JEAN (STEEL) VENRICK’S BRIEF HISTORY

The above picture shows me at age 3 in front of our little house — although a bit spartan existence to some it was very special to me.
After reading my husband’s story as a youth and also a a friend of his whose similar “life experiences” story they published in their kindred membership journals they shared in a publication of the American Amateur Press Association, I can probably say I lived an entirely different life style. We never moved around except once when I was two years old and I don’t remember that. I grew up in a four-person household on a small farm four miles from Lancaster, Ohio. I lived there my entire childhood till I “flew the nest” at barely 19, taking off for the big city of Cincinnati. Although my parents objected to my moving out I was determined and went anyway. I wanted to get married and had found the guy I wanted. He was going to Bible college and the only way to keep track of him was to follow. He became interested in me and five months after leaving for college we were married, June 3, 1951. We both had graduated from the same high school class just one year earlier, June 1, 1950.
Back to my life on the farm. Just a very short time before I was born my father had built a new house for his bride. It was a small house by today’s standards. That house still stands but it has gone through several building changes but it is easily recognizable as the house in which I was born in 1932.
The photo below shows the country property and the little temporary dwelling (in left portion of picture) which later will become a 2-car garage.

The time window was right in the middle of the Great Depression and upon losing his job at a lumber mill in 1934, my parents purchased 36 acres of partially wooded land and eventually added 20 more acres to their small place in the country. It was because of the uncertain times, losing his job and the Great Depression, my parents moved to the country so they could provide for themselves more adequately and they left that new beautiful little house to find my dad building another house.

Really this “new house” was a lot different than the city home my dad and mother moved into when they married. This new house was a 3-room house, with a path (no running water) – yes, quite different because later, in the long range plan this little house would become a two-car garage. My father had planned all this long term project. We lived close to the earth raising a lot of our own food.

In 1939, July 4th, my parents, my brother and I moved into a much larger new house that my dad built, with the help of my mother. Once my mother drove the tractor, with my little brother in her lap, while dad followed behind guiding a scoop to dig out the basement for the new house (in the country). We were now moved into the new house with electricity which had just come to the country as the REA (Rural Electrification Association)

My father was raised a “city boy” — he even went to business college after working at the lumber mill before deciding upon his niche in the trade of lumber mill work, yet as the variety of work required in the country, my dad seemed to know a good bit about country living. Perhaps my mother, who lived in the country throughout her childhood and early adulthood, may have helped him.
My dad worked in town at the same lumber mill he had been laid off when the depression hit; in fact shortly after my parents bought their country place he was called back to work in town and he worked five and one-half days a week, getting off at noon on Saturdays. Through the week he would come home for supper with the family, then go out and do whatever needed to be done: mow hay, till a few acres or plant seed.
Mother was the one who milked 2-3 cows, or occasionally she might have two cows, fed the hogs, looked after the sheep and fed the chickens. She tended the garden, planting, hoeing, picking the bounty and later canning. She prepared all the meals, mowed the yard and painted whatever buildings needed painted. Hers was a busy life. We never had a telephone the whole time we lived in the country and consequently I do not like to make phone calls to this day. Mother was the quintessential “stay at home mom”. But we never called here “Mom” but “Mother” — why we were not allowed to call her Mom I will never understand because both of my parents called their mother, “Mom”.
My dad was constantly building something whether it was a building, a tractor or a truck. He built more than one tractor from scraps at the junk yard. He rebuilt a 1934 Chevy once and a truck he rebuilt he never got to use it because someone else wanted it more than he did, so he sold it. We had numerous buildings on our farm, the last being a large bank barn. He and mother worked together on most projects and when it came time to roof the barn, there was mother up on the roof working beside my dad.
Frugality was the governing principle of our home and we never had to wonder where our next meal would come from. My brother and I felt loved but not the “kissy-kissy” type of love. We attended church every Sunday and took part in activities of the church. We took time for family visits and from time we would drive up the road and visit neighbors. One interesting thing about those visits, compared to visits today, we never expected a meal or even a snack at those visits – we just sat and talked; often the kids might be in one part of the room or house and the adults were apart from the children. All in all, I feel confident in saying “I had a very stable home life.”

Now after both my parents and brother are gone, the above picture (taken just a few weeks ago) shows that same house on Stoney Hill Road my father built in 1939 and for all practical purposes looks just like it did when the RAY STEEL FAMILY lived there. The little white garage (in left portion of picture) was razed but replicated to look just like the original one my dad built for us to live in while he built the “big house”. The barn (the largest building in right portion of picture) that mother helped my dad build and where mother milked her cows still looks like it did over sixty years ago. Looking back it never ceases to amaze me how my dad could have built so many out buildings but there they are as proof to his busy life in the country. The present buildings are slightly different, mainly the lake and the boat house are the only additions to the property as we knew it.
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THANKS, JEAN for giving us a brief pictorial-with-words story of your childhood. I have to admit at this juncture of history that my family, like many others I have found out, moved a lot. In fact during the twelve years of my school years we lived in twelve different houses. Enough said — my home life was much different! BILL VENRICK, THE WORDWRIGHT.