Whizzing Through America: Living Memories Tour, Mowrystown - OH

Even though my father's circuit was in Brown County, the first parsonage was in Mowrystown. While we lived here, Mother took we children to the Evangelical United Brethren Church in town and my father spent Sundays, and a lot of other days traveling around Brown County.

Again, school dominates my memories but does not consist of them all. It was here that I had my first and only fight. I lost in terms of the damage I took but since I was too stubborn to quit and eventually got my opponent on the ground, which limited the damage he could further do, it was officially called a draw. What's better, I never had any more trouble from that boy and his crowd. I think I earned their respect.

This was the place that my mind went to when I told my children about walking to school in the snow, up hill both ways. It was very flat but in the winter it was often in snow. Even though the town was small, it was at least a half mile walk each way, even with the short cut.

This is the place that my father had to go to bat for me to allow me to read books from the adult section of the book mobile. I wanted to, and did, read "Animal Farm." I don't remember whether I got all of the analogies, but I did catch the meaning of pigs and that they were "more equal" than the other animals.

This is the only place that I earned a sports letter. I played in the band here, including a Memorial Day march to the town's cemetery of at least a mile carrying and sometimes playing a B-flat Sousaphone. I took piano lessons here.

I worked here. I mowed lawns and raked leaves. I even had contract help, my sister, at least for the leaf raking. One leaf raking and burning had the fire department show up. I assured them that I had it all under control and they didn't do anything to help but they did stay around until it was done burning.

I also worked at home. I had to mow our yard for free, to pay for the mower, and work in the garden. One of our neighbors had a hand pushed harrow(?), which I used to cultivate the weeds out of the garden. It was here that I learned my life long dislike of lima beans. But I really loved eating the peas raw, right out of the pod. Mother had to harvest them quickly to get any.

And I still had plenty of time to play. There were a number of children in houses on both sides of ours. We loved playing hide and go seek in the dark. I liked to go out in the middle of our back yard and drop down into a darker shaddow. I don't think I was ever "found" in that spot. Then there was the refrigerator box and the real horse drawn wagon in the barn, if we had had a horse that is. As the largest, I was always the horse.

I didn't recognize it and almost didn't find it. The current owner, Franklin "Doodle" Stivers did add on a cool brick addition on the back and made it the kitchen. He also put in brick edging and sidewalk in the front. But the thing that made it so unrecognizable were the trees. Not only were there no trees to speak of when we lived there, but these were so big.



I was directed to it by the town historian, Jerry Pruitt. I was directed to Jerry when after several times cruising up and down the street trying to find it, I stopped on the side of the road. A woman courteously asked if I were looking for someone. I guess nearly every house in Mowrystown must have been a parsonage at some time or another because hers was as well. She didn't know of my parsonage but she and her husband did direct me to Jerry. (I'll write more on my times in Mowrystown in my tour finish blog posting: "After Wroad.")