Lawrence, Lucile Mills

LUCILE A MILLS LAWRENCE

Interview: David Neal Interviewed on: February 5, 2005

Interviewer: What is your full name and spell it.

Lucile Lawrence: Well, my full name is Lucile, L-U-C-I-L-E, initial is A. L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E I should put my maiden name first, Mills Lawrence.

Interviewer: How old are you and what is your birth date?

Lucile Lawrence: My birth date is August 23, 1921. I’m eighty-one.

Interviewer: Where in Franklin Township have you lived?

Lucile Lawrence: I lived a mile east of Franklin Center.

Interviewer: On which road?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, it’s Old State Road now.

Interviewer: You lived right on the road there?

Lucile Lawrence: Corner of Old State and Eureka.

Interviewer: When was that?

Lucile Lawrence: I was born in 1921.

Interviewer: You lived there as a child?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes. (nodding)

Interviewer: Did you live anywhere else in Franklin Township?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I didn’t.

Interviewer: What years did you live in Franklin Township?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, I lived there from 1921 until 1940, when I left and came to Fairview and got married.

Interviewer: What was your home like in the early years?

Lucile Lawrence: It was a two-story farmhouse, an older farmhouse. They said there was about three generations of the Mills lived there. It had a kitchen, what we called the middle room, a front room, a pantry; it had an upstairs, with one large bedroom and a smaller storage space. It had a basement. We didn’t activate the front room for a while. We had the kitchen in the middle room.

Interviewer: How was it heated?

Lucile Lawrence: We had the kitchen stove; we had the cook stove with a reservoir of water on the side. Then we had a coal and wood stove in the living room, the middle room there.

Interviewer: Was your kitchen stove a coal and wood stove, too?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes it was.

Interviewer: When did you get inside water?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, I was talking to my brother Elwin on Sunday, a couple days ago, and he thought it was about 1939. Might have been a little before that, with the water.

Interviewer: Did you have a well before that?

Lucile Lawrence: We had a well.

Interviewer: How far was the well from the house?

Lucile Lawrence: Not very far. I still remember getting my hands on the handle of that pump and jumping up and down, and pumping water to bring into the house! (laughing) We had a sink in the house but it was a wood sink that you didn’t run water into.

Interviewer: When did you get hot water?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t tell you the day when we got hot water.

Interviewer: When did you get indoor-plumbing?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t tell you the day we got that either. Later on…

Interviewer: How about electricity?

Lucile Lawrence: Electricity was around 1939. My Uncle wired the house.

Interviewer: When did they put up the poles for the electricity?

Lucile Lawrence: I just couldn’t tell you that.

Interviewer: How about a telephone?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t know what year we got a telephone either.

Interviewer: Do you remember who had the first electricity around or a telephone, a radio or television?

Lucile Lawrence: No, not really. I can remember when I had the first television here in Fairview. That was around 1952. And up home, I can remember we had a Victrola. We had a lot of enjoyment out of the records playing the Victrola.

Interviewer: Do you remember any favorite songs from the Victrola?

Lucile Lawrence: I remember a lot of old songs, but I can’t come up with a special one, I guess.

Interviewer: Do you remember the first electric washing machines and refrigerators?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, I do. We never had to scrub clothes by hand on the scrub board. We had a gasoline engine out in the woodshed there. We had double tubs-one was the hot water; one was the lesser hot, then the hot water. And we washed that way. Then we had a churn there. We lived on the farm and we made butter. And so, we had all of that hooked up to the gasoline engine. And I can’t tell you…and we had the separator there. The separator…I can’t remember if it was run electrically or by hand, now that you bring that subject up about the separator!

Interviewer: How did you refrigerate when you were young?

Lucile Lawrence: We did it down in the basement where it was cold. And in 1940, when I was married, we still put stuff down in the basement, in the cellar because we didn’t have a refrigerator.

Interviewer: The cellar would just generally keep things cold enough?

Lucile Lawrence: (nodding yes) They had what they called fruit cellars in the basement, too. We lived out east of Fairview there, and they had a fruit cellar in that basement.

Interviewer: Who do you remember had the first car or truck?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, my Dad had a car, quite early. He probably was one of the first that had a car.

Interviewer: Do you remember what he had?

Lucile Lawrence: I think it was a Model T Ford. Then he later on got a Model A Ford.

Interviewer: Did you get to ride along in the Model T?

Lucile Lawrence: Oh yes, whenever we went. Of course, when the family got bigger, we had to separate. Part of us went on the shopping trips and part of us stayed…waited until the next time to go. We didn’t all go at the same time.

Interviewer: Now we’re going to talk about family members. Could you list your siblings? Names and dates of birth as close as you can?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes…Elaine is my sister…Elaine Mills Hinkle. She is eleven months younger than I am. She’s 80. She was born the 1^st of August, in 1922. Then I have Elwin. He’s my brother. He was born in 1924. He was born on the 6^th of February. His birthday will be tomorrow and he’ll be 79. Then there’s Everett. He was born in 1925 on the 17^th of March and he’ll be 78 this March…the 17^th. In 1926, Merle was born. I haven’t quite figured up his age. Well anyhow, there’s Merle and Morris. Merle was born in 1926 and Maurice was born in 1927. Then my youngest sister was born in 1936…Carolyn, Carolyn Gebhardt.

Interviewer: How many of these births were done at home?

Lucile Lawrence: All of them.

Interviewer: Did you have a doctor come?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, a doctor from Edinboro.

Interviewer: Do you remember his name?

Lucile Lawrence: It was the doctors Ghering…Boyd Ghering and Harold Ghering were the doctors in Edinboro then.

Interviewer: They would come for the deliveries?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes.

Interviewer: Whom else were you related to in the township?

Lucile Lawrence: My mother’s folks lived north of us, just about a half a mile down Eureka Road.

Interviewer: What was your mother’s maiden name?

Lucile Lawrence: My mother’s name was Vogt.

Interviewer: Her first name?

Lucile Lawrence: Iva Vogt. Her parents were William and Lizzie Vogt.

Interviewer: And they lived down on Eureka Road?

Lucile Lawrence: Down Eureka Road, only about a half a mile from us. They had a big farm down there.

Interviewer: Do you remember when your mother was born?

Lucile Lawrence: My mother was born 1901.

Interviewer: What about your father? When was he born?

Lucile Lawrence: Leon, Leon Mills. He was eleven years older than my mother. He was born in 1890.

Interviewer: Did he have family around here too?

Lucile Lawrence: His mother lived in Edinboro. My grandmother Maryann Mills lived in Edinboro. His sister died in the flu epidemic. Her name was Ethel Mills. And then, another sister lived in Girard, which was Aunt Cecil. She lived in Girard. Her husband died during the flu epidemic.

Interviewer: I want to talk later about that. What about aunts and uncles?

Lucile Lawrence: My aunts, yes…my mother’s family…Uncle Leonard, my mother, Uncle Albert, Aunt Clara, Aunt Bertha, Aunt Stella. Aunt Stella, the one you’ll be interviewing Friday, my mother’s sister.

Interviewer: They were all boys?

Lucile Lawrence: No, Uncle Leonard is my uncle. My mother was the oldest. Then there was Uncle Leonard, and then Uncle Albert and Aunt Clara. Leonard and Albert were boys. Aunt Clara and Aunt Stella and Aunt Bertha were girls. So there were six in that family.

Interviewer: Do you remember whom they married, your aunts on that side and what their married names would be?

Lucile Lawrence: Aunt Clara married Marion Krautter. Aunt Stella married Carl Krautter. Aunt Bertha, she never was married. I’m missing one…seems I left somebody out. [Editor’s note—not on video, Leonard Vogt married Amy Chase and Albert Vogt married Minnie Krautter].

Interviewer: In your earliest memories, who were your friends?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we didn’t get too far away you know, back then. We did have a car. Mostly the people we went to the country school with.

Interviewer: Where was the country school?

Lucile Lawrence: We went to the country school a mile east of where we lived, which was from Eureka Road to Silverthorn. That was about a mile from where we lived. Mother sent us to Silverthorn rather than the other mile down to Franklin Center because there was a highway there. She thought it would be safer to send us the other way. So, we went to what was called Silverthorn School.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of your schoolmates?

Lucile Lawrence: Oh, yes.

Interviewer: Who were some of those?

Lucile Lawrence: What was interesting with the census things there were, I see where a lot of people came to this country in the 1930s. We had a lot of folks over there that came from overseas. In fact, we were the minority in the group that went to the country school. There was the Rimos’, the Sitek's, the Brzezinski's, the Lechefsky's, and the Zuber's, all of those were…

Interviewer: Do you remember their first names?

Lucile Lawrence: Virginia Brzezinski, Mary Sitek, I’ve got a picture over here. Helen Lechefsky, and there were twins, Harry and Wally Lechefsky.

Interviewer: Do you know where each of those families had come over?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, not really. I thought most of them came from Poland. But when I read the census, it seemed like quite a lot of people came from Czechoslovakia. Some came from Austria. A few came from Russia.

Interviewer: Do you remember a particular family where they had come from?

Lucile Lawrence: Not really.

Interviewer: What do you remember about your parents’ friends?

Lucile Lawrence: Mother told about some of her school days but I just can’t quite remember their friends or their names, really.

Interviewer: Do you remember when your families came over? Had they been here a long time?

Lucile Lawrence: The Mills came over from England in the 1600s. And my mother’s family is from Germany. Vogt is from Germany.

Interviewer: But they had both been here quite a while?

Lucile Lawrence: My parents didn’t come from overseas…they were born here. And I don’t remember my mother’s dad, about whether I ever heard anything about him coming over here from Germany or if he was born over here, really.

Interviewer: What is your fondest childhood memory from any season?

Lucile Lawrence: Most of the seasons were kind of interesting. Christmas…we went up to the woods to get a Christmas tree, up in the woods and brought it down.

Interviewer: How old were you then?

Lucile Lawrence: That’s just when we were small. We always had a Christmas tree from up in the woods. I’ll say a little cute thing. My sister remembers it more than I did. Sometimes dad would bring a tree down from the woods and my mother wasn’t happy with it, so, he’d have to go back up and get another one! (laughing) And that’s when you put candles on the Christmas tree. And I remember just once we would light them. That was a dangerous thing, but we sort of got away with it, I guess. (smiling)

Interviewer: What was your fondest Christmas memory?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we had the Christmas tree and we got some Christmas presents. Not too many back then. I had one doll. And if I remember, two doll beds that my folks had made and painted.

Interviewer: Those sound like great gifts.

Lucile Lawrence: Of course we had Christmas programs at school, at the country school.

Interviewer: That doll you mentioned, was that bought?

Lucile Lawrence: It was bought, yeah.

Interviewer: Whom did you marry?

