Horn, Royce Henry

ROYCE HENRY HORN

Interviewer: Nanette Grygier Interviewed on: November 12, 2003

Interviewer: What is your full name and spell it.

Royce Horn: My name is Royce Henry Horn. H-O-R-N.

Interviewer: How old are you and your birthday please?

Royce Horn: I was 69 in September. I was born in 1934.

Interviewer: How long have you lived here in Franklin Township and the locations of where you lived?

Royce Horn: I lived here for 66 years in Franklin Township, except for two years in the service and one year at an apartment in Edinboro.

Interviewer: Could you give me locations, where you lived, roads or highways?

Royce Horn: I was born on the Bicey farm on Route 98. We moved from there to the Lawrence farm on Crane Road, from there to the Root farm on Crane road and when I was eight years old, we moved to the present location.

Interviewer: What was your home like in those early years? When you were young growing up? How did you heat your home? When did you get indoor plumbing, hot water, electricity, telephone, electric, radio and any other appliances, as best as you can remember?

Royce Horn: We heated our home with wood. The cook stove was wood. On the cook stove was a water reservoir that had water for baths and washing. We got electricity about 1944 when the electric line came through. Telephone was probably 2 or 3 years later, when they put the line through for the telephone.

Interviewer: Do you remember a radio or television or other appliances?

Royce Horn: The neighbor, Albert and Minnie Vogt got the first television in the area. It was a small oval screen that was probably about 1946.

Interviewer: Do you remember the washing machine?

Royce Horn: We had the washing machine before electricity. It was powered by a gasoline engine. It was kind of contrary. It sometimes took more work to get the engine running than to do the wash by hand.

Interviewer: How about a refrigerator?

Royce Horn: The first refrigerator we got was from a Farm Implement Show in Girard. They gave away a refrigerator and we happened to have the winning number!

Interviewer: Do you know if you were the first ones in your neighborhood to have a refrigerator or a washing machine?

Royce Horn: I don’t believe we were, but…

Interviewer: Do you know who the first one might have been?

Royce Horn: No I don’t.

Interviewer: What year did you win this refrigerator?

Royce Horn: That was probably about 1947 or 1948.

Interviewer: After the war then.

Royce Horn: Yeah.

Interviewer: Who had the first car or truck?

Royce Horn: A lot of people had cars and trucks, so, I couldn’t tell ya. I was born during the Depression, and my dad had a 1938 Roadster and it sat in the garage, locked up because they didn’t have enough money to buy gas. The only car we had was my Grandfather’s and we just used that for emergencies or whatever.

Interviewer: Do you remember that kind of car, the model of the car that was used in emergencies?

Royce Horn: No, I don’t. Probably a Model A.

Interviewer: Who were your family members and who were you related to in this Township, if any one at all.

Royce Horn: My older sister is Geraldine Whitman Horn. I have a brother Findley Leslie Horn and another brother Dorian Kaye Horn.

Interviewer: Were you related to anyone in the Township?

Royce Horn: Yes I was. I was related to the rest of the Horns in Franklin Township and the Huyck family. There was Grace Pieper Horn, Clede Horn, Gladys and Henry Horn and Albert Huyck, Bernice Allen and there’s probably more, but I can’t think of them right now.

Interviewer: In your earliest memories, who were your friends or familiar friends of the family while growing up?

Royce Horn: My parents’ friends, the closest was a neighbor Ruth and Burton Lawrence and we would get together once a month or so, and just have snacks and apples or whatever.

Interviewer: Can you remember your fondest childhood memory, something that really sticks in your mind after all these years, or a particular season of the year or a special gift?

Royce Horn: One of the memories that sticks in my mind was that we had a sandbox, and I was playing in the sandbox and there was a piece of clay tile there and I was going to drill a well. I used a rock to drive the clay tile and my finger was over the top of the tile when I hit it and I smashed my finger, so that sticks pretty well in my mind!

Interviewer: Other childhood memories, I’m sure you have plenty of them?

Royce Horn: When we was kids, of course, it was during the Depression and by today’s standards we would be classified as very poor, but we didn’t realize it. We had clothes and we had enough to eat and a lot of times, the clothes had patch on patch but we didn’t know any different, that was just a way of life.

Interviewer: Do you have a special season? Did you prefer fall over winter?

Royce Horn: I always liked spring because everything came to life at that time and things greened up and you got rid of the dreary part of the year.

Interviewer: Do you have a special Christmas as a child that you remember or a special incident during the holidays or gift?

Royce Horn: We always went to our grandparents at Christmas and it was always a kind of a special time because you had your family, and everybody was around and there was lots of good food.

Interviewer: Do you remember decorations or any other activity that you did or traditions at the time or if your gifts were homemade or purchased at a store or did you not do gifts? Did you do other things that were part of your traditions?

Royce Horn: We always had gifts. A lot of times we had to share our Christmas gifts. There was one year we got a bicycle and that was for all four of us. One year, Dad made us a wagon. It was made out of wood, and it had wheels on it, and of course it had the handle to pull it with and stuff.

Interviewer: That was certainly special! All these years, you remember that. Anything else stands out as you’re getting a little older, at school, do they do things at the school you attended during the holidays?

Royce Horn: When we went to school, we went to a one-room school that covered all grades. Each year at Christmas time, they would have a Christmas program and of course all the families in the area would come to the program.

Interviewer: Who did you marry? When did you meet your spouse and how did this take place and then, could you tell us about your wedding?

Royce Horn: I married Dianne Harned and I would guess I could say we met at school for the first time. Her sister was my teacher at that time and I never expected that I would marry her, but it happened later on.

Interviewer: Do you remember the year that you met your wife?

Royce Horn: Second grade.

Interviewer: Second grade? Had a candle held out for your wife all that time! Did you have your wedding locally? Tell us about your wedding.

Royce Horn: We were married at the Advent Christian Church in Edinboro. Friends and family were invited. Dianne wore a wedding dress, but the rest of us just wore suits, there was no tuxes. The reception was in the church basement and there wasn’t any big meal, it was just cake and ice cream after the reception.

Interviewer: Did you go on a honeymoon? Did you go take a trip?

Royce Horn: We had a honeymoon of three days. We went to Niagara Falls and back home and I left the next day to go back to the service.

Interviewer: Sounds like your wedding was quickly planned and you didn’t have much time, and you had to go back into the service. What year were you married?

Royce Horn: 1956.

Interviewer: 1956. Where did you live when you first were married? Now, you had to go back into the service, but where did you go?

Royce Horn: Dianne stayed with her parents and I went back to the service.

Interviewer: Until you returned. Where did you live once you returned then, your first home by yourselves?

Royce Horn: We rented an apartment in Edinboro and lived there about a year, and then we rented a house from Paul Woods on Fry Road in Franklin Township. And then we were there about another year, and then I went into partnership with my father on the farm where I live now. And we stayed with Dianne’s parents until we got our present house built.

Interviewer: The year you built this house, can you remember?

Royce Horn: It was about 1958.

Interviewer: Can you tell me how many children you had and their names and their birthdates?

Royce Horn: We have two boys: Stephen Henry Horn, born on December 18^th. Thomas Glen Horn, born on November 10^th. Both of our sons were adopted. We never had any boys of our own.

Interviewer: From your early memories, what schools existed in the township? You mentioned you met your wife in the school in second grade. Do you remember the names of these schools or where they were located? Where did you go to school yourself and who the teachers might have been?

Royce Horn: The first school I went to was Eureka school and the teachers there were Sam Salchak and Marian Harned. After that we moved to the present farm we live on now. I went to Goodban School and I had Millie Payne for a teacher, Bernice Allen, and Miss [Janette] Mathewson and I believe that was all.

Interviewer: What was the highest grade you completed, Mr. Horn?

Royce Horn: In the township?

Interviewer: Yes.

Royce Horn: Seventh grade.

Interviewer: And did you continue on to school?

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: What was the highest grade you completed and can you tell me where that school was?

Royce Horn: At that time, we went to Edinboro after seventh grade to school and I graduated from Edinboro High in 1952.

Interviewer: Do you remember any classmates or maybe a best friend or two?

