Hollobaugh, Mary Ellen McClain

MARY ELLEN MCCLAIN HOLLOBAUGH

Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: February 28, 2003

[This interview was audio only, no video.]

Interviewer: Let’s start with your full name and spell it.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: My name is Mary Ellen Hollobaugh.

Interviewer: What’s your maiden name?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: McClain. I didn’t know whether that was…do you want me to include that?

Interviewer: Yes.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: My maiden name was McClain. M-c-C-L-A-I-N.

Interviewer: How old are you and when is your birthday?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, too old to start with! May 16, 1920 was my birthday, and I will be 83 in May and at this point, I’m still 82!

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: [Dog whining in the background.] Maybe I should put her out, shouldn’t I?

Interviewer: I think so.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: We’ve only lived at this address. 6361 Old State Road.

Interviewer: Ok. So, you lived here the entire time?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes.

Interviewer: How long have you lived here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Fifty-six years. We came in November 1947. My husband died in 1965.

Interviewer: Now, where did you live before you came here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, we were in Wesleyville. He worked in this area, and that was what brought us here. [Editor’s note—not in transcript, Walter worked at General Electric and for the Veteran’s Administration. As a graduate of Penn State with a degree in agriculture, he worked with local veterans to help them improve their farms.

Interviewer: Where did he work at?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, he worked for the County, really. It was Veteran’s Administration work.

Interviewer: Ok.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: When we came, we would be here as long as he was employed. He knew that would end and he always wanted to go back to his home territory, which was Clarion, Pennsylvania, Clarion County.

Interviewer: And where are you originally from?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, my home was in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. That’s in Clinton County, more in the center part of the state.

Interviewer: Ok. You want to talk about your home here when you first moved here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, it was a house that I think everyone had lived in the Township. I’d go from place to place and as soon as I’d say where we lived, they knew the house. There were so many people who had come and left, and we came and stayed…

Interviewer: Who were some of the other people who lived here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there had been, across the way, some of the first people in the area were the Mathewson families. I assume they were brothers that bought originally here.

Interviewer: Do you know their first names?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, Elmer Mathewson was our neighbor up the road. But across the way, that family had left, but they kept the house. The family as a group kept the house. And there was a retired schoolteacher, Miss Mathewson, and she, being related to these people up here, would come in the summer for several weeks. And she always stopped in. She’d walk over in the morning, and oftentimes stop in, and then I’d take her on home or on up the hill. Her name was Janette. Janette Mathewson and she had brothers. One was a doctor; one was a school administrator near Pittsburgh. So, the home was kept. I always felt sorry that my husband hadn’t bought there, instead of here, because it was a much larger house. But this is where we bought and this is where we stayed.

Interviewer: Who were some of your other neighbors around here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there were Krautter’s and Well’s…I’m amazed on the map that the Krautter’s do not seem to be mentioned. Now there again, there is a Nancy Krautter who I’m sure would know more about the Township really than I do. I had her in school eventually, but she lives on up at the next crossroads. So there were people that would be so much more helpful to you. But the Mathewson’s were very good neighbors and helped my husband in many ways. And he got interested in the farming, and that’s what he developed. He built different buildings. Some of the buildings are gone; I’ve had them taken down because they were really just a tax burden. And the barn is too at this point. As you can see, it’s gone down. It’s unbelievable what 37 years will do to a place, but it happens. [Editor’s note--not in transcript, there were also the Mills, Vogts, Harneds as well as the Mathewsons and Krautters.]

Interviewer: Ok. Well, your home here, when you first moved here. How was your home heated?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, he wondered what I would … what the house would take for us to come here, [Editor’s note—not in transcript, I told him a furnace and bathroom] because everything was painted a bright brown. The woodwork, the floors, and the cracks had been filled. As you can see, there were a lot of cracks.

Interviewer: These are nice floors.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: …Removal. But at any rate, it was heated by a [coal] furnace. And the bathroom, it didn’t have even one. It looked to the house. So, we actually bought before we moved here and he did most the work; he put the bathroom in and the furnace was in. It was a hot air furnace where large pipes carried the heat. Now we use oil.

