 The Times They Are A Changin’ As far as I know, my sister Jean got the first TV in our family. She always got new electronics before any of the rest of us. She lived in a small building next to Glenda and Tom Cook’s house at one time. That building is said to have been a bakery in times past. It is now torn down. I can’t reconcile the date unless she lived there with Harry around 1950. Betty and I went to watch TV there for the first time. The screen was five inches wide. The first show we saw was Howdy Doody. Jean’s favorite program was Soupy Sales. It is hard for me to imagine such a small TV screen even three feet away from it. Then I looked down at my smart phone and realized that is what we do today. I have always thought that we got our first TV in 1948 but have come to believe it may have been around 1950-51 instead. After my brother Bob went to the Army, my parents decided that we needed a TV to see the Korean war news. My brother was sent to MP School in Chicago in 1950 and remarked in one of his letters that TVs were everywhere. Besides, my Dad said, everyone else had a TV so we should have one too. We got about a twelve-inch screen Philco TV, probably from Dunlap’s store. My family never bought anything outright but had to pay for it a little at a time. Betty and I always had to turn the dials and know what was on and when. When the dials got stripped from use, we had to fiddle with that too. Oh, and by the way, Betty and I loved to watch wrestling on TV on Saturdays. We sat in the floor in front of the TV and cheered our favorite wrestlers on. We knew all of the holds and wrestlers. My Dad just sat in his chair and laughed because he had two daughters that loved wrestling. And in recent years, I have been known to watch wrestling with my grandson Ray. My favorite wrestler was John “Bradshaw” Layfield. Ray’s was “The Undertaker”. I guess the times change but some things don’t. : ) ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck
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 Jean’s Marriage Ends in Tragedy Kathleen had married and Bob had gone into the Army. Jean probably felt alone with them gone. She met Harry Samuel Davidson at a carnival in uptown Williamsport. He was a tall, good looking man and older than she was. She was attracted to him and married young despite my parent’s misgivings. Harry was from Circleville, the son of Myrtle and Oscar Davidson. Jean and Harry moved to a house outside of Circleville in a field surrounded by wheat or corn, I don’t remember which. As with my sister Kathleen, we visited them on Sunday afternoons. I was around eleven and all of my older siblings were gone from home. I remember sitting on Jean’s porch looking out over the field and wondering what life was all about. Who was I? I didn’t know but I did know that I was bored. Looking back, I think it was the beginning of my spiritual hunger and thirst for God. I didn’t find the answers to these questions until several years later. My sister Jean was married three years before Jeffrey Allen Davidson was born. I wish this story could say they lived happily ever after but it ends in tragedy. On November 10, 1953, Harry was picking corn when some fodder got caught in the corn picker he was operating. He probably thought he could pull it out without turning the corn picker off. He tried to pull it out and his hand got caught. Then he stuck his foot in for leverage to get his hand out. I could go on but you know the end of this story without my telling you. Someone ran up to me and told me when I left school that day. It was the first person that was close to me to die. My first reaction was like so many others….maybe he’s not dead….but he was. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck  German Measles In 1948, German Measles were going around and Betty and I both got them. It was in the spring around the time that Bob enlisted in the Army. I remember sitting in our dining room looking out the back window over the cistern and emerging flowers. It looks like I got the measles first but I don’t remember anything about Betty having them. Aside from the itchy sores, I had a high fever and am sure that I hallucinated. I remember Mama and Daddy standing at the end of my bed. They must have asked how I was feeling because I told them that one of my feet was heavier than the other. I also lost some of my hearing and my mother got upset because she was in the dining room talking to me while I was lying on the couch in the living room. I didn’t hear her. She came in all upset. Then my nose started to bleed. The blood ran down the back of my throat and coagulated and I couldn’t breathe. She dipped her fingers in cold water and put them on my lips and the shock caused me to cough thereby solving the problem. I don’t know who else was in the house but my mother sent someone to Alonzo and Becky Stonerocks’ house across the street. Alonzo was sick so they had to have a phone. I don’t remember Dr. Gamble coming but he must have, and I survived. I was in Winona Ramsey’s fourth grade and missed a lot of school that year. My sister and I often heard mourning doves in our yard. I knew Alonzo was really ill and I thought the mourning doves were Alonzo moaning. I always told Betty, “it’s just Alonzo”. Even today, when I hear mourning doves, I think of him. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck Note: When I write these articles, I make every effort to ensure that what I am writing is as factual as possible. While researching dates for my brother’s military service this past week, I came across a Circleville Herald article published on April 19, 1948. It stated that “four other Williamsport lads had signed up at the same time” (meaning a total of seven from Williamsport signed up). “Those accepted are Robert Frances, Robert E. Teets and Earl L. Rutherford.” If Robert Teets nickname was “Bud”, he did go to boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina with Bob. Earl Rutherford went to Texas. My mother saved the newspaper for that day. Bob and the Army My brother Bob was in the Army from 1948 to 1952. He was stationed in various places from the east coast to the west in the United States. He was at Fort Riley, Kansas when he met Pauline “Pat” Miller (Baldwin). She was the daughter of a career Army father and had lived on Army bases everywhere. Bob wrote home and asked my mother’s permission to marry her. My mother said, “no, you already have a girlfriend here waiting for you.” Bob decided to ignore her advice and got married anyway. I have always thought that military marriages must be hard. American men are good looking and gregarious….but many are from poor or average families as was true in Bob’s case. He got engaged when the song “Sunflower from the Sunflower State” was popular, so Betty and I went around singing it all of the time. Before he went to the Army, Bob made a plywood doll house for Betty and me but we had no furniture for it, so he and Pat sent us doll house furniture. They also sent Betty and me new dresses so we decided that this must be a good thing. : ) They married on February 26, 1949 in Lincoln, Nebraska. When Bob was on furlough, he brought Pat home with him. On February 8, 1951, his first son Robert Bruce was born at Camp Carson, Colorado. Bob wrote faithfully, not only to my mother but to Betty and me. My mother saved his letters. On July 5, 1951, he started his journey from Camp Carson, Colorado to Korea. He was made a Staff Sergeant in the 27th Infantry of the Wolfhound Division and counted the days until his time was up. We prayed for him every night. I don’t believe he would have returned had it not been for prayer on his behalf. Towards the end of the war, if you can call it an end, there was talk of a “cease fire”. So, we prayed for a “cease fire”. One morning when I got up, the newspaper headline contained the words “CEASE FIRE”. Bob cut his foot on a piece of shale and was sent to Fuji or Koje-Do to recuperate. He was given a purple heart. He saw action in Korea until March 6, 1952. He was discharged as a Master Sergeant on April 14, 1952, which was his birthday. More about Bob later. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck |
Marilyn Francis FergusonGrowing up in Williamsport, Ohio is a blog by Marilyn Francis Ferguson which describes small town life in the 1940s and 1950s. Blog Categories
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