Lucile Lawrence: I married Frank Lawrence.

Interviewer: How did you meet him?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, he and his buddy came, and asked my sister and I out for a date. So, we went together for about a year and a half and got married August 31, 1940.

Interviewer: Did you go away on a honeymoon?

Lucile Lawrence: No, we didn’t go on a honeymoon. My husband didn’t really tell me that he didn’t have the money to go on a honeymoon! (laughing)

Interviewer: Where did you have your wedding?

Lucile Lawrence: We were married in the Tenth Street United Methodist Church in Erie. My sister and her gentleman friend stood up with us.

Interviewer: That’s when you moved out east of Fairview you say?

Lucile Lawrence: My husband had a job with the Fairview Evergreen Nursery. He had got a job in 1936. Well then, they told him they’d lay him off. Then they’d tell him when they had some work and he could come back to work. So, in 1940 when we got married, they had a little bungalow out of Fairview and we could pay the rent by doing chores. They had beef cattle by then and a garden spot. So, that’s where we moved. And the day we got married, we got married then went to Reliable Home Furnishings and bought furniture for our little bungalow up there. And then we went to the Wattsburg Fair that day. (chuckling) And that was our honeymoon. (smiling) Then we moved into the house there in Fairview.

Interviewer: The names of your children names and birthdates?

Lucile Lawrence: My oldest son was born in August 28, 1942.

Interviewer: And his name?

Lucile Lawrence: Wesley. Wesley Frank. And he’s the one that passed away. And then there was Wayne, and he was born April 29, 1945. And Merlin was born November 1, 1952, three sons.

Interviewer: Did your husband serve in the war?

Lucile Lawrence: No, he didn’t. He got a deferment. He was working on farming here at Fairview Evergreen Nursery.

Interviewer: What schools existed in Franklin Township when you were a child?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, I have a list here. (turning pages) I’ve got Franklin Center, Eureka, and Silverthorn. Well, Silverthorn is the one I went to. Well, Goodban School, Goodban School was down Eureka Road, down past my grandparents, about two miles down there. That’s where Goodban School was. Back up Eureka road, Eureka School was there. Then there was Foy School, I think that was maybe where Fry Road is now, I’m not sure. Then there was Mohawk School, out off of Route 98 on the Crane Road, there was Mohawk Road and that’s where my husband went to country school.

Interviewer: Do you know what grades were taught in those schools?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, there was first to the eighth grade.

Interviewer: Where did you go after eighth grade?

Lucile Lawrence: I went to Edinboro High School.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of your teachers from the Franklin School?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, I remember some of my teachers. We started out with…who was our first grade teacher? Third grade teacher was Violet Radel. Fourth grade teacher was Janette Mathewson. Fifth and sixth grade teacher was Archie Sundback. He was a local fella that went into teaching. Seventh was David Reno, he wasn’t from around this area. Then there was Mrs. Payne; Millie Payne was our eighth grade teacher. Margaret Porter was our first grade teacher. Second grade…I got almost all of them. Well, my sister and I passed second and third grade in one year. That’s when they let you do that back then in country school.

Interviewer: What was the highest grade you completed?

Lucile Lawrence: I completed the twelfth grade at Edinboro High School.

Interviewer: You want to talk any more about your classmates from school?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, classmates from country school…. they were ambitious kids, I guess, like the rest of us were.

Interviewer: You mentioned a lot of them had just come over.

Lucile Lawrence: They were born here, I think they were born here, and their parents had come over, were from overseas.

Interviewer: Did they speak English while coming into school?

Lucile Lawrence: They spoke English, yes. It seems to me like sometimes when they didn’t exactly want you to know what they were talking about; they would use their own language.

Interviewer: I know some of the families only talked around the house…where they had come from.

Lucile Lawrence: Well, these folks knew the language.

Interviewer: That’s good. Who was your best friend growing up?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, my best friend…one of the gals in country school…we were kind of rivals as far as our grades went…trying to outdo each other with our lessons, our marks that we got.

Interviewer: Who was that?

Lucile Lawrence: She was Virginia Brzezinski. She was my sort of a rival then. But as far as special friends, we didn’t have that many acquaintances, you know.

Interviewer: Any of your school friends still living that you know of?

Lucile Lawrence: Oh yes, there’s some of those living.

Interviewer: Any you can think of in particular?

Lucile Lawrence: I think Virginia Brzezinski is living in Erie somewhere. Harry, their name was Lechefsky, his name they changed it to Lane, and he lives down around Girard area. And Benjamin Sitek, but he passed away here…

Interviewer: I interviewed Mr. Sitek.

Lucile Lawrence: Did you? He was one of my schoolmates.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about farming. Now what did you mostly farm when you were growing up? You said you lived on a farm.

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we had a dairy farm. We had cattle. We probably had a dozen cattle or more. We made butter and sold butter. Later on, sold milk and didn’t make the butter.

Interviewer: Recall any crops?

Lucile Lawrence: We had corn, oats and hay.

Interviewer: What kind of equipment did you have?

Lucile Lawrence: Dad had a team of horses and the plow that was pulled by the horses. Later on, I guess we got more automatic equipment, if you want to call it that.

Interviewer: Do you remember the techniques…how you guys farmed?

Lucile Lawrence: We farmed with the horses. Dad plowed with the horses. I remember when we all went behind him to walk in the furrow of the plow and we ran into a bunch of bumblebees. The bees scattered and we scattered! (laughing) So, that’s kind of what I remember about plowing.