Interviewer: Did you have electricity here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I think probably, about 1945 because I know a fella who just got out of the service, and he and his brother-in-law [Editor’s note—not in transcript, Church and Murdock formed an electrical company and became one of the largest commercial electrical companies in Erie County. They started by wiring homes in the area.] It was interesting, because even the day of his [Church] funeral, his partner [Murdock] and I [talked about how they had wired our home and Mathewson’s home as well as others in the area.]…They wired the Mathewson house and they wired this one, and I think it was about two years [Editor’s note—not in transcript, before we moved here that the Rural Electric Co-Op came in and brought electricity to this area] they did it. Can you imagine that? And this house had never had no bathroom or anything?

Interviewer: Now who was that, who wired the house?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Church was one of the men, and Murdock was the other. And we were related to Murdock. Not close, but through marriage and so forth.

Interviewer: So you had inside plumbing and everything when you moved in?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes, when I came.

Interviewer: That’s nice! Now what about electricity?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: We had plenty of electricity, because he had done that, this Church & Murdock Company.

Interviewer: So by the time you moved in?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes. Well, they had done the electric before, about two years I think. Because he had joined with his brother-in-law, this was Murdock that worked with Church. And they stayed together. And up until just recently, the brothers…their families… they are the big electricians in the area. They’ve done schools, hospitals, and that sort of thing. But they started small, with these houses. And I know they did the Mathewson house, too, by talking with the Mathewson's.

Interviewer: What about a telephone?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, we’ve always had a phone, so I… And in fact, as old as I am, even in my own home, we always had phones. So, I can never remember [living in] a house without a phone or without [indoor plumbing.]

Interviewer: That’s good!

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I know a lot of people say differently, but we always had that.

Interviewer: What about radio and television?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I know my husband bought a very small radio for my first Christmas. I think he wanted to listen to the ballgames, but I got a lot of use out of it. I still enjoy a radio more than I do [television] or as much, because I use the radio a lot.

Interviewer: How about a television, when did you get that?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, my son’s 55, and I think we had it when he was just 2 years old, so that tells you. There again, my husband liked [baseball] games, football games and…it was incentive at the time, probably!

Interviewer: How about washing machines and refrigerators?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Oh, we had both.

Interviewer: That’s good.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: We had to be on a list, though. [Editor’s note—not in transcript, after the war things like refrigerators and washers were luxury items.] See, we were people just…I can’t say we were just out of college, I had worked six years…No, I had worked four years after I was out of college.

Interviewer: Did you have any other relatives in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, there were…no it was just us.

Interviewer: What did you do around the Township? You mentioned teaching.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, I taught after the children were born. So, I just taught for three years there. And my husband was quite involved with the school district, and a lot of this became an existence. I didn’t teach again until after he had died.

Interviewer: Where did you teach at those three years?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, at Edinboro.

Interviewer: You mentioned your husband was involved with the school district.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, he was on the board, and they were building these new buildings. Well, at the time, I’d get home and he’d be having to leave for meetings, and it just wasn’t worth it, you know?

Interviewer: Was that in Edinboro?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I taught three years in Edinboro.

Interviewer: Your husband’s involvement, was that in Edinboro as well?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes, in the Township. [Editor’s note—not in transcript, my husband’s involvement was with the General McLane School District. At that time the voters elected school board members where they lived. There were no “at large” board members.]

Interviewer: Now did you come here when you were first married? How long were you married?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No. We were married in ’46, and I worked until that first year, in 1947.

Interviewer: Do you want to go through the names and birth dates of your children?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Oh, I didn’t write that down! Well, my son is Walter W. Hollobaugh, Jr. Do you want me to write this out?

Interviewer: Oh, you don’t need to write it down, you can just say it.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Oh, OK. And he was born the 18^th of February in 1948. And my daughter is Sarah Ann Hollobaugh and she was born …I always have to say this slowly because she came ahead of time, and he did too! She was born March 29, 1951.

Interviewer: Did she marry?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No. She is a nurse. She works in Hamot's operating room; she came in from Harrisburg General Hospital.

Interviewer: Do you remember what schools were in the Township here when you first moved in?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, see up at this corner, that was the Silverthorn School. They were having school…when we came here they still had school there. And then there was a school out at Franklin Center. And my husband eventually bought this building up here [Silverthorn School]. But when he built that building [currently a mini-storage facility]… afterwards it [schoolhouse] was torn down, after we sold it.

Interviewer: Ok, who were some of your friends when you were living here early on?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there was…Actually they would be the people my husband was working with somewhat. The Mathewson’s were friends, and they were good friends. And Marian Collins, and…Basically, the first few years I didn’t go too much because the children were small when they were born. And later on, I worked. And once you work, you don’t keep as much socializing and so forth.

Interviewer: You mentioned that you did some farming out here.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, my husband, really. He built the building up at the corner [currently a mini-storage facility]. It was a large chicken building. It housed 12,000 birds.

Interviewer: Wow.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: And when he died, I had never really done the farm work, so it was quite an education for a little while, because his death was sudden and relative, they said. He had a hundred head of cattle between, in these barns out here. So, my brother-in-law came and helped out and brought his hired hand and left him, and it was quite a change.

Interviewer: So you sold eggs and milk?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, we never sold milk. It was beef cattle that my husband was interested in.

Interviewer: Ok. So, you sold the beef? Where did you sell that?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, Haibach I think was the name I think of the people that bought quite frequently. They would come in…and I know not too long before my husband died, about a year and a half ahead of his death, he sold 35 head at one time because he had built the herd and he wanted to clear it out somewhat. He had the chicken building up here that had about, I think he put...he probably had 4 or 5,000 birds in here when he died too.

Interviewer: Now, where did you sell…I know you sold eggs, did you also sell the chickens?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Oh, we never sold chickens…well the chickens would, once they were layed out, you know once they had done the [egg] laying they could do, and the production [fell off], then he would sell them to a soup company. I know big trucks would come in and would take the whole floor of birds at a time.

Interviewer: What about the eggs, where would you sell those?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there were various people, even local people would buy cases and take them into Erie to sell. Agway took some. I guess I didn’t think this through very well! But, then there was a man from…I can’t even say his name. I used to say to the kids, it sounded like “out of wishes” to me, but that wasn’t his name really. But he would come from New York State to pick up eggs. It was quite a production.

Interviewer: Did you grow any crops also?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Oh, yes. Basically, he had just gotten the farm back into working order. This one man told me it was really sad because he had worked so hard to get the buildings built and the fields back into production. But he did corn, but mostly he was interested in hay, which he would use for the cattle.

Interviewer: Ok, what kind of equipment did you have?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, eventually he had two [four] tractors, [and related farm equipment] but when we first came, he used the team. He bought two horses. As I said to a lady that had a 90^th birthday, we were the last women that really would remember starting out small. And it was small.

Interviewer: For meat, did you do your own butchering?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, we never did butchering. In fact, I probably shouldn’t tell it, but I never cleaned a chicken! Because…well, first of all, he didn’t care a lot for it. We did like beef, and we had by that time, I know…my daughter always said it was a very good year. She was to be born the 13^th of April, and she came in March. And I know our freezer, my husband had ordered this big freezer, and it didn’t come until…it came ahead of time too. It was a 20-foot, cubic foot freezer. That was my first introduction to freezing on a big scale. We always would put the beef in the freezer.

Interviewer: How did you preserve it before you used a freezer?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, we never bought in that quantity at that point.

Interviewer: Did you do a lot of canning?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes. I’ve done my share of canning, and freezing once I had the freezer. Nearly everything has been frozen. How that has changed! Now I have a small freezer in connection with the refrigerator. These are big changes that come about. Before, you went through the basement to the big freezer.

Interviewer: Did you have a big garden?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: My husband was never keen on gardening. I don’t know. He was trained in agriculture at Penn State. But in this county, you were able to buy quantities of things. For example, we didn’t have fruit trees, so you went to the orchards to buy the fruit. So, these are big changes again.

Interviewer: We have a list of different businesses in the Township. If you remember any of these, did you see any of these on the paper…?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes, I did, but I’m not of any help, really.

