Pieper, Lawrence Earl

LAWRENCE EARL PIEPER

Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: September 2, 2003

Interviewer: Please start with your full name and spell it.

Lawrence Pieper: Lawrence Earl Pieper

Interviewer: Your age and birth date.

Lawrence Pieper: I am 70 years old and I was born February 22, 1933.

Interviewer: Where all have you lived in Franklin Township?

Lawrence Pieper: I was born and raised Eureka Rd., 1/2 mile north of Old State. That’s on the East Side of Eureka and I lived there from 1933-1955. In 1956, we bought the house were we live now, on 7216 Crane Rd., the fifth house east of 98.

Interviewer: So you lived in Franklin Township your whole life?

Lawrence Pieper: Seventy years, I was born and raised where I live.

Interviewer: Let’s focus on your childhood and the home that you grew up in.

Lawrence Pieper: It was clean and simple. My mother was a good housekeeper. We heated the house with two wood stoves. The one in the kitchen was a cook stove, we heated water with that and cooked on it, and baked on the oven. In the dining room, where we ate, we had a heater in there that’s how we heated that. We used wood in both of those. We had no running water of course and we had no electricity back then. In the kitchen, we had an oil lamp, in a dining room; we had an oil lamp that we sat on the dining room table, but that had these little things on it that made it brighter, a mantle. It was kerosene but it had two mantles on it. That’s what I did my homework by. Water, we had none in the house. We had a pump outside and we carried the water in. When you took a bath, you took it in a galvanized washtub, behind the heater in the dining room (in the wintertime). Then we shut the rest of the house off, because that was a big house. In the wintertime, we had no heat in the bedrooms; we just heated those two rooms, except for the one bedroom where my grandfather lived, that was next to the kitchen. As I said, we had no electricity. It was a farm and we milked cows by hand, about 28 of them. Our lights in the barn, we had two kerosene lanterns. I didn’t know how dim they were until we got electricity. The lights went out one time, I went outside to do chores with the lantern, and I could hardly find the cow with the lantern behind the cow. But anyway, that’s what that consisted of as far as no electricity. Like I said, we heated the water on the cook stove.

Interviewer: When did they get electricity and water?

Lawrence Pieper: In 1945, the city came to Eureka Rd., in about 1939 or 40, REA put electric on Old State Rd., but they wouldn’t put it Eureka because I guess they figured that there weren’t enough houses on it. My parents and all of the neighbors, they dickered for about 4 or 5 years and finally Penelec came up from Sterrettania, and they came up to Jim Horn’s and that’s as close as they could come to REA. At that time, they couldn’t come any closer than 1/2 mile. Then at that point, my parents drilled a new well; they put in an electric pump so that we had running water, put in a bathroom. He put in a new furnace and we heated the water with the furnace. He put in a coal furnace but it needed the electric to run the controls. We got electric, radios, refrigerators and the whole nine yards. I mean the city came!

Interviewer: What did you use for refrigeration before that point?

Lawrence Pieper: Before that point we didn’t use refrigeration, we didn’t have any. You canned all of your meat. When we butchered a hog, we smoked the hams and the bacon. Later, when they got “freezer plants”, you could rent freezer plants. My dad used to take meat there, but prior to that, we canned all of our meat.

Interviewer: Where were those “freezer plants”?

Lawrence Pieper: The one we rented was in Cambridge. You could rent a space and put about 300 pounds in it. My dad used to butcher a lot so they rented 3 or 4.

Interviewer: How much were they, do you remember?

Lawrence Pieper: It wasn’t too much; I want to say probably about $5.00 per month maybe.

Interviewer: What about washing machines?

Lawrence Pieper: Ok, while we are on the washing machines, I will go to the water system in the barns too. My mother washed with, it had wood sides on it, and the new ones have metal. Prior to that, she used a scrub board. That was quite small when she got it and it was run by a Maytag gas engine. That’s how she washed clothes. Our water system in the barn was a 2,000-gallon tank up overhead the stable. The pump had a jack on it, as the pulley ran it had a handle on it and it ran the handle up and down and it run the water from the well up into the tank. Then you had a float device in all of the water basins that the cattle drank out of. It kept them half full. That was the water system in the barn.

Interviewer: What about automobiles?

Lawrence Pieper: The first one my folks had was a Model T. My grandfather had that. I’ll tell you a little story about that. My mother got her learners permit. Grandfather said, “Come on, we are going to Edinboro to do some shopping and you are driving.” Well a Model T, you shifted with your feet. They went out to the car and she started the car. She pushed one of the pedals, stepped on the gas, and went out the backside of the garage! (He laughs!) She never learned to drive. She tore up her learner’s permit and she never drove! Anyhow, the next car they had, they had a Plymouth that was about a 1929-30. In 1936, I was 3 years old; we came out from behind where Rodak’s store used to be in Franklin Center and it was foggy. My dad looked south, it looked like there was a car way up the road, and when he pulled out the car was right there. It knocked the whole front end off of that car. None of us got hurt but the car was done. So then, he bought a 1936 Chevy and what he paid for that was $675.00, right off the showroom floor. I can remember the deal but I can’t remember the money. The reason I can remember the deal is because they had kids pedal cars. The only place I had seen a pedal car was the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Well, the salesman put me in one of them and I’m pedaling around the showroom while they were making the deal. That’s how I remember the deal.

Interviewer: You couldn’t get them to throw in the pedal car?

Lawrence Pieper: No, nope, he made me leave it there!

Interviewer: Ok, let’s move on to family members. You can start with your parents and give their names.

Lawrence Pieper: My father was Arnold Pieper, he was born in 1905 and he died in 1977, at 70 years old. My mother was Cecilia Remek Pieper; she was a Remek before my father married her. She, as a young girl, lived on Eureka Rd., south of Crane Rd. She passed away in 1947, at 37 years old. She died of cancer. My Uncle Arthur Pieper, that was my dad’s twin brother, then August Pieper was my grandfather, and Mary Pieper was my grandmother. We will get into relation later. My grandmother Mary was a Mathewson before my grandfather married her. She passed away at 82. Florence Hipple was my aunt; she was my dad and uncle’s sister. They lived in Titusville. She died in 1986, when she was 83 years old. I am relation to Mary Mills, and how I am relation to her is that she married Perry Mills and Perry’s mother was a Pieper. I am related to Mathewson’s because my grandmother was a Mathewson. I’m not going to get into a bunch of these and how I am related to them, but I am related to the Wright’s on Clair Wright Rd., I am relation to the Howard’s, Norbie Hayes, Norbie’s mother was a Mathewson, so that’s how I am relation to Norbie). Grace Pieper is my aunt; she was a Horn before my uncle married her. She is still living on Crane Rd. I was relation to the Sundback’s they live where Gresh’s new house is in Franklin Center, right by the guardrail. That was the old Sundback Farm. As far as neighbors, we had Albert Vogt and family, Leonard Vogt and family, Ed Goodban and family, Will Vogt, Jim Horn and family, and those were the close neighbors. There were other neighbors because we bordered a few farms. Speaking of neighbors, our farm bordered the Nims Farm on the north; it was the first place north. We bordered Ed Goodban Farm on the north, which is now the Crandall Farm. We bordered the George Kellogg Farm on the North, which is now where the young Mills boy lives. We bordered Andy Kavelish [or Kavulics] on the North and East Side. We bordered the Wayne Washburn Farm on the East. We bordered another Nims Farm on the East. We bordered the farm where Benny Sitek lives now. We bordered a Mathewson Farm on Old State. We bordered John Crowley on the South and Dan Crowley on the South. Both of those places are the Erie Hunt and Saddle club. So, those are some more neighbors than those that I have named here. That covered the neighbors and the relations.

Interviewer: All of your grandparents were from the Township?

Lawrence Pieper: Yes, my mother’s folks came from Czechoslovakia. They moved to Pittsburgh and went to work in the coalmines. They got caught in a couple of “cave-ins” and decided that that wasn’t for them. So, they came up here and bought a farm just south of Crane Rd. on Eureka Rd. My mother was born in Pittsburgh and they said she was five when she moved up here. That’s where my mother was raised, on Eureka Rd. My Grandfather Pieper was born and raised on Mohawk Rd., way back by the woods. He walked to school, him and his brothers, to Franklin Center School through the woods. They didn’t walk around the woods. He used to tell about seeing black panthers and bobcats laying on the rail fences back there when they were walking to school. So, they had some lively hood back then too!

Interviewer: I’m wondering? Do you know how your mother’s parents were enticed to come from Pittsburgh to Franklin Township?

