Neelsville: The Village That Disappeared

New homes occupy the site of a once-thriving village

World War II P.O.W.s Worked at Germantown, Gaithersburg Farms

During World War II Prisoners of War from Germany helped farmers in Germantown plant the seeds and harvest the crops. Many of the farmers said that they could not have done it without them because so many of their workers had gone to war.

World War II P.O.W.s Worked at Germantown, Gaithersburg Farms

During World War II Prisoners of War from Germany helped farmers in Germantown plant the seeds and harvest the crops. Many of the farmers said that they could not have done it without them because so many of their workers had gone to war.

When the United States entered World War II on Dec. 8, 1841 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands of men and women volunteered for the armed forces. Thousands more were drafted into service. This left many farms and peacetime industries short of manpower. Often, women stepped in to fill the vacancies, but farms, especially at harvest time, were feeling the pinch. Farms all over the nation were struggling to produce more crops to feed both the nation and the armed forces. Here in Germantown, Liberty Mill—the second largest mill in the state—ground local wheat into flour that was bagged and sent directly to the Army. So in the fall of 1942, when the local farmers found out that more than 2,000 prisoners of war were being held …

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Fran Asbeck

8:56 am on Monday, October 22, 2012

It would be interesting to hear about the after-war experiences of the German workers from employer-families that stayed in touch with them after repatriation, or from the descendents of the workers who stayed here after the war.   more ›

A Half-Century, One Page and Photo at a Time

Newly published history of Montgomery Village culminates a dozen volunteers' year-long labors.

In the mid-1960’s, Clarence Kettler asked his brothers Milton and Charles to join him in creating a "new town" in the suburbs, a "planned community" based on a European model that would provide all the elements of the American Dream for its residents. So began Montgomery Village, when the Kettlers bought up vast stretches of farmstead, then transformed the land into their novel brand of urban development by planting hundreds of trees, laying out interconnected neighborhoods and parceling out spots for schools, churches and amenities in pursuit of their motto, "Don’t simply build on the land—improve upon it." And so, too, begins the book documenting that history nearly a half-century later: Montgomery Village (Images of America). The 128-…

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