G = Grandma, J = John, M = Martha

(Grandma): That was the time of school where on the first floor there was the first and second grades, then you went across to the third and fourth grades. Then the High School was up…..… It says Carroll High School.

(Martha): Did they use the basement part at all?

(Grandma): Probably not.

(Martha): And that’s where you had your little kitchen thing………..?

(John): That’d be something if we could go in there and see that place where you and, who was it, Mitch Miller or somebody ………… but I bet it’s closed.

(G): Well, a couple years ago when we were up here for something in Carroll, we did go

in, and it’s just an empty room.

(J): And that was to make money, or because they had no cafeteria, or what?

(G): Yes, we didn’t make money, we used serving. Here’s where Calvert’s

lived.

(J): Really? Before they had the farm?

(G): When they lived in town……… These old, old trees.

(M): Do you think these are the original sidewalks? The bricks?

(G): Oh, I imagine so. Yes. But we didn’t have streetlights! (laughing)

(M): But you had sidewalks.

(G): Yes, we must have.

(J): Well, there’s a little house over here someplace where Mame Calvert lived, maybe it

was up here, after she had her leg off and all that stuff, you know. One time when

we came to visit, there was a little house along in here, I think, where she was living,

and she had a young girl in to look after her.

(G): Wendy Drive, that’s a new one.

(J): Somebody’s daughter named Wendy, I bet. (reading) Carroll, Ohio,

founded 1829, incorporated 1858.

(G): Birthplace of Lon Chaney, Sr., movie star.

(J): You don’t say? Is he dead now, Lon Chaney?

(G): Oh, yes.

(J): (Reading) Junction of the Ohio and Erie Hocking Canal.

(G): He was born in 1883. I think he is dead.

(J): Yeah, I’d say.

(M): What is the population of Carroll now?

(G): (laughing) I don’t know.

(J): Oh, there’s Grandma’s house there. We just went too far. This used to be about the

end of Carroll right here. I think it turned to gravel. I don’t remember that chimney

there—that’s been added on. Grandma Hedge’s house has been added on and

modified…

(G): And those four little windows up there, that was Trudy’s room…

(J): That’s where I used to stay.

(G): Now turn right here to Sutter Street, that’ll take you over to the square.

(J): You’re pointing left and saying right. Turn right here to the left is what you meant.

(G): (laughing) Yes.

(J): The walkway was up this way…. I wouldn’t say they improved it any with their

changes.

(G): Now then, this brick building…. My aunt Alecta, who moved to California, owned

it, and my father bought it from her, and I have a book telling just what little he paid

for that brick building. And then he changed it and had apartments up overhead, and

different stores down below.

(M): What’s in there now?

(G): I don’t know. And then the church up there is no longer the Carroll First Church,

but that’s the church that we were married in.

(J): We used to go to Sunday School there with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Trudy.

(G): Well, here’s the front of the church.

(J): Down here in the square is where they would have the BIS band come down. This

was all square, and they’d have……..there were old buildings, there was old

Blackstone store, different things……

(G): Oh, that’s called the Community Center now.

(J): Wasn’t Blackstone store right along here?

(G): Yes, yes. That over in the corner, that gray house, that was Aunt Carrie’s. Danny

White lived there.

(J): That was the barber, and those kids, what was his name? Do you remember him, or

not?

(G): Look at these bricks, how different they are. That’s another church, I forget what it

is.

(M): Why did they decide to build a new one?

(G): Well, I don’t know, that’s the one that Aunt Trudy goes to. I don’t know why they

would.

(J): Hickey was those people’s names.

(G): Yes, that’s right. Now right here turn to the right, and that’ll go down Market Street.

(J): We’d stay up in that upstairs, right up in there.

(M): Was the back part on, the whole house looked like that?

(J): Yeah, the other half she rented out to Witherspoon, wasn’t that their name?

(G): I think it had two different rentals at different times.

(J): If you walk down this street, that was Aunt Inez’ and Aunt Cory’s, and all

those….Okay what have we got here?

(G): Well, this was a telephone company. Go on down now to where I lived.

(J): I never could pick this one out.

(G): Here it is. White with the green.

(J): That’s where you lived?

(G): That’s where I lived. And you see that….where this tree is now there was one just

in back of it, an apple tree, and we shared apples. And that there, Oscar Teer lived

at the house back here. And you see that old……..that was a well, a pump, you see

there sticking up out of the ground? That was a well.

(J): And that’s Oscar’s house right next door to yours?

(G): Yes, and we used to go over there to get our well water.

(J): That’s a crank kind of pump, isn’t it?

(G): Yes. I don’t know that they use it anymore, but….and when Robert was here we

stopped here to show him where I grew up, and this front room was the parlor, and

when we went in this door ahead of us here, it was a sitting room. We had a parlor

and a sitting room. And then you went into another room that was clear across the

house. The woman had just moved here when we were here with Robert, and I

asked to go in, and she said, "Oh we just moved and things are a mess. I’d just hate

to have you come in." And I said "Well, can you tell me one thing: when you go

down to the kitchen at the back of the house, do you step down one step flight to get

into the kitchen?" She thought a minute, and she said, "Yes we do," so that’s just the

same as it always was.

(M): Had your parents bought this house, or built it, or was it already here?

(G): Well, Uncle Nim Ebright, who lived there in the big house before Oscar, he sold

my mother and father this lot to build their house on. (Other woman): How much

backyard was there, all the way through to the street? (Woman): Mmm hmm, back

to the alley, it was an alley. And Albie Buchanon lived next door. His daughter

Ferris lived there with him, but of course they’re all gone.

(J): I’m trying to remember which house was yours. It’s not outstanding enough to

make me remember.

(G): Now this doesn’t mean anything for a picture, but Greta Strock lived there, and her

husband had a hardware store downtown. And here, that big building, that was

Thulman’s Funeral Home.

(J): Which way do you want me to go?

(G): Straight down here out back to 33. Kissler’s lived right here. Victor is still living,

and Judson was a part of our wedding party, and he’s still living.

(J): Where are we going now?

(G): Well, Carroll would be to the right.

(J): I want to go back and go down the road to where Aunt Cory and Aunt Inez and all

those lived.

(M): Now, were they all married? They were all sisters and they were all married? They

all had their own homes?

(J): Yeah.

(G): Aunt Inez was the youngest.

(J): And her husband died.

(G): Yes, and she had just one son, and he died.

(J): Roller, I think was her married name.

(M): Were these dirt roads back then, or paved, gravel?

(J): They weren’t dirt, not when I was here. They were stone and tar.

(J): Remember there was a family named Underwood that had a house along here, and it

was a wreck. They were a mess. That house may be gone, or that could be it there,

and they’ve put a garage where the porch used to be. Duane, he was a cousin or

something, lived down at the end of this street. Gerhart, Duane Gerhart, lived down

at the end of that street there.

(G): There’s Grandma’s house. And where that big pine tree is down there, the two-story

white house, that was where Zada Brandt lived, and her husband was Harry Brandt,

who had the main grocery store.

(J): Yeah, I remember that name. And this Schoon’s Bar and Grill here was Hordy’s Ice

Cream Parlor and Pool Hall. Back over here on the corner was a six-percent beer

place. It was scandalous because they sold six-percent beer.

(G): Sword of the Spirit, that’s what that’s called.

(J): Now, that was Aunt Inez’ house back in there, and this was Aunt Cory’s, wasn’t it? (G): Yes, Richard was hers, and he died not long ago.

(M): You mean that little tiny house there?

(G): Aunt Inez.

(J): Yeah, she built it with seven-foot ceilings. She thought it’d be cozier.

(G): And this red brick was Fenstamaker’s house, and they used to say it was the oldest

house in Carroll.

(M): It looks like it has no windows on the end. Just in the front.

(J): I remember when she built this little house. She was small, and she wanted a house

with low ceilings that was just her size. That’d be illegal these days.

(M): So what happened when tall people came to visit?

(J): The ceiling was close.

(M): And when did she build it?

(J): When I was a little kid, in the forties.

(M): And where was she living before that?

(J): I don’t remember.

(G): I don’t either.

(J): She was one of the sisters.

(G): Gerhart sisters. (Man): Mom’s mother was one of the sisters. (Woman): There were

six—Henry Lafayette and Margaret Gerhart, and they were married. They had

twelve children, and just six daughters survived. And Aunt Inez was the youngest. (M): Did they all die as children or infants?

(G): Yes.

(J): Some died as children, and others died in their nineties. Go figure. Now which one

was Aunt Molly? She lived along here.

(G): Aunt Molly lived out on 33, out in the country.

(J): There was another aunt that I think lived there, was it right about here?

(G): That was Aunt Cory, and that next house was where Henry Lafayette and the grandparents lived.

(J): But they weren’t still around when I was a little kid, so I don’t know who was living there then.

(G): In fact, Margaret Gerhart died in Carroll at my mother and father’s home.

(J): Well, that’s all of them that are here, then, on this street. Aunt Molly, where’d she live?

(G): Out on 33, down toward Lancaster.

(J): Now, you got any more places in Carroll for us to look at?

(G): No.

(J): Then how about I go out to where Grandpa’s elevator was. There’s Steve’s Garage. (G): I think that’s been there for an eternity, too.

(J): They used to do arc welding there, and it would make a terrible noise in Aunt

Carrie’s radio. She’d say, "Ahh, they’re welding over at Steve’s Garage again!"

(G): And that red brick house was where Mildred Miller lived after her parents died.

And of course right up here on the hill, this side of that great big building, was

where the Carroll depot was, where my father worked, and that’s the one that’s on

the fairground in Lancaster.

(J): I can’t see what it says--Carroll something.

(G): Corporation Limited.

(J): That was the old Ralston Purina, Carroll Elevator Purina, that’s what it was. I want

to get a picture of this overpass, too. I always remembered this road this way.

(G): Everybody had to get their names signed up there at the same time. Well, do you

want to go on up to where your grandfather’s elevator rose? I don’t think there’s

any building there anymore. The SuperAmerica is not there.

(J): This hill here, where Grandpa had to turn left at the top of it, Grandma would say,

"Someday that turn in there is gonna get you, you’re gonna have a terrible accident

there." He never did. He’d come chugging up here in his 37 Ford with a 60-horse

V8 motor, and he’d have to choke it to get it going. Well, look here, they’ve built

here on this little bit of road. This was all beautiful quartz gravel here. I used to

love to come and look at the sparkly rocks. This roadway, it was not gravel, it was

rocky, like golf ball sized rocks.

(M): So where was the elevator.

(J): Right up here, and it burned down. Not much left of it.

(G): It was just about along here.

(J): I don’t know what all these cars are up here for, do you?

(G): No. The cemetery is farther along here.

(J): That’s part of the foundation of it right there, I bet you. That’s why they built the

elevator there, so that they could have a boxcar come and they could fill it up with

wheat or corn, or whatever they were gonna sell.

G): We should be able to turn up into the cemetery pretty soon.

(J): That’s it right there. They had this rusty rail on the side, that was the sighting for the elevator.

(M): Did it ever have any more trees here in the cemetery, and they just stopped……..

(G): There was one big tree, but I don’t know what happened, if they cut it down or

what. It was right close to …….

(J): It was next to Dad’s, almost.

(G): Up there is Noecker.

(J): Without that tree there, I would not have found it. It’s a lot more crowded than it used to be.

(G): Now, I won’t get my grave blanket until sometime in December, and then we’ll

bring the grave blanket out.

(G): My name is on there, and my kids didn’t like that I had it on. I said no, I want my

name on, the birth and death you can put on later.

(M): Are your parents buried here too?

(G): Yes, way back down here, down that side. Where John is, there used to be a pump

there—John, that used to be a pump. Now, the only place that you can get water

here, unless you bring your own, is in that building back there, that yellow brick

building. John, I was anxious to have you get the other side of the stone. My

grandfather and grandmother Saylor are clear back down there. Turn here to the

left. There’s Gerhart, see, Henry Lafayette and Margaret, his wife? That’s where

we got the Gerhart reunion.

(M): So your mother was a Gerhart, and she married ………….?

(G): Yes. You read a lot of different places of the state here and others where they talk

about stones in the cemeteries being knocked over and broken, but to my knowledge

there hasn’t been anything of that kind here.

(J): There’s Kindler.

(G): Now then, go down here and turn left. Looks like they’re trying to open up more

space. You see the word Saylor, stop here. I want to get out here and go with you

over there.

(J): Is there more in this cemetery you want to see?

(G): No, not for me.

(J): Where’s Hugh Saylor? This is Andrew Saylor.

(G): Well, that’s who my father was named for, the grandfather, I guess. You mean in

the little stones over there?

(J): Yeah, did I get one that said Hugh?

(G): Arthur Hugh.

(J): Oh, Arthur, yeah. I’m not sure I took a picture of that.

(G): Oh, I think you did. But it’s surprising you don’t see any stones knocked over.

Some of them look kind of teetering, but…… And you see all these green spots,

they’re opening up more of the graveyard. There’s a stone way over there at the

edge.

(J): That’s it for here, huh?

(G): I think it is.

(J): Where’s the original Rieber house? Where Grandfather Rieber lived?

(M): Don’t you have the picture in the bedroom on the wall?

(G): Oh, that would possibly be at Rieber Hill Cemetery, and I can’t tell you how to get

there. Trudy can.

(J): She took us on that tour back a long time ago. I’d like to do that, maybe tomorrow if

we can get free. There was a mill with a water wheel, and a stream.

(J): Now how am I going to get out of here?

(G): Go back to 33, and you come up this way. All this stuff’s new. I don’t know what

it’s all about. That’s Carroll’s water tower. It’s the strangest looking one I think I’ve

ever seen.

(J): As long as it works, I guess. I think my grandfather was instrumental in getting our

water system into Carroll. They were working on it back when I was little.

(G): I think we’ve covered the territory………… Blythe lived here.

(J): Oh, that’s her house?

(G): I think I told you that one time, a long time ago, she raised some kind of fancy white

collies, and Eddie Cantor stopped and bought one for his wife. ……… Johnson

Shoes, downtown on Main Street. I bought shoes from his father when we were in

Convass, and then his father moved the business downtown. His father’s first

business was a shoe department in Morehouse, and then he finally brought his

business down here, and of course he died and now his son still runs the Johnson

Shoe Store. I think it’s the only shoe store on Main Street in Lancaster. All the other

shoe stores are out of the malls.

(G): That would be the career center. One of Paul’s daughters, she was his stepdaughter,

and then he adopted her, she comes there. She’s not college material, but she’s…. (J): Are you talking about Paul and Mary?

(G): Yeah, Mary’s Paul. His stepdaughter, Jessica, goes there to school. She’s preparing

to be, I think an aide, in like an old folks center. She can manage a job like that.

(J): I keep seeing these signs for Old Columbus Road, but I don’t know what that is. The

only Old Columbus Road I know of is 33. Have we got anything out in

Lithopolous? Not on your side of the family, anyway? Back a few months ago,

maybe even a year ago, I was on the phone doing something to do with the business,

I don’t know what it was, and the fellow that I was talking to who was taking the

order, I asked him "Where are you located?" He said "Columbus, Ohio." I said, "I

thought so, I could tell by your accent." And he said, "I’m not really from

Columbus, I’m from a little you never heard of." And I said "Try me." And he says,

"Lithopolous?" And I said, "I’ve heard of that. You ever heard of Carroll?

Lancaster?"

(G): All those new homes are up there. Divinian Homes. Going up everywhere.

…………. Noel’s son when out of business and nothing else was ever built in there.

We have Applebee’s, and there’s the Olive Garden…………….. (unable to

hear)…….. substitute teaching, and I think he said they get $75 an hour for that. (J): Probably per day.

(G): Per day, yes. And he’s really enjoying it. But he told them, do not call me on Tuesday, ever, because that’s the morning he takes Trudy and me to our hairdo. See, right next door where we lived on Pleasantville Road, Sandy Wolbern has a beauty salon…..

(J): Right next door? Toward town or away from town?

(G): Away from town.

(J): Oh, that new house they built.

(G): And when she wanted to have her beauty shop there, the neighbors had to go

downtown and sign up that it was okay. There would be no parking in front of our

homes along there, and we would not ……

(G): It’s a good thing Martha understands all this, because I surely don’t.

(J): She amazes me sometimes. Well, you missed going to your gift shop up here,

Martha. Suppose they’re open?

(G): Now, Sweeney’s Pub has been there forever and ever, and Wishes here at this

corner.

AT = Aunt Trudy, J = John, M = Martha

(Aunt Trudy): Grandma Noecker came from the Blue Family, and there were seven children in that family, and so Dad’s aunt, Aunt Lestie, took him and then the brother, Uncle Herb, and his family took Aunt Irene. They lived over on the Figaway County Road, 674, which is the county line between Figaway County and Fairfield County. So Dad and Aunt Irene were raised just a distance down the road, and when they go old enough, they understood that they were brother and sister.

(John): Oh, they weren’t raised together then?

(AT): Not in the same family.

(J): So, now let me get this right. That’d be my great-grandfather, whose name was Daniel, they lived in Fairfield County when they got married?

(AT): Well, they were married here in Fairfield County, I don’t know how long they lived here before they went to Indiana.

(J): Okay, and then they had my grandfather and then when he was two and Aunt Irene was seven months old, they had in the meantime moved to Indiana, and she died in Indiana?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): Do we know what she died of?

(AT): No. I don’t know.

(J): And so then he came back, because…. did he have a farm there or something?

(AT): I don’t know whether he was buying a farm or what….. I don’t know too much about the details of this "Go West, young man Go West," and if they homesteaded or lived on it for some many years and it was given to them, you know.

(J): And so he parked the kids here with relatives, in the hope of coming back and getting them later, I expect?

(AT): Well, it was just to take care of them now, you know, because he couldn’t do it, with a 2-year-old and 7-month-old. So he left them here.

(J): And so relatives said we’ll take care of them for you?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): And that was Uncle Ray that took them in?

(AT): Yeah, Dad was raised just like a brother of Uncle Ray. Then he went back, Grandpa Noecker went back to Indiana, up there in Northern Indiana, and married again, and had a son by the second marriage, Burr Noecker.

(J): What’s his name?

(AT): Burr.

(J): So, who was Blue again?

(AT): Well, that was Aunt Irene and Uncle Charlie’s son.

(J): These are odd names. Burr, huh?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): Now, do we know whatever happened with him?

(AT): Well, yes, Mother and Dad corresponded with him, and we had kept in touch with him as long as Grandpa was living out there, and then I think probably it was his second wife that died first, and he died later, and Dad and Uncle Charlie went out, you know, to see what there was and everything like that.

(J): And that’s when the watch came home?

(AT): That’s probably when it did.

(AT): All those things happened so long ago, it’s kind of hard for me to remember. When you stop and think, you know, I have lived most of this twentieth century. I was born in 1906, and I remember a lot of things from when I was three years old. We lived down on the farm. When Mother and Dad got married they lived on a farm owned by some relative, somebody I never knew, and they were the tenant farmers over in Figaway County, but they only lived over there for about a year, and Frances was born over there in Figaway County. And then, of course, my grandfather was a farmer and a carpenter; sometimes he was more carpenter than farmer. So, they wanted Mother and Dad to move on their farm and be like the tenant farmer, and I was born while they were living there on Grandpa’s farm. But the house that I was born in has been torn down. I’ll show you where it was. It was originally a log cabin—there were an awful lot of log cabins down around Royalton Pond. First there was an Indian settlement just outside of Royalton.

(J): What settlement?

(AT): Toby Indians. Grandpa used to call it Tobytown. Royalton was first called Tobytown before they changed it to Royalton. And I thought it was a nickname when I was a youngster because he’d usually say "Tobytown" and they’d kind of laugh a little bit, so I thought it was just like a nickname. I learned later that it was…..

(J): I’ve never heard of the Toby Indians. How did they live? Did you see how they lived?

(AT): No, whether they lived in log cabins or not…. I remember in my childhood there were a lot of log cabins.

(J): Did you ever know any of the Toby Indians?

(AT): Oh, no.

(J): I would assume they just got absorbed into the society?

(AT): Yeah. Here in Lancaster they had the Taree Indians. They were there at Mount Clos………??

(J): Did you ever know any of them?

(AT): No, no, I never knew any Indians.

(J): Where does that Old Columbus Road go there? I keep seeing that.

(AT): Well, that was before they relocated 33.

(J): Before they put this 33 or the previous one?

(AT): Well, the part of 33 that we’re using now was a part of the old 33, the original 33. They just relocated so they had more room, especially when they added the other lane, and it wasn’t practical for them to widen the old 33 during those particular parts of it.

(J): So is that what they’re calling Old Columbus Road, 33?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): That’s the one that goes up past the elevator? Is that the same 33?

(AT): Well, that’s Winchester Road now, the one that goes past the elevator. Now here’s where old 33’s going—that’s old 33 there. See in the ditch near it was not practical to widen it.

(J): But they’re not calling that Old Columbus Road, or they are?

(AT): That’s Old Columbus Road.

(J): Okay, so the old 33 and the Old Columbus Road are the same road?

(AT): Yes.

(J): But you could still get on that and go to Columbus?

(AT): Well, you get on it down here and when you come back up here onto this road, because it doesn’t go clear into Columbus anymore. There’s Coonpath Road. Coonpath Road is a very heavily traveled freeway now and an important road. I can remember when Dad used to feel so bad for the farmers that lived on Coonpath Road because the farms were not productive, you know, they were all poor people having a hard time making a living. If he could come back and see Coonpath Road now, he wouldn’t believe it. This Coonpath Road goes on up over the hill. That’s old Thomas Road down there, where the old canal used to be. Here was Drum’s house. One of Betty’s mother’s sisters married a Drum, and that’s where they lived. And then it came down on here, that’s another house that was all Drum’s.

(AT): Now, here’s our new church.

(J): We don’t need to go into Carroll this morning, do we? Oh yeah, we do.

(AT): We’re going to the downtown area.

(J): Now, is there any significance in the name Plum Road?

(AT): Well, Plum Road’s been there…. but if you were to turn right here and then immediately turn left, that’s all Columbus Road. Now up here at the next intersection turn right, and this is Carroll Southern Road.

(J): But that Plum there has nothing to do with Uncle Ray Plum or any of those?

(AT): No. I don’t know how they happened to name that Plum Road. See they couldn’t widen this up here to four lanes. Here’s where we turn. I’m so glad they made these extra lanes here. It was a couple years ago. It’s sure changed here.

(Martha): Why’d they put the cemetery over there? Usually it’s by a church.

(AT): I don’t know why. I suppose it was because it was available.

(J): Probably started off small…..

(AT): Probably because that land was available.

(J): Aunt Inez’ house is down there, and this one here was Aunt Cory’s, wasn’t it?

(AT): Yes, and the one that your Grandmother Gerhart lived in was the next one down here on the corner.

(Mayor): Hi, be right with you.

(AT): This is my nephew, John Noecker and his wife. They came from New York State.

(Mayor): New York State, just to take a picture of this building back here. What do you want to see, now?

(AT): John wants to take a picture of the picture that I brought up.

(Mayor): Right back here. Are these the two you’re referring to, right here?

(AT): Yes.

(J): Are there any other’s besides this?

(AT): That’s the orchestra, isn’t it? So put that one down there.

(Mayor): Chaney? A newspaper article on Chaney? Jeffers?

(AT): No, that isn’t.

(Mayor): Now, here’s some over here. These here?

(AT): Yeah, this is them.

(Mayor): I’m gonna try to get some interest in a museum up here. Carroll’s kind of hard to get people interested in anything, but I’m gonna try to see if we can get people interested in a museum.

(AT): These are the two pictures that I brought up. I’m working on another one. I was hoping to get it done before I got busy with income tax.

(Mayor): I find it interesting because the high school I came from, they had a women’s basketball team back in the twenties and thirties, and they act today like women’s basketball is brand new, like it never happened before.

(AT): Well, this history that this fellow out here from Dumontville, wrote of Carroll, and he said in there that the first ladies basketball team, and he gave the year, and that wasn’t right, because this is the second one we had. We had one the year before that, but nobody took a picture of us. I remember because I was jumping center and Betty was running center.

(J): I just got this new camera, and we were making the trip, so I thought I gotta take it and try it. It’s a Kodak, but it’s all digital, no film.

(Mayor): Those are nice.

(J): Yeah, and my son, who’s out in Arizona now, was after me and said get the pictures on the web site, I want to see them. So, here we are talking to you.

(Mayor): I have a pictorial family tree at home with all the pictures I could find of the family, and I went and did the same thing—took pictures of the pictures, and got them reduced down to billfold size, and used them in a pictorial family tree. So you can see where some of the traits came from.

(J): Are you in any of these pictures, Aunt Trudy?

(AT): Yeah, I was on the basketball team. And then Frances and Betty and I are in that whole high school picture here. I’m in the middle of the front row down there holding the ball.

(J): Yeah, that does look like you there. Are you in this one here, too?

(AT): Yes, Betty and Frances and I, all three of us are in there.

(J): How many of these are you in, Aunt Trudy? These are back in 1925, 1924.

(AT): I don’t think I’m in any of them. We have two of that …… picture over there in the right hand corner, with the wagon coming along behind…. the little wagon, I’m in that. It was like an afterthought. I wonder if they have a picture of the 1971 Old Timer’s King and Queen.

(J): They got it. It’s right over there, right there in the middle under the clock.

(AT): My mother was the Queen that year and my father was the King. And I was …………. that year because I was born the last couple years before that, they’d come out and …….. who was going to be …………………. ???? (laughing). And I was very delighted because when ………… had the Old Timer’s ………….

(J): But didn’t you tell the story of how you’d catch her from time to time wearing the crown at home? You tried it on?

(AT): I still have it. I think Margie Chapman made the crown.

(J): I think I’m in good shape. I got a picture of the mayor and everybody.

(Mayor): That’s what caused your batteries to go bad. I’m not your typical mayor.

(J): What do you mean?

(Mayor): I’m just not your typical mayor. I’m different.

(J): You think they don’t all wear work boots around town?

(AT): Thanks loads, Charlie, for doing this for me.

(J): Our new mayor, mayor elect, back in New York State, is a kid that was raised across the street from my garage. Used to wash cars from me in the summertime. He became a lawyer, not too successful a lawyer, and he got elected on the first try.

(Mayor): That’s the bad part about politicking. The first time I ever ran, I don’t know why, people just asked me to run. I’d run for council, so they said I should run for Mayor. The fun part was running, that was really fun, but I happened to win, and then I said, "What do I do now?" It’s quite good, but sometimes winning can be pretty rough too.

(J): Well I suppose that’s what Kenny???…… he’s probably wondering what have I got here, the tiger by the tail or what?

(Mayor): Could be. But it’s an enlightening experience, an experience you only want to do once.

(J): Are you going to make a career out of running for mayor?

(Mayor): No, no. I didn’t want to run this time, but some things developed and I thought I’d do it again. But no, I’m over the hill so I don’t intend to do it again. Unless someone upsets me. (laughing) I may just keep running until they get up enough backbone to kick me out. It’s an interesting experience. Once you’re in these jobs, you begin to have an understanding as to why your state legislatures are slow to get anything done, why your congress is slow at getting things done. You have a better understanding of the overall process. It’s interesting.

(J): There’s a town, maybe 17 miles from us, where the newly elected mayor is 19 years old, and beat some old guy that had been in for a long time, and basically did the same thing as the guy in our town. He just ran on "I think it’s time for a change," and it worked.

