitely while crews prepare for repairs to a bridge that collapsed on April 24.
Route 100 will continue to be restricted to one lane in both directions between Sunrise Drive and Route 113 in Uwchlan and West Whiteland townships, on Monday, April 20, through Friday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for road widening.
One lane will remain closed on Interstate 95 North at the Commodore Barry Bridge for construction through July 14.
If you want to report potholes and other roadway maintenance concerns on state roads, call 610-566-0972 in Delaware County or 484-340-3200 in Chester County, or visit www.dot.state.pa.us and click on “submit feedback.”.
Between puzzle piece ribbons, the color blue, and a month-long series of educational activities, Autism Awareness Month aims to increase the public’s understanding of a developmental disorder affecting an estimated one in 68 children, said a press release from the Chester County Intermediate Unit.
It is hosting a Community Autism Workshop Night on Tuesday, April 21, from 6 to 8 p.m. It will be held at the Chester County Intermediate Unit’s (CCIU) Educational Service Center at 455 Boot Rd., Downingtown, 19335.
The evening will feature eight, 30-minute workshops provided by the CCIU’s training and consultation team on the following topics:
For those with little background on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD):
6:00-6:25 p.m. Autism 101
6:30-6:55 p.m. Sensory Issues
7:00-7:55 p.m. Interacting with Students with Autism
7:30-7:55 p.m. Communication Strategies
For parents and caregivers needing specialized information:
6:00-6:25 p.m. Post-Secondary Transition, Waivers and Guardianship
6:30-6:55 p.m. Technology for ASD
7:00-7:55 p.m. ASD and Co-occurring Disabilities
7:30-7:55 ASD and Independent Living Skills
Light refreshments will be provided, and CCIU will have information displays about programs and services for individuals with autism from preschool through adulthood. Attendees will also have the opportunity to tour the Preschool Special Education program. The event and workshop sessions are designed for adult participants; child care will not be available on-site.
The co-proprietor of Stargazers Vineyard and Winery – and one of the pioneers of the area’s wine industry – died earlier this week at the age of 73.
Alice Weygandt
Alice Weygandt, whose winemaking passion took root in 1979 when the first grapes were planted on the property, succumbed to bone cancer, said John Weygandt, her husband of 48 years. The winery, which overlooks the Brandywine, was named for its proximity to the stone in Newlin Township used by Mason and Dixon as they surveyed the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland.
John Weygandt said he met his wife in New York, where she worked as a medical records administrator. She was born in Niagara Falls, he said. After they married, he was offered a job at Scott Paper Company and so they relocated to Pennsylvania, where Alice took on the jobs of mother and homemaker.
He said their shared appreciation for wine piqued their interest in producing it. They tasted some wine made with Chardonnay grapes that had been growing in Malvern for 10 years and became convinced that Chester County could support a vineyard. “Everyone pooh-poohed the idea,” John Weygandt said.
“When Scott Paper imploded in 1994, we realized that if there’s ever a time to pursue this, it’s now,” he said. Two years later, the winery opened, and the couple went from producing grapes for other vintners to making their own wine.
That’s when the real work began, John Weygandt said. He explained that he and his wife divvied up the chores, including nurturing, pruning, crushing, siphoning –and then chronicling all of the results.
Referencing her former career in medical records, John Weygandt said his wife joked: “I went from bedside charts to tank-side charts.”
John Weygandt said one of their first customers for grapes in the early years was the Chaddsford Winery, which was started by Lee and Eric Miller.
Eric Miller said he remembered going to dinner at the Weygandts’ “wondrous eco-home” in Unionville in 1981. “That night she and John offered to sell me their Chardonnay grapes, perhaps a rarer commodity in Pennsylvania than shark’s teeth,” he said.
Soon after that, the Weygandts were organizing the South East Grape Growers Association, almost like a buying cooperative, making deals and making planting wine grapes an agricultural alternative to dairy and mushrooms, Eric Miller said.
“Alice was always there to help, to teach, a true character with her quirky comments and humorous commentary about how to pick grapes from vines that were planted in strange trellises – while perched on low stools that looked like bumblebee stingers,” Eric Miller recalled.
Miller said when the Weygandts decided to make their own wine, he immediately lamented losing their supply of grapes. “I was crushed and probably didn’t thank them adequately for having given us such a wonderful start at Chaddsford Winery with their grapes in those early years,” he said.
He said he was able to make amends about a year ago when he and his wife were invited back to dinner. “It was a wonderful night of reminiscing, and I hope I was finally able to thank her and John properly for what they did, not just for Chaddsford Winery but to recognize the place she has had in the culinary history of southeast Pennsylvania.”
