Document Collection

Interview with David Wilson

Date: 1998 - 1999

PROLOGUE
The following article is a transcription of an audio interview with David Wilson which took place in the 1998-99 time frame at the home of his daughter Virginia “Jij” and her husband, “Stoney” Duffey, in Centreville, Maryland. Also present were their daughter, Patricia and her husband Steve Parkhurst.

David Wilson was born in Paoli on February 8, 1902, the son of Coffin Colket Wilson and Emily Rambo Anderson. He was married in 1937 to Virginia Atmore. He lived most of his life in the Great Valley north of Paoli until 1955 when the family moved to Dothan, Alabama. They returned to the Valley in the mid-1960’s.

 

STORIES FROM DAVID WILSON

….Finally got that chicken in the corner and grabbed his head…took me about twenty more rounds.

How did he taste?

Not too bad.  We had him for dinner, I can tell you that. 

When did you all buy Wilson Farm? [Insert Wilson Farm 2009 Picture]

It was offered to my Uncle Will who had the farm down in King of Prussia eventually, but at that time he was still living with his family. He said, ‘I’m not going to live in a house that, if I fall down the front stairs, I’ll roll right out the front door.’  You probably don’t remember that when you walked in the front door the stairs were right in front there.   So he turned it down and my father said that that didn’t bother him at all so he took it. 

Had that been in the Wilson family before?

Oh yeah.  Uncle John lived down…did you know Colley & Martha?

Yeah.

Well, that’s where he was born and raised.

The Homestead? [Insert Homestead in 2009 Picture]

Yeah, and he wanted to get out of it from down in the Valley, he wanted to get up in the hills. I don’t know how he made his money but apparently he did right well…they all seemed to be in the railroad business.

What relation was John to you?

He was, all I remember him is as Uncle John.  So it must have been…he built the house; at that particular time that was quite an up and do of a house; with a mansard roof; I mean it was a French architecture.

So John Wilson built Wilson Farm house?

That’s right.  As a matter of fact, as I think of it now, I don’t know whether it was John or his wife, but they had Japanese Fringe trees and they had, it seemed to me, odd trees that were not very popular at that time.  They had them all planted around, they have all since died, but they were, at that time, nice and unusual.  You probably don’t realize but around the north and west side of the house they built a series of evergreens as a windbreak because the whole house was heated with stoves.  And then when father came in they put in the hot water heat.  After they put in the hot water, they didn’t really need these, this windbreak, and my mother realized there was a beautiful view out across the site and she got somebody in to cut up all the branches, you know, just around your eye level so they could look out.  Apparently it was, she said, that was a mistake.  She said you would be surprised what I received when they saw that all those branches were cut off.  (Laughter)

When was Wilson Farm built, I mean the house. Do you remember?

I don’t think it’s too old, 1850, something like that.

So the Homestead was the first Wilson Farm?

Yes, that was really the old part.

Then how did you get the one on North Valley Road?  Was that part of it?

That farm came on the market and father was able to buy it. I think it was only sixty or eighty acres but it had a house and everything.  He liked the idea that…you see that the actual Wilson Farm went back this way and this went across to North Valley Road.  For some reason they all kind of liked it; the access of a main road so anyhow he bought this thing and it was a pretty rundown affair because the farmer was there, that’s the reason that second, third story was put on.  He used to, they called them, “Country Weeks.” They would have a group of children coming out from the city and they would stay there for a week, apparently they were paid pretty well and so that’s what he got his revenue from, not from the farm, and so they…but father wanted to build up the farm and so, which he did, and the fact that Chester Valley Railroad had a station right there.

So that was never part of the original Wilson Farm, that was an add-on?

No, no.

So what were there three farms there?

No just really two.

The Homestead?

The Homestead.  Actually I was born in the house on Swedesford Road.  That was just twelve acres.  That’s what he originally bought or inherited.  And then he bought the rest of the place a little later on.  The thing that tickled me, there’s a field that went down the hill and there is another stream down there.  The Great Valley Mills was down there and there’s a stream and they had it so one field went right across that stream. In other words, you could pass through that back field; always have water for your stock.  Every place they had, there was always a stream going by and now heavens you’ve got to fence it.

Yeah, it used to be an asset, now it’s a liability. 

Exactly.  As I say those are the things that ’m just glad I’m not farming.  I would have fought that tooth and nail.  I’d say damn it to hell. The old boys really wouldn’t buy anything and have water going through.

That’s the stream behind Bill and Carolyn’s…[Valley Creek]

That’s right.  Actually the land went across that stream practically where Great Valley Mills is.  But it seemed to me I think a lot of us crossed that off originally…there’s not much pasturage in that field. 

So where did you milk cows – on North Valley Road?

Originally down where Colley & Martha [Colley was Dave’s nephew and Martha was his wife –CT] were there, they had a dairy over on North Valley Road.  We had cows there.  Actually that’s how I got to know Wharton Esherick cause he wanted raw milk; he didn’t want pasteurized and he had his kettles and he had them dropped off. Every time he’d come pick up his kettles, he’d come in the house and chat with us. One time he was talking to Ginny and one of the babies was yelling upstairs and she said, ‘Wharton, sorry I have to go up and see what’s the trouble.’  Well he followed her up the stairs and as you went up the stairs there was a blank wall, bathroom was right off to the right.  He was just standing out there talking to her while she was fixing up the baby; he drew a beautiful caricature right on the wall.  We naturally left it there because he always had either chalk, charcoal or pencil with him in each pocket.  He was always making sketches everywhere.  Anyhow, when Ginny’s friends from Philadelphia came out, they would go upstairs and they would see this thing right on the wall, you’d hear them whoop and howl.

