The Johnston Bender Family Collection combines photographs, letters, scrapbooks, and business records of two families–the Rev. Elias S. and Anna (Odell) Johnston family of Altoona and Salisbury and the Fred W. and Malinda (Miller) Bender family of Springs. Johnston served as a Lutheran minister in Cambria, Adams, and Somerset Counties from the 1860s to the 1920s. In Salisbury, son Robert H. worked in stores, as a trolley conductor, and the owner and editor of the “Somerset County Star,” Salisbury’s newspaper. Robert’s wife, Caroline (Smith), wrote letters to her daughter every week on Salisbury society, chores, illnesses, and changing times from 1910s-1940s. Fred W. Bender, a Mennonite (later Church of the Brethren), operated a small country store and post office ten miles away. Despite the pressures of a conservative Mennonite society at the time, his children grew up with progressive attitudes and succeeded in business with Bender Shoe in Somerset and Bender Implements in Meyersdale and Somerset. The Bender daughters attended college, played music, and worked with business and their own. When Louise Johnston and “Hike” Bender married, their combined history created a window into the lives of neighboring towns and families with different backgrounds.
This project is made possible in part by Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA)
funds from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and through the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Library Access funds administered by the
Pennsylvania Department of Education, Office of Commonwealth Libraries.
The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website
do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Institute of Museum
and Library Services or the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
