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_{What's up Doc?}

MICE, WEB PAGES, AND NEW SOFTWARE: We've got mice again, and they distract me. I hate killing the little things. But I also don't like the idea of having them stomping around on our silverware. So there's not much of a choice.

All morning (this morning 2-20-10) I was distracted because a mouse was caught in a trap in a drawer - but was still alive. He wasn't screaming (to my knowledge), but his little tail was flapping furiously about. So - I waited.

But he didn't "bite the dust" so I took the trap out the backdoor and flipped him into the snow. He's probably back in house by now - licking his wounds. (Makes me wonder how I could have ever served in a war.)

I've already murdered two of the little buggers this week. Maybe this one will get the message out to his friends and they'll retreat to another locale.

If you've not had an opportunity to check out the The First 100 Years of Vermilion's First Congregational Church web page that I recently put together (for your enjoyment and knownledge) I'd urge you to take a peek. There's a great deal of Vermilion history therein. I am pleased with the way it shows on-line. It is (if I do say so myself) a nice piece of work.

In fact, I am so pleased with it that I'm in the process of putting together two new pages. The "Now & Then" page is currently being previewed in "VV". And the other called "Paint The Town" is being previewed in this issue. Both are going to be very attractived presentations when finished.

The "Paint The Town" page was inspired by an AKVIS software plugin for Ps CS4. The above pic is an example of what the software can do - which is namely transform a photograph into a painting. The effect is striking whether one is familiar with the subject or not. It's "cool stuff" for artistically impaired persons such as myself.

Intrepidly,

"The names and many of the faces pictured are,
to many homespun Vermilionites somewhat familiar."

TODAY, TOMORROW, AND YESTERDAY: Nearly eight decades have come and gone since this photograph was made and the only things that have really changed are the faces and the names. Of course, the clothing is a “little” different. Seldom do we see boys wearing overalls or - for that matter - knickers, “high-topped” shoes, and argyle knee stockings anymore. The popularity of the “Mary Jane’s” (i.e. the shoes) worn by many of the young ladies has ebbed and flown several times since then (an ebbing and flowing that I surmise will continue in future years). Sneakers are by far the most common footwear of either sex today. And one would be very hard pressed to find a classroom in any public school nowadays where every girl in attendance is wearing a dress. But other than those “little” things nothing much has really and truly changed; except, as has been said, “the faces and the names”.

In this particular instance it is indeed fortunate that some unknown person had foresight enough to place names with most of the smiling young faces in the photo that accompanies this article. They are:

Back Row Standing L-R: Rita Peasley, Pauline Naegele, Elizabeth Sopko, Elizabeth Schullery, Florence Kessler, Gladys Pember (Wiencke), Margaret Nelson, Hilda Boone (Burley), Dorothy Wood (Hart), Emma Smith, and the Teacher Miss Thompson.

Middle Row Standing L-R: Eddie Wlodarsky, Albert Zess, Charles Klucas, Morey "Bud" Jeffery, Gordon Truesdale, Erving Vincent, Henry Fullgrabe, Unknown, Unknown, Robert Collitt, Lewis Tokar, and Awalt Kelm.

Bottom Row Seated L-R: Unknown, Mary Budding, Joe McDaniel, Richard Koontz, Floyd Knott, Lawrence Smith, Burton Will, Cornelius Vasu, Euilia Washtak, Charlotte Wallace, Delores Barnes (Huffman), and Alta Kneisel (Foster).

(Note: The spelling of these names are as best as could be determined from the cursive writing directory from which they were taken. Ergo; if there are errors in spelling they belong to the paltry perceptional abilities of the Yesteryear columnist.)

This photograph was one, among very many, taken by professional photographer Rudy Moc of Vermilion’s school children during the first half of the 20th century. When these shadows were frozen in time (1930) all the rural schools had been boarded up and six motorized busses transported some 200 students into the village to attend classes at Vermilion’s stately State Street School. South Street School, (try saying the names of either school real fast) completed for the 1927-28 school season, housed the upper six grades, thus making the State Street facility an elementary school until it, too, was boarded up in the late Spring of 1938.

