GRACE HORN PIEPER
Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: February 19, 2003
Interviewer: O.K. We start with giving your full name and spelling it.
Grace Pieper: Grace Pieper
Interviewer: And what’s your maiden?
Grace Pieper: Horn
Interviewer: How old are you and what is your birth date?
Grace Pieper: I’m 91 and I was born on 12/11/11. [December 11, 1911]
Interviewer: Tell me where all you’ve lived in Franklin Township?
Grace Pieper: I lived at down on Eureka Rd. which we always called it a mile and a half from here because of the school over here. It was it where Liana’s Camp Ground is.
Interviewer: When did you live on Eureka Rd., what years?
Grace Pieper: Well I was born there and I lived there until after I was married. We lived in Erie then.
Interviewer: Until around 1935?
Grace Pieper: We were married in ’34 and probably by ’35 we were in Erie, I am not just certain on that, because we lived out there for probably 6 months and my husband got laid off of work and we came back and lived with my folks for a while and then we went back to Erie again. As far as time wise, I don’t know.
Interviewer: And then, you moved back here?
Grace Pieper: We lived in Erie until ’44 then, and then we moved back here. We bought this place and moved here, on Crane Rd.
Interviewer: I think we are going to focus on your childhood and your place on Eureka.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about what your home was like as growing up. How was your home heated?
Grace Pieper: Wood stove.
Interviewer: How many did you have?
Grace Pieper: Well when I was young, I think we lived practically in one room only it was fairly large and I think the only heat we had in there at that time was our cook stove, which you cooked, you baked, you did everything with it. Our bedrooms were off from that, but my Grandfather lived with us and he was, well I don’t know how to explain it. Instead of a bedroom this little room was right off of the main room and there was just about room enough for the bed. It was an old-fashioned rope bed and you used straw ticks and feather ticks and such as that, not mattresses. As long as he lived, that’s where he slept. I don’t even remember whether there was a curtain across that they pulled. That was where he always slept. We didn’t sleep there but he did.
Interviewer: When did you get inside water?
Grace Pieper: Had a well and we carried water.
Interviewer: How far away was your well?
Grace Pieper: The well that we used for the barn was down a little ways…but our drinking water we carried from across the road. The neighbors across the road had a real good well on their back porch and we carried water from over there. When we done washing we carried it from our back well and down by the barnyard. There was a well in the front yard and the only way you got it out of there was to bail it out.
Interviewer: So you had a couple wells?
Grace Pieper: We had two wells. Then later, my folks had another well drilled and that was just across the driveway, which wasn’t very far. Eventually they must have had that put into the house.
Interviewer: Did the house have inside water when you lived there?
Grace Pieper: No, I don’t think so.
Grace Pieper: You warmed that on the stove. The kitchen stove had a reservoir on the end, and you kept that full so that you always had some warm water.
Interviewer: What about toilets?
Grace Pieper: You went outside to the little building.
Interviewer: Do you remember when you got electricity?
Grace Pieper: They didn’t have electricity when I left there and I don’t just remember when they got it.
Interviewer: How did they light?
Grace Pieper: Oil lamps. A few weeks ago, we had to light the oil lamps and I said to my daughter, I said, “How in the wide world did we ever see?” Because, that’s all you had, oil lamps and lanterns. The men took the lanterns to go to the barn to do the chores.
Interviewer: What about a telephone?
Grace Pieper: We didn’t have a telephone.
Interviewer: Do you remember who got the first electric around?
Grace Pieper: I really don’t. The first telephone on that road, Eureka Rd. down that way, was across the road from my folks. Anyone in that neighborhood would have to went there for a telephone, to use their phone.
Interviewer: And who was that?
Grace Pieper: Albert Huyck. And then up on this road, I don’t know just which house it was; it might have been this one down next-door here. The people their name was Lawrence, Dean and Louisa Lawrence, they had a telephone. There might have been another one or two on this road but as a child, I didn’t know.
Interviewer: What about a radio?
Grace Pieper: We didn’t have radio. First radio I ever heard was an uncle of mine came from Florida and he came to my uncles and we all went over there and it was over towards McLane. He had this radio that he hooked up to his car and then they opened the window and I think he could put it in the window or through the window and I think that was the first radio that I heard.
Interviewer: Do you remember anyone when you were a kid having a radio?
Grace Pieper: No, not while I was a child. I don’t know what President it was that spoke and we went somewhere to hear this President speak on a radio, but I don’t even remember where it was.
Interviewer: How old were you then?
Grace Pieper: I was probably, I just can’t remember the time where we went and how come. The first radio that we had of our own, my husband wanted to hear a boxing match. Who was that famous one? I can’t remember his name right now. He wanted to hear it. We lived in Erie at that time and he went down to the store and wanted to buy one. He wanted to buy it on thirty days so that he could build his credit. They said, “Well you can have it tomorrow.” He said, “If I can’t have it tonight, I’m not going to buy it.” Well they went to the office and soon they sold him the radio.
Interviewer: What about washing machines?
Grace Pieper: As a child we did all of our laundry on a washboard. Then later, mother got a wash machine that had a gasoline motor under it.
Interviewer: Was that when you were still living there?
