Chapter 5

AT CAL ROCK'S

 

Cal Rock's on W. Fulton St. Mennonite Church on Right

By 1925 a great building boom was going on in Florida. Papa and Mamma began talking about going to Florida for the winter so that he could earn some of the huge wages he was reading about. Grandpap Landis was living with us then and he said he would like to along. The question was, “What about Landis?” He should be at home to go to school. Now at that time Mabel, who was then twenty years old, was working at W.W. Moyer's Knitting Mill in Ephrata. My parents knew about an old maiden lady, Caroline Rock, who was serving noon meals to factory workers and who had, to their knowledge, two empty bedrooms. By the end of October it was arranged that Mabel and I should board and room with this old lady. Her house was just across the drive of the Mennonite Church on West Fulton Street. That building is now the Fellowship Center of the Ephrata Church.

 

As I have written in the last chapter, Papa had bought Grandpap's Model T coupe. That coupe was put in Mabel's charge and I was to be the driver. (Mabel got her driver's license some years later, only after I bought my first car. In it I helped her learn to drive.) We were to use the Ford coupe to go to Metzler's Church, for visiting relatives and any other essential trips that she would consider necessary. We lived only a block from the factory, so she could easily walk to work. I had about five blocks to walk to school.

Papa deposited a sum of money in my name in a checking account so that I could pay my room and board. The first check I ever wrote was to Caroline Rock, November 7th, 1925. I still have that check, as I have all the others I have ever written. Ed. Note: When Dad died, I filled a 40-gal. black garbage bag with those cancelled checks. Since his account was closed, I didn't even bother shredding them.

 

Camping on Way to Florida

Papa was still: using the 1919 touring car. He built a kitchen cupboard on the left running board with a front cover that could be lowered to serve as a table. He bought a lean-to tent and some army cots. For camping they left the side curtains on the car and erected the tent along the left side of the Ford. Grandpap slept in the car and Papa and Mamma on the cots in the tent.

 

It took a week or more until they got to the center of Florida. He found a carpenter job at Kissimmee where they also got rooms and board in a rooming house. When they came home in the spring he had saved over $600.00. That was more than enough to buy a new 1926 Model T touring car. On that deal he traded in "our" coupe.

 

That Ford coupe was responsible for some headaches for me that winter. There were two disasters. I don't remember which one was first. At a certain point of time it became evident that I should tighten the bands in the transmission. The Model T had three bands in the trans-mission case. There was one for braking the car, one for reverse and one for shifting gears. The adjusting nuts were accessible by removing a cover under the floorboards.

 

After Papa began the used furniture business he tore out the stables in the barn and concreted the floor. The entire lower floor of the barn was then one large room. In it was a large potbelly coal stove. So when I had to work on the car that winter, I could build a fire and have a warm garage to work in.

 

Grandpap in Front of Tent

One Saturday morning I drove out to our home, built a good fire and started working on the bands. It was a very simple procedure that could have been finished in an hour or two, but I was careless.

 

I took out the wooden floorboards under the dash, removed the cover plate and soon had taken up the adjustments on the bands. Now the instructions were clear that nothing should be dropped into the gear case, so I tied a string to my wrench before I used it over the opening. When I thought the bands were tight enough I intended to start the motor and test my work before I closed the cover. That's when I forgot. I should have covered the access hole with a cloth. In trying to insert the ignition key I fumbled and dropped it into the transmission. Disaster!

 

If I couldn't fish it out with a wire I would have to drop the rear axle, and the drive shaft, remove the entire transmission including the flywheel cover. I had never done anything like that and wasn't sure I could.

 

Well I found a piece of wire, bent a hook on one end and started fishing. I tried for a few hours. I could feel the key at times, and hear it as I stirred around in the oil. I became frantic; I'd stop and look over the possibility of taking it apart. Then I'd fish again.