The names and many of the faces pictured are, to many homespun Vermilionites, somewhat familiar. Dorothy (Woods) Hart looks very much today as she did then. Lewis Tokar’s children bear an unmistakable resemblance to the Lewis of yore. And Richard “Dick” Koontz - aside from the fact that he looks like he’s on the edge of some mischievous event - is just a younger version of the good-natured fellow who would, just a decade or so later, make a name for himself doing exactly what the photographer, Rudy Moc, was doing then.

No, not much has really changed over years. After all is said and done children are still children - in Vermilion and elsewhere. Some fine spring day they’ll gather with their classmates, and smile into the lens of a camera held by another Rudy Moc or Dick Koontz. And 78 years later, while looking at those shadows, someone will come to understand that the span between that day, tomorrow, and that yesteryear is not nearly as long as it may seem.

_{Ref: Vermilion Photojournal; Yesteryear (11-10 through 12-15-05); Special Thanks to Bill Lehky; Published in the Vermilion Photojournal 4/17/08; Written 4/13/08.}

_{"Looking back it almost seems almost like a dream."}

PAINTING THE TOWN: As previously mentioned this is a preview piece for a new webpage that I am currently developing. Using a new software program in conjunction with Adobe's Photoshop CS4 I am able to take some already wonderful pix of Vermilion, O. and make them (at least in my view) more "wonderfuller"

This particular piece was a scan I did of a rather large framed photo portrait given me by my late friend Fred Wetzler shortly before he died. I never really cared for the coloring of the original piece. But it was, in many respects, an unusual and historic picture so I kept a copy for myself.

And then - by using this new Ps "app" with the portrait it suddently became what (I think) is quite a beautiful painting...

Looking back it almost seems almost like a dream. (Did it ever really exist? ) On Sunday before breakfast - before the church bells chimed - before anyone opened their front door to look for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. When the only prints in the dew drenched lawns were those of the neighborhood dog and the dark green trail of the paperboy's bicycle. When the air was summer sweet; the sun warm on your face; and the only sounds were a few flies tapping furiously at the screen door. While down on the river - at Kishman's - the tugs played gently with their mooring lines; anxious for the Monday to come...

Beautiful.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

HENRY R. WILLIAMS: H.R. Williams was identified with Vermilion history for more than a half-century.

And if I was making a list of the most influential Vermilionites during the 20th century Mr. Williams would be near the top. But what (you may ask) was his real name? Was it "Harry" as everyone called him? Or was it Henry as I found it in the U.S. Census data?

Well - it was both. For myself, this was not a matter of whether or not the name "Harry" is a common nickname for "Henry" so much as it was a matter of finding biographical data on an important person. In short, because he was not publically known by his given name (not even in his official obituary) finding bio-data about him was not as easy as it might be.

A grandson, William Thomas Cook, M.D. retired, who now lives in Paridise Valley, Arizon sent me the following information:

"...Concerning my grandfather, H.R. Williams, whom I clearly remember. His & Hattie's (nee Rathbun) daughter Rhoda was my mom, having married Arthur Cook, a high school teacher in Lakewood. I compiled an expanded genealogy of the Williams and (Wisconsin) Cook clans, including brief essays regarding their personages, their times plus a variety of mementos. From birth, my grandfather (one of 7 siblings of Welch coalminer stock) was formerly Henry Robert Williams, later "H.R." or "Harry" or "the Squire." His embelished 14x18 STATE OF OHIO JUSTICE OF THE PEACE CERTIFICATE, dated April 12, 1895, signed by then Governor William McKinely, simply denotes Grandpa as "H.R. Williams..."

I've not written (myself) much about Mr. Williams to date. However; in writing about other people and events in Vermilion history I have often found him there.

When the Niles (LSE) car hit another head-on near the place we currently recognize as Bluebird Beach in the early years of the 20th century the good Squire heard the terrible crash from his office in the village, and was one (if not the first person on the scene to help survivors.

And who really discovered the first great female baseball player in America - Alta Weiss? It was Squire Williams and his boys at Vermilion's Linwood Park.

