I had the pleasure of growing up on a farm in north Logan County, near Epley Station, in the 1940s and '50s with two loving parents, two older sisters
and a younger brother. One of the earliest settlers in this community was Jacob "Fritz" Epley, who married Susanne Crisel--both were of German
heritage. The couple reared a large family, most of whom married and settled on nearby lands.
Through the years, the community took on many German cultural traits. For example, the people were hard workers; it seemed as though they actually
enjoyed the hard manual labor which rural life in that day required, such as following a team of mules all day in the crop fields, drawing many vessels
of water from a well and carrying to an iron kettle hung over an open fire in order to do the weekly family wash, chopping firewood on a daily basis
and so forth. So intense was the daily workload for a family's well being, all children were drafted into the workforce at an early age and assigned
various darily chores. I recall trying to argue my case with my father that I had not grown to sufficient size as yet to share the responsibility with
my two older sisters of packing several scuttles of coal for the fireplaces each day because the loaded scuttle was too heavy. My father handed me an
extra bucket and told me to go to the coal pile and fill the bucket half full, carry it into the house, dump it into another bucket and return to the
coal pile for the other half bucket. (Of course, that was a wrong answer as far as I was concerned.)
However, the Christmas Season was a time we children looked forward to, when the pace of work slowed somewhat. With the crops and vegetable garden
harvested, we could find some leisure time for puzzles, card games and sleigh riding. Eventually, my Dad would give the "go-ahead" for us children to
locate a small cedar tree on the farm, cut and drag it to the house for decorating.
Because rural electricity had not yet found its way to Smith Hill in the 1940s, our Christmas tree lights would be powered by a car battery. My
father's day job required him to rise before daylight, so rather than remove the batterty from the one vehicle we owned, he would usually park our old
Ford car right against our house, near a window. Then, he positioned the Christmas tree near the window so that he could run a cable from the tree
lights through the window and onto the car battery. With each room of our house lighted only by a kerosene lamp and the glow of a fireplace, the varied
colors of the bubbling lights--shaped like little candles--seemed magical.
As Christmas day neared, all children in the Epley Station community began looking forward to the Saturday before Christmas day. That was the day known
as "Christmas at Johnny's." "Johnny's" was the local grocery and feed store, owned and operated by Mr. Johnny Stanley and his wife Mamie.
Adults, teenagers and children for miles around would gather at the country store where there was excitement galore in waiting for Santa's appearance,
with his bushel baskets full of little paper sacks which had been filled with candy, gum and suckers--one for every person in attendance.
The only heat in the small store was provided by a pot-bellied stove located in the rear of the building, so all the women and children would usually
be gathered inside, chattering and trying to stay warm. We would be packed shoulder to shoulder. The men and boys, on the other hand, mostly remained
outside, where besides practicing the manly habits of the day of smoking pipes and cigars, chewing and spitting tobacco and taking a nip, they took
turns firing a .22 rifle at a spinning wheel-shaped target, which had the names of all Johnny's regular customers recorded thereon. The placing of the
shots determined the families to receive special prizes, with the grand prize usually being so many dollars worth of free groceries--a treasure in
those days. Somehow, the grand-prise usually happened to land on the name of a family who was in real need, due to sickness or a death in the family.
And, of course, everyone was thrilled knowing that family's Christmas would be brighter.
This event would be followed on Christmas Eve by my family assembling outdoors after darkness set in and the stars and moon had made their magnificent
appearance. My father would light some fireworks in celebration of the birth of Christ. We children weren't allowed to help with the fireworks, but we
were each presented a box of sparklers, which we promptly lit--one after the other--and waved in the darkness. We had been told that God and his angels
would see our celebration of this blessed day.