There is nothing one can do to improve himself in so much as writing his memoirs. Certainly I would not willingly trust another to write mine. Yet I am leaving my skeleton closet door a bit ajar for just a peek into my livid past praying that those offended will forgive me.

Like everyone else my life has seen its sorrows as well as happiness. Happiness is best remembered, yet after enough time has passed, all memories are beautiful.

Now all is peace and quiet. Those two or three who purport to be my enemies cannot hurt or even concern me. I am truly blessed.

In retrospect, looking throughout the mist of years, I was the focus (really not a four letter word) of atten- tion in the summer of 1895 when all Hell broke loose. Just like Pearl Harbor.

It was the year of the small towns with nearby swimming holes. It was the year of the small farms as yet not completely cleared for cultivation. It seems that every farm has at least a small woodland to clear and that clearing brought "cussin", backache and at least a new ground potato patch. It was the winter that McKinley and Bryan were candidates for president and with most everyone around Blooming Grove being Republicans, naturally McKinley was elected. It was thirty years since the Civil War had ceased.

The Waggoner farm near Blooming Grove was always a scene of active farm operations. Abe Waggoner had many tools and had one of the first steam threshing machines of the day. He was the propagator of the "Waggoner" Apples that proved very popular. Manual labor was the name of the farming game in those days and he had many "hands". He had clearing to do which provided much wood for the large house and summer kitchen with its huge fireplace. It is said that during the busy season he butchered a lamb every day to feed the help.

Abe Waggoner came from solid German and Quaker stock; in fact, his grandfather Tom Green was a brother to General Nathaniel Green, Washingtons favorite general. Both Tom and Nathaniel Green were ousted from the Quaker church because of their war activities during the Revolution, Tom being on the Generals staff.

Note that these children except Simeon all were born during the Civil War period. Abe had been drafted but paid a bounty of $300 for a substitute. Substitutes were not hard to find as many men who missed the draft lottery advertised their services for this sum.

It is said several "would be" substitutes made a business of selling their services, then desert, move to another location and advertise under an alias for another $300. Carl Sandborn, in his Life of Lincoln told of one man who did this trick 30 times before they caught and hung him.

Emily Waggoner (Abe's wife) was a domineering and hateful person, according to Libby Waggoner Johns wife. She kept her only daughter, Mary Lizzie, at home allowing very few friends, and as a result Mary Lizzie grew into an "Old Maid". Emily had one son, Simeon, who was just like her, overbearing and insolvent but the other three sons were like their father Abe Waggoner, slow, easy going, but industrious.

Abe thought she was delerious as it was preposterous that she should marry this little 12 year old red head kid out of the Childrens Home who stayed with some neighbors and went to school part time.

In July 1895 Mary Lizzie reluctantly told her father of her pregnancy and really shook him up when she told him who the "varmint" was. Lib Waggoner told me the story after Mary Lizzie's (my mother) death. Abe (my grandfather) begged her not to marry this 15 year old "snot nosed" kid, promising to take care of me as a a son. This she refused. They had a family census of the brothers and wives and that is when the shit hit the fan - Pearl Harbor fashion. But Mary Elizabeth, bless her heart, prevailed and on July 23, 1895, she and Benny Roberts were married. I thus incurred the wrath of Emily Waggoner although she had been dead nearly three years.

How she hated me! How do I know? I never did know until 40 years later. Spooky,eh?
Well, folks, forty years later in the sequence of my story I will tell you all about it. Just hold on to your seats!

Quite a stir around the country side-tongues wagged- sly whispers and shaking of heads. Old biddies started counting backwards from January 10, 1896 on their fingers and then nodded " I told you so".

My father, George Bennet but called "Benny", proved to be a wonderful father in spite of the fact that he and my mother had to brave the contempt of her family. This contempt grew with the birth of each child after me. He had gone to school long enough to read well and "figure". I never thought of him as being deficient in education as he was sharper in arithmetic than my mother. He was no doubt very immature but I never remember him as being younger than my mother even in the later years.

George B., as he was known all through his later years, as I have told you was an orphan. He spent his childhood either at the "Childrens Home" or with some farmer for "board and keep" with a little schooling during the severe winter season.

Before I ever went to school I remember being told of how his alcoholic father had brought his small growing children up from New Orleans where they were all born,

He was not there long when he took off for parts unknown and never did return. He died in 1912 at San Diego, California. His only brother, Keeley was notified but he did not tell my father until much later.

Lisa, the mother (my grandmother) unused to work of any kind, let alone taking care of the brood, made her plans to return to the south from whence she came. She placed five of the oldest children in the Franklin County Childrens Home and departed with the baby, Bert in 1885.

My father was six years old and no one again heard from her until 1903.

Now Gertrude, the eldest was soon taken from the home by the grandmother where she suddenly sickened and died at 11 years.

Ed, the next child, born 1877, really had it tough, knowing nothing but hard work, never married, totally lost his eyesight, died about 1937 (about 50 years).

Next, Dad, George B., born 1879; died 1953 at 74 years.

Roy E., born 1882, never married, killed in action in France, World War I - 1918, age 36.

Iva, born 1884 (often married) died in California, 1935. Bert, the baby, born 1885, died in 1935 (50 years). These children, all born in the south, baptized in the Catholic Church, at the time of desertion were aged as follows - Gertrude 10, Ed 9, George B. 6, Roy E. 4, and Iva 2.

Many stories came from them, describing their plight. All except Roy were apparently mistreated. Roy was fortunate to get a good home in a German family by the name of Whitcamper. He was loved as a son and received a good education. I remember him as well read and quite a philosopher and idealist. Before my school days, I remember his visits and close association with my father. He spoke German fluently. All the deserted children because of their associations were reared as Protestants.

Grandfather Waggoner bought a small farm for mother and dad on Duck Creek near Metamora which was about ten miles from his place. I have a thousand memories of this small farm even though we moved from there when I was under three.

There, my brother Milford was born 1 year 8 months younger than I. The creek fronted the log house with a bridge that led onto the road passing by.

I remember all the neighbors, especially the older Greene girls; Lola, Cora, Emma and Mable who was near my age. There were also three boys Harry, Johnnie (killed in WW I) and Charlie. Lola and Cora sort of took turns taking care of Milford and me.

About five years ago (1969) I heard that Cora was still living and made it a point to look her up on one of my return trips from California. Answering the door, a feeble, sickly old lady appeared.

"Howdy, ma'am, do you happen to be Cora Greene?", I inquired with the gallantry for which I am noted.

She said,"Yes, this used to be Cora Greene."

"Do you remember Cliff Roberts"? I asked. "Laud sakes, yes. Do you mean to say you are Clifford?" She put her arms around me and exclaimed through the tears, "Clifford, I've wiped your ass many, many times!"

I do not remember that intimate relationship in detail but I do recall the girls being at our house much of the time. I remember their mother. (She had a large goiter which scared me.) Their father was a jovial type and the children all inherited that trait.

There was the big McCurdy family, poor as church mice and the Vern Hills. There was ole Lige (Elijah) Montgomery with his corn cob pipe and stinking home grown tobacco. I had heard the neighbors talk about him as being a chicken thief and no good in particular. In later years, in remembering him, I learned he was doing time for thievery and arson. I knew him later as a "honey dipper" (one who cleans out privies).

My Dad painted the tin roof on the barn with Venetian red and linseed oil. A young calf drank from a bucket of this mixture and "kicked the bucket."

I remember the "smell" of the creek especially when the rich bottom land brought forth its large growth of vegetation in the hot summer months. And in winter this "smell" changed to burned firewood from the fireplace. No such thing as gas or coal but good old hickory firewood smoke - unforgettable.

Today, when it is fashionable to supplement gas here with a little fire in a modern fireplace I get a whiff of the soothing odor that never fails to take me back to those days that memory keeps me company.

In those days the Orphan Annies and the Roberts' "childern" such as my Dad and his siblings were "farmed out". We had an "Orphan Annie" who came to our house to stay. Her name was Mamie Patterson and she came from the Childerns Home. She would drive the horse "Old Maje" and buggy to the store in Metamora for supplies and I sometimes went with her. The creek ran all the way to the town and once she spied a large soft shell turtle. She caught it and laboriously got it in the rear of the buggy. I remember her showing it off to the town's people and how scared I was of it. Dad butchered it.

We had a good parlor organ with the stool with the fringe. Also we had a large walnut framed mirror which I think my mother got from her Aunt Mary (Miller). The organ, I think, was given her when a child in the hopes that she would develop into a "concert organist" but she never knew a note as I remember her. Mamie would hold me up to the mirror and tell me that

some day we would go into that mirror - Weird. She told me a lot of yarns - of how poison was tin foil, then put it to her mouth as if to swallow it, just to hear me squall.

Mamie must have been unhappy, because one night she disappeared. My parents were quite upset but finally concluded that she must have "run off". I recall that my piggy bank with all my pennies went with her.

About 1950, Dad learning of her whereabouts in California went to Long Beach to see her and they had a nice visit. I forgot to ask him if she gave him my piggy bank, it being only 52 years since her leaving.

In 1899, when I was nearly three years old, we moved to Connersville, Indiana, and I never knew why. We lived on tenth street and the small cottage looks just the same today.

On the corner lived Mr. Watson, an old man who every Sunday morning threw the funnies section of the paper in our yard. I can see those funnies as if it were only yesterday _ The Katzenjammer Kids, named Hans and Fritz, - Happy Hooligan and his brother Gloomy Gus, Buster Brown and his dog Toge, - Si Slocum and his mule, Maud, - Ah Sid, the Chinese Kid, - and Laughing Sam. I am sure that Dad enjoyed them as much or more than I, as he read and explained them to me.

Mr. Watson's house today is just the same with the exeption of two iron life-sized water spaniels that laid on the front porch as if on guard. Often I think of how valuable those antiques would be today.

Across the street from our house was the railroad and a red building used as a poultry house which was a busy place at Thanksgiving time. Dad worked there dressing turkeys during the holidays.

l900

All this was during the election year of McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt against Wm. Jennings Bryan and ( I think) Parker. Political pictures were posted or hung from most front windows. My folks were rabid Republicans and they gave me a small flag and told me to go out in the front yard and yell "Hurrah for McKinley".

A memory - Granddad Waggoner bringing several crates of chickens to the poultry house and leaving one coop of roosters with us to eat.

Of course our toilet was an outside privy with holes too large for my little butt. Dad planted upright a clay sewer pipe in the corner of the back yard for me to use as a toilet. It was much too tall for me to climb and I had to have assistance each time both for ascent and descent. At the cry of " I wanna stank" one would come running and sit me on the top. It seems in my memory that their return for me was always delayed for long periods of time. I suppose to be sure it worked. I do not recollect Milford using the pipe, he could have been too small. It was thus my individual throne.

Upon one of Uncle Roy's visits to our house he had started selling house to house pictures framed for the parlor. It was quite a fad at the time. From the prospective customer he would take an original photo, remove the cardboard back then glue it on the back of a 10 x 12 glass, paint the remaining open space of the glass, and insert it in a beautiful gilded frame. It was really sharp, - rather gaudy but pretty in its day and age of the parlor.

They did quite well and decided to move to a larger place and acquired a section of Indianapolis. In 1901 we moved to Indianapolis.

INDIANAPOLIS

I don't know why we moved so often in Indianapolis but suspect that it was better than paying rent. At least we were blessed with pullchain inside toilets from then on even though not all were private.

Dad's sister and her husband Dave Morrison here joined Dad and Roy in the picture business. The territory finally was saturated and they moved their operation to Kansas City leaving us in Indianapolis where my brother Roy M., later nicknamed Abe was born.

When Dad was away working in Kansas City we lived on the second floor of a tenement building. It was a large three or four story building with long winding stairs in the center surrounded by apartments on each floor. There were a lot of noisy kids that worried the caretaker, Mrs. Washstadt, to distraction.

When Dad returned from Kansas City, he gave up the picture business and got employment in a carriage factory. He had to buy his own hand tools and for years later I had fun with them, especially the bolt clippers.

1902

At five I went to kindergarten and enjoyed it as I liked to use my hands. Clay stamping and modeling interested me. When I became six I started to school. I remember being vaccinated for small pox at school.

"My Mom says I've got "yaller janders", I said. She laughed loud and long and told me to go home and come back when I didn't have "yaller janders". I went home and don't think I had a doctor but it cleared up in a couple of days.

After a few days at school I figured I liked kindergarten better because I didn't have to remember numbers and letters there. So instead of school one morning I went to kindergarten that was near by but it seems that I was an unwelcome guest for they waltzed me right back to school.

We learned to read by phonetics - each letter it's characteristic sound. So after intensive drilling of the sounds of the alphabet I could sound the words whether I knew what they meant or not.

I have often been thankful for having been taught to read in this manner. I later went to several different schools where the teacher did not know of this method. One such teacher got a kick out of selecting hard words for me to pronounce or read just to hear me sound each letter separately. She once picked up a large geography on her desk and asked me to tell her the name on it. I remembered that my father always signed his name Geo., so I figured the first three letters spelled "George",

then g-r-a-p-h-y? = George rappy. She still could not understand my method.

My father had a bicycle and he liked to ride me on the handle bars. That crossbar was hard on my tender rump, so he fixed a board with a cushion that worked fine. I remember a woman telling him that it was sweet to see a boy riding his little brother on his bicycle. He took me everyplace. When we walked along the street I always held on to his index finger.

He bought all my mother's yardage to make clothes and I was always with him. A sales girl kidded him about his little brother, thinking that he was single. I remember her surprise and her telling him that she didn't believe him. We always had a sewing machine as long as I can remember. Dad was a much better "seamstress" than mother and made most of her dresses. Another thing that surprised the salesgirl was that a dress took ten yards as my mother was overweight. ( and most likely pregnant!)

Just before I started to school while walking with my Dad in front of a large school, they were having a singing period. They were singing "Good-bye My Dolly I Must Leave You", a Spanish-American war song. Much like later singing Tipperary in WWI.

We once lived in a double house where on the other side lived an "onery" kid named Raymond Stetzel. When we were both too young to go to school he taught me a few tricks. He showed me how to tie a string around my little penis, explaining that it would "feel good".

When my mother saw it while giving me a bath she was horrified as it was turning blue!

"Don't you ever - ever do that again or it will fall off", she admonished.

GRANDFATHER'S DEATH

We had just moved to a small house, the one with electricity, in November 1902, when I was awakened at two o'clock in the morning and my mother was crying. They told me that Grandfather Waggoner was seriously ill and that we must go at once. I was so sleepy I could hardly comprehend. We were to take a train at 3 AM and had to hurry. They were hurriedly dressing themselves and us kids. I remember when they were dressing me I was so sleepy. Dad was buttoning my coat when I went to sleep standing up and fell over. I have forgotten all the small details about the train ride, the meeting of us with a carriage in Connersville and our trip to the farm. But I will never forget my grandfather in the large bedroom - one side completely paralyzed and unable to speak. He held out his hand to me and made a grunt then squeezed my hand and looked kindly at me. As I remember he lasted only a few days.

He had gone to the barn to feed the stock where he was seized with a stroke in a horse stall. He laid there for three days when a neighbor came to investigate since he had not seen nor heard from him. Living alone, no one was there to help him and when found was still living but paralyzed and could not speak.

Milford and I stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Lib at their place while Dad, mother and baby (Roy) went back to Indianapolis to move what furniture we had. I am not so sure, but I think we all stayed on Grandad's place until the estate was settled.

The three brothers made all the decisions as to the disposal of the farm and equipment. My mother breaking in on one of their sessions asked for only one thing: "May I please have Pap's watch to remember him by?"

"What do you need with his watch? Hell no!", answered Uncle Simeon. Her heart was broken and they divided such small things between themselves as I remember hearing about it.

Uncle John was to get the home place which was fair, as he was the only farmer.

Then came the big farm equipment auction sale. He had enough tools for several farms as he seemed to have had an addiction for farm machinery. He had operated one of the first thrashing machines in the country and was

known for his penchant to buy tools when they went cheaply at all farm auctions. With tools, livestock, and household goods it was a large sale and drew an enormous crowd. It was a terribly cold day and I felt sorry for the auctioneer who had to keep barking while the buyers would sneak into the big summer kitchen and stand in front of the large fireplace to thaw.

That is where I stayed to listen to the gossip and laughter of the farmers. They were kidding Tom Ellis, a young fellow about his wife having a baby, their first born, the night before. They had named him Clifford Peter Ellis and I made the remark that the name was like mine only my name did not have the "Peter". That brought a laugh over the whole room. Then they would ask me to repeat my remark so they could laugh again. Several times during the day I accomodated them but I could see nothing funny about it at that time. I was going through the age when everything I said was cute and not back-talk.

After every asset was cleared out, Uncle John, with Aunt Lib and two daughters Ella and Mayme moved to the old home place. Bertha, the eldest daughter was working as a domestic in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

During our stay on the farm at this time I remember the neighbors Alva and Ora Chambers taught me to count to one hundred.

Bently, about a mile and a half northeast of the home place was a sparse community consisting of school house, church and the homes of the Roses, Bennings, Grists, Blackburn, Mable, Jerman, Trustlers and Currys. Dad took a farm job from Tom Curry who was a thrifty Irishman.

I think we were there a full year as Milford and I went a full term to the Bently school which was about a quarter of a mile from the house furnished to us. We got a hog to butcher and a cow furnished for the milk. I well remember this cows calf that got too close to the bee-hive. I can see it now, a picture of that calf running back and forth with his tail straight up in the air which I thought was real, real funny.

I was in the second grade and Milford was in the first. The huckster, Harry Perdon from Blooming Grove with his covered wagon drawn by a team of horses made weekly calls. We traded our extra butter and eggs for sugar, coffee (Arbuckles), soap, beans, etc.

Rural mail delivery was just starting and homemade wooden mail boxes were available.

Mother made the first butter, beating the sour milk in a stone jar which was an endless job. It was then we decided to buy a churn.

Riding down the dusty road in a buggy drawn by Tom, we went to Everton, about three miles, to buy a churn. Old Tom sometimes took a notion to balk and all the coaxing and whipping in the world would not change his mind until he thought it over

(it could be an hour) and then decided to proceed. I asked Dad how he could tell that Tom was a boy horse. "Whoah!" He commanded Tom who stopped and stood still while Dad climbed over the dashboard onto the shafts and lifted up his tail.

"Now, see that round hole directly under his tail?" I was embarrassed but I agreed that I did.

"Now, when you see a horse with only a round hole under the tail - that means he is a boy. Now when you see directly under the hole a slit," he said, making a perpendicular motion with the side of his hand, "Then it is a girl. Now, do you think you can tell the difference?"

I nodded an embarrassed "yes".

To this day, at least 75 years later, I have not the least idea of what he was talking about. Ah, the unsolved mysteries of life!

But enough about old Tom - We needed a churn. That little general store in Everton I thought the most fascinating place as they had everything including candy. Dad paid three dollars for the churn. That represecnted two or three days work as the prevailing wage of a farm hand was $10-12 per month. That churn was a luxury as we had been churning in this large crock with a stirring ladle. It was a luxury until they put me to work churning as it was so tiresome to one so small. It seemed the butter would never come and I would poop out but my mother would finish it and it seemed she did it so easily.

Mr. Curry was noted for his thrift but he and Dad got along fine. His son, Claire, about 5 years older than I was at our house much of the time . This was in 1903, I was seven, Dad 23. All the boys of the neighborhood made our house their headquarters on Sunday as Dad was really one of them. I remember Easter Sunday and the boys had planned a chicken friz with a lot of eggs but a big rain came and we tooks refuge in a big stack of fence rails piled so that they formed sort of a roof. But as a roof, it proved a sieve and we all got soaking wet, returning to our house like drowned rats.

I remember that sometimes my brother became a bit irked at the boys but that didn't seem to stop the fun.

At the end of the lane running from our house across the road the big boys played baseball. It seems like they were all adults and as I look back, it seems like they played as well as some professionals today. Chuck Masters the pitcher, was a high school teacher. Boxer Meyers was a big farmer as was Frank Banning, catcher. They drew large crowds every Sunday.

When we first moved on the farm that spring it seemed that it had been so long since seeing Uncle Roy when he came one Sunday just before dinner time at noon. As we sat down at dinner Dad playfully put a spot of butter on Uncle Roys suspenders and got up and ran. Uncle Roy jumped up and after

him. Well, don't you know they chased each other all after- noon until it was time for him to leave. They hadn't eaten or visited - just played, so you can see my Dad hadn't grown up yet. Uncle Roy at that time was operator of the Union News Stand in the Pennsylvania Depot in Richmond, Indiana. He came back down on vacation during the following summer and did a lot of squirre hunting.

A cousin of our mother, Mrs. Levi Masters, died. She was a sister of Noah and Lot (Doc) Waggoner. Only Dad and I went to the funeral. In the procession to the graveyard in Fairfield, our horse, Old Tom, balked and held up the traffic that finally drove around us. I do not remember when Tom decided to move but I am sure He surely did because I saw her grave and marker 5O years later as I was looking over the old cemetary before it was moved to higher ground to make room for the Brookville Lake which now is finished. Neither rain nor balky horses keep one from taking that last ride.

One day Dad came back from the open end mailbox with a letter and he was crying. He told Mom it was from his own mother, that she had somehow located him. Her name was now Hamilton and she was living in Helena, Arkansas. She now had two children; Joe, my age, and Theresa, a couple of years older. She and the children were devout Catholics. Bert, the baby she had taken south with her was apprenticed to a sign painter in Memphis, 40 miles up the Mississippi River from their home.

In 1903 it was cold bitter weather when we moved from the Bently neighborhood to Blooming Grove. Mother and Dad had bought a cottage in town for $300 with a small rental on the same lot. The school, across the gravel street in a two room building housed 5 grades in the one side and 6-10 in the other. It had a coal burning furnace for both rooms that had a hard time keeping the kids warm.

From here memories crowd memories! Here in Blooming Grove our growing family lived until 1914. Dad started out that 1903 winter cutting firewood for $1 per cord. The following summer he bought a god damned merry-go-round, yes that's right, a used merry-go-round. It seems that he had talked my mother into using about $500 of the farm inheritance insisting that he could make a lot of money playing the county fairs. I think he made 3 or 4 stands and when business was so bad he had to hock the outfit to continue, he soon lost the whole thing. Mother cried.

Blooming Grove boasted of a saw mill, a blacksmith shop where all the news was discussed, diagnosed, and disseminated. I overheard a couple of neighbor women at the store talking.

"I feel sorry for Lizzie".
"So do I. He'll run thru all she's got."
"She'll just have to clamp down on him".
"I feel sorry for Lizzie too".
I overheard remarks from the men that "Benny" hadn't grown up, that we would soon lose our home and that she had better put thumbs down. This talk made me feel bad. Then too, I had visioned a happy life just riding on a merry-go round!

About this time occured the big hold-up. John Kennedy one of the two store keepers was aroused from his sleep about two in the morning by a loud knock at his bedroom door which faced the street. Upon opening the door he was faced by a dark lantern (much like our flashlite today) and a man who demanded his money. Kennedy was a strapping athletic brave young man. He tore into the intruder and knocked him down but the fellow shot him in the face. The bullet lodged in the cheek but did not keep him from calling for help as loud as possible. The robber fled. Only one person heard his call for help and he lived two blocks away.

