Strawberry Festival Event

  Throughout the day of the 23rd Annual Strawberry Festival, Eileen Patch of Endwell will present "Voices from the Civil War, A Living History Presentation." In historically accurate clothing, Patch will portray her great-grandmother, Sarah Englis in the 1880s as she looks back 20 years to the Civil War while reading excerpts from the letters written by her son, Sergeant George Magusta Englis.

 Patch inherited 59 letters from George Englis, a soldier with the 89th NY Regiment of Volunteer Infantry,  which cover most of the war period. The first was written in October 1961 in Elmira, the last in June 1865 from a hospital in Virginia.
 
Patch's inheritance and her long- time interest in family history led to an intense study of her great uncle's war experience, including trips to battlefield sites and research at military archives. She wrote a book called "This From George" which contains the transcribed letter.