Apology for Tardiness

I have an excuse rather than a reason for being absent from the blog for such an extended time: Genie, my wife, just went through an operation to repair a broken cuff in her right shoulder and I've been attending to her needs the past week. How was the cuff injured? She was taking our new German Shorthaired Pointer, Ruff2 on a walk, when Ruff spotted a rabbit and leaped after it. Gene was jerked so hard she hit the ground on her right shoulder, while still holding on to the leash. The fall resulted in tearing the cuff in her arm and when the arm failed to respond to healing she went to the Doc. He gave her the bad news, the cuff has been torn and you will have to have surgury to repair it. Thus the surgery. And thus my absence. As I said, its more of an excuse on my part for my absence rather than a reason. I'm back and working on a new blog entry which should get posted either later today or tomorrow at the latest. I promise you I will do better in the future,  Bob

Kindly Neighbors

As I've noted previously, I grew up in a time and place where the change was underway between the non-electrical past and the modern mechanical, electrical everything of today. Here, I've chosen a family of the past who were our neighbors and have described for you a bit of of how they lived and the things they used everyday which are now not on,ly things of the past, but today can only be seen in museums.  I am a little windy this time, but wanted to show your part of the distant past I actually interfaced with while growing up. I hope you aren't bored with my windy description of some of those things.
A typical neighbor and farm in the community I grew up in those day would have been that of our neighbors, John and Ada Gillespie, in their mid-seventies , veritable personifications of the past.  It would be impossible to find a more kindly, neighborly, devout, honest pair than they. Their son Bill lived next door and had several children that were my contemporaries. Their home was more ancient than they and was a weathered, dark gray, clapboard house of one story. It did not have running water or a bathroom and I’m certain they did not feel deprived one least bit.
Their drinking water was drawn from a dug well located just off one corner of the house. It was outfitted with a hand-cranked windless, set on a small rectangular, cemented-chunks-of-rock enclosure about four feet high. The enclosure was covered with a shingled-roof erected several feet above that. The windless was a horizontal round wooden shaft, six or eight inches in diameter and three feet long, that extended across the well opening. A rope was attached to the shaft. A wooden bucket was attached to the rope and could then be lowered rapidly, or tossed into the water in the well so it would sink when it hit the water’s surface, and fill. The crank handle attached to the windless was then turned and the rope wound itself around the large shaft bringing the bucket, with its cool refreshing contents, to the surface. That water, which was always sweet and cool, was to me the best there ever was.
Adorning the well and the house were ancient, flowering vines. The well and the house were sitting within an oasis of large shade trees and a carpet of exceptionally green grass. No matter what the summer temperatures, that oasis was always cool and inviting.
West of the house was a two storied workshop and granary and west of that, a very large black, two-story bank-barn (entry to three sides at ground level with dirt built up on the remaining side to the second floor for entry to that floor). Just north of the barn was a smaller building used as a butchering plant. The horses and cows were stalled in the lower floor of the barn and the hay and grain was stored on the upper floor. Hay stored in the great mows above could then be tossed down through openings for the animals below.
To harvest the hay and put it into the great mows was one of my pleasures as a kid. On a typical work morning I would help old John harness the two ancient white horses, Bob and Dick, and depending upon which operation was being undertaken, hitch them to a mower, rake, or wagon.

John wouldn’t let me use the mower, I was too young. I could use the dump rake--more modern folks had a side delivery rake. The dump rake had great curved set of tines probably four foot in radius, attached to a bar running the width of the rake between its two large, spoked, metal wheels. Centered on the width of the rake and extending at a right angle to it was a tongue about ten feet long, with a double tree extending across it with two single trees attached. Two harnessed horses, called a team, one on each side of the tongue, their harness traces attached to the double trees, pulled the rake.
When the gathered hay filled the inside of the curved tines the bar was pivoted by shoving your right foot down onto a lever pedal which would raise the tines and dump the hay. These dumped piles would be connected forming long “windrows” across the field. The windrows would then be pitched by hand into hay doodles--small piles of hay four or five feet across and three or four feet high--using a three tined hay fork. Later, The doodles where later hand-pitched up onto a large, horse-drawn hay-wagon. My job, at first, was to drive the horses between the doodles. Later, when I could pitch up hay, I learned the horses had done it so often that a driver wasn’t necessary. John would cluck to them and they would move to the next doodle and stop.
Frequently, the monotony of pitching the hay up on the wagon where another person would distribute it, was broken when a snake, usually a black snake that had crawled under the doodle for warmth at night, was tossed up with the hay. Everyone was always sure it was a copperhead, a poisonous rascal. Much shouting and jumping would occur, followed by laughter at the escape-antics taken by the recipient of the snake.

