A 1917 photographic post card of 4 generations of a family that originated in Specktown, Lykens Township,Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
Front Row (seated): Kathryn [Dietrich] Gasbarro, born February 1915, great-granddaughter, on lap; Hannah [Rickert] Riegle, great-grandmother; Elizabeth Catherine “Lizzie” Riegle, grandmother.
Back Row (standing): Helen [Hoffman] Dietrich, mother.
The photograph was taken outside the Riegle-Dietrich homestead where Kathryn [Dietrich] Gasbarro was born. Helen [Hoffman] Dietrich‘s mother (Lizzie Riegle) and grandmother (Hannah [Rickert] Riegle) were born in Specktown and resided there all their lives. Hannah purchased this property of about 6 acres after her husband Harrison Riegle died in 1899. It was located on Specktown Road a few farms west of the farm where she and Harrison raised their older children and where Helen was born in 1895. The younger children of Harrison Riegle and Hannah Riegle, namely Mable [Riegle] Evitts and Norman Riegle, were raised on this newly purchased farm and in their later years referred to this property as their homestead.
Hannah Riegle received a Civil War widow’s pension and with the assistance of her sister Rebecca Rickert, her daughter Lizzie, who also worked in Specktown as a midwife, and her younger children and granddaughter Helen, operated this small farm as a completely matriarchal operation.
Helen [Hoffman] Dietrich and her husband William E. “Bill” Dietrich purchased the homestead in 1920 from the Estate of Hannah [Rickert] Riegle who died in 1919. Lizzie Riegle lived with them until she died in 1942. Helen and Bill continued to reside there until it was sold at auction in 1977. Bill Dietrich was known locally as the “Mayor of Specktown.”
Over the years, many family photographs were taken along the east-facing wall of the house, which at the time this photograph was taken was covered with clapboard siding. The house is still standing today [2017] and in use; it is located on Specktown Road across from the V. F. W. building.