Mischler, Ralph James & Lillian Ninna Anderson

RALPH JAMES

AND LILLIAN NINA ANDERSON MISCHLER

Interviewer: Nanette Grygier Interviewed on: December 29, 2003

Interviewer: What is your full name and spell it.-

Lillian Mischler: Lillian Nina Anderson Mischler

Jim Mischler: And I’m Ralph James Mischler

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

Jim Mischler: Okay, I am 67 and my birthday is February 9, 1936

Lillian Mischler: And I am 66 and my birthday is May 16, 1937

Interviewer: And where have you lived in Franklin Township?

Jim Mischler: I’ve lived on Mischler farm for 66 years and now we’re living down here on Francis Road

Lillian Mischler: And he brought me back some 49 years ago. Our 3^rd son moved into the farmhouse last June and we moved down here.

Interviewer: How long have you lived in this Franklin Township area?

Jim Mischler: All our lives.

Interviewer: All your lives.

Lillian Mischler: Me, no. I’m a new kid on the block. I came here 63 years ago; I was born in Fairview. And I was about 3 ½ years old when we moved here.

Interviewer: Oh thank you. All right then, Mr. Mischler what was your home like in your earlier years? Such as how was it heated, where did you get your inside water toilet facilities, electricity?

Jim Mischler: Okay, before we had electricity we had wood and we got electricity in 1939, before the war. The REA put an electric line down 98. And we had electricity before the war. A lot of places in the township didn’t. But previous to that, we didn’t have any inside water because we had no plumbing.

Interviewer: Your home- what was it like inside or the style of the home? Maybe give me some kind of description. What stands out in your mind about your home?

Jim Mischler: Well a big old farmhouse with 13 rooms, most of which weren’t heated, especially in the winter months. So, we stacked on the blankets to keep warm. One of the rooms upstairs had a little heat because the stovepipe came up through it and you kind of cuddled around that.

Interviewer: Wow that’s excellent. What about the telephone? And when did those facilities first come into your home, the washer machine, electricity, phone and all that? Do you remember?

Jim Mischler: Well yeah, we had telephone before WW II, and like I said we had electricity and we didn’t have electricity in the barn after the war. But we had it in the house.

Interviewer: What about the refrigerator or the washer machine?

Jim Mischler: Yeah we got a refrigerator and washer machine as soon as we got electricity. They were a lot better than the old iceboxes.

Interviewer: Do you have anything to add to this Mrs. Mischler to this?

Lillian Mischler: We heated with wood. We had a woodstove in the kitchen that my mother cooked on. And I could remember in the wintertime she would read to us, and she would open the oven door and we would put our feet in the oven to keep warm. We had a hand pump in the kitchen for our water. I can remember my mother washing with a scrub board, then later Daddy got her a gas engine washer machine, and of course, we had outside facilities. We didn’t get electricity until after the war and it was after electricity before we got the phone in and that was around ’46 I would say.

Interviewer: Do either of you remember who had the first car or truck and what model it might have been?

Jim Mischler: Do you mean in the area?

Interviewer: Yes, in your area.

Jim Mischler: Of course we always had a car/ vehicle as far as I can remember.

Interviewer: What kind was it?

Jim Mischler: Hmmm…. Chevrolet. And we always had trucks around too.

Lillian Mischler: My dad was probably one of the first to have an automobile in our neighborhood and he used to haul everybody to town. He worked in Erie so he needed a car to get back and forth. And it was a Ford. He’s owned Fords most of his life. And I married into a family that only owned Chevy’s and Buicks.

Interviewer: Who were your family members? Who were you related to in the township?

Jim Mischler: You want the children we had? We had four sons. Dan was the oldest. Then Mark, John and Rob. Who were we related to in the township? We were related to Howard’s, and to the Mathewson’s.

Interviewer: Could you explain how you were related?

Jim Mischler: How we were related? Let’s see, my great grandmother was a Howard, Anne Howard and Mr. Mathewson’s mother was a Howard, so we are kind of related through cousins.

Interviewer: Do you want to add anything?

Lillian Mischler: Well I don’t have any relatives in this area. I had two sisters and they are both outside the area. My younger sister passed away a few years ago and my older sister lives in Girard.

Interviewer: What is your fondest childhood memory, of any season, and it doesn’t even have to be a holiday it could be something sometime a year, a fond gift, such as a Christmas gift, birthday gift or something. If there was one, was it a homemade type of thing that stands out in your mind or something that someone did?

Lillian Mischler: I think as I was growing up I really liked to play outdoors. I liked to play in the creek, I liked to catch frogs, I liked to climb in the trees, loved to be outside in the wintertime. And I can remember we used to be out there and I didn’t realize I was cold until I came in the house. At Christmas time, we didn’t get a lot of gifts. But my mother always bought us a storybook and that’s what she would read to us during the winter. Also, we put puzzles together. I don’t know as if I had a favorite gift that I can remember.

Interviewer: That was good; do have anything to add, Mr. Mischler?

Jim Mischler: Fondest memories as a child? I don’t know. I suppose Christmas time was probably the most memorable time. You go out to the woods and find a tree that somewhat had a shape and cut it and bring it in usually a hemlock instead of a pine. You could decorate it up. I can remember as a child getting a toy gun, which was during the war. Everyone wanted to play war games. But it was a wooded gun and the barrel was warped so it was probably good for shooting around corners.

Interviewer: Thank you. That was excellent. Tell me when you both married. When was your wedding day? How did you meet one another? And tell us about your wedding.

Lillian Mischler: Well back when we didn’t have big weddings we just had a family wedding. For the day, we went out to eat and went to a movie. And Jim’s sister stood up for me and his best friend and her boyfriend stood up for Jim. And after the movie, then we came home and had a family dinner. Didn’t go on the honeymoon. That was unheard of back then.

Jim Mischler: We met in high school and went together all through high school. We married on October 25 1954.

Interviewer: Well then, where did you live when you were first married?

Jim Mischler: Well we lived on the farm for a number of years. Well we have lived there ever since. We lived for a while with my folks and then we bought a place up the road and my folks moved up there and we stayed on the farm.

Interviewer: All right and you mentioned your children’s names. But could you mention their birth dates?

Lillian Mischler: Okay Dan was born in 1955. Dan passed away a few years ago; he was our oldest. And then Mark was born in ’57 and he builds houses, lives in Waterford now. John was born in ’70 and he’s the one that works on the farm now, he works at Lords. He doesn’t do any farming yet. But he was talking last night that maybe his kids would be interested in. We have a grandson. John has a boy that is a year old. He was born on December 24^th of last year, just celebrated his birthday and that was wonderful. And then our youngest son Rob was born in ’76 and was married last August. And they were married in Erie at the church that we go to. Came back to the farm and had a wonderful time there, the reception outdoors, beautiful day and they went to Disney World for their honeymoon. Rob has always wanted to go there, so that’s where they went on their honeymoon.

Jim Mischler: He works for GE; he’s an engineer for GE.

Interviewer: From your early memories, what schools existed in this township and who were the teachers that you remember?

Jim Mischler: I went to Franklin Center to go to school, seven years. Some of my teachers, let's see, Margaret Porter, Mrs. Millie Payne, Florence Swift, Mrs. Hanes, and Mrs. O’Neill. At that time, it was School of Francis, Goodban and Silverthorn School was open. I think that it was just the four of them that were open in the township.

Interviewer: What highest grade did both of you complete?

Jim and Lillian Mischler: High School.

Interviewer: Who were your classmates? Do you remember any names, best friends, companions, any friends still living in the area? And do you see them now or in your recent past do you get together?

Jim Mischler: Well she was my best friend, just kidding. I’ve got friends in the area. The Sheffer kids, I went to school with them, Vogts, Krautters, and Piepers.

Lillian Mischler: I went to Francis to school and my best friend was probably Judy Lewis.

Jim Mischler: She lived next door. And then you went to Goodban for school.

Lillian Mischler: Yeah and then I went to Goodban to school and then from there I went to Edinboro to school. And that’s where Jim and I got hooked up.

Interviewer: Now we know that farming was the predominate occupation in the early years. And what do you remember about the crops, the equipment, and techniques of farming, related farm businesses that were off shoots of the farming industry, other businesses that would exist because of farming. What kind of equipment did your parents have, did they own tractors or share tractors, tell me about that?

Jim Mischler: Well in the early years, you know, we had a tractor, a binder to cut the grain, and then we had the shocks in the fields. You know you didn’t spray your fields then so you had a lot of weeds in the grain. When you would shock the weeds right out, when you put it in the barn then you thrashed it and then of course all the seeds blew out of it. We would cut the corn by hand and shocked it and then we left it laying then picked it up, brought it in, and filled the silos. Milk that we would produce was cooled on the surface cooler. You had to run water through it to cool it down. Of course, in the early years we didn’t ship milk, we shipped cream. We used to separate the milk and the cream went to the creameries. And of course, you used to take milk to cheese factories, some of it. We pretty much butchered our own hogs, chickens, and so forth.

