There were two neighbor boys by the name of Majors who lived across the hill on an old farm. They would come down and we would camp out on the edge of the lake. We would string a night line across a neck of the lake and check it each hour. The line was held -up off
the bottom with glass jugs. We caught a lot of fish there, mostly channel cats. As time went on the plant Superintendent got wind that he may be replaced by Dad so Dad was let go. Well we had to move again.
Dad's brother Ed, owned a restaurant, called the Texas Lunch in Cochranton, PA and wanted Dad to come up and run it for him, so we picked up moved to Pennsylvania, Poor
Mother, just got settled in a nice home and had to leave again. That was in 1932, I graduated in 33. We had a slot machine in the restaurant that paid out in tokens. The vendor would come once a week and exchange them for cash. I would keep track of the machine and knew when it was about to pay off, and then I would play. That's how I bought my school clothes. This was the depression years and there wasn't any money in the restaurant business. My uncle sold the
restaurant so Dad was out of a job again!
We looked around for farms to run on shares; Cochranton, New Vernon, and New Lebanon. I remember while living on a farm at New Lebanon, I helped a neighbor cut logs for a man with a crosscut saw. It got down to 25-30 degrees below zero that winter. We had to wrap our feet in burlap bags to keep our feet from freezing. It was so cold that some of the trees would split wide open when they hit the ground. The man said he would pay us after he shipped the logs and it ended up we never got paid for our winter's work!
After that I worked at a saw mill near Greensburg, PA skidding logs. That was the year my sister, Edna, died. I then worked for a farmer who raised potatoes and furnished baled straw to the
Mental Institution at Polk, PA. There I made $35 a month plus room and board.
I joined the Civilian Conservation Corps down in Cameron County, and they paid thirty five dollars a month. They sent $30 home because we were on relief and I got five dollars, the C.C.C. camp was operated by Army personnel. There were all kinds of kids in camp so you had to keep everything under lock and key. We got up each morning before daylight for exercise. I heard my first bobcat there one evening, sounded like a child screaming. There were lots of them around as well as Timber Rattlers. We would hunt them at noon break. When I returned home I had a kitchen match box full of rattles. My only Job in the eight months there was to swing a sledge hammer to break rocks to make fire trails through the mountains. They would let us go around a rock the size of a house, but everything else was broken up and scattered along the trail.
After I got out of the CCC I worked for a few farmers for $30 + room and board. I finally was able to buy a 1933 ton and a half covered bed truck. The neighbor boy, John Komar, who was built like a football player, and I would drive around and buy potatoes. We would grade them and bag them in 100-pound burlap bags. Then we hauled them to the south side of Pittsburgh to sell to stores there.
After potato season was over I couldn't find any more work for the truck so I sold it and bought a Model T Ford, a three pedal foot shifting job. I then went to work for a farmer named Buchanan who also owned a grocery store/gas station on the Crawford and Mercer County line. There I met Mildred (Midge) and got married in 1939.
We had a tough time making a go of it for a few years. First we stayed with Ben and Idesta, my Dad and Mother until they moved to Norrisville, PA. We then stayed with her dad and mother, Julian and Marie Vincent. I helped Jule cut mine props for a neighbor on his farm for twenty cents an hour, ten hours a day. That winter, at the McDaniel farm, above Jule & Marie's we cut downmost of the apple trees to burn to keep warm. From there we moved into the Cochranton Booster Club Building which housed a bowling alley, dance hall, and barbershop. All we had for furniture was a card table, two crates, a bed, three-burner oil stove, and a tin cupboard. Then we moved to a four-room cottage along French Creek where we lived when Leonard and later Nancy were born.
I worked at Talon in Meadville, PA. where I lost the ends of my fingers in an accident while operating the chain machine, I had an allergic reaction and got lockjaw.
Then I worked for the Erie Railroad as a welder's helper, and was in a motorcar accident. I remember the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while workingfor the R.R.
From there I went to work on the Western Game Farm for the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1946, as a laborer for $0.60 an hour. Dale and Jeff were born while I was working there.
I retired in August of 1977 as the Superintendent of the Game Farm, raising ring-necked pheasants for release into the wild, making $23,000 per year. Mid and I built our home
near the Game Farm on Henry Rd., where we have lived since retirement.
This was written by George Russell Enlow. Click HERE for a PDF representation of his travels.