Letters: Voting made easy; Benninghoff owes constituents an explanation

Voting made easy

Three cheers for the Centre County Elections Office. Online application for mail-in ballot: Easy! Sending of ballot package: prompt! Email message saying ballot was received by elections office: Fantastic! Once again, our local civil servants are doing a great job.

A sense of belonging

A young lady called me today to secure my pledge to vote.

I happily complied.

For in democracy the sovereignty is shared. And this is both an honor and a privilege and a great responsibility.

We belong to each other in the city. And this belonging is the center of our personality and our identity.

How great is this city?

As the stoics say, it is under all the shining stars. The universe comes home here to our mutual moral belonging and citizenship.

There was a time in my youth when I bonded to the land and discovered America.

But this breaks down in part at the border into us versus them and is no longer acceptable.

The rabbis say “when one is here, all are here.”

Let us look deep into each other’s faces and see that this is true.

Benninghoff owes constituents an explanation

News recently broke that a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives tested positive for COVID-19 and several others were quarantined as a precaution, and that this information was withheld from members for weeks even as potentially infected members went about their business in Harrisburg unmasked. As a result, a large number of Pennsylvania lawmakers and their families have been unwittingly exposed to COVID-19.

The most outrageous part is that House Republican leadership, of which Rep. Kerry Benninghoff is a high-ranking part, deliberately withheld this information, jeopardizing the health and safety of their colleagues and their colleagues families. As one of Rep. Benninghoff’s constituents, I fully support Rep. Brian Sims in his call for an investigation of House Republican leadership, including Rep. Benninghoff. He owes his colleagues in both parties and his constituents answers about what he knew, when he knew it, and why he deliberately withheld that information.

And he owes his colleagues, and their spouses and children, a sincere apology for putting them in harm’s way.

Looking for family connections

I am hoping to enlist your assistance in contacting the next of kin (or someone who can put me in touch with them) of Dr. Norman Reeh Ingraham (Jr.) who was born in 1909 and died in 1997.

His last address was Shawn Circle, State College. Dr Ingraham was with the Public Health Department of Philadelphia from 1952 to 1972.

There is a family connection to my father, whose christened name was also Reeh and I recently came across correspondence between D.r Ingraham and my father dating back to 1973-1974. From that correspondence, it appears that Dr. Ingraham and his wife had at least one daughter — who was married to a German fellow from whence the name Reeh originates. I’m not aware if there were other siblings.

I am currently doing some research on our family tree and would like to share some of the information I have found so far with any members of the Ingraham family who may still be alive. I can be reached at mpaultaylor@yahoo.ca.