- Home Page
- Search Guidelines
-
Carroll School
-
Census Images
-
Carroll Census
>
-
1940 Census Index
>
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 1 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 2 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 3 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 4 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 5 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 6 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 7 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 8 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 9 of 10
- Carroll Census 1940 Page 10 of 10
- 1930 Census Index >
- 1920 Census Index >
- 1910 Census Index >
- 1900 Census Index >
- 1880 Census Index >
- 1870 Census Index >
- 1860 Census Index >
- 1850 Census Index >
-
1940 Census Index
>
- Greenfield Township >
- Bloom Township >
-
Carroll Census
>
- Carroll Cemetery
- Ancestry & Cemetery Research
- Commemoratives
- Hocking Valley, Indians & Zanes Trace
- Township Histories
- Canal History
- Biographies & Recollections
- Maps and Business Directories
- Connection Diagrams
- Historical Photos
- Carroll Fame
-
Books
-
"Looking at Carroll" by Jessie Gundy
>
- Looking at Carroll Part One >
-
Looking at Carroll Part Two
>
- Part 2 Page 1 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 2 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 3 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 4 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 5 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 6 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 7 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 8 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 9 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 10 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 11 of "Looking at Carroll"
- Part 2 Page 12 of "Looking at Carroll"
- "Passing Papers" >
-
"Looking at Carroll" by Jessie Gundy
>
- Family Profiles
- Historical Homes & Places
- Villages of Greenfield Township
- The Bright Settlement
- Sitemap
- Contact CAHS
Neighborhood and Neighbors
At a fairly young age a boy begins to stretch his operational boundaries. He ventures out of the house and away from his mother’s apron strings. He starts to explore the outlying features of his property. He comes in contact with his neighbors. His playmates are no longer just his siblings but other children his own age. This is precisely what happened to me with the additional fact that some of my playmates now were girls. My play world had grown in multiple dimensions
So let’s check out some of the outside features of 69 Market Street.
Back Steps – One time I came in from playing to see a strange man sitting on the steps eating a slice of buttered bread and drinking a cup of cocoa. I went in the house and asked Mom who the man was and she said he was a hobo who had knocked on the door and asked for a handout. This was not common but had occurred a few other times. Today I am suspicious that somewhere carved on a pole in the hobo communication system was “Market 69” so others might know where they could get a bite to eat.
Smoke House – Right outside the kitchen door stood the smoke house. It still had some of the meat hooks attached to the rafters. It was used to store the bicycle and garden tools. It was possible to climb out of the window of the back bedroom of the house onto the roof of the kitchen, cross this onto the roof over the back stoop and from there, cross to the roof of the smoke house, jump down and go over to Hordy’s Ice Cream Parlor. This path was useful on a couple of occasions when Mom had sent me to my room. However I could not return to my room by this route so I had no choice but to go back into the house the normal way. Mom never commented on this.
Arbor – A grape arbor formed a tunnel over the walkway to the barn. The grape vines were trained along two boards running along the sides at about two feet high and four feet high and across the top. It was pretty good for climbing on. In the late summer it hung with clusters of concord grapes. Because they had seeds we would squish them out of their skins into our mouths and swallow them without chewing. Mom would put up many quarts of grape juice each year. A number of years later Dad experimented with the making of grape wine. It did not turn out well as it was too sweet.
Barn – The barn at the back of the lot was used primarily as a garage. One year a corner of the barn was used as a collection point for a paper drive. This was a fortunate turn of events for me. Someone had turned in a large stack of comic books. In the house Mom only allowed two kinds of comic books. They were Walt Disney Comics and Classic Comics. Others were forbidden. Here was a whole stack of Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Dick Tracy and others. Who could have dreamed that they were looking at the source material for the making of block buster movies fifty years later?
The second floor of the barn evolved through various uses. In 1945 it was rented out to Cliff Coffman for the storage of apple crates. In 1946 and 1947 it was rented out to Dick Brandt as a workshop. Dick Brandt had a job that involved the artificial insemination of cows. One time he took me with him out to a farm in the country. He pulls on a long glove nearly to his shoulder and sticks his arm up the cow’s rear. I didn’t understand what he was doing but it was sure fascinating for an eleven year old. In 1948 Dick Brandt had moved out and Dad installed a horizontal bar so us kids could practice Douglas Fairbanks Jr. stunts that we had seen in the movies. There was an old mattress under the bar and this was great for wrestling, tumbling and playing cards. But the best thing about the second floor of the barn was the year (I think it was 1948), Russel Weaver and I built a clubhouse there in which we slept nearly every night of that summer. What a great level of unsupervised freedom for two young boys.
Apple Tree – We had a big apple tree between the barn and the chicken house. It was good for climbing and allowed you to reach both roofs. Harold Johnson had started to teach at Carroll School about the same time that my dad became a member of the school board and they became friends. About a year after the Johnsons had left Carroll they returned for a visit to our house. They had a daughter who was about six, the same age as I. Maybe her name was Marilyn. I had no idea how to talk to a girl. So instead of talking I showed her how good I was at climbing the apple tree. Mom and Dad stayed in contact with the Johnsons through the years and after they all had retired my parents visited them in Florida.
Chicken House – Toward the end of the 1930’s Dad fenced in the area beside the chicken house and we raised chickens for a few years. Dad would bring home a brood of chicks which were placed under the electric brooder. It wouldn’t be too many weeks before we had scrambled eggs for breakfast and Mom’s delicious baked chicken for Sunday dinner. I would get to gather the eggs. Usually Mom got Grandpa or Dad to kill the chickens but a couple of times I was elected. It was gruesome to chop their heads off with a hatchet but it is fun to watch a chicken run around with its head cut off. One time I had the bright idea of hanging the chickens upside down on the clothes line and cutting off their heads with a butcher knife. I cut the head off of the first one and then, as I was cutting the head off the second one, I was splattered with blood as the first one thrashed about. This was just not a good idea.
Back Fence and Gate – We had a fence and gate in the back of our property. I’m not sure why since the side yard was completely open to the side alley. I had trouble opening the gate one evening. There was an Ice Cream Social going on in the side yard of the Methodist Church. My mother was working behind the serving table and Dad was doing something that involved dry ice. I was dressed in white shorts with no underwear so my age must have been about four at the time. I was having a lot of fun playing under the tables and being fascinated by the dry ice. Suddenly, I realized that I had been ignoring nature’s call for too long. I headed up the alley to our back gate and had a little trouble getting it open. I get it open under a mounting sense of emergency and proceed to the back steps where, unbeknownst to me, I leave a key piece of evidence on the top step. I proceed into the house and use the bathroom. I take my pants off and climb up on a chair and wash my pants in the kitchen sink. I put the wet pants on and return to the Ice Cream Social. Now I stay back from people so no one can discover my wet pants. When the festivities end we all return home and I am confident that I have avoided being embarrassed. The next day Mom asks me what happened last night and I reply nothing. She then tells me she found a turd on the back step and asked if I knew how it got there. I said nope. I am certain she knew I was lying but let me off the hook for lying knowing that I was just embarrassed. I confessed a short while later - when I was about twenty-eight years old.
Outhouse – My grandfather continued to make his daily stop here after he closed the hardware store, even though we had flush toilets in the house. I assume that he did this to conserve water or more likely, it was just a life long habit. I personally did not use it much but there was one occasion I particularly remember. I was about five at the time. A girl playmate and I made the classic ‘I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours’ agreement. Many years later I was telling my brothers about this and mentioned the fact that I could distinctly remember where she was standing (to the right of the door) and where I was standing (to the left of the door) but I couldn’t remember what the thing she showed me looked like.
Yard – The side yard adjoined the alley and was the scene of many games of pitch and catch. It was also where we boys along with Dad played many games of croquet. After the coal furnace was converted to burn gas we no longer had an ash pile. So Dad installed horseshoe stakes alongside the back alley and taught me how to pitch with a one and three quarter rotation. Many years later I would pitch in a league in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Now let’s meet some of the nearby neighbors and playmates.
George and Leota Bender – George was retired from the railroad and ran a small shoe repair shop in the east end of the Blackstone building. Leota was the town’s telephone operator. You could walk up to the south corner window of their house, look over the sill and see her in front of the switchboard. You could see little lights flash on the board, hear her say “Number, please?” and plug and unplug wires. My mother tried to discourage me from standing at the window. A related memory was the telephone we had at home. It was mounted on the wall beside the refrigerator in the dining room. If it rang twice it was our ring. If it rang once it was for our neighbor.
Reflecting now on the phone system of that time it is easy to imagine the possibilities for mischief and the trust that was necessary for it to work. You could listen in on the phone conversations of the other people who shared your party line. And the operators had to be trusted to be very discreet because they could listen to any conversation. I’m sure all of these things happened to varying degrees but I do not recall any problems as a result. Later Lily Tomlin’s television routine would bring back the memory of that south corner window of the Bender house.
Will and Ada Brandt – Will Brandt was a retired Life Insurance Agent. I think they were the other party on our telephone party line. As I recall they were considered to be good neighbors by both my parents and grandparents.
Oscar Tenor - Oscar lived alone. He had a workshop right outside his door where he did carpentry work and a barn out back that he used as a garage. He had a garden and a great crank pump in his side yard. He also had a pear tree. One year my father was picking ripe pears from it, fell off the ladder and broke his arm. Since Oscar’s house was just across the alley from us there were a number of occasions when our ball ended up in his living room or bedroom. When Dad got home from work he would measure the window, go over to the hardware store, cut a new piece of glass to size, remove the broken pane and install the new. The absolute best part of all of this was being a part of the cleanup crew that got to go into the house to pick up the broken glass. Oscar was a clock repair man and a collector of clocks. His house was filled with what seemed like hundreds of clocks of all sizes and sounds, which produced a veritable orchestration of tick tocks. If you were lucky you would be there on the hour or half hour and get the full effect of the chimes, bells and cuckoos. Being a good neighbor and to make amends for the broken windows, when my mom was preparing a large festive family meal, one of my brothers or I would get to deliver a heaping plate of chicken, dressing, corn, green beans, gravy and mashed potatoes to Oscar. One of Dad’s favorite stories was of an occasion when a chimney was being considered and discussed as to whether it was plumb or not and Oscar said he thought it was a little over plumb.
Effie Winters – Effie Winters was one of the seemingly many widows on our block. My mom respected how those widows coped with their living alone. When she became a widow my brothers and I tried to talk her into living with one of us. But she insisted that she would be okay and said something to the effect that if all these friends she had known so many years could cope so well with living alone, so could she. She earned her membership in that respected club by living alone for the next year.
Jay and Bessie Benson – After Effie Winters died, the Bensons moved here with their children Middie, Jayne, Jay Elmer and Crystal around 1947. I was about twelve years old and a family with some pretty girls was definitely an improvement over an elderly widow. However my favorite Benson related memory involves Bessie and not the girls. My mother told me this story. Bessie recruited Mom to help her get Molly Drumm ready for the Old Timers Parade and Celebration. Molly was to be the Queen and I’m not sure who was to be the King, possibly Charlie Kistler. Molly was very old obviously and needed help getting dressed. Bessie or Mom was reaching down the front of Molly’s dress trying to get her arranged into her brassiere. Bessie and Mom about lose it when after a few moments of their fumbling around Molly says “They’re down in there somewhere”. I think Bessie and Mom laughed all the way home.
Bill and Velda Beaty – Bill Beaty had a barbershop and insurance sales office on North Canal Street in the same location where my grandfather’s hardware store had stood before it burned. There were five Beaty kids, Patty, Nancy, Judy, Billy and David. Patty and Nancy were about my age so here were a couple more girls to play with. Once Patty and I ran a foot race and she won, doing a great deal of damage to my male ego. I used to get very flushed in the face when I ran and played. They would kid me that it was because I liked to eat red beets which I think they found repulsive. I’m sure Patty never knew that hers were the first initials ever linked with mine as I scribbled at home “DR + PB”.
Warren and Dorothy Craig – The Craig family lived across the alley behind our house. I knew of the older children, Buzzy, Joey, Gloria and Theresa but Donny, Biddy and Fudgy were closer to my age. Biddy and Fudgy were two more girls in my play territory.
Joe Craig and my brother Dick had a tin can telephone running between the back of our house and the back of the Craig house. I was not allowed to use it. I don’t think it worked very well because the distance was so great and they could not get the wire stretched taut enough. My brother Roger and I got a big kick out of one of Donny’s entrepreneurial ideas. He told us he was going to go into the bicycle repair business and showed us his tools, which consisted of a screw driver, pair of pliers and two rocks of different size that he would use as hammers.
Later, after Donny got his driver’s license, he would drive a bunch of us kids out to “The Arch”. This was our name for a great swimming hole out by Lockville. The name came from the arch of a railroad bridge. The creek flowed under the bridge and as it emerged it had washed out a large pool. It was pretty deep and there were great sandstone steps to jump or dive from. Many enjoyable hours were spent there.
Manse and Ruth Weaver – The Weavers lived in a large building facing the town square. For some years Ruth Weaver had a creamery in the west end of the building and later a general store in the east end. Their youngest son Russel’s bedroom was on the second floor in the northwest corner of the building and we had our secret whistle so I could call him out to play. When I was in junior high school, Ruth Weaver and I shared a love of westerns and mysteries and traded many pocket books. I knew Charlie, John, Ethyl and Mary Etta slightly but it was Russel and I who played together. All of the other kids in my immediate neighborhood were girls and Russel and I shared a common sense of adventure. Some of my most pleasant memories of our adventures together takes me out of town to the area just west of the highway (now High Street).
Picture this playground – It starts right at the back of Frank Stahl’s property. First there is a creek. On the other side of the creek is the C&O Railroad track. If you walk south on the track you come across the Carroll Southern Road and a bridge over the creek. If you walk north you come to a bridge over the Winchester Pike. Near this bridge are the Phipp’s and Noecker’s grain elevators. On the other side of the track is a gravel road. At the north end of this road near Noecker’s elevator is a gravel bank. South of the gravel bank is a cemetery. Now I ask you, can you think of a better playground for two footloose, carefree and adventurous boys? We didn’t have Tom and Huck’s river or cave but this area was nearly as good for exploring and other adventures.
One adventure I particularly remember is the time we spotted a young man some distance down the creek and proceeded to follow and observe him. He would stop every now and then and do something by the creek’s edge and then move on. We soon discovered that he was setting out lines with a chunk of meat on a hook at the end. We followed along pulling up his lines inspecting them and throwing them back in the water. At the third or fourth stop we pulled the line in and it had a large turtle on the hook. It was eight or ten inches in diameter. As we were watching the turtle and trying to figure out what we might do with it, another man walked up to us. He asked if the turtle was for sale and we said sure. He pulled out his pocket change and we sold him the turtle.
Now that we’ve met the neighbors it’s time to set out on a tour of the town.
At a fairly young age a boy begins to stretch his operational boundaries. He ventures out of the house and away from his mother’s apron strings. He starts to explore the outlying features of his property. He comes in contact with his neighbors. His playmates are no longer just his siblings but other children his own age. This is precisely what happened to me with the additional fact that some of my playmates now were girls. My play world had grown in multiple dimensions
So let’s check out some of the outside features of 69 Market Street.
Back Steps – One time I came in from playing to see a strange man sitting on the steps eating a slice of buttered bread and drinking a cup of cocoa. I went in the house and asked Mom who the man was and she said he was a hobo who had knocked on the door and asked for a handout. This was not common but had occurred a few other times. Today I am suspicious that somewhere carved on a pole in the hobo communication system was “Market 69” so others might know where they could get a bite to eat.
Smoke House – Right outside the kitchen door stood the smoke house. It still had some of the meat hooks attached to the rafters. It was used to store the bicycle and garden tools. It was possible to climb out of the window of the back bedroom of the house onto the roof of the kitchen, cross this onto the roof over the back stoop and from there, cross to the roof of the smoke house, jump down and go over to Hordy’s Ice Cream Parlor. This path was useful on a couple of occasions when Mom had sent me to my room. However I could not return to my room by this route so I had no choice but to go back into the house the normal way. Mom never commented on this.
Arbor – A grape arbor formed a tunnel over the walkway to the barn. The grape vines were trained along two boards running along the sides at about two feet high and four feet high and across the top. It was pretty good for climbing on. In the late summer it hung with clusters of concord grapes. Because they had seeds we would squish them out of their skins into our mouths and swallow them without chewing. Mom would put up many quarts of grape juice each year. A number of years later Dad experimented with the making of grape wine. It did not turn out well as it was too sweet.
Barn – The barn at the back of the lot was used primarily as a garage. One year a corner of the barn was used as a collection point for a paper drive. This was a fortunate turn of events for me. Someone had turned in a large stack of comic books. In the house Mom only allowed two kinds of comic books. They were Walt Disney Comics and Classic Comics. Others were forbidden. Here was a whole stack of Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Dick Tracy and others. Who could have dreamed that they were looking at the source material for the making of block buster movies fifty years later?
The second floor of the barn evolved through various uses. In 1945 it was rented out to Cliff Coffman for the storage of apple crates. In 1946 and 1947 it was rented out to Dick Brandt as a workshop. Dick Brandt had a job that involved the artificial insemination of cows. One time he took me with him out to a farm in the country. He pulls on a long glove nearly to his shoulder and sticks his arm up the cow’s rear. I didn’t understand what he was doing but it was sure fascinating for an eleven year old. In 1948 Dick Brandt had moved out and Dad installed a horizontal bar so us kids could practice Douglas Fairbanks Jr. stunts that we had seen in the movies. There was an old mattress under the bar and this was great for wrestling, tumbling and playing cards. But the best thing about the second floor of the barn was the year (I think it was 1948), Russel Weaver and I built a clubhouse there in which we slept nearly every night of that summer. What a great level of unsupervised freedom for two young boys.
Apple Tree – We had a big apple tree between the barn and the chicken house. It was good for climbing and allowed you to reach both roofs. Harold Johnson had started to teach at Carroll School about the same time that my dad became a member of the school board and they became friends. About a year after the Johnsons had left Carroll they returned for a visit to our house. They had a daughter who was about six, the same age as I. Maybe her name was Marilyn. I had no idea how to talk to a girl. So instead of talking I showed her how good I was at climbing the apple tree. Mom and Dad stayed in contact with the Johnsons through the years and after they all had retired my parents visited them in Florida.
Chicken House – Toward the end of the 1930’s Dad fenced in the area beside the chicken house and we raised chickens for a few years. Dad would bring home a brood of chicks which were placed under the electric brooder. It wouldn’t be too many weeks before we had scrambled eggs for breakfast and Mom’s delicious baked chicken for Sunday dinner. I would get to gather the eggs. Usually Mom got Grandpa or Dad to kill the chickens but a couple of times I was elected. It was gruesome to chop their heads off with a hatchet but it is fun to watch a chicken run around with its head cut off. One time I had the bright idea of hanging the chickens upside down on the clothes line and cutting off their heads with a butcher knife. I cut the head off of the first one and then, as I was cutting the head off the second one, I was splattered with blood as the first one thrashed about. This was just not a good idea.
Back Fence and Gate – We had a fence and gate in the back of our property. I’m not sure why since the side yard was completely open to the side alley. I had trouble opening the gate one evening. There was an Ice Cream Social going on in the side yard of the Methodist Church. My mother was working behind the serving table and Dad was doing something that involved dry ice. I was dressed in white shorts with no underwear so my age must have been about four at the time. I was having a lot of fun playing under the tables and being fascinated by the dry ice. Suddenly, I realized that I had been ignoring nature’s call for too long. I headed up the alley to our back gate and had a little trouble getting it open. I get it open under a mounting sense of emergency and proceed to the back steps where, unbeknownst to me, I leave a key piece of evidence on the top step. I proceed into the house and use the bathroom. I take my pants off and climb up on a chair and wash my pants in the kitchen sink. I put the wet pants on and return to the Ice Cream Social. Now I stay back from people so no one can discover my wet pants. When the festivities end we all return home and I am confident that I have avoided being embarrassed. The next day Mom asks me what happened last night and I reply nothing. She then tells me she found a turd on the back step and asked if I knew how it got there. I said nope. I am certain she knew I was lying but let me off the hook for lying knowing that I was just embarrassed. I confessed a short while later - when I was about twenty-eight years old.
