Dutch on the triangle

Cleophas, 26 September 2026

I always start out each post with the feast day or holiday that is listed in old almanacs for the date. Our Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors were tightly bound to their almanacs and this is a nod to that tradition. Sometimes the name listed in the almanac makes me want to learn more. Today’s name “Cleophas” refers to the disciple who saw the resurrected Jesus following the crucifixion on the road to Emmaus — not recognizing him until they all had supper together in Emmaus.

Dates from an old Pennsylvania Dutch almanac

I grew up in Emmaus — not the Biblical village, but the borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The Moravians settled there and, in 1761, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg named the village after the Biblical place. Alongside Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz, it was one of the Moravian centers of the colonial period. It remained a closed community to the Moravians until the mid-19th century.

Since today is associated with the supper at Emmaus, I thought I’d share a curiosity of my collection. Instead of being built around a town square, Emmaus is centered on a triangle — a few blocks southwest of the stately Moravian Church. On the triangle, for almost sixty years beginning in the 1930s, was an Emmaus mainstay: John Gould’s Pharmacy. I have an old matchbook that John Gould’s used for advertising — and, funnily enough it has Pennsylvania Dutch on it. The pharmacy is praised as de apodeek mit alles in de weld ‘the pharmacy with everything in the world.’ A curiosity from a time when you might have heard Pennsylvania Dutch spoken on the triangle.

Matchbook cover from John Gould Pharmacy, Tuliptree Collection