When did you move to that farm on North Valley Road? [Insert N. Valley Road Farm picture]

Right after the we were married because they were trying to divide up the place. I said I wanted to take that house and I would run the farm but the rest of them, everybody seemed to be, it was apportioned off, so they divided the whole thing up. 

You milked cows there before you were married?

Yeah.  Father died in ’29 and my mother said, “Dave, Buzz is in the telephone business, he had a good job, and Jack was in the auto business and so she said, ‘Somebody’s got to look after this farm’.”  I was just going to art school and you don’t make much money when you first get out of art school.  So my mother said you don’t seem to be doing much, I think you better take over the farm.  That’s the reason I was a farmer.  Before that I used to say I’m certainly not going to be a farmer. 

Where did you go to art school?

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

What year was that when you first attended?

I was going to say around the twenties.

In the twenties?

I think so; I would have been about eighteen.  As a matter of fact my religion, I mean my education was all wrong.  I originally went to a one-room school down in the country.  In other words they had all eight grades in that one room.  There weren’t too many students.  I learned more poetry because the older students would all have to stand up and recite their poetry.  So as a consequence I would listen to all the various things and when my time came around I knew practically all the poems that I had to learn.  So as I say, I learned more poetry but that’s the only thing I learned.  Anyhow my mother was quite upset with my brother who had this nervous breakdown so they weren’t paying too much attention to me and she decided I better go to Haverford School to get some college education, after leaving the one room school.  They set me up in Haverford School. 

The point is there were the Strawbridges and the Clothiers and all the…Bill Ashton was there; all the top Philadelphia names. I was lost, as they say in the south, I was a lost ball in high weeds because I was just completely out of my…coming from a one-room school…as I thought back; most of the students were my father’s farmers.  I will admit that the friends that I have had since were mostly from Haverford School.

Was the one-room school the eight-sided octagonal school?

No, I’m a little beyond that.  There was a schoolhouse as you go up Swedesford Road, the Presbyterian Church is on the right hand side and just about five hundred yards there was a schoolhouse on the left hand side, that’s where I spent eight years. [Insert picture of Swedesford Road Schoolhouse] And I wanted to go to the local high school but as I say the family thought I ought to have some polish, so they sent me to Haverford which is…it’s the only thing that I regret about my family, it was a mistake.

Well you got a little bit of polish…

I will say this – I met a lot of delightful people.  The Strawbridge’s were there; as a matter of fact we had a very…top people around the Main Line.  A little old country boy coming from a one-room school that was not good.

When did you start to get artistically inclined?

I even hate to bring this up because…the point is I was always drawing when I was growing up.  In other words, there were various things I was always drawing and when the family found out they would get coloring books for me and so I would do those things.  As a consequence, they thought here’s a budding artist.  As long as I hadn’t done too well in school, the Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts didn’t care about your academic things.   All they wanted to know…here I thought I could go somewhere I didn’t have to do calculus and all that business.  I didn’t have to, so I thought this is great.  I could just flow in, sit down and draw.  And that’s what I did.  I had wonderful time.  But it didn’t do too much to my education.  That’s the reason I’m doing all these trips, I’m trying to get my education now.  It’s a little late, but anyhow.

Tell them about riding horses down Lancaster Pike or a horse and buggy, I mean Lancaster Pike right now.

These are the times that I really do thank the good Lord that I’m still living - to see the changes in everything around the world, it’s really something.  I mean now you’re flipping back and forth to Europe four or five hours where the old boys with the boats – it was a big operation to go to Europe.  Now you just flip over there and come back. 

Didn’t Lancaster Pike have the tollbooths?

Yes, on Lancaster Pike there were tollbooths, you had to stop and pay tolls.

While riding a horse?

There were two boys that dated my sister, Emily, known as Pat.  They were sons of a local doctor.  Lucy and I just couldn’t get over the first time I went down with them, as we came down to the toll, they had a car and they didn’t even slow up.  Doc Wills wait, they would shout into…because Dr. Wills had a regular thing, he didn’t have to pay tolls, they would send him a bill at the end of the month.  The boys were just…Doc Wills wait.  Well I thought that was… you were really up there somewhere.  Back to toll business…my mother lived in Norristown. She had a beau who lived in the little place just across the river, Bridgeport.  She said to walk across the bridge over the river I think it cost three cents or five cents, I forget.  My mother said, I used to think when a boy would come calling on me from Bridgeport, I thought my golly, he really wants to come call on me, he’s spending three or five cents or whatever, to walk across the bridge.  Times have changed. 

Did you plow with a horse and plow?

Oh sure.  The first year, maybe the first couple of years. 

When did you get your first tractor?