Interviewer: Ok.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: There were no stores. Well, the nearest store was at McLane, down at the end of this road down here. So, merchants were not involved. I’ll never forget the first time I went to Edinboro with my husband. And the bank wasn’t a bank as such. I had never seen a bank that wasn’t built to be a bank. It actually was part of the store with bars on the window. And that tells you how far Edinboro has come.

Interviewer: So, the store you went to was in McLane, there.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, you would pick up the bread, milk, and things of that type there, but it really wasn’t on a big scale at all. And for doctors or dentists, we went to Edinboro. The feed mill…there was the Agway [GLF] mill.

Interviewer: Where was that at?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: In Edinboro. And there was a gristmill in Edinboro on that back street there, and I cannot see their names. But mostly, my husband dealt with Agway [GLF]. Well, cattle dealers were these…there used to be a man who would call here, and he used to say “Leo calling!” And he was Jewish, and he was always so nice when he would call and wanted to know if there were any cattle that were ready to go at that point.

Interviewer: Do you know his last name?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: All I can tell you is that anybody that knew the dealers would know who he was, because he’d always say “Leo calling!” And when I answered the phone, I always knew what he was after—he wanted cattle!

Interviewer: Do you know if he lived around in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, he was from Erie.

Interviewer: Well, you want to talk about the prices of things?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, just the other day, I came across a receipt that I paid for gas. When my husband was really working, he needed to have gas available here. I had bought 300 gallons the first December he was gone, and it was for $259.00.

Interviewer: And that was in the ‘60s?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: In ’65. It would have been at the end of 1965.

Interviewer: Earlier on, when you first moved in, well you probably didn’t have to buy milk!

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, we bought milk, but my neighbor always teased me, but I would pasteurize. My husband bought a little pasteurizer. And we would get milk from the Mathewson’s. And I don’t know whether it was 50 cents a gallon, but it wasn’t much more than that. And he always teased me. They felt that milk didn’t need pasteurization, but I felt it did. So I did it, and one day the neighbor was here talking to me and my son was on the other side of…underneath his car and he had gotten up and he had gotten dirt right in his mouth. And he always said there was no need for pasteurization after that! But kids will do things like that. And it was part of my education I guess!

Interviewer: What about bread?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I had never baked more bread than could be used. Well oftentimes, I would take ten dollars from the drawer to get the groceries for the week. Jokingly, my husband said to me before he died that he’d still like to settle for what it used to cost in comparison to what it did when he died. He figured at that point probably $75.00 per week wouldn’t have covered them, but at first it did.

Interviewer: Do you remember how much bread was in the ‘40s?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes. I can remember it was probably 25, 30 cents a loaf.

Interviewer: How about cheese?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, cheese, I never bought much cheese because my husband didn’t care for it. You learn to cook as they liked to eat. It’s very different today; they want four to five dollars a pound.

Interviewer: How about butter?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, at that point we used oleo almost entirely. And I know for several years I would mix it, you bought what looked like lard almost, and you put the coloring in.

Interviewer: How much was that?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I want to say about 25 cents a pound at the most.

Interviewer: How about flour?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there again, I just honestly cannot remember, but it would have been cheaper than buying products already made. It still amazes me now what baked goods cost.

Interviewer: Do you remember clothing prices back then?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, probably, in comparison to today, there would be no comparison I guess! Dresses, 12, 15, 25 dollars would be a good dress in comparison to what it would be today.

Interviewer: How about toys?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, children didn’t have the kind of toys that they…I know our children didn’t. I know what they liked best was a big box to put it in. Maybe you found that true too, I don’t know!

Interviewer: How about candy?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Not expensive. A five-cent Hershey bar I remember.

Interviewer: Do you remember what seed cost for planting?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No. There again, five cents a packet, maybe 10 cents a packet in the ‘40s.

Interviewer: How about farm or land values?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, no comparison, absolutely none. People that had bought farms for the cost at that time would have been five or ten thousand, at the very most. Today, those same ones go for $100,000.00.

Interviewer: How about furniture?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, furniture has gone much higher too. A davenport probably would have been, a really good one, probably would have been $300.00. A fairly useable one would have been about $100.00 maybe. It’s unbelievable!

Interviewer: You mentioned teaching. How much were you being paid to teach when you were teaching?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, it’s interesting, very interesting. The first school that I took I got $1500.00. And I know that there were girls who started at $1250.00 that year.

