Kitchen doorway

Digital image (Image#1) of photographic print showing exterior of frame and doorway to lower ground-level kitchen of DeTurk House. Details include: figural folk paintings of birds/animals on door; oak frame; softwood door set at higher elevation than original position as grade was raised to mitigate flooding; vertical framing members of pent hood braces fastened to masonry abutments. Although the creatures on this DeTurk door are not tufted and not as clearly bird-like as the figures on the Sharadin barn/granary door near Kutztown{1}, the DeTurk bipeds might have been intended to represent "elbedritsches" [also elwedritsches"and "Elbetritsches"{2}]. The surviving portion of the Deturk door, including faint remnants of the folk painting, has been removed from the exposed kitchen doorway and will be conserved and exhibited. The areas where paint was applied now stand in relief from ["proud of"] the unpainted and eroded wood surface, having been protected to some extent from surface weathering by the pigments and binders in early paint used to create the images. Images #7 and #8 show the conditions of the residual figures on the early kitchen door from the DeTurk house as of October, 2011. Warding off malevolent mythical influences seems to be a more plausible explanation for displaying these creatures on doors and shutters than the simple depiction of a fictitious creature hunted in the dark of night by gullible boys. Original HABS caption for this image is as follows: "Historic American Buildings Survey, Cervin Robinson, Photographer August, 1958 DOORWAY ON SOUTHEAST SIDE." FOOTNOTES: {1} The Sharadin "door-birds" are depicted and described as "incredibly interesting folk art…[which] appear to be Elbedritsches," in an article by Amanda Lynn McCoy on page 7 of "Es Elbedritsche, A Newsletter of the Pennsylvania German Society," Fall Issue, November, 2008. Like the "snipe" of the "English" culture, the "Elbedritsche" has been hunted unsuccessfully for centuries in Germanic Europe and American Germania. see the illustrated article "This is a Good Night to Hunt Elbedritch, A Scholarly Work on the Lore and Traditions…", By Donald F. 'Abe' Roan, published in The Goshenhoppen Region, Vol. II, No. 1, in 1969, pp.35-37, which also includes notice of an "Elbedritch Trap Building Contest" in conjunction with The Goshenhoppen Folk Festival. The Spring, 2016 issue of "Es Elbedritsch, A Newsletter of the Pennsylvania German Society", includes on pp. 12-13 an essay entitled "The Great Elbedritsch Debate of 1966", which traces the "search for the mythical bird" to the Palatinate, citing various publications discussing its origins and nomenclature. {2} Other European perspectives on the mythological creatures, including allusions to superstition, nightmares, and deterring evil spirits, are discussed in two brief essays in the Pennsylvania German Magazine: "More About Elbetritches," May, 1906 issue, pp. 122-123; and "Hunting Elbetritches," January, 1906 issue, pp. 35-37. Both articles are included in this record as images #2-3 and #4-6, respectively. Laurence Ward, April 2016