For the Pennsylvania Dutch, a Long Tradition Fades

Ghosts are what people around here call the fading hex signs that the Pennsylvania Dutch began painting on their barns more than two centuries ago.

For years, the signs have been abandoned to weather and time. But though their brightly colored stars, framed with ornate rosettes and images of tulips, have paled, the ghosts have lingered as the shadows of a vanishing local tradition. The oldest are but stains on cracked wood panels. Others, just barely visible, stare quietly from behind coats of cheap white paint.