Lynne O. Ramer's "Stories and Sagas" of Reedsville, Mifflin County 100 Years Ago

Between 1959 and 1971 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote hundreds of letters to his hometown newspaper which were published by Ben Meyers in his We Notice That column.

Lynne O. Ramer, age six

Today I am sharing Gramp's memories of a hundred years ago in which he recalls people and places in and around Reedsville, PA. I have added information about the people mentioned in the article wherever possible.

*****

August 1, 1960

We Notice That
By Ben Meyers
The Heights       Phone 8-8430

‘Twont Be Yours Again
Hustle this moment to yourself and hold it close,
and warm it with your flesh.
But do not spoil the new and uncut cloth of time
Around yourself, enhancing you.
Turn it gently, fit it, give it shape
And do not overstrain the weave.
You want it perfect, strong, unmended, whole.
It won’t be yours again.

Dear Ben: No, it won’t be ours again, to recall the memories of those olden, golden days back in Mifflin County. So I’ll include a few more for the sake of your readers who like to linger in memory’s lane.

He has passed to his reward, but Hyman Cohen* often recalled the time when it was my privilege as Boy Scout counsel or to initiate him into the mysteries of frying eggs on a heated rock, then making them the basis for a grand outdoors meal.

Also he leaned how to mix water and flour and wrap it round a stick and bake his own bread. And eat it amid the glories and wonders which Mother Nature so lavishly furnished.

I still remember those days. Also how I used to attend Mr. Cohen’s theatre, the Embassy, also the Rialto, long ago in the silent movie days.

If Jimmy Mann* were here, he would recall all the series of boy’s books I borrowed from his library.  Also the pheasant-on-toast I once dined upon at his folks’ table. (Haven’t had any since either!) Jimmy’s books were the beginning of a liberal education for me: Rover Boys, Rocky Mountain Boys, Motorboat Boys, mentioning just a few.

Of course “Boozer” (Lester Charles) Bobb* of Valley St. and I used to hide the contraband books such as Jesse James, Liberty Boys of ’76, A-One Books of Hobo Life, etc., in the barn and read them where Nammie [pet name for his grandmother Rachel Barbara Reed Ramer] wouldn’t catch us. And we got them all from old “Al” Nale*, Civil War veteran, Milroy’s last member of the GAR.

If Jim Young, my Reedsville pal*, is around, tell him I remember his dad’s bakery with its luscious pastries. Also how I almost broke my hip, slamming into a tree on Young’s Hills and how his mother massaged my bruised hip. And was I ever embarrassed at the age of ten!

Frank Barr would remember the time when he advanced threateningly to the front of Reedsville seventh grade room where the teacher, Mr. Manwiller, was chasing his girl friend, Hazel Shupe*.
At the instant Frank arrived up front, with clenched fists, Charles Hilbish*, principal, stepped in. Now wasn’t that a tableau! And we were all so disappointed, for we thought it would be a feast of fists---Barr vs. Manwiller.  But it all vanished into nothing.

Lynne O. Ramer, left, in his first long pants at age 15

purchased by his Uncle Charles Smithers in 1919

Stories and Sagas

Stories and sagas about the Rev. A. H. Spangler*, Lutheran divine of Yeagertown-Reedsville-Alfarata in the first decades of the present century, are legion and probably growing in numbers.
Thus, like Lincoln, if Mr. Spangler lived all the events he is reputed to have experienced, he’d have to be living still. And in the memories of many former parishioners, he probably is.

It’s well known that he outlived two wives and was married to a third. His jovial companions oft queried, “When will you make it a home run,” that is, “outlive a third and a fourth wife?”

This story about the Rev. Mr. Spangler comes from Mrs. Maude Ramer*, 7 Linn St., Harrisburg.  [Editor’s note: LOR wrote “Lives in Drexel Hill, PA (1965)”]

It seems the clergyman and Harry W. Ramer*, first principal of the now absorbed Burnham High School, were very good friends. At one time Dr. Spangler was sick and his family doctor prescribed pills and whiskey. At some banquet which Harry attended Dr. Spangler spoke thus: “I am glad to be here. I have been sick, in fact, sick enough to die. If I had died it would have been too bad because Mrs. Spangler here (seated beside him) waited so long and wanted to make home rum.

“But now I have recovered due, I believe, to the fact that when the doctor inquired about my progress in taking the prescribed medicines, I was able to tell him, ‘Although I might be a day or two behind on the pills, I’m several days ahead on the whiskey!”

This apparently was said at a public gathering and is typical Spanglersque. I would not detract one whit or one iota from his revered memory, but thought you’d like to hear this bit of folklore.

I sat in the pews of Dr. Spangler’s church in Reedsville during 1913-15 and preached my very first sermon (a horrible thing, if I must say so) in the pulpits he once graced—Yeagertown and Alfarata.  That was back in 1925 when I was still a seminarian at Susquehanna University.

The time draweth nigh when a bus load of 50 PA Dutchmen invade the Motor City en route to the famed Wisconsin “Dells” from the Harrisburg-York-Hanover area. John L. Getz*, now of York’s Hannah-Penn Junior High School faculty, will be the leader. He’s my former fellow teacher-neighbor from Kane. A Michigander spots a Pennsylvanian for the latter always refers to his home state as PA.

     Sincerely,
     Lynne O. Ramer
     514 Gardenia Ave.,
     Royal Oak, Mich.

[Editor’s note: LOR wrote: “Dr. Spangler was once president of the “S.U.’s board” and “Lottie: I wrote this right after a trip ‘home.’ This is the last year I met you and Kep! (No! 1962!)” My grandfather often sent the articles to friends, who returned them. This clipping must have been forwarded it to Lottie to read.]

*****
Notes:
* Hyman Julius Cohen (b. 1878 in Lithuania, d. 1952) appears on the census with his wife Lena and their children Harold, Miriam, Wilton, Miles, Isabella, Solomon and Samuel. In 1910 and 1920 he owned a clothing store. In 1940 his occupation was listed as Real Estate. The 1930 census shows his son Harold D. was a theater manager. The City Directory of 1929 shows the family owned the Embassy Theater at 380 S. Main in Lewistown.

* Jimmy Mann appears in the records as James Hutchinson Mann (b. 1900) to Walter Mann and
Mary A. The 1920 Brown Twsp, Mifflin Co. Census shows Walter manufactured lumber. Lynne's grand-father Joseph S. Ramer had operated a saw mill. In 1930 James was an office clerk living with his uncle Percy G. Mann.

*Lester Charles Bobb (1895-1981)was Lynne's cousin, the son of his mother's sister Carrie Viola Ramer Bobb. After the death of Lynne's mother Esther Mae Ramer, he and "Boozer" were staying with their grandmother Barbara Rachel Reed Ramer when she died. Lynne then lived with his Aunt Carrie or Aunt Annie Ramer Smithers.

* Albert Weidman Nale (1844-1932) See more at Find A Grave here.

*The James Youngs I found, of which there are several generations by that name in a Reedsville
family, did not have an occupation of running a bakery on the census.

*The 1910 Brown Twsp, Armagh County, PA census shows Hazel Shupe/Shoop 9b 29015, d 1998) was the daughter of William P. Shupe and Edith G. She had siblings Andrew C., and Rebecca. William was an axe polisher in an axe factory. The 1920 census shows Hazel was a department store clerk.

*Charles Edgar Hilbush was a 1909 Bucknell University graduate from Northumberland. The 1910 Census in Northumberland shows him living at home, working with his father in real estate at age 25, with parents John and Melissa and siblings John and Sara. A WWII draft card show Charles, age 57, was the Sunbury County Superintendent.

*The Reverend Alexander Hamilton Spangler appears on the 1900 Derry Township Census with his wife Cynthia and their sons Thaddeus and Luther who both worked in the steel mill.
Find A Grave has his obituary of Feb. 21, 1924 published in the Lewistown Sentinel:

Rev. Spangler was born near Shanksville, a son of Daniel & Sophia (Myers) Spangler. After being educated in the local public schools he attended Wooster University in Ohio, graduating in 1873.
He began the study of law in New Bloomfield, Perry Co. and was admitted to the bar at Johnstown. In 1885 he entered Union Theological Seminary and graduated three years later. He served as pastor of the Lutheran congregations at New Bloomfield, Middleburg, Port Royal, Braddock, Yeagertown, Reedsville & Alfarata.

He was married to Cynthis Penrod in 1874. They had three sons, H. Kelly, L. Stoy & Thaddeus S., all of whom survive. [In 1920 the census shows his second wife Catherine.]

Rev. Spangler was vice president of the Saxton Coal Co., director of Saxton Vitrified Brick Co., Russell National Bank, Burnside YMCA (also 1st vice president), Gettysburg College Theological Seminary & Burnham Medicine Co., member of the board of trustees of Susquehanna University & Tressler Orphans' Home (president of the board), member of the State Democratic Committee, Masonic Lodge at Mifflintown and the Harrisburg Consistory, grand chaplain of the Masonic Order of Pennsylvania, etc.

*Harry Webster Ramer was a distant cousin of my grandfather. His wife and gramp's pen pal was Maude Shannon Ramer. Their son George Henry Ramer died in the Korean War.

*Teacher John Lewis Getz (1898-1970) appears on the 1930 Kane, PA Census and the York, PA 1940 Census with his family: wife Goldie and children John, Donald, and Richard.

"What Sad Creatures We Humans Are"

Nancy and Gary in Darby Parsonage

As progressive liberal Christians who wanted to make a difference, what better place to serve than in the city? We loved the culture, the restaurants, and the history of Philadelphia and did not want to be in some small town or rural church. So when Gary was offered a pastorate at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Darby, PA, just outside the West Philadelphia city line, he accepted.

Mt. Zion UM Church and parsonage. The parsonage was on the
left side where the enclosed porch is.

We were at a disadvantage having transferred into the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. We knew nothing about the churches. No one warned Gary that two pastors had turned down an appointment to Mt. Zion. One pastor later referred to Darby as 'the armpit of Delaware County!'

The church was established by 1836, the parsonage and church dating to around 1900.The parsonage was nestled up to the church with just a cement alley separating the buildings. There was a small patch of grass between the parsonage and the sidewalk and street.

Roasting marshmallows at the fireplace. Nasturtium loved laying in front of the fire. 

It was a large house with deep-set windows, an eat-in kitchen with a pink refrigerator (that broke twice before it was replaced), a formal dining room (that came with a silver plate coffee set used at church functions), a living room with a fireplace, an enclosed sunroom, and three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. The basement laundry area included a working 1930s gas stove and a cedar lined closet. There was no air conditioning. Gary's office was in the parsonage, situated between the house and church over the open alley below.

Gary's home office

The house was so close to the church that many a morning as Gary and I sat at the dining room table eating breakfast in our PJs and robes, Ed Messick would stop at the open window to chat before he went into the church. There was a marked lack of privacy!

Woodland Ave. is one of the oldest roads in America, originally an Indian trail; it became The King's Highway in 1696. It begins at 43rd St in West Philly and runs to the Cobbs Creek Parkway; at the city limit it makes a dog's leg turn to become Main St, where the church was located. At the intersection, several roads led north to Upper Darby and south into the suburbs.

Downtown Darby in 1980, photo by Gary

Darby had been settled by Dutch Quakers, the Meeting House a block away dating to 1682, and was an important stop between Philadelphia and Chester. Many years later I learned that one of my distant ancestor cousins had stopped there while traveling and was married in that church. Darby was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Friends Meeting House was a few blocks away. Photo by Gary.

The library was established in 1743, one of the oldest in America. We were a few blocks from a Colonial-era houses and the 18th c Blue Bell Inn, and down Woodland was early American naturalist John Bartram's home and gardens. Darby Creek was a few blocks away.

The trolley Darby stop--before our time.

A trolley ran down the street day and night, picking up speed as it left the trolley stop on the other side of the church. The trolley line dated to 1858 when horses pulled the cars. The bus stop was across from the trolley stop.

Next to the church was a drug store and apartments, with the trolley stop on it's right.

A drug store was next door to the church; the National Bar was kitty corner at Ninth and Main.  W. C. Fields had been born either at the National when it was the Buttonwood Hotel, or at the Arlington House a block away.

The National Bar was on the corner across from the bus and trolley stops

Across the street from the parsonage was an empty lot, and another was next to the driveway that ran along the parsonage to an ancient garage situated behind the church. A corner store was on the other side of that empty lot.

It was brutally hot when we moved in and there was no air conditioning. I unpacked in shorts and bare feet. The previous pastoral family had several dogs. The rug stunk of urine and was infested with fleas. I had red bite marks all up my legs by the end of the day. The church scheduled the services of both an exterminator and a rug cleaner.

There was a matted acrylic shag carpet and 1950s drapes in tatters. I offered to sew new pinch pleat drapes at cost. There were three kinds of cockroaches, but locals claimed one was just a 'water bug.' Although a monthly exterminator came in, at night when you turned the light on we saw them scurrying.

Drunks would pass out on the steps, which were hidden from view, so when I came home I had to be very careful. The parsonage was a magnet for people looking for handouts. Gary made arrangements with a grocery store and a gas station so needy people could be sent there, with the church footing the bill. One time a lady pushed her way into the parsonage demanding milk money for her kids. Meanwhile, I saw a man walking down the driveway to try the back door, which luckily was locked.

Another time a man insisted on seeing the pastor for money. I sent him into the church where Gary was at a meeting. When he was told they did not give out cash he angrily said he was testing their Christian charity, and showed them a full wallet. When the District Superintendent's wife heard about these stories she insisted the church put in a new door with a peep hole.

The Hostetters came for dinner. Ellen was shocked by where we were living.

Me and Mark and Ellen Hostetter at Darby.
I made the pleated drapes for the living and dining rooms for $80. 

Our folks were not impressed, either. Mom was appalled at the roaches.

Me and Dad at Darby

Gary worked on a demographic study and a proposal for church growth, but it was rejected. Mt. Zion's parishioners had moved into first-line suburbs. They did not trust the Darby neighborhood people and complained they did not want outreach ministries that would bring in people who would 'steal the toilet paper.' They did not want a senior center. They wanted Gary to perform the miracle all pastors are called upon to perform: attract young families.

Drawing made by a JOY class member, the class I helped organize

When we arrived, I was asked to start a young woman's Sunday school class. Using my small group training I helped about eight women organize what I thought was a successful year including a Bible Study, social events, and fundraisers including a bake sale and rummage sale. The teacher was an older woman whose favorite teaching device was to ask, "Why did Jesus come to earth?" with the class expected to answer, "To save our sins." As an English major that made no sense to me. Jesus was, what, collecting sins like postage stamps?

The second year the gals told me that they just wanted to sit and talk about kids and daily life. I was told I had been 'corrupted' by my college education in wanting goals and such. When the teacher stated she resented paying apportionments, money that supported the connected church system, I gathered information on how the money was spent. I not allowed to present the information to the class. The gals became angry when I did not sit with them during a wedding, but I had been told that as the minister's wife I was to help the bride. I left that group to fend for themselves and taught Third Grade Sunday School. I loved working with kids.

The entire youth group consisted of two sisters and one other girl. They met in the parsonage on Sunday evening. After Bible study we let them turn the radio on and dance to Disco music. We were criticized, for the older generation believed that rock and roll was the music of the Devil.

In March 1978 my Adrian roommate Marti visited me after interviewing for a job in Center City Philadelphia. She and Jack were divorcing. 

My last year at Temple I commuted from Darby by trolley to Center City and then took the Broad Street Subway north to Temple. I saw things from those trolley windows I had never seen before. All kinds of people came onto the trolley. I was fascinated. 

My graduation photograph 1978

Me and my folks at my graduation from Temple, 1978

After graduation, my first job was working Christmas Rush at the Strawbridge and Clothier department store in Center City. I was assigned to small electrical appliances. Secret shoppers checked our performance and I won a customer service award. I was told if I stayed on I could eventually become a buyer. I spent much of my pay using my employee discount for Christmas gifts, including buying Gary a shearling coat which he wore for twenty years.

The economy was lousy and I could not find work in anything remotely related to my English major. I ended up in customer service for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Bala Cynwyd. Two other new employees and I studied together for an agent's license. Mary Lou had dropped out of working on her advanced degree in religion at the University of Pennsylvania. We both loved classical music and books. We became friends, meeting up in Center City for lunch, shopping, and sometimes attending the Arch Street Quaker Meeting.

After passing the agent's license test we shadowed workers to learn how the office operated. This included a stint at the switchboard. Incoming calls were routed to agents or customer service. I was totally flummoxed and apologized to one caller. "Who are you?" he asked. I couldn't remember what the position I was filing was and said, "I'm the call girl." After a moment's silence the man replied, "I didn't know they supplied those in the office."

My job involved taking fifty phone calls a day to make changes to auto and home policies. It was grueling. A previous employee contacted us and told us there was a customer service opening at the insurance agency where she worked. I applied and got the job. It was out on the Main Line, but a coworker lived in West Philadelphia and drove right past our parsonage, so she picked me up on her way to work.

The environment was very conservative; the women on staff made the coffee and picked up the men's mail. My boss was an elderly gent and hated the frizzy perm I got at a posh Center City hair salon. He also hated the Fry cowboy boots which I sometimes wore with a denim skirt. I was fired from the job even though the office was in merger and the man who was to be the new boss had personally interviewed me and liked me, especially since I had an agent's license.

With the frizzy perm that got me fired.

I collected unemployment and looked for a new job. But I kept busy. I was taking classes at the Philadelphia College of Art Saturday School. The teacher had taught at Jane Addams Jr High in Royal Oak, MI where I had attended and she called me "Royal Oak." I had a drawing at an exhibit at the Western Savings Bank downtown. I was teaching myself the recorder. I was researching for a historical novel on the Munster Rebellion which had fascinated me so in Reformation history class.

A drawing project from PCA Saturday School

Also, I was actively trying to publish my poetry. I remember getting a rejection slip saying to send more poems. Parishioners told me I was selfish and instead of looking for work, I should be having children!

The Calling

I think that all the poems
I will ever write
lie somewhere under my heart,
seeds that wait for someone
to come and gently call them out.
They are born
as if I had not labored
like flowing water
from primordial rock.

I was feeling trapped by the role of clergy wife. Expectations were exacting and criticism naturally followed. The parishioners did not understand me, and I met a lot of rejection, as did Gary. I learned it was useless to try to meet expectations; you would fall short.

River Dream

a small flat boat
with wood worn gray
paint long past peeled away
drifting in the water, afloat;

tugging gently at her mooring,
gathers speed, resists not the current,
stretching taught her tether,
by waves is lowered, lifted resurgent.

Reached her limit, caught between
the land’s mastery and river dream
she must decide- to keep her pledge
remain duty-bound at land’s edge,

or break away at river’s calling
a vessel made for ocean sailing.

Wanderlust

The end is all knotted and rotted cords
fraying, displaying yellowed cores.
It is empty pockets, hollowed hopes,
dangling movements, memorized tightropes.
And lovely smiles veneered over sorrow
for gone are yesteryears and frightening the tomorrows.

Ends and beginnings are but
imagined delineations.
Our foresight is stunted,
our hindsight clouded,
we see but darkly thought the thickness of tears.

To turn, to turn away!
My arms ache to embrace a new day.

To leave home’s lamp glow in the window frame
for pale moonlight and soft spring rain;
the friendly kiss and the well-known smile
for a tune sung by a wandering child.

The gap between the lives we had hoped to have and the reality of others' expectations created much unhappiness in our lives. Gary was full of self-doubt and became depressed. Our marriage suffered. I was not fulfilling my dream of writing. I looked into returning to school for a library or reading specialty degree. Gary looked into an Urban Studies degree but for him to return to school meant finding a place to live and an income to live on.

Misery

There is a misery so keen
and clinging
the passing of many days
can not brush it offering
nor many nights efface
it's markings upon the soul.

It makes itself a burrowed home,
a tick beneath the skin.

Seasons pass, yet it pains
whenever robins fly north again
or chilly morns have skies of blue
or April forsythia bloom.

If the dead could be called to rise
from their cold and clammy beds
we would detect, amazed,
a powerful, ancient pain
wild in their blind eyes,
still quivering their voices.

And the memories of the past still troubled me. I avoided thought of my teenage years, especially the time between the suicide of a classmate and my mother's near fatal illness, the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and the heartache over my high school boyfriend. April still made me sad.

Haunting

Spring’s cold rain
received like Holy water.
I am awaiting grace
but first must suffer
the resurrection.
Awoken Lazarus
come to greet me.
Dreadful remembrance!
O bitter return!
I fail.
The rain has melted
my fortress of forgetfulness.
I see arms waving in the air;
he comes.
I bend my knee to await him.
He crowns me with thorns and roses.
Cruel sweetness.
I bleed for his sake.
I wish him away,
I wish him buried forever
that he no longer rise
with the advent of spring.

But there were good things during these years. Gary and I joined a community chorus out of Whitemarsh, PA called The Mastersingers. We performed the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes and Schubert's Mass in A flat. It was a joy to be singing again.

We also joined the Methodist Federation for Social Action. We boycotted Nestles over infant formula being promoted in Third World countries and J. P. Stevens for being anti-union.

Gary was involved in a community group that was fighting the opening of an adult bookstore in Darby and he was involved in the formation of a conference Credit Union. We were at the inaugural meeting of a historical society to preserve the Quaker Meeting House.

I was still sewing my own clothes, including a gray dress with lace collar and cuffs, a robin's egg blue silk dress with lace collar, a swimsuit, and the blouse and red jumper in the photo below. I had even made pleated drapes for the parsonage.

Gary and I around 1978, I had made the dress and blouse.

Gary took up photography, taking classes at The Photography Place in Center City. He set up a darkroom in the parsonage basement. I made him an apron with the words "In The Dark" on it.

Gary took and developed this photo from Reading Terminal

Gary's photo of Reading Terminal

Gary at Longwood Gardens

Nearly every month we went to Longwood Gardens on a Sunday afternoon. Gary would photograph the flowers while I stood by patiently.

Gary's photograph of me at Longwood Gardens, 1977-78

At Longwood Gardens, 1980, with my frizzy hairdo and in a dress I had made.
Photo by Gary.

The summer of 1977, and again in 1978, Gary and I went to the Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville, PA. A classmate in my folklore class had told me about it. We set up our tent and spent all day and night at the many concerts and workshops. We discovered amazing music. The rest of our years in Philadelphia we attended  Philadelphia Folk Song Society and local coffeehouse concerts. We saw Priscilla Herdman, Jean Redpath, Lou Killian, Silly Wizard, Stan Rogers and his brother Garnet, Pete Seeger, and John Roberts and Tony Barrand.

1978 Philadelphia Folk Festival

We were constantly on the go. We went to the Brandywine Museum, Brandywine State Park, and the Wyeth museum. We saw Coppelia, The Nutcracker, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Met perform Tosca, and P.D.Q. Bach. We went to the theater and saw Leonard Nimoy as Vincent; Liv Ullman in I Remember Mama (a flop musical); Dracula with sets by Edward Gorey; Jean Marsh in Too True to Be Good by Shaw; and Twelfth Night and A Winter's Tale. We saw classic movies at a repertoire movie theater near the University of Pennsylvania. We went on nature walks at Tinicum Preserve and Tyler Arboretum. We even had a picnic on the Schuylkill River. 

We would visit Tinicum during the bird migration. We saw thousands of white egrets in the trees and I wrote a poem.

Specters

A cluster of trees

            jade green fans brush-stroked against

            blue skies dappled with pearly gray clouds

stood lit by a noon-high sun.

Vivid and verdant, richness of growth,

nature's masterwork swathed in movement:

White flight checkering green 

like phantoms

or gathered angels.

Souls in gala celebration

saluting the season.

Egrets, white flames 

Leaping from cool still green,

darting from depths of green

into shadows of  green.

Hovering, alighting.

Eternity's crown,

nimbus of elms.

The miracle of flight

visiting the permanence of roots.

A visit to Historic Fort Mifflin with my dad and brother resulted in another poem.

Old Fort Mifflin

Wide vistas where once colonial soldiers trod,

with its perimeter of aged barracks,

the cool dark recesses of powder houses,

slit windows looking out into summer sun,

history's memory, empty and still

but for voyeurs peering  on the past's leavings.

Nearby the river ran round like a moat,

catchment of brush and reed, crickets

and frogs singing and leaping,

and looking down in contemplation

sitting on its barren branch, a heron.

Unexpectedly, a mechanical roar disturbed

this Eden of river and fort.

Above us hovered a great silver belly

its mass blocking out the sun,

its labored ascent a mystery.

We believed we could have stroked the silver belly,

it hung so low above us.

Machine made holier than all else

diminishing the heron's tandem flight

parallel under the great belly.

Convergent deities of flight

vying for preeminence.

And when the two had flown

we were left godless on the wide vistas

of a wasteland past.

I read over a hundred books a year. I had bought a condensed three-volume set of Samuel Pepys diary which I read every night before bed. I read Rilke, Naipaul, Doris Lessing, Virginia Wolfe, Trollope, Hawthorne, and Peter Mathiessen. I did not like Wuthering Heights; I found it Gothic, disagreeable, and poorly crafted! We went to see author talks with Saul Bellow, Elie Wiesel, and poets Stephen Spender and Gerald Stern.

Family portrait, with rabbit. The color is badly off as the carpet was green!

Every year we spent two or three weeks camping at Acadia National Park or the White Mountains. One year I sat on the cliffs at the ocean's edge reading Rainer Marie Rilke's Duino Elegies.

Nasturtium had a caretaker who came in to feed and water her and change her litter box, but she hated being alone. She would stomp her feet and avoid us when we returned.

Nasturtium opening her Christmas present

Nasturtium was six years old when her health began to fail. We took her to the University of Pennsylvania Small Animal Clinic where students flocked to learn about geriatric rabbit health. Over several weeks we watched her decline, giving her all the love and medical help we could. Sadly, they could not identify the problem and we finally had to put her to sleep. An autopsy showed complete liver failure. We were told she was 'living on love.'

By this time I was working at Drexel University as secretary in the Upward Bound Program. My boss did not understand why I was crying all day over a rabbit.

Senior photo from Upward Bound student Mark
He signed it, "To Nancy a good friend and a lovely person"

I had applied for work at Drexel University with the idea of studying library science with an employee discount. Because  I had experience working with youth, HR thought I was perfect for Upward Bound, a federal program that helps youth become academically successful, with alumni including Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett, Donna Brazile, Patrick Ewing, and Viola Davis.  I was hired to be the office manager at $3.64 an hour.

The kids embraced me as readily as I loved them.

Upward Bound tutors

Drexel University students tutored local high school students to prepare them for college.

Upward Bound Students

I needed to earn the trust of the college student tutors. After following through on my promises to type papers for the students, they began to accept me, with one gal befriending me.

Upward Bound staff, tutors, students

On lunch breaks I went to the Drexel library and took out books on fashion history. Dr. Olshin's inclusion of material culture in our Austen studies had brought a new interest.

After three years at Mt. Zion Gary was very discouraged. We had been through so much over the three years: church conflict, criticism, depression, marriage problems, and the death of our dear Nasturtium. Gary asked for an appointment change. Leaving the ministry seemed impossible without good jobs and no home of our own. We had to trust in the Bishop, and in God.

Gary took this photo of me in the parsonage.
We had many houseplants at this time which thrived.

Late on the evening of May 29 I was in my nightgown when the District Superintendent knocked on the door wanting to give the incoming pastor a tour of the parsonage. I was angry he had not made arrangements ahead of time.

On June 1, 1980 I wrote, "At some point during the evening I heard a siren in a quiet moment and I was transported out of time and looking back upon myself. I saw what sad things we human, anxious creatures are, adrift in life with no meaning, our work inherited from Adam, the continual guest, constructing a meaning every day, each of us needing to create their own [meaning]. All the changes have worn out my gossamer garment and I am left graceless, naked, and vulnerable."

Gary at Darby. 

Gary was first offered an associate pastor position at a large suburban church. The senior pastor said Gary could 'kiss his evenings goodbye.' We knew that would be devastating to our marriage. The rental house the associate pastor usually rented was "seedy and unkempt." We had one car, the trusty orange Super Beetle, but the community was so isolated we would need to buy a second car for my use. The salary wasn't much. And the pastor and congregation were conservative fundamentalists and we were progressive liberals. Gary turned it down. Gary discovered that our District Superintendent had never talked about Gary's goals, gifts, or concerns with the Cabinet.

In early June we were packing and working at Vacation Bible School. I was sorry to leave my Third Graders. One girl especially broke my heart. She was smart and pretty, living in poverty with a single mom who had no resources. I hated leaving kids like that, thinking I could have been an influence.

My folks paid my air fare to return home for my high school class tenth reunion on June 14. I enjoyed seeing my family and old neighbors, going to the Detroit Institute of Art, an Irish concert, and shopping and oil painting with Mom. The reunion was interesting, the old social dynamics still in effect. I felt like a failure for having accomplished so little in comparison.

Reunion photo. I am in the back.

During that trip, while playing cards with my folks and the McNabs, Mom made her old comment that I'd be 'so pretty' if only I lost weight. I had maintained my weight for years because I walked everywhere and skipped meals. But I had put on ten or fifteen pounds since graduation. I said I would like to lose the weight, but that I liked who I was anyway. The next day Mom came to me in tears. She had not realized the message she had been giving me all my life. She had been hurt when her father had told her, "you'd be so pretty if you didn't have such deep eyes." It was a turning point in our relationship.

Back in Darby, on the evening of June 21, 1980 I woke up from sleeping when I heard gun shots. I looked out the window and saw a man with a gun stagger and fall to the ground. I panicked. Gary was on the phone with a parishioner and I wanted to call the police. Soon people were rushing to the scene and the police arrived. The man was taken away by stretcher and the street roped off as a crime scene. A fight between two women over a man had started at the National Bar and ended in his being shot.

It was summer and the next morning during Sunday worship the windows were open. Just as the sermon was to begin, a fire truck arrived to wash the blood off the street. The noise came through the open church windows and Gary had to wait until they were done before he could preach.

A few days later, on June 25, my mom called to tell me that Grandma Ramer had suffered a heart attack that required electric shock but she was recovering.

Gary was offered a dual charge in Kensington, in the inner city of Philadelphia. I had once commented, seeing this area, that I never wanted to live there. There were no trees, no beauty, empty factories, just cement and rowhouses. But when we met the Pastor-Parish Relations committees we really liked them.

I turned in my resignation. I was still considering returning to school for library science, but I knew I could not work full-time and go to school, especially with the move and a new church.

Gary's last Sunday was June 29, a hot and humid day. Mt. Zion did not give us a goodbye--no gifts, no after church party or even a cake at Fellowship Time. The next day Gary and I went to Longwood Gardens. And on July 1 we moved to Allegheny Avenue and B St. in one of the oldest industrial areas in the country, a poor area where the houses were valued at a few thousand dollars.

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Grandfather's Memories of Boyish Play, Pranks, and Paddles

My grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote articles for his hometown newspaper, the Lewistown Sentinel of Lewistown, Mifflin Co., PA. In one article he recalled that from 1900 to 1920 the Brock family boys of Milroy, PA were loaded with play things:

circa 1911: Gramps at play, about 8 years old, with cousins. He is pretty well dressed in a 'middy' sailor inspired suit.
 A year later he was an orphan dependent on aunts for his care.

Play Things around 1910

"First they had a home-made merry-go-round with a grand organ that produced music. It was all hand operated, much to the delight of the teens and preteens who flocked, some invited and some not, to come and enjoy the fun.

"The play room—we’d call it the recreation room nowadays—was the storage room off the kitchen. There among the pies and cookies cooked for the family use, but shared with the youngsters who came calling between meals, were the home-made playthings.

"There were hand-carved spreading fans inside of Mason jars, continuous chain links carved from one billet of wood*. There were two spinning cylinder wire cages housing chipmunks who chattered gaily all day long.

"Besides these and dozens of other games to play there were stacks of comic strips from the Williamsport Gazette and the Philadelphia North American. These consisted of the adventures of the Katzenjammer Kids, Jiggs and Maggie, Enoch Periwinkle Pickleweight, John Dubbalong and the like.

"On a rainy day there would be no less than 10 or 12 little boys deeply at their work-play reading the old “continued funnies,” grinding the hurdy-gurdy carousel and intently watching the chippies race around the insides of their wire cylinders.

"There were stacks of paperbacks of adventure characters, such as the Liberty Boys of ’76, Jesse James, Fred Fearnot, A No. 1 and every known Horatio Alger tale, Andy Grant’s Pluck, From Rags to Riches.

“And so it went for many happy hours or boyhood daze. So once more, it’s thanks to Robert, Albert and Luther Brock, not forgetting their doting mother and a kind father [James S. and Minnie Melissa Maben Brock] who realized how to keep kids happy and busy, making and using their playthings.

"The lessons learned well by the youngsters of that time. Long since grown to manhood and womanhood, is this:

“It isn't necessary to buy one’s children expensive and attractive mechanical toys, but something requiring participation. And never forget children are fondest of things they improvise themselves---cooking pans and saucers, empty thread spools, old tin cans, a handful of bright, shiny horse chestnuts.”

The Brock family included parents James S. and Minnie Melissa Maben Brock and sons Oscar Ream (b. 1890), Luther J. (b. 1902), Albert (b. 1894) and Robert (b. 1903).  Dad was a carpenter, which explained the wonderful contraptions the kids had.

Pranks around 1910

As to trouble, boys a hundred years ago had all kinds of options. Gramps wrote,

"This little story verifies the truism that “there is no perfect crime.” Somehow or in some way the wrongdoer always leaves tell-tale evidence at the scene, which betrays him. The tell-tale evidence on the occasion given herewith was a certain color. A maroon color. Not too bright. Not too brilliant, but still a dead giveaway for the wearer of it.

"The incident itself happened not a few years ago, but there are many who will still remember it when we recall it to their attention. We recite it here especially for today’s dads who are wont to claim, “Now when I was a boy, we didn't do things like you kids today!”

“We were all old enough to know better, but just old enough to think we knew best. The scheme arose from nowhere and ended in nothing—luckily—when a small band of Reedsville lads idly watched a fall threshing from Cow Field Hill.

“As the wind blew the chaff, and some grain, farther and farther from the barn, the hungry chickens kept advancing under cover of the barrage, to gobble up the banquet. Well, the poultry advance edged nearer and nearer. An idea began to form in the minds of the boys---fresh stewed chicken, mingled with tender, unripe field corn from some farmer’s fields.

“One quick grab and we had a plump, squawking Rhode Island Red rooster. His neck was quickly twisted to stop his racket. Up Cow Field Hill we scrambled fast, but not fast enough to escape the ire of the farmer whose rooster we were snatching.

“Unbeknownst to us, the farmer had obviously been watching us—and the rooster. He had taken time to arm himself with a shotgun. When we were slowed down by a barbed wire fence, the pellets began to rain mightily close, it seemed. So it was that wisdom outscored valor and we left the rooster and fled to the near-by woods, finally returning to town by a detour, around the upper end of the mill dam at Tea Creek.**

“The irate farmer guessed our devious route and he met us head on, on Main Street, and easily he spotted the maroon sweater that one of the boys was wearing. It was a case of his being known by the color—and the companions—he kept.

“It seemed the farmer had failed to see us* close enough to identify any of the boys, but he did manage to catch a good view of the maroon-colored sweater. Which proved our downfall—the one clue that showed this was no perfect crime.

“The chicken costs only one dollar. But the lesson could have been more painful if the shoguns pellets had landed you know where.

“One of that group, but this time a highly-respected Reedsville citizen, carried this experience to the grave recently. But there are others in the village who will recall it. Simple moral seems to be avoid wearing colored sweaters on escapades. But here’s a better moral: Stealing is breaking one of the divine commands—so refrain from it always.”

Maroon boy's sweater circa 1900

* Here, using the word 'us', Gramps betrayed that he was one of the culprits!
**The dam was built in 1870 by the Reedsville Milling Company. It was 14" ft high and 47 ft. long, creating a duck pond.

****

As a teacher Gramps found students could be troublesome. Actually he WAS one of those troublesome students. Later he got back what he had given. Gramps recalled,

Hartwick Seminary

"At old Hartwick Seminary in Otsego County, New York—near Cooperstown—where I taught from 1926 to 1930—about mid-June the student sneaked squibs into their rooms. Then at night they lit these firecrackers and tossed them out the window. Imagine how it startled the faculty, including me.

"There was a fire law against such things, so I watched windows one night. I caught a Philadelphia dentist’s two sons in the act. As soon as I saw one of them light a squib I yelled, “Hold it!” He did just that. It exploded in his hand. It wasn't hard to find who it was next day, for he had his hand bandaged.

"That wasn't the end of the incident. In the wee, small hours of a later night, I was suddenly aroused by a six-inch squib exploding on my chest!

"Nasal reactions to the “sulfur and brimstone” lent the impression I wasn't on earth. Needless to say we could never prove who did it. It’s very likely that he too is a Philadelphia dentist, or doctor, by now.

"The student had climbed on a ledge outside my dormitory window and tossed in the fire cracker. Before I could gather my wits, he had climbed away.

"But school boy sport was going over on long before old Hartwick days. In 1917 at Milroy High School [in Milroy, Mifflin Co., PA] some energetic boys would apply snowballs to the thermometer and Prof. Stanley Morgan would excuse the school when he read the mercury read 29 degrees at the time we called his attention to it.

"You can image the prof’s chagrin when the temperature leaped back to the 70s after everybody was on the way home. But I can’t recall we ever played with matches or explosives of any sort in MHS.

"Now to update this matter: Last Thursday at Lawrence Institute of Technology [in Southfield, MI] in a calculus class, I began to make an erasure. Suddenly the eraser exploded into a thousand Roman candles in my hand! Some energetic student had fitted a row of match heads in the felt. Friction did the usual.

"Only a few hours before that one of our college chemistry profs had a piece of chalk light up when he wrote H2O on the board. It was a match head (old fashioned kitchen kind) which had been fitted into a hole in the chalk end.

"That was quite a surprise for him and so was mine. Needless to say a good laugh was had by all and sundry, including me. But had the burning felt fallen behind my specs I likely would not be seeing so clearly—as in a mirror.

"When I was a kid we boys used to ‘find’ chickens and sweet corn for our dough bakes, but we never demolished rural mailboxes on KV’s [Kishacoquillas Valley, Mifflin Co, PA]back mountain road or stole $100 from an 80 year-old-widows.

"The State superintendent of schools in New York remarked (and that was back in 1950): “They are not bad boys and they aren't good boys either. They are just busy!” To which I add: Ain't we all! Except the ‘busy-ness” is getting to acquire some funny new formats.

*****

In another article on 'pranks, Gramps wrote about punishments no longer in use.

"The old school teacher listened patiently while the ancient mill worker related the tales of pranks that misfired in the industrial world. Then he spoke up: “And that reminds me of the pranks which boys in schools and colleges used to do and in which the present generation still indulge. Some of these happened in Mifflin County, others elsewhere that I taught.”

"In Burnham high school, the first principal to serve there punished six boys alike, whipping them for pulling one girl’s pigtails. One boy was very angry and remained so for over 50 years, because he was innocent. He was just “doodling along behind, minding my own business,” he said. In fact, he died holding the grudge. And the principal died too, never knowing one boy was still angry at him. Moral: Don’t walk behind naughty boys, said the narrator of this tale.

"This happened in the fifth grade of the Armagh Township school. A certain boy provoked the anger of the teacher, who instead of waiting to apply her oak paddle at the right spot and at closer quarters, let it fly at his head as he sat in his seat. He ducked. His companion who shared the desk in common with the other boy got whanged with the missile. Said his sympathetic grandma: “You shouldn't set with him anyways.” Moral: Be careful whom the teacher assigns you to sit with.

"In another fifth grade the text asked: “What amount of dirt is in an excavation 100’ x 100' x 50’?” One boy wrote on his slate, “None.” Said the teacher: “You’re the only one who got the wrong answer.” He replied, “I’m the only one who got the right answer. There is no dirt in an excavation.” "The book answer says 500,000 cubic feet, which proves you’re wrong,”declared the teacher. She sent him home until he could learn the correct answer. He must have never learned it, for he never came back.

"It was the custom among the older students to check their traps both before and after school. One found a skunk in his trap. Contents of the animal’s cologne sac were placed in a standard empty perfume bottle. This he proudly displayed to all the girls and then visibly hid it in his school desk. At recess he left it unguarded. Three maids who lingered shared the contents on the front of their waists. School was let out, not just for a day, but till the stench was eradicated. The lad was beat up by the girl’s males relatives—brothers, fathers, uncles. Also by his own mother, the teacher, and the principal, all using their paddles. He never forgot it. He learned his lesson. But then the girls never forgot it either.

"But paddles weren't the only weapons used on boyish pranksters. Some boys had told teacher a fib. Said she, “If you lie to me just once more, I’ll put red pepper on your tongues.” It’s human to err. Came the time to administer the punishment. There was a lot of scrambling and bawling. But that all ended abruptly, for the hot stuff turned out to be merely ground cinnamon. Proving that imagination is stronger than realization. But the kids didn't forget. Teacher got straight answers after that.

"The exam question was, “What is 6 feet wide and 1 feet deep?” One boy wrote on his slate, “It's an outhouse.” Teacher sent him home, “until you learn to be respectful.” Days later she readmitted him. Came another exam. Same question. Seeing the lad reach for his hat and jacket, she said “Where are you going?” “Home,” he replied, “I still believe it was an outhouse.” He never returned to school.

Read more Grandfather stories:

Hog Butchering

Steel Mill