Interviewer: Did you preserve your own meat and can it?

Jim Mischler: Well most of it yeah, we preserved anything we canned, except for ham; you would take that and get it smoked to preserve them.

Interviewer: How large was a garden that you might have had?

Lillian Mischler: How big was that side yard? We had that all gardened.

Jim Mischler: Yeah, probably half an acre.

Interviewer: Then, anything else you want to mention about that; any other equipment like planters, thrashers?

Jim Mischler: Yeah, see my dad used to thrash around the (unintelligible) with a stationary baler. So, we did pretty much our own thrashing. And then he got rid of thrasher in later years and of course the thrasher used to come around to different farms and you would help each other go around and they would change off work.

Interviewer: What businesses or professions do you remember that were in this Franklin Township area, besides the obvious farm property? From your earliest memory, that would be like when you were a child, anything and who were the owners of the business or store.

Jim Mischler: The businesses? It probably circled around Franklin Center; I mean the only business was a general store there, and later on there was a Beer Garden there owned by Rodak.

Interviewer: Were there sawmills or you said there was a cheese factory.

Jim Mischler: Yes, there was a cheese factory in Ivoray. They used to haul milk over there. There was also one down here on the corner of Francis, Francis corners. I guess at one time there was the Franklin Center one I don’t remember. Were there any sawmills? There was feed mills in Franklin Center.

Interviewer: You don’t remember any names? Or would your father have known any names?

Jim Mischler: Well, Wells had a feed mill there. Clair Wright had a sawmill over here.

Interviewer: Were there any horse or cattle dealers?

Jim Mischler: Well my grandfather dealt horses at one time, but that was before my time. That’s why I remember it.

Interviewer: If we had any information from his time and you remember as a child listening to stories or conversations at the table or whatever.

Jim Mischler: Alls I know is that he dealt with horses.

Interviewer: He dealt with horses. Do you know the type of horses?

Jim Mischler: Well work horses.

Interviewer: Work horses.

Jim Mischler: They might have had some driving horses too but not on the riding line like they do today.

Interviewer: Any cattle dealers? And did your farm have animals? How large was the herd?

Jim Mischler: Yeah, not very large.

Interviewer: I just wanted to know.

Jim Mischler: About eight or ten because you milk them by hand.

Interviewer: I am interested to know if there might have been mechanics or merchants in Franklin Township.

Lillian Mischler: Oh there was Jake Weigel, he was a mechanic, you could go to him and he could fix or make anything for you.

Jim Mischler: We used to go there to buy our oil and stuff and to get our repairs made and buy bolts. He carried quite a supply of that stuff.

Interviewer: Shoemakers, doctors, dentists, were there ever medical people?

Lillian Mischler: No, looking at the history I didn’t find any doctors or dentists. But we did find that at the Franklin Center there was a shoe factory and a cheese factory. Levi Howard had a cheese factory behind Rodak’s store. There was a school right there at Franklin Center. It is still there today, Bob Farmer bought that school and turned it into an apartment. There are two apartments in that school. So, that’s still there yet. Jim remembers when there was still a post office at Franklin Center.

Jim Mischler: Well I don’t know if it was a post office but at the general miller store, they had a place to put your letters in. Maybe they had a mailman that came and picked them up, I don’t know, like a regular mail slot. The old store was painted red and white, I don’t think that it was a Red and White store but it was painted that way.

Lillian Mischler: There was also a couple of blacksmiths right there at Franklin Center. There were two, Jim and I were talking, and I said I wonder why they would have two. But back then they had a lot of horses so it was probably more than one man could handle. There was also a millinery store at Franklin Center. From what I could find out there was also two shoe stores there. There was a church that different denominations shared; they called it the union church.

Jim Mischler: There was also a church over here at Francis.

Lillian Mischler: That was a Greek Orthodox Church. When I was a child we would go to church in Girard, but if the weather was really bad and we couldn’t get to Girard and couldn’t get out then we would walk up to that church. It was a Greek Orthodox Church. What impressed me about that church was that the men would sit on one side and the woman would sit on the other side.

Interviewer: Do you remember where that was located?

Jim Mischler: Yes, it was right over here in the corner, Gudgeonville Road which is the township line.

