20 Years Ago
Week of March 9, 2006
Pendletonian Recalls Childhood Travels
by Riley Smith
A native of Pendleton County, son of Martin and Maggie Puffenbarger Smith, born and raised in the Big Stony Run area near Sugar Grove, I do this at the request of some of my family and friends.
I recall the first time I traveled outside Pendleton County. I don’t know how old I was, only I was not old enough to be in school.
I went with my dad to Stokesville by horses and wagon. We went early one morning and traveled for a while by moonlight instead of daylight. We took a load of oak bark and brought back fertilizer to plant with the small grain fall crop.
Cramer Bros. had a store in Stokesville near where the bridge is now. They bought this bark for the tannery in Harrisonburg where the Water Street parking deck is now. They then shipped it by rail. The rail service between Bridgewater and Stokesville was discontinued in 1932 or 1933. The open field which one sees there now on the opposite side of the road from the store, was almost filled with huge stacks of bark when I was there.
Almost everybody who had oak timber would harvest the bark. They cut the trees in the spring when the sap was up, and they were easy to peel. They cut a ring around the tree every four feet and then peeled it off with a spud. They then stacked the bark and let it dry over summer so it would not be so heavy to handle. It was cut in four-foot lengths because it was sold by the cord and that made it easier to handle and also to stack on railroad cars.
After we had the bark unloaded and the fertilizer loaded, we headed for home. I don’t know how far we got before we were overtaken by dark and had to stop and set up camp. I can still smell that coffee brewing over an open fire. I don’t know what time we arrived back home but I do know that my first trip outside the county was a two-day trip. I wish I could take that trip all over again and not just in my memory.
Another memorable trip was on foot and not by horses and wagon.
My father was a fire warden so he worked the Reddish Knob lookout during fire season. This was long before the tower was built, and there was just a small one-room cabin for the guard to stay in.
One Easter Sunday morning, my dad called home. Believe it or not, they had telephone service to Sugar Grove, Bridgewater and the Bother Knob lookout. He called to tell my mother to send some food. He was out of food, and the fire danger was so high because of the wind and dry conditions that he didn’t want to leave to come home and get food.
My mother fixed several baskets of food and sent me, my sister, Lena, and my brother, Noah, on the way. There was no access to Reddish Knob then except foot trails.
I don’t know how old I was at that time, but probably eight or ten. It was probably four or five miles straight up the mountain from home to the top of Reddish Knob. When the tower was being constructed, we could sit on our porch and see the men working on it.
30 Years Ago
Week of March 14, 1996
DAHMER
Automobiles Important In Lives of Many Families
When did your folks buy their automobiles? The reason for this statement is to bring back memories! John Dahmer purchased a Model T Ford car in the late summer of 1927. The day they brought it home, Arlie Raymond Blizzard drove it to Philippi. The very next day, a visit was made to mother’s relations, the Dickensons, in Barbour County. Another objective in buying this car was to serve as a means of transportation for Ella and Verona Dahmer to attend Franklin High School. They graduated in the class of 1931 which was the first class to graduate in the new and present Franklin High School building.
Bluebirds had a good year on Smith Creek. Out of 19 bluebird boxes, 17 had been used for nesting in the year of 1995; on Capito Hill, five bird boxes, none were used by any species of birds; at Dahmer, 14 boxes of which seven had been used for nesting in 1995. On March 7, two yellow crocuses were blooming.
Local FFA Students Have $92,333 Income
Supervised agriscience experience programs provide opportunities for learning by doing. They provide the means for the students to learn with the help of parents, employers, teachers and other adults experienced in the area of their interest. Student SAEPs are an essential part to effective agriscience programs.
Of the 85 individuals enrolled in Ag Education, 58 have experience programs. Those 58 individuals have a total income of $92,333.06 with total expenses of $87,120.69. The income of the individuals from labor or job placement is $15,643.62. Four hundred and two hours were worked by the students for no compensation.
The above figures may look odd; in fact these results did not occur in one year but are a culmination of several years involvement in SAE programs. These totals include seniors with four years, juniors with three and sophomores with two.
40 Years Ago
Week of March 13, 1986
SENECA ROCKS
Flood Heroes Get Awards
Edward Bogan, Mrs. Lois McDonald, Mr. and Mrs. Roger Morral and son, and Mr. and Mrs. Guy Teter attended the presentation of awards given to the heroes and heroines of Grant, Hardy and Pendleton counties at Cacapon Bridge, Sunday. There were some 250 people in attendance in memory of the flood victims.
Most of the contractors have gone from this area. Not all of the land was restored enough for farmers to have crops this year. The river was not restored to its original channel in several places, but it was widened with a low bank.
“Come On Now Johnny, Hop Up On the Chair…”
Haircut time 60 years ago, “Come on now Johnny, hop up on the chair and let me cut your hair. It’s either a haircut or we will have to take out a dog license on you.”
