The Sanatoga Post

One look will tell you how terrific those strawberries tasted

Sanatoga baseball great Bobby Shantz was on hand

By Beth Scherer
of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society,
for The Sanatoga Post

SANATOGA PA – Not rain, not strong winds, and not high temperatures and humidity could derail the success of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society’s annual Strawberry Festival earlier this month at the former Sanatoga Chapel on East High Street, its members reported.

Despite the worst Mother Nature might throw at it, they added, it was again a hit with the public’s taste buds and the society treasury.

Oppressive heat and humidity, strong winds that almost blew its tents onto the highway, and a storm’s downpour during the day couldn’t dent the festival’s flavorful atmosphere. Hundreds turned out for the June 11 (2011) event, which served up and sold strawberry desserts to delight the palate. It also provided entertainment from former baseball big leaguers Bobby Shantz and George Moore, and hand-clapping tunes by The O’Such Rhythm and Music Band.

A new fund-raiser tried this year by the society – a raffle of 23 different, merchandise-filled baskets donated by local merchants and its members – earned almost $700.

“Thanks to all who came out that day to support the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society,” it said in a Friday (June 17) e-mail. “An even bigger thanks to all the members who gave so much time prior to, during, and after the festival. We couldn’t have had a great day without the members’ dedication to keeping the history alive in Lower Pottsgrove!”

Good friends shared good eats while attending the festival on East High Street

A basket raffle, assorted bargains, and baked goods sales raised extra income

The John O'Such Rhythm and Music Band provided entertainment

Photos by Glenn Isett

A HOT AND DUSTY PRESERVATION JOB – Ronald Houck, a custom builder who specializes in masonry re-pointing, was busy Monday morning (June 6, 2011) chiseling out old and cracked mortar from between the bricks of the former Sanatoga Chapel on East High Street, which now serves as the headquarters and museum of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society. The society has over several years raised money for the work to help preserve the chapel’s exterior. Society members this weekend thrown open the chapel doors and invite the public to its grounds to enjoy its annual Strawberry Festival.

SANATOGA PA – The former Sanatoga Chapel served for decades as a home for the faithful and a haven for the fervent. Now, as the building needs repair, local residents who once worshiped there as children are doing their best to keep it as solid a structure as they remembered in their youth.

The chapel today is the museum of, and offices for, the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Historical Society. Some of its members will tell you they once attended Sunday School beneath its bell tower and inside its brick walls. Those bricks have come increasingly loose, however, as the mortar that holds them crumbles from age and the elements.

Society members are taking every opportunity to find a few dollars here and there to cover the cost of having the brickwork re-pointed. Last weekend was a prime example, as the society held its semi-annual yard sale Saturday and Sunday (May 1 and 2, 2010) inside and outside the building.

• See a video, above, about the society, the chapel’s exterior restoration, and the weekend sale, or watch it at The Post’s YouTube account.

Proceeds from the two-day event totaled only a few hundred dollars. While that’s nowhere near enough to pay for the thousands of dollars in brick repairs the society has already incurred, Treasurer Barbara Updegrove noted, “every little bit helps.”

The society’s next fund-raiser is scheduled for June 12 (2010), when its annual Strawberry Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the chapel grounds, 2341 E. High St., Pottstown PA. Besides plenty of good things to eat, the day features entertainment by the O’Such Rhythm and Music Trio, and the Pottsgrove High School Show Choir. Several custom cars, provided by Blast From The Past of Sanatoga, also will be on display.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

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Sign outside the Historical Society museum.

SANATOGA PA – The president and vice president of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society, and two members of its museum committee, abruptly resigned from office last week in a leadership rift that one side characterizes as a problem of “negative attitudes,” and the other claims is a problem of “personal agendas.”

Ordinarily, such they-said-we-said bickering would merit little attention beyond the non-profit organization’s 80 dues-paying members. The historical society, however, has received taxpayer-funded contributions from Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township for several years as part of its operating revenue.

It’s unknown what, if any, role the group’s internal strife will play in township decisions about whether its gifts should continue in the tight budget year to come.

President Guy Rogers, 1st Vice President Bob Joos, and committee members Ruth and Butch Rogers tendered their resignations before the start of the society’s meeting last Wednesday (Oct. 14, 2009) in its museum and offices at the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Pottstown PA, Joos reported by e-mail.