Now there were only two telephones in town, one in each store, but there were several farm phones on party lines and the news spread like wildfire.

What an exciting time for us kids! Early that morning people gathered into town from far and near. The small town was crowded.

Manuel Kennedy, John's brother, in meantime proceeded to get drunk and started shouting orders to the crowd. Everyone was attracted by his leadership as he led his battalian like a general following the bloodhounds. First the hounds made a circle around the sawmill lot to a house across the street from the Kennedy store but they were pulled back and again led down to the gate to get another whiff of the lantern. Manuel's posse, perhaps 25 - 30 men made the trip under his orders, "This way, men". To us kids, this was a bully show. With a fresh scent the hounds were off again around the lot to the road that leads to Brookville. Here it was deduced that the gunman had gotten into a buggy and gone to the county seat. Seven miles the dogs bayed and bellowed on the way to Brookville where they ended up at the depot. That was the end of the futile efforts of the blood- hounds.

The people lingered around all day. New people arrived as others left, leaving the town a beehive of conjecture and anticipation. Some nodded knowingly about the man who lived across the street. In the meantime John Kennedy was up and around, his head wrapped in sheeting like a mummy. He would not allow the doctor to remove the bullet which had lodged near the back of his neck.

Years later, I learned that the bullet had worked down his back just under the skin. He never had it removed nor did they ever catch the gunman.

At John Kennedy's store, we kids spent our pennies for stick candy. Mothers bought calico for dresses, kerosene for lamps, overshoes for school kids. Farmers bought terbacker, horse collars and "steeples". It was a typical General Store.

With it was the huckster wagon that plied the country side once every day in the week. Saturday was a big day at the store but most of the business was transacted on the huckster route where many customers seldom "got to town". We kids made it our business to be at the store when the "drummers" came from the city to show their merchandise to John. Some had one line such as shoes, others had a whole shithouse full of goodies such as toys, hardware, post cards and jewelry.

Also came the salesman (or "drummer") who drummed up trade from the wholesale grocery house in Cincinnati. He always had samples of a good line of colored cookies, pickles,

Here I had first contact with cereals other than rolled oats (Quaker). First was Elijah's Manna corn flakes in a pretty box. Then came Egg-O-See, much the same and finally Kelloggs corn flakes. Elijsh's Manna and Egg-O-See suffered an early demise but Kelloggs really put it over by intensive advertising. Our school was given a framed picture of a pretty girl hugging a green stalk of standing corn entitled "Kelloggs - Sweethesrt of the Corn". Postum, the substitute for coffee had just arrived and they came out with Post Toasties. Shredded wheat came out soon after Grape-Nuts, also. There has been a variety of competitive cereals since but these above mentioned have held their own for the last 70 years.

I found a box of Grape-Nuts that the storekeeper had discarded because they did not sell. He had acquired them as a sample and considered them a newfangled concoction, which they were indeed. I never tasted anything better so ate the whole contents. Overheard the clerk tell someone that they were very, very wormy. As tasty as they were, this scavenger remembers them with fond relish. Today, when eating Grape-Nuts, a picture appears of my first crunchy thrill.

Did you ever notice how people seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they were not so crazy about the first time around?

1903-1904

The school year 1903-1904 started with me in the third grade and Clara Mode from Brookville as the teacher. But I had started to school that fall with a heavy heart. Three of the older boys I had been playing with, Frank Ferris,Wesley Swift, and Frank Powers had divulged a great secret to me in this fashion:

"We've got something to tell you".

"What is it?", I asked.

"Your mother is knocked up".

"Is that bad?", I asked.

"Sure, she is going to have a baby!"

"Oh no", I thought, "I can't stand it".

I asked when this was goint to happen and Frank Powers said "I overheard my mother tell my Dad the baby would be here in the early spring". I hated them for telling me. I was heartsick --another kid to take care of. I hated to face my parents -- I could just die. I tried to tell myself and the three boys that it was not so, and they told me to look at my mother and I would see that she was getting fat.

So I started to school wiser if not happier. About the first of the year John Kennedy sold his store to Cal Chambers who had been farming next to Grandfather Waggoner's farm. The Chambers family every Sunday drove to church in Blooming Grove in a surrey with the fringe on top. I think they wanted to be closer to the church so they built a new house across from the store. The two girls helped in the store

1904 spring finally came and we three kids were hurried to a neighbor house one Saturday afternoon. I knew what was brewing but my parents didn't think I knew. After two or three hours we were told we should go home where we learned a baby sister had been born.

Old Granny Whitman who could only speak German except for a few words asked, "Is it a gal, is it a gal?" Dad was so proud to have a girl in the family but I was disgusted. But I was glad the suspense was over and soon learned to "put up" with Eula, who was born on March 5, 1904.

PUSS
It seems that every spring we had big rains and floods. We had two flood areas that we always watched with interest, one at the north end of town that was caused by the road culvert not being large enough to let the water get away. Consequently the lowland where we kids often frequented to eat the sweet shoots of the calamus buds filled up making a dandy temporary lake. The other flood area was south of town at the sawmill. This one was generally more interesting as the water ran more swiftly generally carrying driftwood and trash. it sometimes got high enough to wash sawdust, that was piled high, at the mill on down the ravine.

Milford and I at flood time that spring decided to go down to see the sawmill flood. So away we went, climbing over the long red gate where the robber had dropped his dark lantern, then down to the mill by the big sawdust pile. There we watched the debris as it rushed by.

Looking up the flood several yards we saw what looked like a rat very much alive, striving to make the shore. It finally made at our feet and imagine our surprise to find it a half grown mattese kitten. It still looked more like a rat because of the soaking. We picked up the half dead kitten, wiped it off, wrapped it in one of our coats and hurried home. Toasted and dried off by the kitchen stove it became lively and loveable. It was a girl and we named her "Puss".

As she grew the more we loved her. We talked about her a lot deciding that God had sent her to us. We vowed that she should have anything she wanted because she was special.

Puss was an excellent mouser. She had one litter of kittens after another but we always took care of them and tried to get them good homes.

Time went by. Puss kept reproducing until she started showing her age. We had grown to be big boys and had so many interests that we started to forget about our "protege". Of course we stillloved her but it seems prrhaps that we had grown calloused. She seemed to care less and we did not worry about it.

Finally we found old Puss in the yard dead. Tears? No Funeral? No.

I picked up her carcass by the tail, swung her around my head three times and let her go into the field next door to meet her maker out of my sight. At that time I thought I acted as an adult instead of a snivelling kid. But now I think I should have at least said "Goodby old Puss. Have fun". No, I was now at fifteen a man of the world.

1904
(8 years old)

That summer Dad bought two large lots on the edge of town across from the graveyard. Then he bought a big Jersey cow and I was "chosen" to take care of the cow, bring her to and from the pasture, feed her in winter and do all the milking.

Dad belonged to the Pythian Lodge. One of the members, John Ash Swift became critically ill and the lodge was obligated to furnish a male nurse. The wage was ridiculously low but Dad took the job and stayed for a long time until he died.

Once I was teasing Ora Chambers about being the merchants daughter and she quieted me by reminding me I was the nurses son.

One instance makes me remember 1904 vividly. On a warm sunny day when I was 8 years old, I was loafing beside the house, lying in the grass under an old umbrella. I started thinking and wondering about what I had heard the preacher say about Heaven and Hell. I wondered why I was here. I wonderer what life was all about. I wondered if there was life in the stars. I wondered if I has been born for a purpose. It then occurred to me that all this wonder was something new. If I would only keep this mood until I could figure things out. I would like not to forget these moments so having a pencil I wrote on the house this memo: "Remember Life under Umbrella". Often I looked at the inscription and hundreds and hundreds of times in my eighty-eight years of living I have remembered it and pondered upon it.

About Christmas time or thereafter, Dad's mother, (our Grandmother Hamilton), wrote that she wanted us to move to Helena, Arkansas. We put all of our furniture in a box car and started it south while we took the train. Dad must have gone on ahead as I do not remember him being on the train with mother and four kids. I do remember the long ride and the packed lunches. As we looked out the window at dawn the first morning we thought snow was on the ground but it turned out to be cotton not yet picked. the train was detained at the little town of Lula, Mississippi where we changed to another line to take us across the Mississippi River to Helena, Arkansas, our destination. After being bounced around we looked out from the train as we were ferried across the river.

I next remember the houses on "stilts" around Helena, but Grandmother's house was different as it was built on high ground red clay. I never knew what our parents' plans were for thr future. We waited and waited for our car of furniture to arrive. As I remember it must have been several

weeks and we were pretty crowded in the little house. The baby, Eula, became sick with some kind of fever and was at the point of death at one time. Milford and I went to the public school with Theresa and Joe Hamilton even though they were Catholic. We went to church with them. Finally when the car of furniture arrived my mother was very unhappy with the set-up. The car was never even opened and we sent it back to Indiana, another lesson in mismanagement. The old woman who had said, "I feel sorry for Lizzie" came to my mind. We arrived back in Blooming Grove poorer and a sickly baby girl on our hands. Although Mother and Dad had been disenchanted with Arkansas we two older boys remembered it as quite an adventure. We had a lot of fun with Joe and Theresa and liked "Uncle" Willie Hamilton, Dad's stepfather. He was a smart and well read man with a long red beard. He worked at a cottonseed oil processing plant. We kids went down to see him as he watched the machinery do the work. This oil mill was down by the levee and we watched the many boats at the wharf and those plying the great river.

During the Civi War a battle was fought in Helena between northern men from Missouri and Confederates trying to protect their position at Vicksburg farther down the river. Joe took me to the burial ground where many casualties from both sides were interred. The covered soil had washed away and human bones protruded into the washed out gullies, a sobering view for two nine year old boys.

My mother told me later that she would not believe in them things even if they ran into her. She was one of the most contrary women I ever knew in my lifetime. In later my younger brother, Deve, wlile traveling in the South met some people from Helena and he made the remark that his grandmother Liza Hamilton lived there. They said they knew her well and that she was the most hateful person they ever knew. Only one of her children was like her. That was Joe the youngest. Theresa on the other hand was an angel and I am certain she still is as she has been dead since 1955.

Memories -- My teacher's name was Aunt Fanny Limsley... Dad worked in a drug store and the druggist gave each of us kids a stick of gum on our way to the railway station on our return to the north. Big deal.

I think it is about this time that Dad got religion. He really got it good. He turned completely around. He quit swearing even when he was mad. He quit smoking cigarettes and

really meant business. Every morning we had Bible reading and family prayer. He made us get on our knees at these sessions. I thought it a lot of shit but was afraid God would strike me dead if I didn't. Mother went along with the deal but wasn't sold. Dad had a good tenor voice and was quite a hit in the church choir. He was now Brother Ben and it sorta made me sick. The taunted me with this ditty:

Amen, Brother Ben, shot a rooster and killed a hen Ha! Ha! Ha!

But I was bored with the turn of events. Dad wasn't as fun-loving as before, in fact he was strict with the switch in discipline. Young as we were, he and the sisters and brethren of the church prayed over us like long lost sheep. To me it was revolting and I told Milford how I felt about it and that I thought he was a fool to pay any attention to them. Upon pressure hr revealed to Dad what I had told him and that is when the shit hit the fan. He gave me a long lecture that I will never forget quoting from the Bible about how it was better that a millstone be placed around my neck and drowned or cast into the sea...or something.

" About Jessie Dear"

Dad was always going around singing some of the late hits such as "In the Good Old Summertime", "She Was Bred in Old Kentucky" "The Soldier's Farewell". When he got religion he changed the words to make an impression with God. The song just out was

Holy Cow!

The boys that I couldn't lick called me "Sleeping Jesus". I retaliated by hollering "Nigger". Now I had heard whispers around town that two or three families indeed had negro ancestors and not too far back at that as African features were quite evident. So the taunt of "Nigger" and the reactionwas satis- fying to my soul. Frank powers was strictly Caucasian as he had so many freckles he looked like a brown pin cushion. So I flung "Turkey Egg" at him and I don't think he ever forgave me during his life time. Of course, I saw to it that I was far enough away that they could not catch "Sleeping Jesus".

Now in looking back I can see that it had its good effects as he became more serious minded and made less foolish mistakes.

1905-1906

School year 1905-1906, Grade 5 and a new teacher Lura Evans. She was from some place far away and was keeping her younger sister who went to school in the North room that contained the grades six to ten. I remember her best by giving all her pupils a Christmas treat of "boughten" ice cream. That was the first time I had eaten anything but home made. It was pink too, and that made it taste better.

This was my last year in the lower grades of school. I noticed Mom getting fat again and my heart was heavy. Another to _________

In the spring Uncle Roy came down from Richmond and told Dad that if he wanted to operate a depot news stand like his, that one was available at the C. H. & D. station at 5th & Baymiller in Cincinnati. Dad went down and made the deal, depositing $100 as serety against the stock that the Union News Company kept replenished. He roomed and boarded there and seldom had time to come home, as a stand-in was hard to come by. He was doing well and roomed with a painter from Fairfield who was working in Cincinnati too.

Here I was, the head of the family at ten years. I milked and herded the cow always with the baby sister in a go-cart and later a little express wagon. She was part of me all through the day. When the town kids came around to play ball I parked her in the shade and gave her a sugar treat. The flies gave her a hard time and she let me know it. She squalled louder than any kid I ever saw. She always seemed happy when the go-cart and later,

Another kid on the way yet! If I was a cussin' kid I would have said Damn! Dad and mother always admonished me not to say damn, hell, gosh almighty; they were called "bad" words. I was so instilled with the aversion for "bad" words that I would remind the older boys who could cuss real good by saying, "That is a "bad" word." At first they suffered my admonition. One day one of the teenagers uttered a mild oath and I corrected him , saying, "Oh, that is a bad word.

"Damn you, you little bastard, if you say that to me again, I'll kick your ass up to your shoulders!" That was the end of my evangelism. In fact I gradually joined those pawns of the Devil.

Another kid on the way! I could THINK "damn, couldn't I?

One June morning when we kids got up we found two or three of the neighbor women in the kitchen who informed us that we had a new baby brother. The doctor from Brookville had been there during the night while we soundly slept and delivered Harold Dewitt. Dad, in Cincinnati, was notified during the night but could not get home until that evening. He was tickled pink about the new arrival as he seemed to be of each and every one of us. We three boys slept in the bedroom next to them and we could hear Mom tell Dad about the whole deal, what an easy time she had and that the doctor had given her one pill. He told her not to talk too loud or the kids would hear. How right he was.

The next morning they named the little rascal Harold Dewitt, after the preacher. He did not get the nickname of Deve until two or three years later. Now that the baby was here, Eula was mine more than ever and it is a wonder that she ever lived through it. Dad went back to his job in Cincinnati and life went on.

1906-1907 school year I "graduated " from the primary room to the 6th grade in the North room. Mr. Stegner from Dearborn County was the teacher. I remember him best as the one who taught me how to read music while singing. I used that knowledge throughout most my life. That school year seems uneventful in my memory perhaps from what happened the following summer.

Dad was still working in Cincinnati and we could all feel his unhappiness for not being with us more. When school was out in the spring, on one of his weekend trips up home he offered to take me to the city with him to work in the depot selling newspapers and also as a "news butch" on the train that ran to Middletown, Dayton, Troy, and Piqua, Ohio.

He took me first to the boarding house where he had a room. At my first meal there I came in contact with the use of the fingerbowl. Of course it was a regular ritual with that land- lady, nowhere else in my lifetime do I remember using a finger bowl. I must have gotten in on the fringe of the custom or else I have not hob-nobbed with the upper crust. There were six or eight other boarders including the painter who had roomed with Dad but moved to another room when I arrived.

After the dinner we walked about four blocks to the depot. There were three railroad stations in Cincinnati at hat time, Central Station (the big 4), Pennsylvania Station, and the C.H.& D,( Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton)

I was transfixed within the splendor and wondered how a nine year old boy like me could operate. Dad relieved the man who he had hired as a "stand-in" and showed me what he wanted me to do. Now we had other things besides newspapers and magazines. We had "Peanuts, popcorn, candy and chewing gum". The peanuts were packaged, the popcorn was the original Crackerjack, a big box for a nickel. The candy was mostly Hersheys. The most popular chewing gum was Yucatan, then came Beeman's Pepsin, then Juicy Fruit. Chewing gum was very popular in those days.

Of course, I only made one round-trip every other day to Dayton, but several other trains left the station during the day. I sold papers in all of them while they were waiting or being loaded. I wore a stiff-billed cap that was standard wear for the news butch. We had exclusive rights to board the trains and sometimes had trouble with the street newsboys horning in on the gravy. My first errand in the morning was to take the previous days receipts to the main office on Central Ave. in the Central Ry. station. Sometimes because it was closed I would sneak over to Fountain Square and take in the sights. I checked a lot of baggage on the side which was clear profit.

Magazines that I remember: Argosy, Metropolitan, Cosmopolitan Munsey, McClures, Redbook, Bluebook, Ladies Home Journal, Judge Harper's Bazaar, Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Youths Companion.

Books I remember: Slow Train Through Arkansas, Through Missouri On A Mule, Peck's Bad Boy.

I took to the job as it was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting travelers who were glad to talk to someone. We sold all editions of the city papers: Times Star, Post, Enquirer and Tribune. The Tribune did not last long after that year. The big sellers were the evening sporting editions, the Pink Post and the Green Times Star. I developed a good pair of lungs hawking these in the stations and on the trains.

On the trains we sold the other goods from a basket we had loaded. The cry as I passed through each coach was "Here y'are, Times Star" or "Peanuts, popcorn, candy and chewing gum."

One evening the auditorium was a beehive of travelers as I was hawking the Green Times Star and Pink Post and was doing a brisk business as the Reds had won that afternoon. When they won, we dished out the 1 cent papers. I was hollering, "Times and Post, Times and Post -- Johnny Kane knocks home run", never stopping except to make change which was not always as I got a nickel a good deal of the time.

A lady stopped and bought a paper and she asked,
"Did I hear you say Johnny Kane knocked a home run?"
"That's right, lady"
"Would you like to meet Johnny Kane?"
"Yes Ma'm!"
"I'm Mrs. Kane and if you come to my house tomorrow we will go to the game and we will talk to him". I told her I would be there at two o'clock the next day as she directed. That was one of my happy moments. Dad was happy for me so I took a street car out to Walnut Hills where she lived and we went to the ball park

Johnny Kane was one of the stars of the time, not quite but nearly the equal of Johnny Bench today. He was a little fellow and played center field. He was a fast and sensational fielder and above average hitter. When his wife introduced me, it was better than meeting the President of the United States. He talked to me as if I was somebody and introduced or showed me the other players. She was a sweet lady and was happy because I was so enthused. From that day to this, I have been a Reds' fan.

Here is the lineup as I remember it in 1907:

[NOTE: **** Lineup is missing ****

It wasn't all work in Cincinnati that summer. On hot summer evenings we would ride the open street cars with seats facing the front and had to "scoot" to get from the running board to the other side of the car. We made a trip to the out- skirts of the east end or west end of the city for a nickel and the same fare back. We went to the Zoo -- Chester Park -- or the Lagoon in Ludlow, Ky.

After I had been with him a couple of months, Dad took sick and lost so much weight he looked like he was going to die. He decided he had to give up. While taking inventory in preparation for a changeover he was so miserable he could hardly go through it. He showed a shortage, meaning that someone had been knocking down so he had to deduct that from his $100 deposit. I know that he would have died had he not gone home as he was a nervous wreck.

So we went back to Blooming Grove where I got my babysitting and milking job back.

1907 - 1908

1907 - 1908 school term started with "Mac" McCormack teacher and me in 7th grade. I got a lot of kick listening to the 10th graders recite their literature and Latin. One student, I forget who, interpreting Caesar, wrote on the blackboard, "Caesar jumped on the omnibus and rode straightway into the camp." The class and teacher laughed but I never knew why until I was in high school. I still do not remember what it was supposed to be.

McCormack roomed in a building close to the street. When he came out the door one evening, Wes Swift heaved an apple core and hit him in the mouth. What makes kids do things like that?

Sometime after he got to feelin better, Dad took a job driving the huckster wagon for Cal Chambers. We still owned the little farm on Duck Creek but it seems like we had a new tenant each year. I generally waled down to Duck Creek each year as each tenant generally had a kid my age. One old German Adam Berg, taught me to count in German. He also taught me certain phrases but I found that when I started studying German (which I loved), he had been teaching me low German. Yet it helped in high German in school. He was the best tenant we ever had and his son Charlie was a little older than me. He rigged up a crossbow on a grooved board shaped like a gun to guide the arrow. Charlie took me a short piece down the creek that ran in front of the house. The water was shallow and we could see the fish easily from the bank. That Dutchman got 3 or 4 good sized fish and never missed. I've seen pictures of the old English yeomen who fought with such a weapon but I had never seen one before and only one since as I tried to make one like it but it couldn't shoot as straight as Charlie's.

Baseball was the popular game and I spent my babytending time playing ball while Eula sat in the small red express wagon with a stick of candy in the shade of a tree with the flies flying around her for company. If she did not have candy or a sugar teat, she squalled her head off.

1908 - 1909 school year. I was in the eighth grade and we had heard that a Mr. Jenkins from Corydon, Indiana had been hired

but he was not there on the first day of school when we were told to go take our seats and wait for him as he had been delayed.

After a few minutes he opened the door and sprang into the room like a Jack-in-the-Box. Everybody started to laugh as, sure enough, Ichabod Crane had come to life. What a shock! He strode to the front and faced the school, saying, "That laughing was all uncalled for." He had a full head of red-red kinky hair, a homely pimply face and wore his clothes like a circus clown. What an introduction!

He was an experienced and competent teacher but you could not defy the fact that he was a nut. We boys kidded the girls that he was a good subject for romance and they would feign puking. He may not have been the best teacher I ever had but he was the most interesting.

The school puton an ice cream sociable (we called them "socials" until Mr. Jenkins showed us in the dictionary that wa were wrong). The purpose of the sociable was to raise money to buy a microscope.

To arrange for an ice cream sociable in those days was hard work. Generally, Frank Ferris and I were chosen to get 50 pounds of ice. Now the nearest ice house was owned by Joe Glaub who lived two miles away. We took the little red express wagon and some burlap bags and walked the two miles with 15 cents to buy 50 pounds of ice. This was in the heat of the day and we had to protect the ice from the heat to make a 5-gallon freezer of ice cream. I recall that Joe was not at home and when we asked

Into this five gallon freezer packed with salt and ice that we had hammered into chunks, the milk, mixed with eggs, sugar and vanilla was poured into the freezer. Then came the job of turning the crank which generally took two to operate, especially when it started to freeze.

After Frank and I wore ourselves out cranking, we insisted that it was done but the wise women knew that to make good ice cream it had to freeze until wa could hardly remove the revolving paddle. Then other hands would take over until it was nearly impossible to turn the crank.

Finally the paddle was slowly removed and the excess ice cream scraped off into the container and we boys were rewarded by letting us lick the paddle.

Then after dark the sociable started. Long tables were spread with white table cloths. It was quite the thing for all the young swains to bring their girls and show off by treating them to ice cream and th cake that had been donated by the parents of the pupils. Also peanuts at 5 cents per bag.

Now the only chance for a feller to get a girl interested in him was to invite her to eat ice cream and cake at a sociable. But I was scared to death of a refusal, besides, it took 30 cents to buy ice cream and cake for two and that was generally my full cash assets. Too, a refusal to eat with me meant ostracism from society for life!

Frank, who was the same age as I, assured me it was nothing and told me he had done it once and that it worked out fine because the girl that he had a shine on, Blanche Younts, had accepted his invitation and he intended to ask her again.

He told me, "Cliff, these girls are standing around to be asked."

This gave me courage and I bravely decided to try it. But who to ask? There were plenty of girls, some good looking, but some just mean enoughto slap my face! There was Bertha Swift, Ruth Riker, Marie Stolz, Marie Kingery, Hazel Geiling, Arline Wilson, and the Kennedy girls. Who would be the most receptive?

Then I spied Arline. She looked lonesome. So I threw discretion to the winds and with my heart beating like a jack- hammer, I made it to where she was standing.

"Arline, er..would you eat some ice cream and cake with me?" She said, "Yes." Not "Maybe" or "No", but "Yes"!

Now to escort her to the table. To me, the whole world was watching us. There was my father and mother. What would they think? There was Aunt Lib and Ella. My brothers, my friends and those girls lined up against the wall. Moll Kingery, Susie Swan, Lucy Wilson and all the people in the room staring at us. Or so I thought.

I wondered how Arline felt ambling up to the table with a bum such as I. But she said not a word nor did I. Never in my long life do I remember as being so embarrassed and self-conscious.

All was quiet as far as we were concerned. Not a word was spoken as we ate our ice cream and cake. I have a feeling like both of us were scared speechless. After we were finished I don't

Honestly, I don't remember. But that was my first "struggle" with the opposite sex.

I don't remember having talked with Arline until sixty-four years later. I called on her in Tyler, Texas to talk over old times.

"Arline", I asked her, "Do you remember the time I treated you to ice cream at the Blooming Grove school sociable?"

"I surely do", she said.

It was part of her memories too!

Oh yes, the sociable was a financial success having netted about $35.00, enough to buy a microscope. With this, the Hoosier Schoolmaster demonstrated manydifferent experiments and we had a lot of fun when he showed how much crud was under our finger- nails when placed under the glass.

Colbert Jenkins was not old, perhaps 35, but we always referred to him as "Old Jenkins". Well, Old Jenkins, besides singing with "nasal tones long drawn out", played the violin and said violin seerred in agony.

It was painful to listen yet he thought it was beautiful, especially when he played "Shine little glow-worm, glimmer glimmer". He insisted on playing at all the social functions at the church and anyplace that would listen. Classical music was his forte but he scratched the hell out of it. I don't think he could play a simple tune.

Old Jenkins was a disciplinarian and took no gaff. Our recess three of the boys picked up some road apples (horse shit, in other words) and tossed them at the girls. It may be that I was also guilty, I don't remember. How he found out about, I don't know, but that evening he went out and cut some good strong switches that looked like buggy whips. The next day after getting a confession from the boys he told them that he would have to punish them. He waited until noon when there were a few people loafing around Cal Chambers store across the street. He walked over and asked if two or three would be witnesses because he was giving three of the boys a flogging. They were very happy to agree and followed him to the school room assembled. Old Jenkins called Oakley Fishback, Frank Ferris and Johnnie Wilson up front and told them to bare their legs. From the stack of whips stacked in the corner that had been in plain sight of everybody all morning, he picked out a good strong one seemingly with relish. Then to each of the boys separately he laid it on - I mean he LAID it on. Each whack brought a wince but not a sound or a tear. But God, how it must have hurt. The "witnesses" stood up along the wall at the rear of the desks where we pupils sat in our regular places.

As the boys took their seats as told, Old Jenkins went over to the witnesses and shook each hand and thank ing them very much, excused them.

That night as was usual, fellows gathered around the pot-bellied stove in the store to gossip or discuss the foibles of government. The schoolmaster's lashing was the main topic this evening and I think a few were secretly elated when Frank Ferris got his. Frank had the penchant of "losing friends and alienating people". His father, of the same disposition, said that if he had been home he would not have allowed it to happen. But happen it did and life with Old Jenkins went merrily on.

We sorta became friends. I once got confidential with him in that I felt that I had violated rules like everyone else, I could not understand why I had not

been called or reprimanded. He confided that he wondered the same thing but came to the conclusion that I had an instinct of just how far to go.

"Hundreds of times", he said, "I have been at the point of reprimand and sugar would not melt in your mouth."

I think he liked me because I bragged on his violin playing and beautiful voice, nasal tones, long drawn out. One beautiful evening, both of us agreeing that we needed a haircut, walked a couple of miles to a farmer (Sam McWhorter) who barbered at night. Haircuts were 15 cents. After a mile or so we sat down along the road in the grass to rest. He spotted a glow worm, dug it up with his finger and started singing "Glow Worm". Jesus, have mercy!

SCHOOL FAILURE

In those days a student did not pass automatically from grade to high school without passing a written examination conducted in the county seat. A failure in any one subject meant failure to pass but you got two more trys. Any kid, not too stupid, passed the first try. Having breezed through he grades I went to the exams without a doubt that I would easily pass.

I think we had to get passing grades on each of eight subjects.

I "flunked".

I flunked in physiology, I did. Other students that I had excelled, passed. I will never forget the main

(56b) question that stumped me.

"What causes the heat in the body and what controls it?"

Can YOU explain what controls and causes the heat in people and animals?

I had two more chances to make it but my cocky ego had been wounded! I would show them by not trying again and just quit school - then perhaps they would later realize that they had rejected one of the best MINDS in the State of Indiana. That's what! So I didn't go back for the next two tries.

When word got out that Bennie Roberts had contracted to buy the Chambers' store it made a difference in my social standing among my school mates - especially Gertrude Kennedy, the pretty blue-eyed, blond, Irish girl who was now in the same grade as I. (I had decided to go back to school). She was a lively gal, never wanting for words and inheriting a violent temper from her grandmother. She never had much time for me or any of the boys. When playing town ball or other games she was always angry with all or part of us. Dame Winkle, Rip's wife, had nothing on her. But the word that Dad was negotiating a deal with Cal Chambers for the store changed all that as far as I was concerned. I took note that she started looking at me like a sick sheep. She kept looking at me in school and always smiled when I glanced her way. Also, no opportunity was lost to strike up a conversation. Besides, she, like other girls her age had started wearing those tight fitting "princess" dresses which made matters more complex and even more desireable for me.

It seems that she was courting me instead of the other way around but that suited me fine as I had apparently not reached the age of agression.

She came up to me at recess one day and made a simple sincere statement.

"I'm not ever going to get mad at you again, never."

ELECTION YEAR

What an experience for a kid was the election of 1909. Taft was the Republican and Bryan the Democratic candidate. Blooming Grove was almost solid Republican and the older boys whooped it up.

Young Ben Winans from Brookville organized a drum and fife corps and about 20 young fellows, mostly under voting age signed up under the name of "The Lincoln Club". They all bought white uniforms, one big bass drum and the balance all tenor drums.

John Tuck Swift, a shorty, was a good fifer. He was an older man but had more fun than anyone, strutting ahead of the corps - just like the Spirit of '76.

They spent night after night rehearsing and we kids got a thrill at each practice session. The corps would march up the street, then march down again to the music of "The Girl I Left Behind Me", "Yankee Doodle", "Dixie", and others. They were so good and popular that they travelled over the country at Republican rallies.

During the campaign, many songs emerged, some original but mostly parodies. One that I recall was sung to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw".

Among the other parodies was one to the tune of "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie".

Most all county candidates made short speeches and rash promises.

James Watson from Rush County ran and was elected to the Senate as usual. He was a fixture in Washington for years and was one of the old-time politicians using government jobs as plums for bait to perpetuate his many tenures.

The election was held in the school building giving us a vacation for that day. Excitement ran high andvoters were strongly "for" or "agin" with fervor. Some had too much liquor. Some were inclined to fight as well as vote. John Sherwood, a diabetic, was wheeled in a chair to vote and die a couple of days later.

Then came the climax when everybody came to both stores to wait for returns. No radio, no television, just the party line that ran to the county seat, Brookville. The court house was the source and Manuel Kennedy after a few drinks would keep the line hot prying returns for the Blooming Grove hungry listeners.

Rarely, any conclusive results were learned that night as everybody, especially the kids, got sleepy and went home.

THE NEW STORE

Dad liked his job as huckster. One day Cal asked him if he would like to buy the store as it seems that his stomach was giving him a lot of misery. Too, after a long illness, Ora had died and Martha was worn out from the long ordeal of caring for her. I don't know how Dad figured he could handle it financially but the idea struck him as a real opportunity, which it was. My mother even liked the idea even though I suspected it would make a final drain on her inheritance.

So they made the deal and we sold the home in which we had lived for 6 years.

We bought the store with living quarters, a big barn for the wagons and horses, also a garden. Over the store was the Pythean Lodge. The women's counterpart at that time was called the Rathbones but later changed the name to Pythean sisters. Lodge nights were good for business,

Jack Chownings, a ne'er-do-well, made the remark "The country's goin' to hell -- the Kentuckians and the groundhogs are taking it."

A lady clerk was hired to take care of the store [while] the huckster wagon was on its routes. Dessie Ellis was the first clerk and Grace Kennedy was the next.

Winter weather was a rough time for a huckster as he was out in it every day but Saturdays and Sundays. On Saturday we drove the wagon to Brookville to the poultry house to pick our freight shipments of groceries and dry goods and other miscellaneous items. As I grew older that was one of my jobs. Our coal oil (kerosene) that supplied all the lamp and several cook stoves, was delivered by tank wagon drawn by four, sometimes six mules in wet weather.

School year 1909-1910 I changed my mind, or Dad changed it for me, about quitting school. Then too, there was this pretty little blond that would be in the 8th grade who had said she was never was going to get mad at me again. That year we had Ray Copes, who was an alumnus of the school, for a teacher. Although I had

been in the same grade the year before, I sometimes think in retrospect that it was for the best as far as overall education was concerned. In literature I could read fur- ther than regular assignments. Arithmetic became clearer in fact all subjects were easier, perhaps too easy. But I really enjoyed the second year in the 8th grade.

Not long after school started I had a disturbing revelation. Mother was pregnant again. Good God!, another kid to watch and look after. Would there be no end? But then I had not wanted Eula or Harold but I loved them dearly. I decided I just wouldn't get involved with any more that came along. I went through that long period of waiting, for the "bees to swarm" not knowing how long.

SPELLING BEE
(14 years old)

That year in 1909 was the awakening interest of spelling in all of the schools of the nation. It was planned to conduct spelling bees from the smallest to the largest in each township, then county, State district, State, and finally each state winner competing in Washington D.C. The township with about five schools was won by Hazel and Gertrude Kennedy and me. Hazel was the older sister of the one who vowed never to get mad at me again. These spelling bees were always conducted publicly so they created a lot of interest.

We went to Brookville, we three, and competed against

We then went to Connersville a week later. Dad and I drove our horse and buggy to the auditorium where hundreds of people from Shelby, Dearborn, Union and Fayette counties had gathered to watch the gladiators compete. Mr. McCarty, our Franklin County Superintendent was in the audience contesting any questionable spelling by any of us from Franklin County just like a lawyer objecting to questions put to his witness. At first the words were easy, then made tougher which eliminated several. Then the words were made easy, then harder as before, eliminating more spellers. This alternation was made several times until there were three remaining. I was one and Valley Cornelius from my own county, was another. The other speller was a pretty little Jewish girl from Shelby County by the name of Salb. The words had been getting tougher and tougher when the master put to us a few easy ones such as "psychic" and "phlegm" and then to me "yield". "Y-e-i-l-d, yield", I said, and could not unsay it as the yardstick went down. "Next" he rasped, and the Salb girl spelled it right. But don't you know, Mr. McCarty rose from his seat and objected, but the judge did not agree and I was out. Valley and the other girl kept on until Valley went down leaving the winner, Miss Salb.

Miss Salb went to Indianapolis to spell against the thirteen district winners of the state. She won the Indiana championship.

In Washington she spelled against the winners of each of the United States and won the National Championship.

About three years later while working in a drug store as a soda "jerk", in talking to the young pharmacist just hired, he told me that he came from Shelbyville. Then I told him about a girl from Shelbyville winning a spelling bee that I was in. "That is my sister", he answered.

Often I have wondered how I got as far as I did. Today I am a lousy speller as the words don't seem to be spelled the way they were in these days.

The Brookville American, one of the two weekly County papers, conducted a contest between the schools of the county giving points for a subscriptions that we pupils tnrned in. Our school was running nip and tuck in the contest with Whitcomb. I think the prize was $50 with a small prize to the runner up.

One Saturday, many of our pupils were in Brookville with Mr. Copes drumming up business. I was standing with the teacher, across the street from the competitive newspaper, the Brookville Democrat. Mr. Irvin the editor and owner was standing out in front of the print shop and I made a proposition to Mr. Copes.

"Mr. Copes, for a dime I will cross the street and ask Mr. Irwin to subscribe to the American".

"You're not game", he said.

"Here is a dime if you show me that you ask him".

"Sold", I said crossing the street to talk to Mr. Irwin, who was a little deaf.

"Mr. Irwin," I said, "I just bet my teacher across the street that I would try to sell you a subscription to the American. He just said I was afraid to and that is the reason I am talking to you. I am asking you to subscribe but don't care if you don't as I will collect a dime anyway. Just shake your head "no" so that he can see, is all I ask".

He violently shook his head and smiled.

On February 1, 1910, the baby, a girl, was born. "surely", I thought,"this is the end" and it was. They were discussing a name and I slyly said, "Gertrude is a pretty name" and Dad said that his dead sister had that name. Mother was satisfied so that was the name decided.

The school year ended. I went down and passed the test easily and decided I might go to high school the next year.

All was not a bed of roses working with Dad. Most of the time he was kind and considerate and I know he was proud of me. I was getting to be a pretty kid but he used the whip just the same. He had a black snake that he used on the wagon and often used it on me.

Sometimes, perhaps I needed the rod but he had the habit of laying it on with increasingly intensity in a sadistic nature. If in the morning I was hard to get up he would come with that damned whip and really lay it on before I was half awake. I developed an attitude of mental rebellion but would cool down until the next episode. Through the years he was like that to Me, Abe and Eula but the others got away with murder.

That summer Harold was four years old and the cutest, most loveable kid you never did see. He hated to be teased and yelled when tormented. We had a hired girl Nettie Clark who liked to tease him. Once when teasing he hollered real loud and Dad said "Cut it out!"

"Well make Nettie quit and I won't holler."

We used to tell him that be looked like Mr. Van Devender who every week emerged from the hills through Blooming Grove on his way to Brookville. He was a florid red head, kindly at that. He had a boy about 15, his exact counterpart. They always rode in an open cart drawn by a sway back nag. We told Harold that was the way he looked, just like old Vandevender. Then he would rant and rave so we gave him the name of Vandevender We finally shotened it to "Deve", the name his now known by from coast to coast.

Also that summer we bought the house next door from the store and moved in using the old residence in the store building for storage and extra sleeping rooms.

Dad always got up early every morning at four to feed and harness the horses and get his wagon loaded for the route that day. One morning I was awakened by the folks and told to get up at once. Half asleep I asked what was up and then Dad told me that shortly after midnight he was awakened by a knock at the door and upon asking who it was, a man said, "By God, you open the door and find out and if you don't you'll be damned good and sorry".

The door was securely locked and Dad did not open the door and hearing nothing more concluded that it was probably some drunk.

But he was scared that someone would be laying for him in the barn or on the way so he wanted someone with him to get help if needed. Be was scared and that was the worst fear I had ever experienced. Through the darkness to the barn he led and I followed. Inside we searched with our lanterns for anyone who may have been hiding, then fed and harnessed the team and went back to the house. It was still dark but no one had been killed. But I was still shaking.

Also that summer, Uncle Roy came down from Richmond and offered to buy half interest in the business and Dad was glad to have him to alternate on the huckster route as it was too much for one man. It worked out fine and he lived with us. He was a ball player on the team and was a lot of fun. He read good books, was a member of the Roycrofters and Philistines, two organizations of Elbert Hubbard quite a philosopher himself. Showing me a beautiful leatther bound book he told me it was bound in human hide which shook me up. Later I came to the conclusion that he was putting me on, but it would be just like him to own such a book as he had a flair for the bizarre.

Uncle Sim and Aunt Lola from Terre Haute came to visit the "country" relation in Franklin county. Uncle John in the last stages of his disease and Sim had found that he himself had symptoms of the same. He stressed the need for sugar free diet but I noticed that he filled up on ice cold watermelon.

He was a braggart and a snob but my mother thought he was something special as he described the beautiful drug store that he had just built. He described it as beins all glass, glass fountain, glass table tops, glass shelving, glass everything. He described himself as a "self made man" and how he excelled in politics and business acumen.

When he came to our house for dinner, my mother

Dad got a kick out of Mother saying several times during the year, "Save that for Sims". We kids found ourselves saying it and it has become one of the common expressions in our family through the years.

Sims brother, our Uncle Dora had made more of a success in the drug business than he. Even though Dora gave Sim his training Sim was intensely jealous. Uncle Dora had retired, moved to California and invested his money in city rentals, owning two or three blocks on one street. Mother was very proud of her successful brothers. Although Dora was older and no braggart she fell for Uncle Sims glowing description of himself.

Now Aunt Lola, Sims wife was different as she was sweet and very considerate. They had a son Ralph who was three years older than I who inherited his fathers ego to a great extent but tempered by his mother's kindness. They had another son Eugene who came later in life being about three years old.

Dad was an excellent cook and generally prepared the big dinners and at one such a dinner Uncle Sim and Aunt Lola were invited one Sunday. Aunt Lib and the girls could not come as Uncle John was very critical. It was at this feast that Uncle Sim made the suggestion that I come to Terre Haute, that he would teach me the drug business, and send me to high school, explaining how he could train me and (believe it or not) give me some polish.

Mother was enthusiastic, Dad was pleased and I was tired of sadistic outbursts so it was arranged that I should go as soon as possible. Ralph had graduated from high school and registered to enter college to take up pharmacy. It was planned that I should take his place in the store which turned out to be janitor, soda jerk and delivery boy. It was an opportunity but Ralph warned me after I got there that the "ole man" had been unbearably tough on him and might be harder on me.

I told Gertrude about the offer and my decision. She felt bad about me going and made me promise to see her as often as possible before I left. She stayed a lot at the Chambers across the street as they loved her as a child. I went over most ever evening and we would sit in the porch swing, talk and hold hands -no more. One evening after dark she leaned over and kissed me. E Pluribus Unum! I didn't know that a girls lips were that soft. Then she told me how much she loved me and wanted me to promise to love her too. I promised. Gee Whiz - what else could a feller say when he wanted to do it all along? Finally I realized I was in love - best described as a ticklish sensation of the heart. We promised to write each other and that I would come back and see her often as possible. Gee! I hated leaving her.

Arriving by train in July, Ralph met me and took me home. It was his job to train me before we both

He disparaged my father and mother as being no good and that I was just like them. Once I heard him do the same thing to Ralph likening him to the Mitchels, his mother's people. Ralph must have gone through hell in his time.

Aunt Lola, when I could be alone with her, told me she knew what I was going through and not to mind him as he was just a "big overgrown boy". "Big overgrown boy" - hell. To me he was a big fat son of a bitch! And I meant that literally as his mother, I am sure, was of such a caliber.

When school time started Ralph left and dear uncle was very solicitous about my education. He inferred that he was doing me a great favor by letting me go to school. I had made arrangements for five subjects all in the morning hours leaving me the afternoons for work and study.

I especially liked German and did very well. As the weather cooled the soda fountain was not so busy but the intensive janitor work was just as hard. Wiley High School was a short walking distance from the drug store and the subjects seemed easy enough but the working conditions were just as if Simon Legree was there with his whip.

Terre Haute was plagued by crooked government headed by Don Roberts, a political boss. Uncle Sim, it turned out was one of his henchmen and the rear of the drug store was been made a polling place. Roberts visited all the precincts in tbe city on election day but he did most of the dirty work at the drug store. I saw him personally guide several repeaters where they were not challenged and proceeded to vote. That was before voter registration was required. I saw my uncle gloating over the subterfuge and it made me sick. Don Roberts a little later landed in the penitentiary.

My German teacher was Frau Schlechtweg and we translated "Der Bibleotekar". Physics teacher was Mr. Uhr. He had a wooden leg and we alluded to him as "Peggy Uhr". He talked politics in class a lot and

"No man ever accumulated $10,000 in a lifetime and got it honestly."

I had not heard of Woodrow Wilson yet but he was a great admirer of Wilson who we would call today an egg-head.

Often the whole high school would gather during class periods for special lectures and sometimes entertainment. On one occasion a Dr. Hall, a national authority on mental hygiene was obtained to give a lecture. It was really a sex talk plus a warning against venereal disease so they made it in two sessions - one for the girls then one for the boys. After the frank talks all the pupils went directly to their respective classes, the girls blushing when seeing the boys and the boys doing the same. I, like the rest, was mortified.

Our first class after the lectures was ole Peggy's Physics class and he proceeded to elaborate on the lecture and as far as we were concerned the talks could have been mixed in the first place. He summed up his discourse,"And all this trouble, students, is caused by a little piece of skin about the size of your little finger!". The guy must have never developed, we reasoned.

In February we received word that Uncle John Waggoner had died. Uncle Sim and Aunt Lola left for Blooming Grove leaving me and a druggist friend to stay in the drug store. After Johns death, his wife, Aunt Lib and two daughters, Mame and Ella, operated the farm with hired help.

I passed in all my subjects completing the school term. Then it was steady work at the store until it got so unbearable that during one of his tantrums I told him to go to hell and went up to the house, took what clothes I had and took off. I found myself a stranger in a strange city. I had about ten dollars. I don't remember where it came from as I am sure it did not come from my uncle.

I rented a cheap room and for three dollars bought a meal ticket of 21 meals at a small German hotel. They became my friends and it was like a port in a storm. Close by this little hotel across from the City Hall was the City Hall Pharmacy operated by a man by the name of Reeder. I told him I wanted work and had experience. He knew Uncle Sim and when I told him of my dilemma he understood and he hired me on the spot.

We got along fine as he was the opposite of what I had been enduring. It was not a very elite neighbor hood as the red light district was close by, also a lot or small Jewish clothing stores. I got Sunday afternoons off and had fun with a few boys who liked to play ball. We had a team and played several Sunday afternoons in Taylorville along the Wabash River. I forget the amount that I was making. I did not care to breakfast which made my meals cost $3 for ten days. Those 21 meals were filling and wholesome. My room was $2 per week and I had an ample amount left over. I had no idea about my future and was taking things as they came.

Several graduates from Brookville H.S. were attending a teachers' course at Indiana State Normal in Terre Haute that summer. Charlie Powers, older brother of Frank (Turkey Egg) Powers, looked me up and we rented a room together. I went with him one evening and met most of the students including one "Kickero" Smith. Charlie explained to me how he had come by that name of "Kickero". Someone had asked Smith what they were going to study the next year in Latin and Smith anwered "Kickero". He thought that was the way Cicero was pronounced. A few years later, "Kickero" (Herbert) Smith became my brother-in-law (and a doctor, finally) the uncle of my two illustrious daughters.

Gertrude had been corresponding all this time but I noticed her letters were becoming less frequent. She had stated that she had not been feeling well but nothing more. Dad told me in his letters that she had been very sick both she and her sister Hazel so I planned to take a trip home as soon as I could get away.

Mr. Reeder had a habit of talking on the phone to several druggists sometimes about nothing in particular talking about their business troubles and even private affairs. Mr. Reeder was telling one about his being unhappy about the fountain end of his business. I could hear Reeders end of the conversations and from his answers his friend had suggested that maybe it was his soda fountain boy. Whether he was hinting that I was stealing or packing the ice cream too tight, I

don't know. I was concerned but didn't worry too much as I knew I had been honest with him. Maybe I HAD been packing the ice cream too much.

So I asked if he would give me a two weeks leave to go home. I figured that probably if I left I might rind his "leak". He agreed, so I took the train to Connersville and walked the 12 miles to Blooming Grove. It was good to be home again and I had been gone just a year.

I was shocked when I heard that both Gertrude and Hazel contracted "hasty" consumption and that Hazel had already died. Gertrude had a drainage in her side and the doctor had told her parents that when that stopped she would die. I got one glimpse of her as she was led down the street skinny and gaunt. The religious women of the church had told her that she had not long to live that she should make herself right with God. So they prayed over her and cried and finally she said she was "saved". I was sick at heart. I was helpless. I was ready to go back. Under such circumstances I said nothing to anyone.

1911

When I got back to Terre Haute and walked in the drug store, Mr. Reeder asked if I received his letter. I told him I had not. So he told me that he had written me not to come back. In other words I was fired.

What to do - What to do?! I remembered some friends who were distant relatives in Indianapolis. Perhaps

I wrote him and asked if he thought I could find a job in Indianapolis. In his answer he was enthusiastic that I should come there, board with them and share his room. Wasting no time, I took the inter-urban and had a drug store job the next day.

I think the pay was $10 per week. I had a wonderful boss, Mr. Thornburg who treated me like a son. It was he who insisted that I keep up my schooling and that he would see me through. So I went with Theodore, (we called him "Speedy") to register in at Shortridge High School. He was a Junior and I entered as a Sophmore. However, I took an extra subject again, all classes in the morning. Arrangements were made with the school to not attend in the afternoon in order to keep myself. With Saturday and Sunday's work I had ample to get along. I later took on an extra job lighting street gas lights at dusk and getting up at 4 AM to turn them off. That 1O cents per light per week and I think I had about 75 street lights. Out of that money I had to keep my bicycle expense. Between the income from the drug store and the streetlighting, I did well.

At the corner of 10th and Meridian Streets lived James Whitcomb Riley. One of my lamps to turn on and off was located at that corner and Riley was often seen on the front porch. He started waving at me every evening and once came out and talked to me. But he was pretty feeble at that time.

He made an appearance in the assembly of the school reciting his poems. In reciting "Orphan Annie" he made gestures like a bashful little boy.

The last time I saw him he was in a wheel chair.

I did especially well in school, getting good grades each semester, making five credits that year. To graduate required fifteen credits.

With all these activities there was not much time for extra fun or diversion. However Speedy and I went once a week to Keiths Theater. We got our admission by ushering before the show got under way. We had that job every Friday Night. In those days Keiths had the highest class performers and big time personalities. I remember especially Eva Tanguay, Elsie Janis, Blanch Ring, the Harmonica Rascals, and always with the finale of the trapeze artists and strong men. We went to Uncle Tom's Cabin but had to pay regular admission.

I went once to a burlesque show but I was ashamed, afraid that someone would recognize me. I was entranced by the pretty young girls who were not afraid to show their legs. Especially one girl - so young - so fair who sang "Meet me in the Shadows". I thought she was about the "purtiest" thing I ever saw so I decided to

During the winter of 1913 Speedy's mother got sick and I started looking around for another place to stay. Emerson White from Blooming Grove had come to Indianapolis and got a job in a candy factory. He boarded and roomed with his aunt Ella Naylor. He told me that she took in boarders so I immediately made the change. The drug store was so far away then that I decided to get an evening newspaper route. I found one for sale for $3O, but I didn't have $30.

Now Dad had never helped me out financially but once when coming up to see me bought me a nice suit of clothes for $9.99. It was really a good suit and looked sharp. I wrote him asking for a loan or $30 to buy the paper route of 60 customers so that I could give up my drug store job and have more time for school etc, (mostly etc). He came through at once and I took over. This gave me more time for school study. It gave me most of Sunday for myself.

I had a lot of fun at the Naylors. Howard Naylor, Ella's husband was an affable, lazy individual whose main hobby besides resting was card playing. Ella was always happy, loved to laugh and have fun. Then there was Carl their son, a real handsome charming fellow about

twenty-five years old who resembled his mother in actions and appearance. He was a sign painter. The boarders besides myself were Emerson and a fellow by the name of Ringo who worked at a job. What a time we had. Everything was funny. If not funny, we made it funny.

Howard Naylor's several brothers lived in Franklin county and Ella, (Will White's sister, also Emersons aunt,) came originally from Blooming Grove. Ella had a cousin Mel White who was an old bachelor who lived in Conneraville. Her father Alex White had lived across the street from us in Blooming Grove when I was small. He looked exactly like the gray haired drummer as painted in "The Spirit of 76". Every year the Whites had a big family reunion. Uncle Alex and Aunt Kate were very religious but their progeny were like mine, lovers of this carnal world.

One day Mel White came up to see the Naylors and stayed overnight. The bedrooms were all filled but mine. Ella asked if she could put Mel in with me. I had no objection.

After I was sound, sound asleep I was awakened by somebody pulling at my "whang". I'll never, never forset my anger and disgust. I was still half asleep when I heard him whisper, "If you let me play with you, I will let you play with me." I could have killed him but turned over on my belly and told him to go to hell.

Spring of 1913 brought rains and the big flood. Fall creek and White river flood caused a lot of destruction but no lives were lost. When I went for my papers to deliver that March day the headlines read about lives lost in the Brookville flood. One whole family was drowned and their home washed away. I found out later that Dad had taken a boat to town and helped the rescue work. The whole Ohio valley had suffered in millions of dollars and many lives.

I finished up my year at Shortridge High with good grades. My paper route was growing. Extra money came from lamp cleaning and repairs on Saturdays. I sometimes helped out in a bicycle repair shop during the summer. Girls did not interest me.

Gertrude Kennedy had died and I felt like a heel by not writing her when I should. Being young I felt like I didn't know what to say under the tragic conditions. Emerson, a first cousin went back to the funeral.

Working through the summer I gained an extra credit by taking a free night course in German. I like German and it was easy for me. That gave me 9 1/2 credits

toward fifteen for graduation and a possibility, if desired, to make the four year high school course in three. As it turned out, I would not go to school the following year.

In August Dad wrote me that the Ritzi Grocery in Brookville would be for sale. If I would come home and help him he would try to buy it. Emerson White's father wanted the Blooming Grove store.

The Ritzi grocery was the best of three in town by far. It had about 12 to 15 employees, delivery service, and a big credit business. It was a beehive of activity but a big job to handle. The store was in a leased three story building.

I knew that he was sticking his neck out and would have to go in debt. I knew also that he would be hard to get along with even if he admired my efforts.

I wrote him that I would straighten up my affairs in Indianapolis and would forbear school for at least a year if he wanted me. He replied that it looked like a deal.

I had doubled my paper route and sold it in two different routes for $60 doubling the investment. I gave up the gas lighting job and went back to Blooming Grove.

I learned that after the sale of the Blooming Grove store plus a house and lot next door that he would to borrow abont $5000. He had never to do any bank borrowing

So we went to the bank.

Mr. Shirk, when he found out what we wanted invited us to the back room. Dad said he wanted $5000 and told him what for. Mr Shirk had a habit of squirming and smacking his tight lips under such conditions and after a spell of coughing and clearing his throat said,

"Now Mr. Roberts, you have a good record. You have the right idea about the Ritzi Grocery- but (long pause, clearing his throat) the collateral that you offer is too fluid.

He meant that what we needed to borrow was more than what could be wisely mortgaged on his part. Then another long pause and asking how long he thought it would take to pay it off he said,

"Mr. Roberts, you have a fine young man here to help you. You should succeed."

Then smacking his lips again said, "I guess we can help you. Go ahead and finish your deal and by the time it is done we will have the money for you".

And he did.

We moved into the second and third floors over the store and surprisingly found it infested with bed bugs! Our mother worked frantically to get rid of them. She threw out an antique folding bed that came with the place.

they used sulphur - formaldehyde - kerosene - patent concoctions and after about three months had the place where we could sleep in peace.

About this time Uncle Frank Roberts made his appearance on the scene. The family had never mentioned him before. Upon meeting and talking with him I could understand why.

What a character! He was a dirty old fart and Civil War veteran, smart enough to be a Mason, and amass quite a nest egg, but mother described him as being "tetched". He had lived in Oregon for years. Allie, his wife had recently died So he sold everything and came to Indiana. She had been his steady influence and it was she who scrimped and saved during their lifetime. They were childless and perhaps it is just as well.

Uncle Frank was Dads paternal great uncle, a brother of Clinton Roberts his grandfather. Frank was a black sheep of the family, decidedly eccentric and bathless. He wore fairly good clothes but they hung on him like a scarecrow. He chewed tobacco and spit everyplace and anyplace. He wore a money belt and kept all his assets in gold coin. It was said that he made advances to women. In other words he was a dirty old man.

Uncle Frank stayed with us a while until my mother kicked him out. No one would put up with him so he bought a brand new 1914 Ford and moved to a shack out in the country. He raised vegetables and brought them

At one time he bought a camp tent and rigged up his open Ford with supplies and took off to New York City. Dishpan, pots and skillets hung around the top and sides. Bedclothes and etc. wadded in a blanket took most of the back seat.

"I'm going to see the world, by goll", he told us.

Now "by goll" was his only expletive. It was "by Goll, this and that, like:

"Yes, by goll, Allie turned me down just before she died".

"Yes, by goll, I "fit" and "fit" in the war. Clint stayed home and made the money, by goll".

"By goll, it peers to me like Orville, (Theresas boy) is dull. Now Midge (Theresas daughter), by goll, is sharp".

What a creep!

On his trip to see the world he was driving down Broadway in New York and he and his outfit caused such a commotion that the police ordered him out of town. "Yes, by goll, they treated me like dirt".

I never knew whatever happened to Uncle Frank. He was such a misfit in society that I am sure his passing did not cause many ripples of concern.

Milford, Roy, Eula and Harold all started to school but I worked in the store, solicited and delivered. Gertrude, fat as a butterball was only three. Her constant companion was "Bull" the dog who adopted us

in Blooming Grove and moved to the "big city" with us. When we moved to Brookville I was 17, Milford, later nicknamed "Coats" - 16, Roy, nicknamed "Abe" because he resembled his Grandfather Abe Waggoner was 12, Harold nicknamed "Deve" was 7, Eula was 9.

The personell of the store was first the delivery horse Dan. He had the habit of nipping while being harnessed. He was cared for and driven by Charlie Butler who had been with the store for years. It was Charlie who unloaded the freight, rolled into the basement the barrels of vinegar, pickles, saurkraut, pigs feet, salt pork and molasses. Charlie started the day taking orders in the north end of town. My job was to solicit the valley. Dad had a short route as he had to get back early. Generally Charlie and I sent our orders to the store ahead of us so that the girls could fill them and arrange in baskets to be delivered before noon. In the valley I had three different routes, one on Monday and Thursday, one on Tuesday and Friday and the other on Wednesday and Saturday. All deliveries in the valley were made by Charlie with Dan and the covered delivery wagon.

We had a sidewalk push cart with tall wheels that I used to deliver Charlies orders at the north end of town because that was the part of town that had sidewalks. On Saturdays, each of us had a helper because the mill hands had been paid the night before and business was brisk.

Many town customers came in on Saturday night, selected vegetables and staples and we would deliver to their door. We had three or four extra helpers on Saturday.

The girls in the store were Emma Stock, head clerk, Theresa Schmidt, Loretta Aulbach, Loretta Haman and Marie Schobin (part time). Other part time workers were Bill, Fritz or Ed Rusterholtz, Roman Schmidt.

Business boomed from the start.

I don't remember of having received a salary. I got spending money but it was given when I asked for it. Dad explained that he thought I might waste it. I had made much more in Indianapolis and went to school. So I paid myself out of the money drawer. That was before cash registers. My conscience never bothered me for I knew that conscience was only the inner voice that warned one that somebody may be looking. If I needed clothes, I had to make a special appeal - then it was a big deal, this ceremony of turning over ten maybe twenty dollars. However, I don't remember of paying back the thirty dollars I had borrowed from him when I bought the paper route.

Nor did he ever ask for it.

I went to the Methodist Church and enjoyed singing in the choir. Louise Cowing, a stylish, fairly good looking gal played the violin. The violin, not a fiddle. She played classical music and ran around in the elite society of town. She made it easy to ask her for a date even if she was two years older. Her mother adored me! She wanted to emulate Flora Finch in the silent movies. Flora Finch was an old maid with who fell back in a compromising position when making love. I was too young and dumb. I knew she liked me, in fact I think she would have adopted me. After several dates I quit them both. I found it true that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". It was doubly hard for me because I had scorned two women. Her father came to Dad and told him, "It nearly killed the girl". Was I lucky!?

The owner of the store building that we occupied lived in Indianapolis so he had a real estate man to come to Brookville who approached Dad as his first prospect. I never knew the quoted price but it was more than we could rake together. He asked Dad if he had any property that he could trade for the building and Dad eagerly mentioned the Duck Creek farm.

Then the agent mentioned that he knew a man In Indianapolis who wanted to trade his home for just such a hillside farm and quaint log house.

Within a couple of weeks the man was back in Brook- ville and told us that the man who owned the house had visited and examined the farm and would trade his house for it. That meant a three way deal was in the works as his client who owned the store building in Brookville said he liked the man's house in Indianapolis,

In brief, the deal ended with us getting the store building giving up the farm to the man who deeded his home to the man who originally owned the Brookville property. Very few three way real estate deals are consummated. The odds are strongly against it as there is generally one party or his wife, unhappy. The agent made three commissions.

Uncharacteristically my mother did NOT say "I sign no papers". I will tell you later in the story, why.

In 1914 basketball was just getting started in Indiana. Brookville had a team headed by the coach, Mr. Hitchcock. Of course I was well acquainted with the fellows and Hitchcock had always watched me on the delivery always running, never walking. Several times he told me what a good basketball player I could be. At the close of the season he got serious me finishing my high school. He knew that I had to make 5 1/2 credits to graduate and suggested that during the summer I take a private class with him in literature.

Joe Ritzi, the jeweler's son also lacked a half credit to enter the college of optometry. I agreed to take the course if he would let me take five subjects in order to graduate. So Joe and I spent the evenings at his house and we "breezed" through of course. I think Hitchcock had dreams of a basketball star.

That summer we made enough to pay off the bank so Dad and Mother decided to take a trip to California and visit her brother who had an orange grove in Highlands. They left Emma Stock and I in charge. I did Dads job of bookkeeping also making trips to Cincinnati Vegetable Market every Thursday for Friday shipment of fruit and vegetables.

One week I went down intent on buying 20-30 bushels of peaches besides the regular vegetables. The market was glutted with ripening peaches so (smart-ass me- hello buddy) bought a car load because it was a bargain. It had never been done in Brookville before and Emma warned me that I would catch hell. This was on Thursday, the car of peaches arrived on Friday to be sold Friday and Saturday. I had a bunch of handbills printed, also an ad in the paper that came out on Friday stating the price of canning peaches. Prices were quoted from the car near the depot.

I figured that what did not sell at the car could be hauled up to the store to be sold the following week. Farmers came in buggies, wagons and a few autos and hauled thern out nearly as fast as we could unload. We did not have enough left to bring to the store.

He was like that, never to praise, afraid to "spoil" me. I don't remember prices or profit but know it was three or four hundred dollars.

Not much encouragement was given to my idea of going through high school. But I enrolled in the senior class of 1914-15. A.J.Reife1, an egotistical disciplinarian was principal. 'Tis said that A.J. was tbe sharpest mathematician in Indiana but his mind otherwise was as a child who liked to be lauded. He reveled in extracting confessions but he has a few of the big boys whom he failed to crack and so their delegation to the back burner was assured. I happened to be in the latter category.

Then there was Willard Lacy, history teacher who was the kindest patient and most understanding teacher I ever had. Hitchcock who taught literature and was athletic coach. He was rather a vain individual but likeable.

Ernest (Porky) Clark, only three years older than I taught manual training, physics and mechanical draw- ing. He was an odd-ball but brilliant. His manual training and drafting classes were the bases for my livelihood in later years.

Bess Kidney, a homely good hearted red head and very smart, taught Latin and German. I took Latin for the

first time in high school having opted for German in my prior two years. Besides I am sure I knew more German than she. She made sheeps eyes at me but she was not for me. Milford (Coats) not a very good student, took German under Bess the year before and she flunked him. He wouldn't go to school anymore so he started working full time at the store. Some one asked him why he quit and he replied,

"Kidney trouble".

I loved the whole school faculty except "Gus" Reifel referred to as "Kaiser Bill". He reminded me a lot of my Uncle Sim,- tall, muscular, domineering and decidedly immature in good sense, but a genius in mathematics.

He once found in the boys rest room a sign painted on a hanging card,

"Notice - On account of the high cost of living use both sides of the toilet paper".

Aha!, the sleuth had a case! Now for a clue. He knew it had to be a junior or a senior. His deduction was uncanny so he called the boys from these two classes in small groups into his office. Using his beloved third degree he naturally got a denial from each student. But his ego was thirsty and he would not be denied.

Now every one in the school including some of the girls knew who did the "dastardly" deed. So he called in the weakest "milk toast" student and made him a partner in the case.

So Oscar Polhemus, a preachers son, snitched on Reuben Milbourne, a six foot junior and star guard on the basketball team. Gus was an actor and could bring himself to tears on the least provocation so thus he provoked a few tears and thanks to dear Oscar. Oscar, a near sighted egg head, ruined his life by entering the ministry.

Aha! Now comes the kill!

Rube Milbourne, a good friend of mine was called into the office. Did the Kaiser tell Rube that he knew the truth? No! He must be the prosecuting attorney, badger and bait the witness. Rube in telling me about it later told me how Gus would get him up to the point of confession and then change the line of questioning, like a cat and mouse game. Rube told me how he was worn down to despair when broke down in tears and confessed. Then Gus with tears put his arm around him and told him and told him how much he loved him.

That was our principal, August Reifel. I gave him a harder time than that at the end of the term.

The high school students, but mostly the upper class- men and girls decided to put out an underground weekly newspaper to be passed from one student to the other. It was called "The Buzzer" and Lois (Kitty) Wright who openly had aspirations in journalism was appointed editor.

Each week was allotted to a different student but Kitty would "edit" it then it would be passed down the aisles until read by the whole assembly. It gave the news, Walter Winchell type gossip, a few jokes and barbs at different students. Sometimes the teachers received their share of barbs, sometimes praise to butter them up in case they came upon the one copy that was made in longhand.

The Buzzer was taboo as far as the faculty was concerned but it stayed alive during the whole term and was a lot of fun. The girls participation was clean and had a little literary merit, at times even poetry.

I put out a couple copies during the year but one I distinctly remember - a take-off from Shakespeare's "All the school's a stage and all the students merely players. First the freshman mewling and puking on his way to school and then the sophmore (I forgot what he was)
And the junior
Then the senior lording over
Finally standing in the Hall was August Reifel
Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything

I was not as fast as Hitchcock thought I would be so he put me on the second team. The first team won the district championship.

I goofed off as far as the store was concerned except giving it Saturdays full time. I did not get much "flock" from Dad as he was prospering without me. School studies were no problem. Had a few dates with Lena Jonas, a German, blond girl from Cedar Grove. She was in my class. She would ride from Cedar Grove to Brookville on the train each Sunday evening where I would meet her, take her to the place where she boarded during the week and kiss her good night. A couple of times on Friday night I hired a rig and drove her to Cedar Grove. In the spring the senior class had a hay ride party to the prom at Mound Camp. Dean Charni and his wife were chaperones and they started things off snuggling in the hay. When we got to the camp we were all buried like a bunch of moles.

We were all looking forward to graduation as no one failed to pass. In those days the teacher would not pass any student unless he passed the oral and written tests. It is different today.

Recently, I had a junior high school boy (Mexican) helping me set out some pecan trees. The instructions were printed on the package how large to make the hole and etc. I told him to read the directions and dig accordingly. He told me he couldn't read. And his mother wants him to go to college too.

During the year Mr. Reifel (Kaiser Bill) made speeches on several occasions such as picnics, church affairs even on basketball celebrations. He always gave Lincoln his due credit. In class assembly he would make the same speech over and over. The flag would always be on display and when he got to the climax of his oration he would face the flag and fervently recite as follows:

Old Glory! say who
By the ship and the crew!
who gave you the name of Old Glow-ray?
(pause)
The red-the white-the blue
(pause)
There is no yellow there!

We fellows in tbe audience would put up our hand showing by the fingers how many times we had heard it. Some showed 3 - 4 - 5 fingers and a few had to use both hands. He always noted when we did this but did not catch on. We figured that he thought we were saluting him, I suppose.

"Did you throw chalk?"

"Do you mow who did?"

From each student the answer was "No" to each question.

Except me. From nothing but stubborness, my answer to the second question was "Yes, I know who threw the chalk." Then the next question, "Who threw the chalk?" My answer, "I won't tell."

"Why?"

"A matter or prineiple".

"You did not throw chalk?"

"Thats right," I lied.

We went through this identical routine several times when he arose from his big chair and stuck his belly in my chest then shook the hell out of me.

Then the same routine of questions but he changed his tactics to love and honor of the school, how he loved my family. Much as it pained him, it would be his duty to expell me if I did not reveal the culprit. The fact was that everybody threw chalk and I could have embarrased him by telling him so. Then he would have had to

punish the whole class, which was ridiculous.

Finally he told me to go home and think it over and return the next morning to his office. The whole class had been in a turmoil during my ordeal and were eager to get the details. Come to think of it, I think that both Kaiser Bill and I were enjoying ourselves immensely. Talking to Mr. Lacy, who seemed to know the story, advised to snitch and thought that would be the end of it. Mr. Hitchcock winked at me and showed me his crossed fingers. I did not mention it to my folks.

The next morning in the office Mr. Reifel was sweet as molasses.

Until he popped the question, "Who?"

"I won't tell"

He grabbed me by the collar and threw me clear across the office against the wall.

"What a physique" I thought, but said nothing nor did anything. He then cuffed me good, careful not to leave any marks. Between tears and cuffs this went on all morning until noon.

Then he expelled me. I gathered my books and left.

I did not tell Dad but paid at once a visit to each of the three members of the school board. To each I told the story and was surprised that they even listened to me. It seemed, I later fonnd, that they had had trouble with him in the past on other matters.

Notice came from the board for me to appear in Reifels office at nine the next morning.

When I got there at nine sharp, all three members of the board were there but Der Kaiser had not yet appeared. Nothing was said about the case but we discussed athletics and other school activities.

Finally in the door came Mr. Reifel, red faced and looking like he was just getting over a drunk. He immediately without a Howdy went into a speech.

"Gentemen", he said shaking like a leaf, "I have not slept for two days".

His hands shook as if he had palsy. He then started in a long tribute to me and the class, and a lot of trivia not related to the case. He worked himself into a frenzy and then broke into tears. I felt sorry for the Son of a Bitch! I think the board did too as they asked me to leave the room and wait outside.

I never did find out what happened inside the office but after about ten minutes, maybe more, Mr. Showalter came out to tell me to come inside.

Mr. Reifel, meeting me at the door put his arm about my shoulders and tearfully said, "Clifford, we

have decided to let bygones be bygones. We will go on as if this had never happened."

He added that he hoped I held no hard feelings against him. Not a word had been spoken by the board members when they arose and left the room. He told me to get my books and act as if nothing had happened.

He certainly did his part because from that day on, I was Jesus. Ever after he waved from across the street, would stop and ask how I was doing. When I joined the Knights of Pythias later he petitioned to defend me in a trumped up violation of my oath in the initiation.

I think it was the second year following my graduation the school board fired him, also Alfred Wise who had been hired in the meantime. The next morning I was walking in front of the school when the office window was opened and Der Kaiser called for me to come in.

What a picture! There were two grown men in tears sobbing like kids. I told them that I had heard the "bad" news. They then went into wails of how they had given their best years to the community and now listen to this. They wanted to know if I had any influence with the board and perhaps I could do something in their behalf. Good grief! What a shocker - me a kid to be able to help - even if I wanted to!

They got over their shock and went on to better things. Reifel as Superintendant of Schools in Gas City, Iowa and Wise to establish his own insurance business.

The sentence: "Hitch your wagon to a star and the world will lie at your feet".

That scared the shit out of me!

Summer 1913

Back to steady work at the store which I liked because I was dealing with people. With the exception of three or four unreasonable customers which I could have killed, it was a pleasure.

Dad's sadism had apparently been transferred to Abe and Eula as he whipped them unmercifully. Once Abe painted on the privy door "Oh What a Relief". I thought Dad would never stop whipping him.

Will Younts, Eula's teacher asked her on arriving at school why the welts on her arms and legs. She told him that Dad had beat her because she was slow in getting up. He was furious and that same day came to the store and gave Dad a lecture. He put his finger under Dad's nose and said, "George B., if that child ever comes to school in that condition again I'll swear out a warrant for your arrest." It was said that Dad was white as a sheet and explained that he had a hard time controlling his temper.

Poor Eula and Abe were getting what I used to set at their age. Deve could do no wrong. I don't remember of Coats getting too many whippings.

I was graduated from school and Dad and I were working in the yard back of the store. I don't remember what we were doing but I did something to upset him. He flew into one rages, picked up a lantern and started swinging it and charging me. Between one of his swings I let him have a hook to the jaw that knocked him about 20 feet into some barrels on which were piled hundreds of quart tin cans used for canning fruit. Barrels were knocked over spilling the cans around him as he sat apparently unhurt. He didn't say a word but went upstairs to bed. The incident was never men- tioned again but that was the last time for capital punish- ment.

Emma told me that I should not have hit him.

"And let him wrap that lantern around my head?"

"Bull shit!"

At this time there were no filling stations in Brookville so we had a sidewalk pump with a large tank buried in the street. For a long time there were only two such tanks in town. Smith's station came years later.

We rented the Pippin Building next door and set up a meat market, the first in town that sold imported cold storage meats. Both town butcher shops, Rosenburgers and Burkhart sold only home butchered meat. We hired Leander (Fat) Haman from Rosenbergers and I helped Fat most of the time. This business prospered.

Many times while rendering out pork fat in the back room we would take a tenderloin, cut it in 1 1/2 inch lengths, flatten it out with the cleaver against the grain, then throw it in the cooking lard. Next door at Pippins bakery we would get fresh buns and make sandwiches like I have never eaten since.

Directly across the street from our store was the brick home and office of Dr. Armstrong the dentist. He dyed his hair and mustache a jet black and liked to lead all the parades on his horse. He was a widower but his niece Florence Armstrong whom he had raised, lived with him. She had the most beautiful contralto voice similar to Schuman-Heink and took voice in Cincinnati at the Conservatory of Music.

Florence induced a Miss Roberts from the conservatory to come to Brookville to train some voices of her friends. Miss Roberts who was a portly middle aged opera singer, agreed to come if enough pupils were enrolled.

That is one thing that Dad wanted me to do, take up music because I had a strong untrained voice. Florence, the sisters Helen and Hazel Johns, Mrs. Goodwin, Ellen Shirk, this list read like the social register without my name but I enrolled anyway.

I learned a lot about music but it was too sophisticated to suit me. However I saw it through. My main trouble was in my musical expression, not tone quality. Practicing for our recital I was assigned a love song but could not get the feeling into it to suit Miss Roberts who in her Southern accent asked me,"Cliffud, wayunt yo evah in Love?"

"No"

I don't think I got with it as much as she liked but it seemed to go over at the recital.

Florence was years with Ziegfeld in New York. The Johns girls were also in musical careers in the East.

Across the alley north of Dr. Armstrong stood a large weatherbeaten two story building called The Brunswick Hotel. In the front was the saloon, one of twelve in town. The saloon ran far back in the building to a large dining room where long tables were set for family style dining. Big steaming dishes of food would be passed around each table, home style. Off to the kitchen were two swinging doors with two three inch peepholes from whence one could see an occasional eye observing the diners. I never knew why. Next door in the same building was the hotel reception room with a piano which many happy memories.

Brookville was the home of Harry Heasom, a trick roller skater, generally on the Keith vaudeville circuit spent his summers at home for about three months. He was an athlete and had a gymnasium under his father's shoe store. He generally had a few of his actor buddies staying with him. One I remem- ber vividly as a brilliant homo piano player and singer. He spent much of his time at the piano in The Brunswick.

At this time Kaiser Wilhelm made his blitz in Europe stopping all shipping and traveling from Europe to America leaving many Americans stranded. This is what Zanda played and sang:

I'm glad my wife's in Europe
She can't get back, she can't get back.
While I'm eating cream on peas
She eats beans with the refugees.
The only way she'll find me
Is to swim across the sea.
I'm sorry that there must be war.
They don't know what they're fighting for.
I'm glad my wife's in Europe
And she can't get back to me.

It was here that Barley Wright taught me to sing the

Upstairs over the whole building was the hotel rooms plus living quarters. At the rear attached to the building was a livery stable. There were about six livery stables in town where horses were boarded and rented. Out of town "drummers" were the best customers for both the livery stable and the hotel.

Brookville at that time (1914-15-16-17) had a majority of Germans, many who could hardly speak English. They liked beer, liked to play cards, were in fact a good sturdy stock. Their swearing and idiosyncracies were a source of hilarity to the native born, especially we boys.

Joe Dudly, one of the funniest, would walk down the street, speak to everyone whether he knew them or not, raise his hand in a hailing gesture and say "Effry body" whether or not there was only one or more. He had a blond boy by the name of Theodore that he called Tedder because Joe could not say Theodore so we boys only knew Theodore as Tedder Dudly.

Andy Wissel liked horses, had a livery stable and harness shop. Andy was persuaded to take the dealership of a new automobile on the market known as the Scripps Booth. I don't think he ever sold any but it wasn't because he didn't try. Now that was a show, his describing the virtues of the "Scrip Boot".

Then there was Henry Schmidt, Theresa's father who when going down the street in downtown Cincinnati would greet every- one,"How do - How do - How do" on and on.

There was Billy Smiester, the dairyman and old men Klopf. Also the Kirschbaum's, especially Joe who was a clown with the King's English.

Old Man Morelock, was a crusty, hard nosed, whisky drink- ing German whose first name I don't think many people knew and we just called him Old Morelock. Others such as the

Let's not forget the owner of the Brunswick Hotel and saloon Keeper, Casper Schuck. Casper bad all thr traits that were amusing such as thrift, poor English and "apparent" stupid- ity. His was the gathering place of the retired, beer drink- ing card players.

A traveling salesman, then called a "drummer", from Cincinnati called on Casper to sell him an order of whisky. These drummers had their fun too with these sometimes called Dutch. This drummer, who knew Casper well, found him behind the bar with only one beer drinking customer. Whisky drummers invariably treated the house including the bartender, After a shot of whisky this drummer said, "Well, Casper I see you have made some changes here. Why did you put in the extra door?"

"You Gottam fool, its just like it always vas."

"No, Casper, you have another door in here."

"Now looks here you Gottam idiot, there's only two doors, the front door and the back door to the dining room."

"No, Casper, it is you who's crazy. I'll bet you five dollars you have three doors in this saloon."

He took a five dollar bill from the money drawer and slapped it on the bar saying, "Now, Py Gott, put up or shut up." The salesmen matched his five and they gave both fives to the lone customer who held it until one or the other was proven wrong.

"Now," said Casper, "Mr. Smarty, where are the tree doors?"

The salesman pointing to the front said, "There is the front door and ther is the back door into the dining area and pointing on the floor, "there is the cuspidore, see? The front door, back door and cuspidore?"

Casper laughed loud and long " Ho-ho, dats funny but don't you worry about getting my five as I will get it back mit dat choke."

Shortly Joe Dudley osme in from the street with his hand raised saying, "Effry body".

"Hello Cho", greeted Casper, "Glad you came in. Vot do you tink about the way I changed the place?"

"Changed the place, you say. It looks like the same Gottamed dump to me."

"I've got an extra door. See, now Cho, I've got tree doors."

Joe gave Casper a hard look and said, "Casper, how can you pee so Gottam dumb? Ve bote vent to the same schule together, you drunk. Dares de front door and de back door so now shut up."

"Bet you five dollars deres tree doors in here."

"I'll bet but hate to take a drunk man's money."

"Ho, Ho, Ho", laughed Casper, "look around you Cho. Look who's dumb. There's the front door, there's the back door and there is the Gottam spittoon!"

They told this story about Jake Smiester and Andy Kiopf. They were playing cards in Abe Bosserts saloon and got pretty high during the game and went to a lot of bragging about several things, one about writing poetry of all things. One made a dare and the other accepted the challenge. They matched coins and Klopf won. So Klopf said to Smiester, "Jaky Smiester, I screwed your siester."

That made Jake mad and he told Andy he should be ashamed of himself.

"Go ahead and beat it," taunted Andy.

Then Smiester, mad as hell recited, "Andy Klopf, I screwed your vife."

"Dat don't even rhyme, you tammed fool", said Klopf.

"I know, but its the troot", answered Jake.

These were only a couple or stories that were at- tributed to these simple, loveable old timers who prospered in spite of the speech handicap. You would hardly recog- nize their grandchildren who have made success in bank- ing, education, politics and business.

That summer of 1915 I palled around with Art Sylvester who had been raised by a widow, Mrs. Haman. She had sent him through high school and insisted that he take

He was telling me his troubles and confided that he considered seriously of taking off. I had told him of Dad's unreasonable attitude toward me when he suggested that we take off together to New Orleans, or any new location. Neither of us had any money but we decided to bum our way South as it would soon be cold weather.

I had eight dollars - he didn't have a dime. We bummed to Louisville, to Nashville, then to Birmingham hiding in the ice compartments of refrigerator cars. In Birmingham we ate and drank for the first time in three days as we had no way of leaving the train without being caught. If caught in that section of the country it meant the chain gang so we played it safe.

We then by an error got in a car that headed east end we landed in Waycross, Georgia. Then we decided to go to Florida and landed in Narcoosi where we knew some Brookville people. They gave us a job in the orange groves and we stayed in the small hotel. I wrote Dad and told him where I was and what I was doing. He never answered for a long time but finally wrote me about Thanksgiving time that he needed me for the Christmas rush. I wrote him that if he needed me bad enough to send me fare home that I would come.

And he did.

Art remained in Florida all his life and returned to Brookville once, that time to attend the funeral of Mrs. Haman. She was wealthy and I think he thought

But she had forgotten him and he returned to Florida never to return.

Dad was glad to have me back and I was glad to get back. Our relations improved.

Reuben Milbourne ("Beetle"), remember the basket- ball star who cried for Superintendent Gus Riefel? He was sweet on Nellie Hetrick and they were now in their senior year. Nellie had a cousin, Esther Smith who lived on a large farm eight miles from town. Esther had been in my graduating class the year before and had been going with Glen English who later became a noted surgeon. Esther, after graduation broke up with Glen. Omer Meyers who was Squire Updikes hired man, started dating her and after a few months, that cooled off. Omer was a strong industrious German and in line for the Updike estate. When Esther canned him, it made the Smiths unhappy.

To the delight of her parents she then went briefly with Howard Dickson, whose father was perhaps the wealth- iest farmer in the county. Her parents were not exactly paupers, owning a few hundred acres of valuable farm land.

Nellie, Beetles girl friend, spent a lot of time with Esther and went out often on double dates. The latest foursome was Beetle with Nellie and Esther with Howard Dickson.

The girls approached Sarah to come to the party and promised her a date. Beetle, who always hired a horse and buggy at the stable to drive to his date in the country, suggested me to match with Sarah at the party and he would bring me with him from town.

Sarah agreed.

To the party I went with Beetle, out east through Whitcomb past the Hetrick farm where Nellie bed been making her home much of the time. Her three old maid aunts lived there and were sisters to Martha, commonly called Matt, Esther's mother. When we arrived at the party that evening, we found that we had been the last to arrive.

There was Harry Smith, Esther's older brother and his date, Esther Miles, Raymond Hanna and Retah Seal, George Kuehn and Edna Dorrel, Bub Dorrel and Alpha Miles. All these I knew.

There were a few more that I have forgotten, except Russel Gilbert and his date plus Howard Dickson who was Esther's partner. All had come by horse and buggy, the country boys with beautiful high stepping swift horses and highly polished buggies kept in trim for "sparkin".

It was like all country parties, with music and party games. Esther was a good (and loud) piano player. Beetle and I were the only boys who did much singing. I remember one game or "Did she cackle?"

When the party broke up, the hostess was presented with the problem of having a stag on hands with no means of transportation. She thereupon sent Dickson home and I stayed. I don't think she ever heard from him again. Very late that night Beetle and I went back to town. I had made arrangements to come back with Beetle the next Sunday evening. The fat was on the fire.

Every Sunday afternoon we hired a rig and drove to see the girls. As we passed the Hetrick farm, Beetle would put out his hand, palm down over the farm area and say,"Mine - Allll Mine!"

Then when we got to the Smith farm it was,

"Mine - Allll Mine!

Esther was different than any other girl I had met by introducing the "French kiss". Now this osculation is the most dangerous weapon a woman can use. I was pleasantly smitten by it but wondered where she could have known about it. I had never heard of it before and wondered who the hell gave her the technique. Surely

At the store, Charlie Butler had taken sick and could not continue so we sold Dan and the delivery wagon and bought a light Ford delivery truck. We all had to learn how to drive and often had trouble getting it started. I fractured my arm once when it kicked me. Once when Abe and Deve were returning from a Mound Camp delivery, Deve was driving and he was so small that when he bore down on the brakes it put so much up pres- sure on the steering wheel that it came off. The truck veered off the road, down a straight embankment onto the railroad track. Someone got word to us and I got there and had just enough tine to run back and flag the train to a stop before getting it off the tracks. No one was hurt and as I remember, with a lot of help the truck was put on its wheels and driven home. I don~t remember how I got to the scene of the accident. Henry Cooksey was helping out and driving the delivery truck. Back of the store across the alley was a steep embank- ment, very steep that we used to dump ashes and some junk. When Henry was backing out of our lot, the rear clutch stuck and it went end over end down the embank- ment just as he jumped out in time. I cannot conceive of any modern car taking the punishment of the 1916 Ford.

The 1916 Ford had no water pump - (it used gravity). The distributor was simple - No oil pump - (splash system). No battery, no windshield wiper, no heater, no cool air conditioning, no dashboard oil pressure gauge, no gas gauge. But it had high pressure tires that lasted

Beetle and I once drove the truck on a date where we took the girls to a country school ice cream social. Cake was also served but the girls were required to bring cakes to be sold and served with the ice cream. Generally the best looking cake was reserved for the end of the evening when the school teacher would conduct a popularity contest among the young ladies. Their names were put on the blackboard as they were nominated generally with a dime which went to the school. Then some would-be rival might bid a quarter on the same girl to aggravate her escort. Generally three or four girls were in the running but it generally got down to a single bidding war over an outsider figured he had a chance to eat her cake with her. The last bid always got the girl but the boy had to throw on the table the amount he just bid which in a lot of cases depleted his cash. The school got in cash the total of each bid and I have seen several cakes go as high as $25.00 total of bids.

Now these country boys didn't like to see us town boys taking their country girls and a lot of times they would gang up on us to give us a lesson. But Omer Meyers and Park Merril very much wanted our girls and they kept piling quarter on quarter until it was a question of who went broke first.

Beetle and I never did have much money and when it looked like the battle was lost for us we each took

That stopped the bidding cold. They were hoppin' mad and it looked like we were in for a fight, but they finally left.

I thought they might tamper with my tires but every- thing was fine. On the way home about a half mile down the road was an apple orchard but the apples were still green. As we went by we were bombarded with green apples and the side of the truck sounded like the end of the world. But it was mostly noise as little damage was done except a few small dents.

The steel sides in that truck were much heavier than in such trucks today.

Those fellows didn't get a thing for their money spent. We nearly went broke but were saved by the appear- ance of two one dollar bills and two corn cobs. The girls enjoyed the affair immensely.

That summer the American Legion raffled off a new Ford touring car, complete with side curtains. Ezra Parttems had the winning ticket. When he went to claim the car he raised holy hell because it had no spare tire. Although he had a good job he said be could not afford to run it and sold it to me. One hundred dollars cash and balance $200, no hurry, take your time.

Dad gave me enough to raise the hundred. Now Beetle and I had transportation. From the first week on he kept asking for payments. Under those conditions it

That 1916 Ford, if one headlight burned out all the lights went and several times Beetle ran along side to keep me from the sideditch until I got a couple of lanterns for emergency.

In the Fall, Papa and Mama Smith took a trip by train to California for a couple of months but the farmer's only daughter was still there when they returned. They got back in time to vote for Wilson. I was underage but was a Republican because my father was. I was like the kittens that were Republicans at birth bnt turned into Democrats when they got their eyes open.

While Ed and Martha were in California Martha was given a reading by a spiritualist. The medium said she saw a daughter who played the piano very well but that it was too mechanical. She said this daughter was going with a fellow whom she would marry but that the marriage would last only a few years.

I think she spent those few years making it come true. Esther and I announced our engagement just after the election. Her family had its odd balls just as mine. I today look at my daughters and marvel that they are not idiots. I look again and wonder.

Because I am prejudiced and so proud of them perhaps I am the idiot. Their children may run true to form and prove to be imbicels. Just a throw of the dice in

He died that winter of 1915-16.

Ed Smith was a good man. He was kind and generous. He was patient too, putting up with Martha who was a nag. He liked me and proved to be one of the best friends I ever had.

He said to me one day, "God pity the man that would marry Matt after my death". Only once did he make such a statement. I knew she would never remarry in that case as she was an avowed man hater, saying, "They oughta be shot."

Martha was of a family of four girls and one boy. They were all likeable people, but like my own grandmothers, Old Uncle Frank and Joe, it is hard to find a word that would amply describe their actions. Indeed the word eccentric would apply to all of them, however they all had different outlets of conduct and expression.

Eli Hetriok was decidedly eccentric. He was a prosperous hard working farmer but failed to transfer those attributes to his only son John. Eli used the

His son John married Lou Bourne, had three children. Edna married Homer Brown. Nellie later married Reuben Milboume (Beetle). Ralph married Valley Cornelius. Edna and Nellie acted like the rest of us but Ralph was a "diluted" Eli Hetrick. John Hetrick deserted his family when the children were young and was not heard from for several years.

In 1916, John's second wife appeared from Oregon with a three year old daughter, June Hetrick. They had split up. June's mother left her with the three aunts and was never seen thereafter as far as I know.

Eli's three unmarried daughters, Betsy, Sarah, and Laura lived on the home place and rented out the farm land. Different from each other, yet they were eccentric. Betsy, the leader and eldest of the three was more of a philosophical type, a pleasant woman to talk to yet odd. Sarah was the quiet worker of the three. Laura was a real character. She went off on tangents and was hard to follow. These were good kindly women but averse to mingling with the neighbors. Just odd - no harm to anyone.

They were real friendly with Leo Hill, painter and paper hanger who did a lot of repair jobs for them.

The three girls decided to build a new two story house in a secluded spot across the road. The big brick was becoming obsolete and in bad repair. They ordered by mail this two story Aladdin home all lumber sawed to length with a detailed drawing of how to assemble. They hired Leo for the construction job.

Leo pondered over the detailed instructions and not being able to locate the position of a few pieces, started sawing and fitting. He found that after he started he could not quit as nothing fit! He ended up with a one story house and a lot of lumber, siding and wall board on his hands.

But Betsy was happy with his work and consulted him about their affairs. He was treated as if he were a Greek oracle from Mt. Olympus.

About this time the three sisters bought a new Ford. They took lessons on driving in a field by the barn lot. The dealer showed them how to back out of the barn where they kept it stored, stop, then push in driving gear out into the field around and around until they thought they had it mastered.

A few days after the last lesson, Laura backed the car out and drove into the field to practice driving. Well satisfied with herself she drove into the barn but

I'll be damned if she didn't drive through the barn again and out the back end. This time the motor stalled. Laura was not hurt. I don't remember any of the sisters driving after that.

Ed Smith certainly went into a cookey family to pick a wife. When he selected her, perhaps she was pert and sweet as their daughter when she was her age. Martha brought with her marriage a big farm adjoining the Smith farm, I daresay the best farming land in that rich town- ship. That farm went by the name of "Egypt".

The Smith farm, the home place, belonged in the 1830's to a Dr. Wallace. Ed's father, Nelson Smith born 1840 was left an orphan at five because of the death of both his parents. His mother was a DuBois. Dr. Wallace took Nelson Smith to raise. Nelson inherited the Dr. Wallace farm and when Ed and Martha married, deeded it to them. Later when I farmed the homeplace I used Dr. Wallace's office for tool storage.

Ed inherited the Bath Township home place of 188 acres upon Nelson's death in 1916. I might add here that all this land was farmed and operated by the Smith estate until 1973.

In his lifetime I never knew C. Ray to have only four jobs. He did not teach long, but that was the first. He then got the agency for Delco Light Systems. He may have sold others but I do know he sold his aunts, the Hetrick sisters when they built their new house, (1 1/2 stories). During the first World War he worked in Akron a short time with Miller Tire Co. Shortly after he went to the state of Washington. while there he had no trace of asthma but on his return home was stricken as hard as ever. It was said that he was the smartest one in the family as he went through a long life without working.

He never married and was known mainly by his eccentri- city and general cussedness. His brothers gave him a hard time but he always went to Aunt Betsy, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Laura, where he always received consolation.

C. Ray could provide a reporter more copy than the rest of his family together.

Harry, the third son, was the natural farmer, likeable, industrious was becoming an efficient farm operator. I'm sure it was planned that Harry would be the one to carry on the farm operations. He was especially adept with swine and feeding. We were about the same age and became great friends. Esther Miles was his steady date but I don't think very serious.

The fourth child was Esther whose vivacity charmed me. She had more pep than any of the family. She liked horses and could bridle a horse when all the rest of the boys and her father failed. She feared not the kicker nor the biter. We had been in the same Senior class and she at that time was going with Glenn English a basketball star and later to become a noted doctor. They quarreled and broke up after graduation when Omer Meyers started "sparkin" her.

Omer was one of the many German boys who came from the western part of the county to work on the big eastern

Omer worked for Ira Updike who had no children but his wife Ora liked Omer. At least she fell out of the haymow when she and Omer were up there hunting eggs. Or something.

At last Esther and Omer had a quarrel before she organized the party to which I was invited with Howard Dickson. But Howard Dickson could not sing and entertain so I became quite willingly the "fair haired boy".

I could go on and on about Esther but I am giving you the history of the Smith and Hetrick families.

Walter's name should have been "Omega" as he was the last. He was known as "Ginger", a name that suited him. He was a shrewd little devil but later when he and Donald DuBois went to Miami University he flunked. He proved to be the real money maker of the family. In 1916 he was either a freshman or sophomore in high school.

After Esther and I announced our engagement Ed relayed the message through Esther that he would like me to consider farming and that he would rent us the 188 acre Nelson Smith farm. She said that she would like that so I agreed to get a farm job during the summer to learn as much about it as possible.

In the spring I got a monthly job with Bill Golden. He was a hard master but probably was what I needed. He had hard times keeping help as he was a tireless

The Goldens had one of the best improved farms in the county. It was the only farm that I knew of that had a bath and toilet. However everyone used the privy as usual. The bath and toilet were for guests.

Bill was the real operator and boss but his father and father and two unmarried sisters were part of the household. They were lovely people. Bill also swore beautifully all day long and I seldom saw him in good humor. He never laughed but once in a while he would grunt. I once told him, "Bill, if you got you a piece of ass maybe you wouldn't be so damned crabby."

~Do you reckon?" he asked.

His bearded father George Golden was a religious old man. When Bill was ranting and filling the air with "goddams" the old man would soothingly say,

"Now, Will."

George Golden in 1863 enlisted for the duration of the Civil War. He served under General George Custer. He was quite a writer and gives a very interesting account of the Civil War in the History of Franklin County pub- lished in 1915 by A. J. Reifel (Kaiser Bill).

His two daughters Cozy and Edna treated me fine and their country fare was out of this world.

Every Sunday morning the old man would conduct

Up at four A.M., out to the pasture to get the horses that had browsed during the night, to the stable, curried, fed and harnessed. Then to the house for breakfast and still was dark. By daybreak into the field to plow. Bill took me through this procedure the first morning and from then on I was on my own.

In retrospect I made the work difficult because I did not know the easy way. In pitching hay, shocking wheat, and corn husking I "fought" the job and marveled at those experienced, to whom it seemed so easy. I never worked so hard before or since. Every night I was ex- hausted and was glad when on every Saturday evening we quit early end drove the Overland into town.

One rainy day Bill and I were working in the barn building a hog rack for his wagon. I was in my element and finding Bill as incompetent a wood worker as I was a farmer. He was asking me what to do next. He told me that I should give up farming and use my talents such as this. I have often thought of how right he was.

I had sold my car to fled. Beetle, every Sunday picked me up at Golden's with his hired rig and we went out to see the cousins. Dad had wrecked my car twice once driving into an iron bridge and again he ran head on into a tree while trying to quell a hitchhiker who was having an apoplectic seizure in the back seat.

War was declared in April 1917 while I worked at

Herbert and Anna May were hastily married in Aug, 1917 because Agnes was due in February. They rented an apart- ment in Cincinnati as Herbert resumed his internship at the University of Cincinnati. Albert Ardery and Ed kept the young couple and baby until Herbert set up his doctor's office in Brookville where he practiced until 1973.

I had hired out until Sept. 1st as Sept. 5th was our wedding day. After that I had winter wheat to sow on the Nelson Smith farm that I had rented. We did not get possession of the house until March 1st as was the custom of farm renters. We had agreed to stay with the Smith's that winter. That gave me the opportunity to attend farm sales and stock up on tools and livestock.

At the wedding at the Smith home, with "Beetle" Milbourne as best man, Nellie as bridesmaid, and Anna May Ardery's sister Ruby playing the wedding march, we were wed by Rev. Black from Brookville. We went to Indianapolis on our way to Elwood at some of Esther's distant cousins for a week on our wedding trip. We had to get back in time to start sowing wheat as soon after

Omer Himeliak, the tenant on the Nelson Smith farm was angry when Ed notified him that I would farm it the following year. Consequently he let the weeds grow in the corn field that I was to seed which made it very difficult to sow wheat in the overgrowth. Harry loaned me one of his mules and helped me get started and even he said that it would be hard to get a horse through that thicket. But I got the job done.

That winter, living with the Smith family was quite an experience for all of us. It was the coldest winter by far than any I have encountered before or since. It will be remembered by all who experience it. First came a deep snow followed by six weeks of -30 and -20 degrees. This was at times made worse by strong winds.

We were all confined to the house as much as possible, except when we had to take care of the livestock such as feeding, watering, bedding the hogs, the same for the horses. The cows had to be milked.

Watering was a problem first because the animals were reluctant to leave their shelter into the bitter cold to ice water that noon solidified. The iron pump handle froze to the handle if dampened. Poultry, and all living things suffered.

Wood was the main fuel and it was getting low. We had cords of wood stacked in the woods but the problem was to get it. We finally hitched a four horse team to the wagon and hauled it to the house.

The old party line phones were working but there

I think even the city schools were closed during that time.

As I remember it the boys were all at home during that winter ordeal. We had a barrel of apples in the cellar, cider, pigs feet and sauerkraut. The radio crystal sets were not to appear for a year.

But the card games. Mostly we played Hearts and all ganged up on poor old C. Ray giving him the Queen of Sheba at every opportunity. I never knew a family who enjoyed so much quarreling among themselves. I was immune from their barbs as I was new. Also I did not return a barb for a barb. Esther was just like the boys and well able to take care of herself. Even Ed and Martha joined in at times.

Once after the winter bad broken C. Ray took one of his usual cantankerous spells raising the ire of the boys and his father. They agreed to gang up on him and take him bodily to the Oxford retreat for the insane.

That was a show that I will never forget. They got the Buick out of the garage and proceeded to take him bodily. I watched discreetly from the sidelines and Harry, Walter, Esther, Ed and Martha tried to handle him but they couldn't get him in the car. He was frantic

C. Ray never, never turned his hand to do one bit of work. I think the rest of them endured him in order to torment and bait him. That was the story of C. Ray and the family throughout his long life.

On March 1st 1918 we moved onto the Nelson Smith farm in Bath township as planned. For three years we lived there before moving in 1920 to the home place in Springfield township where we were to be for the next five years.

Ed Smith bought us a lot of furniture and a team of mules. Dad gave us two cows. I borrowed some money from the bank and we were in business.

No sooner had we settled when Esther and I became victims of the Spanish influenza. This highly contagious epidemic took over a half a million people in the United States that Spring. It was as if we were quarrantined as far as getting help was concerned but old Dr. Ward from Bath called on us daily. It was physic, physic and more physic. Harry or his father came up and did the chores and what little feeding was to be done.

A smart alec saying at the time was, " I opened the window and in-flew-enza."

After a slow recovery we finally got started to seed and cultivate the crops.

Uncle Roy who had been working in a print shop in Dallas since 1913 decided in 1915 to buy a print

After the shop was closed, his debt to Dad weighed heavily upon him wherein he promptly joined the Army in response for volunteers after the declaration of war against Germany in 1917. He enrolled as a sharp- shooter, the most dangerous department of the military and entered into intensive training. He was an excellent marksman.

Before going overseas, he came decked out in his new uniform to Brookville for what he called a farewell visit. He spent one whole day with us on the farm prior to Annabel's birth. He showed me a gadget to measure the distance of any target that he was required to carry at all times.

He had made out his government life insurance to Dad to be paid $50 per month for 10 years. I made the statement to him that he would surely be back with us. He said,"Sharp shooters don't come back."

And he didn't.

Wet weather delayed wheat threshing that summer into August. All the neighbor farmers felt that in order to save the wheat crop we had to thresh even on Sunday if dry enough. But many church people were against it.

Lily was more religious and windy than patriotic and decried our decision to thresh on Sunday. I was at a neighbors farm threshing. Dr. Lucas, from Brookville was at our house, the attending physician. Who ever heard of going to a hospital for childbirth in those days? Before a birth, midwives or practical nurses were waiting on hand to take care of mother and child, oft times the doctor arriving too late for the main event.

Esther was a wonderful mother and I was so proud of them both. I looked closely for any peculiarities like C. Ray Smith or Uncle Frank Roberts and finding none, decided to keep them both. Harry loved Annabel and spent a lot of time with her.

I had a fairly good corn crop that fall, about 500 bushels more than I needed to feed out what hogs I had. This 500 bushels was half mine and at $2 per bushel would bring enough to buy a car.

We had been using horse and buggy transportation and needed a car. The 1919 Chevrolet was being shown by the Riedman Brothers and we had enough corn to pay for one. But we thought that the corn would bring more in the Spring. Instead of waiting for the Spring advance we went ahead and bought the car.

After the Armistice, instead of advancing, the corn market sank to about one dollar per bushel which left me owing more than I had corn to pay for. The

I was rather a poor grain farmer but considered myself good with hog raising which I particularly liked. During seven of those eight years I had a hired hand who started Mar. 1st and worked through corn husking. During that time, farm labor rose from $30 to $55-$60 per month. But machinery was improving. That took more capital.

Harry Smith was a good farmer. He had a fine team of mules. Of course he had one good advantage of taking over from his father without too much investment. Even without this investment he would have prospered. He had marketed a lot of $18 hogs before the slump and bought a new Oakland runabout car from "Bunk" Clark. He had been going with Jenny Schumaker since before Esther and I were married as I remember a party we had at the Butlers in Brookville.

At the party, was Raymond Hanna and Reta Seal, Harry and Jenny, "Buss" Colebank, Tony Schumaker and Gum Foster with Esther and me. Two or three more that I cannot recall.

In the late summer Harry hired Bud Dare to take a big truckload of hogs to the stockyards in Cincinnati. Harry rode with Bud, saw his hogs sold, collected only $200 of the proceeds in cash and had the check sent

That was the last anyone ever saw or heard of Harry Smith. He had made no arrangements to return with Bud. The check in the meantime arrived for the hogs.

Ed went to Cincinnati reporting the disappearance. After a few days he hired a detective to investigate. He offered a reward for any information but there never was a clue nor explanation of his disappearance. We suspected there may have been a disagreement with Jenny over a difference in religion but she claimed he last left her in good spirits.

It was finally dicided that it had been foul play or mental lapse and waited - waited - waited.

I think Henry Gesell husked Harry's corn that Fall for Ed. Henry was always a standby and friend of the family.

Harry had helped open up an old maple sugar camp on the place that I was farming that spring before his disappearance. Nelson Smith, Ed's father had operated the camp for years until because of his age he discontinued.

This camp was located in a woods containing over a hundred fifty big maples. The heavily tinned evaporator pans were in good shape and the supply tank had to be repaired. The big sled and barrel and spiles were in good shape but over half or the wooden buckets had gone to staves so we had to buy galvanized pails. Pails,

New trails had to be cleared. Harry and I the winter before had cut wood for part of the fuel and now we were in business.

Now this was new to me. I never knew it took so much work to get a little syrup. We would haul about 50 to 60 gallons of sugar water from the trees to make each gallon of syrup. Everyone thought the $3 we asked for it was high but it was money hard earned. Each tree produced about 1/2 gallon finished syrup so we ended up with 40 to 50 gallons.

The sap quit flowing when the alternate freeze and thaw cycles stopped. Then we finished up the evaporation and broke camp.

It was the custom to stage a stag party on that night and have what they called a chicken friz. Twenty or thirty neighbors would generally show up bringing eggs, bread, raw potatoes, a lantern, but no chickens. The Good Lord provided the chickens. Lots would be drawn and three of the band were thus to go out and steal the chickens out of somebody's chicken house.

These were good Christian fellows generally but no one ever refused the job of bringing in 6 or 8 chickens, according to the number of those present.

At a genuine chicken friz the head of the chicken was cut or pulled off but the feathers were left on and the entrails removed, then packed in mud, left in hot coals until tender. That is the primitive Indian

We had the facilities of a long open pit which was the furnace with the evaporator pans removed. Across this pit we had made rods just like the modern barbeque. On these rods we fastened the dressed chicken and buttered and salted as we manually turned them until done.

Everybody brought eggs and we had enough eggs boiled for a hundred people. Potatoes we baked in ashes. "Caleb and his spies" arrived from the land of Canaan with 8 fine roasting chickens.

My uncle Bert Boberts (Dads youngest brother) happened to be in Brookville from Chicago. Hearing about the friz he hurried out to take charge of the cooking which he liked. While he prepared the food the fellows made seats and tables with old lumber lying about and played cards. When the chicken and potatoes were done, all dove in like the savages we were and thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of the fellows at the Friz was Lloyd Seal, a prosperous farmer noted for his miserly and gluttonous characteristics especially at the threshers table or a picnic.

"Best I ever ate," he gulped.

"Should be. They were your chickens".

The meeting broke up with a friendly egg fight, and a happy "good night, see you all next year." We did have another friz the following year but Doc didn't show up. He was at home guarding his chicken roost.

The Lord's chosen ones to provide the chickens that night agreed that because Doc's chickens were so good the year before that we should have more of the same also more chickens as there were a lot of fellows from town and also more farmers.

Doc had planted himself in front of his house looking for the thieves but our scavengers had divided into two groups of three each. Doc saw the one group of three in front of his house and bantered them that they could get their chickens someplace else. After a friendly conversation they continued up the road knowing full well that they had accomplished the job of distraction while the second group of three did their dastardly deed.

The thieves heaped insult upon injury by placing the chicken feet in his mail box that night on their way home.

During the three years we farmed the "upper" place we generally hired help for five months of the year from March 1st to August 1st. I think Charlie Usher helped the first year. Be was a poor hand and really "flakey".

The second year Deve (Harold) came out after school was out. I had just bought a two row cultivator and as he was still small. I can see him now, perched on that new corn plow yelling at the three horse team.

I think it was he who was driving the team on the back 108 acres when they ran off with the wheat binder. I had just bought a new horse from Squire Updike that proved to be an outlaw "run-away". The binder was nearly ruined.

Leo Duell was working for Ed that summer after Harry disappeared. When I told them of our trouble they said they would come up in the morning and show me how to manage the "outlaw". What started out as a fifteen munute demonstration turned into an all day affair and they advised to get rid of the nag.

This I did.

"Squire" took the horse back and sold him to a fellow near College Corner who claimed that he could handle him. The first day he drove into town, the team ran through a plate glass window and into the furniture store.

Roy (Abe) at fifteen joined the Navy and was at the Great Lakes Training Camp when over a hundred of the men contracted spinal meningitis. Of these only eight survived. The doctors had tapped his spine and he recovered in time to be stationed in Fiume, Italy until wars end.

In the meantime we received word that Uncle Roy was a casualty.

For the summer of 1920 I hired Charlie (Mox) Meyers (Omers brother). He would not hire out for our offer of $50 per month unless we had pie for breakfast every morning. To this we agreed as he was an excellent farm hand.

He was like Orphan Annie - we had the "mostest fun". Mox brought with him a young hunting dog. One fall morning when he was in the nearby field with a team, husking corn, Esther saw his pup running around the barnyard frothing at the mouth. Recognizing it as a case of hydrophobia she called Mox from his work in the field. He came running, seeing the dog In distress, ran into the house, grabbed the shotgun and killed him. When he examined the body, he smelled TURPENTINE.

Was told of the fellow painting his barn roof, slipped and fell into a barrel of turpentine. Someone asked his wife if he was hurt and she replied that she did not know as they had not caught him yet.

Once, at feeding time I was throwing hay down from the mow for Mox to feed the horses. Looking around I found myself surrounded by a mist. Looking down at Mox he was guiding a spray of piss up at me - at least fifteen feet!

And thats no shit!

My best friend and neighbor, Raymond B.S. Nutty had Harvey Huber, another German boy as his "hired hand". Every morning when Harvey went to the pasture before daybreak to get the horses, the collie dog would tree a skunk. He had the desireable trait of circling the skunk and barking. He never harmed the skunks but always held them at bay until Harvey arrived. However, at that time of year before freezing, the pelts were no good as it takes cool weather to keep the fur from "slipping".

The first night we took these four home and penned them in a chicken coop.

When we told Raymond about his dog, we asked if he would sell him. He asked $100. Mox and I each gave him $50 and we were in the fur business. Never a night's hunting passed without producing at least one skunk, sometimes as high as five or six. We also had a few possum and a couple of raccoons.

The game laws restricted catching fur prior to October 1st but by that date we had over 100 wild animals penned up. After skinning and stretching the pelts on boards, we found that we had netted a nice profit.

Besides being profitable we also found it to be very aromatic. We became accustomed to the odor and to this day the odor of skunk reminds me of musk perfume- which it is.

Of course we lived secluded lives finally burying our clothes for weeks to remove the odor.

We felt somewhat like the recluse that we knew by the name of Brandy Lyons. He was a very poor "hermit" living in a log cabin near Mt. Carmel. Brandy had not one bit of this worlds goods with one exception - a good coon dog. With this dog he caught enough fur to eke out a living and buy more booze than was good for him.

But like Mox and me, some thief stole his dog. Some of the "regulars" at the store, upon hearing of the theft, offered their sympathy. Like a true philosopher that he was, he answered, "Them that HAS, LOSES."

In 1920 the next year after Harry's disappearance Ed did most of his own work. Homer Brown or Alex Lacy lived on the Egypt place and was working Harry's big mules. Ed had bought a beautiful sorrel team but one was noted as a kicker. Ed had been warned but was fearless around horses and proceeded to work them.

One beautiful spring morning Ed took the team and started plowing on the back acreage. A quarter mile away along the line between the Smith farm and Egypt Henry Gesell was building a fence. Henry noticed that the team had been stopped for a long time but could not see Ed. He walked over to investigate.

Ed was dead.

An open ring had become undone from the singletree and the team had stopped. Stooping to replace the ring,

Henry used the phone to notify Brookville authorities and to get help. By the time Esther and I got to the scene, they had brought the body to the house and the morticians were in charge.

Ed Smith was the best friend I ever had. Walter Smith, the future millionaire, had flunked at Miami University in Oxford. He took a trip out West where he got a job as bell hop in The Harvey House in Flagstaff Arizona where be stayed several months before returning home. With his Dads financial help he built the first gas station in Brookville. I think Herbert, (the doctor) was a silent partner with him at first but the partner ship soon dissolved. All through their long lives there was bickering and jealousies over who could make the "most the fastest". Through the years old C. Ray sat back and snickered at them beating their brains out for the fortunes they amassed. However their combined harrassment, I am sure, made him miserable but he always had someone in his corner. First, besides his mother, the three aunts mothered him, then Esther and Annabel in his last years.

We moved on the home place in January 1921. Here we lived and farmed until the fall of 1925. Esthers mother had bought a house in Brookville and moved there in the spring.

Walter, who had been general managing the estate gave the job to Deve (Herbert) at this time. Walter had been rather "difficult" for me to deal with. Through the remaining five years Herbert bent over backwards to help me and to him I owe my gratitude.

I went into debt for more livestock and machinery. During those years no one made a lot of money. Hogs and grain were cheap and we considered hired help at $50-60 per month high.

Ellen was born on the farm on December 10, 1921, a "wanted child". My Dad said that she was the ugliest baby he ever saw. But she soon changed from an ugly duckling to a curly headed sweetheart. Herbert and Dr. Glaser were the physicians and we had Lillie again as practical nurse.

During the arrival of the new baby, Lillie had

"I seed you froo de crack".

Perhaps the most interesting part of farming at that time was wheat harvest and the threshing ring. The threshing ring was made up of 12-15 neighboring farmers hiring a threshing machine. The smaller farmers furnished one hand and a team if needed. The larger furnished two hands and one team.

After each job we left that farmers wheat in the grainery and a nice bright gleaming straw stack that provided winter stock bedding and sometimes shelter. In the morning we started late because of the dew but threshed until nearly dark. We always had a noon and evening meal prepared by the wives over hot wood burning stoves. The call to dinner was always answered by a rush to the table, the hoggish ones at the head of the line. One such hog was such a glutton that when he got what he wanted on his plate refused to pass the food along. He was cured by dumping a dish of beans all over his plate that should have had sideboards. A sudden thrust with the butter dish caused many greasy thumbs. There was always times for horseplay especially

After all the wheat was threshed we had a threshers picnic where we had an accounting with each other. It was quite an arithmetic problem as each contributed or collected in proportion of help furnished and bushels threshed. This was compounded by the difference in rates of hands furnished at one figure and teams furnished at another. Of course I was the egg head of the ring and was given the job of "computer".

We sometimes had beer, always ice cream and cake.

Butchering time was always in cold weather, preferably when snow was on the ground. Generally three or four families formed a sort of ring each getting help from the others at his place. Each butchered from four to six 250-300 pound hogs. The equipment such as a large hogshead (barrel), hooks, gambols, iron kettles, lard press, sausage stuffer, and hoist were generally community property. Each one had his special job such as sticker, gutter, sausage maker, and lard renderer.

The day before butchering, the farmer who was host during prepared about three iron kettles of water ready to heat early next morning. Water had to be scalding hot before the hogs were killed. Stones were heated at the same time to be used in case the scalding water

Eli Hyde, Raymond Nutty, Smiths and Roberts were the members of this ring.

When everybody and his wife arrived that cool morning the men gathered for target practice with 22 gage rifle to determine who killed the hogs. Eli Hyde generally stuck them. We then dragged them to the hoist where gambods were placed in the tendons, hoisted above the tilted barrel of scalding water and swished up and down until the bristles easily peeled, then onto the waist high platform in front of the barrel to be scraped.

After beheading it looked like a human torso as it hung on the scaffold.

By the way, did you know that a hogs torso and vital organs are as near like man as any animal known?

Each hog was thus treated and hung in a row from the scaffold.

Then came the gutting with a wash tub beneath the hog. Generally the older hands did this job. Eli always started in on the job with this remark,

"Forty years a butcher and never cut a gut, Haw, Haw, Haw".

The entrails were thus removed, intestines drained, liver, heart etc. trimmed. A common expression, "Use every bit of the hog but the squeal". Generally the women prepared the intestines for sausage casings as that was a long tedious job.

I was the official sausage maker in our "ring" often smoking it during the following days. The hams and shoulders had to be rubbed with salt daily and pepper to cure before smoking. Everybody had a smoke house.

Each family in the ring got enough liver, a heart and spare ribs to take home until the next neighbors turn. In fact we all ate "high on the hog" until we got down to sow belly (fat meat).

Most of this fat was rendered in the big kettles, run through the lard press and stored in 50 pound lard cans. We always had more lard than we could use. We sold that on a ready market at the stores--a common

practice.

During the seven years that I farmed I had several "hired hands" that I would like to tell you about. First, we had Charlie Usher who tried to be a good hand but did not have what it took. I called "old step and a half" because of the way he walked.

Elmer Usher and his wife stayed with one summer. He was a good strong hand but his wife did not please Esther very well.

The two Stinger boys, Leonard and Bob helped on occasion during threshing. They were characters who bore the brunt of a lot of teasing from the other hands. It was Leonard who was being harrassed who retorted, "You can shit on me but you can't rub it off!"

Then there was Charlie Raabe a solid giant or a rellow out of Cincinnati who was one of the best helpers I ever had. His expression on a damp morning, "Well, it looks like an all day sizzle sazzle".

Murry Spenny who was weak all around demanded less pay which compensated for his weaknesses. He had a Ford roadster. One cold morning be had so much trouble cranking and trying to get it started that he got so angry that he took a baseball bat and beat the hell out of it. The radiator was ruined.

All through my farming years I was afflicted with abcessed teeth and spent a lot of pain, time and money with the dentists. I finally decided to have them all extracted and made an appointment with a dental surgeon in Hamilton, Ohio who suggested I have all twenty-five teeth pulled at one sitting. He suggested that I have someone else to drive the car about 25 miles to Hamilton

Murry agreed to drive his Ford runabout, side curtains and all, on that cold, windy spring day.

The dental surgeon who did nothing but extraction, blocked the nerves, peeled the gums, extracted the teeth, ground the jaw bones and sewed up the gums.

All without pain.

On our way home the anaesthetic started wearing off and I told Murry to step on it. We were bucking a hard, cold wind and the old Ford was having a hard time making any time. Each gust of wind would nearly stop the car and the pain was getting intense. That was the longest twenty-five miles I ever traveled. when I got home I went to bed and I think I stayed there a couple of days on a liquid diet.

All throughout that summer I was without teeth and let my whiskers grow just like the hippies today. My first dentures were made by a dentist in Miamitown. The lowers were weighted with lead making them heavy and easy to manage. I am surprised that I have not heard of that being done since because they were the best I ever had.

I had a lot of fun going through harvest and threshing with heavy beard and no teeth.

After Annabel and Ellen became old enough We all started going to Sunday School and Church at Whitcomb.

As far as the Bible was concerned, I never could nor did I ever in my lifetime accept it an infallable. They still maintain it was written by those individuals inspired but I have always felt a lot of it was written after the inspiration ran out. All my life I have been somewhat a student of the Bible. Appalled at the accounts of God's command for the Isrealites to "enter into the promised land, slay the inhabitants and take over", to me did not sound like my God. Dozens of other biblical accounts went against my nature. The new testament was better but still doubted that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life". I agreed with the possibility of the Immaculate Conception but could not nor ever would accept it as the truth.

Briefly, reason superceded Biblical faith in my attitude.

But in that country church was the finest community

Finally, we were prevailed upon to join the church, Gillam knowing full well that I could not recite the Apostles Creed with sincerity. But they liked our musical ability and fellowship and from then on we were "Brother and Sister Roberts".

We had "religion" mired with fun. Or was it fun mixed with religion? I remember Annabel and Ellen at a Children's Day Celebration like angels singing, "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam". I sang at all the funerals. I even took the job thrust upon me as teacher of the Men's Sunday School class.

When I was twenty one (inl9l7) my father had made me a present of the cash required to join the Masons. I was accepted and received my third degree on the hundred year anniversary of the lodge. Reverend Gillam, "Tony" Dawson (Sunday School Superintendant) and Raymond Nutty were also Masons.

We were invited to Waldron about twenty miles away, to take a degree of Masonry called the "Cedars of

There were dozens of different stunts or tricks used on the initiates to the delight of everyone. I cannot remember all of them but two that I recall I will tell you about even though I took an oath not to divulge lest I have my tongue torn out by its roots.

One "ceremony" was to have the candidate blind- folded, kneel, and lean forward to kiss the Blarney Stone. One of the team members having rubbed "asafidity" on his arm, placed it in front of the candidate who of course kissed the sticking arm. Then the blindfold was removed (with solemn music) as a team member was pulling up his trousers and sticking in his shirt tail. Was that a way to treat a man of the cloth? Amen!

Another stunt without blindfolds was having a chamber pot of cold tea with floating doughnuts passed around the solemn assemblage, each imbibing in the holy drink. Some brethren got sick but our preacher friend enjoyed it and we laughed all the way home. He was a true sport.

About this time we remodeled the old church, raising it a few feet then digging a basement for

The men and women were always having attendance contests, the losers to entertain. Some of the student were clever.

For one penalty stunt we men put Floyd Boomershine on a cot, folded one leg beneath him, fastened a mock wooden leg with shoe attached then covered him over.

Then, dressed as doctors, we had a consultation around the groaning "patient". We sorrowfully decided his leg had to be amputated. Tony took an ordinary hand saw and started sawing above the ankle and shoe. The first three or four strokes produced such screaming that the sawing temporarily stopped to apply smelling salts from a pepper shaker. Then he started in again until the pain grew too intense for Floyd when we removed some "blood soaked" bandages.

The female audience nearly died and we enjoyed it more than they did. The women equaled this stunt when they lost a contest by making a six foot high family album then one posed in the cut out opening the big book they showed to us those we knew as infants or brides.

As a teacher of the Mens Class, I guess I was as well qualified as any member with one exception, I hadn't been"born again".

(153B)

After three or four years I resigned giving them the real reason that I did not always agree with the prescribed lessons.

During those years of 1921-1925 we had a baseball team. We played on Sunday even though most team members were also church members. We traveled about half of our schedule and had a lot of fun.

Joe Siebert would often come out to Whitcomb with his team. He was a giant of a fellow who did the catching for his team and could hit the ball a mile. But he was a sucker for a curve ball until he learned and turned professional playing with Beaumont in the Texas League.

Jennings Dawson was our pitcher and I always caught. Jennings had a wicked curve and was fairly fast. His cousin Lyle Shafer was a fast ball lefty that could throw like a bullet but had no curve. We won most of our games but once while playing Cedar Grove they had a couple of big innings and murdered Jennings curves. When Lyle took over, not even a scratch hit was made.

I recall the tames of a few players, Bob Dorrel our best heavy hitter, Billy Meyers, Art and Vic Stenger, and George Krisher. May I now add that I was manager?

Royal Updike was a trucker who hauled hogs to the

Royal called me on the phone the next day and said that he thought I could use the boy and that if I would consider him that he would bring him and talk to Esther and me. We talked it over and finally decided to at least talk to the boy.

The boy, George Miller, stayed with us two or three years, working and going to school. He was a good kid. His uncle in Cincinnati had been keeping his younger brother, Creighton, it seems that they were both with us when we left the farm. Creighton was Annabels age and years later married Annabels girl friend Ruth Manning. Oh yes, I forgot that George was on our baseball team. They called him Speedy Miller for two reasons, one, that he had a good fast ball and second he was named after Speedy Miller who lived in Brookville and got as far as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In the fall of 1923 I was invited by my best

We had read of a lot of facts, fiction and myths in the press concerning the Klan. We were suspicious and wary but curious. We went.

This we knew from history, that after the Civil War the south lay helpless before the "carpet baggers" that had been sent down from the north to take over reconstruction. Most, but not all of these agents from the north, were ruthless. Negroes did not know what to do with their freedom and in many many instances went beyond common sense because they were in the majority. The local courts had been unable to meet the emergencies. It was a sickening situation.

The Klan, a secret order, was first organized during these reconstruction days as a form of self protection for the white people in the south. They did not depend on the courts for justice but relied on fears as its greatest power. They too, went beyond good judgement instilling fear and dread into the heart of the Negro. Any Negro trying to vote was soon stopped by fear of horse whipping, or branding. Perhaps some ot these stories as handed down were exaggerated. However the Negro did not vote in safety for years.

There are the stories of its origin under a fiery cross on Stone Mountain near Atlanta in the 1860's and again at the same location in the early 1920's. Hiram Evans was the modern organizer who pursued a tolerant course but a fire brand by the name of D.C. Stevenson was given a charter by Leut. Governor Jackson to organize the State of Indiana.

Certainly the first Klan was restricted to whites but to get acceptance in places like Franklin County with no Negros and only half dozen Jews the membership was restricted to Catholics. The restrictions were justified because the Knights of Columbus reject Protestant membership and the B'nai B'rith deny Gentile membership. The B'nai B'rith claims not to exclude membership because of race or creed. But try to join them!

The major difference is the anonymity which annoyed and confused any position. Free Masonry had long since gone through this phase of repression even in George Washington's time. The oath in that organization denies subservience to any king, prince or potentate which includes the Pope!

"Your name?"

"Sam Jones, sir", was the answer.

"Are you a Protestant?"

"Yes, sir".

"Are you a Gentile?"

"Yes, sir".

"Are you 100% white?"

"Yes, sir".

The Grand Dragon retired to the rear and conferred with the Kleagle and the Cyclops. He returned to the waiting candidate with:

"No, my friend", he said,"You have been rejected".

The disapponted angry candidate muttered "Well I'm a Son-of-a-Bitch!"

"You're IN Brother! Ten dollars, please".

Raymond, Guy and I went to the meeting near Laurel at the big apple orchard. The operators of this syn- dicate were "Dad" Schultze and his two sons. About 50 were in attendance and we spotted several we knew who lived in the adjoining townships including Brookville. It turned out to be a County ideal and was well planned and executed. A powerful organizer was in charge and as far as we could see the only real Klansmen seemed to

"Gordon" was the speakers name who made a fiery talk, sensible and obviously tolerant and religious but behind it was a secret that had never occured to us.

It was intriguing and fascinating to us young bucks. Besides it seemed so "righteous".

So we joined and were the nucleus of the KU KLUX KLAN in Franklin County. It was fun listening to being talked about and keeping our mouths shut. They did not know who they were talking about nor what they were talking about.

It all boiled down to politics. Ed Jackson, the man who had given D.C. Stephenson his charter was running for governor on the Republican ticket. But Jackson never uttered one word for or against the Klan.

Cecil Tague a young attorney who was my special friend, filed for the judgeship although never before had a Republican held office in Franklin County. Talk about tolerance - the Catholics voted solid Democrat, The Protestants about 50-50 Democrat and Republican.

In 1921 the Klan grew by leaps and bounds and the membership in the State of Indiana was over 1/2 million. Indiana was the heaviest Klan state in the U.S.

The Saturday Evening Post came out with a special about the Klan in Indiana. It went to explain why the Klan was so strong there was because all Hoosiers were "joiners". And they were so right.

Every little town of 30 or more had its lodge hall

I could sit here and tell you a thousand things that happened during the summer of 1924, how Ed Jackson won the governorship, how Cecil Tague was elected judge, how Loran Chambers was elected county clerk and Van Camp, county sheriff.

I could tell you about the Horse Thief Detective Association of which I was an active member. Of the stills we smashed up and moonshiners captured. You remember that was during Prohibition and we even had some trouble with a couple of Klansmen who used the society as a shield.

A sad note must be added however that Van Camp, the man we elected as sheriff was shot and killed while hunting down a couple of bank robbers hiding in a woods. Van Camp was a brave brash fellow and was felled by a bullet when entering the woods alone.

The bandits were finally caught in Ohio after a similar affair, sentenced to life and lodged in the pen at Columbus, Ohio. The prison later burned down and with it the two robbers.

We of the Horse Thief Detective Association worked in conjunction with the sheriff but had a little trouble with the two successors who followed Van Camp

I could tell you - and by gosh I will - I'll tell you about the time W.D. Bradt, the owner of the large paper mill in town, a self righteous, old Son-of-a-Bitch called a public meeting to determine how to eradicate the K.K.K. He put an ad in the paper calling for volunteers and suggestions. The meeting was held in the K of C Hall so I went too. They did not know for sure I was a Kluxer but it was assumed. I got a lot or icy stares but I wanted to know how I was to come to my demise.

The meeting was pitiful - not nearly as much fun as we had when the crosses were burning or the men and horses on parade. But no one came up with an answer as to what to do. Some suggested boycotting, but who would boycott?

The mice on a certain farm were being tormented to distraction by a certain cat, so they had a meeting just like the one above to decide what to do with the Goddam Cat! It was moved and seconded that a bell be tied around the cats neck to warn of its approach, Motion carried.

Now, "who will tie the bell around the cats neck?" No takers. Who would they boycott? Lots of fun!

Old W.D. Bradt liked the young girls and financed an organization for them, the Kappa Kappa Kappa sorority, another K.K.K. deal but having no relation or connection with the Klan. He couldn't keep his paws off of them and they thought he was just like a father. But I

I could tell you about the really big meetings, one especially in Indianapolis where a professional cast of actors put on the degree work which consisted of a dramatization of the capture of the English "Andre" and the involvement of Benedict Arnold to deliver the American forces to England.

It was a masterful and colorful rendition of the affair and taught 100% Americanism.

I could tell you of meeting "The Old Man~ as D.C. Stephenson liked to be called although he was only thirty-three years old - of meeting Gutzam Borgham the sculptor of the men on Stone Mountain and at Rushmore, N.D.

Every city and town had a parade at some time or other. We had a whopper in Richmond, Indiana that was as large as an army in length, men on robed horses, men in cars, men on foot, women, children, all in robes, all hooded, some carrying flaming crosses on long poles, silent except for the hum of motors and the clop of horses hooves and the soft shuffle of shoes on the asphalt. Afterward, the newspapers said there were five thousand of us.

We marchers could see our friends and enemies too in the crowd watching as we went by. We were always received in good taste. The colored people were seldom seen but our Catholic friends were present to

I was once told that during a downtown K.K.K. parade about a negro woman who was leaning out of a second story window watching the silent procession as it passed by. A young buck negro on the same floor saw her looking out the open window. As he peered behind her he had a brilliant idea.

Slipping behind her he hastily pulled the window down over her torso pinning her in a vise. He then dutifully put the blocks to her and then fled. A pretty good ending for this yarn, but wait. The woman, who knew the man, filed charges of rape against him before the Court of Justice. The judge asked her if the charge was true and asked if she tried to prevent it. She admitted it was true but said under the circumstances she did nothing to prevent it.

"Why didn't you holler?" asked the Court.

"Because I didn't wanna cheer those Ku Kluxers passing by.

That long, hot summer of 1924 finally bringing cool weather ana winter, the Klan hibernated. It seemed that it needed hot weather to boil.

The Klan was still active and it turned out to be a long, hot sunner. John Rockefeller, who was secretary-treasurer of the Franklin County Chapter resigned and I inherited the job.

The cash book of the membership was as thick as large dictionary but the membership was slowly diminishing as issues faded.

Power eventually corrupted the efficiency of the Klan, and leaders began to quarrel among themselves. D.C. Stephenson broke with the national leader, Hiram Wesley Evans, early in his bid for power, and in time was himself being "banished" by local Klaverns here and there in Indiana over various disputes.

But he remained "the law" in our state until April 2, 1925, when he was arrested for sadistic sexual assault on a young Indianapolis woman by the name of Madge Overholtzer. Twelve days later she died, and the charge was changed to murder. According to the

Governor Jackson, too, ran afoul of the law even- tually. Following his term in office, he was indicted but was saved by the statute of limitations.

These, among other things, reflected on the member- ship and in a short time the Ku Klux Klan passed away.

Later, during the crash of 1929 his investment declined but unlike Herbert who was trying to compete with him in the stock market, he only lost on paper. Herbert was called for call money time and again and had to use reserves to eliminate total loss of investment.

All through their lives each was jealous of the other. Esther was jealous of BOTH because she had a husband who went fishing in the wrong pool.

Old C. Ray, on the other hand didn't give a damn. He was smarter than both Walter and "Doc". He never worked, certainly he was smarter than I because in 1931, I ended up dead broke and had worked too.

Esther proved later that she too had the same business acumen as the two boys.

My father, too, was making quite a success in the furniture business.

My brother "Abe", back from the Navy, went in the creamery business with me. He finally married Pauline Hill and operated cream stations in Sunman and Liberty, Indiana. We added poultry and eggs to the business. Abe finally took the Sunman station and I took on the Purina Feed Agency.

Our mother died in 1928 of diabetes. Uncle Sim had died while visiting Uncle Lot in California about a week before from the same disease.

Aunt Lib, Ella Waggoner, Dad and I drove to Terre Haute to Uncle Sim's funeral and that same evening got a wire to hurry home as mother was very ill. We arrived home late that night and she was in a coma. She lived only a couple of hours after our arrival.

Eula, who had married Ralph Gulley the year before, was there and was the last to talk to her when she had her attack. Milford and Abe were there but "Deve" was in the Marines.

For two years I had been an ardent dealer for Purina Mills products and took advantage of their intensive training in feeds and feeding. This included servicing such as poultry culling, hog worming, and recording feeding costs per 100 lbs. of live stock marketed for farmers and feeders.

Just before the 1929 market crash was the worst time in the world for any expansion. Any optimism in business was a mistake in 1929.

But I dreamed of a feed mill of my own to produce certain feeding methods that I had tested that beat Purinas cost of producing pork, milk and eggs.

Confucius say, "He who is an optimist during a depression gets ass burned!"

After building a grain elevator and coal yard south of town I took on another partner, Leo Broerman from Cincinatti.

I then in desperation put on the market a bran pancake flour and with the help of Boots Bohlander put on a selling campaign through Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Aaron Cornelius had been after me to buy in. I think he had about $15,000 which was a temptation so I took it trying to carry through but times got no better.

One of my many bitter moments came when we had to close and we declared bankruptcy. Aaron bought all the assets for $1700 at the sale He never spoke to me again.

I personally had bought a truck, the first big job that Chevrolet made and hired Boots to take grain to Florida and return with fruit. We did fairly well but not good enough. I lost the truck by default of payments.

And poor Boots worked like a beaver and deserved a better fate than failure.

Esther had taken a job with Walter as bookkeeper and became more and more unhappy. I gave Walter a cash register for which I paid $350 in payment in full for what I owed for gas.

Deve, who had married a Connecticut girl while in the Marines, had two small children. He brought them all with him to Brookville and worked in the furniture store for Dad. She was a nit wit and the most do - less of anyone I ever knew. Indescribable! Deve became sick of the mess and sent them back back to her folks.

About that time Esther and I had agreed to call it quits. She and the two girls, Ellen - 10, and Annabel - 13 went up on the hill to live with her mother in the big house. The agreement was that as long as Esther was able, she would support the children until I found employment in some far away place. I felt I had to leave Brookville.

It was then that the Smith family advised Esther to get a divorce but that she must get me to sign a waiver of dower rights to protect the Smith Estate which had remained intact since Ed's death and Harry's disappearance. Harry had just recently been declared legally dead, long after the seven year limit.

I owed a fertilizer account of about $1700 that was legally a consignment account but had never heard of any dealer being sued and I knew of several dealers who were in default.

Now, I had these farmers owing for fertilizer and feeds that could not pay. The fertilizer company threatened me with embezzelment unless I came up with the cash. I offered to give them the accounts but they refused so I told them to "Go to Hell". Their attorney, H.P. Hubbard, got a hold of my Dad and advised him of the seriousness of the "crime" and he in spite of my protests to him, insisted on paying off.

Even twenty years later, Dad's second wife took the pleasure of reminding me that we owed them the money. Apparently he had not told her what he had told me a short time before, that I did not owe him that money, that he had a confession to make in that he had sold the Duck Creek farm. He told me that that farm was mine, given to me by my grand- father when I was born. It was sold or traded away in 1914, in a three way deal for the Brookville store. In 1976 I looked up the County Records and found that the deed had been made out to Mary E. and George B. Roberts. They must have given their

Hard times were reflected in politics. I had always been a Republican but had changed my mind and in discussing the situation at the dinner table I forgot that I had a curly headed little blond girl taking it all in. Because of business and friends I wanted to keep my political opinions a secret.

We lived in an apartment over a variety store that had a shipping box out in front near' the street. One day as I came around the corner, I noticed a crowd in front of the variety store. On this box stood Ellen making a political speech.

"My Daddy says that Old Hoover is a bum. My Daddy says he lies when he promises a chicken in every pot. My Daddy says that Roosevelt is a good man. My Daddy says --- My Daddy says", on and on.

Gad! How I hated to leave those girls when I left Brookville. We had wonderful times together, singing three part harmony, and going swimming in the river on the Stoops farm. Those kids jitterbngged all the way to school, and back.

I recall renting a third floor room when the landlady came in. She looked about like Mamie in the Moon Mullins cartoons.

"Do you like poetry?" she asked in a hillbilly accent.

"Yes, do you?" I asked.

"I shore do", she said handing me the key.

"What poetry do you like best", I asked.

"The Shooting of Dan McGrew" she said. "I just melt when I hear "The Shooting of Dan McGrew".

What characters one meets in my situation at that time. Most everyone down and out. Even whores and pimps. That winter was cold and a stuffy room was always heated by an open gas burner.

I tried my hand at making cosmetics for a few door-to- door salesmen - very slow progress.

Next I grabbed a job as ordinary janitor and clean up man at Schulze's Bakery on Fifth Street. I had rented a room in Covington across the Ohio River and walked the C & 0 bridge across the river to the bakery at 3 o'clock every morning where I scraped raisins off the floor that had been dropped in the baking process. While there I could brew a cup of coffee to go with all the coffee cake I could eat.

About that time, Deve came to Covington and got a job as service man at the Montgomery Ward store. He probably made $10 to $12 per week. We both worked for peanuts. He kept in pretty close touch with me as I still had an old Chevy car that he could go sparking in. He had an accident breaking the right hand door that could be made to fasten shut by turning a home made wooden latch. Just like you see on the old farm privy.

I worked with a fellow at the bakery, Doug Darnell, from North Carolina who became enthused when I showed him several cases of pancake flour that I had put in the car when I left Brookville. I ended up by selling him the lot for $25. He had saved every dime he made and said he was taking every bit of the pancake mix back to North Carolina.

About thirty years later, I ran into his brother while I was on a visit to Covington and asked him how his brother Doug was doing.

He said, "Cliff, you remember that pancake flour you sold Doug and we all thought he was crazy? Well sir, you know, he started a little grocery featuring the Honey Bran Pancake Flour, kept adding new items to his stock and now owns a large supermarket and is unbelieveably wealthy."

"But the moving finger writes and having writ...." so on with the sordid details. Now we come to the point mentioned in my introduction where I am opening my skeleton closet door a bit ajar for a glimpse of some of those dark pages.

Benjamin Franklin's illegitimate son was described in his autobiography as the result of "intrigues with low women a phrase used by him discussing "that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth."

For a couple of years I took care of the mother and babe never questioning my parenthood. Then for reasons, I choose not to divulge further I washed my hands of the situation.

Much later I was advised that another child was on the way and that I was chosen to be its father. To this I refused to concur because of the physical impossibility of such a charge. I foolishly incriminated myself by paying her doctor because I really felt sorry for her.

I received a letter from Virgil McCarty, attorney for Esther stating that our divorce stipulated an alimony payment, that having received none would proceed to file for same. I answered, stating our agreement and heard nothing more thence forward.

While painting a window sign for a realtor, Orville Noel, he suggested I work through him at least part time in real estate sales and rentals. I finally made it full time and did fairly well, not making any more but it was a higher class job.

Deve was still working at Wards and we were rooming together. Our landlady Ann Montgomery, was a vivacious comely widow with a ten year old son.

At this point I quit Noel, rented a vacant second story in the center of town and set up a real estate office of my own. I joined the Real Estate Board and did better, at least living better. Deve and I fixed up living quarters on the same floor and there we both lived.

The real estate business at that time was very difficult, especially starting out on one's own. First a good sale, perhaps a few rentals and then a famine but Deve's income

After a short time perhaps six months, our building wherein we had our quarters, was sold to make way for a big five and dime store. I had been dating Ann for several months and we were married in 1936. Ann was good to Ellen who often sneaked down with her date to see us.

I then went in partners with Clay Blackburn, an old real estate man and builder. We had a nice office on the ground floor on Scott Street across from the Post Office. We built a couple of homes and did fairly well.

Clay Blackburn was a typical Southerner on the type of Lyndon Johnson, pious, ruthless in business, and sharp. Not overly honest, he walked in measured strides like a man of the cloth solemnly leading a casket at the funeral. Quite a philosopher too.

I knew what he was when I joined him, hoping to profit by his vast experience. He had many enemies who refused to deal with him. I once had a customer who liked me but who would have nothing to do with Clay. I needed help in a legal matter with this man and went to Clay who gladly supplied the information. He then asked,

"Cliff, why didn't this customer of yours come to me in the first place?"

"If you want an honest answer," I said, "He is afraid of doing business with you."

" Thats strange", said he, "I never did that man a favor in my life".

She was a highly educated woman and had worked for Ann Morgan, the daughter of J.P. Morgan. Ann Morgan was claimed to be the wealthiest woman in America and Edna O'Hara had been her adviser on investments. I never knew why they separated but I do know that she had very wealthy clients, such as Vondersmith, who owned the gas and electric company including the street car lines in Northern Kentucky. I had heard her address herself as a wet nurse for sick industries and had to laugh to myself as she did not have the physical equipment to even dry nurse sick industries. But she was serious, never more than a faint smile.

It is beyond our comprehension to understand how events mesh like a cog to determine our destiny. One event, one contact follows the other in sequence. Thus the book of life is written.

Miss O'Hara had a client, Gene Rogers who was a promotor and inventor who had a laboratory in Cincinatti. He was a brilliant man, a genius and a liar. He had retired after making fortunes three or four times. He was now, it seemed to me, an old man, a product of New York wealth and aristocracy. From his stories, I surmised he was the black sheep of an

Rogers was a feisty little old fellow never tiring, the eternal optimist. He had invented the automatic photograph booth that was common in all railroad stations and bars, selling out to Eastman Kodak for a fortune.

His latest failure was a toy factory in Baltimore where he had gone bankrupt which made it difficult for him to get finances for his several schemes and projects. He had located in the Cincinatti-Dayton area because advance money here was purported to be available for new products and new ideas.

And he had plenty of new ideas. A new type motor, polishing machine, a new waterproof formula for extending the life of asphalt roads and others that I fail to recall.

Rogers had one handicap and that was deafness. Just like my father he was too proud to wear a hearing aid. He was in our office quite often and liked to talk to me because I had good enunciation. I never talked loud to him and he marveled how he could understand me so well. Miss O'Hara spoke so softly that he often asked me to sit in and relay an answer or statement.

It finally developed that he would come in and talk to me alone and I figured that he had a purpose and it turned out that I was right. He finally came to the point and asked me to join him in his work and of course painted a rosy picture. Success was just around the corner and he promised

I talked it over with Ann and she was not overly impressed. I was not making much but she envisioned a complete shut off of income and she was nearly right. Too, I had been working extra at Mabley Carew Department Store, men's department every holiday season and sales events at 5O cents an hour, a living wage in those days of 1935-1936-1937.

Ann had bought a new Chev in 1936 but I drove my old clonker in my business. I took Mr. Rogers up to the house to talk to her about my contemplated change. He gave her such a sales talk, damned if she didn't offer him the use of the new car (now a year old) and suggested he move from his hotel to room at our house. Roger's wife was living in New York and he had promised to send for her as soon as he had a solid connection in Cincinatti. It was a full year later before she finally came west.

From 1937 throughout 1942 I was Gene Rogers' constant companion and ears. His hearing had grown worse. As for

But it was certainly a different life and success was always "around the corner". I liked the work shop where we worked together on a dozen different projects hoping for just one to click. We had many more contacts in Dayton than in Cincinatti and for weeks, we would drive up every day. We had one deal with some Miamisburg inventors that lasted over a year that finally materialized, but not until we went through a lot of privation and disappointments.

But before the Miamisburg project, an inventor, Richard Butts had contacted us to help in a new concept ot milk cooling for dairies. He was broke like every inventor but he was a young genius. Re was also an alcoholic. Like Rogers, he was an incredible liar. He was fat and affable.

We wanted Butts because he was a draftsman, toolmaker, pattern maker and molder who knew all the mechanical tricks. But he would get on one of these drunks that would last for two weeks. He would get so stoned that it would take another week to sober him up, that is if we could find him. We found out that General Motors in Detroit had canned him. But he was smart that would do us a lot of good if we could keep him in shape at least half the time.

So Rogers gave me the job of keeping Butts in line and I was his constant companion. I was not a teetotaler but I could not imbibe in much whiskey. He drank it like water, starting out with good scotch and ending up with rot-gut and red-eye.

Incidentally, after we became separated, he sold the patent in Chicago for $5000. Several years later, he told me that he owed me for half interest but I heard no more about it. I figured that I owed him that much for teaching me tool making.

We leased a large brick factory building in Miamisburg, installed machinery and started out with a lot of government contracts as was was looming. Rogers, Butts and I were the VIP'S with quite a payroll and the company was off to a good start.

During the Worlds Fair Rogers and I drove to New York on business. We stopped in Washington to talk with an investor, Mr. Overholt, who was promised that the name of our factory would be "Overholt Mfg Co". This pleased him and he subscribed a goodly mount.

We stopped in Baltimore and stopped at the former toy factory in which Rogers had failed. A picture comes to my mind of us driving through the narrow streets of Baltimore. The old brick apartments or tenements were built up to the sidewalks, each building having beautiful marble steps leading to the front door. This was Saturday morning and at each step

Then from Annapolis and the navy yard we were ferried across Chesapeak Bay to Delaware. Dover, the state capital, seemed more like a county seat of our west.

Then a stop in Philadelphia where Rogers had more connec- tions. I spent the day looking over the historic sites just a couple of blocks away from our hotel. From Philadelphia we followed the first double four lane highway that I ever saw into New York City stopping about midnight at the Old Grand Hotel. Here Rogers had many calls to make leaving me to spend one day at the fair another day to spend walking from the old Astor House down through Greenwich Village, Wall Street and the Battery.

I was reminded of the strange fellow in the city, just like me who wanted to see the 42nd Street ferry. He asked a fellow who might know. "Can you direct me to the 42nd Street ferry?"

"Thpeaking", he replied.

I spent the second day at the fair. I remember mostly a demonstration of television and the displays of foreign inventions also the Czech pavilion with its bright young men in charge. Note, that was years before the Russian, Czech invasion of

Finally, Mrs. Rogers came from New York and Mrs Butts arrived from Flint, Michigan. Mrs. Rogers spent a lot of time with Ann down in Covington.

In our operations at Miamisburg we did real well but with success, jealousies arose as new people joined us and as we grew. Butts became somewhat easier to handle because he was too busy to play. Too, when his wife arrived, she handled Dick as well as I, which suited me fine. Her brother came down and coveted my job and I noted a coolness between Butts, Rogers and me. Butts was inexpendable as he was the man of "know how" and walking the straight and narrow.

Just at this time Rogers had a fatal heart attack. The pressure was too much for a man of his age. It was time for me to make a change and direct our involvement in the war was getting closer. I had no car but had just borrowed Butt's new La Salle to go to Brookville to attend the funeral of Raymond Nutty.

I moved to Dayton, nearby, and got a job at once with the McCauley Steel Propeller Co. through one of our smaller investors. I went right into the tool room and was fortunate to have a good tool man beside me. He was in charge and took a liking to me but I had been well trained and I held my end

After working in the tool room about months Mr. McCauley asked if I would take a job making profile patterns to use on the profile machine that was supposed to make a no tolerance curve in the blades. It was dirty, grinding work with more money but I was not too happy - same thing day in and day out, precision work.

At this time I had bought a new Nash and I made more frequent visits to Dad's place in Blooming Grove where he had retired from the furniture business in Brookville. I bought a repossessed house from a Building and Loan Association with a small down payment. Someone had lost the property, a result of the great depression.

Annabel had married Duane Applegate Dec 1938, Ellen had graduated from high school but was too much like her Dad to study seriously. She figured school rules were made to be broken. She later vindicated herself by surpassing everyone scholarship-wise. She came to Dayton to Miami Jacobs Business College where she graduated (1939)?

Annabel and Duane came to Dayton the first year of their marriage but I was "Cliff" not "Daddy". She was much closer to her mother than to me but now calls me "Daddy" or "Harvey". Ellen never deviated from her affections for me. I think that Annabel always loved me but called me "Cliff" to please her mother.

Incidentaly, through those years Esther did not seem so bitter but in later years she grew to hate my "guts". I love both of my girls and hold no animosity toward Esther or any person on this earth, in Heaven or Hell.

Shortly after our mothers death in 1929, Dad went to the Connersville Hospital for a gall bladder operation. He soon married his nurse, Gail Lee, and they lived a life of turbulence mired with time off for procreative activities. To this union was born Patricia, Pegge, David and Joan. Joan, my half sister was 44 years younger than I.

In 194O (?) he semi-retired, bought the Doc Waggoner farm west of Blooming Grove and started raising chickens. Annabels husband, Duane Applegate with Esther had bought the furniture store. Then Dad who had prospered beyond belief, bought the Ludwig farm. He later sold these farms and bought a large farm in about 1942 near New Paris, Ohio near the outskirts of Richmond, Indiana. He had extra cash on hand and asked to buy my indebtedness on my house because it was paying 6%. I had no objection and the deal was made. It made no difference to me who held the mortgage and he was happy.

At the McCauley Steel Propeller Co, I was still grinding patterns when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I discovered that I had been grossly underpaid for that type of work and asked for more pay which was refused. This came at about the same time the govemment "froze" wages and set up a board to

So, I quit.

McCauley was incensed and tried to bully me back to work, threatening to have me before the "board". I plainly told him to "go to Hell". He did not go to Hell but he did go before the board and after I had stated my case, he was ordered to make a fair deal with me. By this time, I was so disgusted with him that I told him that he could still "go to Hell" as far as I was concerned.

I made application for a creative job at the Inland Mfg Co. They hired me at once as a model builder in the Engineering Department.

Here, I was happy and in my element.

Mccauley wrote me a letter of apology, offering to double my salary, explaining that he had found it impossible to get anyone to do the job.

I ignored the letter as I was drawing about the same as he offered.

The Inland Mfg Co is a subsidiary of General Motors. At the head of the engineering department was George Hunt, inventor of the disc clutch who was one ot the finest men I ever worked with. He was also an old race track driver.

Inland was the rubber division of General Motors making bushings, bumpers, gaskets also the clutches and other smaller parts. Many plastic parts were also made there in the Dayton factory.

As I was the only wood pattern maker in the engineering division, it became my problem. I carved out by hand, perhaps a hundred. As soon as I had finished each pattern, it was molded, put on the breaking machine and ruined to find the weakest spots. It finally developed into an exact replica of the walnut stock in strength and "feel". The outside was covered with flocking to guard against heat and cold.

Another one of my jobs was to bend tubing to attach to bombs. These had to be designed to break at the right point. I personally made a lot of these to be tested by dropping from an aeroplane on a hard surface.

That winter Lake Erie had frozen over and the bombs were dropped on the ice, then returned to us for further engineering.

I spent a lot of time too on the rubber tread of an army tank. It was made in the design of a camels foot to be used on the desert of Africa. I am told that it was the best ever.

During this time, Eula had been having trouble with Ralph and his drinking problem. She had for years been a telephone operator but wanted to get away from Ralph and Brookville.

So I went to Brookville and moved her and part of her

Here, gathered the same crowd every noon and it became a big "family". Ethel Hanlon, the owner, was a portly woman, good natured, middle aged and a hard worker. She was un- educated but made up the deficiency by generosity and a happy attitude. The dozen men in our department made Ethels' place our regular noon luncheon place.

Eula also went there generally accompanied by her new friend Peg Arnold who had taken a liking to her. Peg worked in the guage room across the hall from our experimental engineering department. I had known Peg only as a nodding acquaintance.

Peg (Alice) Arnold was a tall comely looking girl who walked in a regal air and was the personification of class. She had style and poise and was reserved in her manner. She seemed to be more like a dress model than a checker of guages in a factory. She liked Eula and they always ate together.

Eula had become overweight. Her hair-do was old fashioned. Peg took her in tow and made more of a glamor girl out of her with stylish clothes. They spent quite a bit of time at our house and we had music, Peg with her ukee and me with my new piano. We found out then about Peg having been a stage entertainer.

But she seemed to be deeply troubled or terribly disappointed

My job at Inland was ideal and profitable. We had many gab sessions and much needling. They liked my story telling- tales of my former farm neighbors, especially about Squire Updike, his wife and hired man Omer Meyers. If things got dull around the shop, someone was sure to approach me with, "Tell us another story about Squire Updike.' In fact they gave me the name of "Squire".

Squire was a big fat fellow, full of his own importance who, when he talked, it was with a grunt to every word as if he was in a strain lifting a heavy weight from the floor. I was quite proficient in aping him and his grunt from the lower belly. The boys seemed to picture him vividly and always asked for more about him. It got to the point where, to satisfy them, I had to use a little fiction which served the purpose well. Sometimes I aped Squire during a conversation which always drew a laugh.

Squire was a horse trader and livestock dealer and had become quite wealthy. He and his little wife Ora had no children but it was common knowledge that Omer Meyer, his right hand man his heir apparent. Then too, it was said that Ora was in love with Omer. The story was substantiated by the tact that Ora fell out or the hay mow while hunting eggs with Omer and broke a leg.

Everyone smiled. Why would anyone smile because of a broken leg of a prissy little woman?

I needed a milk cow and Squire showed me his herd in the field and told me to pick one out. Of course I picked out the slickest, fattest heifer and asked if she was for sale.

"You don't want her" he grunted.

"Why not?", I asked.

"She's an old whore.

He meant that couldn't get with calf no matter how many "affairs" she had with the "gentlemen cow" (as one Dutchman called his bull to a sophisticated lady).

As mentioned before, I had worked by the month for Will Golden preparing myself to farming a Smith farm before marry- ing Esther. This farm was close to Squire's. Now Squire was like an old wash woman when it came to gossip. He asked me confidentially about my relations with the (old maid) Golden girls and ended the quirey by asking about Edna.

"Cliff", he asked confidentially, "Did you ever fuck her?"

I might add that I had not, my life here to fore having been as clean and pure as the fresh driven snow. I cannot say the same about Omer as he had told me also confidentially with a touch pride that he had invaded that "holy" domain. He was quite a man of the countryside.

Omer, while taking Edna Dorrel out for a buggy ride "naturally" put his hand on her leg. Now she had just recently been "saved and "born again",

"Don't do that, Omer. Somebody is looking", she said.

He looked around at her as she pointed to the sky.

Omer told that story on himself and I am sure that Squire knew about it as he delighted in such talk.

At this time I became interested in the organization of a chapter of the S.P.E.B.Q.S.A. This was a four part harmony singing group out of which grew male quartets. This Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America became an international society in 1942. The Dayton Chapter was organized at that time. We, at the Inland, organized the Inland Quartet. We had a fairly good quartet and spent many evenings rehearsing to the delight of Eula and Peg when we met at our house on Grimes Street.

Peg lived with her father and older brother in North Dayton. She had been the second of six children. Her mother died when she was eleven but Rolland Arnold kept the family together but ruled with an iron hand and Peg was mother to the brood. They had it tough during the depression the father, a leather worker being the only source of income. When she became older she got employment in a milliner's store where she became acquainted with glamorous people and adopted glamorous habits and goals.

Peg had a short, unhappy marriage and learned to her sorrow that she had been mercilessly duped. The shock must nearly hare killed her as she showed it in her manner and appearance.

At that time I had been studying meta-physical healing having become adept at mental and so called magnetic healing. Eula, while in Brookville had been under a doctors care for a blood clot on her leg agreed that I should come to her house for a treatment. She was warned that it would have to be removed gradually or else it could be serious.

At the shop I had often stopped the pain of a mashed finger or headaches with success but this was something different but I knew that it could be healed. As I laid my hands on the calf of her leg, the spot became red with a white circle around it. In a few minutes it cleared up and as far as we knew, it was gone.

The next day she went to her doctor for an examination, not telling him of my treatment.

"What have you done Mrs. Gulley? Your blood clot is gone. It has been a miracle."

Little did he know that it was not a miracle, but a mystery.

I said, "Peg, what would happen if you failed to take your sleeping tablets?"

"I would lie and toss all night, unable to come to work the next morning."

I asked, "Would you follow my instructions to get a good night's sleep without the pills?"

"I surely would", she said.

"What time do you ordinarily go to bed?" I asked.

"Eleven o'clock".

"Alright", I said, "at eleven sharp, not a minute sooner or later, lie on your back and close your eyes and I will assure you a good nights rest." We then set our watches to the same time, sharp.

Nearing her bedtime that night she told her father and brother that she had to be in bed at eleven sharp and that some guy at the Inland was going to put her to sleep. They laughed.

The next day at noon, Peg did not show up and I wondered what could be the trouble. But the next day at noon she greeted me with one of her wide grins and could hardly wait to tell me of her experience.

She had slept through that night and never awoke until

Then when Eula moved to Dayton and was often with Peg I became better acquainted with Peg but never dated her. She was always with Eula when we went out.

I received a letter from Ann stating that she would like a divorce if I would pay for it. I sent her the money. When she went to her attorney, he asked her on what grounds she would like to file. Besides "desertion" she mentioned that I had been dabbling in Spiritualism and wierd healing.

"Don't mention 'Spiritualism' and healing or the Court will deem him crazy and you will never get a divorce," the lawyer told her.

She had no trouble getting the divorce and after learning that I would be at a seven day conference in Columbus,Ohio, she drove to Columbus and delivered the divorce papers in person.

Then she spent the night with me. So you see, all was not bitterness. That was the last I saw of her for thirty years.

In the summer of 1944, Peg's brother Buck finally married a Catholic girl in Cincinatti and they started living at the same house in which Peg and her father lived. Ruth was much younger than Buck. Her parents even though Catholic encouraged the match as Buck had been prospering with two partners in their own business. So mamma arranged with the priest for a special despensation to have a big wedding in the Church.

And a big wedding it was. As it was told to me, mamma, after the wedding insisted that Peg and her father leave the house for other quarters.

Peg had spent her money and time in decorating the home and was heart-broken again. Her father rented a room near-by but Peg had no place to go, besides, she insisted, what about her interest in the home? She poured out her story to Eula and me. We told her she could stay with us until she got a location.

The only time I had been with Peg alone was the evening that I drove her to the house when no one was at home and hauled her clothing to our house where Eula shared her room with her.

Peg loved to go with Eula and me to our Dads farm at New Paris. Dad had a riding horse that she liked. She enjoyed my half sisters that were then quite small.

On another occasion I drove Peg to see Buck and Ruth. I stayed in the car and waited for her, having never met Ruth, Buck or her father. When she came out we drove out in the country where I stopped the car and we had a long talk. It was then I proposed to her promising her the moon.

She accepted.

"Surely", she told me, "you are so kind to Eula you would be the same to me.

We told no one about it at first. I asked Eula what she would think if I proposed to Peg. She shook her head and said Peg would never marry me as she was too sophisticated for such as I.

I smiled up my sleeve.

I had occasion to go alone to New Paris to see Dad on some business and at the supper table I announced that Peg and I were to get married. To my surprise Gail hit the roof and made a scene.

"Why you can't even keep her in finger nail polish" she stormed. It later developed that she was secretly in love with me.

But Dad was pleased as he liked Peg very much.

My mother was Selma Crabtree, a woman of exceptional strength, warmth, and moral sense. She never married and with virtually no financial help from anyone, especially my father, raised my sister and me during the great depression. She worked in a factory as a punch press operator for all of our growing-up years, often six days a week. We lived in two rooms in a rented house with no hot water and for the early years no gas heat, using coal to heat the rooms in winter and kerosene for cooking. Sunday was laundry day, when my mother would wash all of our clothes by hand in the bathtub using water heated on the stove top and staying up late Sunday night ironing our clothes for school. And yet through all of that and for all of those years, she had time to play with us and in every way demonstrate her love and dedication to us.

This was the woman Cliff Roberts wrote of as a "low woman" on page 174. God bless her.

Roberts,Liza 7
Roberts,Lucinda 7
Roberts,Milford(Coats) 9,14,21,23,27,34,35,92,102,126,138,166
Roberts,Patricia 185
Roberts,Patricia Jean 175
Roberts,Peggy 185
Roberts,Roy E. 7,8,14,16,25-27,42,68,129,130,138
Roberts,Roy M.(Abe) 16,21,102,113,126,138,166
Rockefeller,IN 163
Rogers,Gene 177-183
Rose 23
Rosebud,TX 1
Rosenburger 103
Rusterholtz,Bill 87
Rusterholtz,Ed 87
Rusterholtz,Fritz 87

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S.P.E.B.Q.S.A. 191
Salb 63,64
San Diego,CA 7
Schlechtweg 72
Schmidt,Henry 105
Schmidt,Roman 87
Schmidt,Theresa 87

Smith,Harry 111,122-133
Smith,Herbert(Kickero) 75,122,126,143,165
Smith,Martha 111,117
Smith,Nelson 117,120
Smith,Walter 123,142,143,165,168
Spenny,Murry 148,149
Stegner 44
Stenger,Art 154
Stenger,Vic 154
Stephenson,D.C. 161
Stetzel,Raymond 18
Stinger,Bob 148
Stinger,Leonard 148
Stock,Emma 87,90,91
Stoltz,Marie 52
Stoops 171
Swan,Susie 52
Swift,Bertha 52
Swift,Ethel 77
Swift,Grace 77
Swift,John Ash 36
Swift,John Tuck 58
Swift,Theodore 77

Waggoner,Mary Elizabeth 4,5,166
Waggoner,Mayme 22,73
Waggoner,Noah 26
Waggoner,Ralph 69,70
Waggoner,Simeon 4,21,68-73
Waggoner,William Dora 4,21,69
Waldron,IN 151
Wallace,Dr. 120
Wallbanger,Harvey 1
Ward,Dr. 129
Washstadt 16
Watson 13
Whitcamper 8
Whitcomb,IN 149
White,Alex 80
White,Emerson 79
White,Kate 80
White,Mel 80
White,Will 80
Whitman 33
Wiley High School 72
Wilson,Arline 52
Wilson,John 54
Wilson,Lucy 52
Winans,Ben 58