Lawrence Pieper: When they lived in Pittsburgh, they worked in coalmines and got caught in a few “cave-ins” and decided that was enough. They came up north looking for a farm. They probably heard about Franklin Township from some neighbors or friends. There were a lot of other Slavic folks that lived up here. They probably heard about it through word of mouth.

Interviewer: We can move on to your early friends.

Lawrence Pieper: Well, I went to school with Royce Horn; we used to run around together all of the time. We grew up together. Paul Vogt, who was born and raised next door. Elton Vogt, who was also born and raised next door. Another Slavic family that we got to be good friends with, the Lunik’s over on the corner of Silverthorn and West Stancliff, I was good friends with Joe Lunik. I was a good friend with Russell Peters, I went to school with him, and he lived on Silverthorn. I went to school with 4 of the Gnagi children, which were Phyllis, Shirley, Kenny and Beverly. We had some more that I went to school with that live over on West Stancliff, over in the woods but we didn’t neighbor much with them. Their name was Mooney; they were a very poor family. There were six of them. The oldest one was Cecile, and I can remember she could draw real good. When I started grade school, I used to sit on her lap and she would draw me pictures of horses and the Loan Ranger and his horse. When she got out of school, she was in about eighth grade when I started school, she married a man and moved to Florida, so she was gone. Those were mainly the kids and friends that I grew up with.

Interviewer: Who were some of your parents’ friends?

Lawrence Pieper: Well, my parents didn’t neighbor too much with the foreign folks, not that they didn’t like them, they were friends but. Most of them went to the Catholic Church in Crossingville and the people down in my area, they went to Franklin Center Methodist Church and they kind of all hung out together. Now there was another Methodist Church where my mother went, Eureka Methodist Church. The reason that she went there was because when she was little they would go to church in a horse and buggy in Crossingville and that was quite a little jump. She was going to school at Eureka School and all of the kids that she went to school with said, “Why don’t you go to church at Eureka Methodist Church with all of us kids?” That’s how she became a Methodist.

Interviewer: Fondest childhood memories?

Lawrence Pieper: Well, Christmas was always a good time, I guess. At the end of the Depression, for Christmas, I got one little wooden toy or two little wooden toys, until I got a little older. Then I got a wooden toy and a boughten toy that was Christmas. Our Christmas tree amounted to a Hemlock tree out of the woods and the decorations were candles that my mother never lit. She put candles all over and the rest of the decorations were made out of paper. I guess Christmas were my fondest memories. I know one Christmas, I was about 12 or 13, and my uncle got me a 22 for Christmas. That was quite a big deal! That was the best thing I ever got, back at that time. That I guess was my fondest memory.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about whom you married.

Lawrence Pieper: Ok, I married Joan Sturm. She lived on Fry Rd. We met in high school and we went together for four years before we got married. We got married in the Advent Christian Church in Edinboro. We had a simple wedding, cake and ice cream, nothing fancy. The whole countryside was there. The church was full they were standing outside. I don’t know how many were there, but it was a bunch. The church was full. We had a reception downstairs and that’s where we opened our gifts. We left there and went on our honeymoon. We went to Niagara Falls for a week. I was still in the Navy yet, so when we came back from there, I went back on the ship. Then when I got out, we lived on Fry Rd. with my in-laws. I got out on March 1 and we lived with my in-laws, March, April and May. April we bought the house where we live now on Crane Rd. So, we moved there on May 1, 1956.

Interviewer: Children?

Lawrence Pieper: We have two boys. Craig Owen Pieper, he was born on June 1, 1955 [verified date, 1958] and our youngest son Paul W. [William] Pieper, he was born on April 3, 1960. They both live in the Township and they both work for cement contractors. One works in Erie and one works in Girard.

Interviewer: What school did you attend in the Township?

Lawrence Pieper: I attended the Goodban School, on the corner of West Stancliff and Eureka.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of your teachers?

Lawrence Pieper: Yep, my first grade teacher was Mrs. Cutshall from Girard. My second grade teacher was Marian Harned, and I think she taught me two years. Then the older boys were giving her a hard time, because that was her first year out of college. Back then; you only had to go two years to college, so she was a young girl. The older boys were bigger than she was and they would give her a hard time. So, they brought in Margaret Porter to straighten out the whole deal the next year. And she did, she straightened it out! She was a big old girl, built like a moose! Anyway, she straightened it out and then following her, I had Bernece Allen. Then we had another one by the name of Janette Mathewson for a short period of time. She was a fill-in teacher or a standby teacher. The winter of 1944-45 was the big winter we had and don’t ask me how many inches of snow we had, but we had a bunch! The big storm hit December 12 and nobody went to school, the teachers couldn’t get to school. We didn’t go back to school until January 15th. They couldn’t get a teacher in. In the meantime, this teacher I had Bernece Allen, got sick. She got the flu or pneumonia or something so I had a fill-in teacher for about a month, Janette Mathewson. After that, I had Bernice Allen a couple years. My eighth grade teacher was Millie Payne. She signed my mother’s eighth grade diploma and she signed mine. As a matter of fact, I’ve got them both yet.

Interviewer: Where did you go after eighth grade?

Lawrence Pieper: After eighth grade, I went to Edinboro High School. That was about the first year they had a bus. They had a little bus that held about 25 people. Back then you didn’t have so many children. McKean had their own schools and Edinboro had their own schools, and the Township had their own schools. Then I think the year that I went, the eighth grade started going to Edinboro too. Then a couple of years after that, they were shipping them from the fifth grade over to Edinboro, from then on up. That was only about a year after that, there were only two schools left. They had closed all of the rest of them. There were only two schools left Silverthorn School and Franklin Center School. Then when they combined the Edinboro school district, those closed too and everybody went to Edinboro. I graduated from Edinboro High School from the twelfth grade.

Interviewer: Ok, let’s talk about the farm.

Lawrence Pieper: Everyone had good crops. The crops were good back then. They didn’t have all of this commercial fertilizer, they put some on, but they used most of the cow manure and chicken manure, they put that all back on the ground. They raised corn, oats, timothy hay and clover hay (that was the main crop because that is what you fed your cows). Corn you had two different crops. You had field corn and ensilage corn; the ensilage corn is what you filled the silos with. We milked about 28 and then we had about 35 before Dad quit farming. That’s when I went into the Navy. Farm equipment, Will Vogt, lived down on West Stancliff. He had the first thrashing machine. So, he did the thrashing for the whole neighborhood. All of the neighbors would get together. Most all of the people had their own binders. They would cut their own oats and shuck them. Then when Will would get there with his thrash machine, all of the neighbors would get together and pitch them on wagons and they would haul it up to the thrash machine and then they would pitch it up to the thrash machine and thrash it. Back then that thrash machine just had an apron in the back. It didn’t have blower. They would stack the straw outside. Filling the silo was basically the same. My dad had one of the only silo fillers in that neighborhood. So, he used to fill everyone’s silos. But everybody helped with his teams. Back then you didn’t have corn binders. You cut the corn by hand. That’s what those guys were doing. You could cut 10 acres of corn. A whole bunch of guys would get together. You would cut it and put it in bundles and then you would drop it. Then the next day, the whole neighborhood would get together, put it in wagons, haul it to the silo, and put it in the silo. Anytime a farmer needed help, they all helped one another, and it was a neighborhood thing. Then, my father, besides the cows he always had about 200 chickens. He had that worked out to a science. He had his chickens laying about 98% eggs. He had that figured right out. As a matter of fact, his name was in chicken magazines several times. Butchering, we did our own. Also, back on the farming. First for years, my Dad had a central market stall in Erie. He used to take eggs in there once or twice a week. Eggs, chickens, vegetables, apples, potatoes, milk, buttermilk and cottage cheese, and he would sell all of that at that stall. Later, Carnation Milk Company came into Cambridge so most of the farmers started shipping all of their milk into Cambridge. They could get more money for it and it was a steady market. That’s where all of the milk went after that. They didn’t have coolers, everybody had a milk house and they had a cement vat made that you could put about four cans of milk in (because that’s about how much everybody shipped, 3-4 cans of milk). You set the milk in the cans and set the cans in the cold water, and that kept it cool enough so that it wouldn’t spoil until the next morning when the milkman would pick it up and take it to Cambridge. That pretty well covers the farming. Let’s go back a little bit further. My folks, they used to do the farming with teams and then tractors came into the picture. My parents bought a Fordson tractor in 1934, I think. In 1936, the rented out and graded Township roads with that tractor, we had a four-wheel grader. My grandfather would be on that grader and my Dad would be driving the tractor. The reason that I can remember that is because they had a hired man to do the chores, because they did the roads until dark. The tractor pulled the grader and the tractor didn’t go very fast. Another thing, that tractor then started doing the plowing then on the farm. I don’t remember how much they paid for that but they bought it in 1934. In 1940, my Dad bought a B. Allis, and I want to say he paid $800 for that. Because in 1950, you could by a WD. Allis, that was a three-plow tractor, it had three bottom plows for $1800. Now the same tractor you can’t buy for $38,000.

Interviewer: Do you recall any businesses in the Township?

Lawrence Pieper: There was a blacksmith shop in Franklin Center, but that was before my time so I don’t remember that. There was a sawmill; Mitchell’s had a sawmill on Eureka Rd, just about down to Mitchell’s Hill. John Gnagi had a sawmill too. Cheese factory, there was one on Ivoray Rd. called Ivoray Cheese Factory and before they changed that road name to Ivoray, it was called Population Rd., so it was Population Cheese Factory. I don’t know who started it, but people by the name of Milks ran it when I can remember. They were also relation to that teacher that I had, Margaret Porter, I don’t remember how but they were related. Roy Nims and Leonard Vogt used to putter around and keep everyone’s car running in Leonard Vogt’s garage. As far as businesses, Johnny Quirk had a tire-recapping place on 98 and Crane, he also sold gas and oil. Franklin Center you had Rodak’s General Store, I don’t remember the people before them. They sold boots, gloves, minor groceries, not everything, but you could get bologna, bread, and stuff of that nature. You could get pop and ice cream and they sold gas and oil too. There was a stone quarry, called Howard’s Stone Quarry, right across the road from where Francis Rd. comes to a dead end. I have never seen it run, but they claim that there are stones in the courthouse from Howard’s Stone Quarry. The only thing that I remember is that they had this great big mountain of crushed stone. I remember Don Vogt and Albert Vogt were supervisors and they loaded that stuff up and put it in the bad holes in the road. Then hauled gravel over it. Like I said Rodak’s sold gas and oil. Helen Mikovich, she was really out of the Township, she was on the corner of Ivoray and Crane. She had a general store and she sold gas and oil. You could get gas there. Wagon makers, there was also one of them in Franklin Center, but that was before my time. I have heard my grandfather talk about him. There also was a shoemaker in Franklin Center, but that also was before my time. They also had a post office there. Doctors and dentists were never in the Township. Feed mills and gristmills, well Sumner Wells, had a gristmill in Franklin Center, where Franks’ now live. The part where the mill was has been torn off but it was north of the house. They ground grist there and kept some other supplies that the farmers could get in the wintertime to feed their cows. We ground our own grist. We had a stationary engine and a grinder and we ground our own grist in the garage. Tinkers, well down on the corner of West Stancliff and 98, was a fellow by the name of Jake Weiggel, he came from New York City and he had bought old equipment there. He could make things, he could weld, you could buy spark plugs there, bolts, nuts, I don’t know where he got them all but he had bolts and nuts by the bushels. You could get all kinds of supplies there to keep your machinery running. He also did some blacksmith work there too. He had a forge. That pretty much covers them.

Interviewer: Where did you do your purchasing and trading?

Lawrence Pieper: Well, mostly in Edinboro. Prior to that, my dad had that stall in Erie. Other than that, he would take his eggs and sell them to a supermarket in Edinboro. That’s where they bought most of their feed and stuff later. That’s where we would get most of our groceries. Clothes, well we would go to Erie. Back in those days, Erie was a ways away. We only went to Erie, well after Dad got out of the Central Market, we only got to Erie about 2-3 times a year, that was it. We didn’t go that often. As far as going places, those cars didn’t go that fast. I mentioned that I had an aunt in Titusville, and I can remember us going to Titusville.

Lawrence Pieper: I was a Justice of the Peace from 1961-67. My father was a Constable back in the early 1930s. Back then, chicken thieves and horse thieves got shot. My father shot a chicken thief. He had stolen some chickens and somebody got word to him. So him and his deputy confronted the chicken thief and the chicken thief pulled out a shotgun, so Dad dropped him right there. Constable’s, the only ones that I remember besides my dad were Ray Anderson and Herb Netzler. The Township was zoned in 1967 and I was Zoning Administrator for 23 years,

Lawrence Pieper: They also bought an old Oshkosh, I believe it was about a ‘45. So, that was the next one, the one that burnt, it was a ’45. That burnt up in the building and they lost a backhoe that was out in front, and they couldn’t get it away. Burnt the tires right off of it and screwed it up too. But they rebuilt that, didn’t they. And, when the building burnt, the Secretary was doing the minutes upstairs, and she had to jump out the window! In fact, I just talked to her today about that! There was a “flying secretary” that day, too, wasn’t there!

