I barely knew my great grandfather. He died in 1948 at the age of 91. He was born in Madison County, Ohio before the civil war began. At that time the county and the state were the most important governmental units. The United States of America was a distant concept that was disintegrating. During his last years The United Nations was created out of the ashes of the Second World War. This is a tremendous change of perspective in one person's lifetime. Since I was born in 1942, the idea of a United Nations seems a natural one. It must have been a vastly radical idea for great grandfather. And this notion of a world governmental body is not completely accepted in the conservative midwest even today.
While his name was Matthew Lawrence, he was called Daddy Rea by the family. He did not want to be called "Grandfather", so the family came up with Daddy Rea. This also distinguished him from his father whom the family called Pa Rea. These names are still used to this day by my extended family members.
My earliest memory of him was visiting him at Christmas. The Rea family had dinner together each Christmas day at my grandfather's house (25 West Fourth St.) which was next door. We would arrive early in the afternoon and I spent the afternoon with my cousins, showing off my Christmas toys and racing around the neighborhood with them. Just before the meal we would all go next door for a short visit with Daddy Rea where he would give each of us 50 cents. The equivalent of nearly $4 in current 1996 money. It was too difficult to carry him down the stairs and across to my grandfather's house, so his meal was brought to him. The fare was always the same, turkey, cranberries, dressing scalloped oysters, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Our family had a set pattern for holiday meals!
He married Grace Dodds on December 13th 1882 in Mason, Ohio which is in Warren County. She was a friend of his sister Sally at Ohio Wesleyan University. Our family believed in a college education for it's young women a century ago. Grace originally attended Wesleyan College in Cincinnati with her friend Mary Beach. One of their mutual friends eloped. They knew she was planning to elope, but didn't report her to the school authorities. So they were expelled. And that was how Grace entered Ohio Wesleyan. When Sally told her brother that Grace was coming for a visit, he remarked: "Don't expect me to entertain her." Famous last words, as they were married for 63 years!
The tradition of handing down heirlooms is very strong in our family. I now have the wedding china that they received when they were married and we use it for all of our formal dinners at home. The young men in the family generally went directly into farming. This is an interesting variation from the norm of the time. The general level of education was much lower then. The percentage of the school age population graduating from high school was about 25 percent in the early part of this century. This is about the percentage of college graduates today. And the percentage of college graduates then was in the single digits. Matthew lived with his parents at the home place until he was married.
He built the house at the farm where I grew up for his bride. It was a large Victorian style house that was probably build in 1882. There were 10 rooms, 5 upstairs and 5 on the main floor and a cellar. The cellar was too dark and damp to ever be called a basement! Three porches graced the house, a large front porch for show, a screened side porch facing south for extended living space and a small side porch facing north for access to the smokehouse, where the hams and bacon sides were cured and stored. There was a woodshed attached to the back of the house. That provided the best access to the outhouse which was located near the smokehouse None of those original ten rooms was a bathroom! All of the water falling on the roofs was stored in a large cistern at the back of the house. This supplemented the hand dug well that would occasionally go dry in the later stages of summer. The room at the head of the back stairs was the hired girl's room. The next room, which occupied the width of the house was the hired man's room. This was also used by the men who came to thresh the wheat and oats.
The outbuildings were numerous, as this was a working farm that was nearly self-sufficient. From memory there was a large horse barn, a chicken house, a brooder house, a garage, an ice house, a smokehouse, a corn crib, an oil shed, a milking barn , a double corn crib, a blacksmith shop and a colt barn. Across the highway in a protected valley was a large L-shaped cattle barn that was used to protect and feed the cattle in the winter time. At the other end of a small field beside the house was a livestock scale and across the road from that was a sheep barn.
The ice house fascinated me the most. It was a two story square building with tin lining the inner walls of the first floor. In the winter they would cut blocks of ice on Deer Creek and store them here for the summer. Sawdust was used to keep each block separate and to help insulate the ice from the summer heat. I would have loved to see how long the ice would last in the August heat. Products such as eggs and butter produced on the farm were traded at the grocer in town for things such as sugar that the farm could not produce. Every 6 months or so, the grocer would settle the account and often the balance would be in favor of the farm.
