My Early Memories

One of my first clear memories is starting first grade in Somerset, Pennsylvania. My recollection is that my father, Ralph Sr., didn't feel I was worth much of anything. I came home from school one day to my angry father. A service station attendant had called him to complain because I kept jumping on the bell tubes. Back then cars drove over a speed-bump thing that would ring a bell and call a service station attendant over to your car to fill you up. I had fun at the service station every day on the way to and from school jumping on the bell tube and annoying the hell out of the people who worked there. They wised up pretty fast and called my father. I did stuff like this all the time, and it upset my father so much. I was always getting into trouble, but after the service-station incident, he told me I wasn't good enough to live in his house any longer. I took all the clothes I could carry and went out the door. I stood on the porch for thirty minutes crying. My father finally came out and said, "You are allowed to go back into the house, but go to your room. I don't want to see you anymore."

We had fun times too, but they never lasted long. Sometimes my father allowed my sisters, Betty and Maggie, and I to have friends over for parties. One of our favorite games was hide-and-seek One time I hid on top of a stair rail, where they couldn't find me. While I was up there, I lost my balance, fell, and broke my arm. My father had to take me to the doctor to have my broken arm repaired. At every meal for the next few days, my father told me how dumb I was. Whatever pride I still had was gone.

A few weeks after I broke my arm, my sister took me next door to visit the neighbor's dog. It had just come back from a dog show and was so hyper that, when I leaned over to talk to him, that pure-breed dog jumped up and bit me on my lip. My father took me to the doctor to have my lip sewn up. The doctor asked my father if he could stitch me up without putting me to sleep.

My father said, "He's good enough. Just do it."

My father told me later that I didn't cry. I squeezed his hand so hard, he said, that I almost hurt him. That was one of the few times my father made me feel proud, but not for long.

Soon after, I came down with scarlet fever. In those days, doctors often came to your house to treat scarlet fever. The doctor told my father that I might not make it through the night. I don't know if my father was worried, upset, or devastated, but I think the fact that I don't remember means something in itself.

I told my father and the doctor, "I will still be here tomorrow. Don't worry about me." I believe this was when I started to be more independent. I wanted to take care of myself because I thought my father blamed me for getting scarlet fever.

I was seven and in the second grade when my father and mother sent my sisters and me to live with our grandparents on their farm. It was one of the best things my father did. Our grandparents loved and respected us. My father and mother moved from our childhood home in Somerset to Pittsburgh to find better jobs. They told us that once they found jobs and could afford it, they would bring my sisters and me to Pittsburgh.

Six months after my parents moved to Pittsburgh, my sisters and I left our grandparents' farm to live in our parents' one-bedroom apartment. Betty and Maggie slept on the couch; I had to sleep in an old recliner that just didn't feel right. After the first night, I decided I was going back to the farm. I told my sisters, but they had already made the same decision. We didn't want to live with our parents. We went back to the farm. It was better for everyone that way.

Going Farming

The farm was in a neighborhood known as Will's Community. Will is my last name, and my grandparents', and the last name of half of the people who lived there. No one really left the community. There was Will's One-Room School, Will's Church, and Will's Grange. The country road from the highway to the farm was called Will's Road.

Will's School was a one-room country schoolhouse next to the church. It housed grades one through six, or maybe seven. My sisters made our lunches in the morning, and we walked a mile to get to school. Shortly after I started school, I realized the teacher did not like me. My teacher was Clarence Pine, and he was a real horse's ass. The teacher reminded me of my father, and because of that, I was not always the best student. He thought he was the most important person in the room no matter where he went. Mr. Pine helped me be more independent, though, because I just didn't care whether I did right or wrong.

When I started school at Will's One-Room Schoolhouse, I was placed in second grade, but sometimes my teacher would send me back to first grade and later back up to second. He wanted me to understand he was more important than I was, and he would do whatever he thought would help me be a better person. I didn't agree with his methods. To prove his superiority over me, he would spank me in front of the class, trying to make me cry. Or he would make me hold heavy books in each hand over my head. If I refused to admit the books were heavy, he would add more, but I refused to cry or drop the books. He finally gave up torturing me after I told him that if he continued, I would drag a piece of lumber to school and hit him on the back of the head.

