Every time I drive down Station Hill, the changing landscape makes me realize progress has come to our small town. When Station Hill was but a brick road traversed by Model T’s, the landscape was pretty and the safety issue didn’t exist. That changed and Station Hill turned into a dangerous road for bigger and wider trucks. not to mention the driver of the cars who used it at their own risk. That’s changing again. No longer will big trucks strike fear into my heart every time they negotiate the turn. (And, let me just say that big truck drivers are excellent drivers!) New Cumberland’s very persona may change. If they take the red light at the turn out, we will lose our distinction of “one red light town.” I don’t think being a “no” red light town has the same panache.
But there is no doubt we are finally seeing some progress unfold before our very eyes.
The buildings which have been demolished, howver, still linger in my mind’s eye. Not the buildings that were eyesores, crumbling before our very eyes the last 20 years. Nope, I’m talking about the ones that were there even before I was born..
The taxi stand is the one that comes to my mind because it was the place something very significant in my family history took place during WW II. I never saw a picture of the moment and still I imagine the scene because my mom described it so well.
It was a small town Saturday night in the early 40’s and the taxi stand had a dance. In my mind’s eye, the space is filled with servicemen in uniform and women whose husbands were at War. Everyone was drinking bottles of Coca Cola and despite the heat are dancing and the men are talking about when they ship out. There is a false heartiness and a frantic desperation to bond with childhood friends whom you may never see again. “Sentimental Journey” and “I’ll be Seeing You” in my head and my heart always breaks a little for those who will endure the next three years protecting our country.
I in my head and I see my Mom, 18-years-old with a baby in a pram and election cards with a picture of a sailor that say “elect John D. Herron” right beside my sister, Marsha. She is in town to enjoy the music, meet her friends and get my Dad elected to office. Only he isn’t there. He’s on a ship in the Pacific, but she is. Her job is to convince voters to cast their vote for a young man dressed in his sailor suit on his card who won’t return until the war is over.
My Dad was in the Navy and had shipped overseas in the Pacific front. But just before he left he filed for the office of Justice of Peace on the Republican ticket. It was to be an absent campaign run by his wife. When he won as a Republican, the only one in the State in a Roosevelt landslide, the picture of him that declared his victory was in his sailor uniform and the copy read “in a campaign conducted by his wife.”
I think never did I admire my parents more than when I hear of what they did. They were plucky and risk takers and had the work ethic and confidence that made America so special.
My Mom and my sister Marsha lived in a little house on New Cumberland Heights and as my mother would tell the story each Saturday night, she put Marsha in a baby carriage and threw a pair of high heels in as well and pushed the baby carriage down the brick road to the taxi stand. They had a dance every Saturday and her friends were there. But this Saturday night was different.
Someone came up to her and pointed to a sailor across the room and said “that’s your half brother, Jake Murray, over there.”
Mom didn’t know she had a half-brother. Her mother, Bea Carroll, had had my Mom at the age of 17 and left Mom with her grandparents, Patrick and Fronie Carroll, to raise. A few years later Bea met and married Chuck Murray in Newell; gave birth to Jake; and was off again leaving Chuck to raise Jake. Not more than 15 miles apart, both Mom and Jake grew up not knowing the other existed.
So Mom, who was not shy at all, marched over to Jake and simply said “I’m Margaret Herron and I’m your half-sister.” I can only imagine the shock in Jake’s eyes. I can almost feel my Mom’s heart beating out of her chest as she realized their were secrets she had not been told. At 18, she was just a kid with a baby and a husband at war, but I have always believed there was a very strong woman taking shape during that time.
Stories were told and validated and a bond formed right there in that old taxi stand. Jake would soon ship out to the Pacific Front for the duration of the war. He was single and had no one to send his pay to at home. He asked Mom if he could send the money to her since she was the only family he had. He did throughout the war. When he returned home he had a nice little nest egg she had saved for him. He married and he and his wife, Carol, had one child, my cousin Vicky Blankenship.
A sad story? A happy story? Sad because of the circumstances that brought the two together. Sad because of the mother that felt no responsibility for her children. Even sad for a grandchild who only saw her grandmother once in her lifetime.
But, a happy story because there was a taxi stand and a dance and against the odds two siblings were brought together and would remain family for the rest of their lives. While neither knew parental love as children, they both displayed great love for their children and grandchildren and a ragtag start turned into a wonderful family tale.
That’s my memory of the taxi stand. Do you have one to share?
Send it to “[email protected].”