Grace Pieper: Yes. Well then, I don’t know how she…it must be it didn’t work anymore, of course you know how motors don’t always work. Anyway, we moved to town, my husband bought a washing machine for me. Well then how did that happened? We had to go back home. We went back home and we took it back out in the country. So then, they put a motor under that for a while.
Interviewer: What about refrigerators?
Grace Pieper: When we first lived in Erie, we had an icebox. Well, that’s a long time ago. We got our refrigerator and when we moved from Cherry St. down to 21st St. and that would have been about, probably 1938 or 1939 some time in there.
Interviewer: Cars and Trucks? Who do you remember having the first automobiles around?
Grace Pieper: Our neighbors had cars before my folks.
Interviewer: Who were your neighbors?
Grace Pieper: My neighbors was, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Huyck, they lived across the road, Mr. and Mrs. Krautter, lived up Eureka, and then Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, lived on up further. When we went down the other way, Sundback’s lived on the other side of the road and Will Uhr lived down there, Andy Ray lived on that road too; he was a bachelor I guess you could say. He was foreign but he was a nice old guy. He used to come up and visit with my Dad.
Interviewer: Do you know where he was from?
Grace Pieper: No, I don’t know.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about your family members. How many siblings do you have?
Grace Pieper: How many do I have? I have William.
Interviewer: When were they born too?
Grace Pieper: William was born July 19, 1908. Then there was Henry, he was born February 11, 1916 [1910], and I was born December 11, 1911. I had a brother Clede and he was born in March of 1914. My sister was born in March of 1916. [Editor’s note—not on video, Grant was born in 1920.]
Interviewer: Who’s your sister?
Grace Pieper: Lula.
Interviewer: Whom did she marry?
Grace Pieper: She married Henry Casper of Erie. Then there was Grant, he was born December 25, 1920 and he died when he was four years old. He had appendicitis and it broke. So, that was our family.
Interviewer: How many of your siblings are still living?
Grace Pieper: My oldest brother is living in Florida but his memory is deteriorating. You hate to say it he’s losing it. I have this sister in Erie and my brother Henry’s wife is still living. She’s in the Manor in Edinboro. She’s 96 and doing quite well other than, she can’t walk around.
Interviewer: What’s her name?
Grace Pieper: Well, her real name is Gladys, but she always went by Connie to us. Connie Horn.
Interviewer: How about your parents? What are their names?
Grace Pieper: My father’s name was Herman and my mother was Lena.
Interviewer: What was her maiden name?
Grace Pieper: Fetteroff.
Interviewer: Any idea when they were born?
Grace Pieper: My dad was born in 1876 and he died in 1962. My mother was born in 1884 and she died in 1978.
Interviewer: Now, were both of them born around here?
Grace Pieper: Dad was born right here down on the farm. My grandfather, what he did was, he lived in, he came over from Germany and he locate in Girard and he met his wife, there in Girard. She worked at the same farm as he did. Then they married and they got this farm down here, and they don’t tell how they got up here, but my mother always told me that when the first child was born he (my grandfather) carried a cradle all of the way from Girard up to the farm. Now, why he wouldn’t have had some kind of transportation, I don’t know. They had children and they lost 4 children in three weeks to Black Diphtheria. They talked about the snow was so deep that it was clear to the backs of the oxen. So, he must have had oxen. I know my dad had some oxen, but that was way back, not while I was growing up. They had horses.
Interviewer: You mentioned the Black Diphtheria, when was that?
Grace Pieper: Well, I had these papers because I was wondering when my uncle was born. My father’s oldest sister, she was born in 1860.
Interviewer: What was her name?
Grace Pieper: Anna Strobel. Her husband was Leo and they lived down on Silverthorn. But anyway, these four that died, I figured it must have been about 1862, 1864, 1866, and 1868. That must have been the years because uncle Lewis Horn was born in 1871 and in January and February of 1871, these 4 girls they didn’t live. They said that Uncle Lewis was born after these girls died. They said his tongue split from the fever I suppose. I suppose it was a fever.
Interviewer: You mentioned your grandparents. What were your grandfather and grandmother’s names?
Grace Pieper: My grandfather’s name was Christian Horn and her name was Georgina.
Interviewer: What was her maiden name?
Grace Pieper: Well, Frobosen.
Interviewer: He met her when he came over you said?
Grace Pieper: Yes, but she was from Germany too. Her name had been, she was a native of one of the German states, but which one, was uncertain.
Interviewer: But, you know where he came from?
Grace Pieper: He was born October 16, 1830 at 7:00 in the morning at Hersfeld, it tells the population of the town even. They must of found it out at the, I would go to Erie to find out something. The city in the former Prussian Providence of Shesse-Nassau, in what is now West Germany. He also lived in and near the city of Hamburg. His life in Germany, concluded that he was an army deserter. I can remember, I think it was my brothers telling that though, that he got out of there so that he wouldn’t have to go into the service over there. It must have been bad. He settled in Girard in 1856 and on a farm near Girard and he worked for a Mr. John Battles. He met a young lady who also worked on the farm and married her on March 5, 1858.
Interviewer: What do you remember about your grandparents?
Grace Pieper: I just remember my grandfather, my grandmother was, she died when, after my father was born, but I don’t know how long after. My dad was born in 1876 and she died in 1879. Now they lived here on Eureka and they are buried down at Francis Cemetery in the corner of the township.
Interviewer: What do you remember about your grandfather?
Grace Pieper: The most I remember about him, he had a bad rupture and he didn’t go out and work outside, farm work or anything and in the winter time he sat by the stove, one side of the stove and the dog laid behind him. The only time he went anywhere he wouldn’t let dad take him with the team or anything or the horses, but he would walk to Franklin Center to get himself tobacco. He smoked a corncob pipe and so he would go down the road and then we would watch for him to be coming back. That’s the most I remember of him.
Interviewer: Did you have any other relatives in the township?
Grace Pieper: Uncle Lewis (my dad’s brother) lived that in the township. Well, he didn’t live in the township all of the time, because he lived up on 6N, and it’s that way from Route 98, so he wouldn’t have been our township, he would have been in the maybe Elk Creek, I don’t know. But then he moved down on Eureka Rd. below Old State St. and he lived there quite a few years, but when I was really smaller he lived up here, because he used to come down and he’d come down in the morning and he’s sharpen the saws, and him and my dad would go to the woods to cut wood. I remember us going to his place in the summer and he took us down, we walked down a road to a woods to look for chestnuts. Up there, but down here, well we went at times I guess but not real often. Back then you didn’t go anyplace too often because you had to get the horses out.
Interviewer: Was your uncle married?
Grace Pieper: Oh, yes.
Interviewer: Who was his wife?
Grace Pieper: His wife was Mary and her last was Huyck before she married Uncle Lewis Horn.
Interviewer: Did they have children?
Grace Pieper: Two.
Interviewer: Do you remember their names?
Grace Pieper: Earl and Eva [James].
Interviewer: Did Eva get married?
Grace Pieper: Yes, she had one daughter, Nettie Behr. They must have got a divorce because she married another man, but they are all gone.
Interviewer: Did you used to visit a lot with you cousin?
Grace Pieper: Just once in a while you got together; of course, she moved away, Eva did. I just kind of think that she married somebody and they road motorcycles. I don’t know any reasoning on there not living together.
Interviewer: When you were young, who were your friends?
Grace Pieper: Neighbor children on our road. We walked to school together and then we walked to church together. There was Eureka Church up on this corner (Eureka & Crane).
Interviewer: What were some of their names?
Grace Pieper: Well, there was the Hayes girls and family there. There were the Krautter girls and they had a couple boys, three boys. The Huyck's lived across the road from us. A lot of times they would come and we would play hide-and-seek.
Interviewer: Do you remember their first names, the ones that you played with most?
Grace Pieper: Well, the Krautter girls were Minnie and Pauline who I played with mostly. There was an older girl, Ernestine but she was quite a bit older. And then the Huyck girls, I didn’t play with either one of them too much, the older one was older and the younger one was my sister’s age. They played together.
Interviewer: What were their names?
Grace Pieper: Bernece Huyck and then she married Forest Allen, there was the younger one that was Iona, and she married Rekitt (Albert). He’s gone but she’s still in a home in Erie.
Interviewer: Do you remember any of your parents’ friends?
Grace Pieper: Mostly they gathered neighborhood groups. My father always made maple syrup and I can remember they would invite all the neighbors and then they had what they called a “sugar off”. You boiled the syrup down until it made sugar and then everybody got a little bowl of this thick syrup and then they stirred it in a little sauce dish and then make sugar and eat it then.
Interviewer: What would you say is your fondest childhood memory?
Grace Pieper: I guess the main thing was when I had time that I could go out and play because I had to help wash dishes. When I went to school, I came home at night and had to wash breakfast and lunch dishes, helped get supper and then washed dishes again. So, when I washed dishes, then I didn’t have much time to go out and play.
Interviewer: What’s your fondest Christmas memory and Christmas gift?
Grace Pieper: Well, when we were children our grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side lived in Michigan, Gladwin, Michigan. They used to send a little box and there were five and six of us kids, we each got a little something. I don’t even remember what it was but we couldn’t wait to get that box. We were never allowed to have it open until Christmas morning. My mother’s aunt, she sent out some Christmas tree trimmings. You don’t see quite so much of them anymore, this was a fancy, it collapsed and I don’t know how to explain it but anyway, mother hung it on the Christmas tree and we would stand and look at that. On Christmas, we had real lit candles that we put on the tree, but they were only lit about once and we had to wait for dad to come from the barn, and he always got a bucket or two of water around in case that the tree would start to burn. They would light the candles so that we could see the candles on the tree lit. That was when we were young.
Interviewer: You mentioned your mother’s parents being in Michigan. Did they live there all of the time or were they originally here?
Grace Pieper: She lived down here in Crossingville when she met my father. My father had some distant relatives down that way. I think that she met him at a party or something down there. He went down, I don’t know what kind of a party.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about your marriage now. Who did you marry?
Grace Pieper: I married Arthur Pieper.
Interviewer: Where did you meet?
