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.")

Whizzing Through America: Living Memories Tour, Brown County - OH

For a brief time, about six months, after our house, the parsonage in Greenbush, burned down, we lived here in Mount Orab. That it was closer to my school is about the only positive thing I have to say about it. When we were here the toilet was still an outhouse. The only running water was in the kitchen. I slept on an upholstered bench downstairs. I don't remember whether or not I ever went upstairs. My memories of this time are not dominated by this humiliating experience. In fact, what I've already written is about the extent of it.

Instead, I remember going through the ashes in the basement of the burned down house and not finding any of my silver coin collection, finding a few razor thin pennies, and also a few badly deformed nickels. I remember singing the theme to Oklahoma in the school's spring variety show. I remember being one of the co-stars of an operetta, La Raquitta(sp) with actual solos. Somewhere I have a year book on this high school year but who knows which box it is in. I really liked Earth Science, Latin, and English. The Earth Science final consisted of about twenty unlabeled rocks around the class room and we were supposed to provide the complete labels. Latin gave me an understanding of English that I still benefit from today. English spurred a love of writing that I use almost daily.

It was accidentally riding by the school that got me oriented well enough to find the actual place. I was glad to see that they must have finally put the plumbing inside but I know I found the right place.

My memories of this place, Greenbush, actually started while I was living at the next place I'll document in another blog entry. After a church member next door donated a large and empty house that needed to be refurbished as the future parsonage, I was old enough to help. I particularly remember the old style plaster over lathe strips because one mistimed blink got plaster in both eyes. When it was done, I ended up with a rather large room of my own. My sisters had to share though. And my youngest sister was born while we lived here.

While the above building may or not be a parsonage now, it was the replacement parsonage built that I never lived in. The reason it may not be a parsonage is because the church is no longer a United Methodist Church. My father built up attendance to at least 150 a Sunday. He was breaking records, literally, LP records that had the previous high attendance mark written on it. One time he couldn't because it was made out of unbreakable plastic. If the sign is too small, it is now a Baptist Church. I don't know how long it may have been unused before becoming a Baptist Church, if at all.

Estate sales were big then and I loved going to the auctions and finding treasures cheap. Once I misinterpreted the auctioneers patter and bid far more than I had for something. I was immensely relieved when someone overbid me. I did buy a hand-cranked Victorphone complete with a set of 98's to play on it. I cranked it up frequently. I think my best buy was a box of books, which included a 1908 history text book. It was quite jingoistic and disproportionately covered the war with Spain and the Rough Riders but it was certainly a fun read. Of course, all of these things were lost with the fire.

I played my first, and only as I recall, game of spin the bottle at this school. Afterwards I figured why kiss someone at random. I'd rather kiss someone I really wanted to. After still more time, I overcame my social shyness and proceeded to do just that. (I know that the picture doesn't have a school. It has been torn down.)

I enjoyed the ice cream socials at the Brownstown Church. I enjoyed the invitations that were extended to us for Sunday dinners after church. Somewhere I still have a recipe for No Bake Cookies that I got at one of them. Then there were the special families who had children somewhat in my age range. One of them were the Tutts. Every year their two sons would rearrange the baled hay in their barn to be a maze of interconnected holes and small rooms. We would play tag in it. I think my love of reading was developed at another family place. I don't remember ever eating there but I did go there quite a bit. They had a daughter just a little older than me, books and magazines all over the place, and every car they owned was an exotic Saab.