Mickey's
Stories
Stories of Blossom Hill as Recalled by Holcomb Rogers
Nixon (Mickey)
(great
nephew of Holcomb Rogers) )
Written in 2005-07 |
| WHAT’S
IN A NAME?
Most of the self-propelled
motorized equipment was named. Following is a list of some
examples with my recollections.
( Photos of similar vehicles found on web.)
Sampson
Don’t know much about him. I think he was a tractor
that preceded Goliath.
Goliath
A Caterpillar D2 tractor
that was new in 1937. He, I think, was still there when Blossom
Hill was sold.
photo
from wikipedia
Pete
Pete was a 1935 Ford
pick-up truck with a flat-head V-8 engine. He lasted until
1948 when his frame rusted through. He was retired to the
grove, his speedometer showed 35,000 +/- actual miles. I am
sure a lot of these miles were racked up pulling equipment
around fields.
Theodore
Theodore was
a Uni-tiller brand of garden tractor. His unique feature was
the engine was mounted in a frame, which was in turn mounted
inside his one
wheel. Balance was maintained by mounting accessories in the
front, be it a cultivator that came with him, or a cycle bar
mower. The mower was offset a few inches from center to make
pulleys line up which made him pull constantly to one side.
I never used him as a cultivator. He was hard to start, because
he was built as a cultivator, he was slow, and with the constant
pulling, he was hard to operate.
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Dottie
Dottie was a
gray 1937 Buick 4 door sedan with a straight 8 engine. In
1947, she was re-named Dottie Gray. I don’t know what
happened to her.
Dottie Green
Dottie Green
was a green 1947 Buick 4 door sedan with a straight 8 engine.
She replaced Dottie (Gray) who stayed around for a few more
years. This explains the color designation in the names. I
don’t know what happened to her.
Willy
Willy was a
1948 Willys Jeep pick-up truck. He had a 4 cylinder engine,
high and low speed transfer case, and 4 wheel drive. He was
still there in the summer of 1953. I don’t know what
happened to him, but I think he was replaced with another
Jeep pick-up, one with a cab-over-engine design. Don’t
know if that one was ever named or not, or his fate.
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Uncle
Mike in 1960
(Holcomb Rogers)
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A
RIDE TO HERNDON
When
Uncle Mike drove Willy, he sat up high enough to have good
visibility of his surroundings. The trouble with Willy was
with his gas pedal all the way to the floor, he was only
good for about 48 miles per hour. That speed and road conditions
on the road between Blossom Hill and Herndon made an interesting
ride. However, one time I rode to Herndon with him, and
he was driving Dottie Green. He had trouble seeing over
the steering wheel, and he kept his right foot in the same
relative position as in Willy, i.e. all the way to the floor.
This was in the days before seat belts! Can you imagine
that ride?
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| GOLIATH
As the result of a merger
on March 2, 1925, between the Holt Caterpillar Company and
the C. L Best Gas Traction Company, the Caterpillar Tractor
Company was born in Peoria, Illinois. In 1937, they developed
a new model designated D2 as an agricultural tractor. It sold
for $1725, with a 4 cylinder diesel engine started by a 2
cylinder gas pony engine.
Starting Goliath and
driving him went something like this. You hauled several buckets
of water from the horse trough to fill his radiator. There
was a small but continuous leak somewhere. I don’t think
anti-freeze was ever used in him. Then you filled his fuel
tank. It was an integral part of the machine, located directly
behind the seat. You removed the fuel tank lid and pumped
in fuel from a nearby storage tank with a hand cranked pump.
There was no fuel gauge, only a dip stick in the tank. Under
the left rear corner of the hood was a small control panel
for the pony engine. I don’t remember anybody ever adjusting
the choke or throttle control, but you turned on a switch
that was connected to the magneto, thus making a spark. You
set a compression release handle on the diesel engine to “start.”
You also turned on the gas for the pony engine. Uncle Mike
always used Amoco “white” gas which was un-leaded
high octane gas. He bought it at Bowman’s store. Then
you got a length of heavy rope with a pull handle on it out
of the tool box, wound it around the pony engine fly wheel
which was in the operators compartment and pulled. Uncle Mike
called it twisting his tail. If you were lucky, it would start
after 2 or 3 times. Once the pony engine was running, there
were several other steps to get the diesel engine going. No.
