by Geoff Fox
Wanting to preserve local history, Faye Younker clipped newspaper and magazine articles about Hancock and other subjects from the 1960s up until shortly before her passing 2020.
Now, roughly 80 binders and hardback books from her handmade collection are being donated to the Hancock Historical Society and Hancock War Memorial Library.
Younker was a substitute school teacher for 25 years in Washington County Schools where students called her “Grandma.”
One of the original founders of the Hancock Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, Younker enjoyed history and gardening, just being outside, and animals.
Outside their house, the Younkers had a garden, near where Pat’s Hair Design is located.
Her son Kevin Younker said his mother would go in the garden up until the last couple months of her life.
When she would go out into the garden, Faye would sit like a baseball catcher and do the garden work.
“The women at Pat’s Hair Design, they couldn’t get over how flexible she was at that age,” Kevin said. His mother was 94 when she passed away.
Younker said people would keep articles and magazines for her.
Kevin Younker said his mother received an award for 50 years with the Auxiliary.
“There was only, at that time, a couple people that had more time in than she did,” he said.
Younker said his father was a member of the Hancock Fire Department for a number of years and his mom would do bingo and be one of the last people in the kitchen preparing food.
As far as scrapbooking, Faye Younker did “just about everything with it,” Kevin said.
What was donated to the library and Hancock Historical Society isn’t her entire collection of scrapbooks.
Younker said there were still more scrapbooks that needed to be given to individual people his mother knew over the years.
“I still have a couple to try and get rid of,” he said.
The scrapbooks cover Hancock history for well over 50 years, ranging from life events to the construction of Interstate 68 going through Sideling Hill.
There’s also family histories, Hancock schools, Camp Harding in Pectonville, Hagerstown Baseball, Big Pool and Pectonville industries, Hancock Fire Department, and other bits and pieces of Hancock life.
Part of Faye Younkers scrapbooking was also part of her substituting at the schools.
Kevin Younker said when his mother was substituting at one of the schools, there was a book with the names of veterans of WWI and she wrote each name down she could from the Hancock area.
“She was interested in all that kind of stuff,” he said.
In fact, Kevin still has a large box of WWI articles from newspapers. He said it could be headed to the Hancock Historical Society in the near future.
Younker said his mother would go on trips and look through phone books, get addresses of people she was interested in, and write them to get history that way as well.
Some of Faye Younker’s research came about by her going through cemeteries and searching gravestones.
Faye would also go to churches and courthouses to research history and events as well.
“She just liked research and history and things like that,” Kevin Younker said.
In the quiet room of the Hancock Library, there are still a few boxes of Fay Younker’s memories that haven’t been displayed.
Before The Herald-Mail in Hagerstown became a paper, the Younkers would get The Morning Herald and people would save her The Evening Mail, Younker said.
He said his mother would buy Cracker Barrel magazine as well.
“I honestly don’t remember half the stuff she had,” he said, “but she called herself a packrat for having all this stuff here.”
Younker said for the last five or six years, his mother would cut things out of the newspaper, but she wouldn’t attach the articles to the pages in the books. He did that once she passed.
“She scrapbooked probably up until two months before she passed,” he said.
Younker said he wanted to donate the scrapbooks to the Historical Society and library because his mother wanted people to look up stuff if they heard things and set rumors straight.
“She wanted to keep it here in Hancock as much as we could and we wanted to keep it here at the library,” Younker said.
He added his mother wanted people to remember what all happened in Hancock and the surrounding area.
The goal was to keep the binders at the library, but there were some roadblocks keeping that from happening.
While the library is open Tuesday through Saturday, the binders won’t be staying there. Instead they’ll be heading to the Hancock Historical Society.
The Historical Society is only open on Saturday for a couple hours or by appointment.
One binder will remain at the library –a binder on the history of the libraries in Hancock.
The binder contains clippings of pictures and articles of the original library location through the locations on Main Street to the locations in Widmeyer Park to the current location.
“It was a long time doing all that and she was very devout in doing it,” he said.
Younker said his mother would take two or three hours a day to do her scrapbooking until she couldn’t do it anymore.
With a chuckle, Younker said it was a little difficult trying to organize his mother’s scrapbooks, as she didn’ t have it all organized. He only arranged a couple of the books.
“She was interested in it and it was one of her things she enjoyed, so that’s what she did, just like the garden,” Younker said.
The display at the library has a picture of Faye Younker with “A Labor of Love, A Life Well Documented, The Archival Collection of Faye Younker” on the wall and the shelving unit under it full of binders. Beside the couches is another shelving unit that has even more of the binders.
Younker said everything has been well received and people have been looking and talking about the display.
“I’m just glad it happened the way it did,” Younker said.