Interviewer: Who was it?

Lawrence Pieper: (laughing) Dianne Horn!

Interviewer: I’ll be sure to make note of that!

Lawrence Pieper: You see, where it started the fire, there was this one stairs that went up into the inside. When they hollered, “fire!” Dianne heard them. And she heard this crackling. She opened the door, looked down the stairs, and saw the fire. She had to do something and she had to do it quick, because the building was going down in a hurry. So, two fellows run out back and yelled, “Jump out the window, jump out the window!” So there was a snow bank about (looks 4-5ft.) that deep and that’s what helped her, and the men partially caught her. She just got her back wrenched out of shape a little bit but other than that, she come out pretty lucky.

Interviewer: Do you remember any major natural disasters?

Lawrence Pieper: The biggest disaster was that 1944-45 winter, (laughing), other than that, no. I can remember my Dad telling about a tornado coming through when he was 12 or 13 years old. They had gone to Sterrettania to get feed and on the way back, it was getting all black out west and it was lightning pretty badly. They got up by the barn north of us, which was the old Nims farm at that time. My Grandfather said, “Guess we better go to the barn.” Well, that barn, you drove into the barn floor but the stable was below the bank. So, they drove down the hill and in the stables and tied the horses up. And they no more got the horses tied up, when the old barn shivered and shook, and left. Blew the barn right off over their heads! Blew it halfway to McKean. It was a tornado! But they were all right and the horses were all right! Of course, that was before my time. That was the biggest disaster I ever heard. One year, we had a various amount of barns burned, three of them. Elmer Mathewson’s barn burnt. That was 1949. Mr. and Mrs. Sitek’s barn burnt. I’ll get to the causes of these. Mathewson’s barn, this was in the spring, in April. And there was hardly any hay in it, it was empty upstairs. But a gentleman had just brought in with a pickup load, a trailer behind it with straw and he didn’t have any room to put it in his barn. So, he dropped it off there. And they figured he smoked (we knew he smoked) and threw a cigarette out the window that landed on one of the bales. He didn’t see it when he unloaded. It wasn’t too long after he left; the barn was all on fire. It was a big barn, too. Sitek’s barn burnt the same summer. But that burnt due to wet hay. Blew the roof right off from it. Andy Kavelish’s barn burned also that year. That got hit with lightning. Let’s dwell on Kavelish’s barn. The barn before that one burned back when my Dad was constable. And the reason it burned was because they were running a still in a silo (laughing) They used to do them things, too. I remember my Dad said there were quite a few stills around. I pretty much described what the winters were like. Here was a disaster that was before my time When I was a kid and growing up, I couldn’t understand why there were so many empty houses. There were empty houses everywhere. There were three of them down where I was born and raised. There were empty houses everywhere; nobody lived in them, just empty. And I never really realized what had happened until I became zoning administrator and we done a study on the township. In the early 1900s, there was what they called the Black Plague, Diphtheria hit. The township had 1700 people. When the plague got over, there were 700. That’s why there were all these empty houses. Nobody would move into these houses because those people died of the plague. So, they wouldn’t buy them. The houses fell down and the land became part of the neighboring farms. So, that’s what you could call a disaster. We finally got back up to there…took us that long to get here! (laughing)

Interviewer: We talked about ethnic backgrounds in the township.

Lawrence Pieper: We discussed that some. There were quite a few folks who came here from the “Old Country.” There were Polish people, Slavish people, a lot of them. We talked about how they came up here through relatives and said this was nice, not a hubbub and its open land. This township used to be all just farmland. A lot of foreign folks and a lot of them was some raised right here. And there was no Catholic Church here, so most of those folks wound up going to church in Crossingville, which was horse and buggy until they got cars. In fact, a bunch of them still go to Crossingville to church.

Interviewer: We just covered diseases.

Lawrence Pieper: In my time, most of them were buried in cemeteries. Prior to that, they were buried under the old oak tree or out behind the barn, or the back forty. But in my time, it was mostly cemeteries. Most of my relations are buried in Francis cemetery on Gudgeonville Road. Most died of old age, or heart attacks, and there was no way to combat heart attacks. When that happened, the party was over. Some of them had strokes, some of them died from bad moonshine, and back then, there was a considerable amount of folks died of TB. My Grandmother from my mother’s side of the family died of TB. Considerable amount of people died of TB back at that time.

