CLARENCE F MISCHLER

Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: February 10, 2003

Interviewer: Your name and spell it.

Clarence Mischler: My name is Clarence F. Mischler.

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

Clarence Mischler: I’m 82, and I was born on December 13, 1920. I’ve lived in the same place since I’ve moved to Township, I’ve never moved away.

Interviewer: And where was that?

Clarence Mischler: Out here on Rt. 98, north of Franklin Center. Since 1940.

Interviewer: OK. We’ll focus on that house, then, when you moved into Franklin Township. What was that home like?

Clarence Mischler: Heat was a potbelly stove and a kitchen range. Electric was in the house already.

Interviewer: You already had electric?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, electric was already in there.

Interviewer: You only had the one stove in the kitchen? Did you have another?

Clarence Mischler: Well, yeah, one in the kitchen to cook on, then another in the parlor or living room, whatever you call it.

Interviewer: Were they both wood stoves?

Clarence Mischler: Wood or coal, a combination.

Interviewer: What about inside water? Did you have plumbing at that time?

Clarence Mischler: We had water in there, by a hand pump. We had water inside.

Interviewer: You had plumbing?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, that wasn’t until way later, I can’t tell you what date.

Interviewer: How about hot water? Like a hot water heater?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, that came quite later, but to heat water for the washing, we’d heat water on the kitchen stove range. We had a copper boiler we had to fill with water.

Interviewer: When did you get an inside plumbing or toilet?

Clarence Mischler: 1960s.

Interviewer: Much later, huh?

Clarence Mischler: Yes, much later.

Interviewer: Hope the outhouse was close!

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, well…

Interviewer: But you already had electricity?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, but the telephone came about…they put the line up in summer of 1940. One day, we bought a drier. We were using it, and something went wrong with the electric. We called REA. They come over, rapped on the door, and wanted to know if we were using the drier. They said “You can’t use it until we come and change that transformer across the road.” Evidently, it wasn’t heavy enough or something.

Interviewer: Too much power.

Clarence Mischler: Too much power.

Interviewer: You got the drier right then in 1940.

Clarence Mischler: Yeah.

Interviewer: What about telephone?

Clarence Mischler: That came in 1940.

Interviewer: What kind of phone did you have at that point?

Clarence Mischler: Dial.

Interviewer: Was it a regular electric phone?

Clarence Mischler: Yes, a dial phone.

Interviewer: Radio?

Clarence Mischler: We had a radio we bought from Girard. They had electric in Girard and we bought the radio out there.

Interviewer: What about television?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, I don’t know. That came quite a bit… We didn’t get the first one. Other people had them before we did.

Interviewer: Do you remember who had them at that time? Did you go over and watch other people’s TV?

Clarence Mischler: Our neighbor, yes.

Interviewer: Who was that?

Clarence Mischler: Harold Howard had one. His name was Howard.

Interviewer: He lived on 98 there?

Clarence Mischler: Yes, the next place north of me.

Interviewer: You mentioned a drier. Did you have a washing machine?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, we had a washing machine. We bought that up at Girard. We had one up in Girard.

Interviewer: You had that before you came?

Clarence Mischler: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: What about a refrigerator?

Clarence Mischler: That came in about 1942, about September. And in ’41, of course, it didn’t take long for the War to heat up over in Europe, you know. But we had a refrigerator early like that, 1940.

Interviewer: Oh, OK. What did you use before that? Did you have an icebox?

Clarence Mischler: An icebox.

Interviewer: Do you remember, did you have a car or truck at that time?

Clarence Mischler: Oh yeah, we had a car.

Interviewer: What kind?

Clarence Mischler: We had a Ford sedan, V8. Yeah, it was a Ford. We titled it here.

Interviewer: Let’s go on to family members.

Clarence Mischler: Well, I never married, so it’s just my mother, father and my sister. And then my brother was there sometimes.

Interviewer: What’s your brother and sister’s names?

Clarence Mischler: My sister’s name was Doris. Now it’s Cox.

Interviewer: Do you remember when she was born?

Clarence Mischler: Well, 1924. I can never remember that…May 11, 1924.

Interviewer: And your brother?