1, pull up on a lever to engage gears between the pony engine
and the diesel engine. No. 2, push (or pull) another lever
to engage a clutch which would start turning the diesel engine.
No. 3, after a few minutes you would move the compression
release handle to “run.” and reach up into the
operators compartment and open the throttle about half way.
The diesel engine should be running on it’s own at this
point. No. 4, stop the pony engine by shutting off the fuel
and turning off the magneto switch.
Once you were in the
operators compartment, controls were fairly simple. The throttle
was directly in front of you and transmission shift lever
was between your legs (5 forward speeds, 1 reverse.) The main
clutch lever was to your left. There were 2 steering clutch
levers, (1 to the left, 1 to the right) to make slight steering
adjustments. There were 2 foot pedals (1 for the left, 1 for
the right) to
be used for sharper turns. One of them could be locked on
for a parking brake.
There was also a small handle under the seat used to engage
the belt pulley.
I don’t
remember much maintenance work being done. The first repair
was to replace a piece on the throttle mechanism to make it
stay where you set it, occasionally Uncle Mike would open
a small valve under the fuel tank to drain out any |
photo
from wikipedia click
for a larger view
accumulated water or trash. One time he adjusted the tracks,
which meant putting a straight edge on each track from end
to end and getting the sag distance to a specified length.
The adjustment was with a special wrench and a long extension
handle. On one occasion, a small part was replaced on conjunction
with one of the steering clutch levers.
The first time I remember
going to Blossom Hill was in the spring of 1946. Blossom Hill
was our temporary home while we were in the process of moving
from Burlington, Iowa to Belleville, Pa. I remember seeing
Pete, the ‘35 Ford pick up truck with about one half
of a rear fender missing. I was told there was a problem somewhere
between Goliath’s pony engine and his diesel engine.
He was started by first cutting off part of the fender, running
a flat belt between the now exposed back wheel and the belt
pulley on the back of the tractor. I remember helping go through
the same process one time on the early 1950’s. Pete
had been retired to the grove and replaced with Willy, the
Willys Jeep pick-up truck.
We went through the same process, but Willy had open front
fenders, and with his four wheel drive, we were able to get
the task at hand done using those two features.
Somewhere in this same
time frame, Rogers and Rogers bought a ten foot (cutter bar
length) International Harvester binder to be powered by a
tractor power take off. It took a couple of trips to Herndon
and several hours of farming ingenuity to get it working correctly.
I don’t remember
who the designated drivers were--Uncle Mike of course, myself,
Aunt Jule, I think, and maybe Teeny Norris.
The first paragraph
is based on information from the book THE AMERICAN FARM TRACTOR
by Randy Leffingwell. The remainder is based on memories from
55 +/- years
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| BIG
TIME CHANGES
Sometime between by
summer visit of 1952 and the last summer I went to Blossom
Hill on a regular basis in 1953, the dairy herd was sold.
Enough cows were kept to provide for at home use.
As a result of a little
more leisurely life style, people were on the go.
Uncle Mike, Aunt Dot, Aunt Nancy and Dorothy Willman (Bartlett)
had gone on a cross country trip. They were gone when I got
up there and were still gone when I came home. They did stop
by the Nixon home on Winesap Road and spent the last night
of their journey with us. They got to our house just in time
for Dorothy to ride along with me on my paper route. I think
she was glad to get out and get some good exercise. The route
was 5 +/- miles long.
Another change at Blossom
Hill was the purchase of two herds of beef
cattle: one, whiteface Herefords pastured on the old Stroud
place and
Aberdeen Angus pastured at Blossom Hill.
Late one evening,
after supper, both bulls decided to visit their neighboring
herd. They met in what was called the bull lot. They both
put their heads down, snorted, threw dirt up with their front
hooves and charged each other. Although the Angus was heavier,
the Hereford had horns and he would twist his head around,
jab his foe in the side of his head and he would usually give
a little ground.After several rounds they decided to call
it quits. Aunt E, Caroline, Teeny and myself finally got them
back into their own pasture. The only comment made after all
was squared away was by Aunt E who said she had been driving
cattle one place or another her whole life.
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Aunt Dot (Dorothy Rogers),
Uncle Mike (Holcomb
Rogers), & Aunt Nancy
(Anna Rogers Willman) on their trip
west
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Barn at the Stroud Place
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The
Stroud Place
In the 1950's, the Stroud place
was the first place on the right after you went past Bowman's
store going toward Chantilly. I believe the driveway was just
south of what is now West Ox Road; about where the fire station
is now located. It was an active farm at one time. The house
and all out buildings were frame, painted white. The only
time I was on the place was in the summer of 1952. Someone
had bought it by then and were remodeling the house. Uncle
Mike got some tongue and groove flooring that had been removed.
(see Walking Up The Driveway) I am not sure, but I think Blossom
Hill and the Stroud place shared a common property line from
behind Boman's store, behind the upper barn and on over the
hill for a long distance. I went with Uncle Mike way down
to the lower end of the property one time.
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| A
WAGON LOAD OF CORN
I rode with Aunt E in
Willy to a farm about half way between Blossom Hill and Chantilly
(Harrison?) to get a wagon load of corn to be cut up and put
in a silo.
The wagon was intended
to be pulled by a team of horses; therefore it had a long
tongue. There were a dukes mixture of rings and clevises between
the wagon and Willy. There was no way anything could come
loose but there was a lot of slack. Therefore, when we got
on the road to start home, the wagon wandered back and forth
all over the road. One car we met was a State Trooper who
took exception to the wayward wagon. He turned around came
up behind us and pulled us over. He checked the usual paper
work, which was O.K. but our connecting gear which allowed
the wandering was un-acceptable. We had to pull the wagon
off the road into someone’s farm lot.
Since it was rather
late in the day, Aunt E and I went back to Blossom Hill. After
breakfast the next morning, Uncle Mike and I put new hitch
on the back of Willy, which allowed us to get by with only
one clevis between Willy and the wagon, eliminating most of
the slack. We want back, hooked up the wagon and returned
home without further complications. More on this subject later!
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DAYLIGHT
SAVING TIME
In the late 40s and
50s, daylight saving was in effect in Northern Virginia. I
don’t remember how large an area was affected, but Blossom
Hill was included. Time changed for everyone and everything
except for Uncle Mike and his milk cows. Since you couldn’t
change the cows schedule, the kitchen clock and Uncle Mike’s
pocket watch stayed on Eastern Standard Time.
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| MAKING
HAY
We were picking up loose
hay from the field to the right of the lane, just beyond the
lower barn. The equipment being used was Willy (the Jeep pick-up)
a wagon, and the hay loader. Once the wagon was loaded, you
pulled a rope and un-hooked the hay loader, pulled the wagon
to the front of the upper barn, un-hooked the wagon and drove
Willy around the barn to the left side of the barn, facing
the bungalow, and tied the rope to him that lifted the hay
fork.
At that point., I think
Aunt E. started driving Willy. All communicating was done
by loud word of mouth. Once the hay forks were planted firmly
in the hay, Aunt E. would start driving ahead, which would
in turn, lift the hay up and into the barn. The next command
was from the person working in the barn to drop the hay.
And then Willy’s
forward movement stopped and Uncle Mike pulled the trip rope
to drop the hay. My job was to grab the trip rope and pull
the hay fork back so it could drop down to the wagon and repeat
the process. Everything went smoothly for the first couple
of cycles. Then something went wrong. I was unable to get
the fork to return. Checking everything out, we found that
Willy had been picking up loose hay in the field and wrapping
it tightly around the drive shafts. When Willy was backed
up to start another cycle, the hay on the driveshafts picked
up the pull rope and wrapped several feet of it around the
drive shafts, thus there was no slack.
Getting the rope off
the drive shafts was the easy part. Getting the hay off was
a time consuming job. Being tightly wound, we had to take
pocket knives and cut it off, a little at a time. The problem
was fixed the next morning. Uncle Mike took some pieces of
metal roofing, cut them to the proper length and width, bent
them length-wise to form a “U” and wired them
to the front and back of the transmission and to the respective
differential.
This covered the drive shafts, and solved the problem. To
my knowledge, they were still in place when Willy was disposed
of.
Another time, we were
putting baled hay in the upper barn. I don’t remember
where the hay came from, but we were using a borrowed wagon.
Willy’s role was the same. We had gotten down to the
last four bales. Once the forks were in the bales, we started
the lift. It was probably Tiny Norris working on the wagon.
Thank goodness he jumped onto the ground after he put the
forks in the bales.
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Uncle Mike (Holcomb
Rogers) and Aunt E (Edith
Rogers) with chicken house in the background
Uncle Mike was unaware
that he was standing on the trip rope. Just as the bales reached
the highest point, and were ready to go into the barn, the
trip rope tightened to the point it tripped and dropped all
four bales.
The wagon had a metal
frame with a wooden bed. It completely shattered the wooden
bed. Repairs were made and the wagon was returned to it’s
owner. |
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THE LONE
RANGER
Uncle Mike was
a fan of the Lone Ranger (the radio version.) Once in a while
after the milking was done and the day was winding down, he
would tell me to go quietly in to the library and get the
car keys. We would go out to the garage, hopefully unnoticed,
get into the car and listen to the Lone Ranger. We would scrunch
down into the seat so we would not be see. It seemed to help
him relax.
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A
FENCE POST
One time I helped Uncle
Mike gather up things to use on fence repair project: a shovel,
post hole digger, tamping bar, bucket of fence staples, hammer,
fence stretcher, roll of wire, and a new fence post or two.
We drove down the lane
to the point where it widened into the pasture. We turned
left and followed the fence to the top of the hill. There
was a large locust fence post which had rotted off right at
ground level. Seasoned locust is very durable in the long
run, but is still susceptible to rot right at ground level.
Therefore, we had to dig around the underground portion of
the post, and remove it en masse. Upon completing the job,
Uncle Mike said that post was in place when he moved there
forty some years earlier.
ELECTRIC
FENCE
There was a barbed wire
fence that came out of the far end of the lower barn, went
over to the lane, turned and went down the lane. Sometimes,
it was electrified. Since Uncle Mike sometimes wore knee high
rubber boots, he was insulated from the fence to the ground,
and it would not shock him. If he was close enough to the
fence to touch it, he would reach out and touch whoever happened
to be within his reach.
Guess who got shocked? |
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| OSCAR
Oscar was a wooden,
three legged hobby horse made for riding. Made something like
this, he had a wooden body 6" +/- wide and 30" +/-
long. He had a neck and a head of course, and a wooden rod
sticking through his head to hold on to. He had one front
leg which went up into his body and would swing freely. The
bottom of his front foot was shaped like a rocker, 18"+/-
long. His two hind legs were fastened together, They went
up the outside of his body, and would swing freely. His hind
feet were shaped like a rocker, 18" +/- long. You rested
your feet on a flat surface on the top of the rockers. Riding
him requires near perfect coordination of shifting your body
weight forward and backward and timing. |
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This
is how you would (try to) ride him. Once you were seated on
him, you would hold onto the handle on his head and place your
feet on the top of his hind leg rockers .Then you shifted your
weight back slightly, so his front foot would come off the ground
and swing forward. Then you shifted your weight forward so his
hind legs would come off the ground and would swing forward.
Once his hind legs came down, you would press your feet down
on the rockers, and he would move forward. That would put his
front leg in the back of it's normal position, and you would
start the cycle all over again. If your weight shifting or timing
was off, you would be thrown off! |
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| THE
POOL
In 1941, a concrete
swimming pool was built behind the house at Blossom Hill.
The year of construction was placed in the concrete floor
at the shallow end of the pool, near the middle. One of the
reasons for building the pool was for water storage (fire
protection). I was told it had a capacity of 175,000 gallons
of water.
