Mrs. Mary Cook

New Knoxville’s Oldest Resident, Recalls Days of Wearing Wooden Shoes, Civil War, And the Halloween Pranks of Yesteryears

Meet the oldest resident of New Knoxville, Mother Mary Elizabeth Haberkamp Cook, who is looking forward to celebrating her 96 birthday on November 4. She has the habit of smiling when she talks and impresses one with her sincerity and child-like frankness. She witnessed in her own life time the transformation of the family from an almost totally independent and self-sustaining economic unit to one which has become largely dependent upon store and factory, and she also witnessed the gradual mechanization of labor operations.

She is the oldest of a family of eleven children of which two half-brothers, Fred Wierwille, 83, and Henry Wierwille, 80, survive. Longevity seems to be a family habit. She was born north-east of the village on the William Haberkamp homestead. She recalls attending the log cabin school in New Knoxville when they had English school in the fall and German in the spring. Attendance was not compulsory, and so bad weather or important work at home meant a day absent from school. “Because they weren’t made to go,” she recalled, “some parents didn’t send their children at all and so some few never did learn even to read or write. I remember that some of the children wore wooden shoes to school. But I never did. My in steps weren’t right for them. So I always wore other shoes to school and church when I didn’t go barefoot.”

Her father died when she was 12 and that was the end of her regular schooling, her help being required at home. She recalled the funeral arrangements for her own father. “The carpenters in the village made the casket. The funeral was on second Christmas day and because it was cold weather we had been able to keep the body several days. When the weather was hot they just couldn’t keep them. One of our neighbors had a spring wagon. They put the casket on the spring wagon and our entire family rode on a log wagon, and the rest walked the mile and a half to church and then to the cemetery.”

After her father’s death much responsibility for the home and farm devolved upon her. She helped her brothers fell trees, helped with clearing the land, planting crops, gathering roots and wood from the land and burning it as rubbish. She told of the wick lard lamps of those days, of the home made tallow candles which were used to light one’s way from one room to another, of the wonders of the kerosene lamp when first introduced. Initially, there were very few items that had to be purchased. They raised their own food, produced their own meat, dried fruit for winter use, churned their own butter, cooked their own apple butter, cut their own fuel, spun their own wool into yarn and she recalled that a few families even had their own looms on which they wove their cloth. But when the woolen mill came to New Bremen people took their wool there because they could weave much finer and stronger thread. Folks would then dye the thread the desired color and take it to the weaver to be made into cloth. Ready made clothing was rare. Cloth was then taken to the tailor and he would measure you for your suit. Later you could buy cloth from the tailor after which he would make your suit to measure. She said the same applied to shoes. The shoe-maker would take your measurement and thereafter build your shoes. Shoes for adults cost about a dollar, children’s shoes 50 cents.

I asked about family life and recreation for the young people. “When the family was home for the evening,” she said, “mother would frequently be at the spinning wheel and father and the older children would knit stockings or gloves, etc., and then we would talk.” That also was the time for reciting their lessons in religious instruction. The older young people would frequently gather at one of the homes during the evening and there would be lots of singing and other “geselligkeit.” “While we were still youngsters we played ball, but after we got older we would go on long hikes, especially on holidays. We walked to New Bremen and Wapakoneta and other places and it was lots of fun. We had to entertain ourselves.”

I asked concerning her recollections of the Civil War days. Yes, she remembered. She recalled when soldiers in uniform were the attraction deluxe on the village streets. “But I was always afraid of them,” she said. She told how some local lads who were not in the draft call would offer themselves as substitutes for men with heavy family responsibilities, sometimes for the sum of $100. In some cases, when their term of enlistment had expired, they would offer their services a second time, to some one else. “$100 was a lot of money in those days!” she said. It was a time of high prices. Before the war butter had sold for as little as 5 cents a pound, eggs for as little as 5 cents a dozen. But during the later war years eggs sold for as much as 25 cents a dozen and butter for as high as 40 cents a pound. During the period covering her earliest recollections, New Knoxville had only 5 or 6 houses of which three were log cabins. Two of the original structures are still standing, but of course with altered exteriors. These are the old B. E. Cook residence, now an apartment building, and the structure which today houses the City Restaurant.

At 18 they could spare her at home and she found employment in the home of a family acquaintance. During the first year her wage was $1.25 a week, after which she was raised to $1.50 a week. This meant work from sun-up to sun-down and included washing, cooking, scrubbing, ironing, gardening, baby-sitting, dish washing and whatever needed to be done. “But it never hurt me and it kept me out of mischief,” she mused.

“Tell me about the time when your boy friend would visit you!” I urged. This evoked a big smile. “He and I were confirmed together, went to school together, and knew each other all our lives. Just how long we went together I don’t remember. But we both knew what we were doing. He got the license. I didn’t even have to go along. Pastor Kuckherman came to the house and married us. We had invited him to have supper with us. Then in the evening the bellers came.”

Her husband, the late F. August Cook, was a carpenter by trade and later founded the Sash Factory, manufacturing sash doors, shutters, and ash butter tubs. He discontinued his business in 1916 and died in 1937. At the time of their marriage his salary was a dollar a day in summer when the days were long but it was reduced to 75 cents during the shorter winter days. The carpenters would walk to work carrying their tool boxes with them. When considerable distance was involved they would walk to their place of labor on Monday morning and return Saturday afternoon. They would sleep in the barn in summer and took their meals with the family at whose place they were working. These were often long weeks for the new brides, she recalled, but their long absences prolonged their honeymoon indefinitely. When first married the Cooks paid $3 a month rent. She was baptized, confirmed and married by the late pastor Kuckherman and he also baptized all her children.

“What about your health, Mrs. Cook? Were you always healthy?” “I had only one sick spell in my life. I don’t know what was wrong with me but I couldn’t eat. The doctor didn’t know either. But in time my appetite came back and since that I’ve been all right.”

“What about the young folks years ago. Were they well behaved?” “No—not always!” She told of gangs of boys operating in the community and related some of their antics. Mild forms of their pranks consisted of annoying people in the wee small hours of the morning, for this purpose a rosin-impregnated string, or sometimes by engaging in an operation called “bumping”. This operation was conducted as follows: But wait a minute. Halloween is too close to divulge the modus operandi. “They bumped us only once,” she mused. “My husband quietly went outside without putting on a light and cut the string with a pocket knife. They never came back again.” I asked if she had any prescription or advice for longevity. “No” she said “it seems to be a gift of God. I don’t think that there’s too much that we can do about it.”

What would you say to the young people of today if they came to you for advice and counsel for living?” I asked in conclusion. Now she waxed eloquent. “I would tell them”, she began “take God with you on the journey of life. Without God we become pagans. You can read in the papers every day what happens when people go their own way instead of God’s way, when they do as they please instead of doing what pleases God. In my day we walked to church morning, afternoon and evening and it was a mile and a half. If we weren’t in church it was because we ourselves or somebody in the family was sick.”

Her three children are Mrs. Sophie Stevens of Yellow Springs, Ohio, the late Rev. H. H. Cook, missionary to Japan from 1902 to 1916, and Anna Cook, with whom she makes her home.