It seems everyone jumped on the bandwagon to support the Philadelphia Phillies last year, as they triumphed and won the World Championship.

But there are many in are midst who were fans long before the championship year.


Just consider this photo and information, submitted by Lydia Henning Clemmer of Souderton.

“The year is 1957. These are the Henning kids from North Main Street, Telford: Doug, Lydia, John, Jim and Chick.

“Their mother, Helen Henning, used red, iron-on tape to write ‘Phillies’ on the three older boys’ white T-shirts.

“Doug is now a teacher at Indian Valley Middle School. Lydia Clemmer teaches at Plumstead Christian School. John and Jim (twins) are both Erie Insurance agents and Chick works for Clemens Cleaners.

“They all live in the Souderton area and remain loyal Phillies fans.

“Chick will celebrate his 60th birthday on April Fool’s Day. Happy Birthday, Chick ... and GO PHILLIES!”

So as you settle in to watch the Phils’ season-opener on April 5, don’t forget the Henning “kids.”

And Chick, happy 60th from all of us here at The Reporter.

If you grew up in this area, surely you remember Sally Starr.

And this photo shows one man who quite obviously had a special reason for remembering her.

Today’s photo was submitted by Cindy Maher of Harleysville, who notes that the picture was taken in the early 1960s of her father, Ed Maher, giving a tour of the local Martin Century Farms to the TV personality, Sally Starr.



Maher noted:

“My father started working for Martin’s right out of college. He graduated from Penn State in 1950 with a degree in dairy husbandry. He was director of the lab and supervised all the testing of the milk and dairy products sold by Martin’s.

“He also used to visit the farms that supplied milk to the dairy to make sure proper sanitation was used when milking the cows and transporting the milk to the dairy where is was pasteurized and bottled.

“I asked him why Sally Star was at the dairy and all he could remember was that it must have been for some promotional advertisement that the dairy was doing.”

She said he really didn’t remember why he was chosen to have the honor of taking Starr on the tour.

But she noted:

“I was about 6 years old at the time and Sally Star was a big deal. I think every kid growing up around here watched Sally Star and Popeye theater after school.

“My mother took me over to the dairy to meet her after the tour, but I was too scared to get out of the car, so I never got to meet her.

“I do remember seeing her from a distance, though. Which at the time was as big a thrill as actually meeting her.”

You certainly won’t ever encounter the Five Points Intersection in Montgomery Township the way you see it in today’s photo.


And there are plenty of other spots in the area that you may not recognize in the “before” photos that will be featured Tuesday night as part of “Then You Saw It, Now You Don’t: Part III,” the Lansdale Historical Society’s Community Program at the Lansdale Parks and Recreation Building, Seventh Street and Lansdale Avenue.

In this photo, you see the Five Points Intersection, circa 1930.

The two houses on the corner still exist, but the open field to the left of Horsham Road long ago yielded to the Belleview Diner, later a Robert Hall clothing store that was replaced by other stores in recent years.

Behind that was the Montgomeryville Mart, which was replaced by the Water Tower Square shopping center.

Note the stop sign on Horsham Road — no traffic signals in those days.

Tuesday night’s program will be the third edition of the society’s popular “before and after” show, which first debuted in 2007. The first two programs featured more than 350 photo images that illustrated changes in the North Penn area landscape over the past century.

This year’s program, coordinated by Steve Moyer, is all-new, and will include dozens of recent additions to the society’s extensive photo collection.

As was the case in previous years, the show will feature a wide array of then-and-now images photographed years part from the same location and angle. In some cases, the new photos reveal drastic changes that have taken place over the years; others provide evidence that time changed very little.

The program begins at 7:30 p.m. There is no admission charge but donations are appreciated.

For more information, call (215) 855-1872.

At a time when Lansdale is hoping to grab some of the economic stimulus money to complete the Lansdale Center for the Performing Arts, perhaps a look back at the town is in order.

The photo today is courtesy of the Lansdale Historical Society.



This shows the Beinhacker building, originally known as Zane’s store.

It was built in the 1880s, and was located at the railroad where Green Street enters the Madison parking lot and where Railroad Plaza Park is today.

A variety of merchants operated out of the Beinhacker building over the years.

It was a bakery, a clothing store and at one time the Lansdale News Agency was located along the Main Street portion of the building.

Grove’s Tavern also operated under a number of names over the years.

One of the advantages it enjoyed was its proximity to the Lansdale railroad station, which was only a few feet from the tracks of the Reading Co.’s Bethlehem branch.

Legend has it that rail crews often dashed into the bar for liquid refreshment while passengers were disembarking or boarding the trains — a practice that would be prohibited today.

And as you can see on the top of the Beinhacker Building, when the wrecking ball arrived in the 1970s, hundreds of pigeons and other birds had to find a new place to roost.