(Mayor): One of the guys running against me this time, he did the same thing, but he had sticky fingers. He had a lot of glue on his fingers when he went around to places, and some other things, but he didn’t make it. They had an interesting thing in the state here in the local newspapers here about a year or two in a town south of here, where this candidate for a council seat had been charged with some kind of a sexual thing of some sort, with kids or something, and he was just running for council. Well, this past summer they had another article on this same guy. When he ran, he won that seat on council, while he was serving his term on his conviction for this sexual crime of some sort, and he was in jail, not there. So the point that I’m trying to make is that people elect people for weird reasons. We often wonder where their logic is. Here’s a guy who is under indictment for this and they elect him to council. It really is odd.

(J): Well, our town has always been run by what we call the "good old boys;" too much intermarriage, too many cousins.

(Mayor): How big of a town is it?

(J): About 8,000. It finally got to where enough people got tired of the good old boys running, because they just did everything to their own benefit and manipulated everything. Finally young fellows were willing to step up to bat.

(AT): John, I think we better be on our way so we can get back in time for dinner with the family.

(Mayor): Don’t want to miss that.

(AT): Thank you Charles.

(AT): John, you wanted to go back and take a picture of the house where your grandmother once lived.

(J): Yeah.

(AT): Turn down here on this street.

(J): Tom’s Tavern, I didn’t see that one before.

(AT): They’ve got a new medical center here. The mayor lives in that first house right down there. Now up here at this alley, turn right.

(J): That’s Aunt Cory’s.

(AT): It was this house here, right across the street here. But they pitched it up. It doesn’t look like the same house. It’s the same house, but they’ve enlarged it. Turn right here. It was down here across 33. We’re going Carroll Southern Road and around Rock Mill. They don’t have a traffic light here anymore, do they?

(J): I don’t think they need it. After they put the turn lane in there, they didn’t need the traffic light anymore. We want to go straight, is that right?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): What they’ve done, is they gave us a wide place in the middle so we can get halfway across, then pause, and get over the other half.

(AT): Route 33 is practically bumper-to-bumper every morning, and there have been so many complaints about, and they’re going to start changing the traffic lights and leaving them on green longer, and hopefully move it up and push it into 33 bypass.

(J): You think that’s actually gonna happen after fifty years of talking about it?

(AT): Oh, well they’ve got to do something. Traffic is so heavy.

(J): They were talking about that back when we lived here. That’s it. A hundred back there we just came past, somebody painted it like a dalmation. White with black spots. What’s the name of this road?

(AT): Carroll Southern. So much farmland is going into development now. There used to be a watering trough along the road down here. For horses. And where Carl would bring his car to wash it. It was down here close to the tree.

(J): He’d use the watering troughs to wash his car?

(AT): Well, all he had to do was tip the water out, you know. It was a lot easier than pumping it and carrying it.

(J): What filled the watering trough?

(AT): Well, I guess there was probably a spring. Now don’t go too fast because we’re going to make a right turn up in here somewhere. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve been down here.

(J): Go right here?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): Greenfield Township. I couldn’t remember that. Grandpa was treasurer of it, or something?

(AT): He was clerk of the board. This is Rock Mill Road. It’s been years since I’ve taken this road. There used to be a schoolhouse here on the corner.

(J): Over here? That’s why they made the road go around the bend, instead of cutting the corner.

(AT): It was just a one-room country schoolhouse. There’s a couple who are very active in our church that live on this road, but I don’t know what house they’re in. I remember we’re going to cross Ardopolis Road down here. This road looks straight across here and around the hill there. They’re going to have to make a change here. This fellow that bought the mill, he’s sort of restoring it or trying to fix it up, and if they get this thing finished (it’s just talk now), they’ll make it like a western flare, and their gonna have to do something about the bridge, because these semis are hitting the end of the bridge, you know, because you have to go into it on the curve. They don’t curve, they’re too long, so what they’re talking about doing is putting in a bridge up the creek part so that the semis can go across and get onto it, but they want to preserve this Rock Mill Bridge because it’s historic, you know. And they want to restore the mill and have a dining room, or eating place, you know, a place that people will come to from all over. When we were little, when we first moved to Carroll, we traveled this road many times to go to Grandma’s, and the big wheel was on the outside of the mill. You see, the semis just can’t get through here.

(J): They don’t have any business being here, I don’t think. The big wheel is gone, huh? Where are all these big rocks from?

(AT): Well, they probably salvaged them from around here from places, thinking that they’ll probably use them. I don’t know if there’s anybody living in the house now or not.

(J): There’s lights on.

(AT): Bob Steeple owns it. What he wants to do is build a mobile home park backed up into the back of this house some way, but this is Bloom Township, and they will not have mobile homes.

(J): That would be terrible to put back in here.

(AT): Oh yeah, it would destroy the value of other homes.

(J): One more on this, then I need to put another memory chip in to give me 75 more pictures.

(AT): Christine Burnett and her grandmother used to live in that house. They lived across the street from us there in Carroll. They sure have built a lot of houses up here.

(J): Look at that cabin there. Wonder whose log cabin that one is?

(AT): I don’t know. I’ve never seen that before. Maybe they’ve built it or moved it from someplace else.

(AT): You know, I often think (we’re hearing so much now about the new Millenium and everything), about how things were when I was a child, at the very beginning of this century, and I think what’s happened in my lifetime, what more is there to do? And now all this kind of stuff is coming in, and then they’ll probably be living on the moon, and what have you.

(J): They’re in a frenzy with all the anticipated changes. When we get home, we’ll download all this into the computer and it’ll be usable again for another 75 pictures. It’s an amazing thing how these things work.

(AT): Now did you bring your computer with you?

(J): No. 78 pictures ready to go on that new chip we just put in there. Hope the battery holds up that long. Like the mayor said, it does gobble batteries up.

(AT): There are several members of our church who live over in this area that come to church every Sunday. There used to be a little country church down here on the left, but I don’t think it’s still there. A white frame church. We used to love to come over here to their ice cream socials in the summertime.

(J): What’s this town?

(AT): This is not a town.

(J): Oh, just the church had the socials?

(AT): Yes. There’s the cemetery. The church was on the other side of it. All this parkland has gone to development.

(J): I think when I get back I’ll print out those two pictures I took of the mayor and mail them back to him. What’s his name, Charlie what?

(AT): O’Hare. I have clients that live right down this road I do taxes for. There used to be a red brick country school down along in here someplace, and that’s the school where Frances started.

(J): That looks like a little schoolhouse there, but it’s probably a home.

(AT): Yeah, that’s a little old home. And Frances walked, it was a long walk.

(M): Where are we in relation to Carroll?

(AT): We’re quite a ways away, about 8 or 9 miles from Carroll.

(J): But you didn’t live in Carroll when he went to that school?

(AT): No, we were living on the farm down here.

(J): We’re going to go by the farm?

(AT): Yes.

(J): Boy, somebody’s got some big silos there.

(AT): Now, this next intersection up here, turn right. We’ll be on Lancaster Circle Mill Road. This is it. That schoolhouse, it wasn’t too far back of that road, and I’ll show you where we lived down here. He walked it. In the first grade.

(M): How old were you when you moved to Carroll.

(AT): I was five years old, so Frances was seven when we moved to Carroll. I don’t know that he went to school down here more than one year or not. I’d have to do some figuring.

(AT): Now we’re getting close, and the little house that we were living in was right along here someplace. And this is the house that Granddaddy built. They’ve closed in the front porch, but I’ll give you a picture of the way it was. They’ve closed in the front porch here and added the room onto it.

(M): Now this is where your grandparents lived.

(AT): Yeah.

(M): And were they farming?

(AT): Yeah. Granddaddy was a farmer and a carpenter, and a lot of the time he was more carpenter than farmer. He’s the one that built a round barn on the fairgrounds. And so Dad was his tenant farmer.

(J): So his last name was Reiber?

(AT): No, Hedges. There was a little log cabin left over from the Indian days, and they had weatherboarded it and added a room onto it, and that’s where we lived. That’s where we were living when Frances started to school. And he walked all the way to school. I mean, if the weather was bad Dad might have taken him, you know, because he was available to take him. He would have had to take him in the horse and buggy, because that’s the only way you traveled at the time.

(M): And where’s the little building where you lived?

(AT): They’ve torn it down.

(M): Was it near this house?

(AT): Yes, it was right back there on the right hand side of the road. That’s the house that I was born. That’s when babies were born at home.

(J): Did the doctor come to help?

(AT): Yes.

(AT): The deal is, I used to always have that picture of the house back in my office when I changed some things around back there, and I don’t have it back there now, but he misses seeing it, because he spent a lot of his childhood in the same home. And the ones that homesteaded here were Valentine and Magdalena Reiber, there the ones that came over from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and homesteaded here.

(J): Now, how did homesteading work? Did they settle the land and it was given to them then?

(AT): Well, they had to come over and spend so many years on it, and then it was given to them…..

(J): By the government?
(AT): Yeah, and then they got a thousand acres, and Magdalena and Valentine Reiber got the thousand acres. And when they died they were buried up here on the right.

(J): Now what year would that be, when they did that homesteading?