Grace Pieper: His neighbor was going with one of the Krautter girls and so they asked me to go along to go with him. We went to Girard to a, I think that it was Fourth of July, anyways; they have a doings there on the street. We went down there to that. I think that I had seen him before that because we used to have parties up here from Eureka Church. We would go to those and sometimes he would be with the other young people.
Interviewer: Was he from around here too?
Grace Pieper: Yes, his folks lived on Eureka, but about a half of a mile down from State Rd.
Interviewer: Do you remember their names?
Grace Pieper: Oh yes, because I married him! August Pieper and his wife was Mary.
Interviewer: Do you remember her maiden name?
Grace Pieper: Mathewson. They lived on Old State, over towards McLane, between Eureka and Silverthorn.
Interviewer: Did your husband have lots of siblings?
Grace Pieper: Just a sister and a brother, his twin brother and his older sister.
Interviewer: And what were their names?
Grace Pieper: Florence Pieper Hipple was his sister and Arnold was his brother.
Interviewer: Tell me about your wedding.
Grace Pieper: we left this part of the country and went to sister’s down at Titusville, stayed overnight, we went to Johnstown Pa, and we were married there by a former minister that used to preach up here.
Interviewer: Who was that?
Grace Pieper: Fuhrman his last name was.
Interviewer: Did you go on a honeymoon?
Grace Pieper: No, we drove back, stayed over night at his sisters and came on back home.
Interviewer: Now first where did you guys live before you moved on up to Girard?
Grace Pieper: We moved to Erie.
Grace Pieper: Well, we stayed at my folks but still we moved. Well, in the fall after he was laid off. That fall we dug potatoes for people and I picked grapes one time. I got enough to buy myself a coat, which was about eight dollars I think then.
Interviewer: O.K., Do you want to talk about your children?
Grace Pieper: Norma was born in 1936 and Dorothy was born in 1946. Just the two girls.
Interviewer: Did they marry?
Grace Pieper: Yes, Norma married Donald Lohr and Dorothy married Allen Carter.
Interviewer: Do any of them still live around here?
Grace Pieper: Dorothy lives over there in that house, just next door. Norma right now is staying with me. This is her trailer, down here on this side. So, I kept them home!
Interviewer: Well that’s good!
Grace Pieper: Well, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t think so because they have to wait on me!
Interviewer: Well they have to pay you back!
Grace Pieper: Is that it? Is that the payback?
Interviewer: Let’s talk about the schools in the township when you were a kid.
Grace Pieper: There were quite a few schools. There was Eureka; Townline, which was over on Fry Rd.; Silverthorn School; Franklin Center School; Mohawk School; Howard School; Francis School, which was at the Francis Cemetery; and then there was Goodban School; and then there was one that they called Shaffer; but I never knew of that school until after we moved here. My husband was on the school board, he had some books, and things and they were selling this schoolhouse. They were selling off the different ones in the township, or doing something with them whatever. Well, seemingly this land over here, half of the land belonged to this farm and half of it belonged to that one. So, they had to change their deeds and stuff. Well, this one fellow came from where this Schaeffer School was and he said there had been a school down there on his property. He figured that land should go back to his land. So, my husband came back over here because he was across the road here and he got a book that he had up in the attic and he got that book to prove to him something about that land. I see that it’s not marked on this map here and I didn’t even see a date on that map.
Interviewer: Do you know where that Schaeffer School was?
Grace Pieper: Well, it would have been down in here someplace (holding up a map).
Interviewer: Do you know the name of the road?
Grace Pieper: Well I think that it would have been on this road but I don’t know the name of it is because there is no name on it. (Mrs. Pieper hands the map to interviewer) They don’t seem to have any names on those roads.
Interviewer: Are you going to go through your teachers now?
Grace Pieper: Well, according to my report cards, and that’s a miracle. I had these old report cards in my trunk and they were in the attic and when our house burned, they threw the trunk out and it landed wrong-side-up in the backyard and after the fire my nephew, Lawrence Pieper, was down helping my husband gather out what they could. This trunk lay out in the backyard in the snow and he walked it in and put it down in the garage. Later I went through it and I had my report cards and some other things that we salvaged out of that.
Interviewer: When did your house catch on fire?
Grace Pieper: That was in 1982, January, one of the worst storms you have ever heard of, blowing, cold, terrible.
Interviewer: What caused it?
Grace Pieper: My husband had a chimney built on that side of the house and evidently the chimney cracked, and of course, the wind was coming right from that way and it went right through. Now the kitchen, I have pictures of that, in the back corner of the kitchen cupboards, they weren’t burnt but everything was black. The attic was above it that’s how they could get in it; I don’t know how they did it but anyway. There wasn’t only a small window.
Interviewer: Ok, so you have your teachers there.
Grace Pieper: First grade was Delbert Hayes and the second grade was Florence Hayes, and I don’t have third grade and I don’t third grades report card and I don’t have fourth grade either.
Interviewer: Now those Hayes’ were they the ones that lived that lived up the road from you?