Interviewer: You don’t know the name of that church?

Jim Mischler: No, I don’t, all I can remember was that it was the Greek Orthodox Church.

Interviewer: All right then that’s not Pageville Road out there?

Lillian Mischler: No.

Interviewer: You’re calling it Gudgeonville Road right?

Lillian Mischler: Yes right, Gudgeonville, well I don’t know how it got its name, but we have a covered bridge at Gudgeonville and that’s quite a landmark.

Interviewer: That’s excellent. Where did you do your purchasing or trading if you had to go to the store? If you had to leave the township for other supplies or purchases where would that have been and the price of basic things, if you bought them at all, cheese, bread, milk, flour, clothing, seat, toys.

Jim Mischler: Well they had a general store and we bought a lot of small things there. But if you did major shopping you usually went to Fairview or Edinboro, Girard. Didn’t chase to Erie like they do today. I mean for clothes sometimes, maybe but not…

Interviewer: Were your clothes pretty much made from home or did you purchase them too?

Jim Mischler: Well most of our clothes were purchased through Montgomery Wards catalog or Sears. Then of course the feed bags would come with designs on and as soon as the feed was out you would send them to the house to get washed so they could make…well the women probably used them more for skirts.

Lillian Mischler: Yeah Jims aunt was quite the seamstress; you couldn’t tell that they were homemade.

Jim Mischler: You would always pick the feed with the prettiest design bags. That’s the one I want. You usually had pig feed.

Lillian Mischler: I can remember as a child we went to a store in Sterrettania. We seemed to do a lot of shopping there. It was a little country store that had everything.

Jim Mischler: General Store.

Lillian Mischler: It was called Amy’s. I guess Jim went to Edinboro and I went the other way. I went to Girard and my mother and dad both worked at Girard and at that time they had four grocery stores in Girard, 5 and 10 that was great place to go. Oh and they had a Reeses store there too. They had quite a few stores in Girard at that time.

Interviewer: Do you remember what seed cost for the farm maybe as a child or when you were a teenager? Or do you remember your father mentioning what the price of seed was to do your planting?

Jim Mischler: Well I don’t really remember what the price was. But you know usually people would keep some of their seed and they would just use it over and over. I mean some of these farmer’s seed would last forever because they would always keep enough new seed to carry on. I can tell you one thing, fertilizer when it used to come in heavy bags, it came in burlap bags years ago, and they used to be in 200 lb bags. It took two people to handle them. And now today they are down to 50lbs.

Interviewer: Do you remember the value of the land or farm? How much an acre cost, an acre with buildings and an empty acre?

Jim Mischler: I don’t know what an acre would cost. A lot of the land around this area was bought for less then $2,000.00. You know in the ‘40’s, ‘50’s.

Interviewer: Do you remember from the ‘20’s or ‘30’s? I know you were a young child, do you remember though maybe what one of your parents would have said, either of you, the price of property or land?

Jim Mischler: Well property was real cheap but they were having a hard time paying for what they had. I mean it was just trying to survive back then.

Interviewer: Anything about household goods, things for the home inside, furniture. I know they didn’t have appliances but commodities that you needed for a home. Did the furniture come locally, was it made by hand, or did you go to a store to purchase these furniture items?

Lillian Mischler: I think that a lot of the furniture that I had as a child was something that my parents received from their parents; from one generation to the next. When my mother passed away, a lot of her furniture went to her grandchildren, they refinished them, and they are using it today. So, it’s really antiques. I know Jim’s mom got some furniture from her sister, Aunt Vera.

Jim Mischler: Where did they purchase their davenports? Probably in Erie.

Interviewer: Would you have anything more to add about that, property values or anything like that before we move on? Any other information about farm values. You were mentioning that people were having a hard time holding on to what they had. Anything about the depression or the early part of the war, holding on to land.

Jim Mischler: Well yeah they had quite the struggle in the early ‘30’s after the depression ended just to hold on to things. A lot of people left and went to town to get jobs because they couldn’t survive, you know.

Interviewer: Anyone that you know personally within this Franklin Township area or did you all look out for each other and kind of help everyone to hold on? Anyone that you remember that had to leave because they lost their farm or they foreclosed or anything?

Jim Mischler: I remember them talking but I can’t remember any names.

Interviewer: Can you tell me what jobs you held during the years that you lived in this area other than farming? Were there any outside jobs and did you have to leave the township to pursue those jobs?

