Viewing the wreckage in the neighborhood the day after the Hurricane of 1944, the most tragic to me was the barn on the old homestead. As I saw the splintered timbers lying on the ground, memories of long ago came back to me.
It was built in 1879 when I was but a small child, and about the first thing my mind can recollect. A fierce forest fire swept through the woods that fall, I was ordered to stay in the house for safety. As I peered from the window of our little lean-to kitchen, and saw the clouds of black smoke, and the tongues of flame licking up the pines (which at that time were not very far from our home) I was terror stricken and crying. Father and brother Willie were making a back fire and Mother and sisters Bertha and Antonia were drawing water from the old winding well to wet the lumber that lay in piles all over the yard. This was for the new barn that was to replace the old log stable, built during the Civil War when my parents settled here.
The next I recollect was the neighbors coming for the barn raising. All the neighborhood tuned out and, after the rafters were up, a green pine tree was nailed to the ridge. Then the folks were called in for refreshments and celebration with songs, music and dancing. They were rejoicing far into the night, while I was on my cot battling with the sand-man.
Another recollection was when brother Willie and Mr. Bange (the carpenter) were boarding up the walls. I was playing on the inside while they were putting on the wide boards. Brother was nailing them on the upper end and the carpenter was at the bottom, and kidding me asking me to reach him odd things nails, tools etc. when he had put up the last board, and there was no opening left. He still called me to reach him things, and I was pondering how to do that. (I was just four years and three months old, and these are about the first things I remember.)
When the neighborhood held parties they used the barn floor for games and dancing. A jolly crowd they were too. Old and young together. Father sang and played the guitar while the Bauer brothers, Henry Pfeiffer and several others played the accordion. The other folks danced, and I can still see Mr. Michel and Mr. Bange dancing the old round and round, letting one foot come down with a thud and a jolly uh-hi.
When sister Sophie was married in 1881 my parents celebrated their Silver wedding anniversary on the same day. The barn was decorated with green cedar trees, flags, and bunting. We children played games and the older boys did tricks and stunts. Albert Michel won the first honors by walking on his hands the entire length of the barn floor. While all were interested in the games, two of the big boys leaped from the mow above to the floor 12 feet below, and landed with a piercing skreich giving everyone a scare. I believe it was Will (Doc) Fink and Al Michel.
Charley Orphal usually played the fool to the delight of the crowd. A puddle of water was poured on the floor and they gave Charley two old buggy spokes, one in each hand, and made him sit down flat on the floor with one leg on each side of the puddle. Then they bet him a dollar that they could wipe up the water without him hitting them with the spokes. He was game – and someone dragged him through the puddle of water. Well, Charley lost the dollar but he gained a wet seat plus a few splinters from the barn floor.
In the days of the old Egg Harbor Fair, excursion trains brought friends, and friends of friends down from the City of Brotherly Love to spend a few days rejoicing in the country. Our two room pioneer home could not hold the crowd, so the ladies slept in the attic with my sisters, and the men slept in the hay mow of the barn. But did they sleep? They spent most of the night singing, telling yarns, killing mosquitoes and playing tricks on one another. If one did doze off he would have a sudden awakening with a bunch of salt hay or wheat beards shoved down the back of his shirt.
Well, many a good time was had in that barn. On one side of the barn floor there were stalls for horses and cows. On the other side were a room for the cider mill and the workshop. Here Brother Willie set up a bed and he and I slept there until the new house was built in the fall of 1884.
After the new house was finished, in 1884, frolics on the barn floor came to an end. The two rooms of the old house were made into one large room, and there was more space for parties and dances there, than on the barn floor. The hay mow still had a lot of attraction for me and the boys of the boys of the neighborhood. Brother Willie didn't approve of using the hay mow for a playground on rainy days. He aid the sand and mud on our shoes did not improve the quality of the hay. Guess he was right. I never liked sand on my vittles either. But the temptation was too great. About this time, Joe Hatfield came to live with us and he and I used to sneak up in the mow on rainy days to rumpus and turn flip-flops from the beams above, onto the hay. When Brother Willie went to see his sweetheart, the whole gang enjoyed a game of hide and seek in the barn.
As I grew up, the attraction of the hay mow dwindled, and I thought little more of the good times in the old barn. But today as I saw it shattered, thoughts of bygone days of childhood came back to me, like in the old song that goes: