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Bailey, Richard

Dick Bailey on motorcycle with friendsGrove City, PA
Life is a Wild Ride

Dick Bailey started first grade in Jones one-room school, between Barkeyville and Clintonville, , PA, in 1927, when he was just five years old.

“My brother was a year older than me,” he said. “My parents wanted company for him because we had to walk two miles to school.” But that was okay, he jokes, because it was so far they never got there until recess.

Maybe all that slow walking was what motivated Dick later on to drive anything on wheels as fast as he could, and to fly his own plane. [Read more…]

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Boloton, Leon and Harriett

Harriett and Leon Bolotin

Harriett and Leon Bolotin

Sharon, PA
Furnished with Knowledge

In Czarist Russia, being drafted into military service was like receiving a life sentence – or maybe a death sentence. The term was 25 years as a private, with no possibility of promotion. Very few survived those 25 years because of bad food, physical abuse, and miserable living conditions.

In 1906 an eighteen-year-old man named Simon Bolotin avoided that fate by coming to Youngstown, where his distant cousins had been living for 15 or 20 years. They were in the furniture business. They set him to peddling goods such as rag rugs and curtains house to house in Sharon. [Read more…]

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Johnson, Jerry

Jerry Johnson in antique shopMercer, PA
The passionate pursuit of history

John G. “Jerry” Johnson of Mercer has been involved in the Mercer County Historical Society since its very beginning. His interest in history isn’t merely academic. It’s a passionate, personal, lifelong quest to learn and appreciate what has happened in the past so we can understand the present and shape the future. [Read more…]

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Marstellar, Les & Mary

Les and Mary Marstellar dressed in their colonial costumes at the opening of Fredonia's time capsule in 2001

Les and Mary Marstellar dressed in their colonial costumes at the opening of Fredonia’s time capsule in 2001

Fredonia, PA
Ordinary lives?!

Les and Mary Marstellar describe their lives as “ordinary,” but that word doesn’t feel right when applied to these two Fredonia residents.

So, as I often do when a word seems inappropriate, I picked up my trusty old Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. It begins by saying that “ordinary” means “of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events.” But it continues: “of common quality, rank, or ability; deficient in quality; poor, inferior; lacking in refinement.”

No one who knows Les and Mary would ever think of using those words to describe their lives. Not even Les or Mary themselves, and much less those who know them best: their two children, five grandchildren,  two great grandchildren, friends, and neighbors. [Read more…]

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Murchie, Ed and Ruth

Ed, here with his father, Edward James Murchie, Sr., practically grew up in the greenhouse.

Ed, here with his father, Edward James Murchie, Sr., practically grew up in the greenhouse.

Sharon, PA
 Hard work made them stronger

Sharon old-timers will remember Ed Murchie as the owner of Murchie Flowers at 33 Vine Street in Sharon, as well as a couple of greenhouses. He worked long hours, often seven days a week.

Sometimes his wife Ruth was concerned that her husband was working too hard. She asked Ed’s stepmother Anna if she thought the work would hurt his health in later years.

Anna said, “Maybe not. It might make him stronger.” [Read more…]

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Pryor, Robert & Lillian

pryor-weddingHermitage, PA

From instability to security

Does instability during childhood necessarily result in an unstable adulthood? Let’s consider the life of Bob Pryor, of Hermitage. His family moved nine times before he graduated from high school. He had to switched schools five times while he was in the elementary grades, and twice more during high school.

He was born in Clintonville, PA, in 1922, to George and Bertha (Sloan) Pryor. He was the middle child between an older sister, Averal, and a younger brother, Virgil. George worked on the railroad gang repairing tracks and in the coal mines, and had to move wherever he could find work. Their first move was to Grove City before Bob started school. After a couple of years in Grove City, the family moved to Branchton, PA. [Read more…]

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Root, Homer and Doris

Homer Root

Homer “Doc” Root

Transfer, PA
Attention to detail

What does success in the following fields have in common: Model airplane building, ice skating, motorcycles, electronic instrument calibration, archery, fighter planes, family, and charcoal portrait drawing? Answer: The need for skill and attention to detail, countless opportunities for creativity and innovation, and the ability to overcome many challenges.

Lots of people have been involved with several of them, but maybe only one man has achieved a notable degree of success in all of them: 86-year-old Homer “Doc” Root of Transfer, PA.

Perhaps the key to his success was the last common element mentioned above: the ability to overcome challenges. He learned that very early in life from his mother. [Read more…]

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Ross, Lloyd & Eleanor

Eleanor & Lloyd Ross

Eleanor & Lloyd Ross

Sharon, PA
Alphabetically ordered

It’s not unusual for one’s family name to play a significant role in one’s life. Sometimes its influence opens doors that might otherwise be closed.

That wasn’t the case with Lloyd Ross. The impact Lloyd’s name had on his life was simply a matter of the alphabet. In 1940 he started Sharon High School, where they seated students alphabetically. That put him close to a girl named Eleanor Anita Ruffo.

“Ross, Ruffo, we were always in the same room,” Lloyd said. “At first she wouldn’t even give me the time of day. The end of the Sophomore year is when the ice broke. She’s the only girl I’ve ever loved.” [Read more…]

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Thompson, Joe & Mary

Joe & Mary Thompson wedding

Joe & Mary Thompson wedding

Mercer, PA
Deeply Rooted

The childhoods of Joe and Mary (Nelson) Thompson could hardly have been more different. Joe ‘s family was constantly on the move, while Mary’s was rooted in Mercer and was never transplanted.

Joe was born in 1921 in Kellettville, PA, , a small town near Tidioute. His father, grandfather, and uncle were all Methodist ministers.

“In those days Methodist ministers were transferred every year or two,” Joe said. “They moved on the first of October, after school had already started. I went to three schools before I finished first grade. I started first grade in Cooperstown, and a month later we moved to Springboro. After we were there just a short time, I got meningitis and missed the rest of the school year. Then we moved to Knox, where I started first grade all over again.” [Read more…]

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