Clarence Mischler: Well, he was four years older than I was, so that makes him 1918.

Interviewer: And your parents, what were their names?

Clarence Mischler: Well, my parents. My mother’s name is Gladys. Her maiden name was Knobloch, and she was born in 1898. My father’s name was Frederick C. Mischler and he born in 1891.

Interviewer: Were they both from Girard?

Clarence Mischler: Well my Dad’s folks lived up there at the corner of Old State and Eureka.

Interviewer: Your grandparents lived up here?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah.

Interviewer: What were their names?

Clarence Mischler: Frederick Mischler, and his mother’s name was Elizabeth Walla.

Interviewer: His wife?

Clarence Mischler: Well, my grandfather married twice. His second wife was Mary. My dad didn’t know his mother because he was two years old when she died. So, he has no recollection of his mother.

Interviewer: Do you remember what she died from?

Clarence Mischler: Complications from childbirth.

Interviewer: Oh, Elizabeth. Do you know the maiden names of either one of them?

Clarence Mischler: Her maiden name was Howard.

Interviewer: And the second wife?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, now let’s see…names don’t come to me sometimes. Scheska. Her name was Mary Scheska.

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

Clarence Mischler: Yeah. My dad had a nephew that lived north of me, Ralph Mischler.

Interviewer: On 98?

Clarence Mischler: He was on Falls Road. And my grandmother, she was a sister to Clara Mathewson, so I’m related to the Mathewson’s somehow, some relation there.

Interviewer: Was this your mother’s mother?

Clarence Mischler: No, my dad’s mother was a Howard. She was a sister to Clara Mathewson.

Interviewer: Oh, OK.

Clarence Mischler: So, they were related that way.

Interviewer: When you came into Township, who were your friends? Who did you get to know?

Clarence Mischler: I was busy working on the farm, that’s all I did. I didn’t monkey with . . .

Interviewer: OK. You said you never got married, right?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: No children.

Clarence Mischler: No.

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

Clarence Mischler: Well, I was told Franklin Township had 10 one-room schools at one time. The ones that I know of that operated was at Mohawk, the Francis School, then down at the Center, they operated that school, then the Townline School. But the other ones, they shut them down because they didn’t have enough pupils, you know. They hauled some children up here to Franklin Center. Frank Rouse had a team of horses, and took an automobile “train”, and he’d haul the kids by horses. Same with Don Vogt, he’d haul children to the town night school.

Interviewer: So they could get some rides?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they had to haul the children or close the school, so they’d haul them by horse and carriage in the winter.

Interviewer: You went to school in Girard?

Clarence Mischler: Yes. Because the Township didn’t plow any roads then.

Interviewer: Township didn’t plow roads then?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: OK. We’ll get to those road conditions later. You said you lived on a farm there. What did you farm?

Clarence Mischler: Well, we had cattle there, milk cows.

Interviewer: How many cows did you have?

Clarence Mischler: About 16 all together, young cattle and everything.

Interviewer: Now, did you sell milk?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah. But, we done the work with the horses, and of course, we’d cut the grain or the oats, and we’d stack them on the barn floor. Then, we’d come by with the thrash machine, and we’d thrash them out there.

Interviewer: Where did you sell your milk at?

Clarence Mischler: Carnation had an evaporating plant in Cambridge.

Interviewer: So you took your milk there?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they came and got it.

Interviewer: Oh, they came and got it.

Interviewer: Ok, what about butter? Did you make butter to sell?

Clarence Mischler: Not to sell, no.

Interviewer: Do you want to talk some more about other types of equipment you had?

Clarence Mischler: Well, we just had the horses, the plow, the drag that bit the ground… We got a grain drill later on, and a corn planter, but that was about 1950, and the grain drill a couple years earlier.

Interviewer: Who brought the thresher? Who threshed your oats?

Clarence Mischler: Well, there were several ones. Don Vogt had a thresh machine, then later on Philip Sturm over there on …its Fry Road now. Last name’s Strum, s-t-r-u-m. [The last name is Sturm.]

Interviewer: OK. So, you guys shared equipment?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, well, we rented it. They rented it out.

Interviewer: Were your neighbors farmers too?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah.

Interviewer: Who were your neighbors on each side?

Clarence Mischler: Well, Howard on one side, on the north end. On the south side, Petrus had run that one farm there. Last name was Petrus.

Interviewer: You mentioned oats. Did you have any other crops?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, buckwheat, and corn, and hay. That crop of hay was a

Interviewer: Now what did you do with all these different crops? Were they for your own…?

Clarence Mischler: They were for our own—our cattle and horses.

Interviewer: How many horses did you have? Just the team?

Clarence Mischler: We had two most of the time. We had four at one time.

Interviewer: What about chickens? Did you have chickens?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, just a few, not very much.

Interviewer: Pigs?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, three or four. We’d buy a litter, buy four or five pigs and we’d feed them, you know.

Interviewer: Did you do your own butchering for meat?

Clarence Mischler: Well, at first. I didn’t do it, then a man came and did the butchering.

Interviewer: A man came and did the butchering? Do you remember who that was?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, that was…Lewis was his last name. I can’t think of his first name. His brother’s name was Clancy, but I can’t think of his name. His name was Dewey Lewis.

Interviewer: And he came and did your butchering?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: How did you preserve your meat?

Clarence Mischler: Well, we canned it some, then later on, in Girard, someone put a freezer plant in, you know. You took your carcass down there, about a half or a quarter, and they’d cut it up and wrapped it and froze it for you and kept in a locker. You rented a locker from them.

Interviewer: Who helped you on the farm, or was it just you?

Clarence Mischler: My dad, my father.

Interviewer: And did he live with you?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah.

Interviewer: And your mother?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: You mentioned canning. Did you do a lot of canning?

Clarence Mischler: Well, not so much out of the garden. But, she used to go and buy a bushel or so of peaches or tomatoes and can that. They could raise them north of us a lot easier along in Fairview. You could buy a bushel of peaches in the orchards or tomatoes down there. We didn’t raise good tomatoes.

Interviewer: Well, how big was your garden and what did you grow in it?

Well, we had some tomatoes there for our own use, some beets, some carrots, and some type of little potatoes. Not much, because we had to pick them up early, you know. We had to buy potatoes in the winter.

Interviewer: Well, we have a list here of different businesses. I was just going to go thru them.

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Do you have notes on them?

Clarence Mischler: Yes. There was a cider mill up there.

Interviewer: There was a cider mill? Do you remember who ran it?

Clarence Mischler: Clay Hough, Clayton Hough. They ran it by steam power. They had a boiler there, and a stationary engine to run the cider press. And they also had a vat there. People used to bring in sweet apples, you know, and cider and they’d boil that down and make apple jelly out of it. He could make apple jelly.

Interviewer: Did you ever take apples in there?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, but we only had a few apples there, but we never had much cider around. A lot of people had a lot of hard cider around. A lot of farmers would get addicted to hard cider. But he also had a sawmill there that he’d run with that steam engine. He’d sell custom lumber. A little, not much.

Interviewer: Now did you take trees up there for him to make the lumber?

Clarence Mischler: Yes, they’d have to haul their logs in.

Interviewer: What about blacksmiths?

Clarence Mischler: There wasn’t any blacksmiths. But they had a feed mill where they ground feed.

Interviewer: Now where was this at?

Clarence Mischler: Franklin Center.

Interviewer: Ok.

Clarence Mischler: Sumner Hough up there, he had a granger where he’d grind the feed. You could buy gluten or soy and mix it with your grain or a protein mix. You want tinkers? Jacob Weigel, he was a tinkerer down north of us.

Interviewer: What road was he on?

Clarence Mischler: 98. If you needed something fixed, he’d help you out. He had a welder. He could drill holes. He’d done some blacksmith work, but he wasn’t much of a blacksmith. He’d bought a shop out in Fairview and brought it out and had blacksmith tools and stuff, but I wouldn’t say he was a real professional blacksmith.

Interviewer: What about these other ones? Cheese factories?

Clarence Mischler: Well, the only cheese factory I know of was over on Ivoray, on Ivoray road. That’s the last one I ever knew of that was operational when I came out. There were other ones around, but they were all closed.

