My grandmother Moransky’s farm was in Mineral Ridge, Ohio. The land was located on both sides of “Murtha Rode,” running parallel to Main Street about a mile away, toward the east. The house and its vegetable gardens were on one side, the barn and hay fields on the other. The house was torn down more than a decade ago; the former tarmac road became the “Niles-Carver Road.” The Farm remains vividly alive in my memory as the place where I spent happy days in 1948-49, at the outset of my teenage transition. Many of my hours drifted by in my bedroom, overlooking the back fields with their ancient apple trees. My alternative location was on a squeaky, pillow-covered glider on the front porch, hidden from the close-by, dusty road by a tall pine, which may have started life as a Christmas tree long before I was born in this very house. This porch is where I relaxed on many summer days.
The porch opened into the front parlor and its adjoining side-parlor, with their overstuffed chairs and sofas. This furniture was, of course, used only when company came, company that was more than the relatives who gathered around the table in the real dining room beyond the front parlor. This dining room was the home’s true “living-room.” The formal dining room, off of the side-parlor, was seldom, if ever, used for a meal. The front parlor was dominated by a typical, stuffed stag’s head, which may or may not have been a family trophy; its origin was never confirmed.
A large kitchen with a gas-stove and an adjoining pantry with its hand-pump, completed the first floor of the farmhouse. This kitchen was actually used for cooking, except during the summer months when an auxiliary kitchen in the “summerhouse” was made available. The pantry was large enough to accommodate a movable wash tub used for sequential baths. As the youngest, I always went first on bath nights.
A spindled staircase led from the front parlor to the second floor and four bedrooms. My parents had the large one at the top of the stairs. My grandmother had one of the two back bedrooms; I had the other one. Along the hallways were a fourth, spare bedrooms. Behind one of its doors was an enclosed staircase to the attic, my favorite hideout during the right time of the year.
There was also the summerhouse, but I seldom entered it, except when it rained too hard for me to remain “outside” when I wanted to escape the main house. This one-room building was modest in size and furnishings. It held a wood-burning stove along with picnic tables and chairs for use during the summer when cooking in the real kitchen made the main-house much too hot in a time without ceiling-fans and air-conditioning. The summerhouse was located between the detached garage and the grape arbor, near the backdoor into the main kitchen.
The arbor was a pleasant, shady place to sit during the summer. In fall, the grapes were too sour for me to eat. The nearby cherry tree had summer fruit which I thought was equally sour, although adults found it to be acceptable. With enough added sugar, they made delicious cherry pies. Another good, shady place was the back-porch off the main kitchen. Nearby was an outdoor pump that demanded extreme priming before any water would flow from it. Actually, all of the pumps needed priming, the one in the basement as well as the pantry pump. None of the water was drinkable. Too much iron residue. We filled water bottles for consumption whenever we went “up-the-hill” or visited other relatives.
I found the lack of indoor plumbing to be tolerable, except for one recurring event. I hated the outhouse and everything about it, including the long walk from the back-porch, down the brick path, past the grape arbor to that smelly Center of Hell guarded by obnoxious, orange tiger lilies. At least during the coldest winter mornings, I could use the chamber pot discreetly located in the basement. A mysterious house-elf took care of the transfer of its contents to the Center of Hell. Her work made my life more bearable.
The days spent on the Farm are the most nostalgic ones I have. I can readily recall them whenever I sit in the warm sunshine beaming down on the flower gardens of Eagle’s Trace. I continue to hate orange tiger lilies!