Minnies'
House
Ruth
0. Richards
Originally published in the Emmitsburg Dispatch
Republished in the Emmitsburg News-Journal
In the fall
of '42 we moved to the neighbor’s house, on South
Seton Avenue with the promise that we could stay there
for the duration of the war. However, circumstances made
it necessary for the neighbors to return to Emmitsburg
in the fall of '43. We weren’t exactly evicted, but
the arrangement offered to us of sharing the house with
the neighbors’ family did not appeal to us so we had
to move.
Moving did not appeal to us either, for we knew that
housing in Emmitsburg was scarce and we had no
furniture. Well, we had a refrigerator that we had
bought our first year in Mrs. Patterson's house, but
except for a handful of odds and ends, we had nothing.
We rented Minnie Eichelburger’s house from the
Emmitsburg Water Company, owner at that Time; the house,
that is now next to the drive in at the Bank. In 1943
there was one house in between owned Mr. Peter Burket
[said to be the richest man in Emmitsburg] owned that
house which had a rented apartment upstairs, and he
lived downstairs. Now, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I
believe there was a small A&P store owned by Mr.
Bill Rowe there also, but I can’t remember if it was a
part of Mr. Burkeffe's house, or a separate building.
Minnie’s house was big, and needless to say, we
could not live in such a big house with only a
refrigerator. Someone told us about Mr. Herzog at Blue
Ridge Summit who had some kind of connection with a
furniture warehouse in Baltimore. We contacted him and
he took us to the warehouse where we could choose from
the furniture in stock.
As we walked through the warehouse, we were made
aware that Wartime furniture was not only poorly made,
but made with interior design and materials. Couches and
easy chairs had no springs, belying the word
"easy." The bad springs consisted of two
parallel boards with flimsy springs between and heaven
only knows what was in the lumpy mattresses. We bought a
drop leaf table that teetered no matter where we it, a
buffet and four dinning room chairs. The only thing now
remaining of that shopping spree is a suit of bedroom
furniture of cherry wood, and that remains because it
was of fine quality.
How were we going to get this furniture back to
Emmitsburg Mr. Herzog had the answer. Obviously he had done this before. It was not an insurmountable problem. Andy Eyster, a friend from our first days in Emmitsburg, went to Baltimore, picked up the furniture and brought it to Emmitsburg.
We still had no stove nor kitchen furniture. We bought a tiny gas stove from Hayes Hardware, and a kitchen table and chairs from a second hand store under the hotel. I was ready to make this house livable and cozy but by then I was pregnant and Dr. Cadle put me to bed for
six weeks.
Sometime during that six weeks there was a carnival where the erstwhile shoe factory was and the Antique Mall now is. Every hour of the day, hour after hour, the calliope at the carnival played "Pistol Packing Mama - Put that Pistol Down." I was reeling with nausea at that time and
hearing that tune set me off. Today just thinking about that tune almost sends me reeling again.
There were annoyances about this house that we had to contend with. As soon as we moved in we had no hot water, even though we had built fires in the little stove next to the furnace for that purpose. That problem was solved when Mr. Hayes discovered that the hot water pipe had been
connected to the toilet. We were flushing all of our hot water away.
Other annoyances were not so easily dealt with. The furnace was hand-fired and because of the war, the only coal we could get was "oil coal," I think it was called. It was terrible. If the fire was "banked" (does anyone know that usage, any more?) too much, the fire go out and the
house would be cold in the morning. On many occasions, black smoke from the furnace would fill the house and everything would be covered with a grimy black film. Oh! Joy!
We were horrified to find that we had rats from the
chicken 'factory ' next door. Every time we went down to
the basement there would be rats crawling overhead, or
sucking water out of the drain for the wash tubs. Flying
ants or termites would swarm into front room, and in the
room at the top of the stairs I had set aside as a
nurse.
We had even begun to think that the house was
haunted. Not infrequently, we would be awakened in the
middle of the night by the sound of something being
dropped onto to attic floor overhead. We went up to the
attic several times and found nothing that would account
for that noise.
The blinds that had been furnished by the landlord
did not reach all ft way to ft bottom of the windows,
which reached to the floor. Often at night we would
discover passerby's stooping to look under the blinds and
into the room. I wonder what they were hoping to see.
There was a little yard to the east of the house with
a hedge along the front. One Saturday evening as we were
sitting on the front steps we were privileged to learn
that the little yard was a public toilet. 'Come on
Mommy, here's where we always go.'
That yard got very weedy and Mrs. Hayes, (Sam's
mother) was embarrassed and hired Gem Myers (who was a high school
student then) to tidy it up for us (her.) We
had no tool as they were unavailable at the time. There
was room at the back of the house for a garden and I
have no idea how we prepared the ground for that, but I
do know that we had a great tomato crop. Victory Gardens
were 'the thing."
Each room in the house had windows on the west side.
I felt they had to be curtained
to help make each room look more complete. We could
not use them for either looking out or to let light in,
as there was less than a foot of space between that
house and the one next door.
Once again, I say, Mrs. Harnar was good to me and to
us. She was about the only person I got know during our
first year in Minnie's house. Our baby (Katharine) was
born in May and when I went out of the house with her, I
got to know more neighbors.
That will have to be another story -- there's much to
tell.
Have your own memories of
Emmitsburg of old?
If so, send them to us at history@emmitsburg.net
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other stories by Ruth Richards
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