Today, we see some young men who quite obviously are ready to make a run for it.

Literally.

This photo, submitted by and featuring Alexander Kobasa of Lansdale, features the 1939 track team of the former Lansdale High School.

The guys who are striking this pose are, according to the information provided by Kobasa:

Bob Jenkins, Harry Kleinman, Ellis Delp, Frank Smith, Ed Walls, William Oberholtzer, Dick Drissel, Alex Kobasa and Richard Eccles.

Not shown are coach James Crawford, plus Butch Snyder and Larry Eshback.

Kobasa not only ran track at Lansdale High School, but in 1939 was the Bucks-Mont cross-country champion.

It’s a great athletic-themed photo, isn’t it?

By DAN SOKIL

Staff Writer

UPPER GWYNEDD — Forty years to the day after men landed on the moon, Cas Workman wrote the first draft of a poem:

July 1969

Science Class

Cape Kennedy

Predawn gathering on the beach

Across the bay

Saturn V Rocket

Looked 1 inch high

flash of flames

roar begins

scary hesitation

trembling ground

earth rocking rumble

liftoff, sweet relief

French spectators

sang our National Anthem

goosebumps

tears

so much pride

the whole world is watching

one small step.

Her writing was part of Monday’s lesson she taught to the Young Writers/Young Readers summer camp, but the memories are all hers.

That’s because four decades ago she was known as Carol A. Schreiber (Cas is a nickname that comes from those initials) and watched the launch of Apollo 11 right across a bay from the launch site thanks to her involvement in a NASA seminar earlier that summer.

“I remember the trembling ground, and the rocket was so far away it looked only 1 inch tall,” said Workman.

“Then we saw a flash and heard the noise, but it was scary because they fired the engines and for a few seconds we didn’t see it move. I got a little scared about that, but then it started to go up and they were on their way,” she said.

Just like that, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were on their way to the moon, a mission Workman said still brings back chills whenever she thinks about it.

“The only other time in 40 years I’ve had that same feeling was

watching President Obama’s inauguration, because they were both such great moments for America,” she said.

“We were all so excited and just completely overwhelmed. There was a delegation from France standing behind us on the beach, and after the launch they started singing our national anthem with their French accents; I’m getting goosebumps right now just thinking about it,” said Workman.

The launch, early on the morning of Wednesday, July 16, 1969, was the highlight of a week she and her fellow teachers spent in Florida, touring the Kennedy Space Center and watching progress reports.

By the time Apollo 11’s crew landed on the moon, she had already returned to Hatfield, and watched the landing on TV with her future husband, Chuck Workman, and an estimated billion other viewers worldwide.

“Mr. Workman was my boyfriend at the time, and he and I watched the moonwalk together in Ocean City, New Jersey; all these years later we’re still together, and he’s still kind of jealous that I was in Florida by myself that week,” she said.

If ever a couple lived happily ever after, it’s those two: she and Chuck married in 1970, raised two daughters who attended North Penn’s schools before heading off to college, and Cas spent 35 years teaching in several North Penn schools before retiring in 2002.

“I started teaching at E.B. Laudenslager in 1967, and went from there to teach at Hatfield, then (J. Henry) Specht, to (A.M.) Kulp and then ended up teaching at Walton Farm before I retired,” Workman said.

In fact, she remembers helping work out the transition between E.B. Laudenslager and Hatfield before the latter school opened in 1972.

“We had all of these books in the library that we had to move from one school to the other, so I said, ‘Why don’t we give each of the kids a stack of books to carry?’ They loved it, and really felt a sense of ownership when we moved in,” said Workman.

You can still see her around the district from time to time, like at Gwyn-Nor for the next two weeks, where she’s the site coordinator for the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project’s Young Writers/Young Readers program.

There, her students wrote Monday about their memories of growing up, and their teacher shared a few of her own from that unforgettable morning 40 years ago.