Grace Pieper: No, they lived up on Crane Rd. Delbert and Florence were children of an Herb Hayes that lived at the corner of Silverthorn and Crane. And, fifth grade was a Mary Jenness no; that must have been fourth grade and fifth grade was Edith Freedman and sixth grade as Millie Payne and seventh grade we had Adeline [Adalina in 1920 Census] McCamman-Gifford and eighth grade, well, this Dorothy Lawrence was supposed to teach us school and she wasn’t quite 18 and they wouldn’t let her teach so then for a month or two Cecile Meacham taught. I think we had three teachers that year, because I think in the end Millie Payne finished the year out because during Christmas vacation, this Dorothy Lawrence got pneumonia and died. She was here, and I remember staying and helping her clean the schoolhouse because we were going to have a Christmas program. She should have probably been home instead of being at school because she passed away during Christmas vacation. So then, we had Cecile Meacham in the fore part of the year, Dorothy in the middle of the year until Christmas, and I think that it was Millie Payne that finished the year out. The school directors in 1924 were E.S. Washburn, L.T. Howard (that was Levi Howard), and Henry Albright and (he lived down not at this first house, but that second house down there) and Frank Rouse, and E.E. Wells (Wells lived at the corner of Eureka and Old State). Frank Rouse, I don’t know just where he lived, he used to haul cream, he used to come and gather the cream and take it to the…I don’t know where he took it to. They used to have a cheese factory over here on Ivoray, they could take milk over there, and then they would get the whey and bring back to feed the pigs. That was all done with horses; they gather milk, different ones drove.
Interviewer: Did you go to school after eighth grade?
Grace Pieper: I went to Edinboro to high school and then we went down to Edinboro on Sunday night and you roomed but you did your own cooking. You stayed there all week and on Friday nights your folks picked you up and we would came home, washed your clothes, and baked and cooked things to take back with you to have to eat, because you didn’t have facilities to bake with down there. You had an oil stove; back in them days, you didn’t have gas.
Interviewer: Did you graduate from Edinboro?
Grace Pieper: Yes.
Interviewer: Who would you say growing up was your best friend?
Grace Pieper: Well, Hazel Root was one of my best friends and she lived on this road. When we went to high school, she lived in the last farmhouse on this side of the road (Crane Rd. before you get to Eureka). Her and I went to school together over here too and we always went back and forth together.
Interviewer: Are any of your school friends still living?
Grace Pieper: A high school girlfriend (her and I roomed together in high school), she married and lived on Old State.
Interviewer: Who was that?
Grace Pieper: Thora Harris. She was Thora Blystone when she was going to school and she’s still living but she’s down in Hatfieldville [Hatfield] Pennsylvania.
Interviewer: Ok, let’s talk about farming.
Grace Pieper: My folks farmed with the horses.
Interviewer: What kind of crops did they have?
Grace Pieper: Well, we had the usual. One of the first things my dad planted was the potatoes. He always planted early potatoes, so we would have potatoes. That was usually on Good Friday, if at all possible, that was when he planted his potatoes. Now, it might have made a difference in some years because Easter kind of revolves. We always had corn, oats, and I think sometimes he planted wheat too. But, he didn’t have a big farm, probably 8-10 cattle, and then he had anywhere from 3-4 horses. I remember one though, that went out and fell on the ice, broke it’s hip, and dad had to get rid of it. As far as corn, they had to be hoed and we didn’t have a well, a cultivator you had one horse on it, but mostly you did a lot of your work with hoeing. Eventually he did get, where he could hook two horses on, a team on and cultivate the corn. That was better. I remember my brothers going down to hoe corn, to the field and they would be back every little while to get some water. My mother said, “I think you’re drinking more than you’re hoeing!”
Interviewer: Now did you sell anything that was grown, or dairy or anything? Or was it just for your own use?
Grace Pieper: Well, no. We had an apple orchard and dad used to take apples and potatoes and go to town.
Grace Pieper: No, he went clear to Erie with a team. That was a long cold trip in the wintertime.
Interviewer: Did you go on some of those trips?
Grace Pieper: One! I teased to go because all of the boys got to go and I didn’t get to go. So then, my dad took me once and I froze my toes. I still have a remembrance of that because sometimes they don’t want to act right.
Grace Pieper: We always had chickens, we always had pigs, and we always had sheep.
Interviewer: How many of each did you have? Did you have quite a few?
Grace Pieper: We must have had, I would think maybe 10-12 sheep at least, it couldn’t have been much more than that for the size of the place I remember my father had them in.
Interviewer: What did you do with the sheep? Did you sheer them?
Grace Pieper: Yes, and he sheered them in the spring and then he’d sell that wool and then he’d have that money to pay his taxes with.
Interviewer: Do you know where he sold the wool?
Grace Pieper: No, I really don’t. I think that he took it off to someplace. I believe there was somebody in Edinboro that he dealt with that took that though.
Interviewer: What about pigs and chickens? How many of those did you have?
Interviewer: Did you have a lot chickens?
Grace Pieper: Not a lot, no. Back then they set the eggs under the hens and that’s the way you raised your chickens, you didn’t go out and buy them like you do today. We probably had maybe 25; I don’t remember ever counting them!
Interviewer: And you mentioned that any of the equipment that you guys used was horse drawn?
Grace Pieper: Yes, eventually the neighbors got tractors around.
Interviewer: When was that?