I was in the third grade, and my sisters were in the fourth and fifth, respectively, when Mr. Pine decided to start a band. There were about twenty-two students at that time, and all of our parents bought us instruments. I chose an E-flat alto horn. Betty was a drummer, and Maggie selected the bassoon. We practiced marching on a portion of the Pennsylvania turnpike that construction crews hadn't finished building. Mr. Pine tried to make it fun; he cleared half of the room for the instruments, played music for us, and taught us how to dance. After a year of training and practicing, we were so good that we were invited to give a concert at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Annual Fair. I was one of three students selected to perform as a trio during the concert. I felt really proud of my accomplishment. I was only eight or nine and was one of the best in the band. We took a bus from Somerset to Harrisburg. Everybody in the school was on the bus, as well as many of the parents who helped sponsor us.

One-Room School

During winter, Will's One-Room Schoolhouse got extremely cold and drafty. The school had added boys' and girls' restrooms in the back left and right corner, respectively, outside the schoolhouse. Each restroom had toilets installed on a wooden floor, with plumbing to a tank just a few feet underneath. In each of the pipes was a gate that opened to release the waste into the tank. The boys' gate froze in the winter.

The first time this happened, the teacher asked all the boys to go to their farms and get heaters to thaw the gate. The teacher got so fed up with the gate freezing that he placed hot coals on the ground around the pipes, in addition to the heaters, to speed up the process.

While I was in the restroom testing the gate, I saw flames licking the old wooden planks between the two walls. The hot coals had set the old wood on fire. I left the restroom and ran into the school to tell everyone I thought the building was on fire. One of my classmates ran to the local store and asked them to call the fire department because our school was on fire.

The fire department was five miles outside Will's Community. By the time firefighters arrived, the schoolhouse was nearly burned down. But the fire department was able to save Will's Church next door.

Because our school burned down, my sisters and I had to walk three miles every morning to go to a different one-room schoolhouse. Officials eventually got a bus to transport us.

At the new school, I found out I was a good softball player and was added to the softball team. Farmwork gave me the strength to become the best hitter on the team. I had a great year at my new school. But several months later, we were settled into another school in Somerset.

With Grandparents

My sisters and I loved our grandparents very much. They were the nicest people who could have raised us. Being raised on the farm is something that changed our lives. We enjoyed our lives much more than we would have if we had stayed with our parents.

The farm made us responsible. We helped with chores needed to run the farm. We pulled weeds from the crops, tended the gardens, helped with the washing, cut and carried wood, and did many other kinds of chores. My grandmother taught me how to sew, iron, and cook good food. We made ice cream, peanut butter, and regular butter; cooked sauerkraut; and dried corn.

My grandmother also had me help her prepare chickens for dinner. My job was to hold the chicken's head across a piece of wood so she could chop it off and then help clean the chicken to get it ready for cooking.

Nowadays I think the youth would be grossed out at butchering chickens, but if we wanted to eat, we had to raise and prepare our own food. It did not bother us. We held the chicken still, chopped the head, and let the body flop around on the ground before we would start pulling the feathers out. We prepared dinner as a family. Everyone had a job to do.

I was chopping wood one day, and I could not get one of the pieces to stand up so I could chop it. I placed it between my knees to hold it up. I missed and hit my knee with the ax. My grandmother called my father and told him to come out to the farm. It was just a small gash. I didn't see why my father had to take me to the doctor.

When my father got to the farm to pick me up, he told me that my mother was happy about how safe I was on the farm, but he guessed I wasn't that safe. My mom hardly ever agreed with my father. He said that even though I was on the farm, I was still too dumb to stay out of trouble. This was yet another time that my father didn't have any good thoughts about me. I just wish he hadn't complained about my mom. She was a nice mother, and I loved her so much.

My grandfather was an extraordinary man. He farmed a variety of crops, raised many different animals, served as the community's treasurer, and taught me how to care for animals on the farm.

He owned two good workhorses. One time he was using the two horses to pull the unit that weeded the crops. I went out to the fields and saw him sleeping while the horses went to the end of each row, turned around, and did another row.

Some of the happier times on the farm came when the crops were ready to be harvested. I always enjoyed this. All of the farmers came together to do the work, farm by farm, and there was always a big meal for us at the end of the day. Maybe it's not like that in other farming communities, but everyone in Will's Community was related somehow by blood or marriage.

