I started school in this building. When I was in school, all twelve grades were here. My first grade room was on the right where the boarded up windows are and my second and third grades were in the room on the left where I had my very favorite teacher, Mrs. Farmer, who instilled in me my love of writing.
Now as you can see, the building has been converted into the fire department. I am glad it is being kept up and except for the windows being covered, it looks just the same as it did back in the fifties and sixties.
My brother, Jack, graduated in the class of 1952. These are all the people who were in his class. I hadn't started school yet. This is an engraved brick at the memorial garden at the museum I talked about in the previous post.
Because almost every teen-ager in Greens Fork detassled corn for Davis Seed Corn, the museum put this exhibit in the garden with feed sacks that were used to hold the corn. I never got to detassle corn and always felt like I missed out on something because all my brothers and my sister had worked in the corn fields and always came home with funny stories about things that had happened during the day. It was easy to be entertained back then.
This was my Grandpa Pentecost's house. I use to walk there after school sometimes and Grandpa and Aunt Ruth, who lived with him, were always glad to see me. There were these velvet pictures on the wall that I found fascinating and would stare at them for long periods of time. Easy entertainment.
My best friend, Mary Jean, lived catty-corner across the street from Grandpa. One Halloween I got to go into town and she and I went trick or treating together and we did some tricks. We thought it was really funny to throw shelled corn on porches. We'd throw a handful and then run away giggling like we were being so bad. Easily entertained. I visited Mary Jean a few years ago in Oregon where she lives and it was like we had never been apart. I would love to see her again. She is a new Grandma and sent me her precious granddaughter's picture.
We drove over to Hagerstown where Mother would take us to the library every two weeks. I loved going here, the smell of the books, the old ladies who stamped our books, the quietness. I would get an armload of books and take them home and read them all in two weeks sitting on the front porch swing going back and forth lazily. I loved reading and still do. Can't have a day without a book to read. I was so glad to see the library was still there and they had built on a beautiful new addition onto it. It's nice to know people still read real books.
Because David's parents and family had moved to the Virgin Islands and he didn't want to go, he ended up living here his senior year with his grandpa and grandma. I loved his grandparents. His grandma made the best dried beef gravy, had the prettiest garden and told us stories about Greens Fork. She liked to cut jokes out of the newspaper and would read them to us. David gave me a birthday party here.
Years later, we got married and lived in the apartment I showed you before and then moved to a little three room house in the country which we bought for the grand price of $3000. Can't even get a car for that anymore. The little house is gone now and a new house is built right behind where it had been. We had about an acre of land, a little stream ran through the property and a woods was across the road. The shower was in the basement and the bathroom was no bigger than a closet. I loved that place. We were so happy there, but after one baby and another on the way we had to find a bigger house.
The bigger place was up this hill. We couldn't see the house because all the trees have grown up. David wanted to just drive up and see it, but when we lived there I didn't like it when people would drive up there because they didn't know a house was there and I didn't want to do that to the people who live there now. It is a two story house which has a beautiful view of a lake below the hill.
This is the lake. It use to be a public swimming beach, but that closed long ago. Now it's a swimming hole for wild ducks and Canadian geese. While we were there, several geese landed skidding along on the water like they were on water skies. I use to take the kids to this park and we would walk all over and they would play at the playground. It was so nice having this right below our house.
There use to be a train track below our house. Now it is a walking path. Down that path there were the best black raspberry patches. I would walk back there with the neighbor girls(It wasn't nice like this then) and we would pick buckets of raspberries.
In closing I will show you the little church where David and I were married. The Greens Fork United Methodist church. We got married by two preachers. Had to be extra sure it would take. I guess it did as we will celebrate our 45th anniversary next year. I went to this church almost all my life until we moved away.
I have been blessed with so many happy memories. Hope you have been too. Bye.
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