Royce Horn: The best friends that I had going through school, one of them was Dale Lawrence and one of them was Lawrence Pieper.

Interviewer: Do you know if they are still alive or do you visit them or keep in touch?

Royce Horn: They are still living. Dale Lawrence lives in Fairview at this time and Lawrence Pieper lives on Crane Road.

Interviewer: Do you see them or hear from them every now and then?

Royce Horn: Dale Lawrence, we get together with them every once in a while. Lawrence Pieper and I belong to the same Lodge.

Interviewer: Farming was the predominant occupation in your early years. What do you remember about anything to do with farming? The crops, type of equipment, the methods of farming, farming-related businesses that you or your family were involved in. And then I’d like to know about the first tractor, the mechanization on the farm. Who in the area had those first, or when did your father have those? Did you share equipment by chance? So, can you tell about farming in the early years?

Royce Horn: Crops were oats, corn, wheat, buckwheat. Of course, the early years were right in the Depression and we did most of our work with horses. When we moved to our present farm, we still had four to five horses and Dad hired somebody with a tractor to plow the ground and fit it and we just planted with horses and harvested with horses.

Interviewer: Do you remember who your father may have rented that tractor from?

Royce Horn: Don Vogt. Don Vogt done custom plowing.

Interviewer: So, you only had horses on your farm, you didn’t have any farm equipment or tractors or harvestors, threshers?

Royce Horn: Later years, we had a tractor. We got a tractor just before the end of WWII and it was a Silver King tractor and that was all that there was available at that time because of the war effort at that time.

Interviewer: Did you share equipment with your neighbors?

Royce Horn: The neighbors at threshing time and silo filling time would come together to help each other and what equipment you didn’t have, your neighbor had. They would use a corn binder to cut the corn and drop it in the field. At silo filling time, you would pick the corn up and put it on the wagon and it would be taken to the silo and run through a silo filler and blew up in the silo. The grain we usually had a grain binder which you would hook three horses to and bind the grain and the bundles was dropped and they were shocked in the field until it got dry and then you would put them on a wagon and bring them into the barn and store them in the barn. Then the threshing machine was brought in and you would put the bundles through the threshing machine and harvest the grain.

Interviewer: So, you did share equipment among neighbors as you needed?

Royce Horn: Yes, we did.

Interviewer: Did you remember if someone was maybe more successful or not as successful at farming during those years of the Depression and a few years after? Did everyone keep on an even keel or was there someone who had a little bit more difficulty in farming?

Royce Horn: Like I stated earlier, at that time, a lot of people had difficulties, but we didn’t know any different life, so we didn’t realize it. We thought that was part of life.

Interviewer: Did you have farm animals as well on your farm?

Royce Horn: We had about thirty dairy cows, and they was all milked by hand. We also had a dozen to fifteen sheep that we harvested the wool from. I can remember my Grandfather [Louis Horn]. Every spring he would sheer the sheep and the clippers were powered by a hand crank with a cable with universal joints, and I would have to turn that all the time he was sheering the sheep. If you slowed up too much, he’d holler at you because the wool would wad up in the clippers and you had to keep a steady pace with it.

Interviewer: Did you do your own butchering?

Royce Horn: Yes we did. We had hogs one year and when we first came down here, I think it was from my Grandfather, we butchered hogs and we never raised hogs after that. We just had our own beef we butchered, and horse, chickens and stuff like that. My mother [Hazel Root Horn; father: James Horn] had an egg route in Erie and she would take eggs once a week. Of course, every week you’d have to butcher chickens and she would take chickens to Erie and sold them.

Interviewer: How did you keep the meat cold? Do you remember?

Royce Horn: In Edinboro, they got ice houses and we would buy ice to keep stuff cold.

Interviewer: How did you preserve your own meat at home?

Royce Horn: Most of it was canned. Of course, in the winter months, you could hang it where it would freeze to keep it cold.

Interviewer: Like in an ice house or in a shed?

Royce Horn: Usually in a shed, yes.

Interviewer: How much canning was done?