Jim Mischler: Well yeah, when we were first married I worked in Girard in a shop for 3 years and then I worked construction for a few years and then I went back to working on the farm and I have been there ever since.

Interviewer: Do you remember, even though it was just a brief time in your life, what the rate of pay was for various jobs that either of you might have had?

Jim Mischler: Well yeah when I started a job in Girard I started at $1.05 an hour, which wasn’t much but it was more than what my father started out at. He worked at the Tannery in probably the early 20’s and he worked 9 hours a day 54 hours a week, he walked 4 miles a day and then he got in the bobsled and then rode the rest of the way to the Tannery and then he came back home and helped with the chores at night. But anyway, he worked 54 hours a week and got $21.60 a week.

Interviewer: What’s the value per hour? What would that be?

Jim Mischler: I’m thinking like 23 cents something like that.

Interviewer: So he worked at the Girard tannery?

Jim Mischler: Yup

Interviewer: Did he work there the entire time he farmed?

Jim Mischler: No, no he worked there for a couple of years.

Interviewer: You don’t remember the years, were you were a young child then a teenager?

Jim Mischler: No that was before I was even born.

Interviewer: Mrs. Mischler, do you have any information about employment that you had?

Lillian Mischler: A dollar an hour was the most that I ever made.

Interviewer: Doing what sort of work?

Lillian Mischler: I took care of a couple, at one time, for probably 3 or 4 years and another time, well I worked for Russell Standard and I don’t think that I got more than a dollar an hour. I did secretarial work there, (Jim Mischler: Yeah you did) not much more than that honey, maybe about a $1.50.

Jim Mischler: Yeah but that was about 35 years ago.

Lillian Mischler: Yeah, Yeah

Interviewer: Were there any Civil War or World War I veterans still living in Franklin Township during your early years? Do you remember as a child, either one of you, listening to stories or someone passing on stories of veterans? And who were they, their names, and did they leave a lasting impression on you? Do you remember anything, Civil or World War I?

Jim Mischler: Well there was, I mean I had some relation that was in the Civil War. Of course they weren’t living. One of them died in the service, he was wounded and died from his wounds, from the Mischler Family.

Lillian Mischler: And that goes back to what, 1862 something like that.

Jim Mischler: Something like that. Mr. Weigel, down the road, was in WWII and he worked as a mechanic on the airplanes and I remember him telling about how the planes were shot up and they would be brought back and then they had to repair them. And after they repaired them, they would have to fly them back to the front lines. So, your life depended on your ability to do a good job repairing them because he had to fly them back. He didn’t fly them in the fighting but he had to repair them and fly them back to the front line.

Interviewer: Any other memories of any war veterans that you know of, that your family talked about?

Jim Mischler: Most my memories are on WWII Vets.

Interviewer: World War I no one talked about?

Jim Mischler: Yeah there was, I had an Uncle in WWI and he had been gassed which affected him physically his face and some volume to talk. You know they used a lot of German warfare in World War I.

Interviewer: So his face was disfigured?

Jim Mischler: Yeah and it bothered him to talk.

Lillian Mischler: Was that your Uncle Sam?

Jim Mischler: No that was Paul’s son Aaron. That would have been my Great Aunt’s husband.

Interviewer: Any other information on that topic? When you were talking about churches before, you were talking about the Greek Orthodox you went to, and the weather was bad. Do you remember if they were circuit riders or were they single pastors that remained full time and if so, do you remember a name, and did you attend here? And what was the name of your church?

Jim Mischler: The Eureka Church, and the one at Franklin Center, and then of course the Francis Church.

Lillian Mischler: Was there anymore than the three, that you can remember.

Jim Mischler: Not that I can remember in the township. I don’t remember any circuit riders.

Interviewer: And where did you attend?

Jim Mischler: Well I attended Franklin Center Church.

Interviewer: What affiliation was this church?

Jim Mischler: Well it was Methodist. It was two churches combine at one time.

Lillian Mischler: It was United Brethren and United Methodist. Well I guess that it wasn’t United Methodist it was just Methodist Church but then the two combined and then it became United Methodist. And it’s still there today at Franklin Center. And that was the Union Church that I had talked about early at Franklin Center. And I don’t know what the church at Eureka Church was. Do you? What denomination it was. I don’t know.

Jim Mischler: I think that that was Methodist, but I don’t know.

Interviewer: What did you do for fun growing up or as young adults, childhood, and teenagers as of young adults?

