My Grammy’s house was mint green.  It sat at the edge of the road’s curve, making it even easier to see.  I loved visiting her.  My Grammy was my great grandmother.  I remember feeling really proud and lucky that I still had three great grandmas when I was a tween.  Many of my friends didn’t even have grandmas anymore! 

In my Grammy’s house hung a painting by Lawrence Whitaker of The Farm.  Our family no longer owned The Farm, but it was memorialized for all to see in Grammy’s living room, above the couch.  Decades of family photos were taken with it in the background — gone, but not forgotten.

The Farm was located in Salix, Pennsylvania, near the southern end of Cambria County.  It was the home of my great, great grandparents — F.B. and Fanny Horner.   F.B.’s father, Jeremiah S. Horner, purchased the property in 1894 from the estates of Martha and Isaac Sill.1  Family tradition holds that Jeremiah was a cousin of Isaac’s through his mother, Elizabeth Sill.2  Although I have yet to find the proof, my family records say that the “S” in Jeremiah S. stands for Sill.  Many of Jeremiah’s siblings also have an “S” middle initial.

While there were houses on the property when Jeremiah purchased it, The Farm was built in 1906.  It was made of red brick and had a wraparound porch with white columns.  Fanny filled the yards with flowers.  It was such a lovely sight that it was featured in a National Geographic Magazine issue about Pennsylvania in 1935.3  In a family record of this photo, Grammy wrote “I was born, married, and became a mother in this house.”

F.B. and Fanny sold The Farm in 1943 to G.H Miller.4  They retired to Windber, moving in with Grammy and her family.5

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1 Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Orphan’s Court Accounts, volume 9, page 362, Isaac Sill estate account, 12 June 1894; imaged, “Cambria, Pennsylvania, United States records,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-YQSN-99YZ : accessed 8 April 2025), image group number 108195632 > image 411 of 718. 

Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Orphan’s Court Accounts, volume 9, page 363, Martha Sill estate account, 12 June 1894; imaged, “Cambria, Pennsylvania, United States records,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-1QSN-99TS : accessed 8 April 2025), image group number 108195632 > image 412 of 718.

2 ”Fallen Asleep,” The Gospel Messenger, John C. Horner obituary, 26 August 1890, page 14, column 3; H.B. Brumbaugh, The Gospel Messenger, volume 28, no. 1-50, (Mount Morris, Illinois: Brethren Publishing Company, 1890), page 526; imaged Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/gospelmessenger128150brum : accessed 8 April 2025), page 526 of 812.

3  The National Geographic Magazine volume 68 (July 1935) : page 11, specifically photo by Edwin L. Wisherd.

4 Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Deed Book Volume 521, page 256, F.B. Horner to George H. Miller; imaged SearchIQs (https://searchiqs.com : accessed 8 April 2025).

5  1950 U.S. census, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, Windber (town), enumeration district (ED) 56-107, sheet 23, household 180, line 4, Mathias J. Schwer; imaged in  “United States Census, 1950,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62308/records/244185145 : accessed 9 April 2025).