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Me Musing .
. . about
early days on the farm . . .
I
love some of these old photos!
Taken
at Olentangy Drive farm.
Crestview (Jr. High) class of 1933-34
Mother later graduated from North High School
I
have looked everywhere for a photo of the Hess/Latham Farmhouse
on Olentangy River Road, where I spent the first 3 - 1/2 years of
my life. There are many baby photos taken there, however none show
but a tiny bit of the farmhouse. Most are just of the yard area.
It
is interesting how snippets of memories have come back to me as
I have been working on this Family History.
From the old 'Hess Farmstead' (which
was a part of the original 400 acres of land bought by my 4th great-grandfather,
Captain George Balser Hess) on Olentangy Drive (as
it was called when Mother lived there as a teenager) which
was passed down to my Grandmother, Anna Reeb Hess Latham after her
father had gone to the 'big farm in the sky' in 1930 . . .
I can still 'see' and 'feel' and 'smell' these
memories:
~ Mother, Daddy,
Jeffrey and I lived in a make-shift 'apartment' upstairs until about
1951 when we moved into the house we built on Schirtzinger Road.
(Philip wasn't born until mid-November,
1950 so he wasn't in any of the 'baby pictures' I have from the
farm days.)
~ I remember
the feel of the wooden banister that Jeffrey used to slide down
from upstairs when no one was looking. The bottom-end made a sea-shell
curve and he'd fly off when he reached the bottom.
I was always too afraid to try it!
~ I remember
being in the downstairs room that we used as our 'living
room'. (It was a different room than
Grandma and Grandpa used as their living room.) All
the curtains were drawn and no lights were allowed to be turned
on . . . I think I had the measles and that was the 'sick room'
for the duration of the episode.
~ I remember
that Grandma had saved some of the clothes Mother had designed and
sewn during her Costume Design studies in New York. Grandma used
to go into a special closet and take them out. She would let me
pick the dress and just the right shoes! She would carry the shoes
downstairs for me and then I'd slide them on and clop, clop, clop
into the kitchen where she and I would have a Tea Party with my
dolls and some 'imaginary' friends. (We
never told anyone else about our secret friends!)
~ I remember
family dinners at the big round wooden table in the dining room
at the front of the house and the little 'parlor' room inside the
front door.
~ I remember
standing in the hallway where the heat register was a big grate
in the floor and liking to stand on it for warmth. (It
was also a good place to listen to what the 'big people' talked
about in the next room!)
~ I remember
that on the rare occasion that Grandma and Grandpa would take a
'road trip' with another couple headed for the Southwest or Florida,
that they would always bring us back a 'surprise'.
~ I remember
they heated the farmhouse with coal and I would only go down in
the 'cellar' if accompanied by an adult!!!!!!
~ I remember
the time when Grandma and Grandpa were away and the disk-like cover
on the wall above the kitchen stove broke away, filling the kitchen
with black soot. What a mess that was for Mother and
Daddy to clean up.
~ I remember
sitting at the big kitchen table at lunchtime . . . all of us and
the hired hand that helped Grandpa on the farm. (I
think that is where I acquired my 'lack of desire' for gravy!)
~ I remember
answering the phone one late December afternoon in the big dining
room and Santa Claus was on the other end of the line asking what
I wanted for Christmas!
~ I remember
that once I was old enough to know what a 'cemetery' was, I was
afraid to go to sleep when I would stay overnight with Grandma and
Grandpa. The farm house was right across from the Old Section of
the Union Cemetery where my ancestors rested . . . .
in .
. . 'Eternal Peace'.
~
I remember that Grandpa always painted the lower trunks of the trees
(that lined the long curved driveway
up to the house) white.
Now I wonder why I never asked 'why???'
~ I remember
jumping into huge piles of leaves in the autumn.
~ I remember
making someone 'push me' on the old board-swing that hung from a
big tree.
~ I remember
being very quiet and sitting properly when friends of Grandma and
Grandpa would come to visit them.
~ I remember
singing 'Over the river and through
the woods to Grandmother's house we go' and thinking they
wrote that song just for me.
~ I remember
walking around outside in the yard among all kinds of furniture
and equipment and items the day of 'The Auction' and not quite understanding
that it meant the 'end of an era' of a Hess family ancestor living
on that land.
~ I remember
visiting Grandma and Grandpa in the 'modern house'
the next day . . . but . . . it just wasn't quite
the same. (The only thing that was
the same was Grandpa still had the toaster right next to him at
the table and he still cut off a slice of Velveta cheese with his
wire cheese cutter at the end of every meal.)
 
Early days
on the farm
Until
soon,
Che'usa
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