Interviewer: Do you know who ran the cheese factory?

Clarence Mischler: Over there? A man named McBeth. [Fred McBeth (?)]

Interviewer: Ok. How about mechanics?

Clarence Mischler: Well, there wasn’t any garage around.

Interviewer: Merchants?

Clarence Mischler: There was a general store over in Franklin Center.

Interviewer: Was that Rodak’s?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Stone quarry?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, there was one down there but they never done anything with it any more.

Interviewer: Where was that at?

Clarence Mischler: That was on Fall Road, north of us.

Interviewer: What about oil and gas?

Clarence Mischler: Not where I was, there wasn’t any gas or oil. Different ones would come and leased them; they’d lease your land. But they’d cancel it after a while.

Interviewer: They’d come and try to drill?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they did up in Franklin Center but they didn’t get anything, not enough to speak of I guess. Not enough to monkey with I guess.

Interviewer: Do you remember what company that was?

Clarence Mischler: It was out of Buffalo. I can’t think of the …. But, there’s gas well south of here now, right next to the neighbors, there’s gas. That was Cardinal or some other ones I guess.

Interviewer: Now where did you go to buy oil and gas for your home?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they sold gasoline up at Franklin Center at the pumps there.

Interviewer: Up at Rodak’s there?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Wagon makers?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: What about shoemakers?

Clarence Mischler: No. I didn’t know any.

Interviewer: Everything was bought. Do you remember doctors in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: No, I don’t know any doctor.

Interviewer: Or dentists?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: We mentioned feed mills already. Leather goods?

Clarence Mischler: No, there wasn’t any harness makers. Down in Fairview they had them, but not here.

Interviewer: What about horse and cattle dealers?

Clarence Mischler: Well, there wasn’t any of those either. They mostly came out of Erie or someplace like that?

Interviewer: They’d come out here from Erie? Do you remember who that was?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, there was a slaughterhouse owned by Shaffer’s. They had a slaughterhouse there. But, my uncle had sheep. He’d take the sheep into Erie, to the slaughterhouse there. Lambs and stuff.

Interviewer: Where did you do purchasing or trading? You mentioned the store.

Clarence Mischler: Yes, the store and sometimes in Girard or Fairview.

Interviewer: No more here in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: Well, not later on, that last month…

Interviewer: Not 1940?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, during 1940 and stuff. But then we’d pay at both places or any place, you know. We also had a store down in Sterrettania. You could drive down there if you needed something.

Interviewer: Who ran that store?

Clarence Mischler: I can’t think of the name right now. I can’t tell you.

Interviewer: Ok. Well, we had prices of different items here. You probably didn’t buy much milk, did you, so you don’t know what that cost?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: How about bread?

Clarence Mischler: My mother would always bake bread.

Interviewer: Cheese?

Clarence Mischler: Well, a little bit of cheese.

Interviewer: How much was cheese?

Clarence Mischler: I don’t know.

Interviewer: Butter?

Clarence Mischler: Well, we’d churn a few pounds of butter there for our use, but I can’t tell you what the…

Interviewer: Ok. Flour? Do you remember what flour cost?

No, we bought the flour but…

Interviewer: How about clothing? Do you remember what clothing cost?

Clarence Mischler: No. I know we bought it, but I never paid attention too much.

Interviewer: How about seed?

Clarence Mischler: Seed for?

Interviewer: For planting.

Clarence Mischler: We had to buy that clover seed, because we didn’t raise it. And that was kind of expensive, you know, for clover, timothy seed. Timothy wasn’t so much, but clover was. The land was kind of cheap. Because we only paid $3500 for the 100 acres that we had. And not only that, the bank wouldn’t loan all the money, the whole $3500, only $2500. The owner had to take a $1000 or so second mortgage.

Interviewer: Who did you buy the land from?

Clarence Mischler: Smeltzer, Margaret Smeltzer.

Interviewer: Do you remember what house values were?

Clarence Mischler: No, I have no idea.

Interviewer: What about when you bought that land, did it have the house on it too?

Clarence Mischler: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: What about furniture and household goods?