We got it, believe it or not, up at the Ford Agency in Paoli.  Matthews was selling Ford tractors on the side.  They didn’t have a very big business for that, so I got a Ford tractor.  Naturally sealed wheels and everything. The seats run across.  But you bought the tractor it seemed to me you bought the two plow things that followed.  I  just thought to go out in the field and spend a day and you could really see what you’d done where two horses and a twelve-inch plow you didn’t go very far in that thing.

What year was that when you got the tractor?

I guess it must have been ’29 or ’30, I forget.  As time went on, John Deere came out with their thing and they had a ????? affair to hook up; it had the two little wheels and you could move them out to whatever.  I thought that was great stuff so I got the John Deere tractor and I felt that John Deere…it seems to me one of our backfields was on the side of the hill. To tell you the truth I was half scared to run this big high thing on the side of the hill.

Where was that?

We’ve known it as “back there.”  Father always called it the Promised Land because there is a big spring that belonged to Jim Baugh. He tried to buy the field that had the spring in it because at that time, down where Tom and Martha lived, it was all wells.  They had a couple of wells there. He was going to pipe the water from that spring up there, that field, which belonged to Jim Baugh but he would not sell.  Father said I always kept looking at it.  I felt this is the Promised Land, if I can buy that field I can pipe the water down to the farm.  Finally after Jim died he was able to buy it.  Here’s another thing: he got some people from Howellville to dig the trench. They had it all sited out where they wanted it.  He got a carload of two-inch pipe, so they distributed that. After I got out of school (I was at Haverford at that time,) he said, “David, suppose you put that pipe together. Put it down in that trench. We’ll have somebody come along to fill it in but just be sure for goodness sake, get a can of white lead, be sure to white lead all those joints.”  I had a couple of new pipe wrenches. I was putting the damn pipes together and, believe it or not, it was in the summertime and those pipes laying out on the bank got pretty damn hot.  I never used to like to wear gloves, but I had to wear gloves for those.  I put the pipes all together and everything.

Did you use the white lead?

Yes. 

How long a distance?

It was just about a mile from there to here.

That thing is still going today, isn’t it?

Yes.  After we got it all together and opened the thing up at the other end, it was just a trickle of water coming out.  He said, “Did you… before it goes under the railroad, put a “T” in the pipe for the stand pipe.”  I said, “There’s just a trickle of water coming out.”  “Oh,” he said. “There ought to be so many gallons per minute.” He had it all figured out with the two-inch pipe. He said, “There’s something wrong.”  He said, “Look tomorrow. Open that sand pipe and see. There must be something blocking up that thing.”  I opened it and out came what looked like little potatoes. Apparently, a snake had crawled in the pipe. We put the poor snake together.  There she was with no place to go.  What I thought looked like little potatoes, kept coming out through the thing, finally snake skins, bones and everything all came out.  I thought, “I guess I won’t say too much about this because this is going to be drinking water.”  After that all got out I went down to the house and turned the thing and water was just flowing everywhere.

So the water from the Promised Land came to the Homestead?

That’s right.  It supplied the barn and the house and once more when Colley made the pool.  They would have the pool running practically all the time and there was enough water to be in the house and everything.  It was a successful mission but it seemed it took a little while to put in.  As I say what I told my father when he came home and I said honestly there’s just a trickle coming down.  And he said oh there is something wrong, there ought to be so many gallons per minute, whatever the hell that meant.  After the snake got out he was quite relieved.  He said I was convinced there ought to be a lot of water.   And I said well it’s flowing all over the place.  I said I think we ought to let it run for a while if that’s what they are going to drink.  I don’t think they will appreciate the snake being in there.  So anyhow we let the thing run for a while.

Is that still the water supply for the Homestead?

Absolutely.  Colley added the long house (he called it the Dara house) and the chicken house plus the barn. That two-inch pipe really supplied an awful lot of water.

I wonder if they ever had that well tested or anything?

No.  When Andy [Wilson –Dave’s nephew] was doing all the building there, he got me to check it.  He said, “Suppose you see what shape that thing is in.” 
There’s another thing, typical of my father; he had done a lot for the Sexton of the Great Valley Presbyterian Church because he was a very handy man.  He could dig graves and do all kinds of things. He said, “I want you to build a wall around the spring. Don’t touch the spring, just build a wall around it.” 

I liked hearing last night your story about going through the Hoover Dam.  It was pretty neat. 

          As I said. I didn’t go through with it because at that time I was just dating which turned out to be my wife but we had been dating for a while. The fact that I drove out there to drive them home and they had come back from a trip to Japan.  The Aunt that they were staying with said, “David, you are out here. What would you like to see?”  I said. “I’d like to see the Hoover Dam.”  She said, “That’s not too far away, why don’t you and Ginny… “  I said, “I know but we’ll have to spend the night and I don’t think Mrs. Atmore would approve of that…” She said, “I’ll take care of that. The two of you just go ahead.”  After we went to see this thing and my wife, Ginny at that time, was quite a ?????? and it was a big undertaking and so forth and we could see all this stuff.

Was it completed?

No, they were still working on it.

Was it dry?