Interviewer: What were you doing behind the plow?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we were just walking behind it for fun, to walk in the moist, fertile ground that was unearthed by the plow, I guess.

Interviewer: Do you remember how seeding was done?

Lucile Lawrence: We had a grain drill. We had a grain drill.

Interviewer: Was that horse drawn?

Lucile Lawrence: It was horse drawn.

Interviewer: Do you remember the first tractors and equipment, the non-horse drawn equipment around the area?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t remember too much about the first tractor.

Interviewer: When did your family get one?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t tell you that, when we...I remember a little bit more about the automobile and that but I can’t quite come up with even what kind of a tractor we had.

Interviewer: You mentioned you had about a dozen heads of cattle.

Lucile Lawrence: I think about that. And we had younger cattle I imagine and then of course, the horses.

Interviewer: How many horses?

Lucile Lawrence: We had a team, two horses. And I remember we had one that was kind of a younger horse, sort of a riding horse. And then when you talk about water, we had water in the barn. We had a tank. My brothers had to fill it up every day. We had what you called stanchions for the cattle, and then there was a drinking cup where they put their noses in the drinking cup and the water was there. And that was automatic. That was about 1939 that we…

Interviewer: What other kinds of animals did you have? Did you have chickens or pigs?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we had chickens. Mother’s project was the chickens. I can’t remember how many chickens really, how many…I remember the little chicks in the spring when we usually raised our own chickens, you know.

Interviewer: The chickens were just mainly for your own eating?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, no, we sold eggs. I don’t remember too much about taking eggs to the store though.

Interviewer: Did you sell milk?

Lucile Lawrence: Yeah, well, we made butter. Later years my folks sold milk. And they had a milk house. I remember when we…you talk about the holidays…Rodak’s store was a mile from where we lived and we used to walk down to the store and get candy and that. And as far as you ask about a holiday, which was Easter, I remember when we took the eggs to the store and exchanged them for Easter candy! That was quite interesting! (smiling) We took the eggs down there and got Easter candy.

Interviewer: Where did you sell the butter?

Lucile Lawrence: We went to Edinboro and then we went to Lake City, I think.

Interviewer: Where did you sell it at in Edinboro?

Lucile Lawrence: At the stores. Well, Skelton’s store was over to Edinboro there.

Interviewer: Where was that?

Lucile Lawrence: It was on the corner of Main Street and the road that goes through and out to (Route) 6, out to the traffic light…what street did they called that. But that was Skelton’s store right there where we sold the butter. And we probably took eggs. I don’t know why I can’t remember about the egg part of it.

Interviewer: Did you have pigs?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we had pigs.

Interviewer: How many pigs did you have?

Lucile Lawrence: We had quite a lot of pigs. We butchered pigs, had pork in the winter. Dad butchered a cow in the wintertime. I don’t know where he learned to butcher, but he was a neat butcher, I mean, to cut up the meat and everything.

Interviewer: Where did you store the meat?

Lucile Lawrence: We had a smoke house. We had a smoke house. Then we put the pork in brine and we made sausage. I got a newspaper clipping of some folks out in Fairview when they did the sausage and the stuffing sausage and everything just like we did.

Interviewer: Do you remember other farmers in the area that were successful, not so successful?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we had farmers across the street…the Wells were farmers, across from us; and the Mathewson’s, east of where we lived. My grandparents were successful dairy farmers.

Interviewer: Did you share equipment with your neighbors?

Lucile Lawrence: The only thing we shared was when we filled silo, when they filled silo and thrashing, thrashing wheat or oats. We met at the different farms and that was the thing, when you had what you called…people coming to help you with the thrashing. (pause in video)

(microphone not on)

Lucile Lawrence: Well, I don’t remember who did the thrashing machine, really.

Interviewer: You don’t remember whom?

Lucile Lawrence: No. And as far as silo filling, I can remember 1936, when my sister was born, that the people came and they did the silo filling. And then they came and we had lunch. We had a meal, a table stretched out for the people that came to work. And that’s how they did it. They went to the different farms and helped each other.

Interviewer: So, you had a silo that you had to have someone fill?

Lucile Lawrence: We had the silo, but to have people come and help…I know we had silo fillers in the fall. And I can’t recall who did what as far as the work is concerned, about cutting the corn. I guess I do remember the silo filler. But as far as cutting the corn and bringing it up to the barn, I don’t think I quite remember…

Interviewer: You kept corn in the silo?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes.

Interviewer: What were your chores around the farm?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we had to help in the house. I remember when I was probably five or six years old and I had to stand on a crock to help do dishes. I had to help with cleaning and making the beds. And I thought since then, “Why did I have to make my brothers’ beds, my sister and I?” “Why didn’t they make their own beds?” But it wasn’t that way back then, you know, like it is now, perhaps. And I helped my mother wallpaper the walls. And spring…spring was time to clean the woodwork…what they called house cleaning…because you had the stoves, you had the wood stove and the coal stove which made things dusty, and then we had to help plant the garden.

Interviewer: How big was your garden?

Lucile Lawrence: I remember a garden close to the house when we were smaller. And I’ve always kind of said mother had us out there when we were little planting vegetables, but she wasn’t too keen on quite a lot of the vegetables that she ate. Then later, we had a garden up across the creek. And I remember when we had strawberries. And I remember once we were at the house and we looked out and somebody was out pilfering our strawberry patch.

Interviewer: What did you do about that?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, not much, I don’t believe. But we were watching, and they were up there getting our strawberries and my Dad was standing there with a scythe. He had a scythe where you trim weeds, and I jumped over the scythe and cut my ankle. They had to take me over to Edinboro to the doctor. They stitched my ankle up with no antiseptic and that was a terrible thing!

Interviewer: Whom did they take you to?

Lucile Lawrence: To Dr. Ghering in Edinboro.

Interviewer: He had an office there?

Lucile Lawrence: He had an office there.

Interviewer: Did you do a lot of canning?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we did a lot of canning.

Interviewer: What all did you can?

Lucile Lawrence: Fruit and vegetables.

Interviewer: Did you can any meat?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we canned meat. We canned the beef and then we had the pork in the brine. And we had hams. We smoked them in the smokehouse.

Interviewer: How much canning would you say you did?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t really remember. We did a lot of canning, a lot of canning. We had the shelves in the basement…tomatoes and corn and fruit…

Interviewer: Remember any businesses and professions in the township? Blacksmiths?

Lucile Lawrence: No. There was only a couple I wrote down. One was a Cheese Factory.

Interviewer: Which one?

Lucile Lawrence: It was over Ivoray they called it, on the Crane Road. You went across the Crane Road. They had a cheese factory over there and speaking of what you did with your milk, I remember when they took the milk to the cheese factory. They hauled it with the horses. I remember my husband saying that when he went to the cheese factory with the milk, his dad told him; he said that if he were late for school, it would be his own fault. Well, when he got to the cheese factory, people were lined up to unload their milk. So, I always remember his dad said if he was late for school, it was his own fault, and I don’t know why, if you had to wait for people to unload their milk at the cheese factory.

Interviewer: Did you ever go on any trips to unload the milk there?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t know whether my dad went to the cheese factory or not, really. Let’s see…all I could come up with is the merchants stuff…the grocery store, just a mile from us, down at Franklin Center, Rodak’s Grocery Store. But my Dad brought his team of horses down to Fairview to be shod. And from Franklin Center to Fairview was eight miles. And that was kind of an all day deal to bring them down, to drive them down there to be shod.

Interviewer: Do you remember any other doctors?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t remember any other. Well, let me see, Dr. Gillespie.

Interviewer: Where was he?

Lucile Lawrence: He was out Angling Road…I don’t know if they call it Angling Road or not but just out of Edinboro, west and turn right. It used to be Angling Road. He was a Doctor. That’s where we went for our first vaccinations. We used to go out that road. That’s back when I started school, when I was seven, about 1928. And back then, there were no houses on that road, it was all woods. There was a road there. Dr. Gillespie had a big home. It was almost to where Route 6 is now. Horse and Cattle Dealers: I remember there were cattle dealers around but really not in my area.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of their names?

Lucile Lawrence: Wise, I believe Weiss is one of the names. I don’t know exactly the right name.

Interviewer: Was it Weiss?

Lucile Lawrence: Weiss sounds more like it. Maybe you heard that in some of your interviews.

Interviewer: I believe possibly someone had mentioned there was a Jewish cattle dealer. Do you know where he lived?

Lucile Lawrence: He probably lived in Erie. I don’t think he lived in this area.

Interviewer: Remember anything else?

Lucile Lawrence: Sawmills…you mentioned sawmills. Of course, I don’t remember sawmills but my dad went up to the woods cut down trees and brought them down and that was our fuel. Of course, we had coal also. Do you know what a crosscut saw is? (laughing)One on each end and crosscut the logs for the fuel. Of course, later on we had a gasoline engine and a saw that was more automatic, you know.

Interviewer: You mentioned Rodak’s, were there any other stores where you bought stuff in Franklin?

Lucile Lawrence: No. We went to Edinboro, and Lake City. I don’t remember any other stores.

Interviewer: When you were little, do you remember what the price of…you made your own cheese and milk…so you probably didn’t buy much of that?

Lucile Lawrence: We made our own cottage cheese. They made their own cheese at the cheese factory. We had our own milk and had our own eggs. I don’t even know the price of eggs back then.

Interviewer: You don’t know the price of milk, bread and cheese?

Lucile Lawrence: No, not really.

Interviewer: What about flour?

Lucile Lawrence: Flour, well, we used to buy flour but I don’t know the price of flour.

Interviewer: What about clothing?

Lucile Lawrence: Well clothing…back then, you had the Montgomery and the Sears, Roebuck catalogues. And my mother ordered stuff out of the catalogs. And did a lot of sewing. Made my sister and I…we were eleven months apart…I don’t know why she thought she had to dress us like twins, but if she made one dress, she made another. And my two brothers…if she made something for one of them, she made something for each one and the same for the other two brothers. So, it was a lot of sewing and ordering out of the catalog. You just didn’t go out shopping like they do now.

Interviewer: You don’t know what some of the clothing prices were.

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t.

Interviewer: Material, fabrics?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t.

Interviewer: How about toys?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, we didn’t have a lot of toys. We had sleds. We went sliding down the hills. We used to do a lot of sliding down the hill and we were on the hill there, a mile east of Franklin Center. We used to slide down the hill and of course, we played around the creek, too. There was the creek down below us. I remember when my brothers got bicycles they used to trap. They trapped muskrat. I’ve got a picture of all their furs on the garage there. They had them all tacked up there and I took a picture. And they used to trap. I remember they got money for their bicycles.

Interviewer: You don’t remember what any of that stuff cost?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t remember much about the cost of them.

