Connellsville man has vivid memories of past
At one time in most of our lives, especially when we were young, if older people started talking about what they did when they were kids, we were immediately turned off. You would think to yourself, “Here he/she goes again with all that old boring stuff that I’m not the least bit interested in.” True, some people drone on and on, but older people can give you insight into a time period that you didn’t experience first hand. We all have valuable historical insight buried within our memories.
Many of us have attended family reunions as youngsters. Valuable family stories were related to those attending, and I wish that I had paid more attention. Too often when we become really interested in knowing more, the people who knew the most about our family’s history are gone. My father was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a young man right out of high school. Now, I wish that I could talk to him about his experiences, but it is too late.
One of the main reasons for these articles, on my part, was to record the memories of Bill Balsley. This man had an unbelievable memory of Connellsville over the last 80-plus years of his own life. Then he could reach back to the memories of his parents and grandparents exposing more of Connellsville history. He had always lived on the South Side and in the same house that his father built. So his memories of growing up tell us a great deal about life on the South Side of Connellsville in the 1920s.
Have you ever heard of the Pony Man? Parents never change. They love to have pictures of their children. In today’s world, pictures of your kids are so easy to make with our digital cameras and computers. We can send pictures via the Internet all over the world, not so in the 1920s.
Very few people had cameras in their homes back then. If you wanted a picture of your child, you made an appointment at the local photography studio. You got all dressed up and went for a formal portrait. But some enterprising businessman saw a chance to make a few bucks, and with a pony and a camera, he went out into the neighborhoods of Connellsville to make a living.
This businessman, according to Bill, would come into a neighborhood; Bill’s was the Cedar Avenue gang, and find a group of kids playing. Well you can guess how the kids were attracted to the pony. The Pony Man would say, “How do you like the pony? ” Or he might say, “Would you like to pet my pony?” Then this clever man would ride one of the children to his or her home on the pony, and when the mother came to the door, she would melt at the sight of her child on the pony. When the Pony Man asked if she wanted a picture of her child on the back of the pony, she couldn’t say no. So within three or four weeks, he would be back to sell the mothers these precious pictures. Bill said a pony picture could be found on the mantles of all the homes where there were youngsters. The picture illustrating this article is our own Bill at age 6 or 7. What mother could resist this treasure?
During the 1920s, households had iceboxes not refrigerators. Some older people still refer to refrigerators as “iceboxes.” Bill said the ice man came around once or twice a week depending on the weather. His iceman came in a wagon drawn by two horses. The ice came from the Yough Brewery, Pittsburgh Brewery or Hagan’s. Ice was made in 300-pound blocks. The ice companies printed cards that were 10 inches by 10 inches with the amount of ice needed on both sides. You could purchase 25, 50, 75 or 100 pounds of ice. Your mother would put the appropriate card in the window for the iceman.
The ice man would cut the proper size block with an ice pick. He would then put a burlap sack on his shoulders and over his back.
Using ice tongs, he would pick up the ice block and balance on his shoulder holding it with one hand. The burlap sack would act as a pad and absorb the water from the melting ice. Most ice companies gave ice picks to advertise their businesses.
While the ice man was delivering the ice blocks, all the kids in the area were on the tailgate of the wagon getting the smaller pieces of ice that chipped off when the blocks were cut. It was a great thing to suck on a piece of ice on a hot day. When the ice man came out of the house, he would chase you off the wagon, but some of the ice men would let you hang on until he got to the next stop a few houses away. I think this old habit of sucking on ice from his childhood always remained part of Bill. Every time I visit him to discuss ideas for articles, he had a glass of ice to chew on.
It was a big deal to hang out with the ice man. The children would pet the horses and feed them apples and grass. Remember, there were no televisions and video games back then.
Other people who earned a living by coming into the neighborhood were the scissors grinder and the tinker. The scissors grinder would come with a large stool like a piece of equipment that had a foot-powered treadle much like a foot-powered sewing machine. He would walk through the streets, and he got your attention by ringing a bell. If you wanted knives or scissors sharpened, he would do this at the street curb. Some of these skilled craftsmen even repaired umbrellas; the handles and the metal parts. For these jobs, he needed additional materials.
The tinker repaired pots, pans and skillets that had holes in them. The tinker would patch the holes in the cooking utensils and also clean them up for the housewives.
All the houses in Bill’s neighborhood were heated by coal. The coal was also delivered by horse and wagon. You purchased 50, 75, or 100 bushels of coal, which were stored in a coal bin in the basement of your house. The coal man drove as close to the basement window and coal bin as he could. He then placed a coal chute that went from the wagon through the cellar window into the coal bin. The coal man would shovel the coal into the coal chute, and the coal would slide into the coal bin.
Bill remembers a time while the coal man was shoveling the coal, the kids were feeding green apples to the horse. He chased the kids off because the green apples were giving the horse cramps. I guess the kids were only trying to be kind to the horse.
Another story that Bill related concerned lots of tramps in the area when he was young. They came to your back door for food, a handout like a jelly sandwich. Some women felt sorry for the tramps and would feed them. Some how, somewhere, tramps marked the property of those people who were generous and gave out food. Other tramps could read these signs and knew where to stop for handouts. Bill said the tramps had all kinds of marks and identification they used that were known to other tramps. These men would sit on the back porch while they ate. They traveled around the area by jumping onto freight cars of the B&O Railroad.
Along South Arch Street sloping down to the railroad yard was a spring of water. It was known as “Bummers’ Spring.” Bill’s mother told him that bums would set up a campsite and sleep there. He told me that there were still indications that someone was sleeping there as few as 10 years ago.
What a joy to hear these stories of an earlier time period. Maybe we no longer wait anxiously for the ice man or watch the scissors grinder, but kids still get a kick our of petting and riding a pony. We like to suck on ice during hot weather. If someone is building a house or garage, we like to watch the work that is being done. Mothers still treasure pictures of their children.
There are still “knights of the highway” who prefer to follow a different lifestyle. And we rejoice in knowing people whose memories are so vivid that they can transport us back to an earlier time period so that we can understand more about the past, and also, we can appreciate how far we have progressed.
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Karen Hechler is a former Connellsville Area School District history teacher and a long-time resident of Connellsville. She is president of the Connellsville Historical Society. Before his recent death, Bill Balsley and Hechler teamed up to write their “Let’s Talk Connellsville” column.