Yes.  We went back to one of the towns that had quite a reputation I’m trying to think now what it was. [Reno, NV]. We were looking for a place to spend the night.  Practically everyone you’d see there was a scantily dressed lady standing at the front of the door.  Ginny grabbed me.  “Dave, I can’t stay in any one of these places.”  I said, “There must be some more.”  We went up one street and down another and we found one that looked a little more respectable. As soon as she went in, she said. “I think we ought to stay in the same room.”  I said, “You know well your family is not going to approve of that.”  I said, “I hate to do this but do you have an adjoining room?”  They said, “Sure.”  That was okay. She agreed to that.  The next morning, I woke up and I thought, “The hell with this . . .” I opened the door between the two of us and she opened the sheets and I crawled in.  She seemed to think it was nice.  But that’s as far as we went.

What year was this?

Around the thirties.  She and I had been corresponding and I knew when she was coming back, she and her mother.  I thought, “I’d love to drive out to California and bring them back.” 

This is this poor farmer that never got off the farm?

I never did, damn it.

How long were you gone?

It was in the middle of winter for God’s sake.  There’s not much to do. I was talking to my sister and I said, “I’d love to drive out there.”  She said, “Aunt Bessie Nassau is going to go out to California.  Dave, I know she’d love to drive out rather than go out by train. I’m going to invite her to come for dinner. You come tomorrow night and talk to her.”  I talked to her. I said, “Wouldn’t you like to go out by car?” She said it would be wonderful.  I said, “You give me the same (money) that you were going to spend on the train and I’ll take you out by car.”  She thought that was a great idea.

Then I talked to another friend. I said, “You don’t have anybody that’s going out to California do you?”  Believe it or not, she said, “My mother is.” She was going to, (I forget what it was), Los Angeles or San Francisco.  I said, “Do you think you can persuade her to go next Friday?” or whatever time it was.  She said, “She has no time in mind.”  I said, “Now look! Get in touch with her and tell her I would like to take her out by car instead of going by train” because they didn’t fly at that point.  So they did.  I had these two old grey haired ladies that I drove out and we really had a delightful time.  Of course, I had to argue everywhere we would go.  But I will say this, I had let them decide hotels and so forth and they would usually get pretty damn expensive hotels.  I kept thinking there must be something cheaper so I tried to find something else.  I’d say, “Okay, I’ll pick you up around 8:30.  Oh let’s make it 9:00 tomorrow morning.” I would as I say go to…there was one hotel where there was a hooker. I never connected up with her, but she was going up and down the halls.  As I say I was an innocent boy. 

How many states have you been to?

Oh I don’t know.  After we sold out the cows and everything we took a few trips to Europe.   We went to Spain and to France and to the Hawaiian Islands because I had a nephew that was flying from there.  Everything just happened at once. The reason we got to Paris is that friends of ours were in the Diplomatic Corps and they said, “We have to go to Washington for the month of May.  Would you like to take our apartment?” I said, “Paris in the month of May!” I didn’t let him finish his conversation.  I said we’d love to do it.  With the Spain trip, we were talking to the same gal that I went on a trip with in February. She said, “What are you two going to do?” She was at ??????? at the same time as my wife was.  I said, “I don’t know. We’ll probably go down to the Florida Keys with our camper.”  She said, “You do that every year.  Why don’t you come to Spain with us.”  I looked across the room.  “Ginny, why don’t we go to Spain?” She thought it was a good idea.  They said, “We have our plans to go to the Canary Islands for about three weeks first, before we go to Spain.”  I thought that sounded kind of good, Canary Islands, I didn’t know anything about them, so we stopped at the Canary Islands.  That was an eye opener to me right then and there.  They, naturally, went down to the beach the next morning, and all the ladies were topless, that was just the regular thing.  I thought the Canary Islands were really very nice

There were more German women because apparently in Germany they don’t have anyplace they can go to that is warm with a beach.  So a lot of them went to the Canary Islands whether they were old…. Of course, there were quite a few younger ones, too.  I couldn’t get over it.  I went back and I said, “Ginny this is the greatest place I’ve ever been to.”  “Dave, I know what you have in mind.” 

When were you in the Canary Islands?

That would be about ’36 or ’37.

So this is not too long after you had done your California tour?

That’s right.  Well as a matter of fact after we got back from California we finally got married because…although as I say I had been dating her for quite a few years before. 

Before her thirtieth birthday?

As a matter of fact, she wanted to get married before she was thirty.  I still was not making enough money to support her the way she should have been supported…but as long as she was willing to, I thought the hell with it.  Go for it, that’s right. We got married. We didn’t starve to death.  We could always knock a cow in the head and have beef for a while and chickens.  I don’t know how or when but we had a right sizable chicken house that had a lot of chickens and eggs.  In fact, we used to sell eggs and chickens to people.  

After the children were grown up a little more, they said, “Dad, there is one rooster there that attacks us every time we go in to get the eggs.” I said, “For God’s sake, that chicken is not going to bother you.”  “Okay, you go up and pick up the eggs.”  This was Sunday, and I had Sunday clothes on and I went in.  I was picking up the eggs and this damn chicken came to me and he clamped his spurs right on my ankles.  I chased him around until I got him in the corner and I grabbed his head and I went around and spun him out.  I’m not going to have a chicken start to do nasty things to me.  I had ??????. The kids were clapping their hands.  I knew it wouldn’t happen.  We had chicken that night for dinner but that rooster didn’t bother us from then on. 

That’s one way to take care of it.

