by Edna White Byland
OHIO, THE BEGINNING
Until I was ten years old, I lived in Ohio. I remember living in Blanchester with Mom, Dad, and my brothers Paul and Ray. I went to school there and how frightened I was when I had to go to the basement to go to the toilet! That in itself scared me when I had to pull the chain and all that water roared above ready to drown me! But that big monster of a furnace, crouching with its arms spread all over to each room, really made me sneak down those stairs and dart into a booth, get through as fast as possible, grab the chain, and run! At home we had privys in our back yard with two big seats and one little one; a moon cut into the door, morning glories climbing all over it, bees buzzing outside and a catalogue to look at. It was a friendly place. In the house there were chamber pots under the beds for night time and cold day use!
Dad was a contractor-builder and I remember when he came home and told Mom in the new house he was building there was to be a whole room with a bathtub and toilet in it. She wondered how that would be, when no matter how clean you scrubbed the privy they were always smelly! I think her words were, "How in the world could you have that dirty thing in the house?"
Every week we went to Woodville to visit Grandma and Grandpa Long on their little farm. It was such a fun place to be. They let us do anything we pleased as long as we didn't get hurt. I got to go barefooted in the dust out on the dusty road! Something I never got to do in town. I can still feel the warm dust as I wiggled my toes in it. Grandpa only had one arm, his right one was off at the shoulder. Having come through the war O.K., he lost his arm in a hunting accident when Mom was a baby. But one arm or not, he was the sheriff for many years. [Fred Long lost his right arm while climbing over a fence with a loaded gun. There is no record of him being a sheriff in Warren, Clermont or Brown counties (Richards 1984).] He was tall and thin, Grandma was short and cuddly. She was Irish with curly red hair and very quick in her movements, darting here and there like a bird. [Note: Fred Long was in the Civil War from August 1862 to July 1865. He was in Company E, 17th Ohio Infantry]
We didn't get to visit our other Grandparents as often as they lived further away on a bigger farm. We went there every month, though. Sometimes we went on the train and had to be met at the depot. [The White family probably rode the B&O Railroad on these trips (Dorin 1978)]
Frederick and Margaret Long at their Woodville home, Woodard ca 1910
Mostly we drove places in our carriage until Dad got his first car, but that came later after we moved to Middletown. Until we got a car, Mom called them Devil Carriages because our horses used to rear up and try to run away when we met a car. But after we got one, she thought it would be a good idea if the horses would just get out of the way!
Anyway, it was fun visiting Grandma and Grandpa White, too. Everything was on a much larger scale and I still remember the first time Grandpa took me out to the big barn, all those horses and cows! He showed me where milk really came from and let me try to milk. He was big and tall, too, and my Grandmother's were almost alike in build, though Grandma White was Scotch and had snow white hair. I never saw her any other way as her hair turned white when she was just over thirty years old. It was my Grandmothers who told me that water closets were called privys because that meant private.
Abner and Mariah White, Byland ca 1910
We moved to Middletown where Dad had built what would now be called a duplex, then it was called a two family or double house. We lived in one side and another family moved into the other side and this was later to be rental property. My Aunt Lala, Dad's sister, had come to live with us just before we left Blanchester, as Mom was expecting another child. It was in this duplex that my brother, Alvie, was born.[Alva White was born in the spring of 1910 (Woodard 1987)]
It was a difficult birth as he came face first. Mom was afraid to let the Doctor used forceps so she was torn a bit and the baby's face was pushed up almost to the top of his skull. The Doctor pushed his facial skin down into shape again. He was a mess for a while, but grew into another handsome little boy.
All this time Dad was trying to get our new home ready for us. It was in a beautiful spot in the suburbs. There were winding roads and lots of trees, with only a few nice homes here and there. We were all so happy to be where we could have our horses with us again instead of boarding them out.
I remember Dad having a photographer come to take a picture of us on one of our favorite ponies. Dad stood at the head and we were all lined up on the horse's back; first me, then Paul, Ray and Alvie. Mom stood by Alvie to steady him on the horse, he was so small. This was a very large picture in a frame and hung on the wall for many years.
