As a genealogist, Lenore Embick Flower was very much aware of her ancestry. It may be proper, therefore, to begin with a mention of her immediate ancestors: John Dunbar and Agnes Waugh Greason Dunbar. A tombstone marks their grave at Carlisle's First Presbyterian Church-Meeting House Springs Cemetery. On the reverse side of the headstone are the names of six of their children who died of diphtheria during the 1850s. The sole surviving child was Mary Elizabeth Dunbar, mother of Lenore Embick Flower.1
After the death of John Dunbar in 1869, Mary, as she was called, and her mother moved to Carlisle where Mary met Milton Addison Embick who had been born and reared on a farm near Greencastle that the family called Rose Hill. His parents were John Embick and Sarah Catherine Fohl. Milton was their only son and the eighth child in a family of ten children.2 In the late 1850s, he returned to his family's original homestead in Lebanon where he studied at the Lebanon Academy.3
During the Civil War, Milton A. Embick served in the Union Army as a private in the Third Division, Ninth Corps. Following the war, he returned to aid in the management of his father's farm. In the Fall of 1874 he became the first Democrat from Franklin County to be in the Pennsylvania legislature, serving until 1876. During this two-year term of office the Democrats were in the majority. Because of his familiarity with parliamentary procedures, he was often called upon to preside over the House.5 During the 1870s, eleven trains traveled each way daily across the Cumberland Valley to and from Harrisburg. Representative Embick, a family friend of the Dunbars, often stopped in Carlisle where he courted his future wife.6
On Christmas Eve, 1874, Mary Elizabeth Dunbar married Milton A. Embick in the parlor of a brick townhouse at 166 West Pomfret Street, Carlisle, the present residence of Dr. Milton E. Flower. Somehow, one hundred guests crowded into the Dunbar home to witness the ceremony.7
"In 1880, Mr. Embick moved to Boiling Springs where he was for some years engaged in the me rcantile business with his brother-in-law."8 Mary and Milton Embick, known as Dunbar, attended Dickinson College and was graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1899. Dunbar's distinguished military career included being a "member of the American Section of the Supreme War Council (during WWI) and then a Member of the American Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1918-1919."9 He rose through the ranks of the military and became one of six generals raised in 1939 to the rank of Lieutenant General.10 He retired from the military in 1941 and was shortly thereafter recalled from retirement because of the imminence of World War II. His many assignments during WWII included the Chairmanship of the "Joint Strategic Survey Committee ... (Which he) directed .. . in its preparation of the over-all strategic plans for the American participation in World War II."11
The second child was James Bayard Embick, who owned a railroad supply company based in Baltimore. The youngest of the three, born November 8, 1883, was then known as Mary Lenore Embick, and is the subject of this paper. She was doted upon by her entire family especially her Father.12
Mary Lenore Embick spent her youth in Boiling Springs. Unfortunately, little is known about her early years. Perhaps her first of many public appearances occurred when she was fifteen. Her father became well known in Grand Army of the Republic circles and was elected Secretary of his Division, the Ninth Corps, Army of the Potomac. General John Hartranft, later a Governor of Pennsylvania, was the division commander.13 The men of the Division organized a committee that included Milton Embick to commission a statue that would serve as a tribute to their Civil War leader. At the fifth reunion meeting of the Division, on May 11, 1899 the eve of the statue's presentation, the following is recorded regarding Milton's daughter: "At this meeting the action of the (equestrian statue) commission in selecting Miss Mary Lenore Embick to unveil the monument was approved, and by resolution duly passed, Miss Embick was selected as the daughter of the division."14 On May 12, 1899, Lenore unveiled the life size statue of horse and rider during the dedication ceremony. This statue remains today, nearly a century later, in Capitol Park, Harrisburg as a memorial to General Hartranft.
In 2008, the daughters of John S. Steckbeck donated his research collection to the Cumberland County Historical Society. Steckbeck was a professor of physical education at Dickinson College from 1946-1955. He was also a backfield coach, track coach, swim coach, and a trainer for the college. When he was not busy with sporting events, he spent his time with music.