My wife was raised in Philadelphia. The family moved out to Wayne and that’s where I met her, in Wayne.  Ed Ten Broeck kept his horse at my place.  His family had a place out in the country but they all went in to Philadelphia for the winter.  So Ed would leave his horse out with me. Then every weekend he’d come out and stay with us and we’d go riding out.  Actually, it was through his mother.  She was with the Garden Club and the two Atmore girls, that’s her family, had just moved out to Wayne. She said, “Ed, I just discovered there are two girls that live in Wayne.” Ed called them and went down and dated them.  That’s how it all started.  He married one girl and I married the other.

How many siblings do you have?

We originally had four – two girls and two boys.

Where do you fall in the whole line?

Oh, you mean in my own family.  I was the youngest of six.  I was the only one born out in the country.  The rest of them were all born in Norristown.  But when they settled up my father’s things . .  It was funny; the house that I was born in was originally offered to another brother, his younger brother.  He said, “I’m not going to live in a house where if I fall down the front stairs, I could roll right out the front door”.  Literally, it was the damnedest thing. You opened the front door and the stairs to go up to the second floor. Of course, there was a room on either side.  As a consequence, my father said that didn’t make any difference to him.  He thought it was a very nice house and he was the second one and he took it.  So that’s where we lived, where I was born and raised. It all worked out well.  Back to my wife, I still think I married her coming out of Philadelphia from a very genteel household and dumped her on a farm.

It was a little different for Granny Atmore  (Ginny’s mother)

It wasn’t bad.

One Sunday dinner, poor Ginny had to get dressed up because Granny Atmore was coming out to dinner. As soon as she was finished dinner she excused herself; she went up and put a ???????.     One of the cows was about to calf.  She came running in and said Betsy or whatever the cow’s name was, has a calf but she hadn’t cleaned it.   Mrs. Atmore said, “Does Virginia know about this?”  She said, “Yes, she has seen quite a few births.”  She thought that was pretty unusual, a little girl knowing about cows having calves. 

So, as I was asking before, you are one of six?

I was the baby. And every time the older ones . . .  I just remember the one big thing in my life, there was one blatantly big blaze way up the country, and my mother said they all kind of got around, it most be old Mr. Fetter’s barn, so they all got ready to go up to the fire.  Of course, I wanted to go and they said, “No.  You are too young. You stay here.”  That has irked in my mind ever since. 

Tell him about the train.

There was a railroad known as Chester Valley Railroad.  It was mostly a freight line. We had a lot of cars. The Charles Water Lab car was one of the big ones. The train used to stop at Howellville, which was a ways from the house and my oldest brother said, “You know what that train is saying when it starts? ‘David’s a baby, David’s a baby, David’s a baby” Being the youngest had its advantages and disadvantages.  But it seemed to me at that age they were all disadvantages. “You are too young…”

What was the breakdown of brothers and sisters that you had?

I had three brothers and two sisters. 

What were their names starting from the oldest?

Helen was the oldest.  It seems to me that Helen was sort of different from all the rest of us because she went to all the proper schools. I always felt that she was a little beyond the rest of us.  I will admit as time went on she always, for instance, would buy very expensive dresses. The things that they would worry about, would they last? Were they always in style? And everything else. Coming along, I was more interested in the farmer’s families around cause we had a very interesting farmer that was right across the road.  They had ten children.  They had a lot of boys and so they had plenty of farm help.

How much older was Helen than you?

It seemed to me we were about three years apart.  My sister Emily (Pat Nassau) was next.  Then, (Jackson Anderson Wilson), who I was the closest to.  She (Pat) was about three years older and Jack was about two or three years older than me. My oldest brother Buzz was just ten years older.  Way back after everybody else had more or less separated, I was, it seemed to me, closer to Buzz than anybody.  He was a businessman. He originally was with Bell Telephone.  He worked with them for years and years and then I think he got into insurance.  He was the one, seems to me, when they were first married they were always moving somewhere.  By that time I was eighteen or so and so I would always help move.  His wife’s family was down on Spruce Street and they finally got a place out in the country.

So there is Helen, Emily, Jack and Buzz?

And Winfield.  Winfield was supposedly going to be the brilliant one of the family.  He was, seemed to me, always top of his class and everything and they had to push him along and he had a nervous breakdown.  I always figured it was just a loss cause the only thing they knew to do was to send him out to an institution and all they did was restrain him because he was normally very quiet and read a lot.  As I say, he was going to be the brains of the family.  But when he would go into these things he’d get belligerent and so they would take him out. At that time, it was one of the top places, out in Frankford.  I felt it was a wasted life because he never progressed.

He was a senior; I think he was just about ready to go into high school. For the graduation, at that time, they were given diplomas and the first one would turn it like this, and the next one, and they kept these rolled up diplomas. It looked nice going right down to the lawn.  When it came to him, he didn’t turn it, he just took his straight.  And so the family realized there was something not right. 

Now Helen she was the ?????, Helen married…

Well she married; no, her daughter married…

That was Toby…

My oldest sister married a minister.  He was an Episcopalian minister.