The pool was 75 feet
long and 25 feet wide. The depth went from 3 feet at the shallow
end to a depth of 5 feet in a distance of 50 feet. That left
a remaining distance of 25 feet. That 25 feet and the 25 foot
width formed a square that increased in depth to 8-1/2 feet
at the center of the square (at the drain). The pool had a
unique design. Along the outer perimeter was a scum gutter
i.e. a series of water inlets all around the edge to drain
off splashed water etc. to the outside. There were two drains
on each end of the pool and four along each side. More on
that later. Once you stepped off the back porch, within a
few steps you were at pool side. There was a wooden deck several
feet wide that spanned the gap between the ground and the
edge of the pool. There were a couple of small benches. Other
than this one small deck, you were on your own when walking
(or running) around the pool. A fall off the edge could be
very painful since there was an open trench all around the
pool, and the back edge of the pool side was very rough.
There was a home made
diving board at the deep end of the pool. I rode with Uncle
Mike on Goliath over into the woods behind the old meeting
house building across the road to get the tree. It was split,
dressed up with an adz, and the two pieces bolted together.
Rocks were placed under the pivot point at the edge of the
pool and the back end was weighted down with rocks. Then there
was “the pole.” A skinned and trimmed cedar tree
was stuck horizontally into the bank on the opposite side
of the pool. It reached almost half way across the pool and
the end was over deep water. The goal was to walk the pole
to the very end. The first to go had the best chance to succeed.
The more people who tried and failed the wetter and slicker
the pole became.
There
were home made ladders at pool side. We would go down to the
branch and cut elm saplings. They would immediately be stripped
of all branches and bark. The larger end would be tied around
one of the locust trees at the end of the chicken house. It
would be bent into a “U” shape, the diameter being
a couple of inches greater than the width of the pool walls.
They were tied with good old baling wire and allowed to season
out. They were removed from the tree, the end set in a coffee
can full of wood preservative and allowed to soak up all they
could. To install them, a pair would be placed at the edge
of the pool, maybe 12” to 18” inches apart. A
piece of 2” X 4” lumber was nailed between them,
flush with the top edge of the pool to form the top rung.
The bottoms would be cut off at the proper length and additional
rungs added as required. These ladders were good for about
ten years.
When the pool
was built, everything was purchased to install a complete
filter system. For reasons unknown to me, it was never installed.
It rusted away behind the house. I think a filter system was
installed in later years (after 1953).
In 1949, Daddy
and I installed the scum gutter drains from the end of the
pool around the corner and down the front side of the pool.
We used bell end cast iron pipe which was already there. To
cut a piece of pipe to a specific length, we would score a
line around it with a cold chisel and hammer, give it a good
whack
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with the
hammer and it would break
clean. We put each piece of pipe in it’s respective
place and wedged it there with sticks, stones or what have
you. We would then pour molten plumbers lead in each joint.
Our source of heat for the lead was Uncle Mike’s forge,
taken to pool side. Our melting pot was an old watering bowl
from one of the barns. My brother Bill built the rock retaining
wall at the end of the drain, just beyond the end of the pool.
The pool area could be lit up at night by tightening up a
fuse in a fuse box mounted in the upper corner of the back
porch.
There were rules to
be followed. Some were: never swim alone, children swimming
must have adult supervision, wait one hour after eating a
meal to swim, and no running around the pool.
Without a filter system,
cleaning the pool was a major undertaking. First you would
climb into a hole at the far side of the pool at the deep
end. You would dig out dirt until the pool’s drain valve
was exposed and could be opened. Then you would line up a
work detail to scrub every inch of the walls and floor. Some
of the community young people were invited to join in. We
got some pretty wild excuses, but no help. However, they had
an extra sense that told them when the pool was ready to use.
With Aunt E’s permission, one year we tried a “no
scrub-no swim” policy. That idea bore little fruit.
Once the pool was completely
cleaned and drained, we would start adding fresh water. There
was a well and pump in the tool shed. Someone was assigned
the job of oiling the pump in the morning, turning it on and
turning it off that night. It took about ten days to completely
fill the pool.
Without the necessary
pumps and filters the water would soon take on a slimy green
color. Hand sown chemicals did little to help clear up the
water. I don’t know what caused it, but once in a while
we would go out for a swim and a lot of slime would have come
off the side. It would have to be skimmed off before we could
get in the water.
Needless to say, the
pool required a lot of work, but over the years it provided
a lot of fun. A lot of people learned to swim in that pool,
including myself.
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