Chatting with LeRoy Hawk & Shirley Krum
On October 30th, 2017 we chatted with LeRoy Hawk and his cousin Shirley Krum.
LeRoy's dad was Raymond Hawk and he was born in 1911. During his life the Chestnut Ridge Railroad was still operating. Used cars were brought to Eldred by the railroad and there was a grist mill next to the stone bridge over the Buckwha Creek. There was also a saw mill nearby using the waters of the adjacent creek to power its large, powerful saw.
The railroad was also used to carry clay from the clay pits in Eldred to Palmerton for further transport. LeRoy's dad drove a model A dump truck bringing clay to the railroad from the pits. We are told that clay is still "mined" at the location but to a much smaller degree.
In 1851 Eldred Township was "carved" out of the much larger Ross Township.
We chatted about the impact of the topography of the area on the weather. LeRoy explained how the Pleasant Valley School District has 3 different climate zones due to lay of the land and the varying elevations.
Shirley Krum joined our conversation and told how her grandfather was the brother of LeRoy's father, making them cousins. Shirley's dad's name was Alfred and he was born in 1895.
When Shirley and LeRoy were kids they came across venomous Copperhead snakes and also rattlesnakes by the area of today's ski slope. They also spoke of collecting wild huckleberries on a rise called Pimple Hill.
Home Life
LeRoy had a "small" family - three sisters & a brother - but Shirley had a large family - a total of 13 kids - 8 girls & 5 boys. Her dad was one of ten children.
Baskets, such as those used to carry potatoes were made by hand from white oak saplings. The stringy nature of the wood made it a perfect material for making the baskets. Smaller baskets were made for Easter.
LeRoy was born, at home, in 1945 a few months before the end of World War II.
His name is actually derived from the French "le roi" - the king. A line of his descendants came from France. He believes his name was supposed to be merely Roy, but because a young relative named Roy had passed away, the family decided to alter his name by adding "le" (the French article for "the") so that his name wouldn't be the same.
The Hawk family name was derived from a German surname centuries ago.
Livestock
When LeRoy was a child most families no longer had horses - which earlier were essential for not just transportation but for work - such as pulling plows.
But many families had chickens, a cow or two, pigs (nearly everyone had pigs) and sometimes sheep. Often these animals were purchased as "newborns" and raised by families.
The chickens provided a steady source of eggs and when their laying days were done they became food - often in soups.
Another source of meat, aside from livestock was hunting for deer, pheasants and even groundhogs.
The cows were a source of milk. Shirley remembers having to milk the cows at 5am and then going to school and once again milking them before bed. With her large family they kept 3 cows to provide milk for the kids. Of course this was "raw" milk - untreated. Which today (2017) you can only get locally at Hahn's Dairy.
Growing Your Own Food
Every family grew food. This was more on the level of a very large garden, not a farm. They were sometimes called "truck patches". The variety of plantings was huge - all sorts of beans (lima, yellow, green, etc), cucumbers were a favorite (LeRoy said that sometimes cukes that were too big for pickling were sliced up and fried for eating), peppers, cabbage (for making sauerkraut - a very typical German food), tomatoes (some picked ripe and cooked, but others at the end of the season picked green and fried, or canned).
They also grew lettuce and potatoes. But potatoes were so cheap to buy from farmers (100 pounds for a dollar) that they could be bought instead.
Shirley told of storing potatoes all winter in ground cellars.
Food Preparation
No food went to waste. LeRoy & Shirley said every meal had potatoes. And LeRoy said often they would have fried potatoes at lunch and the leftovers would be served as mashed potatoes at dinner and if not finished they would make one more appearance at breakfast the next day.
Shirley told of taking all leftover vegetables and those that were left on the vine at the end of the season and making a mixed stew of them called "chow chow" or "chaw chaw".
Both cousins laughed as they recalled how often they had soups or stews.
Shirley's dad grew a variety of grains - corn, oats, rye and wheat. He would grind them and made his own livestock feed from them - adding molasses.
Both Shirley and LeRoy recalled dipping green tomatoes and green pumpkins in flour and frying them up. They went on to reminisce about foraging for various wild fruit.
Peaches were very plentiful, as were a variety of berries - including "black cherries" - a very bitter, large pit wild cherry. This was referred to as kasha - derived from the German word for cherry.
Wild apples were collected and put in a press to make cider and if the cider was kept "too" long it would ferment and have a strong alcoholic kick.
The U.S. in colonial times had a national alcoholism problem - and the alcohol was hard cider. The growing of apples was promoted as a food source but there was so much excess that it started to be used to make alcohol and created a social problem. Early prohibition movements were actually focused on hard cider.
Lots of nuts were available - such as walnut and butternuts. They would also collect black walnuts. Although today they warned us to always wear gloves because they stain your hands (lasting for at least a week) they laughed about going to school with stained hands - and it was alright - your classmates knew you were collecting black walnuts.
This led to a conversation about the great Chestnut Tree blight. Chestnut trees were the "American" tree. In some areas, one out of every 4 hardwood trees was a chestnut. But at the start of the 20th century a disease was accidentally introduced from Japan nearly killing every chestnut in the U.S.