There’s another thing.  As much as I loved my father, his first charge was way the hell out in Wyoming somewhere and my mother, after they had been out there for six months or so, said, “I think we ought to go out, you and I.”  “Oh,” he said, “I just bought a carload of phosphate for the farm, I don’t think we can go out tonight.”  So as a consequence, as I say, he was a conservative one.  It was right after he had bought the house that we lived on North Valley Road. It was a rundown place, a farm.  He was going to build it up.  For some reason, he got some connection with the manure company in Philadelphia.  I guess it was when they were using horses all the time and he would buy carloads of manure. Plus a carload of phosphate to put with it, some kind of stuff.  Anyhow, he took my mother out to Wyoming to call on his daughter out there. 

Did they bring those carloads of manure right up to the railroad siding, by the house?

Yeah, they would unload it right there and then spread it out on the field.  I will say this, farmer that was there before just never got any workers and we were really growing right big crops at one time. 

Did you tell them about that rooster?  We all came down, “Dad, Dad…”  “No he’s not bothering you.”  Dad went up and caught that rooster.

That damn rooster, I swear.  I don’t know whether I had, it was Sunday morning after church, I mean he clamped his damn spurs right on my ankles.  That did not interest me at all.  I said you son of a bitch…

…He could dig graves and do all kinds of things.  He said, “I want you to build a wall around the spring, don’t touch the spring, but just build a wall around it.”

This is the Sexton at the church?

Yeah, at the church.  I don’t know how he figured that he could…take him away, but apparently he did.  The place where all my children were born, there was a springhouse down there but it would only take thirty quart milk cans, it wouldn’t take forty quarts.  So father decided to put a dam in there to fill up the…they had two sections built in the springhouse so you could put a forty- quart milk can in to cool it. Well, when they put the dam in this thing, it had ill effects back at the spring.  Pretty soon the spring just quit.  It only went up to one level.  He could push it to all the other levels. So that sort of learned a lesson from it, you can’t mess around with springs, don’t try to raise them any higher.  So anyhow they did this and they had a thing back at the spring with a center around it.  Everything worked out great, still doing it. 

Where is that spring?

You know where the Trenton Cutoff Railroad goes through, well, it sits about a hundred yards from that, this side of the Trenton Cutoff Railroad.

On Uncle Buzz’s side of the Trenton Cutoff?

Yeah.

I’ve never seen it.

As I say, they were getting bothered about.  I picked up Martha (Colley Wilson’s wife) one Sunday because she was the one that was…we went down and checked over the spring and the spring was flowing just as fine as ever, perfectly good water. 

What was Paoli like in those days?

Of course, we knew everybody. That was a point, had we been there a little longer. They had, as I keep thinking, the grocery store. You did all the work yourself.  In other words, you would go around…no, no.  At that time you had a counter, that’s right, and you would, I did a lot of the things because I was the youngest, so I would take the list up to the store and pass it over to the grocery man and he would pick out all the things and put them on the counter and then I would take them home.  And you never paid for everything, it was all charged.  It was Hubb’s Store. Hubb’s, I guess, has long since gone out of business. 

How many stores and things were in Paoli in say the Twenties?

There was the fellow that hired out horses and wagons, Eachus’ Livery Stable.  That was a fairly big thing.  It seems to me there was a grocery store and then there was one that sold material and all kind of things.  As time went on, next was a repairman for cars.  The point is there were, of course, not too many cars, although I’d say my father bought his first one in 1908.  I think he was the only customer. 

What kind was it?

A Maxwell.  My Uncle Dave had bought a two-cylinder Maxwell. After he bought the two-cylinder one, my father thought, well he better buy a car, keeping up.  Fortunately the fellow that was selling the automobiles in Philadelphia, they seemed to know.  He had started out selling bicycles and then he got into automobiles.  He said, “Just wait. Maxwell is coming out with a four-cylinder car and that’s going to be much better than these two-cylinder cars.”  So my father waited and he got the four-cylinder one.  Of course, to bring it out of Philadelphia naturally the dealer drove the car.  Well, my brother Buzz apparently had driven somebody else’s car when he was in college, so he helped drive and the dealer said, “ well you know how to drive these things.”  Another thing, for some reason, to shift gears, it was a very easy thing to stall the car when you shift gears. They brought the car out and the next day, it was Decoration Day. My father just had to take that thing out.  It was pouring down rain, but that didn’t bother him.  And every time, I naturally would go in the back seat, to have to see what was going on.  Every time he would shift gears, he would stall the thing.  You had to get out and crank it.  So he drove up as far as Presbyterian Church because you could pull into the driveway and turn around and come back. 

He got that far did he, two miles up the road…

I don’t think it was quite that far.  But anyhow it was a place he could turn around.

Could Uncle Buzz drive it pretty well?

Oh yeah.  He did most of the driving but my father learned to drive later on.  I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.

We don’t either but we like to hear it.

My brother Jack for some reason had trouble at school, too.  He had, I think, what is now called dyslexia.  He always had an awful time reading and as a consequence he had trouble in school.  At that time, we were driving with horses, and it seems to me, “Just get Jack to take you over.”  As a consequence, Buzz was the one that could handle the car but Jack was always doing the driving. 

What’s the story about the single tree and Uncle Will?

