This is your last warning!
The response to our request for personal recollections about Garrettsville–the village itself and, ahem, Greater Garrettsville, the surrounding area–has been, shall we say, underwhelming. John Porter, our very own senior version of the Energizer Bunny, came through with some highlight events, some including his home stomping grounds in Hiram. He also mentioned when indoor plumbing came into his life. Martin Eisenmann, Jr., out of the blue sent in, from Lancaster, Ohio, a tale about the collapse of the bridge down at Forest and Elm Streets, which used to go over Silver Creek to the lumber yard. Sounded like a harrowing event for the driver of the truck that brought about the destruction, not to mention the neighborhood kids. Great stuff.
You folks out there have got stories of your own, especially you senior citizens. You are living history! You know stuff that the whippersnappers don’t. Write it down, let somebody interview you, record your stories. Doesn’t have to be when you met the President or how you became fabulously wealthy (Haven’t found out your secret yet, have we?). Tell us about things that happened to ordinary people and how these things shaped the town and the people.
For instance, speaking of indoor plumbing…I remember that when I was coming up here from flatlanded Lorain County to go to Hiram College, nearly every time that my parents came up to see me and we would come to town –I only remember one restaurant–for a bite to eat, the streets were all dug up for the laying of pipes. My mother said at least once, “Aren’t they going to be finished with this town soon?” I later figured out that it was probably the sanitary sewer system that was going in; the water department had been operating since 1907. Prior to that, everything–and I do mean ?everything?–just went into the creek. Hey, it’s water, it’s moving. What could go wrong?
You realize, do you not, that I’ve been in the town since the mid-to-late sixties and I even remember a bunch of things myself. This means that if you-all (Lorain County IS a bit south of here) don’t come up with some information, I will be forced to make things up or relate them as best I can from fragmented memory. Furthermore, I will name names…whenever I can, the memory book is a little dog-eared at this point. Your name could be among them. Beware! For instance, I remember when the President of the United States was to come through town–campaign tour or something–and we were all excited to have this happen, cleaned up the streets and all that. Down at the stoplight a platform was constructed, the band was ready to play “Stars and Stripes” or “The Star-Spangled Banner” or something, people from all around were gathered to see the limo come through, the mayor–James E. Chalker–had flowers for the First Lady and a speech ready to go. Unfortunately, the limos failed to stop, but went on through, with passengers waving and smiling. I think that the mayor’s wife got to keep the flowers. We all just sort of waved and rubber-necked at the departing pooh-bahs and wondered what had just happened. Richard Nixon never was real good at public relations.
Anybody remember this event differently? Let us hear from you, ASAP!
I also remember the inspiration for the building of the iconic clocktower downtown. It was the U.S.A. Bicentennial in 1976. Organizers had been urging people all over the country to DO something, some project, some event, SOMETHING to mark this glorious occasion, so the historical society determined that something on the site of the departed Opera House would be a suitable project. Other manifestations of civic pride popped up as well, including painting the features on the South Street bridge red, white and blue, and the clean-up of the creek down in back of the school on Park Ave. (now ?the Y?); this was a ”women’s project”. Ladies from all over the area showed up to wade around in dark brown water–see paragraph 3–to remove trash, tree branches, medium-sized rocks and other discovered items. There were canoes, there were ropes, there were piles of yucky stuff, there were onlookers–probably thinking to themselves, “Boy, I’m glad I didn’t volunteer for this!” Actually, it was pretty fun. I had clothes that went directly into the garbage pick-up. After the removed wood dried out (It had been piled up in the playground down in back of the school), there was a bonfire event; I don’t recall whether there were hot dogs but it was quite celebratory.
The precursor to The Weekly Villager was there with a photographer–in a canoe, I think–so there may be pix around out amongst you. Get ‘em out, stir up your memories, send them all in here. Mark Apple has made a contribution after the passing of his late mother, Arlene, she was a cog in the publishing wheel of the paper; there’s more out there, for sure.
Hop to it, citizen historians.
