Samuel Kitner (Butcher), George Kitner (Cattle Dealer), and George W. Strock (Grocer) of Carlisle

Our subjects were among butchers and grocers in Carlisle who largely predated or experienced a variety of innovations, including refrigerated and frozen cases. Canning itself was only perfected in 1858 by John Landis Mason, his air-tight glass Mason jars later licensed by the Ball Brothers (1884). When Samuel S. Kitner (1872-1943), his brother George (1869-1960), and grocer George W. (G. W.) Strock (1854-1925) were living, delicacies were limited but began to include such things as oranges sent by rail from Florida just in time for their children's' or grandchildren's' Christmases. Their own childhood evenings were spent in candlelight or a similar means since only half of all U.S. homes had electricity by 1925.

Samuel S. Kitner was a son of John Kitner/Ketner (1842-1903 Tyrone/Spring Townships, Perry County) and a grandson of Jacob Kitner (1814-1873), a line stretching from child immigrant (1733) Hans Heinrich Kitner/Ketner (1723-1789). Samuel married Elva Eliz. Kane. At one time or another living at 513 N. Bedford and 141 E. North Streets, Carlisle, they had nearly 10 children. Elva was a daughter of Susan B. Dum (Swiss/G: Thommen) and farmer David Rittenhouse Kane (1851-1928) whose apple orchards in Spring Township may have fed Samuel’s own family and perhaps found their way into his butcher shop.

Samuel’s brother George Austin Kitner was a cattle dealer who operated a wholesale/retail meat business in Carlisle. George and his wife Elizabeth J. Kistler raised a daughter Nellie Marie (1900-1991), wife of Lawrence Lutz Diller (1900 Boiling Springs, PA – 1967 FL), whose grandmother, Rosanna (Lutz) Diller (1822-1885) was in descent from the family associated with Casper Lutz, wagon and casket-maker, whose business was a forerunner of the Lutz Funeral Home of old Carlisle. Nellie and Lawrence had 3 daughters.

George Kiter moved from his native Perry County to 302 No. Bedford St., Carlisle, in about 1900, the same year as the births of his daughter and her future husband.¹ Just about when George moved to town, the “Carlisle” cattle barons bearing that name as a surname now folded after several years of drought, an increasing prevalence of sheep farmers, and declining beef prices less than a decade after beginning their Utah based business (1883) as the Carlisle Cattle Company. For George A. Kitner and other dealers in Carlisle, PA there were plenty of cattle in farm rich Cumberland County. George was about 3 years older than Samuel, whose butcher shop likely benefited from George’s dealings.

Samuel’s 1^st born child, Frank (1905-1971) was one of the directors of the Carlisle Building and Loan Association.² Samuel’s 8^th child was a daughter, Janet Susan “Susie” (B: 1920), wife of Ralph R. Rowe, who was a member of the 25 Year Club at C. H. Masland and Sons Carpets. Susie’s younger brother Harold (1918-2002) was lead mechanic for Eastern Airlines, Miami, FL. When Samuel came in for his supper each night there was a present sorrow for another child, Bruce (1910-1955), had been born severely retarded.

Samuel’s 5^th child, Paul played football for Carlisle High School. He was an army corporal serving as a driver (PA 69^th Div.) during WWII. Among his siblings was brother Maynard (1915-1993), a former Carlisle postmaster. Maynard’s son, Michael “Mickey” L. Kitner (1944-2000), was a national expert in restoring antique mechanical/musical instruments such as player and reproduction pianos, the Wurlitzer organ, and circus merry-go-rounds enjoyed by the families of farmers and others nationwide.³

For brothers Samuel and George Kitner and for George W. Strock there had been and would be many changes in the food industry. The 1^st pork processing plant had opened in 1818 (Cincinnati). As cities grew, meat packing plants increased, especially after 1928.⁴  Train tracks had spread across the land. Cumberland Valley Railroad’s first train rolled through Carlisle in 1837, at one time charged by an enraged bull that had gotten loose from one of the local butchers. Ice cooled rail cars were introduced (1881). Meat could then be transported great distances.  The Newport & Sherman’s Valley Railroad’s first car rolled into Blain in 1892, conveying farm and forest products to market.

The U.S. meat packing industry was also forever changed by several other factors, including the Civil War, which required large quantities of meat for the troops involved. WWI had a similar effect. Rationing during WWII put many butchers out of business when there was a call for stew meat, sausages, and meat pies requiring less meat.

By the 1960s, about the time of George Kitner’s death, butchers began to disappear until a preference for them began to resurface as the 21^st century opened. Many of their meat cuts and joints date back to the Victorian era when these began to gain in fashion and greater affordability than in previous years.

The grocery industry also experienced changes. Little ice in the U.S. during 1889-1890 hampered the use of a tin or zinc lined ice box or ice cellar, putting food preservation on a different track such as salting or smoking meats. The first grocery store refrigerator appeared (1915 in Indiana), compressing gas into a liquid that absorbed heat. Carlisle grocer George W. Strock (1845-1925) and his wife Barbara Anna Herman (1861-1950) lived on N. Hanover Street just after it turns a bend in the road and continues toward the entrance to Spring Road leading to Sterretts Gap. Here George W. Strock and his wife raised their 4 children.

Two years before George’s death, the forerunner of Giant Food Stores began when Carlisle’s David Javitch (1899-1974) opened a two-man butcher shop, the Carlisle Meat Market, at 18 No. Hanover Street between E. High and Louther Streets and near Dickinson Avenue.⁵ The Javitch family lived on Highland Court, which forms the cross bar of a “T” with the then youth filled Ridge Street, or a doubled-bar “I” if S. Hanover is included.

The “Strock family is an old and honored one in Cumberland County, PA” and includes significant branches in Churchtown.⁶ George Strock was four years old when Mason introduced his air-tight canning jars but he was only ten years away from death when compression refrigeration began in 1915. His ancestry leads back to child immigrant (1757) Joseph Strock (1748-1832) and wife Betsy Bensinger, who moved to Carlisle from Valley Forge, Berks County.⁷

Among descendant George’s children there was, most notably, his 1^st born, Rev. Dr. J. (John) Roy Strock, a graduate of Dickinson College (1903) and Lutheran Evangelical Seminary (Gettysburg, 1908). Roy became a missionary in Telugas, India (1908-1949).  He was Andhra Christian College (Guntur) professor (1909) and later principal. Whenever he or his wife, Elizabeth, visited Carlisle there was always quite a lot of interest and excitement, with frequent notice of their visits and speaking engagements in local newspapers.

In grocer Strock’s family, an ancestral uncle, Jacob Strock (1793-1872), a son of the immigrant mentioned, married Salome Hench, a granddaughter of Zacharia Rice and Abigail Hartman on whose property the Yellow Springs Hospital was built in Chester County at the request of General George Washington during the Revolutionary War.⁸

In the 21^st century, we find the Strock surname recurring in a familiar vein with Strock Enterprises Inc. of Mechanicsburg providing the area with The Catering Barn as well as The Corncrib, and carrying on a tradition bred of farming, butchering, and shopkeeping. The company grew out of a dairy farm formed in 1914 by the grandfather of the owner of these venues.