Spook Hill

February 18, 2011

From Grandma's diary:
February 17, 1914 - Tues., not feeliing very well yet, read eleven Psalms, had four callers.
February 18, 1914 - Wed., done small washing and ironing, read seven Psalms, had three callers.

We're still in Florida and the weather has continued to warm up and the blue skies are still with us.  The temps the last couple of days has been in the high 70's with a promised 81 today so with this being our last day heree at the time share we think we are just going to veg out and hang around the pool.

Yesterday we drove down to Lake Wales and Lakeland to do a little sightseeing (pictures above).  We went to Bok Tower at Lake Wales which brought childhood memories of going there with my parents.  The Tower was built in 1927-1929 by Edward Bok and is 205 ft. tall.  The tower houses a carillon near the top of 60 bells ranging in weight from 16 lbs to 22,000 lbs.   We learned from the guide that to be called a carillon there has to be at least 30 bells otherwise they're called chimes.

Edward Bok was interesting in that he imigrated to the States with his parents from Copenhagen at a young age.  None of the family spoke English but his father put him in school the day after arriving in New York.  Within three years he was fluent in English and did excellent in school.  He worked in his late teens at a theatre in NY and noticing that the men all went to the lobby at intermission to smoke cigars and drink alcoholic beverages neither of which wives were allowed to do at the time so they were left in the theatre with nothing to do except chit chat.  He came up with the idea of printing a "Playbill" telling about the program and handing them out, which he had gotten permission from the owners to do.  Apparently overnight Playbill's became a sensation and soon he was publishing them for all the theatres.  He was a supporter of women's rights and was the originator of Cosmopolitan after which he became the editor of Ladies Home Journal a position he held for 30 years.  He married the boss's daughter whose father was of Curtis publishing fame.  She was a supporter of music and started the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia.  She was younger than he was and after he died she ended up marrying Efrem Zimbalist senior.  All interesting stuff not to mention that he was a supporter of world peace and was one of the founders of the United Nations.

After Bok Tower we had to go to Spook Hill  but it turned out to not be very Spooky.

The day before we went to another of those tourist things called the "Wonder Works".  Which is right side up below?

A Trip to Pleasure Island

February 16, 2011

From Grandma's 1914 diary:
February 12, 1914 Thurs, sewed at nightshirts, read seven Psalms, went to church in evening.
February 13, 1914 Fri, baked six loaves bread, twelve pies, finished making two night shirts, read six Psalms.
February 14, 1914 Sat, done Saturdays work, finished one night shirt, made four twoels, baked a cake, read four Psalms.
February 15, 1914 Sun, was sick, had four callers.
February 16, 1914 Mon, felt a little better, read five Psalms, had three callers.

It was only a short walk to Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney to taste the Pleasures there.  The pleasures of blue sky and warm sunshine made it seem like a paradise compared to the snow, ice, and grey skies in northern Ohio. 

The weather here has been steadily improving and this week it's 75 to 80 and still blue skies.  We hear from family in Ohio that it's warming up there but still a lot of ice to melt.  We hope it's all gone by the time we get back.

Below is a video of a giant swing they have in Old Town and is one of those things that you have to be a little crazy to do I would think or at least very adventureous to do.

We went up to a huge flea market on Monday in a small town named Webster.  It is purported to be one of the five largest flea markets in America covering 40 acres with 2,000 booths.  We got into a line of traffic going to the market that inched along at about 5 mph which took a while to go the last 2 miles.  There was a lot of people there shopping as well as enjoying the beautiful day.  It's always fun to talk to the vendors at those places - some real characters there.  After we got past the imported Chinese stuff and into the area of attic and basement stuff it was a lot more interesting.

Our purchases included kettle corn, baked sweet potato, baked white potato, home made kumcout (sp) ice cream, and a post card from 1977.  The card was supposedly from the mother of the person we bought it from and told about the lousy time she had on a cruise and there was no liquor available.

A Man and His Dog

An Attention Getting Man Preaching the Gospel

We guess that's all to report for now.  The biggy for today will be a trip down to Bok Tower.

More later.

Nice in Florida

February 7 - 11, 2011
Weather - 60's this afternoon and beautiful sunshine.

From Grandma's Diary:
February 7, 1914 - Sat., done saturdays work, Sam and father were here for supper, read five Psalms.
February 8, 1914 - Sun., went to Sunday school and church, read twenty five Psalms had three callers in afternoon.
February 9, 1914 - Mon., cut out and sewed at three night shirts for boys, Mr. Ruthroff, Sam, and father were here for dinner, went to church in the evening.
February 10, 1914 - Tues, done washing, churned butter, read eight psalms, went to church in the evening.
February 11, 1914 - Wed, ironed, cleaned casings for butchering, mended, read seven Psalms, went to church in evening.

