Coatesville: Part 3

Before we leave the south end of town let's look at Coatesville Auction for a bit. Going back to the Stanger ownership is quite awhile back, but memorable. Because of seven children Dad always had to supplement his income. He did that by buying and selling. We normally bought things at Roachdale and Cloverdale Auctions and sold them at Coatesville. As a child I never missed any auctions and bought and sold things myself even in my early pre-teens. Even today I attend auctions every week and using electronic bidding I bid on items almost every day since I'm a fountain pen collector. That capitalistic drive was instilled in me at an early age in Coatesville and it's still there!

Coatesville Auction taught me that I can make money using my mind rather than my back. That's a great lesson. Then it was bicycles which I bought for a pittance, repaired and sold at auction after I spray painted them myself. Gene Winks lived in the little green house on South Milton two doors south of Bill Jamison's before Bill moved to Hwy. 75. Gene carried bicycle parts and repaired bikes himself. I believe it was Gene who first instilled a mechanical mind in this young hillbilly!

This early training came in handy for later I worked on farm equipment for Thad Bridges, whose wife was... get this... Icey Bridges! Great people! Thad lived south of town past Buck and Betty Arnold's, more great friends of ours and good people! Later on I overhauled my first car for Jim Bumgardner. It actually ran the first time! My education and vocation were in Mechanical Engineering for General Motors. Coatesville prepared me well for what I was to become!

I was close to the Bumgarners. Jim was a fellow Kentuckian from Pulaski County. He was about 30 years older than me, but his grandfather, Lincoln Bumgarner married my aunt Beulah Van Hook. Jim was not only a friend, but an almost a relative. His brother George, lived south of town closer to Stilesville. George's daughter Frances was a sweet girl whom I admired, but she passed away very young. She was a beautiful sweet girl who was just a great person to put it mildly!

Looking again at the auction, Herschel did strange things with his! When few were bidding on an item, Herschel would keep piling on more stuff. The bidding became ecstatic as his psychology pulled more into greed! If the bidding slowed again, Herschel would pull out a wad of money of all denominations. He would keep throwing money on the pile as a person would water on a fire! It fired up the bidders and the bids would go high! There was excitement in Coatesville on those days and the air in that barn was electric with greed. On one occasion this young boy was told that the money in the pile was more than they bid for the pile. Herschel gambled and lost. I learned from that! I don't gamble.

After a few years Herschel sold the auction barn to Jewel Stringer. He was Dad's best friend and his wife, Lucille, was Mom's. Jewel was much more cautious than Herschel and it appeared that he did well.  What I enjoyed most at Jewel's auction was Lucille's Hoosier-sized breaded tenderloin sandwiches, which are hard to find today, and her superb butterscotch pie! Another thing I enjoyed about the auctions was Jewel's granddaughters who went to Stilesville School. I believe they were Sharon and Diane Stringer; cousins. Harold was Diane's dad. Ray was Sharon's.

From the auction heading toward "downtown" was the cat lady in the house next to where Morris Stringer lived. That's all that I know of her; she had cats and I stayed away! Morris Stringer reports that it was Frances Chambers who lived there and that she was a nice lady. He further commented that I was just "a big chicken". No, I just am not a cat lover, Morris. She seemed to be a fine lady!

Don Wood added "I worked for Paul and Frances (Chambers), spent many a night working there late went to the wrestling matches with them they were great people. I don't think a lot remember but guys would set in front of Browns drug store which would be come Shillings and wait for farmers to come by that needed help. That is how I meet Paul and i started out shoveling out grain bins then went to work on his hay crew. I am enjoying your article and I was so glad to grow up in a town that was in recovery but so vibrant and alive." (parentheses mine).

Robert Shaw lived across the meadow north of the "cat house". Rhonda, Kathy and Linda Shaw lived there. They were so quiet that even though we bused together for years, I knew very little about them. They were all great people,  They were McCloud cousins; the family which lived catty-corner across the street on the hill. Little did they know that "JH Canyon" was on their property behind their house!

