Thursday, December 3, 2020

MEMORIES OF A BOY FROM WEST CRICK

 

      Our house, on that cold January day in 1932, was constructed from the wagon loads of wood Father brought from the dynamite factory.  Friends and family helped build a large addition to the $500 tiny 3 room house (room, not 3 bedrooms, 3 rooms) on the hill, up West Crick.  Needless to say, it was a bit drafty.
     This is the autobiography of the boy born in this house.  

"Memories of a Boy from West Crick"  

As written by Ken Ostrum


Foreword

I recently read an article, that indicated one of the best things a person can leave their children and grandchildren, in perpetuity, is a record of their life, especially the younger years, before their children were a part of their lives.  Thousands of stories are passed down by family members over the years but no matter how many stories are heard, only a few are actually retained by the younger generations and those stories certainly will change with each telling.  Younger people, with all the modern technologies, have no concept as to what it was like to grow up several generations before their own births.

As a case in point for recording memories, I saw an article that said:  “Back in 1937, the Folklore Commission of Ireland began a project to collect folklore by asking the children of Ireland to collect and write down stories told by their parents and grandparents. All schools were to take part.  The children wrote down the stories in copybooks to be saved in Ireland’s libraries.”  Sounded like a great idea to me. 

While researching family history, I often wished there were more personally written records from my ancestors.  It would be nice to know some of the details of their everyday life.  Most of the stories I have in my family records, relate to adult years of the relatives and are usually written by other people.  There is no way of knowing exactly how accurate the family stories are and in fact, evens the anecdotes I write herein, about my own life, are subject to the fallacies of human memory retention.  Separating fact from what I perceive to be the truth can be difficult. Taking all this into consideration, I still feel there is a justifiable reason for writing these memories.

By the way, you may see odd words throughout these writings such as “evens”.  (“Evens” was one of my colloquialisms I thought was normal vocabulary). “Crick” is used instead of “Creek” because that is how we pronounce it, evens today. There may be other words as well so if you see something wrong, it isn’t a mistake, it’s because that’s how we lived in those days.  

Yeah, right!

A Brief Ostrum Family History

The small town of Summit lies in farming country in Schoharie County, NY, just south of Albany.  It was there my 2nd Great Grandfather, Garrit Ostrum, came to live in the 1830’s.  Garrit was born in Guilderland Center, Albany County, NY in 1803, the son of Daniel Ostrum and Alida Whiteman.  Daniel’s first American ancestor arrived in New Amsterdam from Oostrum, Holland in 1630.  Garrit married Dorcas Palmer in 1825, moved to Carlisle Town, Schoharie County, NY and became a farmer. 


In 1838 he purchased a farm of two acres, in the town of Summit
, NY from Byrum Palmer, his father-in-law. (Photo shows the site of the farm in the 1990’s)

Garrit and Dorcas raised a family of 12 plus three boys who died young.  Garrit died of cholera in 1854 at the age of 51 after returning from a visit to his son, Daniel, in Wisconsin. About two years later, Dorcas and several of her children, moved to Wisconsin to be near Daniel.

Byron Ostrum

In 1849, their oldest son, Byron, my Great Grandfather,
at the ripe old age of 20, left home to make his way to Hancock, Delaware County, NY.  Byron married Amelia Garrison and produced a family of eight boys and one girl.  Six boys lived to adulthood. Byron later lost his farm in Hancock to his mother’s brother and as a result moved to Fremont Town, Sullivan County, NY in 1879. 


Sam and Alzina

Byron’s first son, Samuel, my Grandfather, married Alzina Garrison in 1879 and also moved to Fremont Town. Two sons were born there.  John Freddie Ostrum, my father (who was always known as Fred) was born in 1883 and his brother, Alonzo Clinton, was born in 1887.

When Samuel moved to Fremont Town, Byron’s third son, Neuman, 22, moved to Cameron County, PA where he boarded with a Rufus Thompson and wife who ran a boarding house. Records do not indicate why Neuman came to Cameron Co.  

Ten years later, Byron and Amelia, with their five sons, Samuel, George, Isaac, Raymond, and James came to join Neuman in Cameron County.  Two of the brothers, Samuel and George, were already married but they decided to join their father and brothers in their new venture in Cameron County.

Byron Ostrum farm Bryan Hill, 2006
Grandpa Sam’s family included his wife, Alzina, and their two sons, Fred, and Clint.  Fred was 7 years old and Clint was three when they arrived in Cameron County.  A third son, Ernest Jay, was born in 1897 in Cameron County but died at the age of two.  Grandpa Sam started his farm and orchard on Bryan Hill, in Cameron County.  Sam was sick in the bed of the wagon when they got to the place where they wanted to farm.

In the beginning, it was up to Byron, Sam’s wife, Alzina and 7 year old Fred to get the house started.  Byron lived with Grandpa Sam and his family for a number of years and is also shown living at Jim Ostrum’s home in 1917, when Byron died.  Grandpa Sam died in 1926.  All of my grandparents died before I was born in 1932, except for Grandma Alzina Ostrum, who eventually lived with us for several years on the Old West Crick Road, prior to her death in 1948.

Fred Ostrum

Fred Ostrum

Fred Ostrum - Age 23

            






Fred (Dad) lived on Grandpa Sam’s farm until he was 31 years old. He went to work at about the age of 12, driving teams of horses for the next 15 years for lumbermen in the area.  He also worked at out-of-town lumbering sites.           

At the age of 31, on July 4
th, 1914, Fred married Violet Barr who was 21.  Violet was one of 16 children born to Ellis and Nancy Jane (Lewis) Barr.  They were married at the home of Clint and Belle Barr Ostrum at Sunnybrook Farm, Old West Crick Road.

In 1908, Clint, Fred’s brother, had married Minnie Belle Barr, a sister of Violet. The Barr and Lewis families had been in Cameron Co. since the early 1800’s.


Fred and Violet (Mom and Dad) set up housekeeping with Grandpa Sam and Grandma Alzina on Bryan Hill, where my first two siblings, Rose and Melvin, were born in 1915 and 1916.
  In 1917, Dad started working at the Hercules Powder Works.  

He walked from where they lived at Grandpa Sam’s on Bryan Hill down the hollow to the Hercules plant in West Crick, approximately one mile.
  
Finally, Mom couldn’t take any more of her mother-in-law. Grandma Alzina Ostrum did not care for Violet because she had a hard time making Violet do what she, Grandma, wanted her to do.

Ironically, Grandma Alzina ended up living with US for several years before her death in 1948.

Mom and Dad’s First Home

So, Mom and Dad, with their two children, rented a place of their own at the Climax, near what is now The Buttonwood Motel on Sizerville Road. Their third child, Gladys, was born there in 1918. 

Around 1920, they felt they could buy a tiny three-room house (not three-bedroom) on what is now known as Old West Crick Road. The house had been built by Mom’s brother-in-law, Amos Noragon, for Fred Bliss.  It cost them around $550. 

From 1925-1927, Dad took a job managing Warner’s farm in North Creek.  The family lived there for about a year and a half then returned to their home on West Crick. 

Later, Dad brought home wagonloads of wood that had been dynamite boxes and with the help of family, friends, and neighbors, they built a large addition onto the home.  New rooms included a parlor, a small bedroom downstairs, plus three bedrooms and a hall upstairs.

The remaining children, Bob, Keith, Sam and Kenny, were all born in the West Crick home.


Mom the Carpenter

Mom always said if she had been a boy, she would have been a carpenter.  Over the years, she reworked a lot of the rooms by adding or changing partitions.   She rebuilt the kitchen cabinets, knocked a hole in the wall and installed shadowbox type shelves between the kitchen and dining room.  She added on a freezer room where part of the side porch had been.  She also added a sun porch with four large windows.  This room became their favorite place to sit. 

Of course, Mom would inveigle others into helping her with her construction ideas.  Dad said he was never sure where things would be when he came home from work. In the late 40’s, at the age of 82, we caught Mom out on the roof, tarring some shingles.

Mom and Dad added an apartment on the second floor above the kitchen and dining room;  Brother Bob and his wife, Ruth, plus children, Sandy and Violet May, lived there until 1950 when they moved to Martinsville, Indiana.  Bob and Ruth were welcome company for me because all the rest of my siblings had married and left to make their homes in other places.  

I have a couple of stories that happened during Bob and Ruth’s stay.  I was young, 14, and naïve in 1946 prior to when Violet May was born. One day I came past the door of the apartment and saw Ruth ironing.  I noticed she had a new pretty dress on.  Trying to be a nice polite brother-in-law, I told her I thought the dress looked very nice on her.  She said, “Thanks, this is a maternity dress I pulled out of storage.”  I went on down the stairs and suddenly had a thought.  I came back up and said, “Ruth, I didn’t know you went to college.”  When she got through laughing, she explained, “I said it is a maternity dress, not a fraternity dress.”  I didn’t evens know what a maternity dress was. Those were the days of darkness for me. I’m still in the dark on a lot of those things.

Another event occurred when Violet was an infant.  I was down in the living room and heard a loud thump upstairs and heard Ruth hollering for help. I was the only one there so I ran up to the apartment, opened their door and asked if she was OK.  She shouted from their front room, “Don’t you dare come in here.”  Turns out she was rocking the baby and went over backwards onto the floor, was stuck between the chair and the wall, her nightgown above her waist (she later told me) and she couldn’t pull it down.  She still insisted I couldn’t come in until finally she worked into a position where she could get “decent” and told me to come in to get Violet so she could get up.

The Cellar

In the late 30’s, Dad and the older boys dug out a large area under the West Crick home.  It was meant to be a basement but we always referred to it as “The Cellar”.  I can just remember Dad sending the boys down into the cellar to shovel out the dirt and clay he had loosened up.  On several occasions, when I went down in the cellar, I would see Mel sitting in the wheelbarrow, reading. 

Dad could handle a pick and shovel with the best of them but in addition, his experience with dynamite allowed him to place just enough charge to loosen the clay without disturbing things upstairs ---- usually!  He would loosen the clay in the evening with a small blast, leaving the boys to load the wheelbarrow and take it outside while he was at work the next day.

An indoor set of stairs was built to get to the cellar from the bath room off the living room.  It was a great day in about 1938 when that small room was converted to an indoor bathroom to replace the outhouse.  There was evens a “secret” opening from the downstairs back bedroom through a clothes closet, into the new bathroom.


The cellar was used to store potatoes, apples, onions and lots of hand-canned items.  Mom would can tomatoes, beans, peas, beets, peaches, jams and jellies, venison, and chicken. 

Pork was kept in a salt brine barrel before refrigeration was available.  After the pork was used up, at least one time, Dad rigged a piece of greased wood that tipped when a rodent

walked out on it; the rodent would fall into the brine and drown. Mom and Dad also pressed apples for cider.  I was told one day Mom saw too many of Dad’s friends going into the cellar with him.  She checked and found the cider had fermented into hard cider, which could cause a person to get drunk.  She opened the bung and let it run out. Mom was no-nonsense when it came to drinking alcohol of any kind.  She evens belonged to the Women’s Temperance League.  

Our Times – 1930’s – 1940’s

“It was the best of Times, it was the worst of Times; It was the age of War, it was the age of Foolishness; It was the Season of Darkness, it was the Season of Light; We had Everything before us, we had Nothing before us; It was the Winter of Despair, it was the Spring of Hope.

 A rip-off of Charles Dickens’s first line in - A Tail of Two Cities.

In Emporium, as well as many other places in the United States, the 1930’s were years of depression and trouble. The Great Depression wracked the economy of the United States and hurt all of its citizens, including those in Emporium.  Farmers were afraid for the survival of their farms, and life was unstable for all people.  As most children of that era say, “I didn’t know we were poor.  We always had something to eat and clothes to wear.”

In the midst of all these troubling times, another child was born to Fred and Violet Ostrum . . . . . Me.

Here is an excerpt from my autobiography, “The First Seventeen Years Are The Hardest”. I wrote this in 1949 for an English Class project. I got an “A” of course.

“The First Seventeen Years Are The Hardest”

In the year 1932 there was a very cold winter, and on January 26, it was next to the coldest day of the year, or so I was told.   On that day a son was born to Mr. and Mrs. J. Fred Ostrum. The problem of heat confronted them at this time because the building was not of the finest and only a small coal stove was used to heat it. Well, this small boy happened to be a boy who was later named Kenneth Lee, after no one in particular.    His Aunt Belle Ostrum tried to keep him warm in blankets. It was in this way that he got his first sleep. His Aunt Alice Ostrum drew him up to the stove in an armchair, wrapped in several blankets, with the legs or rockers blocked with wood so he wouldn't’ roll out. He slept so long they were afraid he wouldn't’ wake up. Of course he was rugged anyway because he was a descendant of one of the best farmers of the county who had hewn a wonderful farm from the forests of Bryan Hill.