His father had gotten a brand new wagon. And if somebody had a horse he couldn’t handle, why Uncle Will would always get him because he’s the one that had a pack of hounds and everything.  Anyhow, he liked to have his whiskey.  Apparently, he got this new buggy or whatever it was and he had to take his best gal out.  The horse was a fairly up and doing animal and he gave it an extra hit with the whip and the horse jumped out and broke the single tree and he thought oh my God, here’s a brand new thing and I’ve broken the single tree.  He got in touch with my father and said, ‘I’m in trouble, this brand new buggy; I didn’t think I was doing anything unusual but I broke the single tree.  And he said ‘Well, wait let’s see it.’  And he looked out and it was a red buggy and so my father looked at it and the two pieces were there.  ‘Oh, he said, let’s mix us some real thin red paint.’  So they did, they put the red paint over the thing and put the thing back together and smoothed off all the other stuff.  And this is Uncle Will talking to his father, he said, ‘Look I took that buggy out and the single tree broke.’  ‘Well, that’s not right, that an expensive buggy.  Let’s see the single tree.’  He said, “I think this thing was cracked when it was painted.  See where the primer coat is going down through the cracks.”  Well, they’ve got to give me a new one.”  So he wrote a letter and said we can see where the prime coat had gone down through the cracks before. 

Did he get a new one?

Oh sure.  All kinds of apologies and everything else; I was going to say the old boys were not dumb. 

Where did Uncle Will go fox hunting?

All over.

What’s that town?

He had a big farm. My father’s farm was 112 acres and Uncle Dave’s farm was only 100 acres but Uncle Will’s farm was 140 acres.  It was all over…

It was in King of Prussia.

Yes.  It took over practically where all the big development is.

He would go fox hunting in King of Prussia.

Do you know why it’s called King of Prussia?

No, why?

There was a new man that bought the old inn and he got a whole new sign and everything.  When the sign painter came around, he said, “I want the greatest horseman that ever was.  Look it up and find out.”  And he said, “I looked it up and the only one I found is the King of Prussia.  He was apparently a fine horseman.  He used to ride through all the battles and everything else.” He said, “Okay, paint “The King of Prussia” on the sign and put it King of Prussia.” Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know but nobody else doubts me.

Was it Uncle Will that said that?
Every St. Patrick’s Day, he would give a big hunt breakfast. He’d have ham and turkey and a lot of liquid refreshments. I was too young, but my father and the rest of them – we would all go down for that.  The only thing I remember is the huntsmen came along after they had their breakfast with a pack of hounds and they’d say, “Davie, drop those bars,” which are in an open field right across the road from the King of Prussia Inn.  I’d drop the bars and he took these hounds across there and he was just waiting at that open field until the rest of them came out and then off they went.  When I look at it now, that poor King of Prussia Inn is sitting here, the road’s on this side.  Other words they have split the old road.  As I say, my father really never drank much.  He always had a bottle of whiskey sort of hidden up in the cupboard.  The only time I ever saw him drink is when his brothers would come up.  They always would meet on Sunday evenings.  But Uncle Will and Uncle Dave liked to have their whiskey.  It was the damnedest thing; they would have a bottle of whiskey and a pitcher of ice water and glasses. They would put down a jigger of whiskey, then take a swallow of ice water.  I mean that was not my idea of having a pleasant drink, but that was the way.  They would just sit there, each one taking a jigger of whiskey.  As I remember, I was quite little. I would just like to sit there back in the corner and watch what was going on. They were all smoking and the place would be filled with smoke. It seemed to me my mother and the girls would all be out, they weren’t around.  But I used to like to just sit there and see what was going on. 

How did you get to know Wharton Esherick?

I took over the family farm and we had a dairy and Wharton liked raw milk.  He said, “I don’t want pasteurized.  I want raw milk.” It was when we were on North Valley Road and he would often buy a dozen eggs and so forth.  We got to know him quite well.  When my family moved out there in 1913, my mother thought, “He’s a young artist with his wife . . .” and because the rest of us were all farmers, they would have them down to the house quite often.  Wharton and his wife, after I took over, he would stop in at the house and chat.  He and his children got interested in the Hedgerow Theater and when they were having a show with somebody that we knew, he would call us and say, “I’ll pick you up and take you over Hedgerow.”  He would pick up Ginny and myself. Seems to me we always had a colored lady that took care of the children and so we would go off and go to the theater.  When I hear about it now, it sounds like a fairly exciting time but I thought it was pretty damn dull. 

I think between your horse riding and farming and art it’s a pretty good story.

How did you get to Alabama?

Ginny seemed to know all the Red Cross workers around.  One night, one of them called up and said, “Ginny, I have a couple here. The man is over at Valley Forge Hospital.  He’s been horribly burned. He and his wife are up here and they want to find a place that his wife can stay, where she can drive over to the Valley Forge Army Hospital” which was not too far away at that time.  “Could you take them?”  Ginny said, “You know what my household is like.  We are not very dressy.”  “That’s all right,” she said.  “Suppose I send them down right now. Are you going to be home?”  “Sure.”

