By William Gieske
Continued from the May 2005 issues of this magazine.
Our Hike: One day Bobby and Eddy Nebinger and I decided to go on an overnight hike. This was sort of a sudden decision as my mother was doing something in the school.
I tried to get her attention but she ignored me. In those days parents ruled the household, not children so it wasn’t out of the usual for a parent to shut out a child when it suited.
Mrs. Nebinger assured me it would be OK and as my father was working I made the decision to go, bad choice.
We took along the necessary essentials, potatoes, water in a Mason jar and my old green canvas that Nelse gave me.
We set out down Third Avenue and west on Union Blvd. We went to Eighth Avenue and then north on to a grassy hill where the off ramp for route 378 is now. At that time Eighth Avenue was dirt and stopped at Eaton Avenue.
The large factory on the north side was Holland Furnace which then was the best around. It was a large hot air furnace that took up most the cellar. They were manufactured there including casting the grates and doors. This building was later used by Rollar Smith and then by Durkee. At the entrance for some years the State Police had their drivers testing location, the headquarters was up on Eighth Avenue where the park is now. There was a large dump (sanitary landfill) for years at the rear of Nitschman school, later on the small stream was damned up for ice skating.
As I said, we went up on the grassy slope and made our camp. One of the first things campers must do, it’s a compulsion, is to build a fire. It’s an absolute necessity. We made our fire and roasted our potatoes. This created a need to drink our water so we could see if we could melt the glass from the Mason jar that we broke. It didn’t melt but did get nice and shiny.
After a couple of hours we soon got tired of camping so we started for home as it was still light. On Third Avenue we ran into my cousin Sterling, who was the pecks bad boy of the family. He greeted us by telling everyone how I was going to get it, doing this with great glee on his part. According to him the whole relation was out on a search for me, as my mother did not approve in spite of what Mrs. Nebby had said.
I hurried home and sure enough Sterling was right, I got it. It being that my mother used the slender sticks that are in the bottom of the old fashioned shades. I think the kitchen had four windows and another in the other room and all had blinds that had to be replaced as they were broken over my rear. So much for camping at an early age.
Vaccinations:
Dr. Bloss lived on Broad Street near Second Avenue and had his office in the rear in a little building. I remember having to go there for my vaccination so I could go to school. At that time boys got them on their arm and girls on their legs. I guess that was so girls did not have a scar that would show.
The Doctor scratched your arm in a circle about an inch until it was raw and bleeding then they put on some dead tissue from a horse that was cured of what ever you were getting it done for, it is still the same today as what they shoot in you is old dead tissue from an old horse. After he got done torturing you, he taped a little box over the sore that had to stay on for several days. We wore it like a badge of honor because now we were inducted into a grown up world and would be going to school.
As bad as that experience was I can still remember my cousin Ethel taking me to the old produce market over on the South side where they were giving out low priced shots for something (Bubonic Plague maybe). There we were in a long line wandering through the market until at last they grabbed you and stuck a long square needle in you so they could pump in some more old dead horse. I guess it did some good as it never killed me and made me ready for the shots the army gave me.
Up town: When we went any where it was on foot. It was the only way we knew. We walked over to Prospect Avenue and headed east down the hill. At the bottom where it met Conastoga Street was Avondale Dairy. On the right side in a stucco house lived the Professor who invented the Big Bang Cannon. On the left was the Conastoga Cannon Co. where they were made. Later on it was used by the instrument company of Roller Smith. I believe the cannon was invented in the mid thirties, there were many more types available than there are now. I believe there was a repeater made which was like a machine gun.
We couldn't afford a cannon so my father got a Karo Molasses can which had a small press on lid. He punched a hole in the bottom and got some carbide from a railroader and put it in the can. A little water or spit would make gas’ and with the lid, on a match to the bottom would make a nice bang. It was not as pretty as a cannon but worked real well.
The professor lived there after Route 378 went through but he had his legs cut off after a fall in front of a train.
We would cross the little stone bridge and go up the hill to Main Street. There was also a steep set of stairs that could be used. Main Street was the shopping center then, no malls. The five and dime, as Woolworth was known, was the place we liked. The other place we went was the old Savoy Transit, that is what the theater before the Nile was. When they upgraded, they named it the Nile and had large signs out front with pictures of palm trees and Cleopatra on them.
On the way home the big treat was an ice-cream cone at Avondales out door window, the forerunner of a drive up. Small cones were five cents and a very large cone cost only ten or twelve cents. This was big money in those days. The cones were scooped out with a trowel not a dipper and the men liked to see kids get there share. You could also look in on hot days and watch them working in the plant. This building became a sewing factory, for a while it was Marvel Maid and is now a large apartment.
Log Cabin:
Sometime in the thirties a log cabin was built on First Avenue. It was in celebration of some occasion. I remember the opening as they had a dance there. This is the log cabin that was moved out to the park at Eighth Avenue. There were watering fountains located at Second Avenue and Broad Street and up on Main Street near Market. These all worked and it was common to get a drink as we passed them. I understand that some are being put up for use again.
Mall:
I mentioned before we had no malls but we had lots of Mom and Pop grocery stores. Most of these stores would give credit and that was important during the depression. I guess they were owed a lot of money they never could collect. On Spring Street there were the Flammer's who specialized in meat, Dieters, and Klines who had a little of every thing including penny candy of all sizes and shapes. There was also a store on the corner of Franklin and Spring but I don't remember the name.