And who helped acquire the beloved navy cannons that generations of Vermilion kids have climbed on and over (and still do) in Exchange Park? You guessed it - the good Squire.

I've no idea (at the moment) if his having served as Vermilion Mayor for nearly 30 years (not consecutively) is a record of any kind - but it is, nonetheless, a local record. And it is unlikely to ever be broken.

H.R. Williams was not, in any case, just a mayor; or a lawyer; or a Justice of the Peace; a coroner; a sportsman; a husband; friend; or a father. He was, amazingly enough, all of those things.

Try and match that...

_{nothing ever remains the same...}

SOMETHING OLD - SOMETHING NEW: The idea for this piece began as an idea for a coffee-table book of historical photographs of Vermilion, Ohio and, hopefully, it will (someday) be realized.

Originally the concept - as previously stated - was just a picture book. But after mentioning such a project in an issue of my weekly web page - Vermilion Views - a reader by the name of Scott Dommin suggested that it might be interesting if it featured photographs of how people, places, and / or things in the City of Vermilion, Ohio appear today along with photos showing how they appeared in the past. Ergo; the title "Now & Then".

"What a great idea." I told both myself and Scott.

[NOTE: Currently I'm awaiting a proposal from another publisher - and it seems like it will be very workable. I should know something next week - "fer-shure".]

In the beginning it was called "Division Street" and it ran north and south from South Street in the south to Liberty Avenue in the north. Sometime during the 1960's the name was changed to "Main Street". Prior to this time Main Street ran north and south from Liberty to Lake Erie. So in effect all that was done was to make Main Street longer. The businesses along the thoroughfare have, of course, changed a great deal between the time these photographs were taken. Some of the buildings are gone. The railroad warning system has changed significantly - and so has the manner of parking. About the only thing that really remains the same in 2010 is the Masonic Temple (the next to last building on the left). It is still the Masonic Temple

[NOTE: It is thought that the little girl on the bike in the earlier pic was Lucile Hull Clark. Lucile's parents were the Hulls in the Englebry-Hull Building Supply Company.]

_{Ohio's Serpent Mound}

PREHISTORIC FIRE-LANDS: I found the following information re: the pre-history of our community to be well written and extremely interesting. Although we can't know for sure what things were like in our area before records were kept - some things were left behind...

THE PREHISTORIC FIRE-LANDS

The township of Margarettta had, when first settled, a number of fortifications and mounds, some of the latter quite large and constructed of stone.

In Vermillion there were two extensive fortifications on the banks of the river of the same name, and another in the southern part of the township. There were, In the same township, a number of mounds in In which human skeletons and scattered bones were found.

In Berlin, in the western part of the township, there was a mound covering a quarter of an acre, with large trees growing upon it. Near the center of the township, on the farm formerly owned by the late Lewis Osborn, was another mound, and in the northern part of the township, a fortification.

In Huron Township, mounds were found on the highlands on both sides of the river. Two of these mounds on the west side of the river and about two miles from its mouth, were quite large and nearly round. Human bones and "beads of different colors" were found in them.

In Milan, the pioneers describe "three forts " one in the first section, one in the second and one in the fourth. Their embankments, when first seen by the whites, were from two to four feet high. At different places in the township other earthworks were found, and in some of them human bones and implements of stone and clay .

In Ridgefield township, Huron county, circular fortifications were found in lot two and lot three of the first section and a small mound containing human bones, in lot eighteen of the second section. The fortifications are on high banks of branches of the Huron river.

In Norwalk there were three fortifications near the Ridgefield line, and crossing it, on the farm now owned by Isaac Underbill. That gentleman has preserved reminiscences of his plowing, when a boy, through the dry and brittle bones of the men of whom these works are the monuments.

In the western part of New Haven township was a circular fortification with large trees growing on its embankments when first discovered.

Except a few "conical mounds " said to have been found in Norwich, lin the southeast part of the township, no record, so far as we know, has been preserved of any other traces left by the Mound-Builders on the soil of the Fire-lands.

