My earliest recollection is of us living on a farm at Comforts Pond, Pennsylvania My mother had passed away with
tuberculosis and my father worked in the Erie Shops in Susquehanna, Penn. He left home around 5:30 a.m. and drove with a horse and buggy the five miles to be at work at 7:00. He worked until 6 p.m. and then drove the five miles back, I can imagine how hard it was for him after working all day to come home to an ill kept house and three part-orphans. My oldest sister was married and the other boys were on their own - Monroe, Osmond, Douglas and Earl, My grandparents lived on the next farm and they tried to keep an eye on us and do some baking for us. One of our pleasures was to put the kitchen chairs on the big table, thus sitting up high and driving a pair ofchairs (who were lively horses.)
We also had a big time enjoying tumbling in the snow and riding down hill in the winter time. A neighbor, Mr. Payne, seemed to want to tease us, causing Mary and I to hide if we had a chance as we were afraid of him. My father was a neat man and tired as he was at night we were never allowed to go to bed until our hands and faces were clean and our hair combed.
One day at the shop my father found a young lady's name and address inside an Ivory soap wrapper; one of her friends had written it there. So he began to correspond with her and it was not too long before he went to Cincinnati, Ohio to meet her. They fell in love and a short while after he came home, she followed him and they had a nice wedding in the little Methodist Chapel nearby, at Bethel Hill. The Ladies Aide had made my sister and me little capes to wear to the wedding. I remember that they had a sort of rucking around the top whose edges where pinked. How proud we were to wear them. My sister was two years older than I and when we got home she would not allow our new mother to take mine off. She felt that she should take care of her five year old little sister. Of course, it was very hard for us to call our new mother ‘Mama,’ but my father insisted and we knew we had to mind.
That fall we moved to town to be closer to Papa's work. I began attending school in town at the Baptist Church of which my father was a member. Our new mother was a Catholic, but at times would attend church with us, and he likewise would occasionally go with her. She would also take us when their church was beautifully decorated but I can never remember her trying to convert us. Later she turned Protestant, through the influence of her second marriage.
In town, our activities were more limited, but I guess I spent more time than most children jumping rope. We had a row of lovely holly hocks around our porch and when time would hang heavy on my hands I would catch bumble bees in one of its flowers. Dangerous but fun! I no doubt got a good many stings but an application of wet mud seemed to heal.
My father should have been a doctor as he took care of us in his own way. A good dose of nitre or a cup of “gall of the earth” stewed up on the back of the coal or wood stove would fix us up. Ugh! I can almost taste its bitterness now.
I was eight when my sister Ruth was born and we all loved her very much; and was sixteen when Edson was born. By that time we had moved back on my grandfather's farm so as to take care of Grandmother. Grandfather had passed away at 73 years of age. I was attending school in town (Susquehanna) and working for my board. Taking care of children, washing, and drying dishes, ironing and any other jobs that I could do. It was a rare evening that I could get out to join the other children riding down hill as lessons had to be done. I made fairly good report cards and was made Valedictorian when I graduated. During my last two years of high school I began to date. My first beau was a country boy who was shorter than I, so I encouraged him to wear his overcoat, which I thought made him look taller. He was graduated a year ahead of me in the Lanesboro, Pennsylvania School where I was staying with my aunt and uncle, where I had transferred from the Susquehanna High School, so my affections were transferred to a boy in my class. After being graduated I began to study for the teacher's exam, which was given each summer for young people who would like to teach, but were not financially able to go to Normal School. My parents drove the 18 miles with me to Montrose, the county seat so I could take that exam. Happy to say, I passed.
Now it was time to look for a school, ( a one-room school where all the grades were taught) to accommodate the children who would attend. I was accepted for the Brushville School and had eight pupils making $40 a month, and paying $10 for board. I had been told that one big boy (nearly as old as myself) had formerly run the school. By watching very carefully, I found out that one of the girls was the motive behind his pranks, so I dealt with her and we had no trouble; but I grew to love all of those children. I stayed there one term and then taught the Poor Farm school for two terms.
