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Chapter 1:- Youth
My first true memories really began at three years of age. I helped Mother feed the chickens. Whether this was really help or just getting me to begin to understand the value of work, I don’t know.
As I look back, I often think about Green Point in Northern Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. It was beautiful and wonderful place for a young boy to grow up. Green Point itself was a green, cool and shady place covered with evergreens so it stood out as green all year round. That is where I, Josiah Morgan Rohrer, was born September 28, 1841. For me it was a momentous occasion, if not for anyone else. My birth was presided over by my two maiden aunts, Aunt Cora and Aunt Annie, highly respected midwives from the City of Palmyra. They may not have been the three wise men, but they were determined to get me off to a good start. After my birth, they asked my mother, Johanna, “Should we keep him or put him back?” With a tired groan, “Keep him,” and I was kept. My aunts were not often given to humor.
Also, it was to be, that my father was called in to examine me. This did not happen with girl children, only boys and then only if they were born with a dark bruise-like marking at the base of the spine. Neither Obie nor Bart had one. I am told I had such a mark, which lasted about one and a half years before it faded. My father declared me a “Black Rohrer”. “Black Rohrers” were usually destined for some form of public service, but only time would tell.
Thank goodness my parents had not been defrauded with a girl child, who for a long time would be just another mouth to feed. Ah, but boys, almost as soon as they could walk, they could work. I don’t remember much before three, but I probably did as my younger brother did. He was four years younger and he would go barefoot behind the plow, playing the game of pick up stones and carry them away. He was also expected to break up clods with his bare feet.
My first true memories really began at three years of age. I helped Mother feed the chickens. Whether this was really help or just getting me to begin to understand the value of work, I don’t know.
