Sometimes I have to look around for good stories to tell.  Often when I find something, the people involved just don’t realize that they are doing somethings special.  It’s that way with these two groups this Thanksgiving.

Jeanna Goodwin and her guys, of New Desires Recovery housing, have been making up Thanksgiving baskets for the last few years and distributing them to families in need.  They did it again this year.  With the help of the West Frankford Town Watch and the Frankford Civic Association they found some families who needed some help and visited them Tuesday night with a Thanksgiving gift.  I heard about it and thought you would like to know.

The Second Baptist Church, at Mulberry and Meadow Streets was a beehive of activity tonight.  They were getting ready to serve Thanksgiving dinner to up to 75 people tomorrow.  It is an outreach program that has been going on for the last 18 years.  Ava Miller and Lynne Fant along with Paulette Millerwere cooking up a storm.  Anyone who needs a meal is welcome to come at no charge of course.

We’re over on the West side of Frankford Avenue this week in the 1200 block of Haworth Street.  We’ve been on this block before.

CBS show Sunday morning this week will feature Frankford High School’s Wilma Stevenson.  9:00 a.am tomorrow.

CULINARY EDUCATION: Well Done!
There’s something cooking in the culinary arts program at Frankford High School in Philadelphia, and it’s not just the omelets and cakes. Teacher Wilma Stephenson is giving new futures to the inner-city students who come to her classes.

As seen in the documentary “Pressure Cooker,” Stephenson sees that her students know not only their way around the kitchen – she also prepares them for life after high school. They routinely earn tens of thousand of dollars in a city-wide scholarship program.

Correspondent Jim Axelrod spent a day in Stephenson’s classroom, finding that she doesn’t pull her punches as she pushes her students to be their best. And we catch up with one of her former students, who is now working in an upscale Manhattan restaurant.

Anthony Bannister

I took some time to digest the Northwood Civic meeting of last Tuesday.  As has been reported in NEastPhilly.com by Chris Wink, Anthony Bannister made his case for the group who wants to buy the former New Frankford Community Y property.  They intend to operate it as a for profit enterprise.

Also discussed was the Civic’s plan to file a class action law suit against property owner’s within the Northwood deed restricted area who are renting their properties.  Barry Howell spoke about the necessity of enforcing the deed restriction.  This will not be something that can be done in a short time frame.  In order for this to work, they must first establish who is violating the deed restriction.  That research will take some time.  Then an attorney must take on the case.  Those are hurdles that have to be overcome.

Barry also addressed the issue of absentee owners of non deed restricted properties and the problems that some of them are causing the residents.  He made it clear that those issues are going to be addressed as well.  Again that will not be an easy fight but they are going to take it on.

I have since talked to a few people who attended the meeting and they say they have a degree of optimism.  Well, I kind of go along with that and it has taken me a few days to figure out why.  It’s been a long time since I heard somebody say they were going to do something.  Bannister says they have a vision and they are going to get it done.  Howell says its not going to be easy but we are going to get it done.

Well maybe it won’t be that easy, but I’m tired of hearing people tell me what the can’t do and why.  Let’s hear it for the doers.  Let’s support Northwood Civic by standing behind them in what they are trying to do.

No I don’t live in Northwood but what is good for Northwood is good for Frankford as a whole.

I’ve had too much coffee this morning.  I’m way too caffeinated to be able to write a cohesive narrative about Frankford’s history this morning but I’ve learned a lot.  So I’ve thought of an idea about splitting our history into two kinds of posts, one where I regurgitate the things I’ve learned and the paths of history and the internet to get that learning.  And the other will be a book report.

So this is what’s floating around, I have some pics from my two hours at the Historical Society with Debbie Klak.  One of those pics is of a model of a street car from one of the Castor family.  I’ve got reader Warren who found out the original owner of Blumhaven was F. Hermann.  I heard a nugget that the Greenwoods who built the Globe Dye Works were the original owners of the mansion next door and I’ve got a ghost story to go with it.  You know Horrocks Street?  I know what they called at least one of their houses and some history of the ones that still stand.  Oh and I’ve got picks from the news archives of the first two Frankford hospitals and the family names of the philanthropists who got them started.  You’ve heard of Benedict Arnold?  I’ve got something his wife used to sneeze in.  All of it good stuff.

But what the hell, let’s start with googling for the name of company name for the pic of carriage, Frankford and Southwark.  And boy are people huge into trains so I now have info of Frankford’s place in early 20th century mass transit.  Then I google the owner, Thomas Castor, and find out some good Castor family history.  Now I follow the name Warren came up with and google “Hormann and Frankford” and the second link down leads me to pic from someone named castorbb on webshots.  And just take a look at his albums.  He’s gotta be a Castor decendent because he has a ton of family pics and he has more than a few narratives with his pics.  His Hormann album has a building materials invoice for Blumhaven, plans for Horman’s glass works at Lehigh and Tilton, which I’m absolutely not googling right now cause this will never end.  And why does castorbb, descendant of the Castors, care about F Hormann the original owner of Blumhaven?  Cause Horman’s daughter married into the Castors, here’s the wedding invitation, held at 4651 Leiper Street.  There’s a ton of the stuff in this guy’s ablums, surf through them and check out his descriptions, some of his Castor stuff is really detailed and he even has original pics of Thomas Ellwood Castor’s house on Penn Street.

And now I’m done, I’m throwing up any pics of mine, or ones found on the internet because this post isn’t meant to suplant a proper narrative, which I’ll get to sooner or later.  There’s just a ton of history right there in a half our of googling.  I just want to show where all this stuff comes from.  castorbb’s webshots albums are a real find, check them out through the link below.\

[link]  http://community.webshots.com/user/castorrb