Growing Up in Williamsport, Ohio

The Winds of Change
 
Changes in our family make-up started in 1945 when my oldest sister Kathleen graduated from Williamsport High School. She went to work at Isaly’s Ice Cream Factory in Washington Court House. She later moved to Columbus to work and stayed with my mother’s sister, Pauline Skaggs Gordon. I think she and her friends, Alma Lou Wing (Masters), Loretta Keller and others, worked at some of the same places. She later was employed as both a receptionist and secretary for the Dunlap Company in Williamsport where she likely met Lonzie Foster Rigsby.
 
Lon was a good looking, black haired, blue eyed man from a big family that hailed from Kentucky. Like a lot of Kentuckians, the Rigsby family has some Indian ancestry. Their mother, Mintie Jane Estep Rigsby and father Simon Peter Rigsby had 12 children. However, Simon died on November 27, 1936 and Mintie was left to raise their large family. There were six boys and six girls. Two of the girls still at home were Kathleen and Alice Frances. Alice and I were in the same grade and good friends at school.
 
Lon’s younger brother Edgar, who was nicknamed ”Blackie” because of his dark complexion, had a Model A or Model T Ford and chauffeured the family around. Blackie was every bit as good looking as his brother Lon. The Rigsbys lived out in the country on Dry Run and the boys worked for Jim Hooks. When they were not working, they were hunting and fishing. Lon said his mother would send them out to hunt or fish and tell them not to come home if they were empty handed.
 
Kathleen and Lon started dating, probably in 1946. He came to town on Saturday evenings and they sat on the couch and talked. I slept in a three-quarter bed in the downstairs bedroom and could lean up in my bed and see right across to the living room couch. I was eight years old and wanted to see what was going on. I’m sure they were really angry with me but if there was kissing going on, I wanted to see it.

©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck