WHEN DID WE FIRST START USING FORKS?
By Robert J. Tinsky - Copyright 2008

If you came looking for another essay by Bob Tinsky, and it's not in the immediate list, or you don't find it in the listing to the right of this column, just type in ROBERT J. TINSKY in the Search Window above and a window will drop down with a list of his essays.

This is, of course, true of any of our visiting essayists should you have missed them when they appeared here. In the slightly over two years THE WORDWRIGHT has been publishing essays, several guest essayists have been used other than Bill Venrick, and their names are: Hugh Singleton, Ken Davis, Harry Spence, Jean Steel Venrick and Bill Volkart. Just type in any of these names in the Search Window and their specific essays will be listed by a link to that page. Over 110 essays have been published on THE WORDWRIGHT to date (06-18-08).

� � � � � � � � � � � When I was a student in college my English professor gave us an assignment to write an essay on any subject we chose.� For some strange reason I decided to write about the history of eating and drinking utensils.� That essay has been long gone and I don’t remember what grade I got on that paper.� But I do remember that I learned some fascinating information about forks.

� � � � � � � � � � � � Forks are mentioned in the Bible a few times but they bore no resemblance to our modern dinner forks.� Instead they were three pronged forks more like our modern pitchforks. � A three pronged fork was used to arrange the meat on the altar of sacrifice and to lift the priest’s portion from the vessel in which it was cooked.� We also read about “winnowing forks” used to separate the wheat from the chaff.�

� � � � � � � � � � � � Before our modern forks were invented people used their fingers to eat many things that were part of their meals.� There were some interesting rules of etiquette for aristocrats.� Table manners required the diners to use only three fingers to touch their food.� The ring finger was not to be used.

� � � � � � � � � � � � Eating utensils similar to our modern forks were first used by people in Turkey around 400 A. D.� It was not until the 7th century, however, that forks were very widely used.� Even then they were only used in Middle Eastern countries and by very wealthy people.

� � � � � � � � � � � � Forks were not used in Europe until the 10th century but were not widely accepted until the 17th century.� The first European countries to use them were Italy and France.� When forks were first introduced it was the custom for people to have their own fork and knife which they carried with them in a special box called a cadena whenever they were invited to a dinner party.

� � � � � � � � � � � � When forks were introduced into England women used them but the men thought they it was too sissy to substitute the use of fingers with metallic instruments.

� � � � � � � � � � � � When forks were first introduced there were clergymen that railed against them.� They said that God gave us fingers and that the use of forks was an insult to God.� We should not be surprised at this since there have been clergymen down through the ages that have objected to various modern inventions.� I have in my file a copy of a sermon preached years ago by a well known radio preacher in which he said it was wrong for man to try to go to the moon since God only intended for mankind to have dominion over the earth.

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � Early forks only had two tines.� It was not until the 16th century that a third tine was added.� This may have been to replicate the custom of using only three fingers.� A fourth tine was later added by an Italian named Gennaro Spadaccine. � He also gave it the rounded shape our modern forks have today.

� � � � � � � � � � � � As late as the 18th century many people did not know how to use a fork.� It was not until the 19th century when it became possible to mass produce forks that they became widely used.� �

� � � � � � � � � � � � So next time you tell your kids to use their forks instead of their fingers just remember that fingers were not only invented a long time before forks but were also used for a long time before forks were even thought of. � On second thought, you might not want your children to read this.� � � � �

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I'm sure you just been sitting out there wondering when we first started using forks, so I thought I would let my friend, Bob Tinsky, tell us all about that subject. THANKS BOB! THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 15th is FATHER'S DAY -- My friend, Robert J. Tinsky has written a Father's Day tribute to his Grandfather Tinsky. THE WORDWRIGHT is proud to share this space with Bob Tinsky as he tells us what a Jewish man and his family experienced at the turn of the century as the 19th century became the 20th century. Quite a story!

� � � � I know that Father’s Day is a day to especially honor our immediate father.� I want, however, this year to pay special honor to a man I only met one time, my grandfather.
�
� � � � Both of my grandparents on my father’s side were born in Russia in 1874.� They left Russia in 1900, moving first to England and after a few years they came to the United States.� I never had an opportunity to talk to them about why they left but know that since they were both Jewish their leaving had to do with the various pogroms instituted against the Jews during the late 1800’s.�
�
� � � � If you have seen the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” you have some idea of what happened to the Jews during that period of time.� This delightful musical, however, does not even begin to portray the horrors that many Jewish persons experienced.�
�
� � � � Historians tell us that the pogroms started early in the 19th century but intensified during the latter part of the century.� According to the Jewish Encyclopedia the first pogrom was during the riots in Odessa in 1859. The term pogrom became common after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept southern imperial Russia from 1881 to 1884, after Jews were wrongly blamed for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.
�
� � � � In the 1880’s thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many Jewish families were reduced to extremes of poverty. Women were sexually assaulted.� Large numbers of men, women and children were injured in some parts of Russia.�
�
� � � � In 1881, 19 years before my grandparents left Russia, there was a conspiracy against the Jews in the Russian government.� Efforts were made to get rid of all Jews in St. Petersburg and Moscow.� In 1891, four years before my father was born, Jews were expelled from those cities and their goods were confiscated.� This expulsion began on the first day of the Jewish Passover, March 29, 1891.�
�
� � � � S. M. Dubnow has written a three volume history of the Jews in Russia and Poland.� In volume two of his history he gives us this description of what transpired at this time:
� � � � � � � � �

“The police invaded the Jewish homes, aroused the scared inhabitants from their beds, and drove semi-naked men, women, and children to the police station, where they were kept in filthy cells for a day and sometimes longer. Some of the prisoners were released by the police who first wrested from them a written pledge to leave the city immediately. Others were evicted under police convoy and sent out of the city like criminals, through the transportation prison. Many of the families having been forewarned of the impending raid, decided to spend the night outside of their homes to avoid arrest and maltreatment at the hands of the police. They hid themselves in the outlying sections of the city and in the cemeteries; they walked or rode all over the city the whole night. Many an estimable Jew was forced to shelter his wife and children, stiffened from the cold, in houses of ill repute which were open all night. But even these fugitives ultimately fell into the hands of the police inquisition.”

� � � � During this time one high government official made this statement about the Jews: “The Jew is a parasite.� Remove him from the living organism in which and on which he exists and put this parasite on a rock—and he will die.”
�
� � � � Is it any wonder that my grandfather decided to take his small family and leave the land of his birth?� On this father’s day I want to salute a man that I never really knew and thank him for making it possible for me to be born in this land of freedom.

THANKS, BOB, for writing this tribute to your Grandfather Tinsky,

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Bill Venrick

Believe it or not, when I was a kid we would sit, as a family, and enjoy listening to the radio while eating popcorn or playing cards. There were special programs, they called them “soaps” [that term has stuck to this day] because their sponsors were usually soap manufacturers like Proctor & Gamble in Cincinnati, and whatever other sponsors like the makers of Oxydol, Fels Naptha or Duz (remember “Duz does everything”?) and so forth. Programs like "Stella Dallas" and "Ma Perkins" were usually afternoon or morning shows the housewives could follow while their husbands were at work.

Other shows, which you could call family shows, like “Fibber McGee & Molly”, or “Lux Radio Theater” and “One Man’s Family” were scheduled at the evening hours and that is when the whole family would gather in one room, some huddled around the radio while another group might be at a card table playing cards and all tossing down a lot of pop corn. You might have listened to “Mr. District Attorney” or “The Green Hornet” or “Gunsmoke” or “The Shadow”. There is an organization today that specializes in bringing back all those early radio memories, and you can even buy some of those old programs. Nostalgia is great and it’s only a click of a mouse away today.

Further back, 77 years ago there was a radio personality named Anthony Wons. I imagine he was somewhat like a radio personality I used to enjoy while traveling to Columbus, Ohio from Lancaster, Ohio every morning. Irwin Johnson, aka The Early Worm, had a morning program that made the 30-mile trip seem like just a few minutes instead of half an hour. He personally knew many of the recording personalities of the records he played. He would often save an especially long piece so he could play it in the middle of the half-hour time so his listeners would be able to enjoy that kind of music without any interruption of commercial breaks. I remember one recording by Harry Belafonte and Odetta did a number called, “There’s a hole in the bucket [Dear Liza]” – it was a hoot! [it was more than 3 minutes long!] Another regular the Early Worm would play was music by The Buffalo Bills, (no, not the football team) a men’s barbershop harmony quartet; and their records were usually more than 3 minutes too.
.
The time of day was an important part of each time he introduced the music – no need to glance at your watch because The Early Worm would tell you every few minutes what time it was. Today’s radio is a bit different, at least in our area; some like to claim, “It’s all music…” but something’s missing when you don’t hear the time of the day regularly. In my commuting days one radio personality would “take you to work” and an entirely different personality would “take you home” at the end of your work day.

Here are a few bits and pieces Tony’s Scrap Book back in 1930:

“I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” Stephen Grellet

“I love the man that can smile in trouble. That can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” Thomas Paine

LIFE IS LARGELY WHAT WE MAKE IT – by John Dale Kempster

Life surely is a seesaw thing;
We never know just what it’ll bring.
Sometimes it lifts us “high in air”
Where skies are blue, and all is fair;
Sometimes it “bumps” us down to earth
Mid gloomy days of little worth;
But never mind how dark the clouds
Nor blue the thoughts that come in crowds,
We know somewhere the sun is shining
And every cloud hath silver lining;
So lift your head, throw out your chest,
Put on a smile and do your best,
Stand firm in will, there’s naught can break it,
For after all, Life’s what we make it.

If your memories can take you back to years before 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, or CD’s or Ipods existed, maybe you can hear the cued music become louder and your favorite radio personality might say, “See you tomorrow…this is Tony Wons saying good night for now…”

Some of the above was taken from Tony’s Scrap Book printed over 70 years ago and published by The Reilly & Lee Co. of Chicago.

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Get a nostalgic kick by clicking on these urls for Harry Belafonte & Odetta [this is a VIDEO] and some news about the Buffalo Bills Quartet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o6Ej5sirg

http://www.singers.com/barbershop/buffalobills.html
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THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Written by Jean Steel Venrick

What woman wouldn’t be happy to move into a brand new house when she married. My mother was such a person. My father had built a lovely two-bedroom home on the outskirts of town and had it furnished when they married June 22, 1929. He was 23 and she was 20.

He worked for a lumber company, which provided quick access to buy materials needed to build this lovely place. Not only did he build the house but he made a lot of the furniture to go with it. I still have a dresser he made for this house.

When they moved into their first home after their marriage they had everything they needed except a skillet in which to fry their first breakfast eggs. So what to do? They did not rush out and buy one – mother found a paint can lid and used that-- I’m sure they had more than one laying around.

Not only did he build the house but he built a garage, a shop and plenty of decorative feature in the backyard including a small fish pond. They had it made, or so it seems. Three years later I came along to make their lives more complete—that was in 1932. Those were the Great Depression days and my parents began thinking about the necessities of life, mainly food they may not have should my Dad be laid off his job. Then he was laid off for an undetermined time.

In their short time together they had purchased 36 acres four miles from town that had nothing on it but an old log barn. My Dad built a small 3-room house, which later would become the garage. This was five years after their marriage.

They moved from this lovely house they had moved into when they got married to live in this quickly built 3-room abode in the country. Three days after they moved into the little country place, my Dad got his job back and worked at the West Side Lumber Company for 36 years altogether.

He never stopped building on the farm because there were always buildings needed: A chicken coop, a small barn, corn cribs, work shop and a smoke house for meats and other outbuildings for storage.

The idea was to live in the little house until he could build a large new house. That large house was ready to move into in 1939, on the fourth of July. It was a beauty compared to that little 3-room building. After moving into the big house my Dad decided they needed a larger barn so he started one, with my mother working with him, even way up on top of the roof. She was no stranger to work herself as she had driven the tractor as he scooped out the basement for the big house—holding my little brother on her lap as she drove the tractor which pulled the scoop!

They lived on the farm twenty years, during which time Dad worked in town and farmed on the side. After I left for college in 1951 my parents purchased a lot in town and built a modest two-bedroom house, which they moved into in 1952.

I have a brother, five years younger, who said he went to school one morning and instead of going home on the school bus, went to the newly finished house after school. He was rather disappointed he was not given the time to get one last look around the country place.

Across the street from the new house in town was a corner lot that took my Dad’s eye. The “building bug” struck again and another house was in the making. This time he built a large and stylish house. It was a show place with two large stone fireplaces, one upstairs and the other in the basement; the upstairs portion was a walk-around as you came into the front door on a slate floor. On the front side he laid up a portion of the wall with the same Bedford limestone; all laid and faced by himself. Even though a finish carpenter there was little he would not attempt and finish as well as anyone could, even stonework. Mother was quite happy with the smaller modest home but they moved into the new larger house just like any other house he would build in the years of their marriage.

While living in this new location, he purchased a cottage at the Methodist Campground in Lancaster (Ohio) and fixed it up as well. This little cottage was two stories and a tree had fallen onto it ruining the top floor so my Dad removed the second floor and made a lovely one-floor plan with a screened-in porch. They used that cottage as a get-away in he summer. At the campground there were activities going on during the summer so they would attend those some of the time.

Meanwhile they decided the showplace was a bit more than they wanted to retire in, so once again, in 1963, he built another more modest house, just one street from where they started housekeeping in 1929 – they moved into this new house November 1964.

Still the “building bug” worked on him in 1975 when they bought some ground twenty miles from where they lived, out in a serene country setting where he could build again. This time he bought a mobile home, remodeling it some, plus building a garage, a shelter house and an outdoor privy. This place was just another get-away from the city; in fact they named it,” The Steel-Away”, and my husband designed a nice oval sign with that name on it, placing it in the gable of the garage. The family used to routinely gather on holidays as Dad used to like picnics inviting anyone who would come to “party” with them.

The last outdoor project he made was a storage building for my brother in 1987. After retiring in 1968, at age 62, he made sixty-some clocks in his basement workshop, most of them were grandfather clocks. On the Wednesday before he died on the following Sunday, in 1991, he had been mowing grass at their “Steel-Away” driving an old Bolen’s Husky mower. Throughout all his life he never worked on Sunday because that was the “day of rest”. I can easily say, “I’m proud of my father.”

THE WORDWRIGHT
I found it easy to be proud of my father-in-law also. He was an inspiration to me as well.

Posted by Bill Venrick at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Fourth in the series…)

WHAT’S LIFE LIKE?

It is certain that this question bounces off the wall according to the person or persons asked, “What’s life like?” This series of facts and anecdotes from a unique reform school hidden away in the ravines and hills near Lancaster, Ohio, conjures up thoughts, questions and sometimes criticisms about how the boys were treated at the reform school that set records that deserved the national recognition achieved in just a few short years after its founding in 1856. The dream which was more like a gleam in Charles Reemelin’s eyes when he left France to come back to Ohio loaded with ideas was to be proven the most successful in the United States.

Before going into more details and perhaps more comments “from the boys” I want to share a poem by Gladys LeGrand. Behind every word and line writers put to paper is a story, sometimes a book, that never gets published and maybe never seen except by some visitor to a dusty, cobweb adorned room that itself has vanished from home plans. The attic used to be the place you stored winter clothes and some furniture you wanted to put away and maybe a few old books or albums you want to “work on later”.

The lady who used the pen name, Gladys LeGrand, had lived out life into her nineties. She loved each memory and learned to prize the bad ones whenever she looked back on them. Peggy Baker, who was the real Gladys LeGrand, said she had two claims to fame: She was a writer for Walter Winchell in the 1940’s and a great amount of her poetry was published in journals. “…the only famous one I wrote,” she told her visiting minister, “... it made the New Yorker Magazine, Time, Life and a bunch of others.” Her poem starts out talking about one’s choice in life to have a nice, quiet riding horse to go trotting along with through life – and as she described the kind of quiet horse she wanted, the poem explodes:

“But as I spoke, a stallion, sable and proud,
Broke from the woodland near with his long mane blowing .
He was huge and swift as a storm-driven cloud,
Fierce were his eyes as he galloped, his white teeth showing.

Toward me he ran with fire from his nostrils streaming
Stopped by my trembling side with a snort of thunder.
Round his crimson bridle was graven in letters gleaming
LIFE is my name. Ride me or be trampled under.”

Gladys LeGrand

(Used with permission of Richard A. Wing, from his book,
”The Space Between the Notes”, Copyrighted 1994)
ISBN 0-940882-20-5

Now, if I were to ask, “What is life like?” I might get some different answers. The thousands of young boys, from age 10 to 21, who lived “on the hill” and longed for a little less constrained life or perhaps a lot less complicated life would probably have liked to get a crack at telling their side of the story. It is the aim of my wife and myself as we launch into a full-blown project of writing a history of the Boys’ Industrial School near Lancaster, Ohio, that we can tell some of those stories. Further it is hoped we can enable our readers to see that the ideas, dreams, concepts, principles and philosophies that started the B.I.S. created what turned out to be a Golden Era in the annals of history, more specifically how boys at risk were cared for and challenged from 1856 until 1979. Nearly every one of those boys might well take on Gladys LeGrand’s description of life: ”Ride me or be trampled under.”

In the Booklet of Information, published in 1934, by the Boys’ Industrial School, Printing Dept.,, T. A. Snow, then Superintendent of Schools, wrote: “The present organization of academic training at the institution consists of a junior high school and two elementary schools. The system occupies two separate buildings. The Central School is made up of one junior high and one elementary department; the East School is elementary, organized for the smaller boys whose ages are from ten to thirteen years. The B.I.S. was not just a tool of discipline to “straighten out” boys, occasionally using rather strict measures, but the objective view of the Department of Education that existed is evidence the larger picture of each boy was a matter of concern. The teaching staff in 1934 consisted of fourteen teachers, four of whom are college graduates; the others had at least one to two years of college training. The school enrollment was 600, as follows: First Grade, 5; Second Grade, 7; Third, 14; Fourth, 43; Special, 62; Fifth, 96; Sixth, 115; Seventh, 118; Eighth, 66; Ninth, 43; Commercial 31.

”A boy’s education is a vital objective; therefore, his training in this respect is a matter of much concern and thoughtful supervision. It is considered quite essential then that we attempt to discover his native ability, his intelligence rating, interests, possibilities, aptitudes and his own individual handicap – to understand and to know him early, to know how much and what to expect from him as a student in his academic requirement, analytical, perhaps, to the extent of advising the necessity in certain cases of constant surveillance.” (ibid)

Breaking down the word, REFORM, takes on an entirely new meaning when educational aspects are factored in: re-inform, re-learn, re-place unprofitable or unsuitable habits with better information and profitable lessons for life after he leaves the B.I.S. Discipline is more than administering physical measures, the mind is the first area for true discipline.

Since we have decided to write a history of the institution, this concludes the series on the Boys’ Industrial School near Lancaster, Ohio. Although feature stories about the B.I.S. have been written and published in the newspaper, no book has been written on the subject.

THE WORDWRIGHT
All above Copyrighted by Bill & Jean Venrick, 2007, all rights reserved.

Posted by Bill Venrick at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Second in the series

The history of any organization, a nation or even a family presents a nearly presumptuous task and the only caveat that is lasting is the aphorism, “The only lasting thing is change.” No doubt any of the numberless (except to the true historian’s charts) superintendents of The Boys’ Industrial School would write the history almost entirely different than any previous or succeeding official. Right or wrong, history is often written as we see it, not as others might have seen it. The philosophy of a society or culture is under constant scrutiny and change is the only constant within any organization be it a family, a nation or any group between large and small entities. Naturally, ideas and the way things are done are the first casualties of change.

The very name of this state reform school for boys is an example of such changes. In 1858, the year of its beginning, “The Ohio Reform Farm & School” was the official name; words, phrases and terms were naturally different and would be as each generation followed. Succeeding administrations brought new and different people with concepts and procedures to fit the work as they saw it. Basics, although viewed or applied with verities of following administrations, were the change-less principles and precepts for this organization regardless what it was called.

Reading about the work the boys were required to do in 1858 compared to the work the boys were required to do in each succeeding “generation” is like visiting a library, going through doors of time. The very words “reform or reform school” came to mean something different as the times changed. Methods change as years pass and consequently people see issues differently and what was once thought to be proper or the best way are destined to become “old fashioned” or simply not in sync with the way things are done today.

The Ohio Reform & Farm School (name) was changed to The Boys’ Industrial School (B.I.S.) in 1885. In 1964 the name was changed to Fairfield School for Boys. In 1980 the Fairfield School for Boys (F.S.B.) was changed completely and became a prison for hardened criminals, replete with razor-fencing, etc. This series of essays is not to be regarded as a history of this Ohio Reform School, the Boys’ Industrial School or the Fairfield School for Boys. The purpose of this series of essays is merely a continued story of change and how it affected this particular reform school here in Fairfield County and the Hocking Hills region as it has been known for generations.

There is a song made popular by the Irish Tenors, which has a line in it that says, “And nothing stays the same…” Only a person with a tag or label, “Senior Citizen”, can hear that and not grin or perhaps even allow a tear to slide down our cheek. Lessons can either be learned or ignored as the torch of life’s circumstances is passed from one generation to another. This fact is so apparent in the business world that all eyes watch the third generation of a family business just to see what that generation will do with the business their grandfather started and their father continued; now history will reveal the success or failure of the third generation. Again, these essays are not really about this issue either, but rather the consequences of change can and will be seen to affect how this institution was run from one administration or generation to another. It is hoped that the reader can enjoy and appreciate simply reading how this all happened in the period from 1858 to 1980, over one hundred years of how Ohio addressed the problems of “boys who got in trouble”.

The very words used to describe the location of the B.I.S in its beginning days are descriptive of the times: “…three bathing houses, two shop buildings, two large barns, a wood house, bake house, lockup, wash house, ice house…” and the list goes on. Those terms are as foreign to us as night and day. In my own lifetime I have seen iceboxes replaced by refrigerators. As a child we used to go swimming at the public Miller’s Park swimming pool and customarily stop off at the Ice House to watch the delivery truck route men load their trucks with assorted sizes of ice blocks. Those men would use ice picks to break or divide larger blocks into smaller blocks and virtual piles of ice chips would be there and boys would grab assorted slivers of ice to suck on as they went on their way to further play or go back home. Today’s mothers would shutter to think of their children touching such ice today, let alone put it in their mouths.

In the early days of the B.I.S., the boys were regarded as human beings who, for the most part, did not have the privilege or blessing of being raised in a family but they had suffered greatly being from broken homes. The reform school attempted to instill in the boys under their care the need for an education, to learn how to “make an honest living when they leave us, to honor themselves, their commonwealth and their God.” It was recognized that many of the boys put into their care simply had no such rearing. Today our society even argues whether or not the name of God should be on our coins or biblical names or things, e.g., The Ten Commandments, should be prominent in public places. There was no shame felt for attempting to give boys in reform schools the fundamental principles of life that our country once felt essential. Similar examples of work ethics could be noted as an important part of life’s training.

Naturally times change and such adaptations were implemented as time went by at the Boys’ Industrial School. Where once it was felt the boys should even be taught how to sew, making the clothes (garments) that they wore and make shoes for their feet. Keeping boys busy was paramount and even as the “time changed” the principle was still the same – the objects in life simply took on new descriptions. Work, however, was an integral part in the farm of the B.I.S. A built-in task or labor force was there and made use of – thousands of fruit trees bore fruit that needed harvesting. Same with vegetable gardens, seedlings were planted and nourished into plants. Beef and pork were required staples for the dining tables. Cows needed to be milked; chickens were cared for, killed and dressed. Again, in my own lifetime I saw mothers tie the legs of a chicken on a clothes line in their back yards and using a sharp butcher knife cut off the chicken’s head and leave the animal bleed [dry]; later take that chicken and dip it in scalding water in preparation for removing (plucking) the feathers. Today, buying live chickens is not the way we shop or get a meal ready, at least in the United States. The B.I.S. taught the boys how to live in the society of that day; and such teaching changed as the society or culture of our country changed.

Looking back in the Boy’s Industrial School Journal of September 1930, one item lifted from Departmental News about the Carpenter Shop, on Page 23, was reported by one of the boys as follows:

“Well folks, we start the month of September with twelve all day boys. (Their names, although listed there, are not listed here with respect for their privacy)

”Now to explain in detail the work we were instructed to do during the last month. We will begin with Mr. Harmon and his chief carpenter, Schneider, who have been working down at the old power plant and also some of the amateur carpenters were helping out. (he again lists the ‘amateur carpenters, the B.I.S. boys). We also have a new instructor; his name is Mr. Rockey. He has done quite a bit of work around the School.

“We have been tearing down the old green house, while some of the boys were repairing crates. We have some boys who have been paroled; one was always feeling happy while another was singing the blues and yet another ‘doing the jig’. You can bust him up and he will keep smiling, you can give him a good calling down and he will still smile and feel happy and gay. [He named him because the boys would be reading this report later on and they would have a good laugh.]

”Well, all the same, we carpenters are pretty busy. Well, I guess we will close with our motto as follows: A good promise is poor pay if not kept.”

It is easily seen that the personality of any boy surfaced and how he reacted to either the work or the circumstances was evidence of how he regarded life as he knew it.

Next essay will tell about a couple more shops, e.g., the Shoe Shop and the Butcher Shop. Future essays will relate incidences about the Central School Library and The Commercial Class. Further episodes of The Poultry Yard and the Bake Shop will be featured. Communication was an important part of the lives of the boys “on the hill” and the boys in the Print Shop were a vital part of getting that word in print.

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(First in the series)

Leslie Townes Hope could easily have been one of the most famous residents (aka, BOB HOPE) but I didn’t find that youthful stopover in his official web site. But this true account is one claim to fame that many natives of Lancaster Ohio have in regard to the B.I.S. (the Boys' Industrial School). Bob often joked about his English heritage by saying, “I left England at the age of four when I found out I couldn’t be King.” He was fifth in a family of seven sons. But I am wandering from my story.

The Boys' Industrial School has to be one of many success stories of Lancaster, Ohio, and the United States for that matter. According to a short piece I found on the internet by Leona L. Gustafson, “It was the first penal institution in America to make the ‘open system’ experiment, and so successfully was it operated that twenty-eight states have used the Lancaster school as a model.”

On this state property of 1200+ acres, six miles south of Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, the population ranged in boys aged 8 to 18 serving time to have demerits cancelled by exemplary deportment. This system was quite different from typical reform schools since the property was not surrounded by walls and was entirely free from bolts, bars or other signs of restraint.

In this brief series of essays it is my hope to tell the story of how our state penal system worked in the last half of the 19th century and through the middle of the 20th century to teach young men virtue was to be found in industry – or hard sweat related work instead of learning how to make “easy money” in crime. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop” was not an easy thing to find “on the hill” (as the B.I.S. was called by its inmates). While the boys lived there they were introduced to nearly all the common occupations of that period of history and “…taught useful mechanical knowledge and at the same time contribute to the comfort and support of their fellows. Chief among these trades are blacksmithing, floriculture, tailoring, baking, printing, carpentering, telegraphy, stenography, brick making, shoe-making, dairying, cooking, etc.” The residents (inmates) of the B.I.S. operated and maintained the property of the state tending their own electric and steam plants as well as a working farm, laundry and poultry facilities. They even had a musical band and several battalions of regimentation overseen by competent military personnel. Whenever there were parades in downtown Lancaster you could always count on seeing the B.I.S. boys march in precision drill style. Limited sports activities were also a part of the program.

Facts and figures for such an institution might be staggering to our 21st century minds but some facts taken from The Industrial School Journal, dated September, 1930, will give a good example of what went on back then:

INSTITUTION NOTES

THE POULTRY YARD now has 596 laying hens and 1596 cockerels and pullets. During the past month 382 chickens were dressed for the dining rooms.

ACTIVITIES IN THE BAKERY for the month of July were 19,995 loaves of bread, 3,350 pies, 18,995 cookies, 1,250 slabs coffee cake, 14,350 buns and 1,560 rolls.

STATISTICS detailing the birthplace by States of the 72 boys committed to this school during July, were: Ohio 46, Pennsylvania 9, West Virginia 3, Tennessee 2 and one each from Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and one each from Hungary, Italy and Poland.

OF THE 72 BOYS COMMITTED to this school during the month of July, we find the causes of commitment to be: Auto theft 14, burglary 19, delinquent 3, (delinquent) stealing 1, destruction of property 1, immoral 3, incorrigible 7, forgery 2, stealing 20, truancy 1 and tampering with an auto, 1.

THE POPULATION of the school, July 31st, by Families, was as follows: Ohio Cottage, 90; Highland 86; Herrick, 80; Bushnell, 76; Lagonda, 65; Hocking, 63; Muskingum, 65; Harris, 73; Pattison, 73; Cuyahoga, 34; Scioto; 83; Auglaize, 3; Nash, 63; Harmon a, 63; Harmon B, 69; Union, 52; Maumee, 51; Farm Cottage No. 1, 6, making a total of 1,094.

An incidental note explaining the names of the cottages is to mention the names, as most Ohio natives will note, were named after the counties of the State and other names of significance to the administration of the school. Each “family” (cottage) was assigned an officer, usually a husband and wife team.

As mentioned earlier, the Boys’ Industrial School had their own print shop, and the material above is from the 66-page journal. Another publication the boys produced was the B.I.S. Journal Scrap Book. The following humor is an example of the brand of humor of those days:

A FINE POOR EFFORT

‘Twas midnight on the ocean, not a horse car was in sight,
When I stepped into the corner store to get myself a light.
The man behind the counter was a woman, old and gray,
Who used to sell bananas on the road to Mandalay.
She said, “Hello there stranger,”
Her eyes were dry with tears,
She put her head beneath her feet and stood that way for years.
Her children were orphans except one tiny tot,
Who lived alone across the street above the vacant lot.
As we gazed out through a tight shut door, a whale went drifting by,
His legs were hanging in the air; he wore a green necktie.
The quietness of the noise was still, the evening star was dawning.
A dead horse galloped up and said, “we won’t be home until morning.”
“Women and children first,” he said as he passed his plate for more.
Then took his hat from the rack and hung it on the floor.
An ax came walking through the air,
The clock struck twenty-six,
I dropped my eyes up toward the sky and saw a flock of bricks,
And when they buried him in the evening, when the grass was parched with dew,
He took his razor with him, in case his whiskers grew.

(Above from Page 19 of the B.I.S. Journal Scrap Book)

It appears the boys in the print shop got a chance to smile in spite of their confinement and duties. The boys did all the typesetting (by hand and some by machine most likely--this is an assumption based on a comment in the Journal on Page 61, “The printing department is one of the better equipped shops of the institution) and then printed these books on letterpress equipment popular in that day. The Scrap Book was 24 pages, plus the cover.

More to come from old records of the Boys’ Industrial School once in Lancaster, Ohio.

THE WORDWRIGHT

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Third Edition of the series on The faith of our Founding Fathers

As I begin putting words together for this third and final edition (series on Founding Fathers’ Faith) I need to resort to some basics. It is so easy to get caught up in the fray of circumstances and somehow allow the basics to become clouded by the excitement of the chase. Haven’t you wondered just what a dog would do if he actually caught the car he is busting himself to catch? The God of Christians and Jews has never been known to be in a hurry; a very short list could start with Abraham. God promised Abraham he would become the father of a great nation – greater in population than the sands of the sea. His wife Sarah was in on that promise and “laughed within herself” when she overheard the Lord say she was going to have a baby; and she was 90 when she got that word! “Yeah,” she thought, “and that old man I’m married to will turn 34 too!”

Moses qualifies to be one more saint who faithfully “waited in line” for God to work. Someone once said of Moses, “He lived a third of his life learning how to be somebody; and the next third of his life being nobody; and the last third of his life as a man who had learned both lessons.” God told him he was going to deliver the children of Israel from bondage. “Yeah, Lord, but when?” The 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews begins with these words: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” (King James Version) This single verse is probably among the large list of words that are hard for humans to understand.

We earthlings invented the idea of “time” as we know it; God did not invent the clock. Did someone notice the shadows changed their position as the day slowly moved along? Can’t you just see the gleam in the eye of that first person who thought, “Wonder what I can do with that information?” The monks dedicated their lives to a system of holiness that involved saying many prayers and writing many words, word after word and line after line. “How long do we do the work of scribes?” and “When is the next period of prayers and when does it end?” This became the project of a person like the one who noticed shadows moving. What else could move? The rest is history. Surprisingly the very instrument man created as a tool to “count time” ultimately made man a slave. At least that is what a lot of hourly workers often think – “I’m a slave to the clock.” That slavery continues to this day to meet deadlines, appointments and schedules.

It is obvious I am among many who are concerned about where some are leading our nation. How far can you bend a principle before it breaks? It is still faith in divine principles that compels those of us watching others “do their thing” that makes us wonder, “Where are we headed?”

During the seven decades I have lived I have observed life and people. It is not difficult to reach conclusions that should alarm us. What happens if we become lethargic in our prayers? What happens when we fail to “teach our children in the way of the Lord?” Moral decay is the result and integrity, ethics and faith in God are no longer important. What happens when we fail to administer justice properly or maybe go a step further than what is just? Ponder the following quote:

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure
the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

-- Samuel Adams (essay in The Public Advertiser, Circa 1749)
Reference: The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams, William Wells, vol. 1 (22)

Humans can make mistakes. Some have been falsely accused and even executed. Only through sheer bulldogged research of a third party putting bits and pieces together it was discovered the one executed was completely innocent! Such news is regretfully much too late.

But back to the concern of some – and the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. Lethargy, integrity, patriotism, apathy, insincerity, agendas, selfishness, pride and hate -- nine words that cannot be taken lightly or ignored. I believe we need watchmen as much as those who thought they were safe in castles of stone. We need boundaries and guidelines. Someone is always ready to push the envelope one inch further. Our two-party system supposedly was “the answer” to keeping our ship of state on an even keel. The possibility of one party striking off in an unwise direction has always existed; however as I have said before, it is disturbing to me why either party feels they must have complete control. The Party has become more important than the people! It makes no difference whether you are a Democrat or a Republican – there is not a nickel’s worth of difference from the other, they are both guilty of improprieties! In spite of the sham of addressing each with “The honorable representative from Iowa (or any of the 50 states)…” yet moments later they are planting seeds of distrust for the party on the other side of the aisle. If they are honorable, trusting them should not be a problem. Where is the cooperation and compromise that is vital to good government?

If you are among those who feel quotes by the Founding Fathers have been over dramatized, so be it. The resources I have most used were “written down and preserved” through the years long before e-mail urban legends became the norm. Perhaps we have been desensitized to honor and integrity so much by unscrupulous public servants we have concluded virtues are non-existent. But the words, “our sacred duty” were not glibly spoken by the Founding Fathers. “When Patrick Henry gave one of the most famous speeches of the revolutionary era, saying, ‘Give me liberty or give me death,’ his fellow delegates (including Jefferson and Washington) sat in awed silence.” (From William J. Bennett’s “Our Sacred Honor”)

Somewhere we have to consider the responsibility to think and make value judgments. Several years ago I came across the following quote that needs to be considered:.

“The person who won’t think has no advantages over the person who can’t think.” …Paul Lutus

The first person that comes to my mind as falling in line with this comment is the one who says, “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up.” One thing for sure, they might as well admit to being equal to the poor soul who cannot think.

The next quote is one by President George Washington. Please note the inclusiveness or far-reaching concept Washington makes; we cannot or should not ignore the essence of the thought that “our God” is really not American but is available and reachable by the entire world.

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

-- George Washington (Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789)
Reference: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (543)

I believe there have been sufficient references in the use of quotes this humble essayist has supplied, but, in closing this brief series, please consider the following:

“When lies are repeated often enough, even wise men begin to accept them.” Ben Ames Williams, in “House Divided, 1947)”

"The world is a dangerous place to live---not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." ---Albert Einstein

"The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat." ---Robert Louis Stevenson

"Immigrants in past centuries came here to become Americans, not to remain foreigners, much less to proclaim the rights of their homelands to reclaim American soil, as some of the Mexican activist groups have done... Today, immigrant spokesmen promote grievances, not gratitude, much less patriotism." ---Thomas Sowell

"[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence..." ---Article 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
---Mother Teresa

“Beware of all politicians at all times, but beware of them most sharply when they talk of reforming and
improving the constitution.” --- H. L. Mencken

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SECOND EDITION -- A good friend of mine taught at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and every year he considered his purpose in life was to “point out the obvious” to those young minds who came to college and sat in his classes. This philosophy of pedagogy was a practice in the three decades of his teaching career. This is the same predicament I find myself in regard to the self-deluding intelligentsia who would have us believe there is no evidence in our history that the Founding Fathers were influenced by the Bible or their beliefs in God and therefore no such contents are to be considered a part in theory or practice of government. I cannot help but consider this extremely biased propaganda anything less than an attempt to destroy any Judeo-Christian influence and even further erode morality into a mere situational ethics concept.

This second essay is a continuation to ferret out yet more quotes to establish the Founding Fathers were of the opinion that God was an essential part in the founding and governing of our nation.

Consider:

"[H]onesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and
only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just."
-- George Washington (Circular letter to the States, 14 June 1783)

"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted.
Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to
please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we
afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. "
-- George Washington (as quoted by Gouverneur Morris in Farrand's
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 25 March 1787)

"I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions,
their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."
-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Samuel Miller, 23 January 1809)
Reference: Jefferson Writings, Peterson, ed., 1186.

"The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body,
like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming
advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains,
is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws
of that which feeds them." ---Thomas Jefferson

There is probably no quote mined but that another quote will either refute the first quote or no less than desensitize it to a degree that would appear similar in substance to wet wood when dried wood is needed. Whatever worth can be found in the above quote by Jefferson in regard to his fear of the federal judiciary, there is still the uncertainty of confidence, trust and integrity of any group of humans. One cannot help but wonder if the reservations or concern about the lack of trust in others in any way reveals the very weakness of the individual who is doing the questioning.

In my seminary days this very thesis came to light in a homiletic class. The “young preacher boy” (as we all were) had prepared his sermon in a “hell-fire and brimstone” style condemning all kinds of sin, enforcing his points with occasional pulpit pounding. When he was finished no one had any doubt that “to sin” was to separate us from God and put oneself in a position of needing forgiveness for any transgression. As Satan has his way with believers who are unaware of his devices, several months later this same fellow who warned, condemned and laid low anyone who succumbed to temptations of the flesh was put in a position where he could do nothing except drop out of school (his fiancé had somehow became pregnant). Most I knew had nothing but pity for the young man but I cannot help but think the biggest job of forgiveness was within his own mind. One has to be extremely careful what words of condemnation come from our mouths; the words of Genesis should be a constant alert: “sin is crouching at your door”. (Genesis 4:7)

If Jefferson was fearful of such, we can only hope he was as concerned about his own “lawyering” ways. Was he always the voice of integrity? Whatever the answer, the truth of what he says remains, even if he might have flaws himself, and the word “if” can be withdrawn from this phrase because we are all made of clay: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

Truth must be recognized regardless of its origin. Truth can be found in both sides of an argument but the utter disregard of truth is something that needs repaired in our lives and integrity must prevail even if it means we may lose an argument.

My self assigned task of uncovering decades of dust to “point out the obvious” to the God-less partisan tribe who insists on assuming that Christians, and Jews alike, are stupid illiterates who they think can be fooled or wowed by titles or by much talking. In 1987 Charles Colson dared Americans to face the reality of facts supporting the principle that state and the church can and should co-exist. Will Durant’s quote was part of the fuel Colson used: “The greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West; it is whether men can live without God.”

Apparently, even though almost two decades have passed since Will Durant wrote those words, the problem has never really been solved or the facts in question reconciled. Out nation has been sold a bill of goods that morals are not important. Many college professors in the very schools that were originally preacher-training schools have taught situational ethics. Why should we be surprised that decades later prayer was taken out of our schools? The very presence of the Ten Commandments has been denied all because of a God-less partisan philosophy is being espoused by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Some of the intelligentsia is still hard at the job of un-writing history and inserting their own versions of our Founding Fathers. I cannot ignore that even the very interesting cable network program, The History Channel, has joined hands with such partisan gibberish by toying with the kind of copy you see in the National Enquirer. I remember one such ad which was full of innuendo about three Founding Fathers. They attempted to minimize the integrity of men such as Benjamin Franklin, rehashing his moral flaws while unashamedly publishing partial bits of gossipy text copy. As mentioned in the Edition One of this series, no one has ever tried to claim the Founding Fathers were angels and I dare add: Neither do we find either aisle of our nation’s capital occupied with people wearing halos!.

As Thomas Jefferson feared the federal judiciary and what they might do, it bothers this writer terribly when I hear either party boldly craving to be “the party in control”! Control? Are not our nation’s leaders capable of doing good without having to be at the wheel and not trusting their “Distinguished Senators or Congressmen (men and women)” – or are they being two-faced liars when they stand in their expensive suits addressing each other with untarnished titles as though hand-appointed by God..

The whole business of government and God is an endless (well, in this world it appears endless) mystery as to why or how man even exists. I have written in more than one place, “All of our problems are theological problems.” Whether we believe in God doesn’t matter. Facts are facts and disputations, arguments; theories are all a part of humanity. As the preacher of our fellowship of believers said recently, “It’s all about God, isn’t it?” He was saying the same thing I mentioned a sentence or two back. Man has had trouble recognizing orders, places of authority since the very beginning. But if there are those “out there” who cannot accept the existence of God, so be it; but I find it rather difficult to imagine or conceive of “something” being in existence without the need of a Creator. Cars, dishwashers, televisions, computers and 147,893 other “things” have all come to us because or as a result of being designed, invented, manufactured or processed by “someone”. Just where or how that “someone” or “some thing” came to be seems a rather simple evidence to decipher whether a creator was needed. Man creates ideas, theories, plans – and cars, dishwashers, televisions, computers (and the list goes on) but some people just cannot conceive of anyone (even God) being cleverer that they are.

As a Christian, I believe that God created all that is here (and out there in space). I may have chosen the simple way out, belief, but that faith has enabled me to sort out life and its problems a bit more thoroughly and in this series of government essays it is just one more step to accept what the Bible says, that government was even one more creation of God, take a look at Romans 13:1-5. As believers, our task is really quite uninvolved and thus simple: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) No long list of details, just live a life of integrity, treating others as we would like to be treated and thus demonstrate lives different from the mold of the world.

THE WORDWRIGHT

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Edition One --- A Foreword

One of the interesting books in my personal library is “America’s God and Country” which is an Encyclopedia Of Quotations, compiled by William J. Federer. I cannot speak for Mr. Federer but it would almost seem providential that such a compilation has been prepared because there is a group of our society that is seeking to rewrite history so it would appear that God, religion or the Bible has had no contribution whatsoever to our Nation. The mystery of this is how could anyone hold such an opinion when so many evidences are within footsteps of each other in our Nation’s capitol. Another such phenomenon is the effort of some to strike out the Holocaust as having ever occurred.

Even if all the survivors of the Holocaust were to die, and of course they will, and that personal tattoo on their forearms (an identification of their imprisonment) disappear from our view, the thousands of books, essays and articles chronicled in scrapbooks throughout the nations will not let the record of Holocaust vanish! Yet some still try to ignore the Holocaust into some limbo world. September 11, 2001 is yet another day of infamy that already some claim never happened. They say that no airplanes flew into those twin towers of the World Trade Center; they claim it was explosions, not terrorist guided airplanes. Once again, the thousands of VCR records, newsreels, newspaper photographs are the visible record that our Nation was indeed terrorized, not twice, but in four instances on that 11th day of September in 2001.

“As the Declaration of Independence was being signed by the members of the Continental Congress, August 2, 1776, Samuel Adams declared:

‘We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.’

“On October 4, 1790, Samuel Adams wrote to his cousin John Adams, who was then the Vice-President of the United States:

‘Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; of instructing them in the art of self-government without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies, great or small; in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.’ (Pages 23, 24 of America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations.)

Thus those printed words of our Founders are hereby extended yet further as evidences that religion and belief in God was a vital part of their way of life. Their personal character flaws are recorded as well, as William J. Bennett’s book, “Our Sacred Honor”, states, “The Founders certainly were no angels—often they did not live by their own advice. They themselves acknowledged that if men were angels there would be no need for government.” Do not let history be re-written to fit partisan philosophies or agendas of a God-less segment of this society.

THE WORDWRIGHT

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COUNTRY REMEDIES
by Jean Steel Venrick, wife of The Wordwright

In the olden days people rarely went to the doctor or hospital except for something quite serious that they could not handle. Illness at our house was rather infrequent, but occasionally a tummy ache or cold occurred. I was never very good at accepting or being around sick people.

When I was a little girl past four years old, it was summertime and Mother was pregnant with my brother. She had morning sickness, vomiting often. One time she asked me to get the washpan for her. Instead, I ran out the door, around to the side of the house and held my ears so I couldn't hear her throw up. After a few months and 19 times vomiting (she counted) she was over the hump. On March 20, 1937, John Robert Steel was born at home on a Saturday night, with Dr. M. E. Nichols and his brother-in-law in attendance. We had no phone, so Daddy had to drive to a neighbor's house over the hill to summon the doctor. Grandma Combs (mother's mother) then came to spend the ten days after the baby arrived as a new mother was not allowed out of bed for that length of time.

In my growing up years at home, 1932-1951, not one of our family was ever in the hospital.

A couple accidents I remember sent someone to the doctor's office though. Mother had a piece of metal removed from her face after she helped my dad when he worked on one of his many projects--such as building a tractor, making a pick-up truck or reviving an old 1934 Chevy. A small fragment of metal flew from what he was hammering, struck her near her mouth, lodging in her cheek.

Another time, my dad thought he would be economical and move a cedar tree that was growing near the woods, to our front yard. It was in the cold of winter, a good time to move it, so he thought, but the poison ivy growing around it wasn't dead, just dormant. Being very allergic to the plant, he received a bad case of the itch, especially on his face. Cost him $8.00 to get rid of it because he had to go to the doctor for medicine. That was probably enough money to have bought two trees.

One time I must have had a bad case of the flu or an upset stomach because they called Dr. Nichols who came to our house, sat me up in bed, and started giving me spoon after spoon, of some kind of pink medicine. I cried and threw up, then I cried and threw up some more. He was finally satisfied I had retained enough of the yucky stuff to make me feel better. I would say I must have been about five years old at the time. I was never a good medicine-taker, always putting off by saying, "Give me a chance, give me a chance!"

We took Pepto Bismol for upset stomach and on rare occasions Mother got down the old bottle of whiskey, set high on the shelf in the cabinet, and used only for medicinal purposes. To a little whiskey was added warm water and sugar to settle your stomach. Didn't taste bad at all.

For a laxative, Pepsin was the order of the day, or maybe Ex-Lax. Later, Carter's Little Liver Pills--better known as "Carter's Little Starters", did the trick.

For earache we used warmed Sweet Oil with cotton in your ear to keep out the cold and air. Sweet oil is simply olive oil, I've since learned. For a toothache, Oil of Cloves, which came in a waxed coated stick which you cut off, was stuffed in the cavity of your tooth. We probably had aspirin in the medicine cabinet but I don't remember taking them, possibly the adults did.

For small cuts you used Mercurochrome, not Merthiolate because it burned too much! Alcohol or soap and water was used for disinfecting, then Cloverine Salve or Vaseline was applied and wrapped with a clean piece of cloth since Band-Aids weren't available. We used Arnica for mosquito bites.

When the cold season came on with sore throats and runny noses we resorted to the Vicks remedy. Rub your neck with Vicks, wrap a rag around your neck fastening it with a safety pin. Then go to bed and let it burn. Oh, how I hated for Mother to want to put a touch of Vicks on my nose. I fought that and took my chances with suffering rather than having a burning nose.

If you had bad congestion in your chest, I remember having a mustard plaster applied to my chest. This was not used except in severe cases. Dry mustard, flour and a little water mixed together to make a paste, was put on a cloth and applied to the chest but only for a few minutes as it could cause severe burns. If I recall, the paste was not applied directly to the chest either, but did it's work through the cloth. Smith Brothers’ black cough drops or Luden's rounded out our medical supplies. We didn't have tissues to blow our noses in so I had to carry two or three hankies with me to school. No antibiotics were available so you let nature take its course on the ailments.

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COUNTRY REMEDIES is taken from Jean’s book, "Recollections of the Past. 1932-1951." Copyrighted 1996

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My wife is a genealogist in her own right and several years ago, while working on family genealogy, we ran onto this very interesting story about American Indians and the white man. Full credit is hereby given to Historical Collections of Ohio, by Henry Howe, LL.D., Franklin County Indians Story – The Wordwright

An interesting anecdote, illustrating the peculiar characteristics of the Indians as our first settlers of Columbus found them, is related of Keziah, the youngest daughter of John and Mary Hamlin.

In 1804 Mr. Hamlin built the first cabin east of the Scioto River, on the spot where Hosters Brewery now stands, and here, Oct 16, 1804, his daughter Keziah, the first white child in Columbus, was born. At this time a tribe of Wyandot Indians were located near a bend in the river just below the present Harrisburgh bridge. They were very friendly to the Hamlins, and were specially fond of Mrs. Hamlin's freshly baked bread. On bread baking days they would come to the cabin, and lifting aside the curtain which served for a door, enter, and help themselves to the content of the larder without asking permission or saying a word to the occupants. Upon leaving they would throw a hunk of venison or whatever game they had upon the floor as compensation, and then silently take their departure.

One day when Mrs. Hamlin was attending to her household duties with nobody present save her infant daughter, who was calmly sleeping in her crib, several of the Indians entered the cabin, and without saying a word deliberately took up the sleeping infant and carried her away with them to their village, leaving Mrs. Hamlin trembling with fear and anxiety for the safety of her child. As the hours passed by, and the child was not returned, she suffered the greatest mental anguish and suspense, until, toward the close of day, her sufferings were relieved by the reappearance of the Indians bringing with them the child, which wore a beautiful pair of beaded moccasins upon her little feet, and which the Indians had been working industriously upon all day, and had felt the necessity of having the child with them so as to insure a perfect fit. This token of the appreciation of a savage race for the kindness and hospitality shown them by early pioneers was preserved until a few years ago, when the scion of a younger generation of the same house unfortunately destroyed them when too young to appreciate their value.

Miss Keziah Hamlin, the heroine of this pleasing anecdote, married Dec. 19, 1822, David Brooks, of Princeton, Mass., and died Feb. 4, 1875, leaving a family of three sons and two daughters, one of whom, Mr. David W. Brooks, of the banking firm of Brooks, Butler & Co., kindly furnished us with the facts given herein.

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To a weaver, this is may be an old term or axiom, but to others the expression probably needs some explanation. When a weaver’s work is finished after having thrown the shuttle back and forth through the sheds, pulling beater to bang the threads together after every shot, all to weave a wonder such as has been around for centuries, cloth is finally "cut free of the loom". The ends of the warp are tied and, there it is, a finished piece of cloth.

Life is somewhat like a loom. We[ft] are shuttled back and forth between several courses of warp -- "threads of circumstances" that are switched first one way and then another as each shed opens. Someone pulls the beam that forces us between those warp threads and this process continues until we die and are "cut free of the loom".

My maternal granddad is a perfect example of this analogy. He was born in Missouri during the time his father taught school there. They returned to Ohio to settle in the area of Zanesville, Ohio. Years later, when Harry Edmund Keadle, my granddad, married Jessica White, of Corning, Ohio, who knows the thrill of that young couple as they awaited the birth of their second child. But the beater that was pulled hard weaving the weft of their lives did not turn out the way they dreamed. Leroy, their first child, died in January, 1904 at about four months. Alice Marie Keadle, my mother, was their second child but granddad’s wife died a few days after my mother came into this world. Jessica was "cut free of the loom" of life leaving Harry to weave a life for a baby daughter. Fortunately his mother was available and my mother, Alice Marie, was raised by her grandparents.

But the banging of that weaver’s beater was not finished with Harry’s life. At the age of 42 he was struck down by what they termed in those days "a sun stroke" that eventually took his eyesight. He had remarried after his first wife died at childbirth. At the news that her robust husband and provider was going blind, the woman who once vowed "til death do us part" decided she "did not want to live with a blind man." She cut herself from Harry’s life. Being squeezed between the strands of warp in the weaver’s loom is often not a comfortable time.

What now? First wife gone. Daughter to raise. Second marriage which produced two more daughters. Now, the joyful plans for "the rest of your life" are nothing but shattered dreams—or a rug torn from a loom, not cut free as it should have been..

My grandfather decided to learn how to weave – his mother had a loom and apparently wove for years to provide for her family needs. She was either the firm example of tough love or strangely selfish because she would not let him use her loom! The genre of my granddad produced men who did not take no easily. As strange, and nearly impossible as it seems to even me, I was told that he "felt around" that great old loom of his mothers calculating measurements in his head and "built his own loom". I have an old workbench that could well have been used in constructing his first loom, starting his career as a weaver.

As my granddad’s abilities grew through experience he became very popular as the one who could make rag rugs like no other. He even worked for the [Ohio] State Blind Commission and wove rugs patterned to their specifications. Those were not readily available to the public but were all shipped to the State [for later sales].

Since Granddad Keadle "could do anything" why not have him weave a 9 x 12 rug for their house? My mother and father began "sewing rags together" for Granddad Keadle and almost became obsessed with their special project. So they would sew rag pieces together, wind them into balls until we had enough for the rug. Naturally, you cannot weave a 9 foot wide rug on a modest sized loom, which normally was used to make strip rugs probably a maximum of 36 inches; nine feet would require three strips sewn together and twelve feet was a long runner. In itself, this last task of sewing those long strips together was not a small job.

I do recall one instance when Granddad Keadle chided them for making the balls too big—they were just too hard to handle; so they made smaller balls. Of course it wasn’t a rug until it was woven using those sewn rag strips shuttled back and forth weaving one row at a time—all on hand-powered looms, of course.

I remember it clearly that day the task was completed and we had that huge [to the mind of a small boy] 9 x 12 rag rug to lay in our house. I can’t be exactly sure where we first used that rug but it seems in my memory we used it in more than one house. My dad must have really wanted something unique to have started such a project. Long after we first used that rug it was passed on down to my wife and me and we were privileged to use it in one of our first houses.

Years later, after granddad’s own father was "cut free of the loom" leaving him and his sister to care for the Homestead – something had to be done. Sell the place? Move? What now? Well, my granddad’s loom room had five looms and now he had to reduce the number of looms when he found another place. He was getting on in years now. So, he moved into a small cottage in Putnam, across the river from the main city of Zanesville, Ohio, and started up his weaving again, but this time with just two looms. What a change it must have been for him, being cut free of the homestead, but this time to live by himself. Granddad Keadle had just a one room cottage, with a bath; and he even heated with a coal stove that he had to keep going during cold winter months. As I’ve said before, my Granddad Keadle was not an easy man to discourage. In fact he was a happy, well-informed man keeping himself up to date with news from his radio.

I was probably the typical precocious "little boy" and granddad was always telling me I could weave something some day. Well, my time came and Granddad Keadle "set up" his unique Deen loom so it could weave a tubular weave. On the drawing board of his mind he sketched out the plans to weave a pair of pants for me.

Technically, each shuttle would weave "one side" of a leg. Each shuttle only goes halfway across the warp. One shot of each shuttle for the top side half way across, change the shed, and the shuttle goes back again for the bottom layer. When the legs were finished, then only one shuttle was needed to weave one shed all the way across the top layer of the tube that would be the top of the pants. Remember, all this technique was "sketched out in the mind" of my blind granddad. He had it all figured out as to the length of the two tubes [for the legs] and just when to convert the weaving process to a single tube for the upper part of the pants. In all honesty the practicality of these pants was sacrificed for the novelty of making such a garment; one unique example was the absence of a "fly" closure for a male garment so the upper portion was once again adapted in the weaving process to leave an unfinished edge of the "tube" to close with a fastener of sorts. Another term would be to call this a seamless garment.

As the weaver on most of the straight weaving portions, I know certain details were confusing to me but the master weaver was close by. Believe me, I was one proud 10 years old grandson. I still am, for that matter, because even though it has been over sixty years since those trousers were "cut free of the loom" I still have them, with a note explaining how they came to be made!

My granddad Keadle was finally "cut free of the loom" of life at 79. Nineteen years after I wove those pants I was asked to "preach my granddad’s funeral". I have not woven a thing since then, but my life has been continuously pressed between the warp strands of life. Until the Weaver of Life decides it is time to "cut me free of the loom" I will content myself with throwing the shuttle back and forth weaving this life of mine that God started before I was a gleam in my father’s eyes.

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Credit and appreciation to Dee Burnlees, Ontario, Canada, for her expert assistance with technical terminology in writing this story. Originally printed and published for distribution in the American Amateur Press Association monthly membership bundle in the year 2002. William B. Venrick, Author, Lancaster, Ohio. (Entered in the category of HISTORY on the The Wordwright website 03-12-06)

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