The garden at the farm was quite large, perhaps a quarter of an acre. It was a square with a grass walk around the outside and one grass strip down the middle creating two large rectangles for planting the annual vegetables. Horseradish was grown along the side that was adjacent to the back yard. On entry, the side to the left had a large grape arbor, the side to the right had asparagus and raspberries grew along back fence. Along the center grass path was a large bed of rhubarb. We were able to eat all summer from the garden and can enough vegetables to carry us through the winter. Daddy Rea planted the garden, raised the chickens and repaired the gates. Aunt Jane remembers riding with him in the spring wagon when he fed the animals. The saying in the family was that he and my grandfather Earl worked and my Great Uncle Bob rode around in the truck. Even I can attest to that statement about Uncle Bob! My grandfather helped with the garden and also helped to pick the produce and bring it to town to be eaten and preserved.
Matthew L was one of the most respected men in the county. He was proud of his country, his life and willing to help his fellow man. In the mid-1800s a handshake was the established way of conducting business. On December 14, 1875 a group met to organize a banking association. About 25 subscribers for stock were present, among them his brothers Robert and Jeremiah. Robert was elected president. When he resigned on 1/1/78, Jeremiah was elected in his place. Xerxes Farrar was cashier. Matthew was a bank director when Jeremiah resigned in 1890 and M. L. was elected president. He served for many years, resigned before he died. I have money that M. L. signed. In those days, local banks issued US currency under their own signatures.
When my grandfather (Earl) was married in 1908, he and my grandmother moved into the farm house. My great-grandparents moved into town, buying the house at the corner of 4th and Main street, directly across from the county court house (53 North Main St.. where Bill and Betty Young now live). He was a Democrat in a predominately Republican county. But Madison County was still a small, rural community and he was elected County Commissioner from 1892 - 1895 on the strength of his personality. The county is now being transformed into a suburb of Columbus, the state capital and it would be a lot more difficult for a Democrat to be elected to any county-wide office regardless of his personal appeal.
In 1896 the state legislature authorized Madison County to issue bonds to build a county home for orphans. In April of that year the Common Please Court appointed William Morgan, M. L Rea and John Vent as commissioners to draw plans for the home. The commissioners voted to issue 25 $1000 bonds on 6/8/1896. The Board of Trusties to supervise the home included a Mr. Butts, Lester Bidwell, M. L. Rea and Xerxes Farrar. M. L. was Director of the Madison County Fair association for 19 years and Treasurer of the Fair Board for 17 years. His son Robert was on the board for many years as well.
After he moved to town, Daddy Rea would drive a team of horses out to the farm on Saturday and check the horses in the pasture on Deer Creek. This was the most remote part of the farm. He would stop at the Wilson farm on the way and offer a very young Ted Wilson a quarter to open and close all the gates for him. At that time a quarter would make a young boy rich for a week. Once one of the horses lost a halter and great grandfather told Ted he would give him 50 cents if he could find it. And he did! It was hanging on a fence post. Ted Wilson was my school bus driver all the years I rode to school. Long after Ted died, his son told me this story. It was such a wonderful thing because money was a very scarce commodity then. The land produced food in abundance, but not a lot of cash money.
I have seen a letter written in approximately 1912 describing the 'car fever' that was possessing Daddy Rea. I have a copy of a car registration form from 1912 that is part of his papers. From this I presume that the first automobile in the Rea family here in London was purchased in 1912.
To be a successful farmer, you have to be frugal. That is true even today. And it was true of my great-grandfather. There will always be good years and bad years and you must save for the bad times. 1933 was one of those bad years. Daddy Rea's farm was 2100 acres and the profit that year was $1500. That was split evenly three ways, one third to my great grandfather, one third to my grandfather and one third to my great uncle. At the time my aunt was in college and it cost $500 a year for her education. Clearly the family members had to have some savings to carry them through those bad years. The depression also changed the political climate in the family. When Roosevelt became president, he established the Agriculture Act which ordered pigs to be killed, land to be taken out of production, and other such actions. Matthew did not approve of that act.
When I was about 5 years old I had a large wart on my knee. We tried all sorts of medical remedies, but if anything, the darn thing grew larger. And I was always banging it against something, causing it to bleed. After all other remedies were tried, my mother took me to see Daddy Rea. He took a needle and rubbed it all over the large wart, mumbling something... or perhaps not. When he was done, he gave me the needle and told me to bury it somewhere. When I had forgotten where I buried it, he told me the wart would be gone. And it was!
Grace Dodds Rea died in 1945. I have only very vague memories of her.
In his last years he lived in the back room on the second floor which has a window overlooking my grandfather's house. He had a housekeeper and a nurse. He would spend his nights in a large rocker and then spend several morning hours lying on a pull-out bed. No one ever knew quite why. His funeral was the first I remember attending. I was 6 years old and this was my first introduction into the adult world.