(AT): Now, wait a minute. Along in here someplace was where they were buried. They used to bury people on the farms. And the tombstone, they moved it up to the cemetery, so we’ll look at that up there. So, they came over by horseback, from Pennsylvania. They hadn’t been married very long. Of course, she was only seventeen years old, and I think he was about five years older or something like that. And they came over and homesteaded and they lived in a log cabin, I think it was, and then she had a baby the first year she was here. That was just about all they did, back in those days, have children. And she was so homesick to be with her family and everything, and so he sent her back to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on a horse, with that baby that was less than a year old, because they said the Indians would not bother a woman with a child, and she rode all the way back with that baby. And then he went a little later, I don’t know how much later, and visited for a while and then brought her back. But when they came back, they came back by stagecoach, and he told her that he would build her the finest house in Fairfield County, and that’s the house he built. I think the date that’s chiseled in one of the bricks is 1823. Now here’s the cemetery, and you enter the cemetery on the corner here. They did have a date there.

(J): 1823, it says. So they must have come over from Pennsylvania originally in like 1820, or before that?

(AT): Well, soon after, I don’t know how long. Now turn right here, and we’ll just go up this way a little ways and stop at the path by that big stone up here. I haven’t been down here for several years.

(M): Looks like all the Blues are buried here. Are there Reibers, too?

(J): A lot of Blues.

(AT): Now, this turns into here with all of them. That’s Magdalena and Valentine, and that was moved from the woods down the road here. That’s just the stone, I don’t think they moved the grave. They’re not permitted to have stones on private property anymore. Of course, a lot of them back in the early days buried their family on their farm, but they don’t allow that anymore. They all had to be moved into regular cemeteries. That’s when they moved this one up here. And then this one here is my Great-Grandparents Reiber, Henry and Sarah.

(M): So she died in 1927, so you would remember her.

(AT): Yes, I was an adult when she died. Uncle Ross and I ……. I was working, and…….

(M): And Henry had died before you were born then. Your Grandfather.

(J): Clay Reiber.

(AT): That was their son. He was a brother of my Grandmother.

(J): Now, Henry, that was your grandfather?

(AT): This is my great grandfather. Henry and Sarah—they’re the ones whose picture hangs on the wall right inside my front door. We’ll walk up this way. Isn’t this Hedges up here in the next one? This is where we are.

(M): Hedges is one more up.

(J): Oh, there’s a Noecker up there. George Blue …….. were these Blues related in some way?

(AT): Yes, Emma Blue was a sister to my grandmother.

(J): Here’s Hedges right here. Claude Hedges and Dee Orwell.

(AT): Now, Joe and I, we have our stones down here. All they have to do is put on the date of death.

(M): Then the William Conrad stone that’s right there, is that anyone?

(AT): No, that’s another lot. The stones are up there along by Mother and Dad’s. See, there’s my stone and here’s Joe’s. This is Grandma Reiber’s and Grandpa Reiber’s, and so Mother and Dad’s is up there on that side, and Joe’s is up there on that side too, Joe Hedges. Mine’s down here. We were out here four or five years ago, one time when Joe was here in the summertime, and we came down and made an appointment with the custodian down here, and he had the map out and everything.

(J): Now, where is Joe Hedges’?

(AT): Joe Hedges’ is up on the other side of this. On the same side as Mother and Dad’s.

(J): Way up there?

(M): So this is Joe’s mother and father?

(AT): Grandfather.

(J): So you say Mother and Dad are right there, your mother and dad are right there?

(AT): Yeah. Grandma and Grandpa had one child that died in infancy, and he’s buried up there, and Joe’s up there.

(J): So where will I find Joe Hedges?

(AT): Well, it’s right up there, probably that line this way of Mother and Dad’s.

(J): Oh, right there.

(AT): So we’re all right here on the same line.

(J): (reading) Infant daughter of H and S Reiber.

(M): Only lived one day.

(AT): Down here is Edna Reiber. Well I think we might as well be moving on.

(AT): ….. Royalton. Just drive out and I’ll show you the Toby Indian camp. Just go around this way. Keep to the left.

(J): Look at that one there that’s brown colored, how the letters stand out. They must have painted in the letters. That really shows. Lamb. Do we have some relatives named Lamb?

(AT): Not that I know of. What time is it?

(J): 11:30.

(M): So this is the Amanda Township Cemetery? And what road is it on?

(AT): I don’t know the name of the road.

(M): But I take it it’s the Amanda Township?

(AT): Oh yes, this is Amanda Township. Down here it’s really almost on two………. We’re going to take that road that we came in on.

(J): Fairfield County 16 and Westfall Road.

(AT): That would be Westfall Road over there.

Pause (driving)

(M): You can really see the house from this road.

(J): Yeah.

(AT): Down here we’ll just cross the Circleville Road and then go on to Royalton.

(J): Are we going to go straight or turn?

(AT): No, go straight through. But you have to stop.

(J): So the Reiber house there is located on 188. State 188 East. Actually that doesn’t matter. 188 and County 16.

(AT): I think they call this Lancaster. I’m not sure they call Lancaster Circleville Road or not, because 22 goes……….. This next house down here on the left, they’re clients of mine. That was Aunt Emmy Blue’s, her 200 acres that she got. They lived here for years and years, a couple generations and all, then it was sold to Brunie’s, and they’re clients of mine.

(J): Is this just coincidental, that you’ve got all these people from the past?

(AT): Well, the original farm, 1000 acres, was divided up in the family, see? And Aunt Emmy was one of Grandmother’s sisters, and then the Brunie’s came up from Westerville, and they got, might as well say, put out up there on account of development. They were farmers and they wanted to farm, they didn’t want anything else. So they wanted to get far enough away from all that development up there. They wanted a good farm, and so they bought this farm here. Your almost at ……… so don’t go too fast. Here, this is Royalton. Turn left.

(J): Royalton Road.

(AT): Now, it’s down…………. That building there was a doctor’s office. And this goes to the creek down here. Yeah, that’s the creek. There’s not much water in it. Now we have to turn around and go back. Turn around down here at this house. This little creek down here, there’s really no water in it. You see it’s been so dry this summer. This is Tobytown down here.

(J): Oh, this is Tobytown. No where was it actually? In this fields?

(AT): Yes. It was more of a woods here, and that was the Indian Reservation, where they lived. They lived around in this area, and they were the Toby Indians, and that’s the reason why the first name the village up here had was Tobytown, then changed to Royalton.

(J): Now what happened to the reservation?

(AT): Well, it was just torn down.

(J): Hmm. Sold off or something?

(AT): Well, you know, the Indians……….. The white men took over and weren’t very nice to the Indians.

(W): Did the creek have a name?

(AT): Not that I know. Toby Creek I think it was listed as.

(J): But you don’t know what kind of dwellings they lived in or anything?

(AT): No. Well, I think the best way for us to get back to Lancaster……. This is Royalton Road.

(J): Straight ahead?

(AT): Just go straight ahead and we’ll come out up there on Rockville Road. I had a client that lived in this little housing development back here.

(J): That’s interesting how they put these great big rocks sitting here on the corner for decoration.

(AT): And this grocery is the same building that we used to come to Royalton to shop for groceries.

(J): Oh really? Now there’s a house there, I guess. So this Royalton area was your early growing up area? And this was in the early teens and twenties. What year did you move to Carroll?

(AT): 1912.

(J): Oh, so it was a real ………… You were six years old, at the most.

(AT): I was only five years old when we moved to Carroll. Course my birthday’s in December.

(J): You were how old when you moved to Carroll?

(AT): Five. My birthday’s in December, and I was five years old when we moved to Carroll in July.

(J): Well the fact that you remember this proves that you remember from age 3 on probably.

(AT): Oh yeah. I remember a lot of stuff from when I wasn’t any more than three years old.

(J): So you probably got your first car around what, 1920ish?

(AT): Along in there.

(J): Grandpa, I meant, got his first car. What was his first car, a Model T or something?

(AT): Oh yeah. You mean Grandpa Hedges?

(J): Well no. Grandpa—your father.

(AT): Oh. It was a Model T. Touring car.

(J): Open car.

(AT): Yeah.

(J): Don’t have any idea what year it was?

(AT): No. But when we moved to Carroll we were still driving a horse and wagon.

(J): About where did you park the horse and buggy?

(AT): On the back ………….. The people who live in this house are clients of mine. Most every house in Carroll at that time had a barn on the back of the lot, and Betty, the house that she was raised in, was straight in back of the house across the street from us, and they had a barn. So we put the horse and buggy and parked that in their barn, and then when we got the car we parked the car in there. Until we moved back on Heidel Street. Go straight on. We’re not going to Carroll, we’re going to Lancaster.

(J): This guy behind me wants to get around me, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

(AT): I don’t think so. This is a narrow road all the way through here. They’ve got no business going any faster than you are.

(J): Well, when you see his car you’ll understand that he drives wild. Got no front end on it at all. All mashed. Now he’s turning off.

(AT): I think the first car that I had was a 29 Ford, one seater, and had a rumble seat. And it had sort of like a gray top, but you still couldn’t put it down.

(J): I think they called that a three-window coupe. It was a 27, and how new was it?

(AT): It was brand new.

(J): No, you didn’t say it was a 27, it was a 29?

(AT): I think it was a 29.

(J): That would be a Model A.

(AT): No, it was a Model T.

(J): Oh. Well the Model A came out in 27 through 31, so maybe it was a little older than that if it was a T.

(AT): Maybe I got it in 27, I don’t remember. I graduated from high school and started working in 1925.

(J): Maybe it wasn’t a brand new one?

