Gapen’s Dump

On a 90 degree curve of Route #119, the Gapen home was the largest and most prepossessing in the neighborhood. It was made of brick for one thing and I can’t recall many of those. And it was surrounded by a manicured lawn and cement sidewalks. Of course it had a large front porch comfortably furnished with rocking chairs. When I delivered the Uniontown paper, that is where the papers were dropped to be assembled and delivered.

The Gapens were older in years in my early life and I hardly knew them. They had two grandsons who lived with them, Duane and Gerald Smouse, who went to Marion School. Mr. Gapen owned quite a bit of the adjacent land and had several rent houses and a defunct garage on land along Route #119.

But the point of this epistle is the land behind this house. I don’t know when it started or how long it was open but I do know it was there in the late 30’s and half of the 40’s. It was a great mound of refuse five or six hundred feet behind the Gapen house. It was the refuse dump for the city of Point Marion. (At least there were no plastic bags in it).

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Sugar Loaf & Indian Mound

Less than the length of a football field up the side of the mountain behind my growing up house is the Sugar Loaf. It is the top of the mountain. Uncle Walter once went there to get sassafras roots for what reason I don’t remember. This was long before they built the back bedroom and they still had a back porch. I have been told that up there, there was also an Indian Mound.

My friends and relatives have suggested I write about it. I can’t do it. I never went to the top of the mountain. I never saw the Sugar Loaf. I never saw the Indian Mound.
So help me out here somebody.

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Were we the Only Ones?

It is not visible from the road. You couldn’t see it from an airplane either. Maybe from a satellite. I understand even ancient roads are visible from a satellite. But this is (or was) covered with a blanket of overhanging trees and vegetation. Which reminds me that I once read that before the landings in North America, a squirrel could have walked on the top of trees from the east coast to the Mississippi without ever touching the ground. But I digress.

It was what we called “the Hollow.” And that “hollow” amounted to a deep crevice in the side of the mountain. Under the overhanging trees, there was a steep climb with regular boulders substituting as steps. There it is silent, shady, and moist.

We (you know who you are) used it as a shortcut to go home after swmming in the Cheat. Were we the only ones? I wonder if it is still there or has time and running water worn it away…..If you want to go look, I can tell you where to find it.

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Hats off and a moment of silence for John Goff's old springhouse.

(stolen: two e-mails as follows)
One:
The springhouse is still there. Although, the water doesn't run quite as free as it used to. John uses the spring for the water in the house, so I think it doesn't have the velocity that it used to, because of that. My grandmother used well water at the sink, with a pump, until the last few years before they died, then they put the spring water in the house. It was my job to put the cool water in the cooling trough for the milk to cool, when I was at their house. I always loved the smell of fresh warm milk, and never could understand why it had to be cooled. Silly, eh?I used to sit behind the cows when my grandmother milked, and she would squirt milk in my mouth and then, the cat sitting next to me.What memories, my children and grandchildren will never know those things.

Two:
Yes, I remember the old Goff springhouse very well. Did you ever hear the story of the time John Goff chopped of the end of his finger (I think it was finger not a thumb). Anyway the Goffs used steel wool to clean all of their milk bottles in that cold water in the springhouse. John got a piece of steel wool in his finger and it festered and developed into what was called a fellon (not sure of spelling) and would not heal. It was driving him crazy. So he carried an ax down to Charlie Baker and told him to sharpen it as sharp as he could on the old grinder that Charlie had. After it was sharpened up he told them to call Dr. Hunger and then laid his finger on a fence post and wacked off the offending part. Dr. Hunger fixed up the wound and it healed. Didn't need an HMO back then.

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June 19, 2008 Today is Brother Harold’s birthday June 19, 1929-February 13, 2004 (Harold Barnes)

And Aunt Arie’s (Arizona Lewis) June 19 1914 - March 31 2001

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We will see you there.

Beautiful Places

I have been to some beautiful places - Machu Picchu, the Savanna in Kenya with its exotic wildlife, wonderful Jerusalem, Bavaria in Germany. You have probably seen some of those too. But maybe you haven’t seen this one.

The confluence of the Cheat River and the Monongalia River is a beautiful place. Imagine the people who have walked that hallowed ground. George Washington was here. Think of Friendship Hill and all those who lived and visited there. It is easy to understand why Albert Gallatin wanted to build his home there when you know he was an immigrant from Switzerland. The lay of the land must have looked very familiar to him.

Or next October, you could go to Point Marion and stand on the schoolhouse hill. Look west to the mountains in Greene County. Every color in the rainbow is there in the fall foliage across the rivers. The beautiful leaves will be all around you but that is a really striking sight.

Should you happen to be walking down “Jack’s Hill” (that’s what we called it- it is the side of the mountain that follows Rt. 119 at the junction of the road to New Geneva) some winter morning, you may not be able to see where the rivers meet because the fog will be so thick. Years ago, my very young son called it a “mystical” sight.

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Do you know these people?

Top left: Marie Sturgill, typing and shorthand teacher at business school

13 May 1930

Top right: Jean Shibler and Amalea Stewart, February 21, 1930

The one in the hat is Thelma Brand, February 28, 1930

To her right is Lenora Gans, February 28, 1930

These pictures were among my Aunt's belongings. I don't know any of them but somebody might like to see these pictures

The names on the pictures keep coming out wrong. Thelma is the one in the hat, Lenora is by the fence, the two together are Shibler and Stewart, and the other is Sturgill

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Becky Blosser

Helen writes:

Becky BLOSSER lived in that big house overlooking the Cheat and Monongahelia Rivers. We passed her house along State Road #119 as we walked the mile and a half to town. Sometimes Mother would stop and sit on the porch and talk with her while Becky peeled apples or strung green beans. Mother said Becky had been a nurse for the Andrew Carnegie family in Pittsburgh and traveled the world caring for the family. When Becky retired, she bought a large tract of land in Springhill Township. Grandma and Grandpap knew her at the Disciples of Christ Church at Oak Grove near Morris Cross Roads. She sold them their farm on Blosser Hill across from John and Josephine GOFF’s dairy farm. (Josephine had come from Sweden, we were told).
When Becky died, she willed her lovely pump organ and victrola with many records of hymns to our family. I began to take piano lessons from Mrs. Howard Swyers and spent many long afternoons playing the records such as “In the Garden,” “I Would Be True,” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

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Harold Menus Barnes

Harold
Well, your birthday is coming up. You would have been just 79 years old. Just in case there is a window of there in heaven and you can look down here, I want you to know that I’ve missed you. So have all your sisters.

You never wasted a word in your life. When we got old, we used to exchange a lot of e-mails. I once got one from you that had only one word. But it served the purpose well. You were shy, I guess. That runs in the family.

Uncle Walter called you “Old Sock.” And Uncle Paul tried to show you how to be a man. You tagged after him a lot. I think he taught you how to drive a car.

Save a place for us.

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Memories of Benjamin Franklin Lewis

Grandpap sat on that double car seat he had on the lower porch . I also remember taking my shoes down to him for him to fix the soles. He had a last on which you put your shoe upside down and he would fix the sole for me so it didn't flap anymore.
He could do anything. He built houses, no small feat, and his lasted 100 years until some careless soul started a fire. He made baskets, knew every plant and animal alive by name.

Harold (BARNES) and I used to play on that inside stair case off the upper porch on to the lower porch which led to the downstairs kitchen. And the door in the kitchen that led to the cellar where the apples were kept in barrels and all those things Grandma canned rested on shelves.


When Paul (LEWIS) got married, they made that his kitchen and opened up the back bedroom so that they had a combination living room/bedroom. I remember that Aunt Sue (nee CONN)was often too sick to even make the bed back into a couch. She had asthma



When the kitchen was downstairs, I used to watch Grandma (Rosa Kirby LEWIS) make sauerkraut in a large crock. She kept it right by the coal stove with a plate on top of it. She always invited me to eat with her. After dinner, she would get down a candy dish in a beautiful small glass candy dish from the top shelf of that cupboard and say I could have one piece. She used to send Harold and me down to Debolt's store to get a loaf of bread or something and she would give us a penny or two to spend for us. We could buy a bunch with those pennies.



She would put newspaper down for Grandpap's place at the table because he was blind, ever the neat one. She once told me that when you were cleaning the table, you should never sweep off the crumbs onto the floor because you just have to clean them up again. Funny how those things stay with you. I loved the salt dishes she put out for Grandpap. Wonder what ever happened to them.

AND FROM ANOTHER COUSIN

Grandpap was surely a wonderful man. He could do anything - and all those plants he grew. One of those pictures is Lois by the well and the gooseberry bush. He had fruit trees of every kind, rhubarb, that big garden all the way to George KLINK’S house. We have such strong roots and I feel so blessed to have been part of the LEWIS clan.

Mom said Grandpap went blind before Tillie LEWIS and I were born in 1936. He knew we were coming but was blind by the time Tillie was born March 2 and I was born June 9. He could tell us apart - he knew which one we were by the sound of our voices but that was early on. He sang his songs and we watched him go thru the orchard using his cane and his wires to guide him. We watched him carry his apples to the basement and eat them on that double car seat. He didn't carry on very many conversations with us.

I remember eating one time at Grandmother's table with Grandpap there too and was amazed at how he could find his jelly and everything he needed - all because Grandmother had it placed the same way each time. I don't remember the salt dips you mentioned. He used salt shakers.
Grandmother was always good to me and Tillie while we were playing there. She never thought we were in the way. I can remember playing on those steps that went down to the basement from the living room door onto the porch and she would carefully step over our paper dolls we had there. I would have a landing and Tillie would have a landing and we spent hours and hours there. Another Grandmother might have told us not to play there but she was pleasant and didn't seem to mind making her way down those steps between paper dolls with her trusty cane and black heeled tie-up shoes.

The box of candy that Dessie LEWIS brought on the Sundays she came to visit Grandmother was a Sampler box with 2 layers and we were not limited to one. I guess there were one 2 of us and so she didn't feel she needed to save any for the other grandkids. I remember biting into one and thinking I wish that was a nut or a caramel and carefully placing it back into the box - upside down - thinking it would not be noticed. Guess I thought everyone ate them in one gulp like I did. She never said anything about those little "disturbed and broken open" chocolates.
She would look in on us when we were playing up in the orchard - climbing trees and eating green apples with the salt shaker. But we thought she was just taking a walk -

I remember Grandpap as a happy soul. And I remember Grandmother as serene with a quick smile. Don't think we could have had finer grandparents. We felt accepted even though it was not expressed in words. No, I do not remember the songs Grandpap sang. Was he the one who told the Taily Pole story? I heard it from my dad. I have the book you sent and keep it with other Pennsylvania memories.

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COLEBANK, BLOSSER, STEWART, BAKER

This is from a wonderful e-mail that I received some time ago:

Aunt Alice COLEBANK was like my third grandmother, as we lived beside her until I was about 10 years old. If you recall the two houses in the bend of the road on either side of the COLEBANK house. The small one going up Rt. 119 was what we called the Uncle Jesse BLOSSER house. He was an uncle to both Alice and Sylvia and like their second father. He was married to a sister of their Dad and never had any children so he and his wife, Aunt Myrtie, showered all his fatherly and motherly attentions on the STEWART kids. By the time you were small he may have been living with Alice, because my Mom and Dad lived for a time in his house. The other house toward Point Marion was lived in by Lloyd STEWART, who worked in the Point Marion Post Office and was a brother to Alice and Sylvia. So you can see none of this family got very far from one another. My Dad and Mom lived in this house too, after Lloyd and his family moved to Donora, Pa during World War II. From what I can recall my Dad saying the BAKER’S, COLEBANK’S STEWART’S and Uncle Jesse ate supper together almost every Friday night and just about every Sunday. Most of the time they were at the BAKER’S for these meals.

Aunt Alice was my Sunday School teacher too and I can still remember those little green chairs she had in her class room. I wish I had gotten one of them when the church closed. I too had a problem in Sunday School as to whether to call her Aunt Alice or Mrs. Colebank. I remember one winter night she was over at our house, baby sitting me I think. It was cold and icy outside and after my Mom and Dad came home I walked Aunt Alice back home. Ha, I was only about 6. But anyway she slipped and fell on the ice and broke her arm.

You were right about eating. One thing that Alice and Sylvia believed in was feeding everyone who showed up at the house. They both could make something out of nothing in no time flat. However, Sylvia was a much better cook that Alice, but Alice could always eat more. When they were doing the dishes after supper Aunt Alice would always finish everything anyone left on their plates. Nothing went to waste.

Just shortly before Aunt Alice died she took me aside and said she had something that I was the only one she trusted to give it to. I was then only 12. She gave me a 1818 fifty cent piece in almost perfect shape. She told me to keep it forever and I have. Later I showed it to my grandmother BAKER and she said that coin had belonged to both her Dad and her Grandfather STEWART. So I guess it had been in the family almost since 1818.

You spoke about Pearl HALFIN. She was a cousin of Alice and Sylvia. Their fathers were brothers. And then you mentioned Jessie NIEMAN. Well she was a cousin of Alice and Sylvia’s also. I don't think they had much time for Jessie. From what I gather they had to baby-sit her when she was a young child and they were a little older. Evidently Jessie was a rotten brat. Beside her sister married to Byron SECOY, Jessie had a sister who was married to Harold BIERER. Gets confusing after awhile.

You spoke of your dad working in the mine on Walnut Hill. I can remember in late 1940's, maybe 1947 or 48 of the men coming home from the mine in Bill HURSHMAN’S car. I think it was Bill HURSHMAN, your Dad, Harry DIEHL Lloyd COLEBANK and Ed SINES. They stopped in front of the COLEBANK house and unloaded. I watched and Uncle Lloyd COLEBANK was carrying a pint of ice cream. I beat him to his house. But before I could get any ice cream I had to wait until he took his bath in Oxodoyl soap. Then he had supper and then I got some ice cream. Lloyd always said he could never figure out how Harry DIEHLcould get home, clean up and be walking back to Point Marion for a beer before he could finish his bath. Uncle Lloyd was a great church worker in the Trinity Methodist Church as was everyone in this family.

You surely will agree that that was an e-mail well worth getting.
Thank you friend.

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