It may be, indeed, that not all the remains which have been mentioned, belong properly to the age of the Mound-Builders, for the pioneers were not always careful to discriminate between the works of that ancient race and those of the later inhabitants of these lands, the Indians. But at least this may be said with confidence that some if not all these works were wrought by the hands of that mysterious people, whose origin, character and history have been a pregnant theme for many a believer in the world's antiquities .

It is not the province of this local history to enter into extended inquiries of this kind. The evidences are many of the “great antiquity of the remains” and the fact is no less clearly proven that the men who erected them were much higher than the red men in the scale of civilization. Whether they came of the Mongolian stock , were a remnant of the "lost tribes of Israel," or belonged to an original family unknown to the old world" we shall not stop here to investigate. It Is enough to say that long ago, perhaps many ages before the coming of the Indians, the Mound-Builders vanished from the Fire-lands, leaving behind them neither tradition nor history.

_{Author: Williams, W. W. (William W.)
Subject: Huron County (Ohio) - History; Huron County (Ohio) - Biography; Erie County (Ohio) - History; Erie County (Ohio) - Biography
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio: Press of Leader Printing Company
NOT IN COPYRIGHT}

Continued Next Week...

God Bless their souls - each and every one.

"This was the center of commerce - the heart - of the Village of Vermilion, Ohio..."

FOOTPRINTS: This a.m. (4-06-08) a friend, the pre-eminent electric train historian from Birmingham, Ohio, Dennis Lamont, emailed me to say - among other things - that April marks the 70th anniversary of the death of electric rail operations in this area. He also noted that though the trolleys are long gone the “foot prints” of the “greatest electric railway in the United States” - which lived for only 40 years - still remain. For in the wake of those trains came electric power. And given this power the region - which until that time had labored amid clouds of steam and smoke generated by coal or wood fired engines / furnaces; and had lived in places dimly lit by candles, oil or kerosene lanterns - began to see both the literal and the figurative light.

The Vermilion pictured is the enlightened Vermilion (c.1939) just following the demise of the era of the electric trains. The locale, for those who do not immediately recognize it, is looking to the southwest from Exchange Park at the corner of Liberty and Division / Main Streets. The photograph is extraordinarily fine. And while a similar photograph appeared in this publication last year (5-11-07) that photo only showcased the north and westerly side of Division Street. This photograph affords one a view of both sides of the street.

On the west side (right) of the street from foreground to background (r-l) the shops are: Irishman Jack Gray’s Shack Lunch Restaurant; the Starr Gardner-Naegele Meat Market, the Ness Shoe Store (featuring Red Goose Shoes); A.D. Baumhart’s Drug Store (with his wonderful candy counter and ice cream bar); Englebry’s Variety and Dry Goods Store (featuring 5, 10, and 25 cent items); Beeckel’s Funeral Parlor and Furniture Store; Alheit’s / Miller’s Hardware Store; and the last shop appears, at least in this photograph, to be another drygoods store.

On the east side (left) of the street from foreground to as far as is visible in the background are: the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) store (with boxes of Corn Flakes stacked neatly in the window); then Furgason’s “Fergie’s” Bowling and Billiards Room (pointedly advertising “Tobacco” on his sign over the walk); and after it another hardware store (featuring Sherwin-Williams Paint). Unseen down the block is a saloon. Whether it was still called Nolan’s or had become “Lefty’s” Eland’s Cafe at the time is unknown to this writer. Then came Schwensen’s stupendous bakery followed by the Englebry-Hull office / weigh station.

All these businesses are, of course, gone now. The only remaining entity - that probably preceded all the businesses mentioned - is the local chapter of the freemasons who built, and still, own the building housing their temple. It is the structure to the right with ornate pinnacles at each end. But the street, and the buildings on it, generally look the same today as they did then.

This was the center of commerce - the heart - of the Village of Vermilion, Ohio as very subtle changes, in both thinking and in doing, were taking place in America. To be sure, the bright orange interurban cars had disappeared from the landscape, replaced by automobiles, trucks, and busses. The dirt and brick streets, iron rails, electric poles, and power lines that once lined Liberty Avenue had given way to paved streets and electric lights at the intersections. But the footprints of the yesteryear linger. And they always will.

