Myrtle Emma -- Home

Myrtle, Bill, Frank, Mother Elizabeth,

and Duke, in front of their Pigeon

Hollow Road house

This is the first installment of Myrtle Emma, the memoirs of Myrtle Emma Morris White. It's the longest of the pieces she wrote, but one of the most interesting and informative in terms of understanding "pre-modern" Mill Creek Hundred. I find it fascinating and important not because the life she's describing is unusual, but precisely because it's not. Although the Morris family were not farmers, their lifestyle would have been very similar to most residents of MCH from the early days until World War II or later. These writings are special because they give an amazing insight into how most people lived "out in the country", before electricity, plumbing, sewage, and for the most part, paved roads.

The house described in this piece is located on Pigeon Hollow Road, on the right side of Corner Ketch Road just above Paper Mill Road -- behind where Whiteman's Garage stood for many years. We'll talk more about the area in an upcoming segment, but I can reassure all that the Morris' stone house is still standing, and in fantastic shape. The current owners have done an amazing job with it, keeping the original structure and adding a large but tasteful addition in the rear. The stucco evident in the old photos has been removed, revealing the beautiful stone beneath. The front door has been removed and seamlessly filled in. The house is certainly historic, dating to at least the early 1800's. I hope to have more information on it in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy "Home", by Myrtle Emma White:

Home was a two-story stone house with an attic, a garage, and a porch. I lived there with my mother, father, three brothers and four sisters. It was shared space and belongings. There was no electricity or indoor plumbing.

By the front door, in a good spot for the light, was a washstand with a marble top. On it sat a water bucket and dipper, and a mirror hung over it. In the drawer were combs, toothbrushes, and shaving razors. A razor strop hung by the mirror and a rolling towel rack hung beside it. Behind the doors at the bottom were a wash basin, towels, wash cloths, and soap.

The kitchen was spacious, with a cook stove that burned wood and had a tank to heat water. On the stove top by the chimney were warming places. Big, square, green salt-and-pepper shakers sat on top of them. A wood box sat behind the stove with a kindling basket. My brother built garages for his toy cars and trucks with the small wooden sticks.

Myrtle's parents, Elizabeth and Franklin Morris, with Franklin's mother Martha

A pantry contained dishes, pots, and pans. The staples for cooking were always in jars and tins to keep the mice from them. Across from the stove, a large chest of drawers held knives, forks, and spoons, and the tablecloths that were used for special occasions. For everyday, there was an oilcloth cover on the big table. In back of the table was a deacon’s bench that we young ones sat on at mealtime. We were all right-handed so elbows weren’t a problem, but giggles were. Eating dinner was a somber affair. Food was precious and not to be played with or wasted.

The kitchen table was our play area when it wasn’t mealtime. We played games on it and would draw and cut paper dolls from the Sears catalog. We made kites from newspapers using flour-and-water paste and torn strips of cloth for tails. It was a delight to see them sail in the sky. Under the table was another play area. It was our tent, our house, our fort, and even our dream castle.

In the early evening before bedtime, when the Rayo kerosene lamp was still lit from having dinner, we would get our tablets with Indian heads on the covers, our crayons, and pencils that our father had sharpened with his pen knife to a nice point, and play games of tic tac toe or hang man, and draw the animals that lived on nearby farms. When we finished playing, it was all gathered together and put in the living room closet until another day.

I liked to draw and paint. On election day, my father worked at the voting polls. When he came home that night, he brought leftover ballots. On one side were pictures of stars, eagles, and plows, but the back was pure white. This was a treasure of good drawing paper. We used it to make many things— booklets we put together with brads we got at school, paper hats, or folded into airplanes we sailed from the porch.

Myrtle and Willie, standing behind Mary with Duke in her lap

Toys were few, but we shared everything. We had dolls, but no one had a special one. There were games—checkers, dominoes, and cards to play “go fish.” Mother had a wire bingo cage in which numbers tumbled around when you turned the crank on the side. There were cardboard markers you put on the cards. It was fun to get a bingo and we were learning our numbers, too. The boys had cars and trucks. They made tracks in the dirt for roads, and pretended to make engine noises and blow the horn. They liked to have wrecks.

Our baby sister had a cradle with rockers and a hood to keep out the drafts. Mother would move it near where we were playing and, with every whimper from her, we would rock it with our feet. She was used to our laughing and talking and would go to sleep. Our living room was smaller than the kitchen. It had a small chunk stove, a day bed, and chairs. On one side of the stove was a large closet for our coats, boots, gloves, hats, and scarves. The bottom shelf held our toys, games, and books.

In the winter, a sweet potato bin was on the other side of the stove. Our father grew just great sweet potatoes, but they would not keep in the cellar. Mother made a cretonne curtain for the bin. It was covered with a bright flower print. She grew sweet potato vines for decoration. She would cut the potato and use tooth picks to hold it in a jar of water. The potatoes would sprout leaves that grew around the window. Our father thought they were in the way, but we liked them. The windows in the house had wide sills. They could be used to sit in or to put things on until they got to their proper place.

Our clock was made of wood and had brass numbers and a long pendulum that swung back and forth. Our father had a schedule for winding it with a key that lay on the top. We learned to tell time, and knew when mealtime was, when our father came home from work and, most of all, when it was bedtime. We did a lot of things to stay up just a little longer, but were not too clever with our excuses. The constant ticking was a calming effect in a busy household.

Father had a radio that sat on the living room table. It had a wooden case and batteries and headphones. When he turned it on, the dial needle would jump around and we could hear static, squawking, and a whine. He would move the knob until it settled down. He listened to boxing and ball games. It was off-limits to us.

We didn’t care for the radio, but liked the record player that stood tall, with a lid to open, and a turntable with an arm and the needle. We would crank it up and climb on a chair to put the needle down on the record. Behind the doors on the bottom were slots for records. It was fun to hear the music and singing, even though we had heard it many times. We tried to mock the singers but never hit the high notes. We liked the records that played marches. They would excite us to march around the house and salute each other and think of our oldest brother who had joined the Army.

Going out the back door was a porch that was high off the ground because it was built over the garage. A railing went all the way around, with a gate on the side that was at ground level. The porch railing was solid and about waist high, with a gap between it and the porch floor. When we felt brave, we would walk along the outside edge, holding on for dear life. Sometimes we got too scared to come back and had to be rescued. We played a lot on the porch. It was nice to rock in the rockers and watch the clouds change shape.

Storms drove us inside. Mother did not like lightning. She would pull down the spring-rolled, dark green window shades to darken the kitchen. Sometimes a curtain would spring up with a clatter and bang, and it would scare us more than the thunder and lightning.

As there weren’t any outside lights, flashlights were a must. My father had one that was very long. I don’t know how many batteries it held. Sometimes on a dark night, we would go out on the porch and see the stars so bright, and we would see beams of light that we thought were searching for lost planes. The moon would come up and we would see all its phases on different nights. Sometimes we saw the northern lights. The night sky was always different, but we never went off the porch at night.

Myrtle, generations ahead of her time, photobombing Mary. I believe this
picture shows part of the back porch and the wall they threw the ball against

The yard we played in was off the porch gate. That side of the house had only an attic window, so we could bounce a ball off the wall and catch it. My favorite ball had a blue star on each end and a red band around the middle. A wooden wagon was used for play and work. We hauled wood and baskets of vegetables from the garden. My brother’s guinea pig liked to ride in the wagon, and our dolls had their turns too. Jumping rope was not easy. The rope was turned too fast or we would trip on it. We put it around our waist and played horse. With a whinny and a slap on the hip, we would go off on a trot.

The outhouse stood at the back of the far side of the yard. We called it the privy. A well-worn path went from the house, between the upper garden and the stacked woodpile. The privy had a tin roof and a hinged door with a wooden latch on the outside and a strong metal hook and eye on the inside. A pear tree branched over it. The pears were good to eat, but they just went to water when they were cooked. They were a nice shape and yellow with a pink tinge. The bees were busy with the rotten ones on the ground and, if you were inside and the wind blew, pears dropped onto the tin roof and made a surprising racket. Sometimes our brothers would throw clods of dirt from the garden. After dark, we would take the long flashlight to see our way. A trip to the privy was never pleasant.