We lived here in Hancock County, Ohio, for 50 years but it wasn’t named after my husband.

There’s a statue up in the Courthouse of John Hancock and they’ll ask if we’re related, or I’ll get a phone calls and some fellow wants to talk – they used to want to come to my husband when he was living, “Is Jim home or is he up on top of the Courthouse?” (Laughter)

My parents were hard workers! My dad originally was a school teacher and farmer. He taught school at the country schools and farmed also. That was before I was born and they lived on a farm.

Then he took a job as surveyor for Ohio Oil Company which later became Marathon and that’s when they moved to town, so to speak, a little town and I was born – well, they lived outside the town – and I was born there. Then, during the Depression he lost his job. Of course we always worked. Mother and Dad had a garden, they had cow, because they originally were farm people. So, we always had enough to survive, that’s for sure.

Then Dad, after he lost his job with Marathon, or Ohio Oil Company, decided to buy into a little grocery store cause he said then we’d always have something to eat if he could make a go of it, and with my two older brothers it gave us something to do to keep busy. My brothers are Herman and Harold, both deceased. All my family is deceased practically.

Mother was hard worker, lot of common sense, not educated like Dad was cause Dad had some college to get a teaching certificate in those days. But mother had to quit school cause she was the oldest girl and the younger children would stay home and do the work for her mother, or help her mother.

I thought they set a good example for us kids, Mother and Dad did. They were going to survive. Everything was going to be alright eventually. It might be a little rough for a while, which it was, and my oldest brother in the next few years was going to college and they wondered how they would manage that. Of course college wasn’t as expensive in those days as it is now, but comparatively with the income it was, or lack of income. But, he did go to college and graduated.


We farmed a little bit, too. My dad rented it and renters didn’t make much for an owner in those days. They didn’t farm big like they do nowadays. But, they did hold on to some of the acreage. I think they had the 80 acres where the house was in corn and soy beans, wheat, and oats.