They came down and the wife got out and came in the house.  I said, “Where is your husband?” “He’s out in the car.  He didn’t think he should come in.”  I said, “Wait a minute. Let me go out.”  I went out.  It was dark.  I said, “I’m Dave Wilson. Why don’t you come on in?  It’s just my wife. The children are all in bed.  Come on in and have a cup of coffee.” He got out of the car and came in.  He had his head bandaged up.  He didn’t have any nose at all. It was bandaged over. You could just see his eyes. He was flying at that time and he was taking gasoline over the “hump.”  He apparently was trying out a new pilot. He had made the trip various times but the new pilot was not too good.  They crashed with all of this gasoline.  He said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”  He jumped out. He had his flying suit on so the only thing that got burned was his hands and his face.  The rest of him was in pretty good shape.  When he walked in, with his face bandaged up with no nose, just his eyes, he was a pretty rough looking individual.   Ginny saw him as he came in and shook hands. “Let’s go out and have some coffee.”  She went out in the kitchen but he followed her right on out. She said the minute he started talking to her, she cleared up.  Actually he was a very enjoyable man.  And so we sat down and he couldn’t drink too well cause he had his hands all bandaged up.  We got to know him quite well. 

This was Charles Woods?

Yes.  We kept his wife there and she had a son, who had a great big head.  It was one of those things - there was some kind of fluid.  It was tremendous.  She stayed with us for a couple of weeks, I think, and we got to know her quite well.  She would go back and forth. She had her car.  He would come in at various times so we got to…

This was in the Forties. 

Charles Woods was from Alabama.  He was in World War II when he had his eyes burned. They sent him to Valley Forge Hospital.  His wife came up and stayed with them. 

He had skin grafts all over his head, his head was all skin grafted.  Once you got to know him, you didn’t notice it.  He had one good eye and one not so good eye. They were operating on the good eye to make it better, the scalpel slipped…so he had to wear a patch over that eye.  But he took us flying in Alabama. 

It was months, Dad, cause he got those plastic ears.

“Oh yeah.”

He tried those and then he got his nose.  He said the ears looked all right but if it got really hot, the plastic would melt and they’d pull away from his head, so he took those off.  When they made his nose, they had a flap from his arm, from the bicep of his arm, so he had to lie there while one flap healed or grew into his face.  He said you know what an armpit smells like for six weeks. 

When they would release it, he said,  “After your arm’s up there for I don’t know how long it was, nothing works. 

Was he the one who convinced you to move to Alabama?

He called right after all the building development was around the farm. I had gotten a nasty phone call.  Apparently Virginia (Jij) and some of her friends had ridden across the property of somebody who had just bought a property…and they had been riding across it for years but he had just bought it and he said, “I understand it was your daughter that rode across my property.”  I thought, “Oh Lord, what is this country coming to if you can’t go out and ride horseback around.”  When Charles said, “Dave, I’ve got a 400 acre farm.  We need more milk down here,” I said, “ Charles, you know damn well I’m not going to leave here and go down to Alabama.”  He said, “You and Ginny jump on a plane and come on down.”  

We jumped on a plane and went down and I looked around the farm.  It was beautifully fenced because they had had beef cattle once there and everything and I thought you know this is a great place to run a dairy.  So the first thing I do, there was some kind of a school that was closing up and they had a Guernsey herd so the fellow I was going to sell the milk to seemed to be, he came up to me and he said, “Dave, I think this is a good time to buy into this herd because they’ve got to sell.”  I said, “What do you think I should offer?”  He told me and so I did and they took it up and the first thing I know we had a herd of Guernsey cows down there.  Then we built a milking parlor because the cows can be out all year long, just like your beef cattle.  We would call them in and they would go through the milking parlor and the cows were about that level so you didn’t have to bend over to put the milkers on.  There was a pipe that went from there to the cooler so the milk never really got out to the air.  It just went from the cow to the cooler.  We were operating big stuff. As opposed to the one at home where we learned to be fast flycatchers because it went into the milk thing and then you had the milk can in the barn and you poured the milk into the strainer because all the flies would gather around you and could hand-catch flies.  And that’s the milk you used to drink.

That’s where I put all those because the first thing we had was the coffee percolator out there and the fellow who would get there before I did would put water in the thing and turn it on and by the time I got there the coffee was ready.  As I say, we had these forty-quart cans; we just had to dip out the cream at the top of it. We had very nice coffee while the cows were all collected. 

So you were in Alabama for…until Mom went to…

Dothan, Alabama.  It was the dregs of Alabama. We learned an awful lot about southern life.  When I came to think about my children having a perfectly delightful time up here in the Main Line; in fact there were a quite a few people who said, “Dave, do you realize what you’re going to do to your children.  You are taking them down to the blackest Alabama. That’s the worst southern part of anywhere.”  Where Martin Luther King had his march; where George Wallace in front of the Alabama College said ‘No blacks are ever going to go in here.’  I looked at the team when I was down there.  They had the big Alabama ?????, 90% of them were black.  George Wallace who sat in front of the door, ‘No blacks are ever going to get into this college.’  It’s been quite an education when I come to think about it. 

What a fascinating life!

EPILOGUE

Never one to let his age get the better of him, he was returning from a formal dance at the Radnor Hunt Club when the car went off the road and crashed. Dave passed away on the 19th of May 2001 a few months short of his 100th birthday, seven years after Ginny’s death. He left three children and six grandchildren. He is missed by everyone who ever knew him.

RIP Uncle Dave!
Craig TenBroeck

 


References: The ‘Original’ Wilson Home, TEQ 21-4 (October 1983); Elda Farm: History and Recollections, TEQ 41-4 (Fall 2004); John Wilson’s Mansion, TEQ 13-2 (October 1964)