"A fascinating narrative history..." West Virginia History (Journal); "Sean Duffy's book brings Wheeling's vibrant and diverse heritage to life again." -author George Fetherling

Davis Grubb said it best...

"It was, of course, the financial capital of Wheeling's old German and Anglo-Saxon families which built the great factories, but it was the hands and back, the blood and marrow of the people with the barbaric, unpronounceable names -- Serb names and Czech names-- Polish names -- Hungarian names -- who shoveled the valley full of iron and then gave it their spirit to make it steel.

...Here in the cramped, dun-colored mill homes below and above Wheeling, awaits the human resource from which she may tap the energy of fresh aspiration, new invention and put the novel resourcefulness of her past to the usages of survival. Here dwell the peoples of lasting metal whose steel is the alloy of the hundred cultures and tribes of a vanished Europe. Serb, Croat, Greek, Slovene, Czech, Slovak and Montenegrin and Pole. Their singing tongues lit and ring in myriad babble on the bus to Benwood: voices rise in ‘sprechtgesang’; ―words made music – frail as eggshell, speech as sweet as Bartok folksongs from arid Bohemian plain."

--Davis Grubb, "The Valley of the Ohio," published in Holiday magazine, July, 1960

Friday, December 21, 2012

Join the Family for Christmas...

Hello. If you need a copy of The Wheeling Family Volume 2, More Immigrants, Migrants & Neighborhoods as a last minute Christmas gift (very thoughtful of you!), copies are still available at The Wheeling Artisan Center Gift Shop at 14th and Main Streets on the 2nd floor above the River City Restaurant, at the UPS Store in the plaza off Washington Avenue, and at the Wheeling Hospital Gift Shop. The Ohio County Public Library has a few copies left at the circulation desk ($1 goes to the library if you buy one there), and I have some copies that I'm happy to deliver right to your door. Just send me an email at lunchwithbooks@yahoo.com.

Join the Family this Christmas!
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