The economy was devastated in some communities that relied on the chestnut tree for its wood & nuts. The cousins agreed that today's chestnuts are much smaller than those of their youth.
Specialization
The families of Shirley & LeRoy's youth were very self-reliant, but the hint of today's society began to show. While many families still slaughtered their own livestock, some farmers began to specialize and you could bring you livestock to them to be slaughtered and dressed.
The same with milk or at least separating the cream at a "creamery". One was located at the end of Princess Run.
While a farmer had to also be a mechanic, as motorized vehicles became more common - repair shops began to spring up.
Grist mills were always a common "landmark" for the making of flour. LeRoy suggested that the one in Eldred next to the old stone bridge (which was leveled in 2017) was owned by a relative of his - Henry Hawk, his great granddad.
At this point a smile came to both as they recalled oatmeal as being
an all too often staple at the table. They also mentioned how often eggs were served as a meal or part of a meal.
They also recalled buckwheat and said it seems no one grows it anymore.
Another common meal was "mush" - cornmeal either eaten hot or allowed to cool and then later taking slices of it to fry up.
LeRoy recalled a machine called a binder coming through the grain fields and cutting the stalks and him and others collecting the stalks in sheaves.
They were then thrown on trucks and hauled off for thrashing.
Thrashing could be done at home either in the open or in the barn. One would beat the sheaves causing the heavy grains to fall to the ground while the light chaff would blow away - a process called winnowing.
Government oversight took a bigger and bigger role. For example, while you could still butcher your own animals, you needed government inspection to butcher for sale.
And if you wanted to sell milk to the public, the government sent inspectors, without charge, to inspect.
In the late 1930's, a man named Robertson was hired to put a heating system into the Mansion House in Kresgeville. He had to have the job completed by the weekend for a party. He hired LeRoy's dad to help and while doing this he learned the basics of the plumbing trade - which he then continued as his trade.
I had to tease LeRoy at this point because I've been told that he picked up his dad's trade and is highly respected as a master plumber - but not so much as a bookkeeper - it seems he tends to forget to charge his customers. LeRoy punctuated my comment with a "knowing" wink.
LeRoy's dad also did saw mill work. The 20th century was marking a decline in independent self-reliant families as skilled trades became marketable.
Social Life
While men were developing specialized skills and trades, much of life remained the same in the early 1900's in Eldred.
Families still worked hard all week long to merely survive - the thought of a "vacation" was unheard of. The elderly remained with the family and were an important part of the family - tending the children and passing along the customs.
Sundays were special days - a day of rest. No machines would be seen in a field, some stores opened early on Sunday morning but closed before noon.
You often went the whole week without seeing anyone but your immediate family.
Dances were special events - either a square dance or the "new" polka.
Music was very important and many families had a fiddle and or a piano. And folks learned to play by ear. I raised the question of "Fiddletown" saying I don't know where the center of the town was. But it seems there never was a Fiddletown, but instead an older couple who would sit on their front porch and play their fiddles - this led to the road being named Fiddletown Road. This couple may have been Kay & Melvin Frable.
On Sundays folks would visit one another. Another favored activity was card playing with the games "Hoss" and "Pinochle" being popular.
Eldred, like most towns had a baseball team and a band. And these provided friendly competition with neighboring towns as to who had the best baseball players and who had the best band.
We talked about how clothing was either made at home or "hand me downs" were passed along - especially in big families. Most homes did not have a closet - certainly not a built-in closet. Often clothes were kept in a box or chest.
The same clothes were usually worn every day and when they became damaged, they were repaired. Cotton feedbags were repurposed into clothing. Every home had a sewing machine - and by mid-century a clothing mill was housed in Eldred and provided jobs.
Shirley & LeRoy told about how important their bikes were. LeRoy saved up his money to purchase a used bike from a store in Allentown. Both cousins said they drove tractors before they drove automobiles.
Holidays were very important - primarily Christmas and Easter, a little less Thanksgiving.
School
While some one-room schools put boys and girls on opposite sides of the school, LeRoy's didn't. But during the course of the day, the teacher would direct a "class" group to the front for a lesson. And then they would go back to their seats and another group would come forward.
LeRoy was absent for much of the 1st grade due to illness but he wasn't held back and moved up to the 2nd grade.
Electricity
Although electric was becoming available, some homes were so far
apart that it was not economically feasible for the power company
to put up poles and string wires to them.
An alternative to electric light was gas lighting. LeRoy Hawk shared his recollections of a small structure outside his home where they would pour water into a container and it would produce a gas that would run through pipes to the house and provide light.
The container had rocks of calcium carbide and when water was added
it caused acetylene gas to be released.
Calcium carbide is an industrially-made compound.
It was first developed in the 1890s.
I am told, coal miners also carried lanterns with calcium carbide rocks in them and when water was added it provided light for the miners underground.
LeRoy told me that they referred to his home's gas lighting system as the "carbide" system and this was confirmed by Shirley Krum.