The West Shore Farmers Market

Riley John Katshir of Camp Hill, a soccer player at Lebanon Valley College (Class of 2019) represents the 4^th generation of family ownership of the West Shore Farmers Market in Lemoyne, which was opened by his maternal great-grandfather in the mid-20^th century. When Riley’s mother, Tracy (Garver) Katshir was born her family were living in one of the apartments on the second story of the market house her parents, Donna (Hardin) and Ray A. Garver Jr. (1937-2019), who operated the West Shore Farmers Market founded by Ray’s father as, originally, the Lemoyne Market.

During the years Ray Alwine Garver, Sr. (1898 Londonderry Township – 1958 Silver Spring Township) and his wife Margaret E. (Keville), charter member of Farm Women of Cumberland County Group #6, operated the market he’d founded in a two-story building with 8’’ thick oak beams, the Midway Drum Corps, Enola, gave a public concert in front of the market house in 1935.¹ The Mother’s Club of Boy Scout Troup No. 63 of St. Terresa’s Catholic Church, New Cumberland held a food sale there.² There were many other events there such as livestock and automotive auctions, as recounted in an interview with Riley’s father, Gregory J. Katshir Esq., son of John J. Katshir (1937 Moon Run-2021 Mt. Lebanon, Allegheny Co., PA), a mathematics teacher, Montour High School, Allegheny County and past president of Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics who was inducted into the Pennsylvania Mathematics Hall of Fame for his excellent teaching; John’s wife (Greg’s mother) was Marda (Mulqueen) Katshir, who did her undergraduate work at Westminster College (Class of 1957).³ Greg is 2022 president of the Cumberland County Bar Association and, with his wife Tracy (Garver), owner and operator of the West Shore Farmers Market since 1994. He maintains his law practice in an office on the second floor of the market.

The market was founded by Ray Garver Sr., in April 1950 in response to his perceiving area need and on the heels of his successful market in Hummelstown. He and his wife were members of Silver Spring Presbyterian Church. Son, Ray Jr., one of the first racers at the Silver Spring Speedway, which Ray Sr. also founded, along with the Flea Market there. The founder’s son operated the West Shore Market after his father’s sudden death at the age of 61, which brought him home from college to continue his father’s legacy there. After Ray Jr.’s retirement, management passed to his daughter, Tracy and her husband Greg Katshir, of Camp Hill, creating what was then a three-generation tradition.⁴

The Garver/Garber (Swiss/G: Gerber) history of the family is suggested to have begun with Lutherans Hans Jacob Garver (1693 Bern, SW-1795 PA), his wife and five children, who arrived in Philadelphia in August 1733. The Lancaster Central Market was already a fledgling operation. Hans Jacob, settled his family in Lancaster County. There a “Mr. Garver” was eventually to purchase Christian Binkley’s old grist-mill near Binkley’s Bridge in Eastern Manheim.⁵ Ray Sr.’s father, Simon Garver (1870-1940), was a farmer in Derry Township, Dauphin County. Since the Garver family (misc. lines) has been around for a while, the surname appears as a street name: Garver Trail, E. Hanover Twp., Hummelstown, as Garver Lane in Lewistown, again in Scotland, and in Chambersburg. The ancestral family and its off shoots included many prominent Mennonites and a legacy in farming that extends across the country.⁶

The market was opened on the site of an old strip with 26 market vendors on its ground floor, including Leicht’s Poultry (see founder Vernon R. Leight;1931-2002 Etters) which began a tradition with the market that lasted more than 50 years. West Shore Market has grown far in excess of the number of vendors it began with, serving up more tender wings than the old strip catered to when in service to air flight. Fresh, prepared and gourmet foods are available on the ground floor while fine gifts, antiques, and even a hair stylist are offered upstairs in what had once been apartments such as the one Tracy (Garver) Katshir grew up in. Food vendors include Shaffer’s Meats (a 4-generation family-owned butcher), Clyde Weaver meats (Lancaster), Spring Gate Vineyards, and many others, including the small Pippin Run Farm of Mechanicsburg (founded 1974), which offered fourteen varieties of apples in Fall 2022.⁷

The new doors through which one enters the West Shore Farmer’s Market were built after fire devastated the original building one early winter Monday morning just hours after the games of football Sunday (Feb. 1999). As Greg relates in his interview with CCHS, arson was quickly ruled out but the cause was never determined. He arrived on the scene to huge plumes of fire rising from a new (1998) rubber roof, encouraged by old coal engulfed in the market’s original coal room. The Lemoyne Citizen’s Fire Company and the Wormleysburg Fire Company No. 1 had only just merged, along with the Fairview Township Fire Department of York County to form the West Shore Bureau of Fire. “Our new organization was faced with its first major fire at the West Shore Market, which went to four alarms before under control.”⁸

Greg and Tracy Katshir, already overseeing the market, saw the problem through. By the end of March vendors operated again in another building on the property and in a pole-barn built to offer them temporary space. An all-new 60,000 square foot market house, now with 8” metal beams instead of wooden ones, opened its doors on the original site in mid-June 2000.⁹ It sits at 900 Market Street in Lemoyne, just 1.5 miles from the Market Street Bridge (formerly Camel Back Bridge) over which produce was once carried and cattle were herded to market in Harrisburg. On the 10^th anniversary of the 1999 fire Greg and Tracy, who had garnered proceeds from the sale of reusable shopping bags, gave a check to the West Shore Bureau of Fire in gratitude for their service.¹⁰

The Katshir name may be familiar for another reason: Charlie Katshir, star football player for Cumberland Valley High School and Nittany Lions linebacker (Penn State Class of 2018) and a brother of Riley.¹¹

Their early maternal ancestor, Hans Jacob Garver, settled in the area of the country’s oldest continuously operating farmers’ market (1730). Its junior is Easton’s Market (1752), followed by Old Town Farmers’ Market, Alexandria, VA (1753) to which George Washington sent his produce from Mt. Vernon to be sold. Lemoyne’s West Shore Market also sets an example for Hershey’s newer one (2022). Farmers markets are, as Ray Alwine Garver Sr. well knew, always a welcome presence for community sharing and trade.