Events circa 1905-1979.
Written February 1994.
Springcrest Farm had been in the Sechrist family for generations, having John Quincy Adams’ signature on its deed. Its big, white 14-room farmhouse dominated the quadrangle of small buildings surrounding it, expanding from a pioneer colonial to meet the needs of later generations by adding an apartment on either side.
Beside the house was the very important two-story spring house that sheltered a faithful, sweet, fresh, 50-degree water source gushing from the earth. Its flow has remained constant from when the Sechrist family pioneers arrived until the present time. Even in the worst droughts, it gave life to men, beasts, and crops.
The basement of the spring house had long troughs through which the spring water flowed. In the years before refrigeration was available, these troughs chilled big, five-gallon cans of milk. Earthen crocks with dinner plates for lids held milk, cream, and butter. The cream separator and big wooden butter churn stood ready for use on the floor. A big, ice-cooled ice cream freezer stood in one corner, used only on occasions festive enough to merit buying ice. As a child, it was always fun to turn the handles of these gadgets and help produce fresh butter, buttermilk, and the cream we enjoyed so much.
The second story of the spring house was an intriguing storage place, reached by a suspended swinging walk built from the hilltop to the spring house’s upper floor. Up there, we found treasures like an old-fashioned baby buggy with big wheels, wooden cradles, looms, wool carding machines, candle molds, and spinning wheels. It was a paradise for imaginative children and antique dealers, whose later purchases of these items paid for a European vacation for the Sechrists.
Beyond the spring house on the right side of the fenced-in quadrangle was the chicken house and a big wagon shed. This shed housed the horse-drawn vehicles — buggies, surrey, cozy cab, spring wagon, big utility wagons, and farm machinery such as planters, spreaders, etc. Next came the huge, red, two-story bank barn1.
Behind its great doors, on the upper level, were the grain, straw, and hay that provided food and bedding for the animals below. There were two slots in this floor, covered by a roof six feet above, through which feed and bedding were dropped to the animals below. These roofs supported tunnels in the hay, keeping the slots accessible when a bountiful harvest filled the barn to its roof.
More buildings were on the left side of the quadrangle. There was a shop with tools for woodworking and repairing farm machinery, followed by a sizable smokehouse that housed a room for butchering.
The wash house was eight feet from the door to the main house’s kitchen. It served as the mudroom as well as the laundry. It had a big sink in the back for washing the fresh vegetables from the luxuriant garden.
There were metal wash basins where the farm workers cleaned up before entering the main house. Metal wash tubs and a primitive washing machine were also in the background.
Behind these outbuildings on the left was a high-fenced lane, open from the barn down to a long wooden watering trough fed from the water running from the spring house troughs. Here, the animals drank. In later years, the water from the spring was diverted through a small fish and lily pond on either side of the path to the main farmhouse.
An important practical improvement was the first plumbing, which my father installed. Having separate pumps at the kitchen sink for water from both the spring house and cistern was a great convenience for my Aunt Mellie. She no longer had to walk down to the spring house and climb back to the house carrying every drop of water.
My father built the first indoor bathroom at Springcrest Farm, making life there even easier. He installed the first electric wiring and a small generator many years before any electric utility served the area.
[Ben Sechrist and I visited Springcrest Farm in the summer of 2007 and discovered that life there had reverted to the 19th-century. CED ed.]
[Looking from the 21st century toward the now 19th-century kitchen, one was immediately struck by the anachronisms. CED ed.]
Gladys’s life at the farm had an anchor and stability that mine did not have until I married and settled down in Cleveland. I often pondered this and wondered why she thought it would be fine to travel about as I did. Nevertheless, she did love to go home.
We spent our preschool summers together, mostly at Grandma’s. There we played, ate, and slept together until it was time for Gladys to go home to her parents or for me to go to Mississippi.
Gladys and I were together at Grandma’s the summer I was five. One day, our mothers decided to bake a cake, but the vanilla bottle was empty. The three adults debated the wisdom of sending us half a mile down the road to the grocery store to buy some.
Grandma felt we needed a lesson in responsibility, so she gave me a note for the grocer. She wrapped the money in it and gave it to me, admonishing us: “Now, if you hear one of those noisy horse-less carriages anywhere, climb up on the rail fence beside the road before you even see it and sit there until it passes. Everyone knows those red go-devils are driven by gasoline engines that can explode and blow anyone near them to bits. So, if you hear one, climb the fence at once.”
Feeling very big and important, we enjoyed our freedom and the birds, flowers, and butterflies as we trudged toward the village of Redhaw. We made it to the store and accomplished our mission. We were on our way home when we heard a “go-devil” in the distance. Its “put-put” was unmistakable.
Obediently, we climbed to the top of the rail fence by the road and sat there. We didn’t have long to wait until we saw it coming down the road toward us. Thrills, thrills. It stopped right in front of us. The driver looked up at us and laughed, asking who we were. We told him, and he said, “I’m Mack Ginter, Mary, and I was a pupil of your mother’s when she taught country school over in Pleasant Home. Come on down from your perch and get in with me, and I’ll take you to your house. I am on my way there now to pay a call since I haven’t seen your mother since her return from South America.”
I looked at Gladys. She looked at me. She said, “Grandma said they are dangerous. I don’t think we should go with him.” I said, “I know, but the house is right up atop the hill. He’ll surely make it that far before he blows up. Let’s go.”
So we climbed down and rode grandly into our mothers’ arms as Mack delivered us and the vanilla safely. Of course, they had heard us coming, but they forgot their reproofs and admonitions in the excitement of meeting an old friend.
Sundays were always so special on the Farm. Everyone always went to church. After hours of preparation, which really began with the Saturday night bath, we would emerge — dressed in our starched white cotton dresses and our hair combed faultlessly with the usual hair ribbon perched on top at just the right angle.
Uncle Harry would hitch a matched team of horses to the shiny black surrey with the fringe around the top, and we’d pack ourselves into the surrey, being careful not to wrinkle our dresses, and off we’d go. We would enter the little Methodist church in Pleasant Home, a mile and a half away, through its only door. It opened into the center aisle, where the men went to the left bank of seats and the women and children to the right. Why? I never found out. That was just the way it was done.
After a brief devotion, we would separate into groups and have Sunday School. I went with Gladys to her class of seven girls, taught by a devoted lady named Mrs. Z. One Sunday, she was struggling with the story of Daniel and his trials with the King, his steadfastness with his friends, and his devotion to God. She mentioned the names of his friends — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — saying, “I don’t expect you girls to remember those hard names until next Sunday.”
We picked up on that challenge, and all week, when our turns came to swing, we said: “One for the money, two for the show. Three to make ready, and four to go.” We’d then substitute “One for the money, two for the show, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We made Mrs. Z. very happy the following Sunday.
School days meant separation and hardship for each of us for different reasons. Gladys went to Pleasant Home Consolidated Country School, where my mother had taught all eight grades earlier. Gladys loved school and was always a top-grade student. Her hardship was in getting there because school children had no public transportation. Her father took her to school in only the severest weather.
Gladys had to rise at five o’clock to get ready to walk through Ohio winter weather, carrying her books and lunch box, as no hot lunches were available. She walked out a half-mile-long lane to the road and then walked a mile and a quarter on the road to Pleasant Home School. I felt this was a heroic feat.
In High School, transportation was even harder for Gladys. For four years, she drove four miles to Congress Consolidated High School. Uncle Harry provided her with big old Scott, a trained trotting horse, and a cozy cab that could be completely closed against winter winds as she drove to Congress.
On arrival, she had to unharness Scott, put him in a shelter on the school grounds, and provide his day’s food and water before she could begin her school routine. Luckily, a girlfriend from the farm across the road, Ethel Kinney, shared these chores as payment for her ride. Ethel was a compatible companion who helped banish the loneliness from those long, daily trips.
I, on the other hand, had it easy. Short distances to school, whether in Mississippi or Ohio, sidewalks to walk on, and a noon break long enough to go home for lunch. My hardship was being a yo-yo — up North one year and down South the next.
Up North, my peers kidded me about my southern accent, and my teachers were stricter and more demanding. My handwriting had to change from a neat, fat vertical to the slim Spencerian Slant, achieved with a relaxed wrist movement. In Mississippi, I had to change right back again or be dubbed “a damn Yankee!” That wasn’t easy. How thankful I was when I finally settled in Berea, Kentucky, in the eighth grade. It became my adopted hometown. My teachers there were excellent, and I loved the work and my peers.
Mary W. Dial
1 A bank barn is a barn having an earthen ramp to its upper level.
Transcribed February-March, 1994 by CED
Posted Feb 14, 1994 at 00:14.
Revised Dec 23, 2023 at 13:45. EDT.
Retrieved Jun 1, 2026 at 19:37.
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