When the loaded wagon was brought to the barn, one of the horses would be hitched to a “single-tree,” a wooden shaft about three feet long, six inches wide and two inchdes thick with metal hoops attached to the ends and another positioned in the middle. The middle hoop had a rope attached to it which in turn was attached to a large, two-pronged fork. The rope then went up to a pulley system in the rafters of the barn. The large U-shaped fork was three feet high and three feet across. Each tine of the fork had a recessed prong on the inside that was retractable. These prongs could be opened after the fork was buried into the hay on the wagon and a large “jag” of hay could easily be lifted off the wagon. As the horse moved away, the jag of hay would then be pulled by the rope up to a special pulley attached to an extension to the top of the barn where it would then move horizontally on the pulley over the mow. When the desired location was reached, a smaller rope that hung from the tine frame and attached to a lever connected to the inside prongs, would be pulled retracting the inside prongs permitting the hay to fall in place. My job was to ride that horse and stop him when the jag of hay was in the right place for dropping into the mow. To put my job in prospective again, later when I was big enough to work in the mow and there was no one to ride the horse, the horse had performed that ritual so many times that when old John would "up Dick,or Bob," whichever one was hooked up, off the horse would go and stop when John called again, then turn around and come back and patiently wait until the next jag was ready.

I wonder how many folks today would have that kind of patience to work with a neightbor's kid who unquestionably slowed down the progress of the work at hand. I doubt there are very many. Those were different times.

Hi Folks, I'm finally back

I hope the New Year brings great joy to all of you. Genie and I spent the last several weeks visiting her family living in the Houston area, including lovely daughter Amy, our new family lawyer. We drove the 2400 hundred mile round trip in our 2004 1/2 ton, Chevy Pickup. We added 800 miles while there visiting family. And, thanks to the extended family's hospitality, we really enjoyed our stay.
Driving in and around Houston is something else again. Traffic was so dense in the Galleria area where Amy currently works it took far more Patience than I posses just to go around the block. Gene handled that chore. I guess she didn't really want a husband with a blown top. Houston streets appear to have been blown out of a funnel attached to the back of a cement truck onto an unprepared track of dirt and just left to dry. Bad, Bad, Bad. Other than that, we really enjoyed our stay.
With a little luck I'll get my new blog posted either tomorrow---I have to go to town and do a bit of shopping--we like to eat--or certainly by Tuesday.
Thanks a heap for your patience. Bob

Samuel and Mary Ann Holt, My Great Grandparents

It was a chilly, snowy, November 21, 1834 When Mary (Noss) Holt gave birth to twins, Samuel Jacob and John C, in the small cabin that she and her husband had built on their tiny farm in Mudlick Hollow, Brighton Twp., Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Sadly, John C lived only a few short hours. Mary and her husband, William Humphrey Holt and their two children, Mary Jane and Thomas Fritz, had migrated from McVeytown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania c1830.
Unfortunately I do not have a picture of Samuel Jacob. I'd really like to have one.

Four years later, 1838, in the 8th Ward, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Eliza Jane (Hunter) Taylor, gave birth to her second child, Mary Ann. Eliza Jane and her husband, William B. Taylor, had migrated from County Down, Ireland to the south side of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh in 1830 where their seven children were born and raised. Mary Ann has been described as being petite, very nice looking, lively and in-charge.

Mary Ann (Taylor) Holt
I have little on the childhood of Mary Ann or Samuel Jacob. The Holt farm where Samuel grew up was too small to provide employment so Samuel sought work in the nearest community, Vanport. He found a job transporting bricks from a brickyard south of Vanport to Beaver. The bricks were to build a new school called Fort Macintosh School. I went to 8th grade in that school in 1939. I had no idea that my Great Grandfather Samuel Holt had helped haul the bricks to build it and that my Gr-Gr-Grandfather, the Irishman William Taylor, helped make those bricks. It was during this period that Samuel met and fell in love with William Taylor's daughter, Mary Ann. They were married 12 November, 1857 by the Rev. Joshua Monroe, in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Beaver.

Photo below is Mary Ann Taylor Holt with her children Thomas and Mary Elizabeth (Mamie), c. 1871.

Samuel and Mary Ann soon moved into a small home along Sebring Road that runs northwest out of the town of Vanport. They later purchased a small farm and home (Kaufman or Hereford farm) just off that road where their eight children were born:

1. 1. William Humphrey, 18 Sep., 1858
2. 2. Smith Richard, 15 Dec., 1860
3. 3. Thomas Fritz, 1863
4. 4. Elizabeth Jane, 1865
5. 5. Jefferson, 1867
6. 6. Mary Elizabeth, 5 June, 1870
7. 7. Franklin Raymond, 14 Feb., 1875
8. 8. Clyde, 18 Dec. 1877.

Two of the children, Elizabeth Jane and Jefferson, died one day apart in the summer of 1873. Janie died of Diphtheria and Jeffie died of Cholera Morbis—what ever that was. They were buried together in the same casket in the Beaver Cemetery. I can’t imagine such a tragedy. Just the thought brings tears to my eyes.

According to Grandad, his mother was insistent that all the children be educated. High School was the ultimate for most those days, but five of the living six children went on to receive college degrees. In her push to get her children educated the family left the little farm and moved out onto Tuscarawas Road several miles from town. She then decided that was still too far out so they bought a house on the south side of Fifth Street in Beaver, very near Sharon Road and not too far from the Christian Church the family regularly attended. Once the children were educated, she and Samuel moved back to the farm. She was only 60 when she died 9 June, 1898. She is buried in the Beaver Cemetery. Samuel lived on another eight years until 5 September, 1906 when he joined his beloved Mary Ann and was buried beside her in the Beaver Cemetery.

