EXIT Realty JP Rothermel Blog

St. Patrick is actually from Wales, not Ireland. At the age of sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates and taken to Ireland as a slave. He tended to sheep for six years before he was able to escape. After he escaped and returned home he learned about Christianity and became a priest. Then he returned to Ireland and established the Christian Church. St. Patrick’s real name was Maewyn Succat. After becoming a priest he changed his name to Patricius, which means “Father Figure”. From 1903-1970 m...

Theodore Roosevelt wore a lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair during his inauguration. He had a ring with the hair in it. After the death of his son, Willie, Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary engaged in several séances at the white house to try to interact with their deceased son. George Washington was the owner of a very profitable whiskey distillery. Gerald Ford was a fashion model when he was younger. He even made an appearance on the cover of Cosmopolitan. President John Tyler had 15 children. H...

The very first New Year’s celebration was over 4,000 years ago in Babylon. It was celebrated when the first new moon after the vernal equinox – a day with equal amount of sunlight and darkness in March. But after many years the sun fell out of sync with the calendar. After Julius Caesar assumed control of Rome, he created the Julian calendar. He consulted with the best astronomers and mathematicians of the time to re-synchronize the sun and calendar. This led to redefining the New Year to start...

November is Native American Heritage Month. To celebrate here’s a list of fun facts about Native Americans.

Native Americans are credited with the invention of hockey. They played a game called “shinny” , in which a buckskin ball was knocked down the field with a curved stick. During the winter, it was played on the ice. White settlers eventually picked it up and developed it into the modern sport known as hockey. Native Americans are also responsible for domesticating the strain of maize into...

The world record for the most lit Jack-o-Lanterns, 30,581, is held by the City of Keene, New Hampshire. It was achieved October 19th 2013. Bobbing for apples is a fun Halloween activity which was originally done in Europe hundreds of years ago. It was done by young women as a courting ritual (an activity performed to find their soulmate). If a woman was able to bite an apple on the first try it meant that the “stars aligned” and she was destined to be with her crush. If she got it on the secon...

Labor Day falls on September 5th this year (2022). Labor Day is one of the busiest travel days of the year. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council (yes, that’s a real thing), says 7 billion hot dogs are eaten from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That’s only three months! You may have heard the saying “You can’t wear white after Labor Day”, and not known why. The origins of this saying comes from the 1800s. Back then, wearing lighter colors was a way to distinguish the different social classes. Wealt...

1. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. This is because soldiers used to decorate the graves of their fallen comrades with flags or flowers.

2. This holiday was created after the Civil War ended in 1865. So many soldiers lost their lives, it was necessary to create national cemeteries. Once these were created, Americans started holding rituals each spring for the fallen by decorating their graves.

3. Memorial Day is always at the end of May because by this time all the flowers ar...