While sorting through memorabilia passed on to me from my Tioga Co. ancestors, I found a small book of 100 pages entitled "Kemp's Life Story." The book is signed by the author, Harry C. Kemp, who wrote the book at age 92. It was published in 1960 by Carlton Press, New York. Beneath the authors signature, in my great-aunt's handwriting is is a notation that reads, "Given to Sue E. Borden who gave it to Stella B. Pierce. Neighbors all in Farmington, Tioga Co., PA." It is a delightful reading experience which I highly recommend not only for folks who have ancestors who lived on Farmington Hill but those who are interested in what farm life was like in Northern PA in the late 19th and early 20th century. Hopefully, this book is available in Tioga Co. libraries for inter-library loan for those who are interested. From this book I learned that my g-g-uncle, Willard Pierce, was a harness maker in Elkland which was verified by my search through Tioga Co. death records in Wellsboro. The inside book jacket reads: Born in the sixth decade of the 19th century, a few years after the close of the Civil War, Harry C. Kemp has lived a full, rich and rewarding life. A nonagenarian, mentally alert and actively participating in the world around him, he has set down in the pages of this book all those memories he wishes to preserve. A descendant of pioneer stock who settled near Tioga in northern Pennsylvania, close to the New York State border, Harry C. Kemp was born on a farm on Farmington Hill. In the heavily wooded and beautiful hill country of his native Tioga County, he learned the ways and mysteries of Nature. Artistically endowed, he studied at a Normal School in Minnesota and the State Normal School in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, but family necessity as well as personal choice turned him to agriculture. In his youth and early manhood he became a farmer. He graphically describes the hardships and joys of farm life during the last decades of the 19th Century before the advent of farm machinery and modern implements. Here are vivid descriptions of tabacco growing, horse raising, cattle and sheep breeding, "sugaring off," maple syrup making and buckwheat culture. In his mature years he became a builder and carpenter and was well known in his local environs for his manual skills. The author conjures up with tender nostalgia his experience-studded past and warmly tells the inside story of his family life. Adhering to the chronologic pattern, Mr. Kemp allows the reader to follow him year after year from his early childhood, through his years of maturity, up to the present time. Many local figures--the landed gentry, the merchants, the farm folk and the people of the backwoods--move through these pages which cover more than three generations. The latter part of "Kemps Life Story" is cast in the form of a diary. The entries, swift and succinct, reveal the many events that crowded the author's years before and after the two great wars of the Twentieth Century. This is the unvarnished, simple and honest self-protrait of a hard-working, clean-living, sturdy American citizen who stuck close to his native roots and family ties. And always in the portrait's background loom the hills and valleys, the woods and fields and streams of quiet little villages of the middle North Pennsylvania country where the author first saw the light of day. Carolyn Pierce