(AT): Oh yeah, it was a brand new one.

(J): Maybe it was a 28 then. No, let’s see. 27-31 was Model A, so, who knows? It was something, but it was definitely a Model T, huh? We’ll it must have been one of the last ones.

(AT): It had three pedals, you know, and one to back up while you pressed on the middle pedal. Now down here we’re getting pretty close to the road that goes into Lancaster, and you’ll turn left.

(J): I was thinking back on that Cuba story you were telling me while we were in Niagara Falls. What prompted you to want to go to Cuba?

(AT): Well, because Grandmother and Granddaddy and Uncle Ross and Aunt Margaret lived there for awhile.

(J): And you just wanted to see them?

(AT): No, they were back up here by that time. But I wanted to see Cuba. If I was going to get close to Cuba I wanted to …………

(J): They had told you about it, and you wanted to see it?

(AT): Well, I had got cards and letters and things like that. I’ve got a couple letters now that Uncle Ross wrote to Francis from Cuba.

(J): And the reason he was there was with the Government?

(AT): No, Uncle Ross was ……. Well, I don’t know, I was too young to remember so much about the details, but I guess it was an idea that they could go down there and make some money; buy up some land and set out citrus fruit plantations and make a fortune, and five Americans went, and ……. This is where you turn.

(J): So he and four other ones went down there?

(AT): Yeah. The men went first and then the wives came later. They took a train to New York and then they sailed from New York clear down to Havana, and I don’t remember their leaving, but I remember their coming back. I’ve got some pictures that I took when I was down there. But they were riding horseback and Aunt Margaret, the horse stumbled or something and she fell off and injured her elbow. And they didn’t have doctors down there, they weren’t qualified to really set up property and everything, and so she was in a lot of pain. Now I don’t know whether she came back by herself and Grandma came back by herself or if they came together. I was too young to remember that.

(J): Now this is Grandma Hedges?

(AT): Grandma Hedges, yeah. But I remember Grandma Hedges coming back and sitting in the rocking chair there in the living room and showing us stuff that she brought back from Cuba. I was old enough to remember that. I was about three or four years old. Then later on Granddaddy came home by himself, but Uncle Ross was down there six years.

(J): Did he make any money?

(AT): No. (laughing)

(J): Didn’t turn out that way.

(AT): Now you’re going to turn left at this next intersection here. I think it’s the next intersection. Turn left.

(J): And so you and a girlfriend went down.

(AT): Yeah, Mildred Miller. She’s deceased now. She was a schoolteacher and ……….. Oh, you didn’t turn!

(J): Okay. Wait till traffic clears up. So you and Mildred Miller went down?

(AT): Yeah.

(J): And she just went for the fun of it?

(AT): No, we decided since it was getting to be August, and of course I was working and she was a schoolteacher, and she was going to have to go back to teaching school in September, and she hadn’t been anyplace, and I hadn’t been anyplace, and we got to talking one day and thought, we’ll neither one of us had ever been to Florida, so we thought we’d go to Florida. And I said, if we’re going to Florida, I want to go to Cuba. And Uncle Ross and Aunt Margaret were both still living at that time, and Uncle Ross said that one of the men that went down with them (his name was Patrick), and his wife died before, she never got to Cuba—he was from Pittsburgh, I think—and Uncle Ross said at that time that as far as he knew Harry Patrick was still living, and like I said, Midge and I, neither one of us had been to Cuba. When we got in, we were driving into Miami and there was a little tourist booth, white grained tourist booth along the road that said tourist information or something like that, and we stopped in and told the girl in there that we thought we wanted to go into Cuba. Now you turn right down here at this intersection. And so she checked on the ships that went, and at that time of the year there was only one a week, and if we wanted to go it was going to leave Miami that night. The information that we’d gotten in Columbus was that there were two a week, and we had planned to have a day or two to spend in Miami. So we didn’t know what to do. We drove down to the dock there in Miami and flipped a coin to see whether we would go or not. And that coin said go, and so we went. And ever since then I’ve thought of that coin, and if that coin had said no and we hadn’t gone, I would have been kicking myself all these years. So we got over there and I had a wonderful experience.

(J): And they let you take your car right with you?

(AT): Oh yes. Took it right on the same ship we were on.

(J): Your car was what?

(AT): Well lets see. At that time it was a Ford. I drove Fords for many years.

(J): And what was the year that you went there?

(AT): Well, lets see. I was transferred back to Columbus from Boston in the Fall of 1935, so this was I think 1936 or 37.

(J): You were already transferred back?

(AT): I was working in Columbus at the time. Yessir, I would have been all these years kicking myself.

(J): And you were about 20 years old, about?

(AT): No. It would have been in 1937.

(J): Okay, so you were about 35 then? Early thirties?

(AT): Yeah. We were adults.

(J): Now here I am on Fair Avenue and I don’t even know how I got here. So if we went to Fair Avenue we’d go right on to Royalton, almost? Well we’ve made some turns.

(AT): I’ve got to stop at home and heat up the apples. I fixed them last night so I could heat them up in the microwave. Traffic’s been pretty heavy on Fair Avenue this summer, because they’ve been working on Main Street and traffic’s just one way on Main Street, and in the other direction they’re routing that over onto Fair Avenue. So we’ve had a lot of traffic on Fair Avenue this summer.

(J): Do you know what this new building is going to be here?

(AT): I don’t know.

(J): Scarlett and Gray Realtors.

(AT): I don’t know what they’re building there.

(J): Wasn’t there a gas station there or something.

(AT): Yeah. I think over the years there’s been several different things, but apparently they’ve just not worked out.

(M): Are there any bookstores around, or are they just all out at the mall?

(AT): Well, I think most of them are out at the mall.

(M): Didn’t there always used to be one on Main Street?

(AT): No, the Lancaster Bookstore isn’t there any more. I went in there to get some office supplies and I was greatly surprised to find that they’ve moved out. They’ve got glassware and dishes and stuff like that. I thought of all things! So I called Heidi when I found out the bookstore wasn’t there, and she said that Len Hadost owns the building that the Lancaster Bookstore was in. He’s the one that had the Lancaster Office Supply and Lancaster Bookstore. His daughter has this business in there. He sold the business but he didn’t sell the building. He sold the business one or two years ago. They still were running the office supply and I think they had books, too.

(M): But you don’t know where they moved to?

(AT): Well, they really didn’t move. They were more or less without a business. I think there’s maybe a small office supply over at the corner of Fifth and High Street, I think it is. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it, so I’ve been getting my office supplies out at Office Mart at Main shopping center. But they just have office supplies, I don’t think they stock books.

(M): What I’d like is a map of Fairfield County, with all the townships and everything in it. I wonder if there’s such a thing.

(AT): The place to get that is in the courthouse.

(J): I bet somebody has one, like one of those map companies, Mapco.

(M): You know, we have one for our county.

(AT): Well, I have several. I don’t know that they’re real recent. They keep changing the roads so much of the time.

(M): They wouldn’t have changed all the back county roads, township roads.

(AT): No. Well, when we get back I’ll let you go through my box of maps. In the courthouse……….

(M): They would just have then on display so you could look at them?

(AT): No, you would have to ask for it, but then the courthouse is closed today. When we get back I’ll get my box of maps out.

(M): What’s the population of Lancaster now?

(AT): I don’t know what it is now, but I think it’s 35-40,000, along in there someplace. You know where to turn up here?

(J): I think it’s just right around the next corner, isn’t it?

(AT): Yeah. I wonder if the City will get out to pick up leaves today. Sandy hasn’t been out to Betty’s yet. We did a lot traveling.

(J): We did good. We’ll get you in the house.

(AT): Might as well come in for a little while and……

(J): Get that map that you’re going to show Martha? I ought to bring the camera to take those pictures.

(M): I’m wondering how good they’re going to come out, since they’re a picture of a picture.

(J): We’ll see.

(M): Did you take a picture of this here?

(J): Yeah, I got a couple of them. I got off a little bit and then I took the flash off. These are who? Hedges. Anymore pictures? If these come out we’re going to have something.

(J): Who did it?

(AT): This was 1840.

(AT): A pillow cover, really. She made it for a pillow cover, and a few years ago it was fashionable to put stuff on velvet and hang it on the wall, so had that made and changed it so that …………….

(J): So the black is velvet?

(AT): Yeah, it’s velvet.

(J): So the other stuff, did you cut it out or something?

(AT): She cut it out and put it on some paper, and I noted there was some, like stationery, like somebody had sent her a letter you know, and she used it to make them stand up.

(J): And you sewed that onto the velvet?

(AT): She did. Aunt Edna. Grandma never liked __________ so she never put it on the bed.

(J): Is Martha looking at pictures back there?

(AT): She’s looking at the map.

(J): You’ve got a lot of neat pictures back on those walls that I want……………….

(AT): A very prominent attorney here in Lancaster, he and his wife were very prominent people, and they lived in, let’s see, Broadstreet comes along here, and then on the other side of Broadstreet, and the very first house after the library is where this attorney and his wife lived, and they didn’t have any children, and so they took Malcom Forbes under their wing and were like parents to him while he was here in Lancaster for a whole year. They just, you know, did whatever they could do and they knew what he was here for, the reason he was here, and they just have a wonderful experience ……… and so, then he went back to New York.

(? Woman): I wonder if they ever sent Steve out to do anything like that.

