Thursday, September 22, 2005

Interview by Kay Stitley and Joyce Law

Greater Dover Historical Society

Of Ruth Malehorn, 91 E. Canal St., Dover, PA

Ruth Malehorn was born in Dover Township in 1911, adjacent to the southern boundary  of Dover Borough.  When she was a year old, the family moved into Dover Borough in the area known as Bantytown and later moved to 16 Butter Rd. 

Ruth was the youngest of eight children including five sisters and two brothers. The four sisters were born first, then the brothers, and she was last.  Her father was born in the Dover area, and her mother was born in Hampton, Adams County.  At the time of this interview, Ruth only has one sibling living, a brother named Harry “Pat” Latchaw who is ninety-nine years old.  She recalls that she did not have many chores as a child as she was the spoiled “baby” of the family.

 Ruth was born at home, as was the custom, and was delivered by Dr. Gross.  She recalls several doctors in Dover during her younger years including Dr. Hamme who lived on the Square,  as well as Dr. Harrold and Dr. Nathan Wallace at *52 N. Main St.   

Ruth attended the three-room school that was located on West Canal St. adjacent to *42 Canal St.  Only the rear two rooms were used for teaching; the front room was set aside as a library or storage area for books.  Her first teacher was Spangler Myers followed by Allen Zinn and Ernest Gladfelter.   The first four grades were taught in one room, and then the students moved to the second room for the next four grades. She thought the building was heated with a furnace in the basement, but she was not sure.     Most of the recess time at school was spent playing pitch and catch. Ruth always wore dresses to school as girls never wore slacks at that time.  Her dresses were made by her mother who also taught her to sew as Ruth grew older.   Eighth grade was the end of her education as there was no high school at that time. 

After completing school and one day after her 14^th birthday, Ruth went to work at the Dover Cigar factory located at *33 N. Main St. Most members of her family also worked there. She thought the factory was owned by a Mr. Brooks from Red Lion.  Her job was rolling cigars and sometimes packing the finished products into boxes.  There were other cigar factories in Dover at that time, one in the rear of a building on the corner of Mayfield St. and N. Main St. and one below Baughman’s Memorial Works on S. Main St.  owned by a Mr. Toomey.  He also owned a hosiery factory and another cigar factory located on *33 N. Main St., eventually owned by Davy Brillhart. She also recalled a cigar factory in the rear of a house on the northwest corner of Mayfield St. and Main St.   She did not recall if the hosiery building was originally an oyster parlor.  In addition to working in the cigar factory, she also worked in the local sewing factory, in Harrisburg as a clerk for the Highway Department, and in York at the courthouse for over twenty years. 

Ruth did not recall a fire engine house on N. Main St. or the Thaddeus Gross Carriage House and Buggy Shop.  She only recalls a buggy shop owned by Peter Lauer. 

Ruth remembered that at Christmas the children received oranges and candy.  She thought that was the only time oranges were available.   Sometimes they got shoes and stockings but very few toys.  She said she and her siblings didn’t play games together as she was too young, and the others were working.  They had electricity installed in their home when she was eight years old (1919), and they then played cards in the evening.  She thought perhaps that was where she picked up her love for Bingo which she used to play five times a week until she was ninety-one. 

Ruth mentioned that everyone had large gardens when she was young.  She had to help pick beans, peas, and “bugs.”  They took a can with kerosene in it and dropped the bugs in there.  Her mother canned or dried all the vegetables.  She recalled dried applies used for Schnitz Pie. 

She did not have any pets, but her brother Pat had a dog.  He paid her ten cents a week to feed it, and she promptly bought a big bag of candy with the money.  She bought the candy at Bertha Linebaugh’s store on the Square.  She did not remember the alligator that was in a large tank in the window. 

Ruth married in 1935.  After a short time in Dover, she and her husband moved to Taxville Road and remained there for thirty-seven years.  Her husband worked for the Grandview Golf Course and later for the Naval Ordinance Plant.  He moved on to a plant that coated materials with Teflon and then retired.  In 1979 they moved back to Dover.   

When her husband died, she kept his 1973 Chevrolet automobile, and she drove it until she was ninety-three years old, then sold it as she was afraid she was getting too old and would hit someone.   

She mentioned that she could tell you almost everyone who lived on Main St. when she was growing up.   She remembers Sam Myers Store, about the second door up from Mayfield St. on the left hand side.  That was a feed and hardware store.  She recalled that Daron’s Store was located at *41 N. Main St. across from the Dover Garage, with a grocery/hardware store.  (That store was succeeded by Myers’ Restaurant)  Ruth recalled the large store that Oliver Stouch had on the NE corner of  Main St. and Butter Rd.  She said he lived behind the store on Butter Rd. The store had a big barn adjacent to the alley.  She did not recall him living anywhere else.  She said the Stouch family was quite large with nine or ten children.   

Ruth mentioned that she had a penmanship class when she was in school taught by Mr. Gladfelter and Allen Zinn.  She said when she worked at the courthouse there were deeds written by people with beautiful handwriting.

  Ruth remembered the difficult times people had during the Depression.  She said her family did well as her dad raised hogs and had a large garden.  She said they helped their less fortunate neighbors to get by. 

 When Ruth lived on Taxville Rd., World War II was underway, and she remembers the gas and food rationing in support of the war effort and the resulting shortages.

 Ruth had an album with pictures of family and friends and numerous photos of the buildings in the Dover area.  She allowed copies to be made for the archives.  Some of the photos depicted camping along the Conewago Creek in the area known as the Picketts.  She mentioned the large swimming hole, and said they did not consider these summer trips a “vacation.”  They just went away.  They rented a house for these occasions.