In a subsequent telephone interview, Joos said he and the three Rogers family members “had enough” of what he claimed was a constant barrage of “negative attitudes from a few people who regularly attended meetings. We decided we were going to move on,” he said. The four offered the reasons for their actions and then left, according to Joos.

“It was apparent that they had other personal agendas,” society member and former township Board of Commissioners President Thomas Troutman – responding in a separate e-mail – said of Rogers and Joos.

Although both had been elected since 2005 to their society leadership positions, “neither … lived in Lower Pottsgrove Township,” Troutman wrote. “We thank them for all of their efforts and work in the past,” he added.

Troutman, who was the society’s 2nd vice president, this afternoon (Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009) said he had moved into the president’s vacancy. Member John Scherer was appointed 1st vice president, and member David Updegrove was named 2nd vice president.

It was Troutman who, during township budget discussions last fall, urged current commissioners to fully restore Lower Pottsgrove’s contribution to the society after the board announced plans to halve it. That cut was to have been part of a broader move to also reduce contributions to the Sanatoga-based Visiting Nurse Association, the Pottstown Area Seniors Center, and the Pottstown Public Library.

The former Sanatoga Chapel, which the society uses as its headquarters.

Public outcry over the proposal, and particularly its effect on the library, prompted commissioners to restore funding to all four organizations over six months. The money came, in part, from the township savings account, known as a fund balance.

Now a board committee and township staff members are honing Lower Pottsgrove’s 2010 budget. During the board’s Sept. 24 (2009) meeting, Commissioners James Phillips and Stephen Klotz both expressed their desire to avoid a tax increase in the coming year. “That looks harder and harder as the economy gets worse and worse,” Phillips said.

Given the board’s self-imposed limits on how low the fund balance can be drawn, and the fact that township revenues have dropped significantly with the recession, commissioners may conclude budget cuts – including some or all contributions – are among their few options in meeting a no-tax-hike goal.

“It’s way, way too premature to talk about tax rates,” Phillips said in the September meeting.

Only minutes later, township Manager Rodney Hawthorne showed commissioners and meeting audience members a new, decorative blanket depicting scenes from within the township. The fringed, blue-and-white coverings – the township ordered 130 of them – could be offered in a fund-raiser for $50 each, Hawthorne noted, with a partner to do the selling and split the profits.

The suggested partner was the historical society.

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Barbara Updegrove points to brick work needing repair at Sanatoga Chapel on East High Street.

SANATOGA PA – For part of every day during the past week, and for a couple of hours every night, volunteers of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society sorted, priced and set up used treasures inside the former Sanatoga Chapel, the group’s headquarters and museum at 2341 E. High St. They were preparing for the past weekend’s two-day yard sale, hoping to raise enough money to keep the chapel from crumbling around them.

The building’s brick work is badly in need of repointing. Weather and time have caused mortar that once kept its bricks in place to deteriorate. The repair cost could run as high as $8,000, society member Barbara Updegrove of Princeton Avenue guessed.

The society’s annual yard sale is a modest affair. Proceeds it generated Saturday and Sunday (May 2 and 3, 2009) won’t come anywhere near meeting the expense, but the society is scrimping and saving for the day when the repairs will be affordable. Buyers looking for bargains among the donated items created a steady line of traffic into and out of the chapel during Saturday’s mostly enjoyable weather.

Prospective buyers Saturday at the Historical Society yard sale.

Maybe the greatest benefit, members noted, is that newcomers saw both the inside of the landmark church and how much memorabilia it holds. Display cases with historic artifacts, photos and documents collected from Lower Pottsgrove and Sanatoga over decades, is arranged so visitors can get a quick sense of township history with a few glances.

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In the 2300 block of East High Street, Sanatoga.

SANATOGA PA – Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has a whole ‘nother meaning for the term “spring cleaning.”

A PennDOT road crew consisting of a street sweeper sandwiched between dump and sign trucks was busily at work Wednesday morning (April 1, 2009) at 8:50 a.m. on East High Street, just west of Sanatoga Chapel, clearing a winter accumulation of salt and debris from curbs and gutters.

An inevitable dust cloud escaped from beneath the spinning bristles of the sweeper, but that likely was a small price many residents and motorists were willing to pay in exchange for removing the residue from the roadway. What wasn’t left behind seemed to be an improvement.

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