Interviewer: How about candy?

Lucile Lawrence: Candy? Well, we didn’t have much money then. We would maybe get a nickel when we went to the store with our butter and eggs. I remember over at Edinboro, Skelton’s store, we had this nickel there to check the candy case and see where we got the best deal in the candy case! That was about once a week. We had homemade bread and that at home. But when we went to town, to sell the butter and eggs, we got maybe store bread, bread from the store, and maybe some sandwich meat and that was a kind of a treat, about once a week.

Interviewer: Do you remember what candy cost?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t remember the price of candy. We didn’t get very much I don’t think for a nickel. (chuckling)

Interviewer: Do you remember anything about farm or land values?

Lucile Lawrence: No, not back then. I remember my folks paying for their farm. But I never heard exactly what they ever paid for their close to 130-some acres.

Interviewer: Do you remember the value of horses?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t remember what they paid for horses. But I remember when my Dad…he needed a team of horses. He went to Belle Valley, east of Erie there, and he got a team of dapple-grays. They were young horses. And he prided himself in taming those horses down and teaching them how to work. I remember that, but I don’t remember what he paid for the horses.

Interviewer: Do you remember any furniture or household goods prices?

Lucile Lawrence: In 1940, we bought our furniture when we started housekeeping. We paid out in time for that. I got records of what we did pay and make payments and that but can’t recall.

Interviewer: Do you remember any Civil War or WWI veterans living here in the early years?

Lucile Lawrence: Not too many. As far as WWI went, I don’t believe I can remember.

Interviewer: In your earliest memories, what churches were there in the township?

Lucile Lawrence: There was Eureka Church. That was up on Eureka Road, and then there was a church at Franklin Center.

Interviewer: The Eureka Church…do you remember what kind of church that was?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t know whether they ever had a denomination name. And for the Franklin Center Church, which is a Methodist Church, but I don’t recall if they were Methodist way back then but I remember at Franklin Center, there were only three or four people I can remember who went to the church, and you sort of wonder who built it and where did that money come from. Then we went to Sunday school. We had Sunday school where I went to country school at Silverthorn.

Interviewer: Do you remember your Sunday school teacher?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, Mrs. Washburn was one of them and then Dorothy Mathewson. We walked to Sunday school and then we only had it in summertime when the weather was nice. And I remember then when it got toward fall, we didn’t have Sunday school because the weather got bad and you didn’t have a way to get there.

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

Lucile Lawrence: There weren’t any pastors, really. Once in a while, someone would come to visit. I remember two ladies, Grace and Gladys. And I thought the other day, “How am I going to remember their last name?” All at once it came to me…the name was Dean, Grace and Gladys Dean. They use to come around to the churches to preach. Then occasionally a minister came in. But I don’t recall like at Franklin Center having a regular minister like we do now.

Interviewer: What did you do for fun, entertainment and recreation when you were a kid?

Lucile Lawrence: We slid downhill. We got to go to a dance once in a while.

Interviewer: Where was the dance?

Lucile Lawrence: My uncle had a big house and they used to have some dances there.

Interviewer: Where was the house?

Lucile Lawrence: It was on Eureka Road, down beyond where my Grandparents lived. Then they had the town hall at Franklin Center. They had the town hall and it’s still there. And we used to have dances there. We used to go swimming in the creek. And the pasture…we had the woods and the pasture. We always went up…I remember being down by the creek and we went up towards the woods. All at once, a plane came over. It was a two wing, I got scared, and I hustled back to the house, like you wouldn’t believe! It came along kind of low, you know! (surprised expression)

Interviewer: You want to talk about activities at the township through church or school?

Lucile Lawrence: All I can remember is when we had little programs at school. We had what you called a Box Social. It was school time in the fall. We’d get a shoebox, decorate it up, and fill it with sandwiches and cookies or whatever. Then we had an auction, a gentleman would come, and they would auction off the lunches. Then we would eat with that person. I don’t recall if we had that to make some money or what we might have used with the money.

Interviewer: Do you remember whom you ate with?

Lucile Lawrence: I remember it wasn’t very…on my part. Charlie Harris got my box and he was a wonderful gentleman, lived in the neighborhood. He got my box and I started to cry. I whooped it up and all that. And I don’t know why to this day I made such a fuss because Charlie bought my box! (smiling)

Interviewer: You remember any other gatherings?

Lucile Lawrence: We liked the Christmas programs. I remember the neighbor, Elmer Mathewson; his name is in the census there. He came to school and one time he brought a little white mouse in a little bag of some kind. And I guess one of my brothers…I don’t remember if he gave it to one of my brothers or what. We did have little programs at school. I don’t remember much about exchanging gifts. I remember when we used to get a sack full of…I guess there was like English walnuts and some chocolates in it. Then I remember coming home from the country school, one of those programs and we had a car with the Eisenglass windows. It was snowing. I remember coming up by the house, of course we had a yard there we must have come in the yard. But it was snowy and we came in the house and had to get the old stove stoked up, it was clear out. I remember my brother; I was just seven when he was born. We came in the house and it was cold. To get to a school program a mile away in that situation you know, that was…(shaking her head)

Interviewer: What about Fourth of July? Did they have local celebrations?

Lucile Lawrence: They used to have fireworks, back then. I remember I think my sister got burned there once with fireworks.

Interviewer: Where did they do the fireworks?