Clarence Mischler: Well, we brought a lot of that stuff out from Girard with us.

Interviewer: Do you remember when you bought it, how much it was?

Clarence Mischler: No, my dad and mother bought it, I didn’t know how much.

Interviewer: And you did farming at that time?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Did you have any other jobs around that time?

Clarence Mischler: No, not at that time.

Interviewer: Do you remember any old Civil War or World War I veterans?

Clarence Mischler: Not living around here that I know of.

Interviewer: Do remember what churches that were in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: Well, there was one at the Center there, that was a Methodist Church there. And they built on to that in the 40s, I guess, or the 50s. There was a Catholic Church. And there was a Methodist Church up here at Eureka Corners you know, Eureka and Crane Road. I think they got kind of a small denomination of people there that they kind of closed it down and they went down to Girard, down to the Franklin Center church.

Interviewer: Did you go there?

Clarence Mischler: No I didn’t go there.

Interviewer: You didn’t go to church?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Ok. What did you do for fun, entertainment and recreation?

Clarence Mischler: I didn’t run around much when I was younger.

Interviewer: Well, what did you do for fun?

Clarence Mischler: Well, I never been much of a … In the fall of the year, I’d go on these turkey shoots.

Interviewer: Where were those at?

Clarence Mischler: Down in McKean there.

Interviewer: Who put those on? Who put on the turkey shoot?

Clarence Mischler: Gem City Outdoorsmen. They had a field day like, you know, a turkey shoot. You’d go down there, some people would shoot clay targets…

Interviewer: Did you hunt a lot?

Clarence Mischler: Well, some, not much. I was never real avid hunter, no.

Interviewer: What did you hunt?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, I’d go look for rabbits and squirrels and something like that. I wasn’t like some of the old-timers that hunt all the time.

Interviewer: What kind of gun did you have?

Clarence Mischler: All I had was a little single 16-gauge shotgun. Then later on I got a rifle, a 30-30 rifle, a 30-caliber rifle. I did hunt deer a little bit for a few years, but you had to walk a lot.

Interviewer: Did you hunt on your own land?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, mostly. I had a neighbor not too far from my property.

Interviewer: Do you remember if the Township churches or schools had any special gatherings or functions?

Clarence Mischler: I suppose they did, but I never went up there; never went to church there.

Interviewer: Did you ever go to any of the dances in town?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: What do you remember about politics and government in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: Well, you elected your school directors and road supervisors.

Interviewer: Do you remember who some of those road supervisors were?

Clarence Mischler: Yes. Albert Vogt was there.

Interviewer: When was that?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, about 1944. And Roy Nims was there, and who that other one was I can’t tell you right now.

Interviewer: What were the roads like?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they were all right in the summertime. But in the spring, boy, they were muddy, rutty, and hard to get a car through there.

Interviewer: So none of the roads were paved?

Clarence Mischler: No. Well now, in 1940 they were paved. But that road from Franklin Center north to the Township line, to Hawthorn Road, was paved in 1925. Now, there was a bottle of trouble in the Township. When they funded those roads, the State paid a percentage, the county paid a percentage and your local subdivision or city or borough or town would pay a percentage. Now, when they drew the plans up, they figured Franklin Township’s cost would be $30,000.00. So, they floated a bond issue at some bank in Philadelphia for $30,000.00. So, they built the road in ‘25. Well, when the County Commissioner sent them a bill, it was several thousand dollars over $30,000.00, and they didn’t have the money. They didn’t have it. So, they went to an attorney. It was before my time, but he asked the County Commissioners for an itemized bill, and they wouldn’t do it. The Commissioners weren’t going to bother with that, so they went to court over it. And they forced the County Commissioners to write them a nice itemized bill. When that came through, that lacked a couple hundred dollars of being $30,000.00. They had money enough! All the machinery the Township had was a Huber tractor and a pull grader and they put it on rubber in 1940, in the spring, they put on rubber. Before they had it running on steel, and not on rubber. So then, in 1944, they raised the millage on the real estate, and paid that bond issue off a year ahead of time. It was due in 1945, a twenty year bond. And they traded that Huber in and bought a cleat tractor. Well, that could plow snow all right, but it was too slow to run a tractor like that all over the township roads. It wasn’t practical. Then they bought a ton and a half Chevy truck, and they could haul their own gravel to patch up roads. Then later on they bought a surplus a Walters truck, a state truck to plow snow, and they bought a surplus Galion grader to grade the roads.