Grace Pieper: I don’t remember which year they got them. The man across the road, him and another man that lived down Eureka, Fred Vogt and Albert Huyck, had a thrash machine they got. They went around thrashed for people. Then different neighbors got tractors and things. I can’t remember my dad having a tractor at all.
Interviewer: Was there a lot of sharing of equipment?
Grace Pieper: Well, you worked it out or they traded off. I know my dad was always working when they thrashed for the different neighbors. Wherever they put him, he got all of this dust from the thrash machine. I don’t know the details, it must have been in the mow where the straw was going or something because your grain came out one place and your straw went in another, somebody pitched the bails in.
Interviewer: Did you do your own butchering of meat?
Grace Pieper: Yes, my father did that. And that might have been done well; him and my brothers did it. Earlier than that I don’t remember just who.
Interviewer: How did you preserve the meat?
Grace Pieper: Well, my father had a smokehouse and we used to smoke the hams, I remember. When they butchered beef, my mother canned it. The bacon you grind it and put it in crocks to keep it and put the lard or the grease on it to keep it.
Interviewer: Did you do a lot of canning?
Grace Pieper: Yes, we canned.
Interviewer: What all did you can?
Grace Pieper: Well, corn and anything you could grow in the garden, if you had a good season for growing.
Interviewer: How big was you garden? Enough to keep you all fed, huh?
Grace Pieper: We didn’t starve to death that’s for sure. We all survived, but you used your own. I said he raised wheat and yes, he did because he took it to the mill and then he got flour. I don’t know whether they did it at the mill or whether they traded it. He always went and took this load of grain and he’d come back with flour and cornmeal and they had this big tin, like a drum only it was yeah high (hand gesture) and they put that flour in there up in the attic part of the house. That was your supply of flour and your cornmeal.
Interviewer: I have some different businesses here; tell me if you remember any of them.
Grace Pieper: Well, Franklin Center had the general store there, I remember that, but I know before, earlier they always talked about there was a post office there. There was a building there that they said had been the post office. I think they had different things around Franklin Center, but I didn’t remember them. Later in years, there was a feed mill in there but one of the men started that up. He was younger than I am but I don’t know when he passed away or why he passed away.
Interviewer: You mentioned the store at Franklin Center, was that Rodak’s at the time?
Grace Pieper: No, their name was Washburn. They had the store earlier and then they sold it to Rodak’s.
Interviewer: Do you know when that was?
Grace Pieper: No, not the exact time.
Interviewer: Was there anyplace else you went shopping?
Grace Pieper: Edinboro, you had your drugstore and there was a dry good store there too. There were different things in Edinboro.
Interviewer: We have this price on different commodities, but I imagine a lot of these you just had your own.
Grace Pieper: Yes, we never had bought bread. The only time you ever got that was when we went to Erie; my dad had a cousin out there that had a boarding house. It seemed like bought bread always tasted so good to you. Now we like to get back to homemade.
Interviewer: Do you remember what clothing was like? You mentioned buying a coat that was $8.00.
Grace Pieper: Oh, well that was after I was married. Before that, I don’t know what my folks paid for clothes. Mostly mother made our clothes. I know one time somebody had given her some jackets and she made jackets for my brothers. That was as they were growing up. But, when it came to buying them, I don’t remember what the prices were. Of course you did not get a new one every whipstitch either.
Interviewer: How about candy. Do you remember how much candy cost?
Grace Pieper: Mother stood on market for a while. She took butter, eggs, and stuff to market. She would come home with a little bag of candy; it would have chocolate cream chocolate drops. Our little brother that passed away he got to hand them out. Each one got one. I think it was about 10 cents worth. He always had to save one for the girl across the road.
Interviewer: Were there any store bought toys?
Grace Pieper: Well, I don’t where I got it from but I had a china head doll and my sister, who was four years younger took it and banged it on the sewing machine pedal (that was one of these sewing machines that you had to pedal them to make them go) and broke it. So, that ended my doll! I don’t know where my mother got it; maybe somebody gave it to her.
Interviewer: Do you remember farm or land values? How much did you buy this place here for?
Grace Pieper: This place we bought was about 42 Acres to start with. We paid $2,000 for it and that was in 1944.
Interviewer: What about furniture when you were younger, do you remember what prices of furniture were or household goods?
Grace Pieper: No and I don’t even remember after we were married and we finally bought a living set and a rug. But we were quite awhile, we wasn’t crowded like this! We rented a place and it had a living room, but not furniture.
Interviewer: What kind of jobs did you have through the years?
Grace Pieper: Before I moved into Erie I worked, one time I picked grapes. Before that, I had worked as doing housework and helping take care of children.
Interviewer: Around here?
Grace Pieper: Yes, I worked for Florence Swift while she was teaching school. I worked for another teacher Edith Freedman, only she wasn’t Freedman anymore, she was Lawrence, over to Albion. I took care of her boy while she was teaching. I worked for a lady in Fairview; I don’t remember how many kids they had, 3 or 4. I worked for another party in Erie (this was all before I was married).
Interviewer: This was back in the 1930’s. How did you get to work?
Grace Pieper: Somebody had to take me and then I would stay all week, wherever I worked.
Interviewer: What kind of pay did you get?