While on the farm, I was invited to take a ride on a steam tractor that was being retired. I always had fun working on the farm. One of my jobs was to help bring in the wheat and oats to put through a thresher that separated grain from straw. I often got very sick from helping. I carried the grain to bins and operated the straw line to put the straw in the back of the barn. There was a lot of dust, and I breathed so much of it I would come close to pneumonia. But I always felt good about working alongside the men, and they appreciated me.

The farmers talked about the boys who got girls pregnant and then were kicked out of the community. I was so scared this would happen to me that during my childhood, I never did anything to get in that kind of trouble. When a boy and girl got married, the farmers would take a manure spreader by their house and make them ride in it. I wasn't sure I wanted that, either.

My grandfather had a potato contract with a company that made chips. Every year, many of the women in the neighborhood got together in the loft of the barn to cut the potatoes into pieces which contained a spud. I always helped when it was time to plant the potatoes. At the end of the season, when the potatoes were ready to be harvested, the community would come to help dig the potatoes to make some extra money. My most important job during potato season was to drive the horse-pulled wagon and gather the baskets of potatoes. These were taken to a large container in the barn until they were ready to ship. Before winter arrived, we would gather many of the potatoes we had left and bury them with layers of ground and straw to preserve them until the next season.

We grew many different fruits on the farm, but apples were one of the more important. We made applesauce and aged the apple juice in barrels to make vinegar. About halfway through the aging process, we would test the juice. At this point, the juice was just beginning to turn to vinegar and tasted like a good wine.

My grandfather built a large round tank, which he installed underground. The tank had a top and bottom section. The bottom held carbide that would create gas when water was added. The top portion contained water, regulated with a valve to create the gas. After the water was added to the carbide and enough of the gas created, it was piped into the house and the barn. When the gas valve was open, the gas could be lit and turned into flame. It created enough light to brighten a room in the house and parts of the barn.

In early spring, after all the material had been converted to gas, the tank was left with a residue of white moisture. The moisture had to be removed from the bottom of the tank. One of my jobs was to take out the white bluffer moisture and whitewash the inside of the barn.

Many types of birds lived in the barn. My grandpa called them barn birds. He told me once that if I could get salt on the tail of one of the birds, I would be able to catch it. After about three hours of trying, I got smart and figured out that this was just a tall tale.

Farm Life

Living on a farm with my grandparents was one of the greatest things to happen in my life. Farm life was much better than city life. My grandparents believed in me and loved me enough to teach me about growing up.

The farm we lived on had a very large and beautiful older house. Many of the windows had edges that were not sealed well to keep out air. In the winter, I would wake up in the morning and see that snow had come in through the windows at night and dusted my bed.

In those days, there seemed to be more snow every winter. A snow fence was built along each road to protect the roads from being filled. There were great hills that we would ski and sled down. One of my pleasures as a kid was to dig tunnels through the big drifts.

After a while of living in the big farmhouse, my grandfather sold his farm and built a new house on three acres a quarter mile away. I helped build the new house; we all chipped in as a family. We lived there happily for a number of years.

Betty and Maggie shared a bedroom on the second floor, and there was a bedroom for my father and mother when they came to visit from Pittsburgh. My grandfather and grandmother had a bedroom on the second floor, just above the kitchen. Because there was not another bedroom, they made up a room for me in the attic. A vent was placed in the floor to allow warm air to come up to my room in the winter. It was a good room, and I enjoyed living there.

One time when I came home late, my favorite cat was walking around my feet and purring. I took the cat up to my bedroom to sleep at the foot of my bed. The next morning, I had four new kittens at the foot of my bed. I picked up the mother and the kittens and took them down to her nest.

Each Halloween my sisters, a handful of our friends, and I celebrated our freedom of youth. We always upset the community. We would overturn outhouses, move furniture and farm equipment to strange places, soap windows, and put burning paper bags filled with fresh cow manure on people's front porches. Countless times we heard farmers firing shotguns as we ran away.

We were soaping a farmer's windows one time when I leaned too hard and broke the window. We all ran away and heard the farmer's shotgun going off. We believed he was just shooting into the air. A lot of the farmers knew I was one of the kids making trouble, and they would call the state police department. I would have to sneak into the house after celebrating Halloween because state police would be sitting on the country roads by the driveway waiting for my sisters and me. The day after soaping that farmer's windows, I heard that his favorite cat was shot in the yard we were running in. I realized for the first time in my life that someone was shooting at us and not in the air and actually trying to kill us. I couldn't even begin to think of how my family would have handled our deaths.