(AT): Well, no they’d of been …………. Get on with my story. We only know Malcom Forbes as being the head of Fortune Magazine and everything. Well, the year that I went to China, you know with __________ , the last two weeks in August, and about a month after that, Malcom Forbes took an air balloon and flew over China, and he took his son Steve and two of Steve’s friends ………….

(? Woman): When did you go to China?

(AT): I think it was 1983 or 84, along in there sometime.

(? Woman): So Steve was a grown man?

(AT): Oh yes, they were young men. But see China was just opened up to the Western world in 1979, and when we were there it was still of course very Communist. But Steve made the whole arrangements, you know, by himself, and they didn’t go across the ocean in the hot air balloon, but they got permission from the Chinese government to fly certain places. Just like us, on our tour we only saw what the Chinese government wanted us to see. It was the same way, there were restrictions on the Forbes flight with the air balloon. They took pictures, you know, film of all of their landings and everything like that. Then when he got back he wrote about this to the lawyer’s wife and said that he thought the people in Lancaster would enjoy seeing this picture of their trip to China by hot air balloon. And he said I’d be glad to send it to you if you would like to have it and show it to the people in Fairfield County. So she was delighted. And of course my traveling companion on that trip was Nova _______________ and I called her and told her don’t you want to come down and see it. And of course she did so I went up and got her, and we saw that picture that Malcom Forbes took on that trip.

(? Woman): So it was like a documentary sort?

(AT): Yeah. And so we just felt like we were really good friends of the Forbes family.

(? Woman): That’s terrific!

(AT): It was really a wonderful experience. I feel much different about Steve Forbes, course Malcom’s since died. But I feel so different towards Steve Forbes.

(? Woman): I’m glad you told me. I think that’s terrific. So he’s not just a rich man’s son who doesn’t know about anything else. That’s most interesting.

(AT): It was just like an act of God, you might say, and I feel so different towards Malcom Forbes than I would if I hadn’t seen that picture.

(? Woman): Most interesting. That does put a whole new facet in him and his background.

Background noise.

(Aunt Trudy): I certainly hope that your arm isn’t hurt too badly.

(? Man): I’ll find out on Monday what they want to change. I don’t like the way it’s swelled up.

(AT): When I slipped on the ice and broke my right wrist, that was a day of course that I shouldn’t have been out, but everything was a glare of ice. Everybody was falling. It was on a Friday about the first week in February, and I was so busy with farmers. Then I had to have a splint on for about eight weeks and I couldn’t use it all. I could type, but I had to do all my typing with my left hand, which was very slow. But that’s when ___________ had told Heidi just lay all your stuff back, we have to take care of these farmers because the farmers have to have theirs in by the first of March. That way they don’t have to make estimated payments. And I had an awful lot of farmers at that time. Quite a few of the farmers stayed with Heidi after that, because she does it by computer.

Background noises

(AT): You’re going to have a long drive back tomorrow. I don’t envy you.

(John): No problem. I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy driving at night anymore, because there’s so many deer, and that’s a real hazard anymore. In fact, some motorcyclists, I’ve been reading, are giving up riding at night, simply because of the deer hazard. It used to be no problem, but now there’s so many.

(AT): I don’t very often go out at night. Now next Wednesday night our local oriental Shrine group out at Best Western, and Bill and Sandy will take Betty and I out, and there’s always somebody there that we can bum a ride home with. There’s one lady who drops me off first and then drops Betty off, and she doesn’t have to go out of her way at all to drop us off. Then there’s another one that lives out this way, but she has to go out of her way a little bit, but they’ll both be there. Our Eastern Star installation of ___________ is at __________ on Thursday night, but of course the only time I can go to meetings over there anymore is when somebody takes me, you know, and so there’s a couple of ladies over here in Lancaster who belong to Eastern Star here in Lancaster, but they attend all the extra things like that at our chapter over at ____________ pretty regularly and always have, so they usually pick me up and it gives me a chance to see the people. And then we have our inspection in May and then they usually go to inspection if the weathers decent. If the weather isn’t good I don’t go out in the rain or heavy rain or something like that, even if somebody picks me up.

(J): I was sure curious about that guy out at the Reiber house there. He’s so funny, yet he had the heritage tour.

(AT): No, he didn’t have the heritage tour. He didn’t own it then. No, it’s the people who had it on the heritage tour lived up at Westerville. I sort of forget the story on it, but they bought it as an investment, and I think they were getting ready for retirement or something like that. I sort of forget the details. But of course, as I said, after Grandmother Reiber died it was bought by these people by the name of Cooper, and they lived there for forty years. And they didn’t modernize it at all. Well, they did put in electricity. Electricity wasn’t even available when Grandmother Reiber was still living. And I think they put in a bathroom, but that’s just about all they did to modernize it. They lived there for forty years, and they’re the ones that built the small little range-pipe house across the road. That was in like a little pasture field, and when they sold the farm after he retired they didn’t sell that part where their little house was across the road there. They’re the ones that pieced it all out, and after Coopers moved out, then these people from Westerville bought it. They bought the house and all the farmland was sold to somebody else. It was sold to Craig Riggle who lived up the road. And all that he held was the house and the property down to the _________ Northern Road and just the land around the house there—no farmland. But they fixed it all up and just made it real modern and put in a couple bathrooms upstairs and they had to put in those false walls, you know. There was a fireplace in every room of that house because of the furnace in it, and then they got it all fixed up and they’re the ones that put it on the heritage tour. The heritage people contacted them and they were glad to show it in the heritage tour. And the man got transferred to New York or Connecticut or New Jersey or someplace like that all of a sudden, and so then he sold it to the present owner, and the present owner is the one …………………….. and he just didn’t want to make anything out of it. He mentioned to neighbors down there that he didn’t want the publicity of the heritage tour or anything like that. He didn’t want people coming and bothering him. They’ve put in a swimming pool. I’ve noticed it different times when I’ve been driving down Northern Road. So far as I know he’s still over there, the same man, and he worked for an insurance company in Congress, and I didn’t know if he’d retired yet or not. The Brunie’s, that lived on the _______________________, we passed their house.

(J): We decided that was built in 1823, didn’t we?

(AT): Yeah, I think that’s the date that Grandmother Reiber’s house was built. In 1823. I think I have a record on that.

(J): And before they put the bathrooms in, obviously everybody had an outhouse out back.

(AT): Oh sure.

(J): That’s something you never see anymore.

(AT): The only place you see it is out in the Amish country.

(J): They still have outhouses?

(AT): Oh yes, they don’t have bathrooms and running water. They have windmills. You see an awful lot of windmills out there. Of course windmills were very popular around our area. Grandma Hedges had a windmill, Grandma Reiber had a windmill, there was a windmill right across the road from the entrance to the cemetery when we went in. There was a watering trough along there for the horses to drink, and a windmill right there on that corner.

(J): Then I guess they get destroyed in storms, and then nobody fixes them.

(AT): Well, the whole thing is they just don’t use them. Now they have electricity to pump the water. On a windy day my Granddaddy would go out and disconnect the pump and the wind would turn the wheel around the windmill, and that would pump water down to the trough in the barnyard for the livestock.

(J): And when the wind didn’t blow somebody had to manually go out and do it, I guess.

(AT): Yeah, but the wind blew often enough and the watering troughs were large enough that they held enough water. I don’t ever remember them having to fill the troughs for the livestock down in the barn by carrying it down in a bucket. But we couldn’t pump the pump for the water in the house, it was too hard ……………. the windmill.

(J): And the Amish don’t have water in their houses? Isn’t that something.

(AT): No, they don’t have water in the house.

(J): Don’t have electricity either. But they could have water, that’s not electricity.

(Man?): Right. Well how are you going to get the water if you don’t pump it.

(AT): Well they have windmills.

(J): That’s the only way.

(Man?): Well, a windmill and a tank. You could do that.

(AT): Most of the Amish people farm. Course then they’re getting into a lot of craft items now, because people are coming to their country, you know, the vicinity, and buying up their crafts. I’ve got three pillows on my davenport that I got in a craft shop in the Amish country. They’re all handmade.

(J): Well I’m assuming that the windmills fell victim to storms.

(AT): Well I think they probably did.

(J): Otherwise they’d still be there. If they didn’t get busted up there would still be some of them sitting around.

(AT): There used to be more windmills around. They weren’t used, but they were still there.

(J): I can remember seeing them and some of the vanes would be busted off of them.

(AT): They were not kept up, and of course they had to be torn down.

(J): I’m assuming that somebody had to climb up there and repair those busted vanes.

(AT): There was a like ladder built right into the ….. the ones that were metal, there was like a fence built right in it. Of course there were quite a few of the wooden ones, because they were probably handmade. But they had some kind of a ladder so they could get up there and oil them.

(J): I wonder how primitive that was. Did they have oil cups or some sort of a resevoir, I would think, so they could lubricate…….. What kind of bearings did they have, do we know?

(Man) Well, Timkin’s been making bearings for many many years.

(J): I doubt that they had Timkin’s.

(Man): It’s hard to say. I think the ideal bearing for a windmill would be a thrust bearing.

(J): All sealed up.

(Man): Well, a thrust bearing is tapered so the more pressure you put on it, it will still continue to work. Generally it’s a tapered bearing.

(J): Double-row.

(Man): Right.

