Tag: cortland

  • Bill Harned – 100 years ago in Smalltown, America

    Bill Harned – 100 years ago in Smalltown, America

    Bill Harned, my dad as I remember him

    Bill Harned had been the dad in the 1960’s with his Kodak 8mm movies of everyone else in our family then later endless slide shows and even a poster-board chart of our family tree.

    I remember this photo of him in his new uniform after his promotion from Assistant Chief of the Cortland VFD to Fire Chief. Dad is standing near the front door of our house on East Main Street which he and my uncle Bob built back in 1955.

    Bill Harned, Fire Chief, Cortland VFD 1960's
    fireman outside world trade centers on 9-11

    He had a regular job just like all the other men answering the call of the fire siren sounding. Most of the men and women of our community volunteered time to serve our little village and surrounding communities in many ways, as was expected in the early 20th century A.D.

    Later he would serve on our local school board. Earlier my grandpa had been a village councilman, mayor and traffic court judge.

    Marie and Bill Harned

    Bill Harned of Cortland married Marie Hall of Levittsburg OH on November 20, 1946
    Marie and Bill Harned circa 1946

    Mom, like so many other women born during the roaring 20’s, had been raised with just enough to get by during the Great Depression of the 30’s, then joined the factory workforce of the 40’s while Dad was in the Navy (building dirigibles in Akron, mostly) for WWII.

    And in order to make ends meet like so many others, my mom and dad both worked as they raised us in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Many men had returned home to not enough peacetime jobs and a stagnant economy. Dad’s and moms both worked and even worked second jobs as their new babies (Boomers) needed fed.

    (My parents managed the Cortland Roller Rink for a time where we grew up on roller skates with my mom sometimes playing the hit parade and 40's songs on the Hammond organ some evenings and on weekends.)

    Roger’s ‘boomer‘ biography

    “‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

    Deuteronomy 5:16 Revised Standard Version (which I learned at confirmation as a member of the same Methodist Church where my father and grandfather had been active.)

    Baby boomers (a demographic into which I was born just a little later than most) grew up in a smalltown era when everybody in town still knew everyone else.

    Boom kids like me (we didn’t call ourselves that) frequently worked for grandparents or other relatives in town.

    Of course along with these redefined roles of dads and moms came some less-than-ideal family situations (still hardly-mentioned) like divorce, separation and moving to separate towns and once never-imagined consequences of both parents fully losing authority and influence over a mass-media fed generation of flower-children rebelling against ducking their heads under our school desks while political leaders on T.V. threatened to blow up the world with nuclear weapons.

    The Baby BOOM was so labeled due to the 'greatest generation' finally getting to have babies after war. Most still married. No pill to prevent a child from being born (of course), the natural result of a man and woman in love. 
    
    (Besides, why would any young man or young woman not want that?)

    I suppose that in the U.S. in the year of our Lord 1950 when I was born, WE simply overlooked God’s grace in sparing OUR COUNTRY from the savagery of war, unscathed in industry and infrastructure, as WE now ruled the world with an imagined blueprint from a story-book painting of our past.

    God, County, ambition and an imagined melting pot of the best cultural characteristics of every failed and defeated nation of WWII quickly developed US into an uncommon country leading a new world into an evolution of Common Era change.


    Yet WE rapidly turned against everything our forefathers had once passed on:

    from generation to generation, grandfather to father, mother to daughter;

    a duty to our family, to community, to the alien and for our citizen responsibilities of this land —

    ALL in a SELF-preserving presence of a Common Era brought into being NOT by evolution,

    but by revolution against GOD —

    a fall and failing of all authority shaken by anarchy

    re-defining artificial and human-made truths into that which WE know to be evil.


    Times of Change

    Let’s put the lives of my parents, Marie and Bill Harned, into a context of the times when they were born beginning with my older grandfather, Herbert Hall (who had worked for the Erie Railroad) born in the last year of the 19th century, 1900 A.D.

    You can think back just 23 years to the end of the 20th century to 2000 in this Common Era, can't you? 
    
    A child born this year will not remember 9/11/2001, but their parents and grandparents witnessed it.
    911 attack plane flying into a second world trade center tower
    Remember 9/11 2,996 deaths

    The 20th century began without planes, televisions, and of course, computers. These inventions radically transformed the lives of people around the globe, with many changes originating in the United States.

    Source: ThoughtCo

    A.D. 1900-1923

    • 1900 A.D. – William McKinley from nearby Niles, Ohio was President. On Sept. 6, 1901, he was shot at Buffalo, N.Y., by .. an anarchist, and he died there eight days later. – Source
    • 1915 A.D. – As World War I raged in Europe, most Americans, including U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, remained determined to avoid involvement and committed to neutrality.. the sinking of the unarmed British ocean liner, the Lusitania, by a German submarine on May 7, 1915 (killing, among others, 128 Americans), prompted the U.S. to join the war on the side of the Allies. Leaving behind its isolationism, the U.S. became a global superpower… – Source
    • December 1922 – the Russian Empire becomes the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

    There were an amazing number of cultural firsts in the ’20s, including the first talking film, Babe Ruth hitting his home-run record of 60 home runs in a season, and the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. 

