ROOTS & BRANCHES

Some genealogical learning experiences don’t start out as such.

Recently I decided to go on the Centre Park Moonlight Tour of house in the Centre Park Historic District of Reading, an energetic city neighborhood with many Victorian-style homes and examples of other classic architectures. While I had been at a couple of previous events in this district, for the most part it was one of those ignored “in my own backyard” gems to me.

The first “good find” of the tour was that my guide would be Jeanne Cocuzza, who lives in Centre Park and who I’ve come to know as a fellow church member. We’ve also recently discovered (courtesy of the Stoudt family history book profiled in “Roots & Branches” recently!) that we’re seventh cousins and descendants of the same immigrant ancestor.

Prefacing the tour, Cocuzza noted that the Centre Avenue—the main drag, which cuts across the general gridded street plan of Reading at angle—began life as the Centre Turnpike, an 18^th and 19^th century toll road that extended all the way to Sunbury (remnants of which survive today as state Route 61).

Around 1870, the farms in this area began to be developed and many of the “masters of industry” from then-booming Reading built their mansions along Centre Avenue (Soon after beginning the tour, we passed by the stately home of James Carpenter, who founded Carpenter Steel, my father’s employer—and a leading employer of Berks County for decades in its modern-day incarnation CarTech—for most of his working life).

The house tour itself was a carefully curated half-dozen homes that included Queen Anne-style architecture as well as an American Four-Square. Interior styles ranged from classic to eclectic!

The final stop for the Moonlight Tour was a cocktail party at Rose Cottage, which is a misnomer from a size standpoint, owned by Kai Skov, a restaurateur and entrepreneur from Denmark who first made his mark in Pennsylvania in Lebanon County (full disclosure: your “Roots & Branches” columnist had one of the most delightful meals of his life at Skov’s home Brasenhill some 30 years ago!)

At the party, a final genealogy-related surprise awaited. I ended up seated at a table with Donna Bagenstose, a woman who I “knew” only from Facebook, and her husband Kenneth, who turned out to be involved with a Bagenstose family history organization.

While I’m not descended from the Bagenstoses, my seventh-grade locker partner bore that surname, and the Himmelbergers—a family I’m descended from two ways—were neighbors to the Bagenstoses (as well as having immigrant Ulrich Bagenstose be the namesake godfather for my immigrant Valentine Himmelberger’s youngest son).

All in all, the Moonlight Tour was a delightful historical experience! And, yes, there were loads of great Christmas decorations, too!