Interviewer: And that was in the 50s?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Now, you mentioned you had a car. How else did you get around, especially in the winter?

Clarence Mischler: Well, in the wintertime the State plowed the roads here. Well, if you went on the back roads and you came to a snow bank, you stopped, got a shovel out, and shoveled the snowdrift.

Interviewer: Did you ride horse much to get places?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Did you have a sleigh?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of the assessors?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Or any of the constables?

Clarence Mischler: The only constable I remember was Herb Netzler when he was constable for a while at one time.

Interviewer: Do you remember when that was?

Clarence Mischler: During the 50s or so. Well, the only time you saw a constable was election time. A constable had to be there to help keep peace.

Interviewer: When would he have to keep peace?

Clarence Mischler: Well, he had to be there at elections, on Election Day, in case something did happen he’d be able to…

Interviewer: Where did you guys vote at?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they had a Town Hall in Franklin Center. Then they sold that and they bought a garage down north of here where Sheffer lives. He had a garage and they bought that. Then they had a fire and that burned.

Interviewer: When was that?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, I can’t tell you that date. Then later on, they bought this land up here and built these buildings.

Interviewer: And this is where people come to vote since then?

Clarence Mischler: No, they vote over here in the fire hall.

Interviewer: How about school directors? Do you remember any of those?

Clarence Mischler: Yes. Clay Hough was a director for quite a while. Levi Howard was one.

Interviewer: When were they school directors?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, in the 40s. Then they sort of joined with the Union District and they built General McLane High School.

Interviewer: How about Justices?

Clarence Mischler: There weren’t any Justices I know of.

Interviewer: Do you remember anyone from the Township?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, yeah, there was a Justice of the Peace. She was over here on Crane Road. My mind is getting kind of fuzzy that way, I can’t…

Interviewer: She lived on Crane Road though?

Clarence Mischler: She lived on Crane Road. That’s all gone now. They have District Justices now.

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

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Do you remember any previous names of Township roads?

Clarence Mischler: Well, Fry Road used to be called Townline Road. I think they had to change that on account of 9-1-1 I think, and standardize some of these old roads.

Interviewer: Do you remember when they changed it?

Clarence Mischler: When that went into effect I can’t tell you.

Interviewer: Ok.

Clarence Mischler: Then that road north of me, that’s Stancliff. I never knew that was Stancliff Road, but they’re calling it Stancliff Road nowadays.

Interviewer: Do you remember any natural disasters?

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: How about winter storms?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, yeah. We got storms that once in a while would plug the roads a little bit, but the State didn’t have the equipment they have now. So the road might be plugged with no traffic for a day or two until they got around to getting it all cleaned up.

Interviewer: Now what would you do when the roads were plugged up? Would you shovel it yourself or did it just lock you in, keep you at home?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, you didn’t go much of any place.

Interviewer: Do you remember any people from different ethnic backgrounds, immigrants who lived in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: When I first moved out here, a lot of people here, they were from Eastern Europe, you know.

Interviewer: Can you give me any examples?

Clarence Mischler: Oh, Czechoslovakia or Poland.

Interviewer: Do you remember any particular families? Where they were from?

Clarence Mischler: Balla, they were from Czechoslovakia. It probably was Austria, but after the First World War, they made it Czechoslovakia. They broke away. Hrinda’s, they were from Eastern Europe, out that way. Buren’s. That’s it, but there are several of them around here.

Interviewer: Do you know why they came to Franklin Township?

Clarence Mischler: To buy land I guess. They come out of the steel mills after they come over from Europe. They worked in the coal mines and the steel mills, then they came out here to buy land, you know, to farm.

Interviewer: I see. If people left, where did they go and why?

Clarence Mischler: Well, the younger generation went into town. That’s all. They didn’t stay out on the farm.

Interviewer: Why do you think that was?