Me in 1941
Mom made some of our clothes but mostly I wore hand-me-downs from my brothers.  I actually looked forward to growing into some of the neat stuff my brothers had.  At my young age, I thought they were swell. That was strange because I didn’t evens think about what I wore.  I was too busy playing to worry about what clothes I put on.  I would wear whatever Mom gave me for school.  I started in knickers but they were out of style before I entered second grade.

Me in my flyers helmet

I had a favorite flyer’s helmet with wool flaps I would wear most of the time.  Clothes and toys were used over and over.  The saying was, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”  That’s exactly what we tried to do; only it seemed normal because everyone else was doing it.


A Dad’s Work is Never Done

Dad - Cutting Stone
Dad was a steady worker at home.  For any projects around the outside of the house there was never any question but he would do it himself or with help he would get from his children, friends and relatives.  He built his own barns, built the stone walls, fell trees, cut the wood for wood stoves, did all plowing, cultivating, a never ending list of projects.  He cut stone to install huge pieces for the many steps leading up to the house.  

Through all of this, Dad was a farmer as well, keeping stock, such as chickens, horses, pigs, goats, and cows, and raising the usual corn, beans, tomatoes, peas, potatoes (lots of potatoes) and other daily foods. As I have said, we never went hungry.

Fred with WPA
Paying jobs of any kind were scarce during the depression but Dad somehow found a way to get one.  Work for him changed many times over the years. 

He was a lumberman, driving teams of horses from the time he was 11 or 12 years old, worked at local dynamite plants, a railroader, a forester, a look-out on the fire tower on Bryan Hill, a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), delivered mail, drove bread truck, worked on the highway with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), worked at Cameron Manufacturing for a period of time. 

Fred's retirement from Sylvania
Finally, during WWII, he worked at Sylvania Electric.  His last job there was cleaning filament machines from which he retired in 1958 at the age of 75.  The powder he breathed during cleaning probably added to an early death evens though he was 82 when he died in 1964.

Every one in our family, in-laws and out-laws, worked at Sylvania at one time or another.

Hobos During the Depression and After

Not everyone was as fortunate or ambitious as Dad.  Some were not able to find a job in those lean days.  Quite a few guys (at least I never saw a woman) would ride the rails and beg for food at people’s homes.  We called them hobos or tramps or bums, interchangeably.  Someone observed:

“A hobo is a person who travels to find work. 

 A tramp is a person who travels and won’t work. 

 A bum is a person who won’t travel or work.”

We had all types of these come through West Crick.  The main road ran right in front of our house at that time. Now it is called the “Old West Creek Road” because the new Route 120 was built in the late 40’s.

We didn’t usually know any details about an individual’s reasons for traveling around and begging.  I’m sure it wasn’t always just because he didn’t have a job.  No matter how young these guys were, as a kid, I looked on them as “older” people but then again, at my age, anyone over eighteen seemed “old”. Reading about these people in later years, it turns out more than one quarter million teenagers also were living on the road in America in the Thirties; many criss-crossing the country by illegally hopping freight trains. These guys would show up mostly during the summer.  They left the trains before they got into town, to evade rail police, and walked up and down the roads, stopping at any likely place to get a meal.  They often marked homes with an “X” or other identifying means, to tell others where the good places were.  I know we had a chalked “X” at the bottom of our steps on several occasions, since Mom was a soft touch.  Sometimes they were given a meal and sent on their way, other times they would do a job and receive a meal as payment.

A hobo came by our place one day and came up the long flight of steps to our house.  Bumpy, our dog, started barking and carrying on.  Mom went out just as the hobo took a swing at the dog with a stick, to chase him away.  Mom decided not to feed that hobo.  The next year the same guy (Mom recognized him by his hat or clothing or something) came up to get food and this time he had a bandage on one foot and no shoe.  Bumpy must have remembered him because he didn’t bark until the Hobo got to the top of the steps and then Bumpy grabbed him by the bad foot.  Needless to say, there was one Hobo who didn’t get fed that time, either.  One interesting side of all this is, hardly anyone worried about getting mugged or coming to harm of any kind.  There were some things stolen but I never heard of anything flagrant happening.

Life As A Child at Home

As a child, a day seemed to last forever.  Now, years have become just a blink.
Although in my early years my brothers and sisters were still at home, I was too young to remember them as playmates, except for Sam.  I remember fighting with my brothers (maybe I should say, “Arguing”).  Never anything serious except once when one of my friends and I got into a stone throwing episode with Sam and Keith.  I threw one stone that reached Sam just as he turned to look at me and struck him right in the middle of the forehead.  That scared the heck out of me because of all the blood, and did not sit well with Mom, either.  I knew I was in trouble when she fixed him up but it ended with all of us in trouble because all three of us were throwing stones.  That was a real “no-no.”
My sisters, Rose and Glady, were patsies.  As the youngest, I could do no wrong as far as they were concerned, evens on the occasions of their marriages. It was early 1937 when Rose told me she was going to marry Burt Griffith and move away.  I was only five but I guess I didn’t like the idea because when Burt came to visit right after that, he walked up the steps to the porch. I was standing at the top of the steps and hit him on the head with a ball-peen hammer.  I told him, “Leave my sister alone!”  Then when Glady and Jim Miller and I were sitting on the front steps in April of 1941, Jim gave Glady a diamond ring.  I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but Glady said, “It means we are getting married and I’m going to go live with Jim”.  I hollered at both of them, “I hope he has to go in the war!”  And he did, too.
On the other hand, my brothers didn’t always look at me the way my sisters did.  They knew I had my sisters wrapped around my little finger. Still, I realize now I was spoiled by all of them, being I was the youngest. 

Before the start of the war, Mel joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) along with Bob and Dad, and when that was over, Mel left home to hitchhike across the United States with Manley Ingersoll.  He would be gone for almost two years.  He came home for a short period of time in October, 1941, and then left for the Army in early 1942.  Thus, I never really got to know him as a brother.  Bob and Keith also went to the service, with Sam leaving the year before the war ended.  That left me with no brothers or sisters at home.  Still, evens while they were home and, of course, after they left, I had lots of playmates.

Playmates 

George Horning

Dick Umbenhauer
Bob Rosetti







“Now back in my day” -----as the saying goes, “things weren’t the same as they are now.”  In my day, we rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell, or sometimes, 

just walked in and talked to anyone there.  That’s just what we did as playmates.  We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.  Very little was organized by anyone but us kids.

Playmates in my immediate area included Bob Rosette and his younger brother, Joe; Keith Pye, Bill Ackman, Jim Hornung, along with his twin brothers, Barney and Ed.  

There was George Horning, Bob, Jack and Dick Umbenhauer; John and Joe the Blinzler twins; Gene Towner; Charlie (Joe) Nellis and the other Nellis kids, plus others I’m sure I have missed.

I ran into one of the Nellis boys, literally. It may have been Jim.  He was younger than I and when I was riding my bike on the road he jumped in front of me to make me stop but I couldn’t stop in time.  My front fender hit him in the head and he bled like a “stuck pig.” He ended up at the doctor’s but recovered. 

Joe, Marlene, Bob, Esther, Eva
On the female playmate side, the Morrison girls lived next door.  Joan was near my age, Betty was a little older but they both were early playmates.

Esther and Marlene Rosette, Bob’s sisters were other ones who joined the crowd.  We played House, just for something to do, in an old converted chicken coop made into a playhouse at the Morrison’s.  I have to admit,  those times taught me the basic differences between the sexes, physical and mental. 

Speaking of Morrisons, I remember Roy Morrison,   their father, was the first dead person I had ever seen.  He died, and was lying on their couch where they hadn’t covered him up before I went in.  Kinda creepy.

Grandpa Clarence Morrison

Grandpa Clarence Morrison made his home in another converted chicken coop behind the Morrison home.  

He was fun to talk to. Grandpa’s favorite saying was, “Someday these hills will come tumbling down and the world will be flattened by God’s wrath and everyone left will be destroyed.”  



Fun, Games and Other Stupid Happenings

At a young age, I would go into our dug-out cellar to play all by myself.  There was enough dirt above the stone foundation to allow me to play with small metal cars and trucks.  I built roads and dirt garages, coal mines, dirt dumping areas, plus any other thing I could think of.  I could entertain myself for hours.  

Sam was only four years older than I but he started working at Straub’s Chicken farm at a very young age around eleven or twelve, so I was home alone with Mom a lot of the time. 

One of the best places to play was at “The Car”.  This was the name the family gave to the area west of our home that was the family trash deposit for years before being covered with dirt dug out of our cellar.  

After it was completely filled in, Dad and my brothers used it as a turn-around and parked their cars there.  Eventually, a couple of old car skeletons were permanently parked there.  

One of the old cars, Melvin had refitted with a gravity-fed, five-gallon gas tank and made other changes to use it as a tractor.  For a long time it just sat there and wouldn’t run. But then Dad fixed it and put it to good use as a tractor. 

Another skeleton car was great for us kids to use for “Cops and Robbers”.  This one was a four-door touring type car very much like gangsters would use.  Several of the neighborhood kids and I could play “Cops and Robbers” for a long time with nothing more than that old car, homemade machine guns, and our imaginations.  

After war was declared it became our “War tank” until scrap metal was needed for the War effort.

Pretend horse drawn by me
for granddaughter's school project.
We also played “Cowboys and Indians”.  We would set a 50-gallon drum on a wheelbarrow turned upside down, put a broom in the bunghole for the head of the horse, a piece of rope for a tail and an old blanket for a saddle.  Belts with pistols in their holsters, homemade bows with arrows, and maybe a tomahawk and hunting knives, plus head feathers made from rooster tail feathers, would be enough to keep us occupied for hours.  

Normally getting everything together was as much fun as playing the games and probably took us longer than the games themselves. 

We played “Hopscotch”, “Mother May I”, “Ring around the Rosie”, “Stoplight”, “London Bridge and other “sissy” games.  They may have been “sissy” games but we still had a lot of fun.  “Telephones” were made by tying cans together with a taught string; walking on cans by bending peach cans to fit on the bottom of our shoes; some evens walked on stilts, I never could do that for some reason.

We had no organized sports then.  Neighborhood kids on West Crick would get together to play various types of baseball games.  We had one game where we had a pitcher and a batter.  All the rest of the guys played in the field. Whoever caught the ball had to roll it in from where they caught it, to try to hit the bat that the batter had laid down at the plate.  If you hit the bat you became the batter and the previous batter became the pitcher.  Of course we also played regular baseball when we could get enough kids together.  There was always something we could find to do in our spare time as young people.  If I ever said to mom, “There’s nothing to do”, she would always reply, “You can mildew.”  Great help!

Another favorite game for the neighborhood gang was “Kick the Can”.  Someone would be designated as “It”. Everyone else would hide, then try to sneak in and kick the can before getting caught by the one who was “It”.  Normally this was a night game. If there was a chance the one who was “it” couldn’t catch anyone then he could always give up and holler, “All ye, all ye, outs in free.”

“Red Rover” could get pretty physical, sometimes.  In this game two sides lined up holding hands.  Then someone from one of the teams would holler, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Kenny (or whoever) right over.  I would leave my team and try to break through the other team.  If I succeeded then some one from that team had to go back to my team with me.  If I didn’t break through then I had to join the team.    

“King of the Hill” was also quite physical as one person stood on high ground and the others tried to knock him off. 

Summertime On Our Farm

Summers meant garden chores and other work around the house.

Gardening was a part of our lives.  Dad would plow one or sometimes two areas near our house and another large area two miles up West Crick on the flat below the house Gladys and Jim built some years later.  The land belonged to Uncle Clint and Aunt Belle Ostrum.  The gardens at our home had stones, which had to be removed every year. I swore the stones replenished themselves over the winter.  Dad built a stone boat, which was a wooden platform with two pieces of 4’ or 6’ tree trunks as runners.  We harnessed our horse to the boat, loaded it with stones and skid the boat to an area where we could pile the stones somewhere out of the way. 

Mom, Dad, and any kids home at the time would cultivate the crops with a hand cultivator that looked like a miniature plow, or we would hoe them by hand.   Generally we grew our own corn, peas, beans, tomatoes, carrots, beets, lettuce and cabbage and other things we needed to provide our food. 

Potatoes were grown on Aunt Belle’s flat.  Picking up the potatoes was a major job.  It had to be done by hand.  Of course, any sort of gardening was a job I didn’t like.  The other kids didn’t seem to mind and they all enjoyed it the rest of their lives.  I was the different one.  Maybe I was too lazy for that kind of hobby..  Dad did the plowing using our horse but sometimes asked the Hornungs to do it with a team to save time.  I rode our horse up to Aunt Belle’s field while Dad drove the pickup.  Then we started using the tractor Mel built from an old car.  I remember once, soon after we started using the tractor, we were at the potato field when a train was coming up the valley.  Dad hollered to Sam to go keep the horse calm in case the train whistled.  Sam was halfway there before he realized we had the tractor and Dad was pulling a joke on him.  We went back to using a horse after the tractor became unmanageable, that is, it wouldn’t run anymore. 

