The Hornberger Cottage, Central Oak Heights, West Milton, Pa., ca. 1920s

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of distinctive houses.

Caption: "The Hornberger Cottage, Central Oak Heights, West Milton, Pa."

The Hornberger Cottage, originally called the Woodlawn Cottage when it was built in 1909, was purchased by Jerome Hornberger (1876-1936) in 1919. Central Oak Heights, located in Union County, Pennsylvania, originated in 1909 as a religious camp meeting affiliated with the United Evangelical Church but is now simply an association of cottage owners.

The Hornberger Cottage was the "grandest of 62 frame homes built at Central Oak Heights," according to Jeannette Lasansky's book, Union County River Towns (Arcadia Publishing, 2011), p. 106. The cottage is notable for its wide porch on the first floor and balconies on the second and third levels. The porch and balconies were all later enclosed, as shown in a photo published in the booklet, Central Oak Heights, 100 Years, 1909—2009: Cottage Histories (PDF, 2009), p. 18.

In this photo, we see that a man and six women are standing in front of the cottage or sitting on the porch. I found it strange that another woman is standing by herself on the second-floor balcony. A cropped version of the photo provides a closer look at the woman and reveals that she's wearing dark glasses, suggesting that she may be blind.

After checking further, I believe that the woman on the balcony is Grace Hornberger (1899-2007), who was Jerome's daughter. Grace lived to the age of 108, but she became blind at the age of 18 due to unknown causes (see Karen Blackledge, "Area Woman, Blind Since Youth, Listens to Books," an otherwise unidentified newspaper clipping from 1999 posted to Find a Grave).