At the corner of Liberty and Spring was a chain A&P I believe, that had a large coffee grinder painted bright red where all the coffee was ground gave off a great aroma. I remember getting bread there with the NRA Blue chicken on the wrapper, one of FDRs fast deals that was shot down during the depression.
We also had the W.P.A. They built all the pavilions which were not maintained along the Monacacy, the stone walls along the creek and I believe the little stone bridge. We knew the three dams on the stream as the first (on Conastoga Street), second dam was beyond the paint mill and third dam was at Illick’s mill. Second dam was blown up, some say by the railroad because of the crowds it drew. We swam there and at a hole at the foot of Ettwein Street by what is now Casillio’s cement plant. This area was all gardens then. These were all in walking distance.
Second dam had an association at one time. They built diving boards and held competitive swim and diving meets there. There were refreshment stands and large crowds of young people came there to swim. The boys crowded together on the railroad tracks until someone got a foot cut off by a train. The railroad put up a chain link fence that blocked off a lot of sitting space. We also swam below the dam where I first learned to swim underwater.
One time I almost drowned when I ventured up into the deeper water above the dam. I shocked the man who pulled me out by answering his “Can’t you swim?” with sure I can, underwater. Grace Nebinger was going with a man in the neighborhood and being older we were allowed to go with her. When we were there she was too busy with her friend so we were on our own.
Seventh Avenue:
We moved to Seventh Avenue below Spring Street. The house was one half of a double, three stories high and made of fancy cement block, not the kind we think of today. There are lots of houses in town made of this type of block so it must have been pretty popular at one time. I don't know the year but I believe I went to school at Calypso in the fifth grade. I cant remember anything about the school but I remember swimming in the canal.
The people next door were named Hood and they had a son Bill and a daughter Nellie. We were allowed to go to the canal swimming with her. We went down to Spring Street and crossed over somewhere around ninth avenue. There was a storm drain under the canal that the kids used to get to the tow path.
The tow path was where the mules that pulled the canal boats walked. These mules knew just how fast to go and when to stop. The Chain Dam in Glendon, Pennsylvania, was where the canal boats crossed the Lehigh River. Coming from Philadelphia they entered the lock and were raised up to the river level. The boats were pulled upstream and then cut loose to drift across to the north bank where the canal is. The mules were taken across on the suspension bridge. The piers are still standing but most of the rest is gone.
The next lock that I know of was Hope Lock and then the one at Freemensburg. It is still there along with the lock tenders house, for the lock tender lived by the lock and was on duty twenty-four hours a day although the boats did not run at night.
There was a lock at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, under the Hill to Hill Bridge and the next one was around Nineteenth Avenue I believe. I think that took them to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where there were more, but I am not familiar with the location. The old dam at Allentown was to provide water for the canal.
At Treichlers, Pennsylvania, there was an old wooden dam that washed out some years ago in a flood, this provided water for the upper stretch.
These canal boats brought coal down from White Haven, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia.
There is a little town called Durham located east of Springtown, Pennsylvania. They made stoves and cast cannon balls during the Revolution. They had their own boats called Durham Boats. These are the boats George used to cross the Delaware at Washington’s crossing. This was before the canal and they had to go down the river and then row back. This was one of the reasons the canals were dug.
At one time there was a canal in New Jersey that was connected to this system of canals. They were made to haul coal from the mines in Pennsylvania.
During the summer we swam in the canal we always had a group of kids with us. A large water pipe crossed the Lehigh over to a pumping station located below Saint Lukes Hospital and some times we would cross the river hanging on to this pipe that was covered with moss. I can remember that the bottom of the canal was about four or six inches of mud and coal silt. We had our own name for this mixture.
Our house and all the houses in the area had cockroaches, the real big ones. When we put out poison they went next door and vice versa. They claimed that if you dug along the house you would find them in the ground. Pop was working better as he had transferred to the Open Hearth but things were still hard so they took in a boarder. She was an old lady with little or no family. In the evenings, I remember her sitting down stairs with us listening to the radio or just talking. About this time there was a western song that went He is heading for the last roundup.
One night as we sat around a large cockroach staggered out and crawled across the floor. It was obvious he was about to meet his maker when someone started to sing he’s heading for the last roundup. At the time it was very funny and we often talked about it.
During the depression quoits became very popular much like baseball is today. Unlike ball the men played and had tournaments around the city as there were several leagues. At the rear of our house in a vacant lot there was the quoits court. It was fixed up real nice and had some primitive lighting and a small shed for gear and the local men had a good time at very little cost. Some of the quoits were made from springs off a railroad car. A good blacksmith would fashion these into the best kind available.
We were too far to see the fireworks at Central Park, but Mom’s brother John had just moved near the park. I can remember watching from an upstairs window. Central Park is gone but not in my memories. We had lots of good times there until it was torn down sometime in the fifties.
About this time they brought in an Indian tribe. They lived on the lot in teepees. There were many of them as I recall. They spent the summer there as part of the entertainment. When they left there were no more stray dogs in the area. Dogs are not pets to the Indian but were a reserve source of food, not the first choice but they would do.
Copyright © William H. Gieske 2005
Published in the June 2005 issues of U.S.Legacies magazine.
To Be Continued . . .
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