(J): I think they had a fin that had a wing on the back of them so they pointed into the wind, too.

(Man): Right.

(J): But I haven’t seen a windmill in years. I’ve seen some on windmill farms where they’re doing something scientific.

(Man): A lot of them out in Arizona.

(J): Still.

(Man): I know the farms out there are windmill farms. They generate a lot of electricity out there. They use it to pump irrigation water.

(J): There’s some in Massachussetts, Cape Cod area. But they’re modern. I don’t know what they do with them, but they’re modern.

(Man): Anymore they just have two blades on them, like an airplane propeller.

(Woman): Yeah, those are out in South Dakota all over the place.

(J): We’ve been on beaches there in Cape Cod where the wind never stops. It doesn’t gust, it just blows continuously. Perfect place for a windmill.

(AT): Boy, Cape Cod just has not been the same since World War II, and I’m glad that I was able to enjoy it before World War II. To me, it was ruined by World War II. They had a military base there…..

(J): It’s still there. Navy base. I’m trying to think, Woods Hole, is that on Cape Cod or is it nearby?

(AT): Woods Hole is nearby.

(J): There’s a navy air station apparently far out. I remember seeing signs for it and seeing their training.

(AT): It’s probably down out there on the point. I mean, that to me is just terrible to see the people out there and the kind of people who were there the last time I was. It was always such a nice place.

(J): Well it’s still a fun place to go visit, but it’s all commercialized a whole lot.

(AT): We had a lot of happy weekends down there. It was no unusual, especially when I was still living at the Franklin Square house, that some of us girls would go there. Course I had a car with a rumble seat, and there would be four of us would get together and have a lunch packed at the Franklin Square House. We got only two meals a day, we’d eat our breakfast there and they’d pack a lunch for us. We wore our bathing suits and beach pajamas over the bathing suit, and went down to, I can’t remember the name of the beach now, and it was just beautiful.

(J): Nacett?

(AT): No, it’s not there anymore because they built on it and built homes and everything, and the last time I was there I couldn’t even find it. The name was on there but it wasn’t the beach. But it was ……..

(J): I’m trying to think…Orleans or Nacett, those are favorites.

(AT): I think it was in the area of Talmuth. But it isn’t there anymore, I mean it’s just all built up and everything. I couldn’t even find it the last time I was out there.

(J): I think Talmuth is on the first crook.

(AT): Yeah, as soon as you get across the canal. But we’d go spend the whole most of the day there. Course it took us a couple hours to get down there because it was a two-lane road most of the time. And we’d go in the water for a while and then come out and eat our lunch and lie around on the beach, then we’d leave about three o’clock to get back ahead of the rush and to get across the canal before the New York boat came through, because they’d pull up the drawbridge. They were still using drawbridges when we were there.

(J): Now the one bridge I think was built in 1935, so maybe that was being built about that same time as what you’re talking about.

(AT): Well I was transferred back to Columbus in 1935.

(J): So there’s two bridges that go across, and one of them I know the date on it was 1935. So I’m assuming the other one was before that.

(AT): There was just one bridge to go across. There was a drawbridge that they had to pull up to let the New York boat go through, so we always wanted to be sure to get back across that bridge before they pulled it up for the boat to go through. And you know, we’d just have a beautiful day.

(J): I got a feeling the drawbridge has been replaced by a higher bridge.

(AT): Oh yes, they don’t have to pull the bridge up anymore.

(J): It’s always a fun place to go to, though. Well, it’s 8:30. How late are you guys going to stay? You haven’t got the word yet?

(Man): I think they’re trying to get ready, but it may take another three hours.

(J): I want to go over to Sandy’s. Got something we want to try on her computer.

(Man): Want to try and get your email?

(J): Yeah, see if we can get it. Because I can’t do it someplace else.

(Man): Next thing you’re gonna have to get yourself is one of those portable computers.

(J): Not unless the price goes way down.

(Man): They get pretty expensive, don’t they?

(J): Yeah, I won’t even consider anything that high.

(AT): Is that the same as a laptop?

(J): Yes. Well she has a laptop at her work, and they’re a lot more expensive than just a desktop. About twice as expensive.

(AT): A lot of accountants use them because they go out to clients’ homes. Or to invalid people who can’t get out.

(J): For that kind of thing the expense of it would be justified. It could be written off as a business expense, too. She has to go out sometimes and audit doctor’s offices and records and stuff like that.

(Man): Can you go online then, too, at your doctor’s offices and transfer…..

(Martha): It’s a program that we have to use to put the data in.

(Man): Okay. I’m surprised you couldn’t download that and then you wouldn’t have to go out.

(J): The doctors aren’t computerized at all. All their records are still pencil and cardboard and jammed up.

(Man): That reminds me of an old cartooon, the Wizard of Id, where two guys were in prison, and one says what are you in here for? Well, I’m in here for impersonating a doctor. Well how’d they catch you? They could read my prescription.

(AT): Well the doctors have their billing done professionally now.

(J): No, they don’t do it themselves. Somebody does it for them. Well I’ve been out helping her gather up data from the doctor’s offices, and their filing systems are pathetic. Old folders and they’ve got them jammed into the shelves and files, and if the shelves are good for 5000, they’ve got 10,000 jammed into them. What a mess. And no inclination toward computerizing or modernizing at all.

(AT): Every doctor that I contact, it’s done by like a company that does the billing for the doctors. And the first thing they do is send it to Medicare, Medicare pays what they’re gonna pay, and then it automatically goes to my supplemental insurance, and they pay what they want to pay, and then eventually I get a notice about how much I owe. And some places I go, like the foot doctor where I go, they say well, you overpaid. And at the vision clinic, it’s a case of the doctors going to the patients, instead of the patients coming to the doctors. The main one is in circleville, at the hospital. It’s built ………

(J): Why does the doctor go to the patient?

(AT): Well, wait till I get the story. They started it at Circleville, and they have this medical building that’s separate, but it’s right by the hospital and they have a covered walkway from the medical building into the hospital over at Circleville. Well, they have these ophthalmologist and optometrists over there, and then they opened up like a branch office here in Columbus a few years ago, and it was just a very small space downtown. And so, there was one doctor from Circleville that come over one day, maybe on Tuesday, and another doctor from Circleville that come over on Thursday, something like that. And they were taking care of patients here in Lancaster, but it got so busy with so many people that it was too small, so they moved out here on East Main Street now, and took over a whole new building with several different kinds of offices in it. But it’s one floor. It’s not a high-rise or anything like that. And so there’s a different ophthalmologist there just about every day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday there’s an ophthalmologist there, in addition to an optometrist. But then on Friday’s I think the ophthalmologists are not there. And then one of the ophthalmologists will go to Logan—they’ve got a branch office in Logan—and then they’ve got another in Waverly.

(J): So they’re going to the town, not to the patient’s house?

(AT): That’s right. But they’re going to the town and then they don’t have to drive so far to come to Lancaster or Circleville. But all their billing and everything comes out of Columbus.

(J): How’s she getting along with her computer? Is she still using it?

(Man): She uses it ………….

Several conversations going on at once.

(J): Now, to get into that email, she has to have Netscape, which I think she does. First you got to get Netscape up, and then you have to go into your …………

(Man): Are we ready to go, Mary?

(Woman): When are we going to have Christmas?

(Woman): You know, we had people in Columbus who months ago, maybe even a year ago, sold their house, cashed in on everything and went and pitched a tent in the middle of Texas somewhere because they were so afraid of what Y2K is going to bring? Can you imagine that? That was their excuse. What they did for a job, I don’t know.

(Man): On May 4, they’ll get a letter from somebody saying Congratulations, you are now minus 40.

(Woman): Baby’s first birthday.

(J): Sweden has an automatic computer system that when you’re five years old they send you a notice to go to kindergarten, but the computers are only up to 1999. So a woman who was 104 got a notice that she needs to go to kindergarten. That actually happened.

Page 2: Aunt Alecta (? Spelling)

Page 3: Oscar Teer (? Spelling)

Page 3: Uncle Nim Ebright (? Spelling)

Page 7: Convass (? Spelling, ? Town)

Page 7: Lithopolous (? Spelling)

Page 8, first paragraph: (unable to hear section in bold)

Page 8: Sweeney’s Pub

Page 8: Wishes (? Place)

Page 9, paragraph 1: Figaway County

Page 10 Taree Indians (? Spelling)

Page 10: Mount Clos…… (?)

Page 11, first section: Coonpath Road

Page 12, bottom of page (much interference, unable to hear)

Page 13, middle of page: Kenny …………. (unable to hear)

Page 15: Ardopolis Road

Page 20, top of page: __________ Township Cemetery (sounds like Amanda)

Page 24: Len Hadost (? Spelling)

Page 25, bottom of page. "Grandma never liked _______________ so she ……. (unable to hear)

Page 26: went to China with _____________. Nova _____________. (background noise,

children, unable to hear)

Page 27: …that’s when ____________ told Heidi …………

Page 27: "Our Eastern Star Installation of __________ is at _________……….

Page 28: ____________ Northern Road

Page 28: ….. Brunies (?) that lived on the ________________………

Page 30: Woods Hole (?) (Cape Cod)

Page 30: Nacett Beach (?)

Page 30: Talmuth Beach (?)

And who do we have to thank for taking all the above off of tapes and making them available for us to read and enjoy???

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