Royce Horn: A lot. When we were just kids, we’d get together with the neighbors and we would find a place where they would have a lot of wild strawberries and we would pick strawberries and make jam. Of course, you’d have blackberries and most of them were wild. We had a row of grapes on the farm and we had currants, and stuff like that.

Interviewer: Did you have a very large garden? Do you remember working in the garden or having to pick tomatoes, etc.?

Royce Horn: The most I remember about a garden is hoeing it, pulling weeds, stuff like that. We had probably half to three quarters of an acre of garden. We raised our own potatoes, and sweet corn. The sweet corn, a lot of it was dried for later use. Of course, we had carrots, stuff like that. For cabbage, you would put straw on the ground and pile cabbage in it and put straw over the top outside and it would keep most of the winter. We made sauerkraut and stuff like that.

Interviewer: Did you do other things, like make pickles or anything like that, homemade pickles?

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: Your mother did that, too.

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: Did you have special jobs as a child with this, besides the hoeing of the garden, doing the manual labor with the weeding, with preparing these different crops for preserving or for canning? Do you have any other memory besides covering up the cabbage or picking fruit in the fields? Did you have any special chore?

Royce Horn: We had a one horse cultivator that we used quite a bit in the garden. Dad would work the cultivator and I would have to lead the horse to pull the cultivator. We had peas, we’d have to pick the peas and shell them, also green beans. We also raised dry beans for soups and stuff like that. We even tried celery one year and that turned out pretty well.

Interviewer: Never heard of anyone growing celery. That’s excellent! Most of your life involves working around the farm and working with the animals.

Royce Horn: Pretty much, yes. When I was probably nine years old, I’d go to my Grandfather’s farm and work for him through the summer. That was before weed sprays and all of that. He probably had ten-twelve acres of corn and we would hoe that corn in the summer. It seemed like you’d never get to the end of a row!

Interviewer: Did you ever have anything happen to your crops ever, during those years? As a child, do you remember anything, like blight, disease, bad turn of events with the weather that affected your crops at all?

Royce Horn: Usually the worst thing around here is the weather. It’s kind of like, Dianne’s father [Glen Harned] used to say, “A dry year scared you to death, but it took a wet year to starve you to death!” Because the crops didn’t grow, and it would be hard to get them out of the field and you couldn’t get them all.

Interviewer: A lot of it would rot in the field, before you could dig it up, like potatoes.

Royce Horn: Sure. (Nodding)

Interviewer: Any other farm-related memories? Something you would rather do over a different job, some of the different things you had to do on the farm, like, you worked for your Grandfather [Herman Root] in these long rows that never ended? Was there something that was kind of fun, even if labor intensive, was there something as a little boy growing up or a young teenager that was a little more enjoyable than the rest of it?

Royce Horn: When we were kids, we didn’t have many activities because there wasn’t anybody close around for our enjoyment. We had four work horses and we would take the work horses out and ride them, and got in trouble a few times with them. We were riding a horse one time and it was in November. The horse I was riding slipped and fell and my leg was underneath it. I broke my leg and a few things like that!

Interviewer: What’s the penalty for breaking a leg when you’re not much good in a field and you can’t move around very well! That must have been a long recovery for you!

Royce Horn: That was the year we got the one bicycle for four of us for Christmas and I had a cast on my leg.

Interviewer: Wasn’t much you could do, but look at it, that’s about it!

Royce Horn: Right.

Interviewer: What businesses or professions do you remember that were in the township area from your earliest memories? Maybe shop keepers, proprietors, even a doctor, sawmill, cheese factory, oil and gas companies, blacksmith…anything, when you were growing up all those years?

Royce Horn: When we lived on Crane Road, Dad had some metal he needed welded together and he took it to Mr. Straka. He lived kind of on the corner of Crane Road and Route 98. He had a blacksmith shop and I can remember as a kid sitting there and watching him heat the iron and beating it together, and forming it to make the part we needed. In later years, when we went to Edinboro in Zortman’s Feed Mill, he had a blacksmith’s shop and you’d go in there and watch him shoe horses and all of that.

Interviewer: Was there a Feed Mill or Grist Mill around?

