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The
front porch was well-furnished with many comfortable wooden chairs and
couches and also a swing on the right end. This was a site where Fidler
kids spent many summer hours playing, especially on rainy days when we
were not allowed to go swimming over in the Blue Hole, down at the
Mill
or the Slate Pencil Bank. Most afternoons we'd spend in the river at one
of those swimming holes frequently joined by Aunt Jessie who lived down
by the old
Fidler Mill. The porch was also
the scene of many a political debate and discussions of current major
league baseball standings. And especially will I never forget the front
porch being the arena where highly competitive fly-killing contests were
conducted. I recall the summer Paula (the late Paula Johnson) was
declared the Upshur County Fly-Killing champion. In the evenings after
dark the front porch often took on a different flavor; then it became a
place where ghost stories enthralled the young summer inhabitants, and
the sounds of the creaking swing and rockers rocking punctuated the
story-telling suspense.
Before
we enter
the house for an inside tour of the grand estate, let me briefly
describe the farm scenes around the outside. Facing the front of the
house to the left was Grandpa’s garden where all kinds of vegetables
were grown, the most prominent being the corn. Now usually when we
stayed at the farm in the summer time the corn was at its peak and the
stalks were well over six feet high. Although looked upon with disfavor
by the adults, smoking dried corn silk was a popular summer experience,
but those who were discovered smoking were guaranteed punishment. On the
right side of the house the spacious front yard continued, fenced in by
a short picket fence to separate the yard from the barnyard behind the
house.
The
yard and the fence continued around the back of the house, and to the
left rear were several apple trees that produce apples perfect for
making apple butter, a quite popular summer chore. Into the huge vats in
which the apple butter was cooked (a day-long process) we’d drop
pennies which, at the end of the day’s cooking, came out all shiny and
looking brand new.
Behind
the fence extending to the left rear was a series of small buildings
including the milking shed, the woodshed, the old outhouse which could
still be used, a small corn crib. the chicken coop and the hog pens.
Chickens roamed the barnyard and Grandpa always had one or two milk cows
there as well. To the right of the front yard on the other side of the
fence was a driveway through a gate and into the barnyard, used for the
delivery and shipment of animals. On the other side of this driveway,
with its door facing the road, was a white garage whose second floor
contained Grandpa's workshop, another fascinating place for young summer
visitors to play and to explore. Extending that service driveway back
and to the right rear of the barnyard, it led past a large corn crib and
an area where the hogs were butchered, and on up to the barn itself
which was a good two hundred yards from the house, or a decent five wood
shot from the side yard. The barn, as I remember it in the mid 1940s,
was an old weather-worn black structure, which was beginning to
experience its last days, though still being used in that era.
Behind
the barn and
continuing up the hill you came across a huge rock outcropping at the
base of which was the spring that had supplied fresh water for the farm
since its inception. To the right of the barn was a large fenced field
that extended further up the hill and down to the road; it was used for
growing hay and occasionally the cows would use it for grazing.
Grandpa's property extended up the mountain past the spring to an area
with many green gage plum trees. As small children we did not frequent
the areas past the barn very often.
On
the left side of the house was an entrance to a storage cellar where
potatoes and other vegetables were kept.
Now
that the outside tour is complete let us return to the front door of the
main house for an inside look at its rooms and living areas. The front
door, situated on the left side of the porch, leads directly into the
great living room, by far the largest room in the house. Filled with
comfortable stuffed chairs and sofas, it also contained a large gun
cabinet and several bookshelves on the left side of the room, which
stored, among hundreds of other books, the old family Bible, an accurate
source of Fidler and McAvoy genealogies and vital statistics. An upright
piano graced the left rear of the room and on the right rear wall hung
the old clock driven by heavy metal cylinders hanging on brass chains.
Every week Grandpa would wind up the clock by pulling the weights back
to the higher position. A large picture window on the right front of the
room looked out onto the porch, across the river and some fields and to
the store and up the mountain beyond. I remember enjoying that marvelous view every day I stayed at the
farm.
On
the right wall was the wonderful coal fireplace which always seemed to
be burning, even during the summer time. Coal was stored in a room in
the back of the house behind the kitchen and I remember retrieving coal
in buckets as one of my chores. The fireplace itself had a wooden mantle
and frontispiece which was quite beautiful. A handsome buck head also
graced the frontispiece, the identity of its hunter and the accompanying
story had been lost in antiquity. My favorite memories of that fireplace
as a small child were sending letters to Santa Claus up the chimney and
popping corn in wire baskets in the evenings.
Other
great memories of the living room were the heated political debates that
were enjoined sitting around the fire and the wonderful Rook tournaments
conducted at card tables set up in the middle of the room after dinner
each evening; these hotly contested events often lasted until bedtime.
On
both sides of the fireplace were doors that led to the only downstairs
bedroom, the one used by Grandma and Grandpa. Sadly, my clearest
memories of that room were of the latter period of Grandma's life when
she was too ill to enjoy her family.
At
the right rear of the living room a hall led back to the bathroom (on
the left) and to the kitchen. Another deer's head graced the entrance to
this hallway. Grandpa's house was the first in the county to have inside
plumbing and that bathroom was his pride and joy. Just before reaching
the kitchen entrance a stairway to the other bedrooms was on the right,
three steps up the stairway turned right and up to a hallway leading
right and the first bedroom on the left. It seems to me this first room
was reserved for newlyweds and/or younger couples for it had more
privacy than the other rooms. Its window looked out over the side yard.
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Farmhouse about