Interviewer: Now was that per semester?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: For the year.

Interviewer: For the year?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: For the regular, two semesters. And when I quit in 1981, if I had gone back that year, I would have made $20,000.00, and there were girls coming out of college that year that were getting the same thing that I had.

Interviewer: Did you have a car?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: You mean in the ‘40s? Well, I did some extension, agricultural extension, and I had to have a car for that. Second-hand was all you could get at the time. I went into extension, which would have been 1945, ‘44 or ‘45.

Interviewer: Do you remember in the Township here any Civil War or any World War I veterans that were still around?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No.

Interviewer: What churches were there in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there was the small Methodist church over there on the corner, and I see that it is the Eureka Methodist. When we first came, that church had been disbanded. There were very hard feelings about it. And so, those Methodists didn’t come over and join with these Methodists. I have always been of the opinion, that you’re community, you make it yourself. And so we went to this Methodist church out here. I wasn’t Methodist at the time, but this one was very … was all but inactive at that time.

Interviewer: The one at Eureka?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, the one at Franklin Center. The little white church that’s there. But see, the Cranesville, the people that had gone over to Crane, never came…very few of them came to this one. Now, the Pieper’s did, but there were families that were irritated that it was closed by the Methodist Conference, and so they were never part of this church congregation out here.

Interviewer: Do you remember who any of the pastors were at the church there?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, when I first came, they didn’t have a regular pastor. I know I went with our neighbors to church in the middle of the week one time, and the church just had a potbelly stove. It hadn’t been a real active church until, probably until the ‘40s, when there was work done on it.

Interviewer: You mentioned there were no regular pastors. Who would come in and do services?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, Reverend Swanson eventually was the first regular pastor we had out here. He was an elderly man, a very elderly man. But, there had been a Reverend Ross who would come. Now, I heard him preach once and that would be the only time I heard him.

Interviewer: Do you remember any other churches around at the time?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: There was a church over at Francis, which has been converted into a home. But that was in use really, at one time. I never was in the church.

Interviewer: What kind of church was it?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: I don’t really know.

Interviewer: What kind of things did you do for fun and recreation around here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of fun connected with it! Farming was a pretty busy job. I suppose picnics would have been it. I remember the church had what it called the festival, more or less, at the Mathewson farm. And they had people that came and sang, and it was different I guess. The church was the only activity within the Township!

Interviewer: Did the church have any other activities?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there was a young people’s group, but it would have been a group younger than what [we were]. And they were quite active for a good many years. But we were older at that point, and they were younger, so we weren’t part of that.

Interviewer: Do you remember any other gatherings?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, the Sunday school picnic and that type of thing, you know. And my husband’s group, veterans that were farming at that point had picnics.

Interviewer: Ok. What do you remember about politics and government here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, it’s always been…when we first came, I would say it was almost 100% Republican. But now, I think the Township is Democratic maybe, I guess.

Interviewer: Ok. Do you remember who the road supervisors were?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, I know Mr. Perry Mills. Did you interview Mrs. Mills at all?

Interviewer: She’s on my list.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: She is. She’s quite elderly. It was her husband. And at the time of my husband’s death, there was….I honestly can’t say. Mr. Mills was the one, though, when we came, I know.

Interviewer: What were the roads like back then when you first came here?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, see, this was a dirt road out here. And my people came the first time, my mother and father, my Dad said he had often heard of a corduroy road, but he had never been on one! I don’t think we had…Our lawn used to go right out to the road; there was no ditch on this side. So you know it has changed a great deal. We have a terrible ditch out there now, just terrible.

Interviewer: Do you remember who any of the assessors and constables and justices were?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, the assessor was Adrian Hayes. And our taxes when we came were $88.00, and my husband complained about that! He thought that was a lot! Well, I had never paid taxes so I didn’t know anything about it. I’ll tell you since then; I’ve found out, they’re not $88.00 anymore. And I don’t know what the spring will bring because of the reassessment…what the story will be. But I know it has gone over $1,000.00 now, well over.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of the constables?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, the only constable that I’ve known was Herb Netzler, but I don’t know. There probably were others.

