When we were very young in the 1950s, mother would occasionally drive us the 15 miles or so to Whispering pines to picnic and play on the swings and the slides. One slide was not too high and another was rather high or so we thought then. This was in the days before there were such things on the rural playgrounds. Irvin Park in Curwensville had swings and slides. Once Chestnut Ridge one room school was closed, and we moved into the old high school at Patton Building, but there was still not much playground equipment. My mother had eight children in 12 years and a dairy to run. Dad worked at NARCO making fire brick for the steel mills and did the field work in his spare time. So we mostly stayed on the farm and worked. I still have three sibs in the home area and the rest of us moved elsewhere. Way things look now, two of my one brother's children may come back to the area after college, depending on the job market. Jean ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

I as well as well as my mother attended the West Decatur elememtry school.? This is the six room school?that burned last winter.? The original school was across the road. it was a four room, two story school, built of wood,?that was bought by George Grant Wood.? He put a basement under it and turned it into a home for his family.? It may have been expanded to have more rooms in later years. This is getting off of the subject of Morrisdale but for those of you that?would like?to know a little of the area.? There was a brick making plant in the small town of West Decatur that was owned by the General Refractories Company.? They had their own clay mines in the countryside near the town. There?were several small trains, that brought the clay from the different mines to the brick?yard.? The engines were called dinkys. There was an area a few miles away, near the small town of Ohio where there was room for the engines to turn and to be stored for the night.?I can't say for sure but I believe the area may have been known as Roundtown. Eventually all but one engine was sold and it was stored at the brick plant at night.? I often wonder what happened to it.? I was back there several years ago and there is nothing left of either the turnstiles not the brick yard.? It has all been torn down. For a number of years George Wood was an engineer on?one of these engines.? His son Jonas Wood was a? fireman on one of the?engines.?I remember as a kid waving to the engineers as they passed by. I also remember some of the?fires that were started by cinders that were thrown from the smoke stack of the engine. ?Bob?Dougan?was the last engineer to run the train. He and his wife lived in a house near the centre of town. Leah -----Original Message----- From: Jeann8lte@aol.com To: paclearf@rootsweb.com Sent: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:11 pm Subject: Re: [PACLEARF] Morrisdale, PA When we were very young in the 1950s, mother would occasionally drive us the 15 miles or so to Whispering pines to picnic and play on the swings and the slides. One slide was not too high and another was rather high or so we thought then. This was in the days before there were such things on the rural playgrounds. Irvin Park in Curwensville had swings and slides. Once Chestnut Ridge one room school was closed, and we moved into the old high school at Patton Building, but there was still not much playground equipment. My mother had eight children in 12 years and a dairy to run. Dad worked at NARCO making fire brick for the steel mills and did the field work in his spare time. So we mostly stayed on the farm and worked. I still have three sibs in the home area and the rest of us moved elsewhere. Way things look now, two of my one brother's children may come back to the area after college, depending on the job market. Jean ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PACLEARF-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.