Papa had told my step mother that if she would stay in Pennsylvania that when his old parents were gone we would move to Ohio to be near her friends. My Grandmother lived to be 83 years old and then we had an auction sale and moved to Ohio. I hated to go as I was doing well in teaching and also had a steady boy friend. Mary had been graduated and also had a steady boy friend, but we decided to go with the family. The move wasn't a good move, as my father couldn't get any work (he was in his early 60‘s) and then he got sick and died. Mary decided to go back to Pennsylvania and was soon married. Mama tried to hold the family together, but it was too hard and she began to get homesick for Pennsylvania. In the meantime, I had gotten a job in Procter and Gamble's office and made new friends, but was glad when we decided to go back to Pennsylvania. During our stay in Ohio I had gotten acquainted with a young man who later became my husband. We had a cow and it got loose and ran across the street and Fred came out to help us catch her. He said it was love at first sight with him, but it took me much longer.
There were only the four of us to move back to Susquehanna . Mary had married Arthur. My brother Earl had had an operation for hernia, so he joined us up on the old farm for the summer, but when winter came we decided to move back into town and I got a job in my Uncle John Clapper's grocery store. We had a regular blizzard that winter and the snow was so deep that everything was at a standstill for nearly a week. That winter I had a beau from near Thompson who would drive down to take me out riding. He had a beautiful cutter (sleigh) with a top on it and the horse was decorated with a string of bells. Quite a fancy outfit, but I still kept thinking of the man in Ohio. I thought it best to go back to teaching school so once more I passed the State teacher's exam and was given the 3rd and 4th grades to teach in Lanesboro, Pennsylvania and it was at that Christmas time that the Ohio lad came to see me and we got officially engaged and were married in Binghamton, N.Y. by a Lutheran minister the next June 28, 1915. For a honeymoon we went by railroad to see my Uncle Lemuel Potter and family at Nicholson, Penn., where the big concrete viaduct was being built for the Lackawanna Railroad. After a few days in Lanesboro, we went to Buffalo, N.Y. to see Niagara Falls and then back to Cincinnati where Fred was a railroad engineer for the Big Four (a branch of the N.Y.C.) He and his mother had built a nice cottage there where we lived. The next April, our first son Paul was born.
The railroad roundhouse had been moved from near our home to Sharonville around 15 miles away and as there were very few cars in those days, he had to depend on riding part way on the street cars or catching a ride on one of the slow moving trains which at best was very dangerous. He finally quit that job and went to work as a fireman on the old C.H. & D. a branch of the Erie R.R. and then after a couple of years decided to try his luck on getting a job in Pennsylvania, so we moved back and I stayed at my sister Mary's home while he worked a short spell on the following railroads - Lackawanna, West Shore and Delaware & Hudson, but was not contented so finally got a job in the Erie Shops at Susquehanna , and we rented a house and that winter our second son David was born. In March he decided to go south and look for a job which he found on the Atlantic Coast Line in North Carolina and then he sent for me and the boys. That was during the 1st World War, and I had to make four changes with several hours wait in Washington, D.C. with the two babies, but finally I arrived in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where Fred met me with the news that he had been transferred to Fayetteville, North Carolina (100 miles farther south), so we soon got on another train for the rest of the journey. We soon found a two room apartment and unloaded our one trunk and the big baby carriage which had come all the way from Ohio with us. Happy to once again have a little home of our own, the south being new to us we spent our leisure hours walking around the city with the trusty baby carriage holding both of our little boys. If possible each Saturday we would go up town by the old slave market where many colored families were torn apart, by auction, to serve new master, a place of grief ! But then used as a gathering place for the colored folks to eat their lunches and visit with their kin and acquaintances. We found it amusing and interesting to watch them. Ft. Bragg was being built at that time and a lot of Puerto Ricans were used a laborers. Fred bought a big bus and carried those who wanted to come to town to spend their money and return. All went well for awhile and then the1st World War ceased and I guess all of those laborers were sent back home so we lost the bus. Work fell off on the railroad so Fred took a job switching. One night he discovered a car that had been damaged and was gradually dropping cans of sardines. By that time our finances were at a low tide so we were very thankful for the sardines that he rescued.
In January, 1920, our third little boy Robert was born amid the
terrible epidemic of flu. There was no room for me in the hospital so we were glad to get a couple of colored girls, one to take care of the children and one to care for me and baby. In August, we went back to Pennsylvania and that fall we found a three room apartment and Fred got a job braking on the Jeff, a branch of the Erie, between Susquehanna and Carbondale, and in the next June got a job as engineer on the Erie mainline and then things began to pick up for us. It had been a very severe winter and the ice had become very thick on the river beside which we lived so that Fred used to cross on it and then light a match to show me that he was safe on the other side.
