But some of the life style that my mother’s family endured, I can relate to as a child living in Georgetown Mass. An outhouse, no central heat,only one sink with a pump handle. The sink drained into a dry well right outside and was always a muddy spot. Just to name a few.
The following excerpts were written by Ralph Hartley a journalist for the “North East Breeze” This was a weekly paper with mostly local color as its format. The stories took place in and around Little Hope, Pennsylvania, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s
Northeast Breeze is a newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA covering local news, sports, business, jobs, and community events.
In December 2008, the Journal Register Company shut down the Northeast Breeze, both in print and online. The Northeast Breeze had been published weekly. Publisher J. Wesley Rowe Jr. cited the struggling economy and an unsuccessful attempt by the company to sell the newspaper as the reasons for the shut down
Old Days in North East by Ralph Hartley
A Vacant House
Seventy years have passed since the Thorntons moved from the old house on Wilson Road. It is now vacant, waiting to be demolished. For a time after Hi moved out the house was rented but rent was hard to collect so the dwelling was sold to Burdette Sweet. Burdette in due course sold to the Charles Lewis family, and it has remained in the Lewis hands until the present.
Of the 10 children who grew to maturity, best known was Burton who served Greenfield Township for several decades as supervisor and as road maintenance chief.
Ethel was an elementary teacher for 30 or more years, well liked where ever she taught. Lee, who looked after the family after Hiram died, got work at the General Electric in 1923 and was long time employee until he retired some years ago.
Beatrice married Emory Luke. Burlan moved to Lawrence Park. All did well. He and Mary had to time for frivolities, but they made sure their children were raised in the way they should go. Sundays were spent in church and Sunday School, with no fun and games. Hiram was a teacher in Sunday School.
Reading was permitted on Sunday, and there was a family library consisting of boys’ and girls’ books on religion, certain classics such as Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans, a few Alger books, a large family medical book (which saw a lot of use), history books, essay books, the Century Book of Facts published about 1900, and other books of miscellaneous nature. No book was ever thrown away and over the years an accumulation of several shelves was made.
Hiram served several terms on the Greenfield Board of Education. Next to Vern Raymond he was likely the best known in Greenfield.
The family was not without fun. They had a checkerboard, and played a type of card game called Flinch, and doubtless games of hide-and-seek, etc. For many years there were no musical instruments, but in late years, around 1917, Hi got a gramophone. It was the kind that had a brass hom and cylindrical records. This livened things a good deal.
While the kids did not get to the circus in Erie, there was the annual visit of Chief Rolling Thunder and his medicine show which set up a tent at Little Hope each summer. The Chief wore a headdress of feathers and buckskins. Hs tents were set along French Creek, and you could imagine that there were once again Indians living along French Creek.
Doc Finn kept them under his eye and was present at all their births for which his total bill was $65. He had lived just east on Finn Road. There does not seem to have been much sickness. Lee does not recall his mother ever being sick except in 1918 with the prevalent influenza. All recovered.
Mary had no time to be sick what with cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing, mending, sewing, canning, and supervising her brood. She canned more than 200 cans of fruit, vegetables, jams, jellies, etc.
The Thornton’s never made ice cream, so far as Lee remembers. But Vern Raymond’s store sold It and when they had a nickel they would go to the store on a hot summer day for a “treat”.
And when the home library needed spicier reading, Lee could visit Del Johnson and take home a few books on Buffalo Bill and other heroes. Del had quite a collection of adventure books, among others.
Lee was only 16 when he left Little Hope’s Wilson Road. He had made syrup in Yost’s woods to help the family breakfasts. He says it amounted to over 10 gallons a year, boiled on weekends in late winter.
` He learned to ride horses bareback and did a great many things that boys might like to do today. These 10 children living in an unheated upstairs (sometimes the living room door was left open on cold nights) with minimal luxuries, nevertheless remember the old frame dwelling fondly.
Dave Thornton and Mary Lou are cousins, being descended from Anson Thornton, Lee’s uncle. Amelia Ward and Alice Beeman were his aunts, as was Ada Crabb. Other children of Buel were Emma, John, and Jesse.
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