Grace Pieper: Minimum!!!! Well, three dollars a week and you got your room and board. Then the one place in Fairview, I got seven dollars, but you really earned it! It was an all day and sometimes half of the night or more job when you’ve got kids and the parents leave.
Interviewer: Do you remember any Civil War or World War I veterans that lived around here?
Grace Pieper: We had a couple men; Mary Jenness’ husband Andrew and his brother John. They lived on Eureka below us. They came back from the war, they came down I remember in their uniforms.
Interviewer: From World War I?
Grace Pieper: Yes. But, I don’t remember the stories or anything. Now they maybe told to my dad and some of them, but being a kid, I wasn’t around where they were that much probably.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about churches in the township.
Grace Pieper: There was Eureka Church. [At the corner of Crane Road and Eureka Road.] Eureka Church was a United Methodist. Franklin Center was a Lutheran Church and a Methodist, but I think it was Lutheran first because my dad went there to church, must have been before my mother and him was married. Now I don’t when this church was built, it was always up here from the time I remember.
Interviewer: That’s where you went to church?
Grace Pieper: That’s where I went; it was up here (hand gesture) [on the corner].
Interviewer: Do you remember any of the pastors?
Grace Pieper: No. I don’t remember. Fuhrman that I spoke of he was from up here. Another man came in there after him and I can’t remember what his name was.
Interviewer: What did you do for fun, recreation and entertainment when you got the chance?
Grace Pieper: (She laughed!) Well, we used to go to parties, but they were Sunday school parties as a rule. Young people, somebody would have them come to their house and you played games and what not. Of course, we always had to walk. That was down, a mile and a half from here. Most of your parties was either down here to Albrights (Henry Albright), or this next house down here, Lawrence’s (Dean Lawrence) lived there at that time.
Interviewer: What kind of church and school gatherings/activities did they have?
Grace Pieper: School activities, you always had the children learn poems or they put on little plays at Christmastime. And then they had “Box Socials”. The girls made the boxes and put food in them for two people and then the boys had to buy them. The boys always had somebody that they picked on. Then they would run their box up way high so they would have to pay a lot of money if they was wanting one special girl’s box. Then they had “Pie Socials” that they did that with too.
Interviewer: Did you do the “Box Socials”?
Grace Pieper: Oh, yeah!
Interviewer: Do you remember any other kind of church or school things?
Grace Pieper: Well we always had different things. Back when I was a kid they always had “Children’s Day” in church and that was when the children entertained the adults, with poems and songs. But I see they don’t seem to have them anymore.
Interviewer: Did you used to perform in those?
Grace Pieper: I guess I was along with the rest of them!
Interviewer: Was it fun?
Grace Pieper: I was always more bashful. I didn’t like to get up in front of the crowd.
Interviewer: What do you remember about politics and government?
Grace Pieper: I don’t remember too much. My dad was an auditor for the township. He was also, there was a fence built between two properties. There was a dispute among the two neighbors it joined. He used to have to go and help settle a dispute over where the line was. Now I don’t know what they called them. They probably had a name for them but I don’t know what it was.
Interviewer: Do you remember any of the road supervisors?
Grace Pieper: No that’s something I don’t remember.
Interviewer: What were the roads like?
Grace Pieper: Of course I know mostly about Eureka because that’s where we traveled. I can remember when school was out, one time, it was about the last day of school, it was in the spring and they were dragging the roads. The man down on our road, got his team and was dragging, they had this they pulled to smooth the roads. It was so nice to walk home on the nice smooth road. That road down there, the old Fords have different wheels of course than they do today, but if you got your front wheels in one set of ruts and your back wheels in another set of ruts, you were in problems. The ruts were deep, the wheels were smaller and taller, and sometimes they had problems getting through.
Interviewer: Did you have to get horses to pull you out?
Grace Pieper: I don’t remember them getting horses; I don’t know what they did. Mostly cars didn’t go in the wintertime. When the roads got bad, the car were put in the barn or the garage and left until spring. You didn’t drive cars on roads like you do today.
Interviewer: How did you get around in the winter?
Grace Pieper: You walked or took your horses. Down on Eureka Rd. one day when we were going home from school, the men of the road was coming up and shoveling wide enough for the sleigh and the team to come up through. The one time I was going home from a party, it must have been a January thaw, it was frozen solid and the sleighs had made solid tracks and your horse tracks. I slipped into one of them horse tracks and went down through and I had to walk the rest of the way home wet. That wasn’t any fun! That was the end of the party!
Interviewer: Do you remember any of the assessors or constables?
Grace Pieper: Mr. Albert Huyck was the constable and he lived across the road from us. He had to go one night, it was a chicken thief, and he was stealing chickens. They caught him; oh, it was scary to us kids, because he was taking his gun I guess and going. Of course as kids, you think about, "Oh! Someone is going to get shot!” But they didn’t.
Interviewer: Was the chicken thief a local?
Grace Pieper: I don’t know, I don’t think so.
Interviewer: Do you remember anyone from the township that went on to higher political office?
Grace Pieper: No, I don’t remember, but they could have.
Interviewer: Do you remember previous names of any of the roads?
