Growing Up In Williamsport, Ohio

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I was born and raised in Williamsport, Ohio in Pickaway County. It is a small town of around eight hundred people and that may include the dogs. I lived there for eighteen years before leaving to go to the Circleville Bible College (now Ohio Christian University).
 
I have found that small towns breed people of renown. My opinion is that people who live in small towns and rural areas, at least in times past, were people who took time to think, sit on the porch and look at the stars, dig in the dirt and visit with their neighbors. I now live in the city and don’t do any of these things. If you live in the city, you probably don’t either.
 
As proof of this hypothesis, I offer five presidents from Ohio, Simon Kenton, Blue Jacket, Alan Eckert, Annie Oakley, Zane Grey, Clark Gable, Roy Rogers, and John Glen, just to name a few. All of these were born or lived in Ohio’s towns at one time.
 
I graduated from the now razed Williamsport School. The school housed grades 1 through 12. It would by no means stand up to today’s safety standards but provided an education that I believe is far superior to most schools today.
 
I graduated in 1956. I don’t know for sure, but I believe the fifties probably saw Williamsport at its peak. My goal is to write about the people, places and our family’s lifestyle during the 40s and 50s.
 
If nothing else my grandchildren, and maybe yours, need to learn what it was like to kill a chicken, clean out the well and have an ice box…and maybe even an outhouse.

©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2019
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck