Tag: American Essence

A Pennsylvania Steam Locomotive from the Industrial Revolution Era Gets a New Lease on Life

The hiss of steam. The smell of coal smoke. The blaring of the horn. All are in the air again. The East Broad Top Railroad (EBT) is back on track. In February, “Number 16” emerged from the repair shop after 67 years in mothballs, ready to resurrect the sights and sounds of narrow-gauge steam railroading….


Typewriter Magic: How Grandma’s Special Gift Inspired a Lifetime of Dreams

Can I tell you a story? It’s one with deep roots that reaches across several state lines, spans a couple generations, and connects the present with yesteryear as if there were no moments between the two. It begins with my maternal grandmother, Grandma Rushing. Grandma Rushing came to live in my home state of Louisiana…


The Army of Children That Saved Their City From Floodwaters

Forty-one years ago this March, the citizens of Fort Wayne, Indiana, were in a desperate battle against rising floodwaters threatening to utterly engulf their city. And they were losing. Mountains of piled-up, heavy winter snow—81 inches had fallen that season—combined with an unseasonably warm March thaw, had swollen the St. Joseph, St. Marys, and Maumee…


Why I Love America: Stowaways to a Promised Land Forged Their Own Paths

“America,” I imagine she whispered tearfully. “You’ll be safe there—and free. Trust in God. Become good husbands and fathers. I love you always.” After one last embrace, she hurried her young, terrified boys onto the steamship under the cover of night. At dawn, the brothers cautiously sneaked to the top deck in hopes of catching…


Book Recommender: A Refreshing Bestseller Saluting the True and Proud History of America

The weighty, 944-page “A Patriot’s History of the United States,” originally published in 2004, has been lauded by mainstream press as “refreshing” in its absence of a political agenda or social rebuke. Numerous pages of research notes and cited sources back up its content, which goes “From Columbus’s Great Discovery to America’s Age of Entitlement,”…


Faith-Based Clinic Treats the Poor and Uninsured, Without Resorting to Government Aid

When Dr. Scott Morris first opened Church Health at 1210 Peabody Avenue in Memphis in 1987, he saw 12 patients that first day. Today, Morris’s efforts to serve the uninsured and underserved people have surpassed 80,000 at his expanded primary care clinic in downtown Memphis. His mission? To successfully establish a faith-based health care not-for-profit…


Butterfly Mama: Fashion Photographer Raises Over 1,000 Monarch Butterflies, With Young Daughters’ Help

Every time Elle Muliarchyk Johnson watches a butterfly emerge, she remembers marveling at the loud thumping of her daughter’s heart: “Something so tiny and so delicate, and it’s pushing so, so hard inside her chest to grow and to become the beautiful butterfly that this human being will become. It was this most incredible moment,…


The Revolutionary War General Who Coined New Hampshire’s Motto, ‘Live Free or Die’

In the wilderness of New Hampshire within miles of his home, John Stark, a young frontiersman in the 1700s, was taken captive by a party of Native Americans. He was with three friends, one of whom was killed and scalped. His older brother, William, managed to escape thanks to some quick maneuvering, but John and…


Pinky MacArthur: Behind the Great General, Stood a Great Woman

Good mothers encourage their children, guide them when they face trials, and when necessary, gently push them to strive for excellence. Even after the kids enter college or join the workforce, Mom is just a phone call away, ready to offer advice or a shoulder to cry on. “Life doesn’t come with a manual,” the…


The New York Restaurant Where Grandmas Run the Kitchen

At Enoteca Maria, grandmas rule the kitchen. Hailing from all over the globe—Argentina, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Taiwan—they come to cook at this tiny restaurant on Staten Island, New York—a stone’s throw away from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. They’re known as the “nonnas of the world”—“nonna” is Italian for “grandmother”—a rotating cast of…