Margaret gave up her room at the Rollins house and moved with me to the farm. Do you know anything about Horning Bees? Well, let me tell ya’; about three or maybe four weeks after our elopement, our friends and family decided to enact this rural community tradition. Dad, Mom, Margaret and I were spending a quiet evening, when we see headlights comin’ on down the road. I think, who is out this late and where are they going? Then it hits me and I say “Ohhhh nooooo.” You see, our friends were showing up for a Horning Bee. Not only that, they had “barrowed” my bus to do it. Mom started putting out the food, everyone crowded into the parlor and the evening of storytelling began. There was a lot of laughter and Margaret probably found out more about me in those few hours than she had the whole last year. Lucky for me, she didn’t run. Fun was had by all. Now, another part of these festivities is for friends to sneak into the bridal chamber and short sheet the bed, fill it with rice, or some other kind of trick on the newlyweds. I was not going to have it. I perched myself on the porch roof in front of our bedroom window and stayed there all night.
Life as a married couple commenced. We stayed at the farm for a while and even added to it by buying the O’Dell place. The Murray Farm at this point was well over 300 acres. As we added children to our family, we rented a couple of other properties in town until Dr. Knight’s place there on Main Street came up for sale. We ended up buying the place and living the rest of our lives there. Dr. Knight had a separate office building in what is now the side yard. The barn stayed where it was; but, we took that office and moved it behind the house creating a garage.
The only major thing we needed to do to the house was replace the kitchen floor. It was during WWII and lumber was not always available for what was considered home renovations. But, I went down to the lumber store anyway. And, as I thought, was told that I could not buy lumber for a kitchen floor. However, Matt Rogers, the proprietor asked me, “Stanley, do you need a new barn door?” Quizzically, a started telling him, “no, I need a kit…”. He repeated, “Stanley do you need a new barn door? I can sell you lumber for a barn door (wink, wink). About how big of a door would you need to build for that “barn” of yours?” And, I had my lumber, I replaced the floor and we moved in. Another benefit of being a farmer.
We moved in with four children, Ellen, Catherine, John and Sally. Margaret was now teaching at the new school right up behind our house. We added a couple more kids, Stanley and Anna Marie to our brood. Four girls and two boys. And, I was busy taking on new duties around town and throughout the area.
Being a member of the Fire Department and eventually serving as Chief was a pretty integral part of our family life. When a citizen had a fire, they called our house. So when the phone rang, morning noon or dead of night, I had to be ready. I had my pants laid out next to the bed so I could slip right into them, then grab a shirt and step into my boots. Sometimes, I was still trying to get those boots on as I ran down the street to the fire station to sound the alarm to get the rest of the volunteers there.
“This is John can I just add? Every time that phone rang, all us kids got out of bed and went to our windows to watch Dad run down the street. Counting to see just how fast he could get dressed and get down to the fire station. I have to say, he was pretty quick. Must be where I got my speed from.”
Thanks son. You would think in a small community like Greenwood that there would not be that many fires. But, I remember a time when we had three in the same month in 1947/1948. The one thing about Greenwood, it never took us more than 10 or 15 minutes to get there. The first was at the Heckman’s on Christmas Eve. Wasn’t much, we had it out in about 5 minutes. The second, on January 16 at the Cady’s. That one took only about ten minutes. And, lastly, the Krusen’s on the 25th. That one was much worse, it took us a couple hours. I have to say, the men in our little town were dedicated. Well, almost everyone. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but at one time we had a chief that got a little carried away. You know what I mean. He would at times take the old truck up to the creek to fill her with water and forget to bring her back to the station. I was assistant chief then and the guys were always saying, “Stan, go get the truck.” The first couple times, I went ahead and did it. But, by the third time, my response was, if you want me to go get her then make me Chief. Low and behold, at the next meeting, they voted me Chief and I served for 30 years.
I also worked for the state and the county plowing snow for years and served as a County Deputy Sheriff. I was a Justice of the Peace in Greenwood and ended up serving 35 years. We didn’t have a courthouse, so, trials were held in our parlor. That meant I got to see my pals from the Sheriff’s Office quite regularly. As well as all Greenwood’s miscreants, I mean my fellow citizens that were caught doing things they shouldn’t.
“Hey, this is Sally. When us kids were small, we would crawl up into the laps of those deputies and wait with them until their cases were called. Sometimes, if it was late, we snuck out of bed and just peeked around from the bottom of the stairs.”
