Reclaimed Memories
ca. 1926 - 1928

ithin a year after our marriage my entire family had moved to Akron, Ohio. Gotthart and his family went first, soon followed by Ted and Anna. They kept writing back about the big wages that the rubber shops were paying and that all the could find work. I was expecting my first baby in about two months and it was so hard to say goodbye to my parents and three of the younger sisters. Elma was a senior in high school and working in a restaurant, so she stayed in Parkersburg until after her graduation. Marion was just five days old when she graduated so none of the family got to see her receive her diploma.

Since the time of Marion's birth we had what was then known as light housekeeping rooms, with a widow lady and her adult daughter and son in Vienna. Troy could easily walk to his work from this location. Amelia Wilson was also a practical nurse, which appealed to me at this time. We liked this family very much. Our two rooms were upstairs but when Troy was working I spent a lot of time with Mrs. Wilson downstairs. We have a beautiful crystal bowl and a depression ware glass which she brought to me years later, when she was breaking up housekeeping and going to live with a son. Since Marion was born at her house, and she was his first nurse, I want him to have the crystal bowl to pass on in his family.

Gotthart and his family came through Vienna on their way home from Creston, where they had spent the Independence Day holidays with his wife's people. They picked me up and took me to Akron for a two week's visit. Of course I was very anxious to show off my wonderful six weeks old son! He really demonstrated for the family that evening when Mother talked to him as she held him on her lap. He had never laughed aloud before but he laughed time after time for Mother. I think he just realized that he could do it and enjoyed the result.

Mother had a heart condition for many years. At that time the doctors called it dropsy, but now it would probably be diagnosed as water retention. She learned after my marriage that her blood pressure was dangerously high. We were then living in a small rented apartment and she asked us to come back home, so I could help until they could move to a smaller house. This they did for a short time before moving to Akron.

But we were young and foolish! Troy had been working steadily for ten months when my sister, Ruby and her family came to Vienna from Kansas and wanted us to move to Akron. She and her husband were separating and she wanted me to take care of her two children while she worked. So we pulled up stakes and went to Akron, when Marion was three months old. Ruby found work almost at once but Troy could not find anything that would support us there. He worked for a short time in the office of the Horning Lumber Company, but did not know enough about figuring the costs for lumber to hold that job. Then he tried for three weeks to sell Maytag Washers. At that time washers were new on the market and salesmen took them to the homes for demonstrations. He did dozens of loads of clothes, but did not sell a single machine, so quit in frustration. After much tramping of the streets he went to work for the American Hard Rubber Company, in the factory polishing vacuum cleaner rubber handles. He would come home every day with his nose full of black rubber dust. After three weeks he was coughing up that rubber dust and we knew his health was in jeopardy, so we made another big decision.

Troy's dad was an old fashioned Chiropractic Doctor, but the practice of chiropractic had been outlawed in the state of West Virginia, through the efforts of the medical profession. We decided that Troy should go back to his dad for treatments. We sold the furniture, which we had moved to Akron, to Ruby and other members of the family and Troy went by train to his Dad's home in Mabie, West Virginia. After a week or so of treatments he was able to work with his dad and brother, Bland, in the lumber woods.

We were so unhappy and homesick for each other that I decided to join him at his dad's. This I did on December 19, 1927. Marion was almost seven months old at that time. I had a short train stop in Parkersburg and I picked up the three month baby pictures of Marion, we had had taken at a studio but failed to pick up before moving to Akron. Marion and I were there until February 29th, 1928. Troy and I decided that the best thing we could do for ourselves was to go back to the Parkersburg area. Marion and I returned to my parent’s home in Akron, to stay until Troy found work and could send for us.

Troy hitch-hiked to his cousin Carl Brady's, where he spent a week with the flu, before he was able to go on to Parkersburg. Carl had work only a day or two a week in the coal mine, but when Troy left he pulled two one dollar bills out of his pocket and handed Troy one of them with the words, "I just have two dollars till pay day but you are welcome to one of them." Troy never forgot that act of love and generosity.

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