Lucile Lawrence: They somehow got their own fireworks way back then. We didn’t have anything that you could go to like they do now in Erie, when they have these functions and have fireworks. We never had anything like that. I don’t remember where we used to get them. We used to get some fireworks, like shoot them off ourselves. Like they do now in Erie, shoot them off across from me there.

Interviewer: Do you remember anything about the politics or government in the area?

Lucile Lawrence: We had school directors. I remember my father-in-law was school director. We had school directors then.

Interviewer: What was his name?

Lucile Lawrence: My father-in-law was Orson Lawrence.

Interviewer: Was he school director of your school?

Lucile Lawrence: They were school directors of all the country schools around.

Interviewer: What all did they do?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t remember much about…I can remember when it was time, when we got out of the country school. We wanted to go to high school. The township paid our tuition to school, but they didn’t have a way for us to go. We had to find our own way to go to school.

Interviewer: How did you get there?

Lucile Lawrence: That was a long story. I could write a book about that. The first year, my sister, we were eleven months apart, my mother wanted to keep us together. We started out…we graduated 1940…it was 1934-35. We stayed with our grandmother over at Edinboro, where the traffic light is there, she had her home there, and she lived there. She had a room there that she used to have for college students, I think. We moved in there, we took some food from home, and made cake and brought food from home and even brought our fuel, like coal. We moved in there, she had a stove; we had a bed there. I remember one of the girls from college. Do you remember the Van Houten’s that used to be the administrators at the college over there at Edinboro? Or maybe it was the high school. [Editor’s note—not on video, Margaret and Olive Van Houten, Olive was in our graduating class of 1940.] One of the girls came in. She thought it was different…we were there. My sister and I, we were only thirteen and fourteen and we were doing our own housework, cooking and everything. Then, at Christmastime, my grandmother decided that she was going to move to Erie. We never heard why she moved out on us, moved out to Erie! Then we moved out of Edinboro up on what used to be called “Gusty Hill,” with our uncle and his family. And we did the same thing there. We stayed there until spring, and then he had to move out. And he moved to Venango. So, we moved back into Edinboro with one of our other acquaintances and finished our first year of school!

Interviewer: Oh boy. Well, I’m going to change tapes here.

END OF FIRST TAPE

TAPE 2

Interviewer: Do you remember any of the other local politics? What about road supervisors?

Lucile Lawrence: My father-in-law [Orson Lawrence] worked on the highways and Perry Mills. They lived down below us. Seems like it was yesterday when WPA-Works Progress Administration, it seemed like the whole highway from our place to Franklin Center was full of men working on the road. And I don’t remember what they were doing; it was dirt road back then.

Interviewer: Were they paving it?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t recall when they got pavement in.

Interviewer: That’s what I wanted to ask you about. What were the roads like around here?

Lucile Lawrence: My memories of the roads were dirt roads. And they used to get out and shovel the roads open so they could get out to the highway.

Interviewer: How did they shovel, by hand?

Lucile Lawrence: They shoveled by hand. My sister got sick and I remember we ended up in one of the homes there and my Dad came over to get us. My sister ended up in the hospital with appendicitis. And my Dad had to carry her part way because the roads weren’t that good, that he could get his car over there on the road east of where we lived. [Editor’s note—not on video, Sister Elaine survived after 24 days in St. Vincent’s Hospital.]

Interviewer: Was it holes, potholes?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, it was mud and what you call ruts.

Interviewer: Do you remember any assessors or constables?

Lucile Lawrence: No, not necessarily.

Interviewer: Do you remember if anyone went for higher political office in the area?

Lucile Lawrence: (nodding no)

Interviewer: Do you remember the roads that changed names?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t remember even if the road I lived on had a name. It’s Old State Road now. And when it got to be Old State, I don’t know. There was Eureka Road and Crane Road and Mohawk Road.

Interviewer: They’re all still the same.

Lucile Lawrence: Silverthorn Road now, north or east of Silverthorn Road.

Interviewer: Do you remember any natural disasters?

Lucile Lawrence: Not too many. We always had a lot of winter. Like mother said once, winter started in the fall and never ended until spring. I remember when we had what was like a cyclone. I remember standing outside and the sky in the west was as black as a stovepipe. It really did blow and rain.

Interviewer: Do you remember how old you were?

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t remember how old I was. I think that was the time they called them Curtsy barns in Edinboro. I think those barns were struck by lightning. I think that was the time. [Editor’s note –not on video, Two large barns burned to the ground.]

Interviewer: Were you a very small child?

Lucile Lawrence: I smaller. I probably wasn’t that small, I was maybe in my teens or not.

Interviewer: You mentioned winter life. Snowplowing was all done by hand.

Lucile Lawrence: It was pretty much done by hand. Then you got out on a sleigh. My father-in-law lived on the Crane Road and they used to get out with their sleigh to go to Cranesville to do some shopping.

Interviewer: Did you guys have a sleigh?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, we had a sleigh. Sometimes when dad got ready, we had to go back to Edinboro where we stayed to go to school. Sometimes there was so much snow, that we didn’t get back to school. We’d miss a week at a time. We couldn’t get back to school.

Interviewer: You were closed in?

Lucile Lawrence: Closed in.

Interviewer: You mentioned the flu epidemic.

Lucile Lawrence: I don’t remember as far as we were concerned. But my mother’s family…I remember my aunt telling about they were sick with the flu. And my dad’s sister is buried out in Lakeside Cemetery. She was just a young lady in her thirties. She was a schoolteacher. Back then you went to the Edinboro Normal School for two years and you could be a teacher. She died in the flu epidemic.

