Myrtle Emma -- Father's Car and The Corn Roast

Brother Will at the wheel

In the latest installment in our look into Myrtle Emma, the memoirs of Myrtle Emma White, we find two stories both timely in their own ways. First up is Father's Car, wherein Myrtle tells us about...well...her father's car. It was a Velie Touring car, probably from the early 1920's. The Velie Motors Corporation made lower price, high quality cars from 1908 until 1928. It was founded by Willard Velie, a grandson of John Deere (yes, that John Deere).

The drive Myrtle mentions -- to her "father's parents' and his sister who lived with them" -- was only about five miles. James and Martha Morris lived on a farm near Ogletown, I believe right about where the intersection (interchange, really) of Rts. 273 and 4 are now. James died in 1917 (before his granddaughter Myrtle was born), but Frank's sister Laura lived with their mother, and that's who Myrtle would have been bundled up in the back of the car to see.

In this story, Myrtle also mentions that her father worked for the Newark China Clay Company. Much more information about that business can be found in a recent post. And to tie everything together, the top picture here shows Myrtle's younger brother Will at the wheel of his father's Velie. As an older boy, William Morris would work with his father at the clay company, working as a "bucket boy". Also, after the story you'll find another photo of Frank Morris and his car, in front of their Pigeon Hollow Road home. Myrtle is standing off to the side, and behind them is the (by then) former Eastburn Store. There will probably be an updated post at some point about both homes. In the meantime, enjoy the short but sweet Father's Car.

Walker Farm Mystery Structure

The old stone...something

Whether you're a kid or a grown-up, there's no denying the excitement of being out in the woods and finding some old ruins. To know that sometime...a long time ago...someone built and lived in or worked in a beautiful, dignified building, of which you now see only the remains. It might have been their home, or their barn, or maybe a mill. If it's smaller it could have been an outbuilding, a springhouse, or a root cellar. Often, if you know what you're looking for, you can make a pretty good guess at what it was before it fell into the state of disrepair in which you find it now.

Sometimes, though, for one reason or another, identifying the former function of the stones, concrete or timbers you see can be tricky. There might not be enough left standing to tell for sure what it was. Or maybe its location just doesn't seem to make sense, or perhaps you've heard stories about it that don't really fit with what you're looking at. What can make this even more frustrating is when the said ruins are actually on or next to your own property. Such is the case with the stone building seen here, tucked between houses just a few yards from the northern edge of Mill Creek Hundred.

This beautiful and mysterious little stone structure sits along what is now a private driveway, but which once was part of a now-abandoned stretch of Doe Run Road. It lies just past where the road first branched west above Little Baltimore Road, as seen in the diagram below. It sits on the east side of the road on what was for many years the farm owned by the Walker family.