Jim Mischler: Of course, childhood, most of the fun was in the wintertime probably sled riding and stuff and hills. You would build a go-devil and go out on the banks. Now a go-devil we took a barrel stave, you would nail a 2x4 on it and put a seat on the top of that, and you just held on to that and picked up your feet and down the hill you went.

Lillian Mischler: You could get going pretty fast.

Jim Mischler: Yeah and of course we used to sled ride on the roads because there wasn’t that much traffic on them then.

Lillian Mischler: We would play games in the snow, Fox and Geese. That was a big circle we made in the snow and then you would have branches coming off from there and then in the center was a free place. If you got there then no one could catch you and then you ran these paths, it was like a spoke of a wheel is what it was really like. We played that. Of course, we always had forts for snowballs. I think probably the best was probably the sled riding. Jim had horses too. He would go horseback riding.

Interviewer: Were there special gatherings like fairs, festivals you know like what they do for churches or for other reasons that you remember right here in the Franklin Township?

Lillian Mischler: Yeah, I remember at school they always had a Christmas program. Each of the schools would have separate and then there was a town hall at Franklin Center. And then we would go there and all the schools would meet there we would each show a part of our play or something. The ladies had ladies aid also, once a month they would cook all this food, and the farmers and school kids would come in and feast! I can remember when Jim and I first started going together. When we were going to Edinboro to school he had a car, he had a Chevy and he would take his friend Jack Sheffer and we had two friends in the neighborhood, my sister and I, and we had the Joan and Evelyn Felege and his sister Janet and he would haul us all to football games and basketball games. And then down in Girard, we were just talking about it the other day, there was a place this man had a dairy place and they would come out and serve you our by your car. What was that place called?

Jim Mischler: Taft’s Drive In

Lillian Mischler: Taft’s Drive In. And in the back part of this, he had a dance hall and we would dance. And that would be in the early 50’s. That was fun.

Interviewer: Were there annually fairs for some reason in this little area?

Lillian Mischler: Oh honey, the game farm.

Jim Mischler: Oh yeah I would like to tell you about the game farm that they had up here. The Erie County Game Commission, they had a game farm up on the corner where Dennis Howard lives, they raised pheasants up there, and then they let them out. And well anyhow, they had a gathering in the fall. Well anyhow, 1941 was the last one that they had. And there were 10,000 people there. Can you imagine, 10,000 people in Franklin Township? That is a pretty historical event for Franklin Township, according to what the article in the paper said. And anyhow, September 8, 1941 was the last one that they ever had. The state police said that there were 3500 cars, so that’s how they estimated the 10,000 people. They estimated 3500 cars parked in the fields there. They used the Howard farm and our farm and they would take and have these coon dog trials. They would take the coon, put it in a bag, take it out, drag it around in the woods, and put it up a tree. And then they would take these coon dogs and people would bet on which one would find the coon first. And they had different classes of them and then whoever’s dog won and came in different place. And then they had pistol shoots. I can remember they had brought an airplane and this guy comes out in a parachute and he was supposed to land on the grounds there, but there was just a little breeze that day and the parachutes that they had back in 1941 you couldn’t guide them like the ones you have today and instead of landing on the fair grounds he landed over on 98 and he was kicking because there were power lines there and he was trying to miss them. I can remember that.

Interviewer: If we could find out about government and politics, do you know the road supervisors and what were the conditions of the roads? Who were the constables and school directors, justices?

Jim Mischler: Well I talked about the supervisors back years ago.

Lillian Mischler: Oh yeah wasn’t that Paul Howard, didn’t he run for supervisor? No, it was for the county commissioner. That was in the paper where it talks about this the game farm there. There was a picture of him and I hadn’t realized that Paul Howard had run for political office.

Jim Mischler: Some of the early supervisors; John Gnagi, Roy Nims, Don Netzler, but back in the earlier days, the township didn’t have a whole lot of equipment. They had a pull type grader, used mostly king drags and they would pull that around with a tractor to grade the roads. And for snow removal all they had was a cleat track tractor at one time with a big V-blade on it and so the roads didn’t get plowed much in the winter so you got by the best you could.

Lillian Mischler: But Jim and I had come across some papers a few years back, and his grandfather, Grandpa John, the farmers would go out and repair the roads and they would pay their taxes off that way.

Jim Mischler: They would give you so much for working with horses and grading the roads.

Lillian Mischler: I found that interesting. I can remember when I was young, our neighbor down the road, Frank Rouse, he had a big round wooded, I don’t know what you would call that, they would roll the roads with that in the spring to pack it down. A roller I guess you would call it.

