Harry's Visits Birthplace Home

PICTURES -
1. Our first faucet
2. Our first bathroom
3. Our first home facing the Blue Ridge Mountains


On Thursday while driving from Allentown to Syracuse - I decided to visit my very first home. It was a beautiful fall day - sunny and mild - so the one mile jog off Route 309 was a nice place to stop.

In 1948 - I gained the address that would be listed on my passport forever - RFD 1, Andreas, Pennsylvania. While Dad was working in the mines in Coaldale - he attempted his hand at farming for 8 years. The family of 5 bought 10 acres with a house and barn that was planted at the base of the Blue Mountains. From the front door you could look up the northern face of the range to see where the Appalachian Trail passed on the way from Maine to Georgia.

On a cold February night in 1948 - there was a heavy ice storm that made the roads impassable. Supposedly - Dr. Weissner came by horse sled to await the birth of the last remaining "Everhart" name carrier. The doctor arrived before midnight on the fifth - rolled up his coat for a pillow on the sofa and took a nap. At 4:44 AM - they put a piece of ham on a stick out the window and the stork traded it for a baby. The doctor charged $15 - Finishing touches would have been $5 more.

The old plank home had electricity and a hand crank phone. It was heated by a coal fired kitchen range with a register in the ceiling that made the bedroom above the warmest room in the house. Although it was my sisters' bedroom - they chose that to be my place of birth.

The kitchen below had a cold water faucet that Dad ran from the hand pump outside. But if you wanted large amounts of water - you hand pumped it directly outside. On Saturday night when it was bath time - we had to carry many buckets of water to the coal stove to be heated for the bath for Sunday School the next day. Being the youngest - I always was first in line to use the tub. Good thing they didn't throw the baby out with the bath water. We all used the same bath water.

Outside the bedroom window - a few years later - Dad would put up a television antenna that would receive 3 channels from Philadelphia on the other side of the mountain about 70 miles away. I recall seeing Harry Truman on the tube there - along with Howdy Doody - Milton Berle - and others.

We didn't have an indoor toilet - and I was probably one of the few that had a "bathroom" on the other side of the highway. The highway today turns out to be a sparsely used but paved road. I remember asking Santa Claus for a black rubber flashlight to take people to the "two holer" toilet at night.

Things changed when the mines slowed down. Since Dad was working fewer and fewer shifts in his 25 years as a miner - Mom had to take a job in the mill in the thriving metropolis of Tamaqua about 10 miles north of home. For a while in the summers - my 11 year old sister Gail was left in charge of 5 year old me and 8 year old sister Judy. Those two young ladies spoiled me rotten as best they could. Since the closet neighbors were 1/2 mile away - we were on our own. Today - they would probably arrest my parents for child abuse - but things were different then. I would not want it any different. Maybe it is what we were thinking when we "made" Drew walk 1/2 mile to Kindergarten every day. He had perfect attendance.

After spending 6 years in our "country estate" - it was time to move to the big city. With one month in a one-room school with Kutztown State Teachers' College rookie Leah Wertman Fritz - we moved to town and rented a row home with city water and sewer. We could afford cable TV in a couple years. Now instead of cranking a phone you would tell the operator what number you wanted. People would call us with "2384J." The lady operator would often listen in on the phone call to "collect" important information.

So - we only lived in the farm house for 6 years - but it has placed an indelible mark on my life. Sometimes - I feel like escaping to that cocoon of innocence. Life in West Penn township seemed so much simpler then. But sometimes at night - when I hear the train whistle as a freight passes through Tallahassee - it reminds me when Uncle Roy used to blow the whistle as he used to wizz by on the Lehigh New England. His freight passed along the foot of the mountain about 200 yards down in the woods from the front door. The tracks are long gone - but the memories aren't.

It was just the 5 of us against the world at that time. The world was winning. But we didn't know any better. We felt rich.