Mom did flower gardening with little help from anyone.  She kept flowers in pots, planted flowers around the house, and maintained rock gardens, besides doing her usual work in the house.  

We found out how much work she did when she was laid up with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis and we had to take over her work.  

I don’t remember what everyone else did but I learned how to do the washing and wringing out of clothes.  I hung them on the line and ironed those that needed it.  I evens ran the mangle, which was a steam type drum for doing flat things, such as sheets and pillow cases.  It was designed to iron shirts, too but Mom wanted me to do those with a hand electric iron. 

Fortunately, many prayers resulted in Mom recovering from the arthritis after quite a few months.  What a relief!  

Our Farm Animals

The first Chicken House
We kept pigs and chickens when I was younger but as time went by and Dad’s work schedule changed, we stopped raising them.
  We had other animals to take care of after all the other guys were either in the service or had left home. My work consisted of feeding the horse and cow, milking, separating the milk, plus other odds and ends. 

We had goats for a while so Dad taught me the tricks for milking them. Pigs were gone, no chickens to care for and the garden was smaller because Dad was working at Sylvania.  

Mom went to work there, also.  I was the only kid at home so there was no need to raise so much meat.  

At one time, and I don’t remember why, we kept our horse in Uncle Ed McCormick’s barn just down the road.  This meant going down to their place to feed the horse every morning before school and each evening. 

Usually Della McCormick saw me and had something she wanted me to do for her.  (We didn’t call Della, “Aunt Della”; because she was not married to Uncle Ed).  He had been married to Mom’s sister, Lottie, who died in 1918. 
 
Ed and Della were married in 1942 evens though they had lived together way long enough to have what is known as a “common law” marriage. They later moved to Truman.

We had a pole barn to house the cow and horse as well as store hay but we needed a place to graze our milk cow.  

I named her “Tri” because of a triangle-shaped white spot in the middle of her forehead.  Hornungs allowed us to mix Tri with their cows and for payment it was my job to go get the cows in the evening to bring them in for milking.  

This meant walking down to Hornungs, walking under the new highway and railroad via underpasses to the grazing area near the crick. 

Sometimes the bull in the herd was not as cooperative as the cows, which meant I had to use a lot of care in getting them back to the milking barn without being chased by the bull.  I was fleet of foot but still had some close calls with the bull. 

After we got back to the corral area I would then put a lead on Tri and walk her up the road to our barn for milking. 

She knew what to do every morning when I left her out.  She would go out by herself to get a drink of water from the soapstone drinking trough, and then she would come back into the stall where I had deposited hay and grain.  I would milk her while she ate. 

One morning I left her out, as usual, pitched the hay into her manger, put grain in her feedbox and waited but she didn’t come back in.  I went out to see her walking through the field towards Hornung’s.  

I was really surprised but ran down with a strap for a lead and caught her just before she got to the fence gate where she normally went in with the other cows.  

I said, “What’s wrong with you, Tri?  You need to eat and get milked before you go out to graze.”  (I talked to the animals). 

Anyway, I started to take her back and she didn’t want to go but I forced her.  As we were leaving, the bull charged up to the fence we had just left and climbed partly up on it, bellowing.  

Kinda scared me - - No, I’ll change that . . . . That bull scared the heck out of me!  I couldn’t imagine what was going on.  

I was young and a little naïve.  

Later that morning I took her back and put her in the Hornung’s corral gate.  The other cows and bull had already gone over to the grazing fields and Tri took off running to join them, which I also thought was odd. 

That night when Dad came home I told him about it and he started laughing.  Turns out, Tri was in heat and wanted to find the bull at Hornung’s.  

Sure enough, nine months later I opened the barn door and a calf was staring at me.  Kids learn a lot on farms.

Another time I thought I would be kind to Tri so I staked her out to eat some of the lush grass at the edge of the woods.  Mom said not to leave her alone there because she wasn’t used to grazing while tethered.  

Well I couldn’t stand there all day and watch her eat, so I found something else to do.  

Later, I heard Tri bawling and I ran up to see what was wrong.  She had her head tied close to a sapling, her tail was wedged between a couple branches behind her and in struggling she managed to get thrown and couldn’t get up.  

I got her free and she stood up but her tail looked strange.  

Days later, more than half of her tail rotted away because it had been broken.  After that, Dad made up a cloth tail and tied it to her stump. Swinging the stump would drive flies away.

Summer Meant Haying 

We helped Uncle Jim Ostrum hay and pick up potatoes on his farm on Whittemore Hill.  We picked apples in the huge Hielmann orchard across the road and Dad was allowed to keep some to store in our cellar over winter for our own use.  We did some work for others who were Dad’s or other family friends.

We could have just watched the haying being done by Hornungs on the flat in front of our house, but somehow Dad knew when it was time to send us down to help them load the hay wagons. We didn’t get paid for our work, either.

Now haying was an art at that time, none of the fancy machines they use today to complete a field in a few hours.  Someone from the Hornung gang would mow the hay using a horse-drawn mower.  Timing was of the essence because you wanted to mow the hay, let it lay for a period of time to dry, and then gather it in. Sunshine and fair days were hoped for to assure a dry crop.  Stowing damp hay in the barn could lead to spontaneous combustion and a disaster.  If damp weather dictated, the field of hay was turned with pitchforks until it was dry enough and safe to form haycocks to await the hayrack and the trip to the barn.

Today, hay is gathered into bound bales, and loaded onto a truck.  The hay is then stacked in piles in a storage area.  In those more primitive times, a hay rake got everything going after the mowed hay was dry. The rake driver sat on a contraption with perhaps fifty curved steel tines; holding the lines in one hand and the lever handle in the other, he would rake hay until an acceptable amount was gathered and then he tripped the lever to leave the start of a windrow. Long windrows were formed and then formed into haycocks to await the hayrack, a long, specially built wagon pulled by a large team of horses.  A crew of four to six men (or in our case, men and boys) equipped with pitchforks would be ready to go; two or three men on the ground pitched the hay onto the wagon as it traveled from haycock to haycock. The teamster and a helper positioned the hay on the wagon to insure a full load.  I was rather slight for pitching hay up to the wagon so I would usually be the one to climb on board to help position the hay on the wagon.  That meant a lot of moving hay around but mostly I had fun jumping all over the load to make it compact.

When the wagon was loaded to capacity, we headed for the barn.

 

A heavy rope, already assembled, hung from a pulley bolted to the highest beam outside the opening into the haymow. One end of the rope was tied to a huge two-tined fork that weighed, probably 100 pounds or more, the other end was hooked to a whiffletree on the opposite side of the barn which then was hooked to a horse’s harness. 

The big fork was dropped freefall to penetrate deep into the hay on the wagon.  Pulling a cord would close the jaws to grab a fork-full of hay.  

Someone would walk the horse forward on the other side of the barn.  The load was pulled high over the haymow where it was released by the man with the rope until the mow was filled to capacity. 

Author's Note:  By the way, for those who are wondering, and I know you are, whiffletree and whippletree are the same thing; it just depends on what area of the country you are in.  Dad said whiffletree.  Dad also told me the reins for a horse are those used with a riding horse whereas the ones used to drive a team were called lines

Near Disaster in the Haymow

With hay in the mow, playing in Hornung’s haymow was a great way to end a day after helping them load hay. Sometimes we climbed up into the rafters to jump into the hay.  It seemed innocent enough.  

We never thought about the fact we might land on the rafter supports hidden by the hay.  We could have broken bones or evens broken our backs if we should happen to hit one. 

Then I had a narrow escape. 

To set the scene:  We are playing a game of hide-and-seek at the haymow. 

The Hornung family is at lunch break after we loaded the hay wagon from the fields. The helpers are bored and need a game of Hide-and-Seek to occupy our time. After a while, I’m looking for a better place to hide from the guys.  Suddenly the figurative lamp bulb went off in my head.  “I know”, I thought to my stupid self; “I’ll hide in the wagon full of hay.”  Dumb idea!  It would have been a good place except for the fact that just as I got into position in the wagon; the Hornungs picked that very time to return from lunch to unload the wagon. They don’t have a clue I’m hiding in there and I don’t know they’re back. When they dropped the huge 100 lb hayfork from a height of about 20 feet, it missed me by inches.  It really scared me; actually it scared the heck out of me. I was out of that wagon in a flash!  Max and George Hornung’s faces turned pale --- then they got mad!  They chased me half way home and I didn’t come back for quite a long time.

Summers Meant going Swimming

Most of the time, we went to Straub’s chicken farm to swim.  This was before the State changed the course of West Crick. 

Originally, before the new Route 120 was put in, West Crick ran on the North side of the railroad tracks and right through Straub’s farm.  Straub had a very nice pool area in the Crick that was very deep.  

At least it was well over my head when I was six or seven years old. They used the pond to clean their chicken cages.    

Straub’s Chicken Farm - 1950
We were there one day, before I knew how to swim and as I was wading, I accidentally stepped off the shallow edge into the deeper part.  

Down I went.  I remember hollering, “HELP” under water.  

Glady was with us and saw me struggling.  She jumped in and was able to pull me out before I drowned.

In later years we swam at the Hercules Bridge at Hercules Hollow where the dynamite plant had been.  There was a nice hole there and it was within Mom’s “seashell” range so we knew when to go home.  

Mom had a seashell sitting by the door at all times.  When she blew the seashell we had to go home.  If we didn’t hear it, then we were further away than was allowed.  There were no excuses.

Thinking about the swimming hole, I mentioned to an old friend, recently that I also got a little education there the day she was sunbathing in a bikini. 

When she got up, she forgot she had unfastened her top and it dropped off. I was still pretty young at the time but it made an impression on me, nonetheless.

Summer Meant Playing at the Neighbors.

As kids, we would get together at each other’s homes, although most of the time I went to someone else’s home because they were “better off” than me, I thought.  

I liked to go to Keith Pye’s because he had a huge collection of comic books stored in a small room behind their garage and he had more board games and other playthings than any kid on the Crick  We could play Monopoly or Checkers plus lots of other games at his home.  

Summers Meant the Woods

Bob Rosette
Bob Rosette and I found all sorts of things to do without having them planned for us.  You
have to remember something else about life back then.  We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. That’s exactly what they were - - - accidents. No one was to blame but us, and nobody got sued over what we did on our own.  So, for Bob and me, walking in the woods always resulted in one of our favorite pastimes --- climbing trees.  We would climb to the top of the big trees, and then jump from branch to branch, playing Tarzan.  We found grape vines and could swing for a long time on them.  We would have a contest to see who could climb a sapling and hang on the top so the sapling would bend and let us down slowly like a parachute. 
On one occasion, my sapling broke as I was “parachuting” down and I hit the ground hard and bruised my heel on a rock.  That kept hurting for weeks but nothing was broken that I know of.  I just limped for a couple weeks with a bruised heel. 
Another time we climbed up a rather good size tree and started loosening the bark with knives and stripping it off.  We did that all the way down the trunk.  Later, one of the Hornungs was asking Dad about the dead tree behind our house (on their property).  Turns out they were planning on cutting that tree for some use on the farm but we had killed the tree and made it useless.  Dad was clueless, as far as I know.
Bob wasn’t the only one I managed to do dumb things with but we had our fair share. One of the more stupid things a couple of us attempted but fortunately it failed, was the time we set a shotgun shell in a hole in the base of a tree.  I don’t remember who I was with that day. We intended to hit the firing button on the base of the shell and make it explode up through the hollow tree trunk.  Fortunately we couldn’t find a way to do it.  It would have been disastrous if we had.  With no barrel to enclose the shell, it would have exploded in our faces.

Which reminds me of another stupid trick when we were a little older.  We found out we could take a piece of two or three inch diameter metal pipe, put a pipe cap on one end, drill a small touchhole near the cap, add a little carbide as a light explosive and put a cork in the open end.  When we held a light to the touchhole, the carbide ignited and would blow the cork a huge distance. 
 
Our fertile minds advanced our carbide gun experience into making a bomb.  We took the powder out of a number of shotgun shells and put the powder in a two-inch pipe with a cap on both ends.  We put a fuse we found in Dad’s dynamite supplies (which was a forbidden area) inserted it in the touchhole, placed the whole thing in the middle of the road, lit the fuse and ran to hide in the ditch.  Again we were lucky because, first of all no cars came by at that time and secondly, the fuse burned down, the powder went “swoosh” and nothing happened.