Ollie and Lennie McCloud Mrs. Shaw's parents and lived across the street from the Shaws.  Linda Schoolcraft added the following:

"... My dad's name was Robert.... Dad & mom bought an acre of ground from Callie & Manual Cassidy. That is where they built the house I grew up in. I am the oldest out of seven... I have to smile a little bit on being said, I was quite. Back in those days didn't take much from anybody. Had a little Bob Shaw in me. He worked at Bridgeport Brass for 30 years. Raised seven of us in the tiny two bedroom house. We lived just across the road from my Grandparents Ollie & Lennie McCloud. They raised Alden's children after his wife died. The little woods in back of McCloud s--Oh my gosh. I never knew you & Billy (Jamison) played there. We all did too! There was Gooseberry brushes just up from the woods. I had a horse & use to ride back there. You will get a laugh out of this one. I use to clean house for Vic Cooper's wife, Mary. She would pay me & I had a leather pouch I put the money in & buried in by the tree at the top of the hill in that woods. It came up missing & never did know what happen to it.--lol ..." (edited).

What was there was called "a woods" by Hoosiers, but it was a mere stand of twenty or so trees on the hillside. It extended down the hillside behind Gene Winks' home as well, The stream, actually an open sewer, ran at the bottom of the hill. I found that this place was ripe with sponge mushrooms! I had never heard them called morels around Coatesville; they were sponge! When it would rain and right after the sun came out, I would merely go down there and pick them. They were always there just waiting for me to enjoy them!

If you have never hunted mushrooms you may not have ever lived in Coatesville. If you've never hunted mushrooms you aren't really a Hoosier! Mushrooms are the caviar of the common people. Hoosiers dream of finding mushrooms before they care about finding a date. We desired the woody taste of the morel over the sweetest kiss of a fair maiden. In short; mushrooms are what Hoosier dreams are made of! Every spring I still hunt morels; or at least watch for copperheads as it turns out!

Callie. Cassity wife of Manual lived in the white house on the west side of Milton (See Figure 1B). She was some lady! A widow. There were seven Herrin's who graduated from school in her time. Mrs. Cassity gave each of us seven Herrins $50 for graduation. That's $500 today dollars! I can't say much more than that. She said very little. She was just always there, being friendly. Surely, she sits in view of God at this moment perhaps thinking it odd that she's remembered after almost fifty-years! (Linda Schoolcraft, nee Shaw, update the information on the Cassitys as well as her own family).

Figure 1B: Callie Cassady Home (Courtesy Linda Schoolcraft)

Figure 1C: Callie Cassady (Courtesy Linda Schoolcraft)

Bill Jamison lived at the foot of the hill on the east side of Milton. As mentioned before, they were like second parents for me. Perhaps I was there during the day as much as I was at home! Bill owned the Farm Supply Store on Main Street. It was booming at that time being a distributor for International Harvester. I believe that Bill's father-in;law Arthur Biehl was co-owner and Bonnie worked the hardware up front. I have such fond memories of them!

The same mushroom woods were where two young boys, Bill (then Billie) Jamison and I, played cowboys, Indians and Mexicans.  You see the Cisco Kid was in vogue at that time.  Cisco was a Mexican cowboy "good guy" standing up for justice every week with his sidekick Pancho. Billie was always Cisco. I was always Pancho. All that we had to do to be Mexican cowboys is to end most words in"O". For instance "Cisco, I am hungrero. Where is my meato?" That's about the same quality of Spanish which I speak today!

Other favorites were the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Bill was always the Lone Ranger; and me Tonto. Are you seeing a pattern here? Bill was the leader. I was the follower! I didn't like that and after college I turned that around! Coatesville did effect us all!

My hero was Roy Rogers. That's who heroes were then! Rock stars weren't yet known in Coatesville. We lagged way behind and that's a good thing! Good heroes grow good children! What kids need today are better heroes!

Because Billie and I were great amigos playing cowboys, we decided to build "JH Canyon". That was to be an underground city in McCloud's woods. "JH" was for "Jamison-Herrin" and the pattern went on! One day we actually started on our dream city. We shoveled the entrance to "JH Canyon" After about three feet of digging,  JH Canyon became history. It's still a memory, but a good one. Little did the McCloud's know that an imaginary JH Canyon was in their own back yard!

Next to Jamisons up the hill lived two families at different times. I went there many times and cut a path from my house to Jamisons through their front yard.  Time has erased that portion of my gray matter and their names are lost to history unless others remember.

There are so many thoughts that our walk toward town should divulge many more memories. Shortly we will walk up the hill to Oral and Clara Broadstreet McCammack's and across the road to Mark and Vivian Hadley's. I'm sure we'll linger long at the next house; my own house of memories where my mind still visits on occasion as I relive the good times with the best parents ever, brothers who are still best friends and a royal sister! I hope I'm reminded to reveal the reason for our poverty for there was a reason. The reason is hidden, but those who benefited from our poverty know that it was self-imposed for a reason!

After speaking to one whom was only a legend when I was growing up, I learned something about that big old house we called home. Annie Johnson, aka Lois Ann Davidson, revealed to me that Mable Davidson was a Ruark. Within a few minutes I identified Mable Ruark Davidson, as my grandfather's fourth cousin. We are both descended from Timothy Ruark, Sr. of Pulaski County, Kentucky and his wife, Elizabeth Smith. Timothy was born ca 1731 and died in 1813. What's more, fate played another game of chance with our Coatesville home. Annie revealed to me that her Ruark cousins lived there before it became Herrin House. We moved by chance into our cousins' home!

Coincidence or fate? Planned or stumbled upon? We'll never know!

I do believe there is a plan and that everyone is included in it. I'm part of the plan and so are you! The odds of living in a home in another state where my cousins had lived is jut too remarkable for me to believe that it "just happened". There is order in life and this fit neatly into the order! It seems wherever that I go there is a high degree of order!

Let me explain a "for instance" or two.

I was dating a lady from Edmonton, Kentucky who worked at the Corvette Plant with me. Let's call her "Connie", ha... because that is her actual name. We were at a little store in Alvaton, Kentucky as we passed a young man. She said "Hello, Gary." to the man and I said cautiously "Who's that?" She replied "Gary Nance, my cousin."

"What a coincidence!" I responded. "My best friend in high school was Gary Nance, but he lived in Reno, Indiana." (I met Gary in the fifth grade in Mr. Ed Brinegar's class. That was at the time Coatesville and Amo students combined.)

I thought little more about it until my Dad's funeral in 1994 at Wingler Funeral Home in Coatesville. Jesse Wingler had bought it from Hugh Weaver by this time. Mrs. Carl Jackson, Dorothy, was a widow since Carl had died and had remarried after divorcing from her husband, a Mr. Nance. She was at my Dad's funeral, along with hundreds of Coatesvillans ( I will drop now my tongue-in-cheek reference to Coates-villains). I asked Mrs. Jackson, "Where is Gary's dad from?" She replied, after I told her the story, "It's not his family. He's from Metcalfe County, Kentucky."

Well, it was more than coincidence because Connie had two cousins named Gary Nance! My best friend was the first cousin once removed. I eventually took Connie to Indiana where she visited Gary when he lived in Pittsboro. They had a fine reunion.  Furthermore, in doing family research, I found that Connie's great-grandmother was a Herrin!  How can this be coincidence, but you say "So what! Many Kentuckians moved to Indiana!"

Exhibit two of many: This hasn't much to do with Coatesville, but it does me. I have Reynolds ancestors whom I have researched thoroughly. I lived next door to a Reynolds family in Plano, Kentucky in 1996. I always wondered "Are they related to me?", but never met any of them. I had given up dating, failing to find suitable "wife material" and at the time was really sick. A friend gave me his prescription for cough medicine which needed filling, so I took it to a drug store which I had never entered the doors before. (Don't turn me in. It wasn't drugs. It was cough medicine).

I was waiting for my prescription to be filled when the "over the counter manager" was caught looking my way!  She was my "Vision". The one "the Plan" had filled my mind with for years. Embedded in my mind's eye was a beautiful young woman with dark hair looking away from me. Her figure was petite , she was vibrant, dressed provocatively, but not sleazy and had one foot on a stool. Over the years my mind could not get this woman to face me. She was gorgeous, but I wondered "Her face is beautiful I'm sure, but she just won't turn around!" This vision haunted me for years! This vision imbued me again at this very moment!