Outhouse – My grandfather continued to make his daily stop here after he closed the hardware store, even though we had flush toilets in the house. I assume that he did this to conserve water or more likely, it was just a life long habit. I personally did not use it much but there was one occasion I particularly remember. I was about five at the time. A girl playmate and I made the classic ‘I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours’ agreement. Many years later I was telling my brothers about this and mentioned the fact that I could distinctly remember where she was standing (to the right of the door) and where I was standing (to the left of the door) but I couldn’t remember what the thing she showed me looked like.
Yard – The side yard adjoined the alley and was the scene of many games of pitch and catch. It was also where we boys along with Dad played many games of croquet. After the coal furnace was converted to burn gas we no longer had an ash pile. So Dad installed horseshoe stakes alongside the back alley and taught me how to pitch with a one and three quarter rotation. Many years later I would pitch in a league in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Now let’s meet some of the nearby neighbors and playmates.
George and Leota Bender – George was retired from the railroad and ran a small shoe repair shop in the east end of the Blackstone building. Leota was the town’s telephone operator. You could walk up to the south corner window of their house, look over the sill and see her in front of the switchboard. You could see little lights flash on the board, hear her say “Number, please?” and plug and unplug wires. My mother tried to discourage me from standing at the window. A related memory was the telephone we had at home. It was mounted on the wall beside the refrigerator in the dining room. If it rang twice it was our ring. If it rang once it was for our neighbor.
Reflecting now on the phone system of that time it is easy to imagine the possibilities for mischief and the trust that was necessary for it to work. You could listen in on the phone conversations of the other people who shared your party line. And the operators had to be trusted to be very discreet because they could listen to any conversation. I’m sure all of these things happened to varying degrees but I do not recall any problems as a result. Later Lily Tomlin’s television routine would bring back the memory of that south corner window of the Bender house.
Will and Ada Brandt – Will Brandt was a retired Life Insurance Agent. I think they were the other party on our telephone party line. As I recall they were considered to be good neighbors by both my parents and grandparents.
Oscar Tenor - Oscar lived alone. He had a workshop right outside his door where he did carpentry work and a barn out back that he used as a garage. He had a garden and a great crank pump in his side yard. He also had a pear tree. One year my father was picking ripe pears from it, fell off the ladder and broke his arm. Since Oscar’s house was just across the alley from us there were a number of occasions when our ball ended up in his living room or bedroom. When Dad got home from work he would measure the window, go over to the hardware store, cut a new piece of glass to size, remove the broken pane and install the new. The absolute best part of all of this was being a part of the cleanup crew that got to go into the house to pick up the broken glass. Oscar was a clock repair man and a collector of clocks. His house was filled with what seemed like hundreds of clocks of all sizes and sounds, which produced a veritable orchestration of tick tocks. If you were lucky you would be there on the hour or half hour and get the full effect of the chimes, bells and cuckoos. Being a good neighbor and to make amends for the broken windows, when my mom was preparing a large festive family meal, one of my brothers or I would get to deliver a heaping plate of chicken, dressing, corn, green beans, gravy and mashed potatoes to Oscar. One of Dad’s favorite stories was of an occasion when a chimney was being considered and discussed as to whether it was plumb or not and Oscar said he thought it was a little over plumb.
Effie Winters – Effie Winters was one of the seemingly many widows on our block. My mom respected how those widows coped with their living alone. When she became a widow my brothers and I tried to talk her into living with one of us. But she insisted that she would be okay and said something to the effect that if all these friends she had known so many years could cope so well with living alone, so could she. She earned her membership in that respected club by living alone for the next year.