Interviewer: Do you remember when this was?

Lucile Lawrence: That was like 1918, it was the flu. And my dad’s sister’s husband from Girard died of the flu epidemic. And he was just a young man, also. I think he was a teacher.

Interviewer: Who was this?

Lucile Lawrence: Lyle Baldwin. And my dad’s sister’s [husband]…he died in Girard…and she went to Akron and was a schoolteacher out in Akron all those years. She was a wonderful schoolteacher I guess. And finally, she got married later in life. We made the comment that she finally met Mr. Right and got married! (chuckling)

Interviewer: Do you remember anybody else dying from that flu epidemic?

Lucile Lawrence: No, I don’t remember anybody except Aunt Ethel and Lyle Baldwin, Aunt Cecil’s husband.

Interviewer: Do you remember any other times that people died at an early age?

Lucile Lawrence: I remember when I went to country school, at Silverthorn. It was real snowy. They brought somebody on a sleigh all covered up; somebody had passed away over in the neighborhood there somewhere. I remember when we got measles, and chicken pox, and those things and they quarantined us. That was a…I don’t know what you call it when you thought you had to stay in and you couldn’t go out anywhere.

Interviewer: Did you get quarantined?

Lucile Lawrence: You get quarantined. They put the sign on the house, you know. I remember when Mother declared that my sister and I didn’t have the whooping cough and our brothers did. But she declared that we didn’t, and she was right…we got the whooping cough in later years. (laughing)

Interviewer: Do you remember what adults died from in the area?

Lucile Lawrence: Our neighbor just down the road, he had cancer of the face.

Interviewer: Who was that?

Lucile Lawrence: That was Perry Mill’s father. Then I remember one of the ladies never got care and she died of breast cancer. Well, they didn’t get the care they do now with the mammograms and everything.

Interviewer: Do you remember what her name was?

Lucile Lawrence: Her name was Celia Pieper.

Interviewer: Where were people buried in Franklin Township?

Lucile Lawrence: There was Edwards [Edinboro?] Cemetery. Our cemetery is Sterrettania. You know where Sterrettania is. You go out (Route) 98, about two miles out of Fairview, up to the left is Sterrettania Road. It goes east and west, Sterrettania, and it goes east …you know where the trucking stop used to be at in Sterrettania; well it’s back this way anyhow. Anyhow, there’s a cemetery there…its on West Road. West Road takes you into McKean. There’s a cemetery there, where my family is buried, part is Catholic and part is Protestant. Then there’s the older cemetery in Franklin Township.

Interviewer: Do you know about any of those?

Lucile Lawrence: Francis Cemetery…

Interviewer: Where was that?

Lucile Lawrence: I can’t quite remember the names...it came on me suddenly…

Interviewer: Do you remember locations, where some of the older cemeteries were?

Lucile Lawrence: They have an older cemetery out in Platea. It just can’t come to mind exactly.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

Lucile Lawrence: Well, I might mention how we got through high school finally. The next year we stayed at home. My sister was born in 1936 and so Mother decided we had to stay at home and help out with the work. So then, we started in the next year. We rode back and forth from Franklin Center. If you want an idea how folks got to school…we walked from where we lived, a mile east of Franklin Center, to Franklin Center. One of the fellas there had an Oldsmobile and he carried eight of us, three in the front, three in the back and two little boxes. And it was Charles Chinnock. My sister and I had to get the stove going in the morning, and fix our lunches and walk to Franklin Center to get our ride to Edinboro. And we paid seventy-five cents a week for our ride. That price I can remember.

Interviewer: Was that a ride back, too?

Lucile Lawrence: Yes, that was a ride for a week. Then we got jobs in the summertime. I went out when I was about sixteen to Francis Corners, out Girard way. I stayed with two children; a boy and a girl during the day while their parents worked at Marx Toys in Girard. And I got $3.00 a week and I stayed there with the children during the day. Their mother left instructions one time for me to fix pancakes, I guess for lunch there, when I was looking after the children. I was used to having noon dinner, you know, like potatoes and vegetables. So, I fixed some beans and cooked some potatoes, and did that. (laughing) Anyhow, then they moved into Girard the next year and I stayed with the children that year. So we rode back and forth our second year of school. Our third year, we rode back and forth with Sam Lewis. He was driving back and forth to the high school. And some of the other folks that we went to school with walked to school. Mr. Culbertson that comes to the Senior Center to call for square dancing, and I said to him, “How did you get to school?” He said they walked or drove a car. Then the last year we stayed over again in a rooming house. It used to be McMurran’s College Rooming House. Well, we stayed there. Seems like we did our cooking in the basement in the fall. Then it got too cold in the fall and we moved upstairs with our stove and our cooking. We used to sing, “Roll out the Barrel” down in the basement! And that’s how we finished up our high school. And then they had what they called NYA…National Youth something, to earn a little money to go to school. And we had to do some jobs around the school there. Remember where the Home Ec. building was in Edinboro? It’s across from McDonalds and they had some jobs there. And we had Home Ec. then. We got about $3.00 a week for that job. My sister and I did the work, but only one of us got the money, I guess (chuckling) which was different.

Interviewer: Well, if there’s nothing else, then we’ll get out of your hair here. Thank you for your time.

Lucile Lawrence: We could probably talk a lot longer. We could talk on and on and on!

Interviewer: Well, thank you.

Lucile Lawrence: You’re welcome.