“John again, you would think this friendly relationship with the deputies would help us out when we got to be teenagers. Oh no, it just meant someone or lots of someones were watching us all the time. And, Mom and Dad knew everything.”
“Dad, speaking of our teenage years…this is Ellen, the oldest. One time this young man, Charles from over Whitesville way, came to pick me up for a date. Dad casually grabbed his jacket and started walking out with us. I turned around and asked him where he thought he was going. He said with you of course; with that twinkle in his eyes and a grin.”
I will say, I did worry about my girls and their dates. Margaret, being an English teacher and all, would tell you I learned the move I pulled on Ellen from the book Cheaper by the Dozen. While I would have gone too, if the young man had not responded appropriately; most of the time they did. They were all pretty good young fellas. Except when they ended up in my courtroom. Let’s chalk it up to youthful exuberance. All is well that ends well.
“John again, I remember you telling us a funny story about a beehive. Tell that story.”
It has come to my attention that you tell that story quite well. Go ahead.
“One of our fine citizens was brought in for taking a beehive from Minnie Earsley up in Rough & Ready. Now he had a speech impediment. When dad asked why he stole the beehive. “he responded, “I didn’t ‘teal it, I just took’t it.” Dad moved on and imposed his sentence, “I sentence you to 30 days in jail.” Well, he jumped up and shouted, “But, ‘Tanley, I tolt ya, I didn’t ‘teal em, I jus’ took’t ‘em.” “I know, I know. If you had stolen it, I would have given you 60 days.” “Oh, Otay.”
As the Justice of the Peace, I was also a member of the Town Board. I did a lot of things, like helped create a swimming hole by damning up the creek. I even hired a lifeguard. All the local kids loved swimming it what we called “the pool”. I oversaw the Boys Baseball League and helped put on a bunch of shows and events around town.
“Hey Dad, remember donkey softball? By the way, this is Stan, sometimes referred to as Stan Jr. The donkeys were kept in our back yard, near the barn. We younger kids thought we had been given the privilege of watering and feeding those donkeys. We loved it and had so much fun. Later, Dad burst our bubble by laughingly relating the story of how he tricked us into it, as Mom would say, a real Huck Finn move.”
Another organization I supported was the Boy Scouts. Good ol’ Troop 62. I was the Scout Master for years and later a Neighborhood Commissioner for both Greenwood and Jasper. I was proud of what scouting could do for young men. Especially when Morris Freeland came home after WWII. He had been severely injured and had spent some time in a prison camp. He told me he credits scouting and what I taught him about first aid for keeping him alive. No higher praise.
“Wait you forgot me. This is Anna Marie, the youngest. One of my fondest memories is the day that Daddy came home and woke me from my nap. I had to have been around 4, I think. He said, let’s go for a walk. We sauntered hand in hand down the street until we got to JE Armstrong and Sons. JD had started working with his dad and they had moved across the street where the Veterans Park is now. Did you see the picture of downtown with the Atlantic sign on the corner a few weeks ago? Anyway, we stopped. I asked, why are we stopping here? All Daddy said was, “surprise! We own this now.”
The family spent many years running “the station” as we called it. It had a little grocery store that was later converted to a lunch counter inside. We kept the milk and bread along with the candy and soda cases. We still had it when a few of our kids were grown and the first of the grandchildren were born. I even pumped gas for Roy Rogers.
“John again. I went out to pump gas one day and opened the tank. There was a note in the cap, that said the couple in the car were newlyweds and not to say how I knew. When I finished pumping the gas, returning that note to the tank cover for the next service station attendant to find, checking the oil and cleaning the windshield, I stepped up to the window and said “Congratulations.” “For what?” “On your marriage.” They were dumbfounded and asked how I knew. “Lucky guess” was all I gave them.
Speaking of famous people, another story from our time downtown. My buddies and I were pitching pennies out front of the Masonic Hall one day. No, I wasn’t skipping work at the station. A car stopped. It was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Can you believe it? Lucy was from Jamestown and they were passing through. They chatted with us boys and ended up staying about a half hour. We thought we were big time.”
“Finally, you all got your say, now it’s my turn…This is Catherine. We all learned to give back to our school and community from Dad, and also from Mom. From managing and sponsoring sports teams, 4-H and scouting, to school and community organizations. We knew no other way to live. Some of us take it a little further than others, right John? Thanks Dad; you were a great role model. We were lucky to have you.”
Return for Part 4 of 4: The Spoiler, The Grandpa Years