Grace Pieper: They have one over here they called Foy, but I don’t remember a Foy Rd., but I think they meant Silverthorn. Then there was Townline Rd. which they call Fry now.
Interviewer: Do you know why they changed the name?
Grace Pieper: I don’t know.
Interviewer: Do you remember any major natural disasters?
Grace Pieper: No, I remember them telling about a tornado that went through.
Interviewer: Do you know when that was?
Grace Pieper: My husband talked about it quite a bit, and he was a little older than I. I don’t think it came through this part, I think it was down the road towards, more near where his folks lived.
Interviewer: Do you have any idea when that would have been?
Grace Pieper: No, I don’t have a year on that.
Interviewer: Do you remember any other ones (natural disasters)?
Grace Pieper: Well, the one they had in Albion here. That tornado, but that’s not too long ago.
Interviewer: How about bad winter storms? Do you remember any in particular?
Grace Pieper: 1944-45, we moved out here and the man told us, “Oh, they plow the roads, you can go through anytime.”
Interviewer: How did they finally plow the roads?
Grace Pieper: The Township had a V-plow, and that’s what they were coming up through with, but the men were shoveling ahead of that plow to get it through. We were, this storm came in on December 11, and we didn’t have our car out until the day before Christmas. They came through with that v-plow and we took the car. We had our car in the back yard, and we had shoveled to get it out and we finally got it out here. So when they came down the road. We took the car and went to Erie to get our daughters Christmas presents that we had stored in town, and came back and unloaded it. He took the car back to 98 and we never had the car back home until March.
Interviewer: You just walked down too it?
Grace Pieper: Yes, if you wanted to go someplace. He worked in Erie, so he walked everyday, unless there was another storm. But, 98 was even closed so that it was down 98 a ways from the corner. There was a car in there buried. We walked down to see it and there was just the corner of the top you could see. They finally got it out I guess.
Interviewer: Do you remember any immigrants in the township?
Grace Pieper: I don’t know exactly when they came. There were foreign, we called them foreign people, but they came either from Ohio or Pittsburgh or somewhere like that. I don’t know of anyone that came right directly from over across. My grandfather did but…
Interviewer: Now who were some of the foreigners that lived around here?
Grace Pieper: The Straka family that lived down here.
Interviewer: Do you know where they were from originally?
Grace Pieper: He worked in Pittsburgh and they had the farm up here.
Interviewer: Any others?
Grace Pieper: Well that one fellow that lived below us, and I don’t know where he came from.
Interviewer: Who was that?
Grace Pieper: Well we always called him Andy Ray.
Interviewer: Do you know why your grandfather came to Franklin Township?
Grace Pieper: No, I don’t know why he came up here. Probably, it was because the property was cheaper or something. He worked at Girard and the Girard area has better land than they do up here. We have more clay here.
Interviewer: Do you remember diseases that were prevalent during your childhood?
Grace Pieper: They always had measles, mumps, and chicken pox. One time there was a flu that went through, but there was only one boy, that lived up here, before you get to Eureka on Crane Rd. He died of it but other than that.
Interviewer: You don’t remember any other big epidemics?
Grace Pieper: Those were common, why if you didn’t have them, well you got them, all of those diseases. Then they got so that they quarantined you. If you were exposed to it, then you weren’t allowed to go to school or anything until after you came down with it then. If somebody in your family had gotten it.
Interviewer: Do you remember when that flu was that killed the boy?
Grace Pieper: Not specifically no. Well I was going to school, but I don’t know. He was probably 12 or 14.
Interviewer: Do you remember who he was?
Grace Pieper: His last name was Henry. I can’t even think what his name was. He had an older brother, but I don’t remember what this boy’s name was. He was more my brother’s age.
Interviewer: What else do you remember people dying from around here?
Grace Pieper: Nothing special, I think with older people it was old age. I often wonder now, if some of them that laid sick a long time, maybe they had cancer and no one knew what they had. That’s my thinking, I don’t know because I remember people, they were older, but they were laying. Somebody had to take care of them and so forth. I think it must have been old age or some disease that they didn’t really know what to do for.
Interviewer: Where were people buried in the township?
Grace Pieper: As far as our family, most of our family went down there to Francis Cemetery. Now there are people from around here that are buried in the Edinboro Cemeteries. There is an old cemetery in Edinboro and then there is a new one. I think that’s where most of them were buried.
Interviewer: Do you remember any stories that maybe your parents told you about their lives growing up around here?
Grace Pieper: No, not necessarily. I don’t think they did too much. There was a dance hall up to Franklin Center and my dad used to go to the dances, but he didn’t dance. He stayed outside and looked in the door. He didn’t want us kids to go to dances because he said there were too many bad things that went on there! I said, “he stayed on the outside where he seen all of the bad things!”
Interviewer: So you didn’t get to go to those dances?
Grace Pieper: No, well my husband and I went a few times. When we went to church, they had a big tadoo over young people going to dances and someone said, “dancing didn’t hurt Grace and Art any, but they didn’t approve of dancing.”
Interviewer: Is there anything else that you would like to talk about that we didn’t touch on?
Grace Pieper: No, I can’t think of anything special!
Copyright © 2011 Franklin Township. All rights reserved.
Revised: 02/02/11.