"The first Dunkles came to the Palatinate in Southern Germany in 1739 and to Eastern Pennsylvania, where my father was born in 1801. His father moved West to the Allegheny mountains when he was a boy. They didn't have bread to eat until they raised a crop. My father walked two miles to the nearest neighbor, hoping to be offered a piece of bread and butter, but Mrs. Hagen didn't give him any. Salt was scarce, too, and he learned to eat food without salt. I can remember that in the Summer when milk was plenty, Mother made milk soup for supper and put very little salt in it to suit Father. The rest of us salted to suit ourselves.
"Father was a mild man. I don't remember that he ever corrected any of us. Mother did what punishment was needed. He died when I was eight-years-old of heart failure. I remember Uncle Peter saying at the funeral, "He was a good brother." After supper, Cyrus and I would make a race to get on his knee. He would take one of us on each knee.