The President's Letter - April 2026

By: Ryan Bowman, HAHS President

April 4, 2026

Photograph procured from Unsplash.

From the president:

That was some winter. Was it not?

I’m certain many of our younger readers scarce recall such a long, brutally cold, and unforgiving season as that which  just passed into the great annals of weather-time history. However, for many of you lovely seasoned lasses and you grizzled, bearded veterans of Pennsylvania’s harsh winters of old, its subtle harshness was just a reminiscent nod from days gone by and perhaps pleasantly forgotten.

Need I remind you of the March blizzard of 1993? The Susquehanna ice-jams and flooding in January of 1996? Now those were some real winters worth remembering. And of course—complaining about.

I was reminded of that as I spent many an evening and weekend afternoon these past few icy months cramped into the cozy corner of our finished basement that not only serves as my workshop and has become home to an eclectic gathering of antiques, hunting gear, vinyl records, and various collections from my days as an active adolescent and scavenging, adventure, story, and history seeking young adult, but also as the storage space for much of our seasonal home décor.

Within the boxes, plastic totes, and folders that compromise this substantial pile, there has for years lived quite a assemblage of newspaper clippings I have compiled or have had bestowed upon me over time as an amateur historian and family-designated genealogist. Yes newspaper. That may be nearly as uncommon as harsh winters to those younger generations I was speaking of earlier.

But, I digress. Back to my point.

Coming upon those old printed pieces, not only did I discover articles of those winters from long ago, but many other local events and more notable national and worldwide historical happenings of significance that I have had the good fortune to witness in my life. As it happened, I also stumbled on stacks and stacks of complete sections of the Upper Dauphin Sentinel (now gone) and the Harrisburg Patriot News (also no more) that I had for some reason mindfully put in boxes years ago. But why? As I flipped repeatedly through so many of their crisp, dry pages, over and over, staining my fingers black with the displaced and aged newsprint ink, I oftentimes could not recollect or discover why I had saved that particular copy from the past.

Photograph procured from Unsplash.

For some unknown reason, the younger me saw fit to keep that distinct bit of history. The passage of time, however, and a complete disregard for those conserved memories over the decades passed, has led to a loss of importance in them, and in turn (for me at least), a loss of meaning. With melancholy pangs of regret, I am afraid that several of these historical gems found their way into the wastebasket.

This entire series of events brought to mind many of the words in my own rantings shared over the years as your society president and as an amateur historian who, as those who know me best can attest, rarely shies away rom sharing his viewpoint on such matters. Simply put, when we disregard history for any reason, it will quickly become lost to us. Pack it away. Cover it up. Dismiss its importance. Forget the meaning, and it will be lost.

At that point, the wastebasket of our common citizenry will overflow with all that used to be historically significant in this country. And when that happens, in the end, we will only have ourselves to blame for such a tragic loss.

So, now that the weather has warmed, please plan to come out and join us at the Historical Society events planned for the rest of 2026. A full schedule can be seen on page seven in this edition of the newsletter. Or better yet, search your heart and see if a commitment of your time, treasure or talents could do even more to help us preserve the past for the future.

Ryan Bowman

April 4, 2026