As mentioned in an earlier blog I decided to share entries from my grandmother's diary.  As usual I'm behind in entries as we've been keeping busy vacationing so this one covers a few days.  Undoubtedly the "boys" in the 2/9 entry was referrring to my father and his brother.  My father would have been 14 years old at the time.  Cleaning casings referred to cleaning the intestines for making sausage.

Below is a short YouTube video of the stone from our family farm that's embedded in "The Monument to the States" in Kissimmee Florida where my grandparents went for winter.  The monument was built in 1941 after a local organizer decided it would be nice to make a monument representing all the states that people came from to winter in Kissimmee.  During those years there were a large number of shuffleboard courts right next to the monument and that was the major pastime for those who came to Kissimmee.  Now people come from all over the world to Kissimmee to visit Disney World.  My brother always lamented - why didn't our grandparents buy some acreage there when it was $5 an acre or whatever it was at that time.  Now you probably can't even buy a hamburger at Disney World for that.

This year the shuffleboard courts have been torn down and there's much evidence that they're going to redo the city park next to the monument.  The side street has now been redone and paved with bricks along the monument.  I hated to see the shuffleboard courts were gone but in today's world retirees probably don't have time for shuffleboard and instead spend their time in the theme parks.  At least it looks like the monument is there to stay and will be one of the key features of the park.

Below are a couple more photos of the Monument.  It is on the website Roadside America by the way.

Below you can see the overall monument - notice the new brick street and new curbing, very nice.

So - what else have we been doing?  Well pretty much just being tourists in a tourist town.  Visited Downtown Disney where at least you can get in free in order to spend your money.  It's a nice place with restaurants (House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, etc.) and loads of gift shops to spend your money.  Below is a couple of pics of a truck at Old Town. This is what you need up north in the snow.  Got a ladder?

Last night we went to the Cirque du Solei at Downtown Disney.  The show here was called Nuaba and had some great acts.

The cousins went down to Sarasota to the Ringling Museums today but Joan and I stayed back to hang out here.  I went and had the tires rotated and balanced at the Goodyear store.  There were starting to become annoying and wanted to get things smoothed out before too much more driving.

All for now I guess.

Life is Good - when you're retired!

Found Warm - But No Sunshine Yet

February 5, 2011

From Grandma's diary-

Feb. 5, 1914 - "Thur, baked six loaves bread and pan of biscuits, uncle George was here to dinner, mended, read five last chapters of Job."

Feb. 6, 1914 - "Fri, baked ten pies and cake, fixed dress,mended, read eleven Psalms.

Packing to leave on Jan. 31

The farmhouse above is where my grandmother and grandfather lived in 1914 when she was writing her diary.  Also where Joan and I live now.

We spent today touring St. Augustine and had a real nice day.  And it was in the 60's - yahoo!  But no sun - oh well, I'll trade for one out of two at this point.

There sure is a lot of history about this town and I don't remember all of it but the British and Spanish spent a lot of time fighting over it.  The Castillo de San Juan fort played a key part in it.  We watched a re-enactment of the Spanish firing a cannon and that was quite an operation.  We took a look at an exhibit of cannon balls they had and I had always wondered if they had some kind of exploding cannon balls.  Well they did by inserting a wooden fuse in a hole in the ball and then by adjusting the length of it they could time it to explode just before hitting the target or after.  That was nasty besides some of the other things they could fire such as nuts and bolts, balls connected by chains, etc.

Firing the cannon!

The oven where they heated the balls red hot before loading them in the cannon.

Bottom end of a mortar.

Back in the old days they had over 60 cannons at the fort.

We stopped at Habitat International's Global Village headquarters on the way to Florida to meet some people there.  We had a real nice visit there.

The Saturday before we left a couple of us went down to the Canton Hot Rod and Motorcycle Show.  Below is an example of what some of these guys can do along with a big bankroll.

Below is a before picture.

Below is the after.

Looking for Sunshine

February 4, 2011

Grandma's Diary -
February 2, 1914 - "Mon., done washing, was over home, mended, read three chapters, had seven callers."
February 3, 1914 - "Tues., ironed, mended, read eleven chapters"
February 4, 1914 - "Wed., Sam was here to dinner. Hazel and I took twelve o'clock car and went to Akron to do shopping"

We've been traveling and having a little trouble accessing the internet so a few days behind again. In Grandma's diary for 2/4 I think that taking the twelve o'clock car meant taking the trolley car that ran from Akron down to Canton where Canton Rd. is now.  We live in the SE corner of Summit County and way back and about 10 miles from downtown Akron.  The trolley ran down through where Canton Rd. is now.  This was about a 3/4 mile hike from the farm or by horse and buggy.  Pretty incredible to think that there was public transportation from Akron to Canton back in 1914 but not now.

