Lancaster County Family Ties

Ralph Garner was an amazing man.  By his own admission, with only a 2nd grade education he worked hard and raised a family. He had a amazing amount of common sense.  His oldest daughter remembers sitting at the kitchen table working on her homework, while at the other end of the table her Mom was teaching Ralph how to read using the family Bible and the newspaper.  My memories of him include him proudly reading the Lancaster newspaper from cover to cover. I don't remember seeing him write, but he had no problem in the math area of figuring out money. I think he was a classic example of taking lemons and making lemonade.  His life could not have been easy, especially as a child and young person. When I was growing up, "the scandal" was still being whispered about - even though at that point he was grown with children and grandchildren.  You see, his parents were not married when he was conceived, which is not necessarily a scandal. The story goes like this: When Cora Gro