Clarence Mischler: Well, at one time, Erie was a pretty good industrial place, you know. They got jobs in industrial, and in Girard too.

Interviewer: Do you remember any diseases during that time?

Clarence Mischler: No. There never was any. I know there were places in Girard, if they had whooping cough or measles or something, they quarantined you. Or scarlet fever, or something like that. But there never was any smallpox, because I had to be vaccinated before I went to school. I don’t know what they’re hollering about vaccinations for so much now. You had to be vaccinated or you didn’t go to school!

Interviewer: Well, some of those vaccines they don’t vaccinate for anymore.

No.

Interviewer: Like smallpox.

Clarence Mischler: No, I know they don’t. But I had to have one!

Interviewer: Do you remember people in the Township dying at an early age from anything?

Clarence Mischler: No, not that I know of. Most of them are up in years when they passed away.

Interviewer: What did adults usually die from?

Clarence Mischler: What?

Interviewer: What did adults usually die from, older people?

Clarence Mischler: Well, I suppose… My dad’s brother, he had a heart attack back then. I don’t what these other people, they’re just up in years, I don’t know.

Interviewer: Do you know where people were buried here in the Township?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah. There’s a cemetery over on Francis.

Interviewer: Francis Road?

Clarence Mischler: Yeah, Francis. It’s in Franklin Township. And some people were buried over in McLane. And some went down there to McKean. The Catholics have a cemetery down there. There’s another one. Part of it is Protestant there and another part’s Catholic, at McKean.

Interviewer: Is that the only ones?

Clarence Mischler: Well, down in Girard, most of my…most of the Howard family is buried in Girard. I don’t know why they didn’t go to Francis, over here, but my great grandfather and great grandmother and grandmother are buried over at Francis.

Interviewer: They were from the Township too?

Clarence Mischler: Yes.

Interviewer: Great grandparents?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they came over from Switzerland, but they lived here.

Interviewer: What were their names?

Clarence Mischler: Frederick Mischler and Elizabeth Mischler.

Interviewer: Do you know where they lived at?

Clarence Mischler: Well, they lived over at the corner of Old State and Eureka.

Interviewer: They had a farm also?

Clarence Mischler: They had a farm over there. My grandfather had a hundred acres of land south of, over here. And it was all woods, see, and there were big hemlock in there. And when they cut those trees, they hauled it up on New Road here, where Berry [7101 New Rd] lives. And they most certainly had a sawmill or something, but that burnt. So, they hauled them up to Mohawk corners. They had a sawmill there.

Interviewer: When did the sawmill burn?

Clarence Mischler: Well, that was way before the turn of the century.

Interviewer: And there was a sawmill on Mohawk, you said, too?

Clarence Mischler: Yes, and that was still running. Not when I was out here, but that’s where my grandparents had their logs sawed and they hauled the lumber to Erie to sell.

Interviewer: Is there anything we missed that you’d like to bring out?

Clarence Mischler: No, not that I know of right now.

Interviewer: Did we cover everything in your notes?

Clarence Mischler: Well, the Township… I worked with the Township for some time. Now in the 1930s, when things got so rough, the State took over all the township roads, not only Franklin, but Elk Creek and Washington, everything. And they also took over the machinery! Franklin Township had a good pull grader, and so they used that. Then a couple years later, when they turned the roads back to Township, they couldn’t find the road grader! One man said that helped the Township good because we had to go out and buy another new road grader!

Interviewer: Now why did they take over?

Clarence Mischler: Because things were getting rough. Probably you don’t, but I can remember when I lived in Girard, a lot of hobos on the railroad, walking and riding the railroads and coming on into town. ‘Cause I know down there in Girard, as a kid, I’d ride my bike down there down and we were going thru Nickelplate. There’d be a freight train going to Erie, and a couple of those gondola cars, and they’d have four or five men standing in it. And one man, in an open box car, sitting on the floor. And there were two boxcars with the truss rods on the bottom, and there were three men riding on those rods! I don’t know how those guys could ride on them, boy! But a lot of people used to be on the road, because things were so tough.

Interviewer: Well, if there’s nothing else then…

Clarence Mischler: No.

Interviewer: Thank you for your time.