We stopped at  Habitat for Humanity International today in Americus, GA and had a good visit there with the leaders of the Global Village operations.  We had a nice chat with the director of GV worldwide and the managers of the Asia/Pacific and Africa region.  Patrick the manager of the Asia/Pacific region where we will be leading the motor home trip in May is a native of Sri Lanka and has been in the states for about 10 years.  He is leaving Wed. of next week to lead a trip to Sri Lanka.  We met and had a great discussion with the manager of the Africa region and discussed some possibilities of a motor home RV trip in Africa.  It's not out of the realm of possibility.

We arrived in St. Augustine, Florida this evening and still no sun but it is getting warmer.  Low 50's here.  We're going to tour old town tomorrow and then head to Kissimmee on Sunday where we meet up with Joan's cousins for two weeks in a condo.  There had better be sunshine!

Life is Good!

Winter Blahs

February 1, 2011


After about a year of being lazy and not keeping the blog up day to day I decided that I needed to get back into it again. I guess that with other activities and or going brain dead it’s easy to skip a day, then a week, then it becomes months and now it’s a year.

One of the things that got me thinking about it was recently I was looking through some of my grandmothers old diaries. She always kept a dairy with a brief description of her and sometimes the family daily activities. Usually this included a brief description of the weather, the Bible verses she read that day, and any other activity she was involved in that day. Some of the diaries are in small pocket notebooks published for farmers to keep notes in, some are a little more sophisticated diaries. My sister-in-law has one from grandma that’s a five year diary that has entries over five years where entries are made on the same page for the same date but a year apart over a five year period.

What I decided to do was to put grandma’s entry for the day as a point of interest in the blog. At least it would be a way to preserve a part of our family history for others in the family or not in the family to read and maybe enjoy.

The diary that I picked to start with was a simple little pocket notebook that was published in 1910 by the Hardy’s Fertilizer Company in Columbus, Ohio. The front has a couple pages of fertilizer chemical compositions for about ten different fertilizers they produced with an encouragement to the farmer to send in a sample for them to analyze for free if they had any doubts about the results they were getting. The back has a couple of pages of the quantity of fertilizer to use for different crops and other tips. Also one page has the calendar for 1909 and 1910. Grandma was frugal so probably grabbed this little notebook that wasn’t used and began her 1914 diary and below is her 2/1/14 entry.
From Grandma’s diary-1914

“Feb. 1. Sun. Went to Sunday school. Read the first twenty three chapters of Job. All went over to John Ruthroffs to spend the evening.”

This was pretty concise and not very newsy and just a brief synopsis of the day.
In the last entry of this blog last year I promised to give an update on the results of the trial of the persons involved in the murder of my cousin. Below is part of a note received from his son after the trial. This is old news locally but those that might have been following the story may not have seen the results.

The summary of the trials are as follows:
Cortez Oliver:
Found guilty by a jury of his peers on Murder, Aggravated Burglary, and Aggravated Robbery
Received the maximum sentence of 35 years to life. That is 15 years to life + 10 years + 10 years to run consecutively. This means he is not eligble for parole for at least 35 years.
He will be appealing his case which will take about a year and half.

Jonathan Dukes:
Found guilty by a jury of his peers on Murder, Aggravated Burglary, and Aggravated Robbery
Also recieved the maximum sentence for each count but the Burglary and Robbery are to be run concurrently (at same time) for a total of 25 to life. Eligble for parole after 25 years.
He will be appealing his case which will take about a year and half.

Jodi Fetty
Personally plead guilty to Complicity to Commit Murder, Aggravated Burglary, and Aggravated Robbery
Received the same sentence as Jonathan, 25 years to life. She is eligble for parole after 25 years.
Since she plead guilty her options for appeal are severely limited.

Darrel Dukes (Driver)
Personally plead guilty to Complicity to Commit Aggravated Burglary and Complicity to Commit Aggravated Robbery. The charge of Murder was dropped for his earnest cooperation.
Received 7 years for Burglary and 8 years for Robbery to be served consecutively for a total of 15 years. He will not be eligible for parole.
He too has little room to appeal since he plead guilty.
End of Story!

Currently we are headed to Florida in search of sunshine and at my sister-in-laws in Tennessee. It’s just rain here and none of the nasty stuff up north in northern Ohio. We are heading to Atlanta tomorrow to see a sister there.

All for now -