When Bob Rosette and I were a little older, I went down to his house to see what he was up to.  He hollered to me from behind his Dad’s motorcycle in the shed.  His Dad had told him never to play on the motorcycle when he wasn’t around because it was a Harley Indian Chief and very heavy.  Naturally, Bob had to sit on it.  

When he got off on the side toward the wall the bike fell over against the wall and he was trapped.  It wasn’t on him but he couldn’t get out from behind it.  

I tried to move it but couldn’t budge it, so I went to get help.  Just then Syl (Sylvester), Bob’s Dad, came home.  Syl sent me home, evens though I had nothing to do with Bob’s problem.  

I don’t remember what punishment Bob got, if any.

Halloween

Halloween always meant a time for all of the kids to get together.  We didn’t do much dressing up unless we were going to a Halloween party.  

We played practical jokes and tried to scare people.  

We notched grooves on the edges of a thread spool, wrapped string around it and held it up to a window as we pulled the string.  It made a loud rattling noise on the window, supposedly to scare people inside.  Then we ran like heck.  

We did this at the Farrell residence on a downstairs window.  As we were running away, Billie Farrell, an older person, came out and fired his pistol in the air.  

Needless to say that was enough of that trick on them.  Another trick was to place a garbage can on the porch, tie a string to the doorknob and knock on the door.  When they opened the door it tipped the garbage can over and spilled garbage on the porch.  

I was not a part of the trick when my brothers set a buckboard (a four-wheeled carriage) on someone’s garage roof.  It took a lot of work but was worth it when the people found it there and had to get it back down.

Another favorite was tipping over outhouses but I never did that, either.  That was destructive and there would have been heck to pay with Dad. 

Smoking and Drinking

Me on left, 
George Horning Rt.
George Horning was a little younger than I and lived just west of our house but we found time to get into trouble once in a while.  We got together to play one day but ended up smoking cigarettes.  

This went on for a couple weeks.  Somehow it was reported to my mother, who didn’t punish me but made me promise I wouldn’t smoke anymore until I was eighteen and then if I wanted to, I could smoke.  

I never did.  


I never drank any kind of alcohol, either.  Most of my friends thought it was because of my mother or my Christian beliefs but that is not the reason.  

I was always quite shy and worried about what people would think of me in different situations.  I saw how people acted when they drank too much.  I never wanted to be caught looking like that.  

Since I didn’t know how much would be too much, I decided to not drink any and it became a goal of mine to never drink any alcohol at all.  I have succeeded to this day except once.

I was at a reunion of Mary Jane’s family and they had two kinds of punch.  I asked which one was spiked and her uncle pointed it out to me so I drank a couple glasses out of the other one.  Turns out he was feeding me a line and Mary Jane found out about it.  She told me so I quit drinking any of it.

Winter Activities

Wintertime brought other types of fun.  The flat in Hornung’s field across the old West Crick Road that was “down over the bank” from our house, often had ponds large enough to skate on.  We also skated at Straub’s pond or if the weather was really cold we could skate on parts of the actual West Crick.  On a couple occasions we skated from our area to Truman, sevens miles away, to visit the Taggarts and other kids. 

Winter activities proved to be dangerous on one occasion. Bob Rosette and I were exploring a pond near West Crick.  The pond had been frozen with heavy thick ice but some of it had melted and cracked off during a thawing period.  On this morning a large frozen chunk of ice was partially thawed but had hardened enough over the last few days to become quite solid again.  Part of it was hanging out over the pond leaving a large hole in the center of the pond.  It looked safe enough because it was very thick.

 As Bob and I moved around on it, I moved out to the edge to see if I could spot anything in the water.  Suddenly, the large chunk under me broke off and I plunged into the cold, deep water.  Fortunately I came back up where ice had melted away instead of under the ice.  Bob was laughing hysterically, yet trying to help.  He tried to coax me to shore but my clothes were so heavy I couldn’t stay on top of the water; I kept going under.  Somehow I found a way to kick back up and hold my head above water.  Bob stopped laughing and finally found a branch big enough to hold out to me and pulled me to the bank.  Turns out he said he was laughing because I went under water with a knitted cap on my head and when I came up it was still there.  I still think he was sort of hysterical.  We walked back to my house so I could change clothes.  I told Mom I fell in the crick.  She had told me distinctly not to play on any of the ponds because they were thawing out. . . .  Parents are such know-it-alls.

My skiing was done on wooden barrel staves because we couldn’t afford real skis.  Barrel staves are the curved pieces of wood banded together to make barrels.  We skied on short slopes or sometimes we went up Seaver’s Hollow, back of Hornung’s, and then skied down a half-mile or more.  We also used sleds whenever and wherever we could.  My Dad’s toboggan/sled he had made for pulling fire wood was great except there was no way to steer except by using body weight to lean in the direction you wanted to go.  One person would lie down on the sled, someone would kneel between their legs and away they’d go.  The problem one time was, the guy kneeling with me didn’t lean the right way on a sharp curve and we flew off the road and landed on a ledge over the bank, then down a hill filled with brush and trees.  No major damage except the wind was knocked out of me. 

I can’t believe that on one of our sled riding days I was talked into sticking my tongue onto the runner of the sled.  Not good!  Simon Hornung poured warm water on it to get me loose.

Butchering

Thanksgiving was butchering day.  It began early.  A 55-gallon drum was set up at an angle with a platform built on a level with the lower edge of the drum.  The drum was filled with water and a fire built under it to heat the water.  When it was time to shoot the pig, Mom would turn up the radio and sing loud enough to drown out the sound of the .22 rifle shot and any squealing that might take place.  After dressing the pig, it was pushed in and out of the boiling water to soften the bristles so they could be more easily scraped off using knives and special tools. Then they would pull the carcass up on the limb of a tree. Or they would use the big engine tripod Mel and Bob built to change engines in cars.  Dad would complete the butchering process while the carcass was hanging.  Mom always said we used everything from the pig except the squeal. The usual bacon, pork chops, hams, and other cuts of meat were a given but Mom also made scrapple, sausage, pigs feet and other items.  The tail was cut so the fatty flesh end could be used for greasing the griddle. 

Favorite Meals

Nutritionists would be horrified to watch as Dad fixed his morning breakfast.  Eggs cooked in bacon grease, the remaining grease poured over his pancakes like syrup.  One of Dad’s strange eating rules was: you could eat eggs with pancakes as long as you put butter or grease on them but if you used syrup you couldn’t have eggs with the pancakes.  Fortunately, Dad was gone to work during the week and we ate what we liked.  Sam and I would eat a full loaf of bread for breakfast, running it through a Toastmaster toaster that walked the bread through on a moving rail.  Just fascinating!

Any day could be a day to kill a chicken but Saturday was the usual day to prepare the chicken for Sunday dinner.  Mom was the one to kill the chicken.  She did a better job than Dad.  She laid its head on a stump, neck stretched out, stroked it to keep it calm and then, chop! and it was done.  She would throw the chicken off to the side to flop around and bleed out.  She was also the one who had to pluck it and cook it unless Rose or Glady was around to help.

Huge piles of chicken graced our table on special or evens not special occasions.  Pork chops, ham, beef, when we could get them, were usually saved for special days.  Potatoes, beans, peas, corn, cabbage, beets, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, etc, all were everyday eating because we grew them on our little farm. We ate what was put before us and had to clean up everything on our plates. And . . . oh, yes . . . we ate at the table.  We never took food anywhere else to eat.  Special times, when there were too many to fit around our huge table, the kids sat at an extra table with no arguments about it.  We were taught proper manners for eating.  We never started eating before others and we never started to eat anything before a prayer by Mom.  Food was passed to everyone and if we needed something, we asked for it.  If we reached for something not close to us, the comment from Mom would be, “If you want something, ask for it, people will think you were born in a boarding house.”  Now Dad didn’t observe the same rules.  He would not ask for anything and he didn’t reach for anything beyond his table area.  Mom had to keep an eye on him and guess what he needed and tell someone to pass it to him.  When he had finished eating, he placed his tableware across his plate and that was a signal we didn’t have to ask if there was anything else he wanted.  He was finished!

Winter Chores and Such

Over the years, various jobs around the house were the responsibility of each of us kids, depending on our age and who was home.  There was always something that needed to be done.  My earliest remembrance for heating the house was through the use of coal and wood stoves, one in the parlor, one in the living room, and the range in the kitchen.  The photos are not just like our stoves but give you an idea about what they were like. Mom cut holes     Kitchen range in the ceiling for registers to heat the upstairs. 

Keeping the fires going in the winter required all of us.  Taking out the ashes, adding coal, banking for the night, stoking in the morning, were all normal chores.  Dad made a special toboggan/sled to bring wood from the woodpile to the porch.  I’m glad the other boys did most of the ‘haulin’.  I just tossed wood on the sled if I could.  By the time I was old enough to pull the sled, we had moved on to only coal stoves.  

For a time my Mother’s sister, Aunt Ella (Barr) Geschwender, from Buffalo stayed with us.  She was quick to remind me about taking out the ashes or fixing the fire and she always seemed to tell me about it when I was engrossed in something I really wanted to do, like reading. She was relentless, though.  I had to do it or she would keep reminding me every five minutes.

Cold weather meant getting up in the cold, dressing in the cold, walking down the road to the bus stop in the cold but who cared?  We were kids. It was fun, mostly.  We had to take turns standing over the heat register in the upstairs hallway as we got dressed.  We slept two in a bed when we were young.  Sam and I on occasion, slept between straw tick mattresses in order to keep warm.  A little snow came through the cracks around the windows on really stormy nights. There was no insulation in the walls or the ceiling.   Squirrels loved to hoard their winter supply of walnuts in the attic.  We could hear the squirrels rolling them around different times of the day or night.

After digging out the cellar, Dad installed a coal furnace in the cellar and got rid of the individual stoves.  So now we had central heating of, sorts, back in the late 1940’s; that is - -  if you can call a more or less centrally located behemoth of a coal furnace located in the cellar with no duct work for heat distribution - - - “central heating”.  There was only one heat register in the whole two story house.  It was about 24 inches square and was directly above the fire box of the furnace and was situated in the wood flooring between the dining room and living room.  

Winter Mornings

The first thing in the morning when I rolled out of bed from under a mountain of blankets, there was that ever-present shocking reminder that the coal furnace didn’t start belching fire with a flick of a thermostat, nor did it often burn and produce comforting heat throughout the night.  At night, Dad would bank the furnace, that is, add coal to keep the furnace burning slowly through the night. On school mornings, if Dad had not stoked the furnace before leaving for work, it was often my job to do so.  “Stoking” meant shaking down the coal ashes and then stir up the embers.  If I was lucky there might have been a small hot coal left over from the large chunk that Dad put in the night before.  Getting the fire going was no easy task, nor a quick one. Upstairs the family huddled around the register eagerly awaiting the first burst of heat from below. 

Our house, like many of its era, had more than ample wintry drafts.  Windows, exterior doors, thin, un-insulated walls, were insufficient barriers to the winter chill compared to the homes of today.  Since there was no blower on the furnace there was no way to force the warm air around the house or up to the second floor.  So the gravity system seemed to take forever for the house to warm up.  Mom eventually cut a foot square hole and added a grate in the parlor room ceiling to allow some heat to rise into the upstairs.  But it had little practical effect in warming the bedrooms.

One morning I poked the coals to get to the hot embers underneath and waited for the embers to break into flames, as they usually did.  On this morning it just smoked for a while but didn’t catch fire right away.  I opened the door again to look in, to see what I needed to do, when it exploded in my face.  My beautiful wave on the front of my hair caught fire (probably from all that alcohol in the Vitalis I put on it) my eyebrows were burned off and all of the front part of my hair was singed.  Luckily I had very little actual skin burn but going to school with a red face and smelly, singed hair was embarrassing.

During the time we had coal stoves and after the coal furnace was put in, shoveling coal for the furnace was a major job and we all took turns.  The coal was dumped, a ton or two at a time, in the driveway behind the house.  Dad had a metal chute made to run from the driveway to the coal bin window, about 10 or 12 feet long.  We then shoveled the pile of coal into the chute that led to the coal bin in the cellar.  Ashes were removed from the furnace, spread on either the garden area for fertilizer or the long driveway to provide traction. The driveway ran from the from the West Crick road up around to the back of the house.

Cutting Ice

We had other work to do in the wintertime.   One project was cutting ice blocks at the pond behind Harry Spangler’s home at Ostrum Hollow (later changed to Towner Run) near Aunt Belle’s home.  We used ice saws to cut chunks about 2 feet square and loaded them on sleds to take to the icehouse near the Spangler barn.  The icehouse was a double walled building with sawdust packed between the walls for insulation.  Because we helped out, Dad got to use some of the ice during the spring or summer before we had a refrigerator.