After a short battle of wits and a number of pleases, “not tonight mom, can’t it wait until tomorrow?” The evasion usually ended with the writer’s mother patting her foot on the floor and Johnny climbing upon the chair with mother as she said, to make me look more decent.
In any event, it was a dreaded time for many small children. Dreaded not so much for the loss of the long hair as for the anticipated nick with the scissors or the pulling of the hair by the dull hand operated clippers.
One style was the bowl haircut and in fact they did look very much as if a bowl had been inverted over the head and the protruding hair cut neatly at the bowl edge. When the family was of mixed sexes the haircut often looked alike.
The most interested part was to watch the writer’s mother cut his daddy’s hair. He could sit relaxed the best sitting in a chair and in a short time his head was nodding and he was into dreamland, until accidentally, mother nipped him with the scissors. But, oh boy, did he wake up in a hurry! The funny part was to see the many different ugly looking faces the writer’s father made when mother used those dull hand-operated scissors.
50 Years Ago
Week of March 11, 1976
Registration By Young Men for Selective Service Is Cancelled
State Selective Service Director, Harold E. Brown, has announced cancellation of the annual registration which had been tentatively scheduled for early spring 1976. The change in plans is a result of the Department of Defense’s most current analysis of requirements for drafters and the Selective Service Systems obligation to satisfy these requirements at the least possible cost.
Continuous registration with Selective Service, which was the method used since 1948, was suspended on April 1, 1975, by a Presidential Proclamation. Action was initiated to plan for an annual registration system to replace the continuous registration procedure that had been in effect.
Brown noted that young men born after April 1, 1957, are in no jeopardy for not having registered with Selective Service due to the fact that registration was suspended on April 1, 1975. He also noted that lottery numbers will not be assigned to young men born in 1957 or later years until such time as registration with Selective Service is resumed.
Canning Lids To Increase in 1975
The supply of home canning lids for 1976 will be almost double the amount produced last year, according to Nancy Harve Steorts, special assistant for consumer affairs to the secretary of agriculture.
Wintry Blast Brings Eight-Inch Snowfall to Pendleton County
SUNDAY’S 90 DEGREE MIRAGE ENDS
As if to serve notice that spring still has not arrived, Old Man Winter blows his icy breath on Pendleton County Monday night and Tuesday leaving a blanket of snow varying in depth from five to eight inches.
Unseasonably warm weather which had prevailed for the past ten days had caused many local residents to begin buying vegetable seeds and plowing gardens.
George Hammer said the average temperature for each of the 12 months during 1975 added up to an average high for the year of 80 degrees and an average low of 23 degrees.
He also said the temperature never got below three degrees last year, and the mercury never got higher than 91. The county had a total of 42.31 inches of rainfall last year and 22.8 inches of snow.
60 Years Ago
Week of March 10, 1966
Forest Ranger Explains Need to Kill Trees
By H. H. BUSH
District Forest Ranger
In a recent meeting with some of the local game wardens, they mentioned receiving numerous questions and complaints from hunters who saw girdled trees on the national forest.
The wardens felt like they had been put “on the spot.” They had not cut or girdled any trees. Yet, they were expected to answer why.
The questions are perfectly natural. In the first place, some people think it is wrong to cut any trees. Secondly, when it is on public land, the thought may occur: That’s my tree they cut!
Were it possible to meet some of the men who girdled the trees, they might have explained why. Or they might have said, “Mister, I just work here and these trees were marked to go by one of these foresters in the ranger’s office.”
It is not up to the forest worker on the end of a chopping axe to explain why he is killing a tree any more than it is for the game warden. Being a local man who usually depends on seasonal work and some farming or odd jobs to make out, he is invariably one of the hunting fraternity. He, too, has a stake in the public land and the game it produces.
If the hunter could meet him, the crew boss might explain why the trees are cut. He follows a set of guidelines prepared by the ranger that provides protection of the other resources besides timber. For every tree that is cut or girdled, there has to be a reason. Usually, it all comes back to the same principal any gardener follows in pulling weeds. After all, timber is a crop, too—just takes longer to grow.
70 Years Ago
Week of March 8, 1956
Local Men Honored For Long & Faithful Service as National Forest Fire Wardens
Five Pendleton County men were honored recently at a meeting of fire wardens of the Potomac District of the Monongahela National Forest at Circleville.
In recognition of long and faithful service, Honorary Warden Certificates were presented to the following men: Jim Harold of Upper Tract, Rosser Waggy of Reeds Creek, Lester Sites of Onego, and Verne Nelson of Whitmer. The awards were presented posthumously to Neil Harper from Mouth of Seneca and Charlie Warner of Hunting Ground.
DAHMER
Teach young people how to think, not what to think.
Mr. Milton Propst has been a clerk in the Bowman’s Store for nearly eleven years and Mr. Otis Shaw for fifty-one years. Both are good and trusty clerks.
The Propst families for generations furnished more soldiers to the Confederate Army than any other race or clan in Pendleton County.