Local woman recalls childhood friendship with Neil Armstrong

By DAN SOKIL
Staff Writer

Lorene Ahrens (maiden name Kellermeyer) moved to Lansdale from Ohio in 1950, but she still remembers the nights she and her sister Janice spent growing up in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

They’d go to church and Sunday school every week, and play outside with the kids from down the street at night, including one who took one very famous small step 40 years ago today.

That man was Neil Armstrong.

“Neil’s father, Mr. Stephen Armstrong, was an auditor for the state of Ohio, and he and their family were stationed in various county seats in northwestern Ohio, so the Armstrong family lived in Upper Sandusky in the early- to mid-1940s,” said Ahrens.

“My dad (Rev. Hugo C. Kellermeyer) was a pastor, he had started with the church in North Carolina which was where I was born, but we moved to Ohio in January 1942 and so we knew the Armstrong family through Trinity Evangelical and Reformed Church,” she said.



Janice and Neil were the same age, but Lorene, despite being two years younger, still remembers weekly croquet games on her family’s front lawn with the neighborhood kids, including one who later became the first man to walk on the moon.

“We never wanted to stop playing, and in fact we used to wrap the croquet wicks with white cloth around the end so we could still see them after it got dark,” Ahrens said.

According to Armstrong’s authorized biography, “The First Man” (Simon & Schuster, 2005), Neil lived in Upper Sandusky from 1941 to 1944 before moving on to Wapakoneta, Ohio.

Lorene still remembers car rides to church events with him.

“I remember how when my dad took us to the church camp in the summer, Neil was a very quiet person. He was very, very shy and didn’t talk a whole lot back then, and I haven’t seen him since way back then but from what I read and hear, he’s still very much the same way now,” said Ahrens.

Janice, now living in Nebraska, kept a photo from the church school’s confirmation class of 1943, in which Rev. Kellermeyer can be seen standing to the left of his students; a very young but clearly recognizable Armstrong is in the top row of students.

On a recent trip to her family’s former church in Ohio, Lorene said, she saw a plaque now mounted outside the church that recognizes Armstrong’s confirmation held within.

“The really funny thing was that when my sister wrote the class prophecy for the Class of ’47 from Upper Sandusky High School, she wrote that a member of our class would be the first man on the moon,” she said.

“I don’t know what she was thinking when she wrote that, because who wanted to go to the moon in 1947? But she was right, and even though he didn’t actually graduate with her because Neil’s father had been moved to another county by 1947, she’s still had some contact with him because he still goes to their class reunions,” Ahrens said.

The family’s story was first told to The Reporter for the 20th anniversary of the moon landing in 1989, when Lorene’s mother, Josephine Kellermeyer, recalled their years in Ohio.

By the time Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969, Lorene and her family were camping their way across the country. She watched the lunar landing from a hotel in Phoenix, but Janice dropped his name a few times that night.

“She was up in Nova Scotia and couldn’t find a TV to watch the landing, so she started telling people about how Neil was in her high school class, and ended up being interviewed on one of the local radio stations up there,” Ahrens said.

The Ahrens family had one final encounter with the lunar landing as they continued their camping trip: a friend of the family brought them into Johnson Space Center in Houston the day the first moon rocks were brought in from Apollo 11.

“Of course, we were just peons so we didn’t get anywhere near them, but there was a definite buzz in the air,” she said.

“My kids and I all remember Alan Shepard cruising by as we stood outside one of the offices and giving us a once-over, thinking ‘Who are these people?’ That was the closest I’d ever been to an astronaut, except for Neil Armstrong many years ago.”

By Jan Feighner

AUDUBON — The Delaware Valley is riddled with obvious points of interest regarding the nation's Cradle of Freedom, but it also offers odd bits of history. Scattered throughout the suburbs, some of these little known places are almost forgotten.

The Betzwood Motion Picture Studio bordering Valley Forge Park near Audubon is such a place. Few people know that several stone buildings near the Betzwood Bridge are remnants of a once active silent movie studio.