In addition to expertise with grapes, Eric Miller said Alice Weygandt raised chickens and grew a garden “that would today make any ‘Buy Fresh, Buy Local’ farmers jealous.”
The couple also served as trailblazers for renewable energy, installing a solar system more than a decade ago to power their 29-acre farm and residence, according to published reports.
Brad and Lele Galer, who own Galer Estate Vineyard and Winery, agreed that the Weygandts not only paved the way for those who came later but they also encouraged them.
“John and Alice were one of the first winery owners to reach out to us as we were starting Galer Estate Winery, and we will be forever grateful,” the Galers said. “With incredibly hard work and great effort, Alice and John built Stargazer’s Vineyard into one of the preeminent wineries in our area.”
The Galers said they planned to raise a glass in Alice’s honor. John Weygandt said he appreciated the fact that Alice’s legacy will live on through the wine. “That was our goal,” he said.
Eric Miller said he chatted with Alice Weygandt last fall at the West Chester Farmer’s Market, and she excitedly showed him a wine from a grape variety grown in this region that he never tasted before. Miller said he didn’t realize that would be the last time he saw her.
“If I had, I would have opened a bottle of 1982 Stargazers Chardonnay and had a proper toast to her and all that she epitomized for us in the local wine community,” Eric Miller said.
John Weygandt said his wife entered hospice in November and had time to make her wishes known, which included not having a funeral service. He said she also wanted to ensure that the winery kept going, and so she instructed him in the intricacies of her duties, including meticulous record-keeping.
Tim Jobe, the manager of the Twin Brook Winery in Gap, which is being sold, has already been tapped by Stargazers, John Weygandt said, facilitating a smooth transition.
In addition to her husband, Alice Weygandt is survived by a son, Karl. Contributions in her memory can be sent to Compassion and Choices, a nonprofit committed to giving those who are terminally ill some control in their final days.
The website is https://www.compassionandchoices.org. Donations can also be made by mail to Compassion & Choices Gift Processing Center, P.O. Box 485, Etna, NH, 03750-0485, or by calling 800-247-7421.
In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the Christian Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford is running an exhibit dedicated to the country’s 16th president.
The “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” exhibit shows off a number of items, including a piece of the handkerchief used as a bandage to dress Lincoln’s fatal head wound, a piece of cloth from the inside of his coffin, a penny believed to have been run over by the funeral train as it went through Philadelphia, as well as a piece of fabric from Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ chair in Richmond, Va., the capital of the confederacy.
In addition, there’s correspondence between Chris Sanderson and former U.S. Sen. Benjamin F. Caldwell, of Illinois, who knew Lincoln before being nominated for the presidency. Caldwell lived across the street from Lincoln.
According to museum curator Chuck Ulmann, Sanderson and Caldwell met when Caldwell came to Chadds Ford in 1913. The former senator later sent Lincoln artifacts to Sanderson who, in return, sent artifacts from the Battles of Brandywine and Gettysburg to Caldwell.
“[Caldwell] was the first, and is the only, person we’re aware of that Chris ever met who actually knew Lincoln,” Ulmann said. “Chris was always collecting, so it was fair game for him to swap back and forth for different items.”
A sign tells the story of how Chris Sanderson’s mother learned of Lincoln’s death and speculates why Chris became a collector.
He added that the two kept their correspondence going for about 15 years.
Also on display is a copy of a letter from a U.S. soldier involved in the capture and killing of Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth and a photo of former slave Nate Simms who helped Booth get on his horse after fleeing Ford’s Theater. Simms also told Union soldiers the direction Booth rode in his attempt to further avoid capture.
Ulmann said Sanderson had a fascination with the office of the presidency and attended every inauguration from Theodore Roosevelt’s to Lyndon Johnson’s.
The curator, and others have speculated that Sanderson’s habit of collecting all things historic — and especially things connected to Lincoln — may have come from a story told by his mother, Hannah.
As the story goes, on April 15, 1865, Hanna Carmack, then a young girl, was home with an illness when her father came into the house agitated and announced to the family that Lincoln was dead.
Years later, on the 75th anniversary of the assassination, she had a photo taken demonstrating her position on a sofa when she heard the news.
(The official time of death for Lincoln is 7:22 a.m., April 15.)
The exhibit runs through the end of July.
On Saturday, May 17, at 2 and 3 p.m., the Sanderson will host an outdoor music event in tribute to Sanderson’s old band, The Pocopson Valley Boys. On Sept. 17, the museum launches an exhibit focusing on WWI.
(Main photo: Sue Minnarchi, president of the Sanderson Museum, at far right, explains some of the Lincoln artifacts on display to Jennifer Duffy, left and and Cher Finnan, center.)
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.