It seemed no time at all till our paradise was spoiled. The city passed an ordinance making it unlawful for saloons to operate within the city limits, so they all moved just outside! We were surrounded. Seven of them within shouting distance. Soon, just in back of our home, a foreign settlement sprang up. [The foreign settlement was just outside the Middletown city limits on the south side. These people were Hungarians brought in to work in the steel mill by the American Rolling Company (Crout 1987)]
I don't remember any resentment toward these people. We knew they were from a different country because most of them couldn't speak English, but a smile is understood in any language and we were friends. When a new baby arrived we were so happy for them and took little love gifts. The new Mamas in turn let us see the baby and gave us cookies. I remember when one infant died, it was laid out in the front room with pennies on it's little eyelids to keep them closed. We all cried together. Afterwards I often took flowers to this sad young Mother and we sat in the sun on the steps and talked.
Of course, with the change, all property value went down. [When the Hungarians moved in, the area became a slum. It was not cleaned up until the 1970's (Crout, 1987)] When Dad found out we visited the back doors of saloons where the friendly saloon keepers and family gave us pretzels, etc., and we were liable to be hit by a stray bullet or knocked down by a drunk, he moved us fast as he could.
The foreign settlement people were a happy, friendly, loving people, and the kids loved to visit them. Only one thing, they lived in shacks and baked their bread in great outside ovens. I remember if those great round loaves got a bit burned they had a rock beside the front of the oven and when the women took the bread out they'd sorta whop the burnt crust off with a stick, one side of the loaf resting on the rock. If a stray dog came by they'd whop the dog, then back to the bread!
Another thing, the men loved to visit the saloons and when drunk would likely as not settle any trouble with guns. Shots were liable to fly around any night. I remember when Aunt Alice brought her children to visit us, that night a gunfight broke out and shots were fired all around. [Aunt Alice White Janes was Ray White's older sister (Woodard, 1987)] Aunt Alice thought it was just awful to live in the wild west and next morning early she was all packed and left for home.
Alice White Janes and children in front of their home, Byland 1914
Dad was busy building us another home back within the city limits. It was just great! Tile bath and kitchen, all the modern things it was possible to have. Our furnace there was friendly, set in the middle of a light and cheerful basement. Here we had a young married couple that lived in, Charlie and Goldie. She helped in the house and he did the yard work and cared for our carriage horses. It was while we lived here that Dad bought our first car. We had two, but he still kept his horses. If one of us got sick Mom just phoned the Doctor and he came and made us feel better. Every day she'd also phone the grocer and give him her order for the day which he would deliver. In fact, unless she wanted to, she needn't ever walk outside for anything.
Each spring and fall we had a seamstress who came to see what new clothes we all wanted made. After a few fittings she'd bring them to us all finished. Also we had a laundress who came every week to do the washing and ironing. It was here that my sister, Lou, was born.
She was a cuddly living doll! Dad bought over a hundred pounds of candy and treated all the men who worked for him and he laughingly called his baby girl "The Candy Kid"!
When she was three months old and I was ten years old, in 1913, we moved to Alberta, Canada. Dad's two partners went with us, so did Charlie and Goldie. Charlie road in the box car with Dad's horses to care for them. A car load of Mom's lovely possessions were also shipped. In fact Dad shipped everything except my piano, our shetland ponies and the automobile. We used the car for the last time to go to our Grandparents and tell them goodbye. In my mind's eye I can still see them standing there waving while I knelt on the back seat looking back at them as long as I could see them. We never got to see them again, but over sixty years later I have clear and wonderful memories of them and my Aunts and Uncles and oh, so many cousins!
I don't know how much money Dad had but it must have been quite a lot because when he and I were wandering around in the pasture at Grandma Long's saying our goodbyes to the pet animals Dad said, "Come here, Sis, I want to show you something." And he opened his bulging money belt and pulled the top bill off a big stack and said, "You've never seen a thousand dollar bill so take a good look at this one and remember it is one hundred dollars for each year you have lived." I know we traveled in style from Ohio to Edmonton, Alberta.
Middleton House built by Rayman White, Byland 1912
[The Whites left for Alberta in June 1913. The most probable train route was Middletown to Chicago through Hamilton on the B&O. Then from Chicago they would have gone through Minneapolis to Winnipeg on the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie. Their last leg would have been from Winnipeg to Calgary on the Canadian Pacific Railway (Paullin 1932)]
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