Category: Events before 1955

The Great Mouse Roundup

A creek called Congress Lake Outlet crosses Waterloo Road about one-half mile west of Randolph and empties into Breakneck Creek. During heavy spring rains this creek overflows and floods the lowlands of Johnnycake Hollow, about 2 miles north of Waterloo Rd. Kenny, my buddy and partner-in-crime, had a 12 foot fishing boat powered by a 3 horsepower outboard motor. On one of these flood occasions we decided to take the boat down the creek and do some exploring. We launched the boat at the Waterloo bridge and fired up the motor.

After some amount of effort getting around and over logs that had fallen across the stream we arrived at Johnnycake to find that the creek had flooded the fields of the Paulus farm. We saw that we could take the boat for a cruise through the flooded fields if we were careful not to run into the fences. The fields were not flat but rolling, and the rises caused small islands in the water. To our amazement we saw that these hummocks were black with field mice that had gathered there to keep from drowning. This sight caused our evil minds to go into high gear. We didn’t yet know how this would play out but we could see that the situation had interesting possibilities.

I was wearing a new canvas hunting jacket that had zip-up pockets, four in front and one very large one in the rear. Pulling up beside one of these little islands, we noticed that the mice were unable to escape, so we could just pick them up by their tails, one at a time, drop them into the jacket pockets and then close the zippers. Now we had a coat full of mice just looking for a good place to cause panic!

Down the road from our access point was a gas station and small restaurant run by Frank Breyer, we called him “Pappy”. After our excursion we were hungry and decided to stop there and get a burger. I hung my jacket in an inconspicuous place in the rear of the restaurant and  un-zipped the pockets. The mice were tired of being cooped up, so they poured out of the pockets like cold gravy, four abreast. We then went to the bar and ordered our burgers.

Soon there were mice running all around the floor, scaring the women and making Pappy Breyer rather uncomfortable. We tried our best to look surprised and to help catch some as they scampered around, but our hearts weren’t really in it and we missed more than we caught.

About a week later I was in Pappy’s, and saw one of the remaining  field mice run under the cigarette machine. Pappy whacked it with a piece of pipe and held it up by the tail. “Look at that thing”, he exclaimed. “It’s tail is only one-inch long and it has a face like a bulldog. I have no idea what it is or where these things came from”.

I must admit that I didn’t offer much in the way of an explanation.

World War ll

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese occurred on Sunday, December 7th, 1941. I was 8 years old at the time.  I remember hearing about it around 1:00 in the afternoon, and I was scared to death. I couldn’t believe that nobody else was panicking. That evening the radio shows went on as usual.  I found it disturbing that Gene Autry and others sang songs and carried on as though everything was normal. Of course it wasn’t, as I’m sure everyone knew.

Unlike recent wars, this one really had an effect upon the civilian population. The speed limit was lowered to 50 mph, and later to 35 mph – everywhere.  Gasoline was rationed. Each car owner had a gas coupon book and a windshield sticker printed with a large “A”, “B” or “C” which allowed the driver to buy certain amounts of gasoline depending on how important his job was to the war effort. If I remember correctly, an “A” sticker entitled the driver to buy 4 gallons per week, and a “B” sticker 8 gallons.

                          Gas Ration Windshield Stickers

Meat, canned foods, tires, and sugar were rationed. Ration books were issued by the Office of Price Administration (OPA). Each page was worth a certain number of points. Change was given in tokens, red for meat, blue for other food, each worth 1 point.

                                Ration Tokens – dime-sized

Building materials were unavailable. Tires were especially critical since the Japanese army had cut us off from our rubber supply in South East Asia. We were encouraged to save fat from bacon etc, and to  put it in tin cans to be used to make explosives. Tin cans were flattened and saved. Everyone was encouraged to grow a “Victory Garden” and to buy “War Bonds” to pay for the war. A war bond stamp book could be picked up at the postoffice. War stamps were purchased starting at 10 cents apiece. When the book was full, $18.75 had been invested and the book was turned in for a bond worth $25 in ten years.

                             War Stamp and Stamp Book

                                          War Morale Posters

New cars were no longer manufactured. The auto companies were making planes, tanks, and trucks. It wasn’t long before Model A Fords appeared to be the most numerous cars on the road. The last one of those was manufactured in 1931, but they were the cars that were tough enough to run without parts replacements, and of course no parts were available.

Everyone who wanted a job could now get one working in a defense plant. People had money, but now the problem was that there was a shortage of things to buy.

Uncle Claude and Aunt Jane Lang worked at Goodyear Aircraft. Claude was an electrician and wired B29 bombers, Jane worked in the production line and in the office. Uncle Walter Lang was sent to medical school and later drafted into the army as a doctor. Uncles Emmet and Bud Roliff were drafted into the infantry and saw action in Europe. Emmet was shot in the arm and Bud ended up with PTSD. They called it combat fatigue back then.