Ref: Pearl Roscoe Photograph Collection courtesy of the Vermilion Area Archival Society and Albert Tarrant; Published in the Vermilion Photojournal 4/10/08; Written 4/6/08 @ 11:30 AM.

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
_{[Thanks Bonnie]}

My face in the mirror
Isn't wrinkled or drawn.
My house isn't dirty.
The cobwebs are gone.

My garden looks lovely
And so does my lawn.
I think I might never
Put my glasses back on.

_{Podcasts - "forever under construction..."}

PODCAST #168: This week the Vermilion Views Podcast #168 is leans less on content and more on technique as I play with titles and special effects. Maybe someday I'll get the hang of it...

Persons interested in the history of the Lake Shore Electric Railway (which was the subject of a past podcast series) - "the greatest electaric railway system" on the planet may want to go to Amazon.com and purchase a book called "Images of Rail - Lake Shore Electric Railway". It was put together by Thomas J. Patton with the help of my friends Dennis Lamont and Albert Doane. It'd make a nice gift.

Also, please note that all the video (MP4) podcasts (when used) are done in the "Quicktime MP4" format. If you don't have "Quicktime" it's easy to find and free to download.

NOTE NOTE:Past podcasts are not available in the on-line archive. They just take up too much disk space. But if one really, really, really wants to acquire a copy of a past cast it can be had by contacting me and I will place it on a disc and send it to ye for a minimal fee.

LOCAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: After giving it much thought this link has been "put-down". During the last year most of the folks who used to use this page as a bulletin board have acquired their own and, consequently, no longer need this forum from "Views". I have, however, kept links (in the links section) to Larry Hohler's "Hope Homes" in Kenya - and to Bette Lou Higgins' Eden Valley Enterprises sites. They are historically and socially relevant projects. I suggest that you visit these sites on a regular basis to see "what's shakin'".

The Beat Goes On: The page is generated by the dreaded Macintosh Computer and is written and designed by (me) Rich Tarrant. It will change weekly ~ usually on Saturday. Bookmark the URL (Universal Resource Locater) and come back at your own leisure. Send the page to your friends (and enemies if you wish). If you have something to share with those who visit this page, pass it on. And if you see something that is in need of correction do the same. My sister, Nancy, is a great help in that respect. It only takes me a week to get things right. And follow the links. You might find something you like. If you experience a problem with them let me know. Also, if you want to see past editions of this eZine check the new archives links below.

If you're looking for my old links section (pictured) I've replaced it with a pull-down menu (visible in the small box next to the word "Go"). If you're looking for links to more Vermilion history check that menu.

_{How the old links menu looked}

Links to additional Vermilion Ohio pages: The First 100 Years of Vermilion's First Congregational Church Vermilion Ohio Historic Pix History of Linwood Park Vermilion Visitor's Advisory (Satire) Gore Orphanage History The Lester Pelton Story The Wreck of The Niles #152 The History of Crystal Beach Vermilion Views Archives Vermilion's Pioneer Woman; Charlotte Sturges Cloudy; Vermilion's Ferryman The History of Vermilion's Congregational Church Dedication Sermon of Jotham W. Goodell, 1843 The Last Time I Saw Charlie Hope Childrens Home Kenya A Profile of Rich Tarrant Vermilion Biographies Vermilion - Village of Lake Captains Vermilion's Youngest Minstrels Don Englebry's "Growing Up In Vermilion" "Views" Podcast Archive The Story of Vermilion's Education System Eden Valley Enterprises VHS Class of 1959

For Persons who would like to donate to the cause (to keep these "Views" on-line you can send whatever you would like to me at the following address. And THANKS to everybody who has already donated to the cause. I doth certainly appreciate it): _{Rich Tarrant
1041 Oakwood Drive
Vermilion, Ohio
44089
Telephone: 440-967-0988 - Cell: 440-522-4459}

or you can use PayPal:

"Pie? There's pie?"
-Jake Harper(Two and a Half Men)

Vol.7, Issue 49, February 20, 2010

Archive Issue #362

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