Interviewer: Anyone ever talk about the Flu Epidemic in 1918?

Lawrence Pieper: That’s what I talked about, Diphtheria. That’s when the population plummeted. I said it was early 1900, I couldn’t remember if it was ‘10, ‘18, or ’05. It was after my Dad was born and he was born in ’05.

Interviewer: Anything else you want to touch on?

Lawrence Pieper: Old State Road was blacktopped in 1949. The reason I remember that is because that is the year Elmer Mathewson’s barn burned. Us neighbor kids all rode up on our bicycles to see what the fire was. They had the road all tore up and the traffic was heavy to see what the fire was. The dust was so thick, we dumped our bikes and hiked over the pasture and just as we got over the last hill, the roof caved in!

Interviewer: Do you remember any other road changes?

Lawrence Pieper: Fry Road used to be Townline Road. Townline Road became Fry Road because back when they were starting to do local deliveries, out of town, a lot of the townships named the borderline road Townline Road. The deliver people didn’t know where to go. So, they started asking all the townships about changing that borderline road. So, they changed Townline to Fry.

Interviewer: Why is it Fry? Was that a family-owned road?

Lawrence Pieper: Yeah, Minnie Fry down at the other end. Charlie and Minnie. There was a farm down on the north end of our township, next to the last farm. Romba was the last farm and the next one up was the Fry farm.

David Henderson: He was known far and wide. And that road passes through five different municipalities and they all decided to name it Fry. So, he was well known-that guy.

Lawrence Pieper: Well, that’s like our township. Eureka Road is quite a unique road because the north end of Eureka Road, where our township ends, and our township is five miles square, but the bottom end of Eureka Road you have McKean on this [east] side of the road, and Fairview on that [west] side of the road, and Franklin Township up here. On the south end of Eureka Road, the dead end of Franklin township, but you have Elk Township on the west side and Washington Township on the east side. So, that’s quite a road!

Interviewer: That also used to be known as Sterrettania.

Lawrence Pieper: Yeah

Interviewer: Let’s talk about plows with that Cletrac [crawler tractor], the guys shoveling the roads.

Lawrence Pieper: That was a big plow they bought. They bought a Cletrac [crawler tractor] for that; it was a big son of a gun. The ends of the blades were about 10 feet high. When you had storms back then, a one-way plow wouldn’t plow, so that’s really why they bought the v plow. You could just bull your way down the road. But in ’44 and ’45, it got so bad, that was the main winter. But that winter, it would take them a day to plow a half a mile. The snow was so deep, there were 15-20 guys shoveling in front, or else it wouldn’t go. That’s the way they got the roads plowed. It wasn’t very fast. I have a picture of it at home.

Interviewer: Anything else you want to bring up?

Lawrence Pieper: We talked about ministers. I think I can come up with some from Franklin Center. You interviewed Ann Graves, didn’t you? Her, Ruth Lawrence, Aunt Grace, Hazel Horn and a whole bunch of those ladies went to school together. They all went to Eureka Church and school.

David Henderson: Did they start the Eureka school summer picnics?

Lawrence Pieper: Yeah.

David Henderson: They just had the 57^thannual, we were there.

Lawrence Pieper: As long as the older ones keep it going. I think as time goes on, the younger ones will let it fall by the wayside. That is still hanging in there.

David Henderson: John Galuska was the oldest one there and this year, he was 91. The last single room schoolhouse was Franklin Center; 1956 was when it was closed. My wife was there for first grade, and then she went to Edinboro. Thora Harris was her teacher.

Lawrence Pieper: I never had Thora Harris; I had all these other ones.

David Henderson: I was talking to her the other day and she said that Ann and John were her first foreign-speaking students and when they came to class, they spoke German and Polish. They couldn’t speak any English. So, she had to teach them English.

Lawrence Pieper: Well, my mother was Slovak and she started to teach me the language, when she died that went by the wayside.

David Henderson: How did your mother spell her maiden name?

Lawrence Pieper: Remek. R-E-M-E-K

David Henderson: Not R-E-M-I-C?

Lawrence Pieper: No.

Interviewer: OK, I guess we’ll wrap it up. Thank you for your time.