Jamie and Domi’s YoCo Backstory
The situation
Historian Jamie Noerpel & Archivist Domi Miller are conversational. They’re fun. They’re passionate about local history. Without flinching, they take on challenging stories about York County’s past. Their base is the northeastern York County village of Newberrytown. That’s where they live. And they move to sites around YoCo to talk about their native county. They are the co-hosts of Hometown History.
Jamie, an educator and community leader, holds a doctorate in American studies, blogs about local history and culture and operates this digital site, WitnessingYork.com. Domi, a federal court archivist, holds a master’s degree in library science and local history and moderates the Preserving the History of Newberrytown Facebook group. She is a Civil War re-enactor in the 87th Pennsylvania.
Here are some of the goals driving Jamie and Domi and “Hometown History,” complete with a YouTube channel and podcast.
- To introduce next generations of York County residents to York County history.
- In so doing, present the history of all people in a way that has weight and is winsome
- To test, refine and practice a conversational way of storytelling about history.
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In Season 5, Episode 1 of “Hometown History: Jamie and Domi’s YoCo Backstory,” Jamie and Domi explore Tom Davidson’s do-it-yourself project to relocate an iconic sign from a threatened Springettsbury Township motel in a show titled: “Sign of the Times: Modernaire Motel’s classic marquee to get new life.”
Description: Those icons of old American roads – motels, drive-in theaters, bowling alleys and diners – made travel possible and interesting. Today, the Modernaire Motel in Springettsbury Township is among those retro places along the Lincoln Highway that is long closed and facing an uncertain future. Hometown History’s Jame Noerpel and Dominish Marie Miller talk about Lincoln Highway historian Tom Davidson’s project to preserve the Modernaire’s vintage sign as a way to preserve the memory of this old motel that for decades beckoned scores upon scores of motorists to stay overnight.
Episode 1 will be live streamed in the Retro York and Preserving the History of Newberrytown Facebook groups at 3 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 17. There will be no live audience.
Season 5. Episode 1: “Sign of the Times: Modernaire Motel’s classic marquee to get new life.”
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The next presentation of “Hometown History: Jamie and Domi’s YoCo Backstory,” Jamie and Domi talk about York County’s murder of the 20th century, the Hex Murder and subsequent trials of 1928 and 1929. This is a reboot of a Season 4, episode 12.
Description: The Hex Murder of 1928 has rightly scored the tag as York County’s crime of the 20th century. You have three guys, including two teens, killing a farmer in a remote part of the county in the days before Thanksgiving. The trio went to Rehmeyer’s Hollow to break what they believed was a malevolent spell that Nelson Rehmeyer had cast on them. Something went awry, and they killed Rehmeyer, a benevolent practitioner of the Pennsylvania Dutch practice of powwowing that combined folk religion with healing rituals. Their subsequent murder trials gained international attention when witchcraft came out in testimony and embarrassed the York County community. In the end, the work of the York County judicial system brought justice, calmed a community on edge and prompted the beginning of the end of powwowing as a common local healing practice.
This episode was presented before an in-person audience at 7 p.m., Jan. 22, at 12341 Susquehanna Trail South, Glen Rock, sponsored by the Shrewsbury Township Recreation.
Hometown History: The story of Hex Hollow & Pennsylvania Dutch powwowing. This presentation is 4.12, streamed from the Burning Bridge in Wrightsville in 2024.
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In Season 5, Episode 2 of “Hometown History: Jamie and Domi’s YoCo Backstory,” Jamie and Domi explore presidential visits to York County, including a discussion about Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit to Dallastown in 1966, in a show titled: “When LBJ came to Dallastown and other stories of presidential visits to York County.”
Description: With Jimmy Carter’s recent death, some people wondered whether he ever visited York County. Of course, he did, as a candidate in 1975. York County is the place to visit, as more than 30 other presidents, ex-presidents or presidential hopefuls can attest. The county sits in the middle of things – close to Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg and its national park and cemetery. And Harley-Davidson has beckoned U.S. presidents to get on the bike. So our presidents have come and gone.
Episode 2 was streamed on Retro York and Preserving the History of Newberrytown at 6 p.m., Jan. 29, at the Dallastown Area Historical Society. There will be no in-person audience.
Season 5. Episode 2, Part I: “When LBJ came to Dallastown and other stories of presidential visits to York County.”
Season 5, Episode 2, Part II: “When LBJ came to Dallastown and other stories of presidential visits to York County.”
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In Season 5, Episode 3 of “Hometown History: Jamie and Domi’s YoCo Backstory,” Jamie and Domi explore the Marquis de Lafayette’s visits to York County and those visits in public memory in: “Fighting Frenchman Lafayette’s brief visits left long legacy in York County.”
Description: The Marquis de Lafayette’s spent less than a week total in his visits to York County, but his legacy marks our landscape: the sculpture outside the Gates House, a former men’s club, a street near York’s oldest park and the name of the nicest banquet room at WellSpan Park. In the February episode of Hometown History, Jamie Noerpel and Dominish Marie Miller tell about this French nobleman who came alongside America’s quest for independence in the American Revolution.
Episode 3 was livestreamed on Retro York and Preserving the History of Newberrytown at 4 p.m., Feb. 3, on the southwest plaza of York’s Continental Square.
Season 5, Episode 3: “Fighting Frenchman Lafayette’s brief visits left long legacy in York County.”
The Witness
Hometown History: Season 1, show notes.
The questions
One of Jamie and Domi’s goals is to engage the next generation. They’ve found that, if local Facebook audiences are any indication, at least half are above 50 years in age. To fuel local history interest in those south of 50, these videos, with podcast, are meant to reach a broader audience, interesting people of all ages in York County history. However, this is just the first step. How else can we get our kids and grandkids into history?
Related links and sources: Top photo, Burning Bridge in Wrightsville, scene of several Hometown History episodes.
— By JAMIE NOERPEL and JIM McCLURE
