Michael B. Roth was born in Sanford, North Carolina in September of 1965. He is the oldest son of Jeffrey I. Roth and Joanne Bradley Roth, both originally from Lancaster County, Pa. After five years in North Carolina, his family moved to Peach Bottom, Lancaster County. His father’s career took them to Hartford, Connecticut for two years in 1972-1973, but they returned to the same home in Peach Bottom in 1974, where he stayed until his marriage to Kerry A. Heinle in 1989.
Mike has worked in the graphic arts industry, working for Graphic Crafts of Willow Street, Pa. from 1984 to 1985, and then entered the world of retail, owing and operating Video Source in Oxford and Cochranville, Pa. from 1985 to 1991. After the birth of his son, Jeffrey Michael Roth in 1990, Mike chose to enter the family business in 1991, and today owns and operates Healthcare Management Control in Willow Street, Pa., along with his brother, Dan.
After a divorce in 1995, Mike reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Lisa Lorraine Keys, and they were married in 2000. Their home overlooks the former sites of the Westbrook Station and the Westbrook Dairy & Produce Company. The Peach Bottom Railway once ran through the back yard.
Mike and Lisa are the parents of two beautiful daughters, Mackenzie Leta and Anika Lyn, having lost their son Jeffrey to a tragic accident in 2010, at the age of 20. An avid amateur photographer, Mike enjoys travelling the East coast, camera in hand, seeking out the beauty of the countryside. After doing some research at the Southern Lancaster County Historical Society, he joined that organization, and was later elected Treasurer. Due to his involvement with that group, you hold in your hands the results of one of his other hobbies….researching and writing about the community he lives in.
In 2007, Stan White began collaborating with Mike Roth on a project to collect more of the history of the Lancaster, Oxford & Southern Railroad, mostly by gathering press clippings from microfilm. The project grew to contain many new documents and photographs that have come to light in recent years. This work was shared under the title A Railroad for the Southern End, published in 2013. Considered by the authors to be an oversized companion to the Little, Old & Slow by Benjamin Kline, Jr., published in 1985. This earlier book is not currently in print.
In late 2014, Roth and White published Quarryville, relating the history of the largest town in southern Lancaster County, describing its businesses, the railroads and the trolley cars.
In 2017, the authors wrote and published their third hardcover book, Fulton House, which brought together the history of the Robert Fulton Birthplace, for the first time. This tale follows the historic house through the times of James Gillespie, Robert Fulton, Joseph Swift and his descendants, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission and the Southern Lancaster County Historical Society. A second, soft-cover version was made available later that year, exclusively at the Robert Fulton Birthplace.
Even before Fulton House was back from the printer, Roth and White began working on their latest book about the general merchandise stores of the “Southern End” of Lancaster county. Books co-authored by Roth and White are large format hardback, coffee-table books and all were printed, in color, and stitch-bound in the U. S. A.
We still enjoy working together and share a delight in rediscovering lost photographs and misplaced, or forgotten, facts. And that brings us up to date.
Sept. 2019