Events circa 1906-1916.
Written June 1995.
Mary Fuhrman Himmelright was born around 18381 on a farm in Ashland County, Ohio, near the village of Redhaw. The county seat, Ashland, was eight miles away.
Mary’s grandparents homesteaded the farm but were killed in the wilderness on their way to Pittsburgh to buy supplies. Her story of their four orphan children being left to make a living from the land alone was just one of the many fascinating stories that she told to me.
As a little girl, I would beg “Please, Grandma, sit down and tell me about when you were little, and I’ll do the dishes while you talk.” Then, she would sit down and tell me how things were long ago.
When she went to country school, she had to be escorted by her big brothers to protect her from predators like cougars and wolves, which were still a real threat to small living things. She said she finished the third grade but couldn’t go on because she and her brothers were needed to help production on the farm.
They had to be self-sufficient, growing the materials for both their clothing and food. There were no ready-made clothes to buy, so they had to produce wool for winter clothing from scratch. They sheered their sheep and carded the wool to be spun into yarn on the spinning wheel. Then, they would thread the loom and weave the fabric for making warm coverlets, blankets, or coats, which they cut out and sewed by hand. I felt more advanced because I had the convenience of having a treadle sewing machine.
They grew flax, treated it, spun it into thread, and wove it into cloth to make sheets and lighter clothing. Then, they fashioned the necessary clothes by hand. It is no wonder the very early houses didn’t have clothes closets. People didn’t have enough clothes to need them. Chests of drawers and an occasional clothes press sufficed.
Wash day was unique to me. Grandma had a huge black iron kettle she hung on a tripod over an open wood fire and boiled the white clothes clean. Then she had big round tubs and a washboard upon which she scrubbed the heavily soiled work clothes using her homemade lye soap. This she made by leaching lye from a bin in which she saved her wood ashes from the stove. Then she combined the lye with fat she had saved from all kinds of meat. She helped me make a fine batch of soap during World War One when things were rationed. I bought the lye and used scraps of fat I’d saved to make the soap.
She was a genius at preserving foods. She could can pork, beef, or chicken which was delicious and helped the family enjoy good meat long after butchering day. She canned fruits and some vegetables for winter use. She made gallons of pickles, preserves, and jellies.
Grandpa had carved her a slotted spoon from black walnut when she was a bride. She used it to make jelly, knowing it was done as soon as the slots held a glaze. She later gave this spoon to me, and I, too, made gallons of jelly with it.
She told me how she dried the delicious corn and the peaches I liked so well in winter. She mashed the very ripest peaches, spread them on a cookie sheet, and then dried them in the sun. The result was “peach leather” — one of Grandma’s rare snack treats.
Grandma spread a lavish table, especially for company. Just before serving, I remember her looking over her prepared table, worried, with chin in hand, saying, “Goodness, there’s a bare spot on the tablecloth. Go get a dish of pickled beets to put there.”
Grandma never saw a supermarket. Ashland’s grocery store was enough to fill her needs for the things she couldn’t create herself. I shudder to think of our complete dependency on them now that we have forgotten her secrets of self-reliance.
I asked Grandma what their most usual mode of travel was when she was little. The fastest way was by riding horseback on trails. It was a little more difficult for ladies because they were expected to ride sidesaddle.
Wagons were necessary to haul heavy loads, and they always had teams of horses for this purpose. Buggies and surreys became more prevalent as roads were built.
At the time, I thought we were very advanced, with our country being laced North and South, East and West, by railroads. Indeed, we went back and forth by train to Mississippi every year by a different route. It seemed to me we could travel anywhere using steam trains or interurban electric cars.
“Tell me about your family, Grandma.” She went on — shortly after your grandpa and I were married, we moved in with my folks — Grandpa and Grandma Fuhrman, who lived out their lives with us. Then we had our children.
First, the boy that Grandpa hoped for turned out to be Alice. She always tried to fill the boy’s role by helping her father with outdoor work.
Next came Mandilla, my mother. “Why did you name her that? I asked.” She said, “I was reading a novel when I was expecting her. That was the heroine’s name, and I liked it.”
Next came Millicent or Melissa. I don’t know which name they finally chose. It didn’t matter, as they never used it. Then came the baby Ada Belle.
Four Little girls who never used their grandiose names. They condensed them into fond nicknames as follows: Alie, Dillie, Mellie, and Ada Bellie.
Alie was the responsible workhorse outdoors and in.
Dillie, the scholar, was protected from menial labor. At the age of 16, she became a “School Marm” in a one-room country school. Later, she attended the Lebanon, Ohio, Teacher’s Training School to obtain more education and a teaching certificate. For enrichment, she went to The College of Wooster for a while.
Mellie, who adored Dillie, was the shy, retiring type. They were best friends as well as sisters always. She was artistic and used homemade materials without formal training to paint some remarkable pictures.
She was also the family dressmaker and was fascinated by the Godey fashions of the day. Mellie had received a course of training from an Austrian seamstress, who taught her the art of lining close-fitting bodices with their bone stays stitched in to give the necessary fit.
She made one dressy outfit annually for each of them, including hats that were the fashion statement of the day. Then they went to Ashland and had their pictures taken in Aunt Mellie’s works of art.
Ada Belle, the group’s baby, was undoubtedly the prettiest and most brilliant of all. She married Lloyd Sechrist, whose older brother, Harry, married Mellie.
Ada Belle studied piano in Oberlin and could memorize the current popular novels. Having some training in elocution, she could also do an afternoon performance for a group of neighbors or church groups. People were starved for the diversion of such entertainment, so she was very popular. The star of the family.
Lloyd was a person with a wide-ranging mind. As a naturalist, he knew more about bees than anyone in that vicinity. He also learned all that was known about photography at that time.
Lloyd owned a square box camera mounted on a tripod. He draped a big black shawl over it and himself when taking pictures to exclude devastating light from the silver nitrate film on the glass plates. I was glad I didn’t have to carry around a lot of heavy glass plates when I took pictures with my “Brownie.”
Suddenly I was so tired from doing dishes that I heaved a big sigh as I viewed the pots and pans. Grandma jumped up and said, “I’ll do the pots and pans.” I was reluctant to let her do them because that would end the stories for the evening.
Mary W. Dial
Transcribed June 30, 1995 by CED
Posted Jun 14, 1995 at 00:08.
Revised Dec 23, 2023 at 13:15. EDT.
Retrieved Jun 1, 2026 at 22:04.
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