The government used imminent domain to obtain 23000 acres in northern Portage and eastern Trumbull counties to build the Ravenna Arsenal, a facility to make and test bombs and artillery shells. My father finally obtained a good-paying  job working for the construction company that was building this plant. Even though he now had money, there was nothing much available to buy. That was a good thing because he saved enough to buy a house in Randolph. We moved there in 1943.

During the war Dad had several hives of bees. Since bees make honey, and honey was a substitute for sugar which was vital to the war effort, the OPA determined that it was important to keep those bees alive in the winter. Because of this our family was given the privilege of buying extra sugar for the bees. I believe it was 10 pounds for each hive per year.

I can assure you that the bees never saw any of that sugar.

In February 1942 the Japanese-Americans on the west coast were placed in internment camps surrounded by barbed-wire. Panic set in after the Pearl Harbor attack and the government was afraid our country was going to be over-run by the Japanese army from the coast and these citizens would help their relatives. At that time of panic it didn’t seem like an unreasonable move. Viewed in retrospect it looks like an uncivilized and unfair thing to do. (See recent article)

The Randolph Monster

Sometime around 1943-44 a story went around the Randolph area that there was some kind of wild animal roaming the local woodlands and fields at night near the fairgrounds. Farmers claimed that their sheep and chickens had been killed, and cows came back from the pastures with their udders all scratched up. There were half-eaten carcasses found lying in the fields. Some people claimed that they heard strange howling and growling and scratching at night. Some were afraid to let their children  go outside for fear they would be eaten.

Reporters from the nearby papers came to interview the local “authorities”, who became famous with increasingly exaggerated  claims, and these sensationalized versions made news for several weeks. The headlines  “Randolph Monster” or “Randolph Wolves” were followed by terrifying stories verified by some of the locals. One Randolph citizen named “Waldo” was interviewed almost every day. The stories got taller and more sensational, and pictures of Waldo with a terrified look on his face and eyes as big as alarm clocks showed up in the papers, along with his stories, which were getting scarier and stranger.

When I voiced my concern about our safety to Dad, he told me that this was all a scam; the cow’s udders we’re scratched by barbed wire, the  carcasses found were probably from animals that died and were later partially eaten by scavengers, and the howling Waldo heard was  caused by something running on a railroad track in Atwater and pulling 100 freight cars.

Dad had a friend, Frank Petty, who had the job of walking a 20-mile stretch of pipeline north of Kent and inspecting it for leaks and other problems. While talking to Dad one day, Frank mentioned that he had stumbled onto the nest of a mother dog and her pups out in the woods near the pipeline. This caused a light to go on in Dad’s head. He’d had enough of this Randolph monster-wolf foolishness and he now had an idea on how to stop it.

So Dad, Frank, and Bill Petty went to the place where the nest of pups was located. They took me along over the objection of Bill and Frank. I was 10 years old and they were afraid I would “spill the beans”. But Dad insisted, so I was included in this adventure. We gathered up the pups, made a nice nest of leaves in the woods on the Randolph fairgrounds, deposited the pups, and then called the newspaper. They came with cameras and flash bulbs blazing, and took pictures of the pups along with the local heroes – all except for me (to my disappointment). The next day the picture along with the story about the solving of the Randolph Wolves mystery made the front page.

Nothing was ever heard about the Randolph wolves again – no more lacerated cow’s udders, no howling at night, no missing livestock or dead carcasses.

All, that is, except for one more article. I had kept one of the pups as a pet. About a year later the paper sent a photographer to get a picture of the last known remaining Randolph wolf along with it’s owner. I finally had my turn in the limelight. As for “spilling the beans”, I never told anyone what really happened, including my mother. Years later when she finally found out, she couldn’t believe I would hold out on her for that length of time. To this day, I’m sure only a handful of people know what really happened.

Minstrel Shows

Minstrel shows were vaudeville-type acts that were presented in many schools in the country. Most had a similar format, consisting of six boys in black face sitting on straw bales, 3 on each side of the stage. These guys had their faces smeared with burnt cork to resemble negroes and wore old overalls and straw hats. They were called end men. The chorus stood along the back of the stage, which was open in the center where dancing, magic acts, and other  performances occurred. The end men would tell jokes trying to sound like blacks and performers would perform and the chorus would sing. It was one of the big productions of the year and well-attended by the community. It was also very racially provocative, but no one seemed to know any better (or care). I don’t know when these shows stopped but I would be willing to bet that you would never ever see one now in a high school. I guess they went away along with Al Jolson and Amos n’ Andy.