The thriving business, now owned by O'Neill Properties, proponents of historic structure preservation, operated between 1912 and 1923. Its founder, Siegmund Lubin of Philadelphia, built numerous structures on 350 acres of land that included administrative offices, a boiler house, a processing plant, scenery storage buildings, an all-glass studio for day shots, two dark studios minus windows with electric lighting, film vaults, and a boathouse.

A turbine beneath the boathouse, turned by water entering a sluice, generated the studio's electricity. A 19th century stone mansion, razed decades ago, housed visiting celebrities and sometimes Lubin himself.

Several famous silent screen stars worked on the lot, as well as contract and stock players. Many lived on the immense estate that constantly bustled with life.

Directors shot multiple scripted and improvised movies at once. Sets shifted between buildings. Lights and cameras changed constantly for each scene. Costumers, make-up artists, production assistants, writers, prop masters, and an enormous crew made certain that everything went smoothly for Lubin's busy operation.

Then, nothing: only a few buildings stood time's test. Cast and crew passed away; sets, props, and costumes disappeared. Little evidence remained of what by today's standards could have been a city of its own.

What happened?

Tonight, "History Detectives" investigates the mystery of the Betzwood Studio. Airing on WHYY at 9 p.m., the popular PBS program features host Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, the University of Pennsylvania's Lasry Family Professor of Public Relations, professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology, and faculty associate director of the Center for Africana Studies, as he explores the latest Delaware Valley history mystery.

CLICK HERE to see the complete episode online

The adventure began in Florida when Billie Chapman-Rooney of St. Petersburg watched the weekly program which ends with a request from viewers to propose a mystery. She knew two photo albums she received from her father during the late 1980s were special, but never knew just how special.

Chapman-Rooney is related to the Lubin family in an odd way. Her mother's brother's mother-in-law, Lucia, was married to Herbert, Siegmund Lubin's nephew. She remembers Lucia from her childhood in the 1950s as a flamboyant woman who drove a Thunderbird convertible, smoked long filtered cigarettes, and wore rhinestone shoes. She never knew Herbert, and her father who passed away before she began her Betzwood quest.

"In 1973, the family homes in St. Petersburg were being moved (except for) the garages," Chapman-Rooney explained. "After one of my uncles got all he wanted, he told my dad that he could have whatever he wanted. He took, among other things, an old suitcase, which, when he looked inside, he found the Lubin photos and other Lubin personal items.

"My dad kept them for many years and as I got older and acquired a love for old things, he gave them to me. I researched several avenues about the albums but always came to a dead end."

"History Detectives" wasted no time contacting her about her request, desiring to film a segment onsite and in Zuberi's office. They contacted Joe Eckhardt, emeritus professor of history at Montgomery County Community College (MCCC), whose extensive Lubin knowledge and private collection led to MCCC's creation of the Betzwood Archive on campus, an annual Betzwood Film Festival with the original films, and a biography of Siegmund Lubin entitled "The King of the Movies."

The show's producers hoped Eckhardt could shed some light on the 100 or so 8 by 10-inch labeled photographs. Eckhardt detailed Lubin's and the studio's history, walked the crew around the former estate, and discussed his 30 years of Betzwood research, but he had never seen anything so marvelous as the albums.

"I had never seen anything like it. They are the most significant survival from the Betzwood Studio," Eckhardt said. "They are the single most remarkable documentation of what that studio was like and how it worked. They're extraordinarily well preserved."

Eckhardt stated that Herbert created the books, taking pictures and meticulously labeling each one. The younger Lubin was Siegmund's nephew, brought to America in 1914 at age 16 from Berlin. His famous uncle wanted presumably to remove him from the impending World War I that began only months later. Herbert lived at the studio with the intent of learning the business. Instead, he became one of the cowboy actors.

One of the books details the Betzwood Ranch where the crew filmed westerns and sports pictures of the mansion, manager's house, barns, cowboy actors, and horses. The other comprises photos of Siegmund, the board of directors, actors, actresses, film studio, chefs in the commissary, chauffeurs, typists, and film vault.