Interviewer: What about school directors?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, the directors when we first came would have been, Mrs. Marian Collins’ mother was a director, and Marion Krautter—now that is the husband of… and Minnie Vogt I believe was a director.

Interviewer: Ok. Do you remember anyone from the Township who went on to higher political office?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, I can’t think of anyone.

Interviewer: Ok. Do you remember any Township’s roads names changed over the years?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Yes. Townline and Fry Road. Townline is half in our Township. Townline and Fry, I think those would be the only changes. And now there’s a new road, which was really just a turkey path, I guess, at one time. And really now, there are quite a few very nice homes built on it. It’s a small road, off of Eureka. Maybe you’ve heard other people…

Interviewer: Yeah, I’ve been on it.

Interviewer: Do you know why they changed to Fry Road?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, I don’t know. There was a Fry family, according to…And the only way I found out where we were on this map was the fact that it had been owned by a minister and through the neighbors telling me, people who had lived here, you know, I could check the name. [rustling the map] This was such a hard map for me to get turned around and get straightened around here! I finally did when I…. Silverthorn, Old State, and well, we didn’t buy from this man. He had been a minister, and I don’t know, but apparently he never developed the farm at all, but Reverend Brooks had bought it. And this apparently is really an old, old map, because the Brooks’, according to the Mathewson’s, had built this house.

Interviewer: Do you remember any major natural disasters?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: No, I don’t know of anything at all.

Interviewer: What was snowplowing and winter life like?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, it has changed considerably too. They have put these deep ditches in, and before it would just blow and pile up on the road, you know. And when we first came, there were very pretty maples out in our yard, but one by one they’ve had to be…either the wind took care of it… In 1965, everything happened in 1965! I started back to teaching the year my husband died, and the last day of my school year, I came home and three of these maples were just flat out here. The wind…it had been a tornado-like thing struck that day. So, it was quite a thing.

Interviewer: Well, back in the ‘40s, how did they clear the roads?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, they’ve always had snowplows, but it was just so level, and the bad wind…Well, you can see even out back here, we’ve had lots of wind that’s brought it in here. But I really think, I hated so to see each maple go, but I really think our driveway is better off because of it. Apparently, it caught the snow, and there would be times that if you were out you’d have trouble getting back in. And our driveway, getting the car up the driveway even. But plows, I know my husband had gotten tracks for his tractor and he would plow often for people. I always called it his toy, but he enjoyed getting out and plowing. One lady was quite disturbed, and said he plowed other places before he came to her place! And all he was doing was helping!

Interviewer: Do you remember earlier on, any immigrants or people from different ethnic backgrounds in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, there’s been a lot of [eastern Europeans] well, the Sitek's, their family, the Lewandowski’s. I don’t know just what their background was, but there’s always been quite a diverse group of people. The names were very different, coming into this territory, you know.

Interviewer: Do you remember any diseases being prevalent in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, the College had…what was their scare a couple years ago, down here at the College?

Interviewer: Meningitis.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Meningitis. Well, Jeannette Mathewson, the woman that grew up catty-corner from her, told me that the Brooks, they had a daughter that had died in this house with meningitis, and at that point, that was a very unknown disease, you know. But that was such a horrible thing for them to lose this daughter. That would be family history in the community. But I can remember Jeannette telling me about that.

Interviewer: Do you remember any epidemics or anything?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, I suppose whooping cough and measles, and that sort of thing probably from time to time.

Interviewer: Did many people die at an early age?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Now, there again, I wouldn’t know really. Our neighbors were quite elderly when they died. I’ve seen both generations of that family go.

Interviewer: Where are people buried in the Township?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, probably Edinboro as much as any place. These people from up here are buried in Edinboro. And down in McLane there’s a cemetery. And my husband, he was from another area. His body was taken back to Shannondale in Clarion County.

Interviewer: Ok. Well, is there anything that we didn’t bring up that you’d like to talk about?

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: Well, it’s been a close-knit community because there are a lot of relatives within the community, you know, people related. I don’t know of anything of that type…

Interviewer: Well, we’ll finish. Thanks for your time.

Mary Ellen Hollobaugh: You’re welcome.