William Gieske and his grand-mother Rose Zettle-moyer around 1924 when his father, William Gieske Sr, moved to Florida and built four homes there of which two may still be standing. The name of the town is unknown, but it was north of Boka Raton.
Fairviw Street:
All good things change and so my life on the farm was changed. My parents bought a house in town on Fairview Street and Mauch Chunk Road. This house came with a large barn that had been a foundry. Upstairs there were all kind of molds to make objects from. It was also covered with a layer of dust. Mom saw a chance to rent it out for Halloween parties so we were told to clean it out. We made some money from the metal inside the barn, but we needed a bath after we worked there for a short time.
We moved there when I was in my last year of high school. The barn was remodeled and we made new doors that were higher than the old ones so we could rent it out to Purcell the garbage man. They had a garage across the street for their moving trucks and needed a place for the other trucks. My cousin and I did a lot of digging and cement mixing to help my father get it done.
On the lower level there were two large cement blocks where the anvils had stood. It took Floyd and I about three days to break them up so they could be removed. We developed muscles from swinging a sledge hammer.
We dug the floor down about two foot which undercut the foundation so the walls had to be braced. We poured concrete walls about six inches thick part way up the old stone foundation. All the concrete was mixed by hand as we had no mixer and ready mix had not started yet.
The drive way was dug down to meet the inside level. My father and I made new doors for both garages. The yard was in terrible shape when we moved in, so it meant lots of work to clean it up. A lot of fill dirt was hauled in and new steps were made from the driveway up to the yard and then walks poured up to the house.
We went back to Seidersville to visit some times but soon settled into living in town. I was close to the Forker’s so I went hunting with them and caddied for Harry when he played Golf. Harry trapped muskrats during the winter months and I remember going out on opening day. We started to set traps at midnight and went back in early morning. Harry had connections to trap on Bethlehem Steel ground and on some executives places. The first night we caught seventy-five rats. The pelts were worth about one dollar when they were prepared properly. This was very good money when you remember a man only earned about twenty to thirty dollars a week on most jobs.
I wanted to drive but had no license yet. I would work on the garbage truck so they would let me drive home from the dump. They had two trucks, a Chevrolet straight body and a Mack dump truck. The Mack was the most fun to drive as it had a sound all its own. It lived up to the saying Built like a Mack Truck. We used the dumps out off of center street at the rear of Hanover Townships Park. These were old iron mines that were to be filled in. The laws were not as strict then, garbage was dumped and when the hole was full it was capped over with dirt. While it was filling up it was full of rats and other things. Some times in the winter months when we were bone tired, we would go out there and the rats would run in the ruts in the snow not being able to get out of the rut. We would take an iron bar and chase them forgetting, for the moment, how tired we were. One winter day I was on the top of the bank and kicking at a big rat, I slipped and found myself sliding down the side of the garbage pit on my back. We did not need skiing to have fun in those days.
Working on a garbage truck was a hard, back breaking job, dirty and dangerous. During the winter there were lots of ashes as almost every one burnt coal or wood. This made your hair like steel wool after you worked all day. This was better than putting up a can on your shoulder in the summer time and finding out it leaked by feeling it run down the back of your neck. As hard as the job was I helped out on holidays and also on the moving truck earning spending money.
My cousin Floyd lived in Bucks County in a little town called Applibachsville. They lived in a large farmhouse but did not have the farm. My Uncle Earl had more kids than he wanted to support and some summers my dad took them in. Floyd, Harry and I got along real well as sometimes I rode my bike down there. Traffic was not heavy like today so it was fairly safe going that distance.
Harry had a car and on one of my trips we needed spending money, so we went to pick tomatoes. Some farms contracted to large canneries to raise them and always needed pickers. Migrants were not available then. We went to this farm and were paid so much a basket. The easy way was to fill the parts of the baskets with bad or green ones and put the nice ones on top. They never inspected the baskets, they just gave you credit when you took them up to the truck. I believe this is why they started using migrants for more reliable help.
Floyd stayed with us one summer, we mixed a lot of cement that year. Even with all the work we still found time to ride our bikes all over the valley.
The last year of high school passed quickly and soon I graduated and entered the workplace for a while before I went into the army. Soon after I graduated, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the rest is history.
Published U.S. Legacies Sep 2005
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