Jay and Bessie Benson – After Effie Winters died, the Bensons moved here with their children Middie, Jayne, Jay Elmer and Crystal around 1947. I was about twelve years old and a family with some pretty girls was definitely an improvement over an elderly widow. However my favorite Benson related memory involves Bessie and not the girls. My mother told me this story. Bessie recruited Mom to help her get Molly Drumm ready for the Old Timers Parade and Celebration. Molly was to be the Queen and I’m not sure who was to be the King, possibly Charlie Kistler. Molly was very old obviously and needed help getting dressed. Bessie or Mom was reaching down the front of Molly’s dress trying to get her arranged into her brassiere. Bessie and Mom about lose it when after a few moments of their fumbling around Molly says “They’re down in there somewhere”. I think Bessie and Mom laughed all the way home.
Bill and Velda Beaty – Bill Beaty had a barbershop and insurance sales office on North Canal Street in the same location where my grandfather’s hardware store had stood before it burned. There were five Beaty kids, Patty, Nancy, Judy, Billy and David. Patty and Nancy were about my age so here were a couple more girls to play with. Once Patty and I ran a foot race and she won, doing a great deal of damage to my male ego. I used to get very flushed in the face when I ran and played. They would kid me that it was because I liked to eat red beets which I think they found repulsive. I’m sure Patty never knew that hers were the first initials ever linked with mine as I scribbled at home “DR + PB”.
Warren and Dorothy Craig – The Craig family lived across the alley behind our house. I knew of the older children, Buzzy, Joey, Gloria and Theresa but Donny, Biddy and Fudgy were closer to my age. Biddy and Fudgy were two more girls in my play territory.
Joe Craig and my brother Dick had a tin can telephone running between the back of our house and the back of the Craig house. I was not allowed to use it. I don’t think it worked very well because the distance was so great and they could not get the wire stretched taut enough. My brother Roger and I got a big kick out of one of Donny’s entrepreneurial ideas. He told us he was going to go into the bicycle repair business and showed us his tools, which consisted of a screw driver, pair of pliers and two rocks of different size that he would use as hammers.
Later, after Donny got his driver’s license, he would drive a bunch of us kids out to “The Arch”. This was our name for a great swimming hole out by Lockville. The name came from the arch of a railroad bridge. The creek flowed under the bridge and as it emerged it had washed out a large pool. It was pretty deep and there were great sandstone steps to jump or dive from. Many enjoyable hours were spent there.
Manse and Ruth Weaver – The Weavers lived in a large building facing the town square. For some years Ruth Weaver had a creamery in the west end of the building and later a general store in the east end. Their youngest son Russel’s bedroom was on the second floor in the northwest corner of the building and we had our secret whistle so I could call him out to play. When I was in junior high school, Ruth Weaver and I shared a love of westerns and mysteries and traded many pocket books. I knew Charlie, John, Ethyl and Mary Etta slightly but it was Russel and I who played together. All of the other kids in my immediate neighborhood were girls and Russel and I shared a common sense of adventure. Some of my most pleasant memories of our adventures together takes me out of town to the area just west of the highway (now High Street).
Picture this playground – It starts right at the back of Frank Stahl’s property. First there is a creek. On the other side of the creek is the C&O Railroad track. If you walk south on the track you come across the Carroll Southern Road and a bridge over the creek. If you walk north you come to a bridge over the Winchester Pike. Near this bridge are the Phipp’s and Noecker’s grain elevators. On the other side of the track is a gravel road. At the north end of this road near Noecker’s elevator is a gravel bank. South of the gravel bank is a cemetery. Now I ask you, can you think of a better playground for two footloose, carefree and adventurous boys? We didn’t have Tom and Huck’s river or cave but this area was nearly as good for exploring and other adventures.
One adventure I particularly remember is the time we spotted a young man some distance down the creek and proceeded to follow and observe him. He would stop every now and then and do something by the creek’s edge and then move on. We soon discovered that he was setting out lines with a chunk of meat on a hook at the end. We followed along pulling up his lines inspecting them and throwing them back in the water. At the third or fourth stop we pulled the line in and it had a large turtle on the hook. It was eight or ten inches in diameter. As we were watching the turtle and trying to figure out what we might do with it, another man walked up to us. He asked if the turtle was for sale and we said sure. He pulled out his pocket change and we sold him the turtle.
Now that we’ve met the neighbors it’s time to set out on a tour of the town.