1941 – 1945 “It was the best of times” - In My Innocence of Youth


    

Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor!!

Horrible, we knew it was.  Yet for me, as a kid, “It was the best of times”.  At least that’s how I looked at it through my youthful eyes.  The attack came December 7, 1941, two months shy of my 10th birthday, January 26, 1942.  The war didn’t mean that much to me then but within a couple years it became very clear as to how it would affect my life. 

Life would change, as I knew it.  Between 1942 and 1945 all four of my brothers left for the service. Again, in my innocence, I thought that was great, too.  I was very proud of them.  Using Dad as a role model, we had always been very patriotic.  This was something they had to do for their country.  The boys wrote home about their experiences and I was proud as a peacock.  I had no concept of the dangers involved for all of them.  No one in my immediate family had died during my lifetime so it was inconceivable something would happen to one of my brothers. 

In school and out I would draw horrible caricatures of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Tojo Hidecki, then write stories about how they were “gonna get theirs.”  I had not one doubt about the outcome of the war.  “America always wins wars”, I thought.  There were no worries in my innocence of youth. 

For us kids, WWII filled most of our waking thoughts because it prompted a lot of ideas for games.  Waging “Kid’s War” was a great fascination for us.  We made wooden guns, wore made-up uniforms, chose sides, threw fake hand grenades, took prisoners, and fought through the rough terrain of the woods behind our house to win battles.  We built snow forts in the winter to wage vigorous battles with snowballs.  I evens built a “tank” at our house.

Our family had pigs and hogs for a long time but now they were gone so we had an unused pigpen.  It was about two feet high and four feet square.  During the time we had pigs, Dad would get old, leafy vegetables from the grocery stores for feeding them. 

Sometimes he brought them home in a crate about three feet square made of light wood and one of those was still stored near the barn.  Without asking permission, I cut a hole in the roof of the pigpen and set the light wood case upside down over the hole to act as a tank turret.  A piece of pipe was the cannon and a pole was the machine gun.  I got a couple of neighborhood playmates to join me in my “tank” war.  The smell of the pigpen didn’t affect us at all.  We could kill Krouts or Japs (as we then called them) for hours. 

The War Effort at Home

A typical scrap Drive
Despite doing things just for fun, we also helped in the war effort.  Really!  Even as kids, we did!  Scrap metal was vital to the war effort.  Old cars were recycled all over the country.   After the war began, no car manufacturers were allowed to make new cars. Their factories had to be used for military production. Whatever car you had at the beginning of the war, you were stuck with for the duration. 

The Emporium Movie Theatre sponsored scrap drives by offering tickets to those who brought in a required number of pounds of scrap. 

One of the free movies for scrap was National Velvet. The movie starred Elizabeth Taylor and it was all about her adventures trying to win a horse race. All the kids looked for scrap-metal anywhere we could and brought it to a designated collection point. 

Walking the railroad tracks was a good way to find rail spikes and discarded metal plates to turn in.  I found more scrap than was required so they gave me a free ticket.  The movie was standing room only for every night the film showed.

Adults were caught up in the rationing programs for shoes, gas, and various foods such as sugar, coffee, and meats of all kinds.  Meatless Tuesday came to be the norm and Protestants joined Catholics in not eating meat on Fridays, which had been a Catholic tradition for many years.  The regulation was changed later by the Pope to allow Catholics to eat meat on Friday. Victory gardens were promoted for all families but we already grew most of our own food so not much changed for us on that front.

My brothers were in the service so I had to become a serviceman, too.  I joined the Boy Scouts.  As a Boy Scout, I helped in the collection of newspapers and magazines.  We rode in big trucks. People had their newspapers bundled and ready and then we picked them up at their homes.

For other scrap material we collected items we used at home.  We saved tinfoil from discarded cigarette and chewing gum or candy wrappers.  We squeezed empty metal toothpaste tubes in the crack of a door to remove all the paste so the tubes could be recycled. Remember, there were no plastic items at that time.  

Nylon stockings had just replaced silk hose to become fashionable. These were collected to make parachutes. Women painted their legs to look like they were wearing nylons.  They evens painted a dark stripe up the back of the leg to make it look like the seam of the nylons. 

School kids went out to gather Pussy Willow (Milk Weed) pods.  We spent hours picking the pods and putting them in burlap bags.  Then they were collected and sent somewhere to a central point.  The filling in the pods was used to make life jackets.  They seemed to work as well as Kapok from the Kapok trees, which we didn’t have any of since they grow only in tropical countries. 

People were asked to save tinfoil, tin, rubber bands, and string among other items.  Oleo/margarine replaced butter (Mom would churn butter for us).  The oleo was imitation butter so it was not allowed to be sold as the same color of butter. Oleo came with a yellow coloring disk that had to be mixed in, to make it look like butter.

Packaged cigarettes were hard to buy and were more expensive than “roll your own”.  So I helped my brothers, when they were home, by rolling cigarettes for them, using a little machine.  I put thin, special paper in the rollers, added tobacco from a pouch and pulled the rollers across each other to form a cigarette.  Then I licked it to seal the paper. 

Anyone could save money for War Stamps that were traded in for a War Bond.  After buying $16.75 worth of stamps we traded them in for a War Bond.  After ten years the bond would be worth $25.

Wartime Songs

Then, there were the wartime songs.  Some made fun of the Axis powers and their leaders.  Some told great stories about the American forces and tried to encourage the “boys” who were fighting.  Some were sentimental songs about when the war was over and things returned to normal.  

I loved to sing some of the wartime songs evens before I thought about singing as something I really liked to do.  

Songs like Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition; Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer; Der Fuehrer’s Face; or Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

However, we boys weren’t gonna sing those “mushy” songs, No sir-ee!  

We weren’t gonna sing songs like, I’ll Be Seeing You, Sentimental Journey, or Now is the Hour When We Must Say Goodbye.  Come to think of it, I did play the recording for that song when Mel was telling his sweetheart goodbye, as he was leaving for overseas.  

I thought it was romantic but Mel and his girl at the time thought it was very sad and it made them cry.  I was really proud of myself for that.  

Kids can be so inconsiderate!  Yes, for us kids, “It was the best of times.”

1941 - 1945 “It was the worst of times” – For the Adults

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor!  As I mentioned before, “It was the best of times” for innocent kids; “It was the worst of times” - - - for Mom and Dad and the other adults. They knew America was ill prepared for a large war. We were still in the throes of The Great Depression.  America’s standing Army was much too small.  Adults knew this; we kids didn’t think about it.  Germany was bombing London every day, adults felt terrible about the carnage, kids didn’t realize the amount of damage taking place and the thousands being killed.  Germany had already taken over large parts of Europe and Africa.  Adults knew what might happen if this continued; kids had no concept.  Japan was in the process of conquering parts of China and Indonesia and was taking over American-held islands in the Pacific. Adults feared Japan invading America; kids knew America would never allow that. 

With all these things going on, adults, like Mom, worried and prayed and listened to every newscast about the war; kids listened to their favorite radio programs like Gene Autry or Flash Gordon. War news seemed to be the only news at the time.  We listened to the war news on our Philco slant-topped console with its little antenna wire connected to a long wire outside so we could bring in stations from far away. 

I’m sure Mom’s take on the War news was a lot different than mine.  Mom was an excellent history student and knew geography well enough to know where the place was they were reporting on.  (I often wondered what they reported about before there was this major War).  Edward R. Murrow reported from London.  He would describe in great detail the bombing of London by the Nazis.

During the early days of World War II, images of the war had to be created in the minds of radio listeners and newspaper readers by writers and reporters such as H.P. Kaltenborn, Eric Sevaried, and Lowell Thomas, who described the action in dramatic detail. 

War news did not come nearly as spontaneously as it does now. We didn’t have TV to gather in front of, to see and hear all the disturbing news of the day.  

Instead, everyone gathered in groups anywhere there was a radio. In the cities, crowds gathered on the street and listened to the current broadcasts of war conditions that may have happened hours or days before.  Reporters dared not mention where units were or which ones were being shipped out for places overseas.  

News of battles might be delayed by days, sometimes weeks. We would get news and pictures as part of our movie going.   "Movietone News" included shorts before all the main features and would show movies and pictures from the fighting areas.  

Hollywood put out films based on the war and some of those lasted in popularity for many years.  A lot of them are on TV even today.  

One thing I realize now about those news clips and the movies, they always showed America in a good light, always winning with no tactical failures.  If something did go wrong it was because of bad luck, not a smarter enemy or better ships, planes or guns.  

Yes, we now know America had propaganda, too but it never reached the extent of the Axis propaganda.

Many listened to Walter Winchell for news and he did give war news but he was mainly a gossip columnist.  He always started his news program with the sound of a ticker tape clicking and quickly spoken words;

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America, from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press.” 

Mom wrote letters regularly to the boys, wrote poems of encouragement, always told them she was praying for them and sent packages of goodies.  She became so engrossed with what could happen and worried so much she decided to go to work at Sylvania just to keep her mind occupied.  

Because Sylvania had an upper age hiring limit, she had to lie about her age to get the job but get it she did.  Mom lied?  I don’t believe it!  

She continued to work for the duration of the war.

The War seemed like it was a lot longer than the four years of American involvement.  Yes, for adults it was, “the worst of times.”

Modernization

In later years, while I was still in grade school, Dad converted the coal furnace to gas.  He bought a conversion unit somewhere and did the work himself.  In those days you never hired someone to do a job you could do yourself.

Other modernization that occurred much earlier, in the late thirties, was indoor plumbing. Going to the outhouse in the middle of the night was not something any of us wanted to do.  As a result, the boys did not always go outside as long as there was an open window to use.  I don’t think Mom and Dad knew about that until they started wondering about the yellow stain on the siding. 

One night, when I was probably 4 or 5, came an event that is still impressed on my mind.  Before going to bed, I asked Mom to take me to the outhouse but Mom said, “You’re a big boy now, you can go by yourself.”  

I didn’t want to go alone, but I did.  

On the way back I was coming down the stone steps when a rat or two ran across in front of me.  I sat down on the top step and started yelling as loud as I could, till Mom came out to save my life. 

I hated rats then and I continued to hate them. When I was a teenager I used to shoot them in the rock wall behind the house.  

I also used to go to the community dump at Keystone Hollow just above the old airport to shoot rats.  

Several of us would go there at night, strap a flashlight to a 22-caliber rifle and shoot them.

To continue my indoor plumbing subject - - - 

We got our baths in a tub in the kitchen until, as I said before, in the late thirties, when we graduated to an indoor toilet and bathtub.  I don’t remember not having electricity but the house originally had gaslights.  

The family used coal oil lamps for reading and close work.  

In the middle thirties, Rex Waddington, Sr. wired the house with a few lights and outlets.  

Years later, when I was working at Sylvania and thought I was “loaded with money”, I asked Rex if he would rewire the house to modernize it. 

He said, “You know Kenny, I still remember wiring your parent’s house. It’s not a big house but I remember the unorthodox way part of the house was built.  I remember what I had to do to string the cable. So I know what would be involved in rewiring and I have to tell you, I wouldn’t touch rewiring that house with a ten-foot pole!”  

About 1940, Mel had bought fluorescent lights from the Sylvania company store for the downstairs rooms.  We had the only house on the Crick where you could see slightly blue lighting coming out of the windows.

Grade School

I attended Plank Road Hollow School seven out of eight grade school years.  I rode to school in a school bus that picked me up in front of the house when I was in first grade.  Later I walked to Morrison’s, almost next door, and still later I got the bus at Hornung’s, a quarter mile down the road.  

No kindergarten classes were available in those days so I started in first grade the September after I turned six in 1938.  

My first teacher was Miss Miskowitz who also had a sister teaching in the borough.  I remember her as someone I liked evens though she pulled my hair one day because I couldn’t learn to make a small “g”.  I was devastated to think I was being punished.  All she did was tug on my hair to get my attention.  

In Second grade I had Rhea (Miller) Baughman as a teacher.  She was very nice and a good teacher.  I knew her and talked with her in later years.  She lived until 2004 when she was in her nineties.  

Third Grade was held in the same room as Fourth Grade.  If you kept up good grades you were put in the row next to the Fourth Grade.  I was lucky enough to be in that row and did some of the same studies as Fourth Grade. 

My Eyesight

It was in Third Grade I started having trouble reading the blackboard. I had no idea why so I didn’t say anything to anyone.  

During recess one winter, I got hit in the middle of my eyes with an ice ball. 

I went to the teacher and told her my eyes were so blurry I couldn’t see much.  

At the teacher’s request, I had to sit with my eyes closed until I went home.  

A few days later I told the teacher I couldn’t see the blackboard very well.  I thought the ice ball incident might have had something to do with it.  The teacher said I could sit in a front seat.  

