As a Pennsylvania German historian and a collector of PA Dutch folk art, I was nostalgic when I received a phone call from John Eden’s children from up in Rochester, New York, when they let me know that this talented artist at age 92 passed away. I immediately recalled the painting he made for me about my patriotic Bieber ancestors after he served in World War II in the United States Army Air Corps and was discharged in 1945.
Like a number of my Bieber relatives, who also served our nation in World War II, he was so excited when he returned home again, realizing that this terrible War had ended. Knowing that I was a proud Pennsylvania German, he painted a still life painting of Colonial PA German artifacts that were part of the Bieber – Hilbert Legacy, since he married my Aunt Edith when she lived in Allentown.
Her mother, Mary Bieber, still spoke the PA Dutch dialect and had inherited artifacts from their Oley Valley Farmstead, where decorated redware pottery and hand-forged iron candlesticks were still commonplace among the natives. An excellent artist that enjoyed Americana folk art, he was famous for being an award-winning illustrator after World War II in New York state and became a wonderful Uncle who my wife and I shared in family life with.
Since Johannes Bieber migrated from Germany in 1744 and operated a sawmill on the Bieber Creek in the Oley Valley, they were patriotic Americans who drove their Conestoga wagons to the port of Philadelphia and backed the Continental Congress of 1776 engaging in Free Market capitalism. So naturally when the Nazis took over Germany in World War II, my patriotic Bieber uncles enlisted in the armed forces to preserve American ideals.
Richard H. Shaner is director of the American Folklife Institute in Kutztown.
