Carol Singer, a 64-year-old resident of Quakertown, shared with Glenside Local a clipping from a 1988 edition of Glenside News featuring her great aunt Gertrude Diehl and the family’s estate on S. Easton Road in Cheltenham Township.
According to Singer, Jim Woods, historian for the Glenside Fire Company, got the clipping from the Old York Road History Society in 2025 but did not have an exact source or publishing date.
“He did not say where it came from. He was rooting around and came across this document. I arranged the document and scanned many of the pictures from a book,” Singer said. “I used to go down to see Aunt Gert before and after she moved to Normandy Farms Estates.”
The article, titled “Gertrude Diehl looks back: Remembering Glenside as family’s ‘country town'”, was apparently written by Cindi McCloe. The story chronicles the 100th anniversary of Glenside through Diehl’s artifacts, including box camera snap shots, post cards and written notes.
“Celebrating her 80th birthday in June, she recently pulled out numerous mementos of bygone days to help in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Glenside,” the article says. Glenside was officially named in 1888.
In the article, Diehl recalled Glenside’s bygone toll gates which existed along Easton Road at three intersections: Limekiln Pike, Glenside Avenue, and Jenkintown Road. To avoid paying the five-cent toll, she said, horses and buggies used to ride around the gates.
She also recalled the Diehl family’s four-acre estate at 279 South Easton Road, the former site of a Thriftway Supermarket, according to Glenside News. The family moved into the house in 1904.
Diehl said she was born in the parlor and described her home as “a Spanish style house with red tile roof.”
The estate belonged to Singer’s great grandfather, Samuel Ervin Diehl, Sr. A fire destroyed the home, and the family rented a house on Roslyn Avenue for seven years. According to Glenside News, the Harner Hill School, a now-defunct elementary school, was built in 1907 across the street on the site of what is now the Glenside Post Office.
The above left photo is captioned by Singer:
The estate of my great-grandparents Samuel Ervin Diehl, Sr. and Gertrude Virginia Addis Diehl. Using modern numbering, it was at 279 South Easton Road, Glenside. “It was built especially for them, and they were the only ones to ever live there. The family moved there from West Oak Lane [ Oak Lane ] in 1904…” – Mom. While Mom said it was destroyed by fire in 1937, the Glenside News reports that it actually burned March 12, 1940
Samuel Ervin Diehl, Sr. founded Diehl Motor Truck Works, a manufacturer of motor trucks that were used by many bottlers in the eastern part of the country during the 1920s, according to Singer.
Gertrude Diehl later lived with her brother and sister on Glenside’s Harrison Avenue from 1946 to 1984. In total, she lived in Glenside for 76 years before moving to Normandy Farms Estates, a retirement home in Blue Bell, after the last of her six brothers and sisters passed away.
Gertrude Diehl’s brother, Samuel, wrote personal testimony of his experience with the Glenside Fire Company on the night of the Willow Grove Park fire in the 1930s.
From the testimony:
Back in the thirties there was a large fire in Willow Grove Park. Most all the amusements on the midway were on fire. Glenside got a call for help and so did most all fire companies nearby. It was early in the evening and a very cold winter night, there was no snow on the ground but we expected some and had the chains on the fire trucks. Chas. Fenski drove the 1923 Seagrave Pumper5 [ Seagrave Pumper6 ] and I sat on the front set ringing the bell and cranking the hand siren. We went up Easton Road with the chains clanking, so did not make very good time. As we went past the mountain in the park, a large piece of burning wood fell right in the middle of the steering wheel, we knocked it off and turned left at Moreland Road and then left in the park drive and over the bridge between the two lakes and parked beside the lake near the band pavilion. We pulled the 2 1/2″ hose straight across the lawns to the fire with the help of some spectators; I called to one, “hey boy give us a hand” when I looked at him, I discovered it was Mr. Westphal, who lived a few doors above the fire house and used to belong to the crew, he was old enough to be my father. Chas. Fenski and I hooked up the pump and when we got the call for water we started to pump and every one left, leaving me in charge of the pump. ThePRT [Philadelphia Rapid Transit7 ] came around with a truck loaded with the five gallon cans of gas and oil an asked if we needed any. I told them to come back in about one hour, as I had enough for three hours of pumping. It was very lonely and cold, all I had to do was check the thermometer on top of the radiator cap to make sure it did not heat up, which it never did. I then laid up on the hose bed of the truck over the 4″ exhaust pipe and put a blanket over myself and several times I dozed off, when the governor on the truck slowed down the engine I was right up to check. After pumping for about two hours the RPT [ maybe PRT? ] came back with gas and we filled the tank. They left quite a few five gallons cans of gas with me. What I want to bring out is, our 1923 Seagrave pumped water on that fire for 5 hours and 15 minutes without a stop. There was no other fire company at that fire that pumped that long, some ran out of gas and some trucks froze or heated up and broke down.
From Singer’s caption: This is part of a pre-1927 map of Glenside, Pennsylvania. It shows/labels my great grandfather’s property. Do you see it on the right-hand side of the map? Also note “GLENSIDE PUBLIC SCHOOL” across the street from the property. This is mentioned in the above newspaper article. The Glenside Post Office now calls this property home. Evidently South Easton Road was known as “Germantown and Willow Grove.” You can clearly see Bickley Road
279 S. Easton Road today:
Glenside News was founded in 1923. According to this article from The Reporter, the publication, along with other local papers, was consolidated into regional products by its parent company, MediaNews Group, during the mid-2010s.
The document compiled by Singer is below:
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Photos: Google, Old York Road Historical Society, Carol Singer, Cheltenham Township Image Book