Royce Horn: Where we had our feed ground was in Franklin Center and Sumner Wells. We would take our corn and oats to be ground and he would add supplements to it and he had a truck and would bring it back to us.

Interviewer: Were there any cheese factories?

Royce Horn: There was a cheese factory on Ivoray Road in Franklin Township and who owned it, if I heard, I don’t remember.

Interviewer: Now did your milk from your farm, from your dairy herd go to that cheese factory on Ivoray Road? Do you remember where your father had it taken?

Royce Horn: It probably did in earlier years. The most of our milk that I remember went to be bottled for drinking and some for butter and cheese.

Interviewer: It would have gone to a Creamery then, rather than a cheese factory.

Royce Horn: Correct.

Interviewer: Do you remember where that Creamery was? Did they take it to Meadville or to Erie?

Royce Horn: I believe it went to Erie.

Interviewer: Were there a leather goods shop or tinkers or cattle dealers or anything?

Royce Horn: We had cattle dealers and horse dealers that came through the Township but none lived here that I know of. Most of the farmers were tinkerers to keep all of their stuff going. As a tinker for a job, I don’t remember any.

Interviewer: Were there any mechanics?

Royce Horn: Pretty much like the tinkerer, most of the farmers were their own mechanics.

Interviewer: You’d have to do your own out of necessity. There were any shoemakers?

Royce Horn: I don’t remember any shoemakers or anything like that.

Interviewer: Do you have anything else you wanted to add to that information? When did you do any purchasing or trading? When you traveled away from the farm, there were certain things you or your father had to do, or your neighbors. Where did they go to shop or trade?

Royce Horn: Most of the trading was done in Edinboro. There used to be a grocery store on Route 98 in Franklin Township that we went to quite a bit to buy groceries and bread. Of course, we had our own milk and meat.

Interviewer: Do you remember the price of bread then? In the Depression years, or your childhood, or even before that, do you remember the price of bread, butter, clothes, a candy bar?

Royce Horn: I remember when I was a kid, we’d go to Edinboro once in a while, and we used to get a nickel ice cream cone or candy bar. As far as the price of bread, I have no idea. I was just a kid, and I didn’t pay any attention to that.

Interviewer: Most likely, most of that came from your own kitchen anyway.

Royce Horn: A lot of the bread, and of course the pies.

Interviewer: Do you have any idea what your father or neighbors paid for seed to plant?

Royce Horn: I would have no idea.

Interviewer: The land value, the value of the farm, the value of the land in Franklin Township, the values of a home and what food cost?

Royce Horn: When dad moved down here, my Grandmother [Mary Huyck Horn] had died and he took over his father’s farm. I believe he gave around $8,000 for 150 acres.

Interviewer: Do you know what it cost you when you built this house?

Royce Horn: Not really, because we put the house up and had $2,000 in it and we kind of did a room by room until we got it finished and we didn’t keep track of it.

Interviewer: It was as you could afford it.

Royce Horn: That’s correct.

Interviewer: If a home was situated on a piece of land, do you remember what acreage cost, as a young adult?

Royce Horn: No, I don’t.

Interviewer: What jobs did you hold throughout the years?

Royce Horn: After I got back from the service, I worked at Carlson’s Garage on Route 99 in Edinboro for a year. Then I came back to the farm and was in partnership on the farm with my father. For about three years, I drove school bus for supplemental income.

Interviewer: So, you only had to leave the Township a little bit, you went into Edinboro for some work. Did you ever have to leave Franklin Township to work anymore throughout the years?

Royce Horn: I was in partnership with my father for thirteen years, then I worked at a Lumber Yard for a couple years. Then I went to work for Russell Standard Corporation. I am still working for Russell Standard Corporation and I have been there since 1970.

Interviewer: Do you remember the rate of pay at some of your earlier jobs, your hourly rate and how many hours were in a typical work day, and how that changed, such as at Russell Standard in the Seventies?

Royce Horn: The early years went from a dollar an hour to a little later to about $4.00 an hour, to the present time of $15.00 an hour. The early years was forty hours a week, and later years were sixty-seventy hours a week.