Eckhardt and Chapman-Rooney disagree about the albums' intent. Eckhardt maintains that Herbert used it to document the studio. Chapman-Rooney, however, describes the photos as professionally finished pictures, one on each page, used as a business piece like a portfolio.

Both Chapman-Rooney and Eckhardt appear in the episode. They remain curious as to the final product since each experienced repeated shots at different angles with the single camera used in filming. She introduces the segment with her question of what happened to her family's thriving studio, and he provides the answers.

So, who was this silent film pioneer Siegmund Lubin, who befriended Thomas Edison after a patent infringement lawsuit? And what happened to his successful Betzwood Motion Picture Studio?

Watch "History Detectives" Monday, July 13 at 9 p.m. on WHYY and see.

Christine Schuyler of Hatfield has been kind enough to share a family photo with us today.

And here is the great information she has provided:

“Here is a photo, circa 1914, of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schuyler family of Edison.

“Arthur and Lizzie are my husband’s great-grandparents. They married in 1885 at the New Britain Baptist Church and had seven children.

“A son, Percy, died in 1905. Arthur farmed and also served on the Doylestown Township School Board and Lizzie raised guinea pigs.

“Pictured from top left is my husband’s grandfather, Chester Schuyler Sr., and two of his brothers, Howard and Russ.

“All three served in the Army during World War I, Russ losing a leg.

“A plaque in the Salem UCC Church in Doylestown commemorates the brothers’ military service.

“Chester later worked as a clerk in Philadelphia. Howard went on to run a haberdashery store in Doylestown. Clifford (seated at right) owned the Doylestown Laundry. Arthur Lloyd, the youngest child, worked for the Borough of Doylestown.

“The only daughter, Grace, was nicknamed ‘Jimmy’ by her father, who had interesting nicknames for each of his children.

“In 1925, Grace married Wilson S. Cassel, who worked in the automobile business. The newlyweds lived at 900 Derstine Ave., Lansdale, and later moved to Mayfair.

“The family home pictured in the background still stands in Edison.

“Many of Arthur and Lizzie’s descendants still reside in the Bucks-Mont area.”

With summer being a great time for family reunions, perhaps some other area readers may come across ancestral photos they want to share with us.

By DAN SOKIL

Long a fixture on Lansdale’s Main Street, Stuart’s Music has been offering music lessons, instruments and every type of music imaginable since the business was founded in the late 1940s.

“Robert and Sue Stuart, my parents, started out on Derstine Avenue in a small store, and he worked there part time in the ’40s during the war,” said current owner Jim Stuart.

“He was working in the SKF defense plant over on the Merck property on Sumneytown Pike, and was doing mainly music lessons part time at the store,” said Stuart.


The store moved to its current location in 1951, seen in the photo — with the words “Instructions, Supplies” painted on the window and neon lights spelling “Stuart’s Music” — of a small storefront at 851 West Main.

The Stuart family lived behind the building for much of Jim’s childhood, and the 1950s-style cars frequently parked in front of his store — seen in another of our photos today — always belonged to customers, not his family.


“They came to this location in 1951, and lived behind the store for many years. For me that was from that 1951 period through about 1965, when I got married and found my own place,” said Stuart.

The store was expanded in 1962, and added a light-up sign reading, “Stuart’s Music: Instruments, Instructions, Supplies” and decorated with musical notes. That’s shown in the third photo featured today.

“Instruments, giving lessons, and selling music and supplies have always been our main business,” Stuart said. “They’re all popular, and all types, it just depends on the individual but we have a mix of all ages.”

His father’s favorite instrument was the steel guitar, and Stuart remembers him playing mostly that, the mandolin and banjo while the younger Stuart was growing up.

“He ran the store up until the late 1980s, and then I stepped up when he passed away and it was just too much for my mother to run, so I’ve been the manager ever since,” he said.

Stuart’s Music is located at 851 W. Main Street in Lansdale and can be contacted at (215) 855-4878.