Interviewer: Do you have any particular political affiliation? Did they at the time, your parents, and talk about politics, as a child, or maybe from a generation before you or passed down. Anything that stands out in your mind?

Lillian Mischler: My parents didn’t talk much about politics. My mother always advised me, you don’t talk about religion and you don’t talk about politics. But then as I got older, I got interested in politics. But I guess that that was kind of their theory.

Jim Mischler: I don’t remember too much about politics.

Lillian Mischler: I suppose more in the town of Erie you know people running for office. It didn’t seem at that time a big thing in the country

Interviewer: What about the current President?

Jim Mischler: Well when Roosevelt was in and then he died and Truman took over during the war.

Lillian Mischler: And I can remember during World War II, as a child, my mother would put dark curtains up against the windows because they would have air raids and they didn’t want any lights. And I can also remember my dad worked in Erie at Forge and Steel during the war and they painted their windows like a green color because they had to work third shift and then the lights wouldn’t show through that.

Jim Mischler: This is another thing, it’s not politics, but during WWII we had an observation post on the farm which consisted of people would come out and watch the planes and with binoculars and stuff and anytime they spot a plane they went in and used the telephone and they would tell them what kind of plane, what direction it was headed, how many engines did it have, how big the plane it was and they did that in the summer months.

Lillian Mischler: World War II, of course I can’t remember that was ‘45 it was over. We came over in 1940, I was probably about three and a half at the time, and then going to school, I can remember that everyone was involved in that war. We used to take scrap metal to school, we would go and pick milkweed pods, as a school group during the day, and they would use that for the silk in the parachute. It seemed like though I was very young at the time probably six or seven, it made a big impression on you.

Interviewer: Do you know if your roads had changed names? Like at the end of the road if it intersected with another road, it turned into something else. If you could mention those names. It’s part of your road history.

Lillian Mischler: Francis Road used to be called Jackson Road. And I don’t know when that changed to be Francis Road. And 98 used to be Falls Road. Why don’t you tell her about that?

Jim Mischler: Then they called this Falls Road and then it’s changed to Francis Road. Over on Townline Road it’s now Fry Road. Of course, all the towns had a Townline road and that made it very confusing. I don’t remember some of these names. Like Ivoray Road over there used to be Population Road.

Interviewer: Why was route 98…?

Jim Mischler: Well where we lived, the farm, that was Route 98. In the 1920’s, they changed and put the 98 over and cut a new path through there and eliminated those two bridges.

Lillian Mischler: And cut through some of their property. They had property on the other side of 98 and then Ralph his father sold that property to a neighbor on that side there. Most of the roads are named after the families. What was that corner up there, what was the name of that?

Jim Mischler: Yeah that’s Eureka Corners but that used to be Mischler Corner years ago. See that’s when my Great Grandfather lived up there, when they came here they settled there. Some of the old maps listed it as Mischler Corner.

Interviewer: What date would possibly be for that name? What year for Mischler Corner? 18…

Jim Mischler: They moved there in 1863, I think. So, the 1880’s they were up there.

Interviewer: Do you remember natural disasters from the time you were a child up to adult and do you remember your parents talking about natural disasters that may have occurred before your time that remained on the topic of discussion when everyone sat down and talked.

Lillian Mischler: I can remember when my father, he was probably in his early 20’s, he talked about having a drought. He said that it was so bad, he didn’t farm for himself he worked for another farmer, that the farmers went to town and bought two rakes and they went out and raked by hand the straw in the field to get every bit that they could. That was a very poor year. In the winter of 1945, we got snowed in and we were snowed in all winter. And my mother was pregnant for my youngest sister and my dad; he thought that the roads should be plowed out so he tried to get something done. And he even went into Erie they had the Erie County Commissioners and try to get something done with the roads. Of course, they just didn’t have the equipment, but of course, when they found out that my mother was pregnant, I can remember, they sent an airplane in and it landed over here in the field, just checking in on my mother. Of course, she didn’t have my younger sister until June and this was probably in January. I can remember walking to school that winter and we were walking over this car that was covered with snow and we didn’t even realize until early spring when it started to melt off then and then, well that’s the only thing that I can remember and that was in ’45. Jim remembers people getting stranded and his mother taking them in.

