author
Ezra Grumbine
1845–1923
A small-town Pennsylvania doctor who also wrote history, poetry, and newspaper columns, he helped preserve the sound and humor of Pennsylvania Dutch life in print. His work moves easily between local history and lively dialect writing.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, Ezra Light Grumbine was an American physician, local historian, columnist, and poet. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and spent much of his life in Lebanon County, where he became known not only for his medical practice but also for his writing.
Grumbine had a strong interest in the language and traditions of Pennsylvania German communities. Writing under the dialect pen name "Wendell Kitzmiller," he contributed weekly columns to the Lebanon News and published poems and comic pieces in the Pennsylvania German vernacular, including Der Prahl-Hans: The Ghost, and Other Rhymes.
He also wrote historical essays and pamphlets about local people, churches, schools, and towns, making him an important recorder of regional memory. That mix of doctor, storyteller, and community historian gives his work a warm, grounded feel that still offers a vivid glimpse of everyday Pennsylvania life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.