That spring we moved to Lanesboro and in September, 1921, our first daughter, Theda was born and we spent four happy years there. Lois, our second daughter was born on November, 1925, and that next March, we moved to a house on Prospect St. Oakland. About this time Grandma Eckhardt decided to come from Ohio and live with us and Elsie, her daughter would visit us for months at a time. We had been attending the Methodist Church in Lanesboro, but as we had to cross the old river bridge (which wasn't too safe) we began to attend the little Christian and Missionary Church which was near our home and the people were very friendly and took a great interest in our little family. After living there four years we bought a small farm of 13 and a half acres and a large house, upon top of a hill. It was quite run down, but we made improvements, and it became a happy home for us and our friends. The children had lots of room to play and we began to accumulate a cow, chickens and ducks which the boys cared for. The bees that Paul got gave up and died! We always had a big garden and I would can vegetables and fruits for winter and with a good supply of potatoes and apples in the cellar, we were snug for winter when the snow and ice made our hill almost impossible to negotiate.
Paul, our oldest, was the first one to leave the home nest. He attended Casey Jones aeronautical school in Newark, N.J. coming home for weekends on the railroad and about a year later David our next oldest son, started going to that same school. Paul soon finished and took a job with United Air Lines and in about a year David finished and got a job with American Air Lines. Robert soon left to attend Nyack Missionary College at Nyack, N.J, and a few years later Theda attended the same school. We had Lois our youngest child with us for four more years and then she left to go to Nyack. Fred and I were the ones left, (Grandma Eckhardt had died) and we began to make plans for his retirement.
In 1953 we sold our farm and bought a 26 ft. trailer and got ready to travel when Fred retired in Oct. 1953, and I went to Port Jervis, N.Y. with him on the engine on his last trip. It was a thrill. We were met by Fred Purdue, who took us to his house for dinner in Matamoras, Pennsylvania. On the (train) trip back to Susquehanna we hit an owl and also a deer. I was a long while trying to forget the crunch that the deer made as we rode over him. When seeing a deer at night my husband would switch the engine's lights off hoping that the deer would leap away.
The 26 ft. Lintzcraft trailer that we had picked out was delivered up to my brother Monroe's farm and we were busy packing ready to leave in November after the first. My brother went with us as far as Gelatt and he was amused to watch me looking in back to see if the trailer was still following! He left us at Gelatt where he visited a cousin's family for a few days. We had a wonderful trip down to Rocky Mt., N.C. where we spent about a week at Washburn's Motel. Edson (my brother) owned it. After that we traveled south to Dade City, Fla. to spend that winter at Orange Motor Court owned by the Luscombs , Ruth and Harry, my sister and her husband. The south and its customs were all so new to us that we made trips over all the little roads in that territory. One day the owner discovered us filling the trunk of our car with oranges and grapefruit along the road that had fallen off trucks and told us to go into his grove, and help ourselves. We spent several winters at Dade City and them going up to Pennsylvania and New York each summer to visit our children living up there.
We made two trips to Arizona stopping to spend Christmas with David and his family at Ft. Worth Texas. Fred had decided to put airplane tires on our trailer and then our troubles began! Blow outs and burned out clutches! So at Texas we had to get our axles changed. We finally reached Mesa, Arizona, where we spent our first winter in Arizona.
On our second trip we met our cousins Bill and Erna Wunker at Mesa and then together we went to the Pacific Coast at Sacramento and then up the coast to Seattle. That was really fun traveling with them through the wonderful packs. We followed the Columbia River on the Old Overland Trail and then down through Idaho, where we lost the Wunkers for awhile and they finally caught up to us in the early evening. Erna and I had a wonderful time crying and hugging each other and Erna said that we would celebrate with a steak supper! Wow! was that delicious. They left us soon afterwards to go over the gold highway in Colorado, then we turned eastward as our outfit wasn't able to climb those mountains. Out of Cheyenne it began to rain, which turned to snow and a 9000ft. mountain before us. Fortunately, a big truck was able to get up the mountain and we followed in its tracks.
It was good to get back to Syracuse, N.Y. to see Bob & Theda's folks.
That summer we bought a 10 x 46 trailer and settled down to spend our winters in Zephyrhills, Florida.
(Grandma) Bernice Eckhardt