Jim Mischler: We’d get a lot of boarders, because my dad worked for the state and when people would get stranded in the snowstorms we might have them for a week or so before they get cleared out. I know in the winter of ’45, dad worked for the state, and some of these back roads they opened up, it was February before they got them opened up and people were saying, “Oh we can have our Christmas now”, in Feb. you know. But as far as natural disasters, I don’t remember hearing about tornados or anything as you do now.

Lillian Mischler: I can remember one time as a young child, we had a swimming hole down here, and it must have been before my younger sister was born and my mother and my older sister and I were down there and the color got really weird, it had a yellow look to it and my mom said that we should head home and I did see one of those funnel clouds but it didn’t come down it stayed up.

Interviewer: It must have been humid weather then like the summer or something. What ethnic backgrounds do you remember from around here? People who settled here what ethnicity were they?

Jim Mischler: The majority of them were Slovak when we were younger, some Austria, a few from Germany, according to census a lot of them were just Pennsylvania farmers is what they called them, we had some from Ohio.

Lillian Mischler: We had some from Russia too. Burens were from Russia.

Jim Mischler: I think that the majority of them were Slovak around the 1900’s.

Interviewer: Do you remember any diseases, childhood illnesses, and people dying at a young age, adults or children? What was the nature of their illness, what caused the death? Where did people bury their loved ones that passed away?

Lillian Mischler: We have a cemetery up here where I had gone to school, Francis. Francis School had sat in front of the cemetery. I don’t remember people dying. We had mumps, measles and the chicken pox, the usual. But before then, I can remember a friend of mine, that he had known of children that had died from typhoid fever and I guess even adults too. He knew of families. I personally didn’t.

Jim Mischler: Well there were a lot of children that died young. I don’t from what. A lot of people would loose 3 or 4 kids before they…which is really hard on them you know. Well even adults didn’t have the medication and stuff. Like my Grandmother died at 48 with a gall bladder. She had a gall bladder operation. I mean usually that’s not too serious of an operation.

Lillian Mischler: His Grandmother, Grandma Grace Mischler, she had an operation on the kitchen table up at the farm. And I would say that the doctor probably came from Edinboro because we didn’t have any local doctors.

Interviewer: And she got up off of that kitchen table?

Jim Mischler: Well yeah she lived to be 98 almost 99.

Interviewer: We have five minutes left. We have answered all the questions. Is there anything that you would like to add that we might have missed?

Lillian Mischler: I can remember Jim’s dad talking about raising potatoes and he took a truckload of potatoes to Pittsburgh and they flooded in Pittsburgh after he had left them off and he never did get paid for them. He went through all that work. It wasn’t a laughing matter. Things like that happen though.

Jim Mischler: My dad used to furnish hay for Sanitary Dairy, for the horses that they delivered the milk, the horse from the wagon to town and haul hay in there and I can remember him telling about the New York Lunch there on Parade Street, he could get five hamburgers or five hot dogs for a quarter, which ever one you wanted.

Lillian Mischler: A quarter! Can you imagine that? The one thing that I want to say is that I think that I grew up at the best time in history as a child. The three things that you thought of and that was important to you was: your home, school and church. You weren’t involved in anything else. We had a lot of fun outside; we really loved nature. I think that it was a good time, a really good time. It didn’t seem like we had all the tragedy, although we did know about World War II, you weren’t bombarded every night by tragedy on the news.

Jim Mischler: There were a couple fellows left in the area, named Fred and Ed Cole. Their home was on skids so they moved it where they wanted with their horses. They lived at Devils Backbone for a while, they lived up here across from the Buchos and my Granddad had sold them 10 acres in the back west corner of the property. They lived there for a while, cleared the ground. And when I go back there in the spring to fix the fence, there are still the flowers that they planted and a big pile of stone there where they cleared the ground. Ed lived to be in his 90’s and Fred lived into his late 80’s and they ate lard no butter or anything. They cut wood with a bucksaw. I don’t know how they had any elbows after those years.

Lillian Mischler: What did the one brother say to the other brother, he was the boss? He was the older one.

Jim Mischler: He ordered him around, he’d tell him how to work and he kept going pushing the wheelbarrow and hauling the equipment.

Interviewer: What was their nationality? Would you remember?

Jim Mischler: It’s in the survey; I’ll look to see if it tells.

Jim Mischler: I don’t really know what else to say to end.

Lillian Mischler: Just thank you for the opportunity to share some of the history and I think that it’s great and I hope that maybe someday somebody will sit down and write a book about all of this. It would be really nice.

Interviewer: Thank you both.