World War II

The Gillespie family would be surprised to know that the headquarters of the Atlantic Refining Company at 260 South Broad Street in Philadelphia is now a 22-story luxury apartment building.…

He was Jimmy as a boy and Jim as an adult, the sixth of eight children, although one died at nine months. His father was a driver for American Railway…

When Charles was born in Salerno, Italy, his given name was Angelo DiLisi. He and his parents, Domenico and Giuseppa, and younger brother, Carmine, changed their names when they arrived…

Aniline Village is a little neighborhood in Claymont, New Castle County, Delaware and within shouting distance of the Pennsylvania state line. That was Henry’s official place of birth but within…

There were three Burns boys growing up in the 1930s in a Philadelphia neighborhood called Southwark, and they attended Southwark School. The name dates back to the colonial era when…

Americans of German ethnicity faced various kinds of discrimination in the first half of the 20th century, which is why many of them changed their names. This family did not.…

Bill’s parents were William Sr., born in 1887, and Mary Glasgow, born in 1893. Not much more is known about them other than Mary’s brief but prior marriage. She had…

Three generations of this Philadelphia clan were named John H. Austin. The first was in the Civil War and belonged to two veterans organizations, the Grand Army of the Republic…