That made me cry because I was embarrassed to sit up there.  I thought something made me different from the other kids.  

A little later we had an eye check by a nurse who told my parents I needed to see the eye doctor, something was wrong with my vision.  

Mom took me to Dr. Impress on Broad Street.  He said I was simply nearsighted, just like Mom, and all I needed was a pair of glasses.  

He fitted me with glasses, ordered them and a couple weeks later we went down to get them.  

I remember to this day, the thrill when I stepped out of the office and could see things on Broad Street and the Fourth Street corner. I never could have made out so far away, before.  

It was absolutely thrilling.  

I have never been sorry I wore glasses; they saved injuries to my eyes several times.

Girls

It was also in Third Grade I had my first episode with a “girl friend”.  

I kinda liked Martha Black evens though I don’t believe the feelings were returned at the time, and maybe never.  

I was sitting in a seat before class started.  Verna Wilson came over and sat on the desk in front of me, facing me, her feet firmly planted on the desk seat and said in a very serious tone, “Kenny, I want to know, am I going to be your girlfriend or is it Martha Black?”  

What an embarrassing moment!  I don’t remember my answer. I mentioned this in an E-mail to Martha (Black) Fassett recently and she remembered it.  

Martha wrote back in 2006 saying, Hi Kenny- I think it is great you are writing up some memories for your kids and grandkids.  I was amused to recall some of the incidents.  I do remember the Verna Wilson incident.  I vividly remember Mr. Smith and his rubber hose.  We were all so horrified when he used it on someone.
 I remember my "little girl crushes" went between you and Robert Taggart all through grade school.  Something that might be of interest, I have an old scrap book of valentines up in my attic.  I'm quite sure I have several from you.  I remember that you often scotch taped a lollypop to mine, which I immediately ate!  Sometime, when I get up in the attic, I will check it out.  We all did have a good time growing up together.  Lots of good memories.”

Sixth Grade was at Swesey School in Rich Valley.  The outstanding memory of that grade was the one teacher I had, John Brown.  Mr. Brown was a disciplinarian as well as a good teacher.  After a field exercise where we had taken a nature hike up Clear Crick, we came back to the school and Mr. Brown called a student by the name of John Rougeaux, to the front.   We had been given explicit instructions there would be no smoking on the trip.  Rougeaux was older than most of us, very big for Sixth Grade but had disobeyed the rule.  Mr. Brown made him bend over the desk as the class looked on and proceeded to give him a licking with a thick yardstick.  After he was finished, Mr. Brown had to sweep up the pieces of yardstick.

I returned to Plank Road Hollow for Seventh and Eighth Grades.  During those years a few memories stick out.  A couple memories had to do with teasing girls.  Girls almost always wore dresses in those days.  I believe it was Martha Black but she didn’t remember it, so I wonder if it was maybe Lila Platt, or Ramona Mumford, or Shirley Fisher or Verna Wilson or . . .?  There were just so many . . .  I’ll stay with Martha.  I was teasing and chasing her during recess.  I reached out to pull the bow on her belt that was tied on the back of her dress.  And when I did, it tore the dress.  Again embarrassing! 

But I wasn’t thinking “embarrassment” when she went to the teacher to get her dress fixed, I was thinking, “Scared.”  I was standing there as the teacher was pinning the torn dress when the principal, Mr. E.C. Smith, happened to come by.  Mr. Smith said to Martha, “How did this happen?”  Now I knew I was in trouble!  I was scared because I knew I was going to get the rubber hose that was Mr. Smith’s method of punishment.  He used a four-foot piece of rubber hose, bent in two, and used it to whip the student several times.  People said it stung really badly and I figured I was about to find out.  Martha made me feel a whole lot better when she told him, “My belt was untied and it got stuck in the door when I went through it.”  Whew! What a relief!  I already liked her but this made her a real friend. 

A second embarrassing moment happened as a class was starting.  We had individual seats with an arm rest and storage on the shelf under the sear.  I was leaning over to get books out from under my seat.  Lila Platt came between the two seats just as I sat up.  My head came up under her dress and she screamed.  My face turned red as a beet!

In Eighth Grade we were at recess when Harry Britton put snow down my neck.  I chased after him but he ran into the school and up the stairs to the second floor landing.  I kept a snowball in my glove and went up to where he was talking to other kids.  He never saw me till I pulled the back of his shirt out and slammed the snow down his neck.  Now Harry was a lot bigger than I, not as tall but he weighed 30 pounds more than my 120, or so.  Just as I completed my snowball retaliation, he swung around and clobbered me in the head.  I rolled down the steps to the next landing, unhurt.  Mr. Smith chose this time to walk out onto the upper landing, just in time to see Harry hit me.  He didn’t ask any questions, just took Harry in and gave him the rubber hose.

Church in My Younger Years

Church was a given for our family.  In the earlier years I went to Sunday school with Mom and Dad.  I don’t remember who all went on a regular basis.  I don’t remember Sam, Keith or Bob going with me but then I was too young to remember. I know from what I was told 
later that Mom and Dad went on Sundays with seven kids lined up on the pew. Later, of course, Rose and Gladys were married and did their own thing.  Sunday school was Sunday school to me as a kid; it was a time for fun and being with other kids.  The church service, with the sermon, was boring but a “must do” type of thing. 

It wasn’t until later, in 1948, when I was listening to an Evangelist in our church that God spoke to me, I went forward and was later baptized. Church then became what I wanted to do, not just go because Mom said so.  I do remember when I was a teenager, Dad usually going on Sunday evenings, more so than in the morning.  Rose and Glady were very “into” all sorts of church activities when they were younger; slacked off when they were raising their families, and then became active again. 

 

Boy Scouts

I mentioned before about being a Scout. I hadn’t really thought about joining the Boy Scout organization until Mel, Keith and Bob were all in the service.  I figured it would be the patriotic thing for me to do.  

I was too old for Cub Scouts so I joined the Boy Scout troop at the Methodist Church.  Burt Metz and Al Peterson were two of the Scoutmasters.  I really enjoyed an opportunity to be in an organized group.  We met for meetings at the church where we went through our various activities to win Merit badges plus played games at most meetings.  

For initiation, they took me up to the balcony over the fellowship room.  They showed me the railing around the balcony, blindfolded me and made me climb up on the railing.  They turned me around several times, both ways, then told me to jump.  I felt pretty sure they wouldn’t let me jump into the fellowship room but I guess you’re never really sure.  

Anyway, I jumped and landed on the balcony. 

I usually had to walk the two miles to meetings at the church but when it came time for Merit badges, my two mile walk was an ideal time to practice the Scout Pace mile.  The object was to walk 50 steps then trot 50 steps to travel one mile in twelve minutes.

In addition to meeting at the church we had a lot of activities in outdoor settings.  We camped out overnight or had daytime activities at Sizerville Park.  We scheduled a weekend in the middle of winter for an overnight at Drum and Henry’s camp on Whittemore Hill.  It turned out to be real cold.  I got there late and missed out on being assigned to sleep in the camp’s loft that we assumed would be warmest.  Bill Nordburg and I had to sleep in a mountain tent with a tiny kerosene heater.  As it turned out, those in the loft were so cold they couldn’t sleep while we were “snug as bugs in a rug” in our tent. 

We went to a weeklong campout near Kane.  There we took part in activities to work on merit badges.  My group worked on building a small bridge by using rope to tie pieces of wood together. Bill Nordberg was one of the fellas in my cottage. 

We were inside one evening and Bill was playing mumbly-peg with a hunting knife.  He said he could throw it and make it stick anywhere he wanted.  To demonstrate, he threw the knife at the door, where it stuck alright, just as the door opened and one of the scoutmasters came in.  If he had opened the door a second sooner, the fun time would have had disaster written all over it. 

When we went to Ole’ Bull State Park for a weekend or maybe longer, a couple of us sneaked into Gus Zito’s tent after he was asleep and stole his pants. We took them to the flagpole a quarter mile away and ran them up the pole.  The next morning he couldn’t find them until someone pointed to them flying in the breeze.  Someone started singing to a marching tune, “Oh Gus Zito’s pants are hanging from the flagpole, from the flagpole at Ole’ Bull”.  Later that day I stepped on a huge blacksnake, which was crossing the path near the commissary.  Scared the “bejeebers” out of me but I still managed to eat, anyway. Yeah, Scouting was a lot of fun.  I stayed with it until I became a Star Scout and then joined the Explorer Scout organization when I was about 16.  I left that program after a year or so, when I graduated from High School and went to work.

Punishment

These are my stories, not my brothers’ or sisters’ so I can only speak to what happened to me.  I don’t remember their punishments because as long as it wasn’t me, I didn’t care.  

Dad’s punishment for outright disobedience was his razor strop, a three-foot long leather belt he used to sharpen his straight razor. That sure would sting when it landed on my rear.  

Fortunately, I only remember getting the strop from Dad once, and I don’t remember what that was for.  Mom tried to intervene to carry out the punishment herself.  She felt Dad could be too heavy-handed the way his mother had been.  

Mom’s physical punishment for me was with a lilac switch.  Which was reserved for the most serious transgressions such as the day she saw me shooting at a Robin with my B-B gun.  

I tried to make her understand I shouldn’t be punished because I didn’t hit it.  

Didn’t work!  

Her punishment MO (method of operation) was usually the same:  She would say to the one to be punished, “Go get me a lilac switch”.  Now I know that sounds cruel, to have to pick out a switch for your own punishment but actually it was a blessing in disguise.  

This way you could pick out a switch that was not real small because that would sting like heck.  Too large would be dangerous and could damage something so she would make us go back to get another one.  

The ones in between would smart but were tolerable.  I was a good kid so I didn’t get those very often.  

She would never run out of switches because our home was called “Lilac Farm”.  We had bushes near the barn, at the top of the long steps coming up from the highway as well as other places on the property.

The punishment I hated the worst was Mom’s lectures.  She had a way of making me feel very guilty with the words she used and I couldn’t wait till it was over.  It must have helped because I tried not to do anything she would have to lecture me about.

Medical Care

Medical care was needed when an incident occurred right after one of the times we were playing at Hornung’s haymow.  

We heard a large crash up the road near the Morrison curve.  It turned out to be a bad car wreck.  

All of us kids were running up the road to see what happened.  Uncle Ed McCormick had removed his mailbox from the horizontal support of the mailbox post.  

The support jutted out right at forehead level for me.  I never saw it!  My head hit the bar and I was knocked down and backwards onto the pavement and was out cold.  

When I came to, Glady was kneeling over me, crying.  She had on an apron covered with my blood.  

My injury was still numb so when she pulled me to my feet and began walking me through the field to our house, I kept saying, “I’m OK”.  What are you crying about?”  

We got home and Mom bandaged me up.  No doctor, no shots, a simple bandage was all. Then the pain started.  I still have the scar plus the bump on the back of my head. 

I had another injury when I disobeyed my mother, then lied about it.  

We had a rotting stone boat leaning up against an old unused outhouse near “The Car”.  I was told not to play on it.  So of course, when I was playing on it, the bottom broke out, my leg went through and I cut the front of my thigh on the jagged wood.  It left the flesh torn wide open, about six inches long.  

Mom asked how it happened so I told her I fell in the sharp gravel near The Car.  

I know she didn’t believe me but I was cut so badly she didn’t push it.  

You ask, “How many stitches did it take?”  

None, as we know them today.  She pulled it together, sewed a couple spots with a needle and thread and bandaged it with some kind of ointment. That was it.  

No doctor, no tetanus shot, no nothing.  An ad from 1934 told mothers that it is a “Mother’s Duty to Guard Her Children’s Health.”  They were advertising milk but the saying was very true for those days when it came to most sicknesses or injuries.  Mom was the do-all person.

I did have to go to the doctor once in a while. 

Another time it was again Bob Rosette’s fault.  At least, I thought so.  

We were playing near some Poison Ivy.  I told him I wanted to move away from the ivy because I knew my Dad and I were allergic to it.  

(Mom could roll around in it without any problem).  

Anyway, Bob said it was all in my head.  He took a leaf and rubbed it on his cheek and dared me to do the same.  

So, of course, I had to do it, too.  You guessed it!  In a matter of hours, my face swelled up and I had a horrible case of Poison Ivy.  

Bob got nothing. Mom said she would make a bread and milk paste to put on it but one of my sisters or someone insisted I go to the doctor for proper care. 

I had to go to Dr. Hackett who gave Mom Calamine Lotion to put on it.  He also told Mom to wrap my head in milk and bread compresses for two weeks and tie gloves on me so I couldn’t scratch the spots, just like she was going to do in the first place.  

About three weeks later I went to the doctor for a checkup.  Bob Rosette was there with a broken arm that he got when he fell out of a tree.  I told him, “Good for ya’, I’m glad you broke your arm!”  He didn’t know what I was talking about.

Radio and Entertainment

The grandchildren ask, “Grandpa what did you do before television?”  

“Well,” I said, “we had radio, and radio allowed us to use our imaginations much more than you have to with television.”  

I told them about a few of the programs I liked to listen to.  Radio shows such as The Shadow, with the running quote, “The Shadow knows”; Inner Sanctum Mysteries, which opened with the sound of a creaking door; Mr. District Attorney with its famous opening that I memorized then, and remember to this day. “And it shall be my duty as District Attorney, not only to prosecute to the to the limit of the law all crimes perpetrated within this county but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens.”

I listened to great western programs.  I could do my homework (which was something I did as little as possible) on Sunday night while listening to Gene Autry, at his Melody Ranch with his opening song, “I’m Back in the Saddle Again”; Jack Armstrong had an action program where he was known as “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy.”  The Green Hornet with his sidekick, Kato added to the action programs.

The whole family listened to just plain good comedy with Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, The Great Guildersleeve, Our Miss Brooks, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Henry Aldrich with the opening call by his mother, “Henry!  Henry Aldrich!”  Then he would answer in a squeaky voice, “Coming Mother.” 

Mom and I would listen to The Breakfast Club in the morning with Don McNeil.  This program was fun for listening since the audience as well as those listening at home were supposed to march around the breakfast table.  But did they?  We did, sometimes.  Imagination and radio worked great together.

 

Movies were another means of entertainment.  Due to a lack of money and the fact the theater was two miles away I don’t remember going to many movies until after I was 9 or 10.  Serial movies were very common.  There would be an episode each Saturday so if we could find the 15 cents required we could watch them as you would a Soap Opera on TV.  The ones I remember are only a few of the total, such as: Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, The Green Hornet, Batman and Robin, Zorro, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger.

Going to see regular movies was always a favorite of mine.  I loved movies and still do.  Back in the 40’s it depended on whether or not I could get the money to go.  Being the youngest I could usually talk one of my siblings into giving me the money.  One problem was walking home after films like Frankenstein’s Monster or Werewolf.  I was trotting home one night when a deer jumped off the bank and landed on the road right in front of me.  I made it on home in record time that night. 

When I was much older and an adult, I took the test for a Pennsylvania Projectionist license and showed movies at the local Emporium Theatre for several years.

 

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Just as it is today, Thanksgiving and Christmas were the favorite holidays of the year.  Thanksgiving was the feast day.  The whole family gathered together to fill up the dining room.  Some of the kids would sit at an extra table.  We usually had chicken instead of turkey because we raised our own chickens for many years.  The war years showed a slowdown on the family members who got together but they tried to carry on as normally as possible.

Christmas in my young years was very special.  Dad loved to do some decorating outside.  Inside remained mostly undecorated until after the young ones, like me, were in bed.  The next morning it was a new world in our house. First of all, the parlor was the place for the Christmas tree. It was set up Christmas Eve.  The parlor was normally off limits all year except for entertaining guests and special occasions. Christmas morning decorations abounded, the tree was up and trimmed, presents were under the tree.  Unlike today, there were usually only two or three presents, at the most, for each person. 

When I was born in 1932, The Great Depression was in full swing.  The average annual income was about $1500 and I’m sure Dad wasn’t making that much.  Since I was the youngest, more was available for me by the time I reached an age where I could appreciate what I was given.  My brothers and sisters didn’t have that luxury.  In addition, I got more gifts at this time than was available to the others in the years past because Mom and Dad weren’t the only ones buying gifts.  My brothers and sisters, who had jobs or were married, also chipped in.  Large gifts were not the norm.  A pair of ice skates comes to mind.  As soon as I could, I headed for the frozen flat to find a pond we could clear off.  A new coat or a hat or a pair of new gloves, were great to get.  Clothing was a welcome gift but toys or games were wanted the most. One year the gift of a tricycle allowed me to ride all over the porch evens in winter. Another year I received a sled that I could steer.  Absolutely unbelievable!  Mom and Dad made sure we were as happy as could be for that favorite time of year despite their meager means.  The war years found everyone gone, except Sam and me, and then in 1944, he enlisted at age 17 and was off to the Navy.

 

Travel and Visitation

Sundays were usually the day we visited relatives.  We had Aunt Frances and Uncle Jack Roof in Ridgway, 30 miles away.  Uncle Lee and Aunt Maude Barr lived in Kersey.  Aunt Ellie Geschwender and several Barr families lived in Buffalo, NY.  Today, we can run up to Ridgway, spend several hours and return before dark.  Back then, we got up early, packed the car with goodies, drove the thirty miles in about an hour and a half or more, spent some time with them and got home late at night.  Coming back was best because I would climb into the back seat and sleep all the way home, unless we had the whole family with us. 

One time we made the trip in the pickup truck.  Some of us rode in back.  Aunt Myrtle was going along but because of her and Mom’s size they couldn’t fit together in the cab.  Dad put a chair in the bed of the truck for Aunt Myrtle. (Just like the Beverly Hillbillies) When we came down a dirt road heading for the Roofs, the brakes didn’t hold and we went faster than we should have right out onto the main highway.  Aunt Myrtle was laughing and screaming at the same time.  “That was a real ‘hoot’’, she laughed.   Uncle Lee and Aunt Maude lived on a regular, working farm at Kersey so that was a great place to visit.  Later they lived in a smaller home with double staircases so we could run up one end of the house and come down the other end.

Trips to visit relatives in Buffalo involved several days.  The city was foreign to me and everything was really different from our country setting.  Mom and Dad’s favorite joke came as we went under the viaducts or any bridges over the road.  One of them would always say, “Duck”, and, of course, I ducked.

July 4th was celebrated as our nation’s birthday but was also Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary. They had been married on July 4, 1914 at Sunnybrook 
Farm, owned by Uncle Clint and Aunt Belle.  It was located where the Old West Crick Road and Route 120 come together, west of what is now the Grove House. For Many years we celebrated their anniversary at our home on West Crick. 

Relatives came from all over, including Buffalo, Ridgway, down county other places, and especially as many of my brothers and sisters as could get home.  We had a picnic, usually had a canopy in case of bad weather and all the kids had fun playing.  Everyone brought food but usually Mom, Rose, and Glady carried the brunt of cooking.

Going for a ride on Sundays was a common way to have a good time.  On one ride when I was quite young and when we had an older ‘30’s car, we came to a steep hill on a dirt road.  There were several people in the car and it wouldn’t go up the hill.  It looked like we would have to push it up or turn around and go back but Dad turned the car around and backed up the hill.  Dad knew the car had a lower gear ratio in reverse, which gave it more power.  When we rode up to Whittemore Hill we always had to stop part way up, at a spring, and put water in the radiator.

 

Ahhh –Those High School Years

High School!  

The great change in a student’s life that we all looked forward to. Well, maybe not all.  This was the time former Eighth Graders from all over the county were bussed to the Emporium High School on East 4th Street.  

We moved into Ninth Grade (Freshmen Year) and suddenly all these strangers were part of our class.  

A lot of them were from “Down County” (Driftwood, Sinnemahoning, Sterling Run, etc) others were from schools in other parts of the county including Plank Road Hollow (my school), and Moore Hill. The largest percentage was from in town.  

Cameron County is small but there were a lot of these kids I didn’t know and had never seen before.  After all, West Crick was my main stompin’ grounds.

There were about 120 students in my Freshman Year; of those, 77 would go on to graduate.  

Although everything was new, I sort of enjoyed the change evens though I was very bashful and didn’t mix in too well.  I knew I was bashful and constantly tried to make friends among those I didn’t know but in general, my closer friends were the ones I had in Eighth Grade and before, from Plank Road. 

I didn’t have a lot of trouble with classes, evens though I hated doing homework.  I would try to get it done during Homeroom or Study Halls that I might have.  I had to do some at home but I did as little as possible.  

We had been well prepared at Plank Road, so as I remember, most of the top students were from there.  Plank Roaders excelled in English evens though we knew nothing about doing diagramming of sentences as it was taught in town. 

I had no problem with History because I liked it. 

Geography (spelled “Grant Ellis’s Old Grandfather Rode A Pig Home Yesterday”) was no problem, I enjoyed the stories of other countries and the map studies.  WWII had gotten me interested in the world maps.

It was a different story with Mathematics.  Math was a totally different world for me.  Ninth Grade Algebra was tough but I had a good friend, Bob Taggart, who had no trouble and he would help as much as he could. I had trouble with math all the way through High School.  

Civics, with Amy C. Baker as the teacher, was not usually a problem.  I started out with good grades but she had me in a Study Hall half way through the year and asked who some of my relatives were.  

When I mentioned my brother, Sam, she said she remembered him as being very disrespectful of her.  That was the end of my good grades.  I finished with a “C” average for the year in Civics.

I had settled on an Academic Course because I had dreams of College evens though that was not to be.  

I took three years of Latin, a “Dead Language”. Those classes taught me a lot about words in the English language. 

We put on a play one year, all spoken in Latin.  That was tough but enjoyable.  

Miss Olive Livingston was our teacher.  We seemed to have a special bond.  She tried to get me to go to college and evens set up a trip to Indiana University of Pennsylvania to see if I could work something out.  

Earl Moore and I made the trip but money was not available for me through my family.  I made a half-hearted attempt to find other financial sources but I didn’t pursue it very well.  Working and making money was more attractive to me.

I joined some clubs in High School.  I liked music so I joined the Band, playing drums, especially the Bass Drum.  

I liked singing but I was too bashful to join Chorus.  I should have done that because I know I would have enjoyed it.  I remember one music teacher, Mrs. Hazel Merkle, had us sitting in two-student seats.  I was with Bob Taggart as usual. 

The class was singing songs.  Bob and I were singing with gusto.  She was looking for someone to sing a solo in chorus.  Suddenly, I noticed she was listening to voices in my area and she started moving along the aisles toward us, saying, “I think I hear someone over here.”  

The closer she got, the softer I sang. 

When she got near Bob and me I was not singing very loud and she finally decided she had heard Bob’s voice, so she picked him for the part.  

I always knew in my heart of hearts it had been me but I wasn’t about to get up in front of a group to sing a solo.  Yet I was dying to do it. How weird is that?  That all changed later. 

I sang to my hearts content when I was milking the cow.  I don’t know if it helped to make her give more milk but she seemed contented.  “Contented cow”, get it?  For years I told people that was where I learned to sing.

I was on the Yearbook staff as Literary Editor, and on the Library Staff.  

I joined the cast of the Junior play, “Home Sweet Homicide”.  Now that was a real surprise to me because I was “scared to death” to be in front of people and I had to speak with a lisp at that. I still remember, “Yeth Mom, I’m coming”. 

My last year in High School, I joined the Basketball Team.  Because of chores at home, I was not able to take part in sports until my senior year.  I was too light for football and Dad wouldn’t let me play anyway.  

I loved basketball and used to practice at the old West Crick schoolhouse prior to it being torn down.  Bob Taggart, Bud Kinsler and I used to play in that old school house a lot. The school was near where my sister, Glady, eventually built her home.  

I knew one year wouldn’t be enough to get me much playtime but mainly I wanted to attend the practices.   I had a lot of fun practicing and I did play in a couple games.  I evens ended up scoring two points for the year.  I can still hear the fans chanting, “We want Ostrum! We want Ostrum!”  That’s because we were so far ahead in a game, anyone could play and we couldn’t lose.  

In another game, or maybe it was the same game, I and others fed Kenny Rakestraw to help him break the individual scoring record, and he did it. Any way I looked at it, Basketball, in my senior year, was a lot of fun!

 

Teenage Girlfriends

Somewhere along the line I started noticing girls. I hope the reader isn’t too shocked to realize I was normal.  

Now I had girls as playmates when I was younger and I had found out then there was a difference between boys and girls but this was different.  

I used any method I could to get attention from them but it didn’t seem to work very well.  I did get a lot of attention when I took the Cheerleaders or Band Front members to practice, in the back of my ’34 Ford pickup. 

I had the impression, riding in the truck was what turned them on, not me, but I didn’t care.  

I had a few movie “dates” in my Junior year but it wasn’t until my Senior year I started dating more often.  They weren’t “dates” but I remember taking walks with Joanne Bergdahl that didn’t go anywhere. 

I spent a lot of time visiting Grace Coppersmith at her home which was also the local funeral home.  We would sit in the room at a table and talk or look at magazines or whatever, surrounded by caskets.  I didn’t mind that but one night as we were sitting on the porch, I mistakenly asked her who had died and was in the viewing room.  She said it was some guy who got caught in a buzz saw in the lumber mill and had been cut almost in half, top to bottom.  I left early.

To show how shy I was, or how dumb, I’m not sure which, Grace and I were standing in the vestibule as I was getting ready to go home.  Our faces were very close for quite a long time but I just couldn’t bring myself to give her a kiss.  

I thought about how dumb that was all the way home. Of course, she may not have been looking at it the same way I was.  One never knows about women!

Another girl I dated was Ann Harmon.  I always went to her home at Seventh and Maple St to pick her up.  Usually we walked to wherever we were going on a given night.  I couldn’t always get my Dad’s 34 pickup, so I had to ride my bike or walk to where I was going.  If she wasn’t ready, I would sit and talk to her Dad, Charles.  Problem was he was so smart I couldn’t really keep up with the conversation.  I would try to say something very intelligent and he would put a crimp in my ideas.  He was very interesting and could talk about anything.  I believe they had moved to town from Massachusetts.

A thrill for me came when I picked Ann up one night to go roller skating for the first time.  I had skated lots of times before but this was a first with her.  

All girls at that time usually wore blue jeans with rolled up pantlegs and “Saddle Shoes” as casual dress.  When they wanted to dress up more they wore dresses, or a blouse and skirt, including “Poodle Skirts”.  

That night Ann came out of the house in a short skating skirt, it came several inches above her knees.  I was really impressed (somehow that’s not the right word) and I was happy to swing her around the skating rink. She was a GOOD skater.

Ann and I also went to movies.  She had asthma and would often have to use her “pipe” when she started getting short of breath.  They didn’t use atomizers at that time but a pipe-shaped unit with some means of providing a mist for her to breathe.  She would just say, “I have to smoke my pipe now”.  

Ann told me recently (she now lives as a widow in Florida) why the “pipe” was not familiar to me.  Her mother had found a description of an instrument used to help in Asthmatic conditions.  She showed it to her husband who took it to Sylvania and had a glassblower copy the one in the magazine.

Ann and I dated for several months.   Ann was a beautiful girl a couple years younger than I and I thought it strange she would evens go out with a skinny, funny-looking guy like me.  We went to the same church, attended youth meetings and other activities, and in general had a great time together. I was proud to be seen with her.

She was evens the person I had my first teenage boy-girl kiss with.  

We were walking along Sixth Street and somehow it just happened.  We didn’t evens talk about it.  But, for some reason we didn’t have that real closeness you need to “go steady” . . . did we do that in those days? . . . . 
Our dating became kinda routine.  Then we just sort of drifted apart from dating but remained friends.  I won’t say who broke it off because I don’t know.  I’m quite sure she must have been the one to do that.

The Meeting That Changed My Life

It was about this time an event took place that changed my life as I knew it.

I had spent all my 18 years at the Baptist Church, having accepted Christ at the age of 14.   I went to a Baptist Youth Fellowship meeting at Shirley Harford’s home in Sizerville. I remember sitting on the edge of a stuffed chair or couch engaged in conversation with some of the kids.  Something one of us said suddenly brought a response from a voice on the floor directly along side of me.  It surprised me because I didn’t evens know she was there.

I looked down and saw the most beautiful girl, sitting there with her legs drawn up under a full flowing taffeta dress, sporting a gorgeous smile, lovely dark hair and just altogether alluring to a teenager like me.
  I didn’t know who she was then but I was smitten!  It was Mary Jane Kinley.

Mary Jane was baptized and raised in the Emporium United Methodist Church.  She spent her early years in Sunday school and church there along with her parents, John (Jack) and Mary Kinley.  She was very active in many of the programs and over the years told me of the many good times and experiences she had with the Emporium Methodist Church.  She continued to attend until her late teens.  At that time, her grandfather, E.J. Bloom, moved in with her family.  They tried to get E.J. to join them at church but he insisted on only going to a Baptist Church.  Mary Jane told her mother she felt her grandfather should be attending somewhere and asked if they could all go to the First Baptist Church.  They began attending and finally Mary Jane decided to go to one of the Youth meetings. I didn’t remember seeing her before so it must have been the one at Shirley Harford’s home.  

Days after the meeting, I was hoping to get some kind of response so I started making what I thought were clever remarks around her. They must not have impressed her because she paid no attention to me that I was aware of.

One of these “clever” remarks came one day at the church. Mary Jane was standing on the stairs and said something to Donna Andrews who was directly behind me.  Just to be clever and try to get her attention, I said,” What did you say to me?” Well, that got her attention.  Did it ever!  She said, “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Donna”.  Of course, I had to come back with, “Why were you looking at me then, if you were talking to Donna?”  I said it in a sort of mocking style.  That was a mistake because then she was furious with me for saying what I did.  It was like I was making fun of her and she hated that (and always did).  But as days went on I looked for any excuse to talk to or be with her. 

Mary Jane and Ann Harmon, were going to walk home after a youth meeting one night and I offered them a ride in my famous 1934 Ford pickup truck.  They went into a deep discussion by themselves.  I didn’t know it at the time (Mary Jane told me about it years later) but they were trying to decide who was NOT going to sit next to me.  Ann didn’t want to because we had just broken up to become friends only.  Mary Jane didn’t want to because she didn’t like me. (So she said) Finally it was resolved, Ann sat next to me and I took them both home, oblivious to what had gone on between them.  I usually was oblivious to things like that. All I knew was, I was proud as a Peacock to have two of the most beautiful girls in Emporium in the cab of my little truck.

 

The Travelcade

Then in April of 1950 there was a Youth Travelcade in Bradford, PA.  Mary Jane offered her Dad’s car if someone else would drive   

I volunteered . . . . No . . . I jumped at the chance to be with her evens though Mary Jane had her license before I did and could easily have driven.  Luckily, her mother didn’t want her to.  I remember on the way back from the Travelcade, she was sitting in the middle of the three of us in the front seat, which put her right next to me.  There were some construction areas where signs read “Soft shoulders”.  I was so witty, I came out with, “I have soft shoulders, too”.  She seemed to find that funny and we both kept making similar remark about it as kids tend to do.   Half way home she was so tired, her head fell over onto my shoulder and I was in Heaven. That drive was the beginning of our life together.  

We were inseparable from then on, much to the chagrin of my family who thought I was too young to be going steady.  Did we do that then?

After the Travelcade adventure, one night, I asked Mary Jane to go to a movie with me.  I walked down to her house on Third Street and we walked across the tracks to the Theatre. . . . . .Yes it is spelled Theatre.  When she stepped over the tracks, she reached over and took my hand for balance.  Shivers went through me and I never let go. Now, she had crossed those tracks thousands of time without my help, why did she need it then?  I would like to think I know why.  I didn’t mind the two mile walk back home at all. 

After that, it was constant togetherness.  We went to the prom, we sat together in church, we went to meetings together, we talked at the house, we sat on the front porch swing for hours, and we went for drives with her parents on Sunday afternoons.  Any excuse at all and I was there.

Then it Became Serious

After graduation, I immediately started to work at Sylvania.  June 9, 1950.  I worked third shift, 11PM till 7AM.  I would come down to Mary Jane’s house in the evening to visit and get a snack, and then I would leave my car there and walk to work.

That started a buzz in town because people said I was coming down to Mary Jane’s house and her parents left me stay there all night.  

Oh My! How things have changed.  No one would pay any attention to that, now.

About a year later, I bought an engagement ring from Smith Jewelers.  

One night as we were going out to a movie, before we left the house and as we were standing at the door ready to go, I made my great “romantic” proposal.  

I simply said something dumb like, “I bought an engagement ring for you, are you ready to wear it?”  She said, “Sure”.  I put it on her finger and we went to the movie.  

No big proposal, no romantic setting, and no wondering what the answer might be on the part of either of us.  We just knew.  

Now we were engaged to be married.  Feb 23, 1952, was set for the date.  I didn’t know why she chose that day and I didn’t care but Mary Jane had her reasons and all the plans were on her shoulders from there on out.  I believe the 23rd was picked because her parents were married on the 23rd of September.

Our wedding took place at the First Baptist Church on a Saturday evening. It was beautiful and it was crowded. . . .and Mary Jane was 20 minutes late because of photos and a train at the crossing.  

The reception was at the church so by the time the reception was over and goodbyes said, it was quite late.  We left on our Honeymoon late that night. 

We had planned to drive to Lock Haven but when we got to Renovo we were so tired we decided to stay overnight there.  The only place we could find was the YMCA Hotel.  Problem was, we didn’t bring our Marriage License with us so they wouldn’t let us stay. Imagine!  

We drove on to Lock Haven and stayed at the Fallon Hotel.  The next morning the maid didn’t know we had come in so late and let herself into the room.  We were sound asleep but when she came in we woke up and were embarrassed to pieces.  Things were different back then.

We went on to Milton, PA the next day to visit Rev Lester Barton and his family.  He had been our Pastor and we liked both him and his wife, Wilda, very much.  

We stayed there overnight, went on to Princeton University where we visited one of our best friends, Bob Taggart.  

We stayed at the hotel there that night and continued on.  We planned to go to Washington, DC but changed our minds and toured around the Jersey Coast until we started back home.  Not a well planned Honeymoon but we enjoyed the time together.  

We got an apartment at the home of Bob Coppersmith on Fifth St.  We were only there a few months before the Army Draft came along.

Sylvania

My first job at Sylvania was in the Stem department.  I made 50 Cents per hour but it was soon raised to 75 cents and then 90 Cents.  Good wages.  

I was a stem cutter.  The stems were welded on a multi head Stem Unit and the final product came down a conveyor.  I would pick up the stem, insert it into the jig on my machine and press a pedal to cut the wires and bend them according to the type of stem it was. 

They were put in boxes and we cut hundreds of them every hour.  I would go to my Mother and Dad’s home when I got out of work, sleep until afternoon, do things that had to be done and be back at Kinley’s about 8 or 9 O’clock. Sometimes I didn’t get to sleep as much as I should. 

That showed up one night at work as I was cutting stems and got quite sleepy.  I fought it off and was able to keep up production.  

Boob Cohick, the Supervisor came by to ask if everything was all right.  

I said, “Sure”.  He asked if I was sleepy and I lied and said, “No, I’m fine.”  

He then informed me they had to throw out 6400 stems that weren’t cut correctly.  They had burrs and some were put in the jig in a cockeyed position. Others had broken edges on the glass.  

I got a warning slip for possible dismissal that time so I didn’t let it happen again.

From Stem, I bid on a higher paying job in the Units Department.  This is where the stem was mated with its glass envelope, using a multiple headed machine that created a vacuum and sealed the parts together. 

The tube was then plugged into a large conveyor for aging, removed from the conveyor and tested in several ways. 

I gradually learned to do all the jobs from beginning to end and I was made a Utility operator with more pay.  

That meant if anyone was absent I could fill in for them, no matter what their job was.  

Some testing was done in automatic test equipment, other testing was done on tables with several types of test equipment and the tube was passed through several people on the table.  

Working between some of the women operators was a real challenge.  I was young and most of them were a little older.  They would tell stories that were very embarrassing for me.  People on other tables would know when they were telling dirty stories because I would light up like a red light.

I became well experienced at all the jobs on the machine except for the Fire Setter’s job.  This job was equivalent to a supervisor’s position.  

In September, Simon Hornung, the Department Foreman, called me in and offered the Fire Setter position to me.  Of course, I said yes.  I went to Kinley’s for lunch and broke the good news to Mary Jane but as I went through the door.  She handed me an envelope from the Draft Board.  

I had been drafted for Military Service.  The Korean War had been going on for over two years and they needed more men.  I was twenty years old, married but had no children so there was no getting out of it.  I wouldn’t have tried anyway.

MILITARY SERVICE
 
SERVICE NUMBER:US52226467    
BRANCH: ARMY US ENGINEERS/C    
INDUCTED: Indiantown Gap, Pa  1 OCT, 1952
RECEPTION CENTER: Fort George G Meade, MD for 6 days
TRAINING: Ft Belvoir, VA for eight weeks Basic Training.
                       Eight weeks Combat Engineer Training. Then
                       Specialist  (Electrician) School,  Feb - Mar 1953
DUTYASSIGNMENT: 2nd Army Area, KMAG 8038 AU (KOREA)
                                        April, 1953 - Sept, 1954
DECORATIONS: 
Good Conduct Medal;
ROK Presidential Unit Citation; Korean Service Medal w/2 Bronze Service Stars;
Commendation Ribbon w/Medal Pendant;
National Defense Service Medal
SEPARATED: Fort George G Meade, MD - 24 Sept, 1954 
DISCHARGE RANK: CPL; MUSTERING OUT PAY: $300.
TRANSFERRED TO: USA Reserve to complete 8 years Inactive Reserves
 
Military Training
I received my Basic Training for Army Combat Engineers at Fort Belvoir, VA.

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