I saw the vision. I saw the same dark-haired princess in my mind. The vision turned around. It was her! My vision stood before me! You say "Well, you put her face on the vision!" Did I? Let's resume.

By "coincidence" she turned out to be Terri Reynolds, sister to my neighbor! Not only that, when I met her Dad, I said "Are you descended from Nathaniel Reynolds? He said "How do you know about him?" By "coincidence" Terri and I shared the same Reynolds ancestors and I knew all about hers!  (This is getting as "coincidental" as Hillary's supporters in Iowa winning six-of-six coin tosses for delegates!)

And it goes on! It turns out that Terri was born in Indianapolis and had only acquired that southern belle accent which I loved so well. She was born in Indiana and grew up in Kentucky. I had been born in Shopville, Kentucky and grew up in Coatesville, Indiana.  Her mother asked "Do you have any Herrin relatives in Indianapolis? She showed me a deed on the home where Terri had lived and I started laughing. Terri had grown up in the very home my Herrin cousins had lived in since 1831 in Irvington, Marion County, Indiana.  Of all the homes in Indianapolis Terri lived in the exact same home which had belonged to my family for over 100 years! Coincidence... or a Plan? I go with "the Plan".

In the 1830s those from Pulaski County, Kentucky moved en masse to central Indiana. I've mentioned the Ruarks and Mable Davidson Ruark before. She was my remote cousin. Daniel Herrin from Kentucky moved to Stilesville. He married a Bryant there which I believed to be a cousin of Jerri Bryant Wingler who appended Joe Davidson's History of Coatesville.  Don Wood just remarked to me that most families in Coatesville have Kentucky roots. Indeed they do! I was pitied as a "poor Kentuckian" all those years from many who descended from poor Kentuckians!

My Plan for me is that I grow up in Coatesville. That little town is part of me now. When I meet new people they say "Where are you from? I always say "I grew up in Coatesville!" You'd be surprised at the number of people, mainly the older ones, who respond "I know where that is! It blew away."

Coatesville did blow away in 1948. When I grew up in Coatesville a pall was still in the spirit of the people. Most families had been touched as part of that Plan. Jim Walters always comes to mind because I knew Jim well! He was a hard worker, not depending on others nor the government to provide for his family. He did it! Yes, Murl helped him. I remember her going door to door selling Fashion Frocks clothing; I believe it was.  The work ethic in Jim and Murl saved their family and the same work ethic saved Coatesville!

Now for a short one which still amuses me! I was at the Walters home. I believe that they lived at the corner of Mill and Water Streets. Walters lived on Waters.  What a coincidence! Well, one day Carolyn and Wanda, who are twins, and I were sitting under their tree out front. While we were talking Wanda said the "sh____" word. (Sorry, Wanda). Carolyn squinted that one eye as she always has and said in her calm manner "Wanda, I wouldn't have that in my mouth." So innocent! So Carolyn of Carolyn!  Carolyn married one of the Kelley brothers, and her friend Roberta "Bobbi" Runnells married another!

As for Bobbi. She lived two doors north of us, daughter of Doris and granddaughter of Harmon Hathaway who owned the printing shop on Milton and Main.. She was one of the first people who I met in Coatesville. I've often wondered if we too are related because "Runnells" is just another derivation of "Reynolds". In fact I still sometimes refer to my family as Runnells because of the years of living near Roberta. I wouldn't be surprised if we are related because there is a Plan!

I always thought Ray Runnells and Bobbi were related, but Ray was from Fillmore. He married Dorothy "Dottie" McCloud, daughter of Alden McCloud (Figure #1C)

Figure #1C: Ray Reynolds 6th grade Fillmore 1949.

You, "If you grew up in Coatesville" are part of the Plan. We are a casualty of of Zeitgeist, a victim of our time. You may be what you are because of the time in which you lived. It's a German word attributed to Hegel, and as I think on Zeitgeist and Coatesville, I think of those Germans buried in the Old Moravian Cemetery and wonder about them, I just don't recall many Germans in our little town growing up. They may have been victims of their times!