 

Mama Washing Clothes After Returning Home from Florida

Sometime in the afternoon I decided I'd try to take it apart. The starter motor had to come off first. I tried that but found I lacked the wrench I needed. By evening I was completely frustrated and walked back to Ephrata, planning to try again the next Saturday.

 

I dreaded to tell Mabel. I don't remember her reaction, but we did without a car that week.

 

The next Saturday I walked to our home to try again. I didn't know what I would or could do but I had to try something. I decided I would better try fishing again. I stirred around with little enthusiasm for a few minutes. All at once something felt different! I pulled out the wire very carefully. Then I called out in "Greek" with more fervor than old Archimedes ever did, "Eureka!" "I have found it."

 

The other trouble was a frozen radiator. Anti-freeze was little used in those times. Some people used honey with the water but when it got hot the radiator leaked at any small pore. Some people added kerosene but that was unsafe. We had the practice of draining the cooling system at night and covering the radiator with blankets when parking. I don't remember how I came to have allowed the radiator to freeze, but freeze it did. It was beyond repair. Well Mabel sent to Montgomery Ward for a "honeycomb" replacement radiator for a Model T Ford. After it arrived I went back home to install it. I took along a bucket of water to add when the motor got too hot. I don't think I had any trouble in replacing the radiator but I think it was at that time I stood too close to the pot-belly stove. It was a very cold day and I had the stove red-hot. Well I burned a three inch round hole in the front of my overcoat. That coat was made of cloth so thick we couldn't have sewed a patch over it. Mabel cut a patch from inside of one of the pockets and stitched it in the hole with a butt joint. I never did like that coat before and much less afterward.

 

Papa Fixing the Pump After Returning

Old Cal was not the best cook in the world. We hardly ever had meat. She did fry mush for breakfast and that I could eat fairly well, but her cornstarch was awful. She used little or no milk; just cocoa, cornstarch, sugar and water. We often had souse. That was pretty good. I was always hungry.

 

It was on one of the Saturdays that I was working on the car that I went down in our cellar to find some canned fruit. I could find nothing but a pint jar of strawberries. They were awfully pale and didn't look very good. They didn't seem to taste right either, but I was too hungry to care. I ate "the whole thing." It was one of the times I had to walk back to Ephrata. The longer I walked, the sicker I got. The last half block I ran to the rear of Cal Rock's shed and was "sick." To this day I cannot eat a canned strawberry.

 

When my parents left for Florida I was a chubby little boy. Five months later when they came home I had grown tall and. thin. They were worried that I might be ill, but I suppose it was just time for me to grow up.

 

One evening after sunset the Ephrata fire alarm sounded. I went to my bedroom window and saw a huge red glow to the north. It seemed to be in the borough or just outside the limits. I dressed and walked up-town. As I looked north over the railroad tracks, the fire seemed close. I decided to walk to the edge of town. When I got to Pine Street I thought the fire must be a barn a few fields away.

 

Mabel (on right) with Landis Cousins in front of Model T Ford

I started walking the railroad tracks but the fire never got closer. Only after about three miles of walking did I see that the lumberyard and feed mill at Stevens was burning. So I went all the way and met one of my classmates, Lloyd S. Gearhart who is now Mayor of Ephrata. His father at that time owned and operated a lumber, feed and coal business in Ephrata. Today Lloyd and his brother Harry own the business. Well Lloyd had gone to the fire with his older brother Sam, who also owned a lumberyard at East Earl. He was driving the longest Packard touring car I had ever seen. They offered me a ride back to Ephrata.

 

I developed a new hobby that winter at Cal Rock's. About a half dozen soap companies were offering free samples of their products in the magazines and newspapers. I got a pack of "penny post cards" and pasted the request coupons on them. In a few weeks I had dozens of samples of toilet soap, toothpaste, after-shave lotion, shaving cream, etc. on my dresser. I think that winter of semi-independence was good for me. It helped me grow up a little.

 

After Papa and Mamma came home in April of 1926 there was soon a new episode that brought another new NEST for the family. That will be the subject of the next exciting chapter!