Hunting Dogs at Holtdale

Dogs were a way of life on the farm, but three of them stand out above the others, Pat, Nick and Mugs. Pat was a large, Black and Tan, and other, reddish-brown, female, rabbit dog. She was, at least (mostly), a Black and Tan hound. She had long, dangling ears, a sad face and the most baleful howl you ever heard when tracking game. She remained a fixture on the farm for at least eleven years because she was a rabbit dog of the highest caliber. She had to have been good, for about every seven or eight months, she would blow up like a large sausage, with her feeding spigots practically dragging the ground, and present us with from eight to as many as fifteen pups at a time, to the complete delight of we kids. And, I am sure, to the complete annoyance of my long suffering mother.


Every neighbor, hunting buddy, friend of the family, itinerant salesman, and anyone who even had a fleeting thought of owning a dog, had one of her pups. During hunting season, the month of November, pups or not, when anyone emerged from the house with a shotgun old Pat would come running, sometimes with pups hanging on to the spigots or trailing behind. It mattered not, she was going hunting. How we all loved that old hound dog.

Nick was also a, mostly, Black and Tan hound hunting dog we owned at the time. He, presumably, was Mug’s father. No one could be sure of that though because Pat was not exactly the most faithful of wives. When she was in heat, the crowd following her about in her wanderings was something to behold. At least Mugs was hound like old Nick and very few of Pat’s many suitors could claim that exalted distinction. Nick was a bit surly, but an outstanding rabbit dog, so he too, earned a place at the scrap feeding pans at the back door that Mother kept generously filled for our dog family.


During the tail end of Pat's productive years she produced a black, male pup that won the hearts of everyone, but most importantly, my Mother's. Even before he was fully mature Mugs was running rabbits. He was born in early spring and during that fall's hunting season he was next only to Pat in finding rabbits. He quickly became "Mr. Rabbit Hound Supreme." He was the hunting Icon of the neighborhood and his offspring--if we could be sure they were his offspring--were in great demand by all the local rabbit hunters in the area.



Theoretically we owned him. Mugs, at best, could only be described as a "rake." He had a regular calling list and grooved trails between the many homes that he called upon. He had no peer in the garbage consumption and strewing profession. Ordinary lidded garbage cans, even if they had a latch, were absolutely no challenge for him. All the neighbors claimed a part of him. Indeed, they did help feed him. His rabbit hunting prowess was legendary and every one took turns using him. He had two great loves; Mom because she fed him most, and Grandad, because he hunted with him the most. There are probably more posed pictures with more people with Mugs than anyone else in
the neighborhood at that time.

Mugs and Me, 1939

I suspect he also could brag of more offspring than any other dog of his day. He was a true canine Casanova. To get to his intended paramour, he climbed fences, dug under fences, tore down fences, went through screen doors, crawled through windows and,----- oh well, you get the idea: He was a world class, canine Lothario. We all loved Mugs.

Great Great Grandparents, John and Fanny Bell Thornhill

On the 27th of January, 1860 in Fayetteville, Virginia, George Washington Thornhill was wearing out the carpet as he paraded back and forth waiting when he was told that his beloved wife, Martha Ann (Blake), had given birth to their second child John Newton. The young family would soon be caught up in the throes of the Civil War. The family lived in the mountainous part of Virginia that remained loyal to the United States and was soon renamed West Virginia. The family moved sometime after John was born but before Nov 1864 when their daughter was born in Cadiz, Ohio.

Jeremiah E Smith, an Irish immigrant then residing in New Cumberland, West Virginia,, was elated when his wife, Rebecca (Evans) presented him with his very first daughter, Frances Rebecca , later known by everyone as Fanny Bell. Jeremiah and Rebecca had ten children in all.

I am not certain where or how John and Fanny Bell met but on the 6th of October, 1881, they married. Jessie Virginia, their first child and oldest daughter. was born in now, long abandoned, Rocky Side, West Virginia. She was followed by two other daughters, Bessie and Ivy May, both of whom died in infancy, and lastly, in New Cumberland, Claudis Earl. See Blog

In the ensuing years, John and Fanny Bell purchased a home on College Avenue in Beaver, Pennsylvania. . In 1924 John and Fanny Bell joined Claud in California. The Thornhill family was very close knit and in that same year they were joined by Jessie Virginia and her husband Albert Davis and their daughter Naomi and husband John Holt. Albert. and Jessie’s son, Cleo, had followed Claude out in 1922 to go to college. Albert and Jessie and Naomi and John returned to Pennsylvania the following spring of 1925.

Fanny Bell died at their home in Redondo December 3rd, 1924 and was buried in Inglewood Cemetery, Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California. John lived on in California another seven years before joining Fanny Bell on the 6th of February, 1931. As an interesting aside, in 2000 my brother Rodney and I purchased a stone for John’s, until then, unmarked grave.

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