 One of the photos showed Calvary Lutheran Church with the long steps in the front.  She recalled how you had to walk up to get in and then walk down to the different facilities.

 She had several name cards that were hand-painted.  She said that was a big thing – to have your name on a card and hand it out to people.  It was the same idea as a business card is today but anyone could have them made to hand out.

Ruth recalled the annual picnics that Calvary Lutheran Church held every summer.  She said they went to Hershey Park, Rocky Springs, or Maple Grove in Lancaster.  Later the picnics were held in Caledonia.  She remembered that her father formed a Sunday school class for the young boys.  Before that the boys would go from the Primary Department into the adult men’s class where they didn’t seem to fit in with the older men. 

Ruth was asked what she knew about the three story building at *66-68 N. Main St.  She recalled that it was a double house with tenants on the lst and 2^nd floors, and there was a lodge hall on the third floor.  She did not know what the lodge was or its purpose.

She mentioned the Hershey Bakery that was located in a separate building at the rear of a house several houses north from the NW corner of Mayfield St. and *54 N. Main St.

Ruth recalled there was a dance hall adjacent to the hotel on the square.  Charlie Artzberger had a restaurant in the basement.  Near the back of the hotel was a stable/blacksmith shop.  Later there was a gas station located next to the hotel.  She also recalled that her uncle Howard Quickel had a planing and feed mill at the bottom of the Dover Hill at *54-56 S. Main St. and also provided the town with coal.   She said the seeds for their garden were purchased at the O. M. Stouch general store on the corner at *61 N. Main St. and Butter Rd.    She also recalled an undertaker on East Canal St. named Henry Quickel who had a horse-drawn glass hearse.  She recalled the National House at *38 N. Main St. before it was torn down.  She thought some of the stone from it was used to construct Mummert’s House   at *38 N. Main St.

Ruth mentioned the gypsies that used to come through town.  The rumor was that they would steal children so everyone watched them.  She remembered one summer when she and some friends were standing at the old abandoned hotel on the Square when the gypsies came through.  She was barefoot, and there was glass all over the sidewalk and she got a piece of glass in her foot.  Her father took her to Dr. Wallace but he wasn’t able to remove the glass.  He then mixed a poultice that looked either like sawdust or brown sugar and tied it to her foot.  It eventually drew the glass out of her foot.  That was just an old time remedy.  Also her mother would put tea in hot water, boil it, and use it for cough medicine.  They also used mustard plaster on their chests for colds; if kept on too long it burned the skin.  They also used some sort of fat to grease their chests.  When the flu epidemic came through Pennsylvania, lots of people died as there was no medicine or cure.   Mr. Jacobs, who had a large family and lived in Shiloh, died from influenza.

For leisure time, she and her friends would take a walk to the little bridge outside Dover on S. Main St. (the area below today’s Mac’s Ice Cream) or north above Dover to Moses Temple School.  When the trolleys came to Dover, Weist’s and Bear’s Stores always had their annual picnics at Brookside Park. The picnickers rode the trolley to the park.  The trolley came through Dover to the end of the line at Hopkins farm; the trolleys didn’t turn around, they just reversed direction. 

 Mark and Bruce Hopkins and several others worked on the barn. There was a murder down in Bantytown.  Mark Hopkins was blamed for it but was never arrested.  The victim was Theo Bunker who slept in the barn behind the house.  The authorities never found out who killed him.  There was also a tramp who lived down at Brookside named Henry Landis.   He would search for money as well as items he thought he could sell. She remembered the time he had a baby sweater which he offered for sale.

 We had a rag man who came through Dover on Saturday afternoon.  He would yell, “Rags, bones and old iron.”  All the kids were scared of him due to his raspy voice.

 Ruth recalled the early Halloween parades in Dover.  She worked at the cigar factory, and sometimes the employees would decorate a vehicle for the parade with lots of crepe paper.  She noted that they don’t have a lot of floats in the parade like they once did.

 Ruth remembered that the law in Dover was upheld by a constable named Hollinger.  She and her friends were always afraid of him even though he didn’t do anything; just the name scared them.  Before that, the history books tell of a Chief Burgess, but she did not remember him.

 Ruth didn’t remember anything about the gas lights that were on N. Main St. as that was before her time.

 She said women didn’t go off to college when she was young.  In fact, the men and women used to sit on separate sides of the church aisles at the Otterbein Church on

N. Main St.   The women sat on the north side and the men on the south side.  The children sat with their mothers and were very quiet.  When Ruth went to Calvary Lutheran Church, Mrs. Eisenhart, who was a Sunday school teacher, asked her and Carl Latchaw to stand up during an evening service and sing a song.  Mrs. Eisenhart played the pump organ.  Ruth got the giggles and couldn’t sing, and Carl had to sing the whole piece by himself.  She thought he sang “In the Garden,” which was a popular hymn at the time. After church when she returned home, she got a tanning for her behavior.

 Ruth said they always used grape juice for communion at the church except when they ran out of it.   Then her father, who was on the church council, would bring in grape wine that he made and use that.  She said she always went to all the events with her mother who was in the Ladies’ Aid Society.  That’s how she became involved in providing meals for funerals.  She did that for many years and said it became harder to find volunteers to help.   They are too busy working but she always worked and still found time to volunteer.

 Footnote:  That was the end of the interview.  Ruth moved to Providence Place in 2005 as she could no longer maintain her home. She has since passed away.

* House numbers shown above are present day numbers.