Growing Up In The Old Horse And Buggy Days

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Why am I proud of my age? If I weren't 80 years or older I wouldn't have had the pleasure of growing up in the good old horse and buggy days. We lived on a fruit farm between Athalia and Miller, Ohio, on the Ohio River. Our house was made of lumber my father (Harry Kaiser) had sawed from logs he caught while they were drifting in the river during floods. The house is a beautiful white house on Route 7, built in 1906, where my sister-in-law (Beatrice Miller Kaiser) lives today.

Our only transportation was by horses, boats, and trains across the river in West Virginia. We had three ways to go to Huntington. We would go in the buggy to Proctorville, leave our horse and buggy at Dement's Livery Stable, cross the river on a ferry boat to Guyandotte, walk to 3rd Avenue and catch a street car to Huntington.

By the time we got back home late that evening we didn't have to be told twice to go to bed. Sometimes we would walk to Athalia, cross the river in a skiff to Lesage and get on the 11 o'clock train to Huntington. We had a few hours to shop then back to the B&O station to get on the 3:30 train home.

Sometimes we would go to the river, wave a white handkerchief to stop the boat (Carrie Brown) which ran daily from Gallipolis to Huntington. The boat would come to shore to let her gangplank down for us to get on. Off we went down the river to the big city.

I liked this way best unless the wind went to blowing hard and the waves would wash over the deck. I was afraid then. Once the boat sprang a leak and I thought we would drown. The men started the pump up and we all arrived home safely. Sometimes if we would hurry and get our shopping finished, we would go to the Nickelodeon (movie).

We must have had a good crop of apples the fall of 1914, because Dad bought our first car. It was a Ford touring car with side curtains, Klaxon horn, oil lights and no battery, since it started by a magneto and cranking. My brother (Louis Kaiser), who was 12, was the only one who learned to drive. He learned from a man who stayed at our home for two weeks.

I'll never forget our first car trip that fall. We started on our way to Pittsburgh about 4am with all of our supplies including a bucket to fill the radiator as the car always got hot going uphill. There were plenty of hills as the roads were gravel and hadn't been graded. We could get water out of the creeks and from farm houses. We got gas from farm houses as well since there were no gasoline stations.

My mother, Rose Harper Kaiser, read the road maps on our first trips. The maps were in a book 3 inches by 6 inches by 2 inches thick. The directions included: white church turn left, go to store on right, count 25 telephone poles, turn left about 10 miles, turn left at school house, etc. If she lost her place in the book we would stop at a farmhouse to find out where we were.

We arrived in Marietta, Ohio late that evening where we spent two nights visiting cousins. The first night, Mother had to sleep on the floor with brother as he was jumping out of bed as he drove the car in his sleep shoving on the clutch to climb a pawpaw tree, then on to the brakes to keep it from falling. Why a pawpaw tree we never found out as the next morning he didn't remember.

Early Monday morning, after a rest and a good visit, we were on our way again. We followed the Lincoln Highway, a much better road. I imagine we made 25 miles an hour. The road was made of limestone, so we were soon white with dust. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and saw oil and gas wells for the first time.

After another hot, dusty day we .. at our destination late that ... that held 100 pounds of ice which was delivered twice a week. We also had an ice house that some men filled in winter from the river when it froze over. They used sawdust to keep it from melting. We looked forward to Saturdays as we always made ice cream then as we had plenty of good milk and cream from the cows, eggs from the chickens and fruit from the orchard.

I remember mother and another lady canning over 100 quarts of peaches over the hot stove in one day and never complaining about the heat. My job was to wash the jars and lids and keep the stove hot.

The men were busy picking peaches on the hill. It was the job of my grandfather and brother to haul them off the very steep and rocky hill with a team of mules in a jolt wagon. The mules could get over the rocks better than the horses. After the peaches were packed in baskets and loaded in the express wagon, grandfather would get up the next morning about 1am and travel to Huntington with a team of horses. The farmers tried to get to the ferry first as it took a while to get across the river, especially if it were foggy. When he would get to Huntington, he would deliver peaches to the stores as there was no market.

Not all was work. In the summers there was fishing and swimming in the river. There were no dams and the river had a good gravel beach. One day while brother was plowing under the river bank and I was playing, a tow boat went by and washed a five-foot spoon-billed catfish onto the bank. We pulled it up to keep it from getting back in the water. I ran for some men to help. Boy did we have good eating and enough for all our friends...

Newspaper article written by Lavinia Kaiser Church
From The Herald Dispatch
Huntington, W. Va.
September 3, 1984

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