Interviewer: How did you get to work? What was your transportation from here to Edinboro and other areas?

Royce Horn: Transportation was by car or pickup.

Interviewer: Did you carpool or go individually?

Royce Horn: Individually.

Interviewer: Were there any Civil War (from 1860s)or WWI veterans living in those early years while you were growing up and if there were, did your family bring their names up when you were a child, and did they pass down their stories?

Royce Horn: Only one I remember during the First World War was John Quirk and he had a tire Shop on Route 98 and Crane Road. He was gassed in that war and he had a lot of trouble through that.

Interviewer: He was the WWI veteran, then.

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: How did you spell his last name?

Royce Horn: Q-U-I-R-K.

Interviewer: He was the only veteran that you knew of from both wars?

Royce Horn: From the early wars, yes. I remember them telling about people that was in the Civil War but I didn’t know them, so.

Interviewer: Then there were stories about it.

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: You don’t remember any stories about them?

Royce Horn: I don’t remember any part of the stories, no.

Interviewer: What churches existed in Franklin Township? Do you know who the pastors and priests would have been, and were they circuit riders? Did they own a home here, and if you went to church at all, where would that have been, and the name of it?

Royce Horn: The two churches that were in Franklin Township were the Eureka Methodist Church and the Franklin Center Methodist. We went to Eureka Church and then it was closed. The pastors that I remember were Reverend Ross and Rayston Tung. The Eureka Church was closed and we went from there to McLane Church and I guess that’s where we go at the present time.

Interviewer: In your growing up, what did you do for fun, what did you do for recreation? Where did you go for these activities? You mentioned the Christmas parties in your schools you attended. Besides the Christmas pageant and Christmas celebration, were there things during the year, like during the weekend, if there was time over the weekend, maybe one season as opposed to another, did the Township itself have something going on for the families that lived here? Or was it just the individual neighbors and the school or the church? Can you remember what they were, and did you enjoy these and participate in any of these?

Royce Horn: In Franklin Center was the Town Hall and they had an upstairs in the building. And every once in a while, they had a Box Social and all the guys would try to find a pretty girl to buy their box so they could eat with, and sometimes we were out-bid by somebody with a little more money.

Interviewer: So, you had to be a teenager to go to those or were there adults?

Royce Horn: No, pretty much everybody went.

Interviewer: So, up at Franklin Center, was the place to go for fun, then!

Royce Horn: Yes.

Interviewer: Any other dances or any socials or anything else during the year?

Royce Horn: That was pretty much it that we went to.

Interviewer: Any annual gatherings like school reunions?

Royce Horn: Just later years.

Interviewer: Did you remember anything growing up about the politics or government in your early life? What was the topic of conversation in your kitchen when you were growing up? If your parents brought up anything about politics, did you know who the Road Supervisors were or did your parents talk about that?

Royce Horn: The first supervisors that I remembered or paid any attention to were Roy Nims, John Gnagi, and Don Netzler. I remember a story my Grandfather told at one time about politics in Franklin Township. He said this fella said he would pay him a dollar to vote like he did. So, he took his dollar and he went in to vote. When he came out, the guy asked him how he voted and he said, “Just like you did, I voted for the man I wanted.” He never told him who he voted for though!

Interviewer: In this Township, do you know of someone who might have gone on to a higher level than a local constable or supervisor?

Royce Horn: No, I don’t.

Interviewer: Do you remember who the constables might have been? Did you have constables here, a local police force? What was your protection?

Royce Horn: Very limited. Albert Huyck at one time was a constable and I guess the one Netzler at one time was a constable, the only two I remember.

Interviewer: Do you remember the condition of the Township roads and how they evolved to something better than what your earliest memory was?

Royce Horn: The earliest roads in the spring of the year would get knee deep in ruts and mud. In the winter time, they had a cleat track tractor with a V plow that plowed the roads and it would run about two miles an hour to cover thirty-six miles of road. Most of the time, the road just blowed in before they got to the end of the road. So, it was kind of a slow process. One winter in 1944-45, was the year we got a lot of snow. We got snowed in for three months. We had a bobsled and Dad would go around to the farms on our road and haul the milk to Franklin Center and it would be picked up there. Our neighbor, Minnie Vogt, was pregnant for her daughter and I remember Dad taking her out to go to the hospital on bobsled.

Interviewer: On bobsled. And the hospital would be in?

Royce Horn: Erie, I believe.

Interviewer: All the way to Erie on bobsled?

Royce Horn: No, he took her out to the open road so they could get her into the hospital.

Interviewer: What a fantastic memory! That brings us to our next question about natural disasters. The winter would have been problematic. How would you keep from freezing the milk? Since it’s going to a creamery, you couldn’t let it freeze.

Royce Horn: Usually the milk was in a closed truck with sides and there was other milk with it and it would pretty much hold the temperature.

Interviewer: Mr. Horn, do you remember anything about your neighbors in the early years, of the ethnic makeup of your neighbors? The different countries they may have come from to live here in Franklin Township? Or why they might have come? Do you remember stories from your parents? How your neighbors came to live here in this township with your family? Why did they choose to live here? Or if the people left the township, where did they leave to go to? Where did they move on from here?

Royce Horn: I don’t know too much about that. I knew we had neighbors of different ethnic backgrounds, but as far as knowing why they left, where they were, came here, I have no idea. People that left, was usually work-related for better jobs.

Interviewer: Did you remember as a child, sicknesses, illnesses, diseases in your own family, with your brothers and sisters or with your neighbors’ children? In school, those early years, do you remember sicknesses, things that happened to your other classmates?

Royce Horn: Most of the ones I remember were measles, whooping cough, and mumps, things like that which most everybody is vaccinated for against nowadays. Of course, we had chicken pox.

Interviewer: Do you remember yourself personally having contracting any of those illnesses? Anyone in your family?

Royce Horn: I had the measles and the mumps and whooping cough, I guess. Most all of those.

Interviewer: What did people die of at an early age, before they became an adult? If children or young people passed away, what would be the cause of the natural death?

Royce Horn: I don’t really remember anything about that.

Interviewer: How about older adults? What things or illness that caused them to pass away?

Royce Horn: The only thing I remember is heart attacks, or cancer. The same diseases we have today.

Interviewer: Do you remember where the families would bury their loved ones? There are cemeteries in this locality? Or other places?

Royce Horn: We have a cemetery in Franklin Township. It’s on Gudgeonville Road. It’s called The Francis Cemetery. Some of our family is buried there. A lot of them are buried at McLane or Edinboro Cemeteries. Some of our neighbors are buried at Sterrettania Cemetery.

Interviewer: To bring our interview to a conclusion, do you have anything from what we have already worked on earlier, that you might remember that you’d like to bring up now? As a child growing up, in school, during the war, that you would like to offer?

Royce Horn: During WWII, one of the things I remember going to school and we would go out and pick milkweed pods and that was used to make life vests for the people traveling in boats. Then we collected tin and all different types of metal and stuff like that. A lot of the women would make what they called Red Cross bandages and things like that for the war effort.

Interviewer: When you were out picking the milkweed pods, what color did they have to be? Do you remember anything about that?

Royce Horn: They were still green yet, the pods were. They took the seed, it’s real fluffy stuff inside of them out, to use for the life vest.

Interviewer: That’ ingenious for the life vests. So, this is about the best memory you have…were of the war years. You were doing the rationing, and helping with recycling materials, too, your family, your neighbors. Were you aware of any more of that going on around you?

Royce Horn: I’ve heard tell about the black market where you could buy stuff you couldn’t buy on the open market because you had to have stamps or whatever to buy it on the open market, because it was all government controlled. It was rationed. You had to have sugar stamps for sugar and different things like that.

Interviewer: Did you feel during that time…was there a commodity that your family was constantly running short of, or just had to do without for any length of time, either a food or other material?

Royce Horn: Not really. Because we lived on a farm and grew our own produce and we butchered our own meat. You know, meat was rationed, and sugar and a lot of that was rationed, where, we raised it, so we had it.

Interviewer: I appreciate what you’ve done. Thank you very much!

Royce Horn: Thank you!