    A Timeline of the 20th Century

    In the year of our Lord, 1923

    Economics
    Federal spending: $3.14 billion
    Consumer Price Index: $17.1
    Unemployment: 2.4%
    Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02

    • President Warren G. Harding [born in 1865 near Mount Gilead, Ohio] suddenly falls ill (July 28) while returning from a trip to Alaska and is rushed to San Francisco, where he dies on Aug. 2.
    • William Alba Harned, later the Superintendent of the feed mill in Cortland, turned 20 that day as my grandma, Genevieve expected their first son just a month later.
    • The Harned’s were long-established working class gentry, some who had remained English Loyalists during the American Revolution. My great-grandfather Heberling [Gen’s father] had taught school in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, near Conneaut Lake. They were German-Americans and I recall this aged teacher in his late years as he sat in his rocker with a Bible in his lap, frequently falling asleep, occasionally walking about and rarely speaking to most of the family gathered in their home.

    A.D. 1923 – 2017 C.E.

    My purpose today is to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of my father, William E. [Bill] Harned.

    It is NOT so much that WE ought to either dwell in or dismiss the lessons of these last days witnessed by the generation of my father.

    Although WE look back at history of our family and nation through tainted and well-worn rose-colored glasses, let US remember our long line back to the faith of our fathers and religion of a Christian heritage once prerequisite in the everyday lives of our PEOPLE and the LAW of our governing.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    I observe now during my own waning years why some fathers of ours just shook their heads at the Common Era of these last day; while distant memories of our forefathers sitting silently in their rockers read their Bibles while waiting for a new heaven and a new earth to include all souls of those judged faithful to the One who IS True, JESUS Christ our Lord.


    Roger Harned, a Christian writer & site administrator of TalkofJESUS.com. This is NOT a personal blog, but Scriptural exposition inviting your questions about the Lord. ALL followers of JESUS Christ are welcome to COMMENT (moderated) and Share your own Scriptural posts.
    
  • About Cortland Ohio VFD

    About Cortland Ohio VFD

    OCTOBER is FIRE PREVENTION MONTH

    Cortland Volunteer Fire Department (1960’s)

    Chief?

    How are you today, Chief? (As I recall, I wasn’t even in my teens and ‘chief’ of nothing.)

    The question came from the always-smiling face of Herm McLaughlin who actually had been the Chief of the Cortland Volunteer Fire Department. He lived next to the fire station and owned The Corner Store on Main and High (which was smaller than a couple of snack isles in a 21st century convenience store).

    Hermer McLaughlin – 1903-1973 – former Fire Chief, Cortland Volunteer Fire Department

    SOURCE article for the photo above contains an even more interesting article about Cortland from a tragic story which some of you may have read or seen on WKBN earlier this year.

    https://www.wkbn.com/news/cold-case/search-on-almost-50-years-later-for-killers-of-cortland-couple/


    An earlier history

    A Cortland Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1885, and consisted of a bucket brigade. Later, a tanker with a manpowered pump was obtained. The water was drawn from the mill pond on Walnut Run. Later, cisterns were dug at strategic locations about the town. A water system, completed in 1939, provided fire hydrants, another big step for the betterment of Cortland.

    The old fire station, built in 1885, was torn down and replaced with a modern structure in 1949.

    Source: CityofCortland.org website (which every Cortland resident should visit), which is full of interesting and useful information.


    Some family memories from Cortland

    My dad, Bill Harned was just another volunteer fireman, who built houses nearby and like all the other volunteer firemen dropped everything when Herm pushed the button to ring the fire siren from his house next door to the volunteer fire department. (This was not an uncommon scene for Bazetta, Fowler, Howland, Champion or any other volunteer fire department nearby which frequently cooperated with other stations for big fires anywhere in Trumbull County.)

    It may have been during the time my Grandpa Al Harned was Mayor of the Village of Cortland and local traffic court Judge (also volunteer positions) at the time when he was Superintendent of the failing Richards Milling Company. Not many people buying oats for their horses anymore in Trumbull County since the 50’s. My Grandma Gen owned the last horses in Cortland, ‘grandfathered in’ as an exception to owning a farm animal within the Village Limits (now the site of Harned’s Landing). It was where dad, Bob and Ornetta all grew up just a few doors down E. Main Street where I grew up.

    Later my dad would become fire Chief of the Cortland Volunteer Fire Department, succeeding Burke Ensign who owned the farm across W. Main St. from Richard’s Milling (Shafer’s Feed, then Durst’s Ace Hardware) and descended down the hill to the road along Mosquito Lake. His friend Richard Baxter became Assistant Chief at that time. Later my dad left the Cortland Fire Department and joined the Lakeview School Board.

    Dad had graduated from Cortland High School. He and my mom Marie, who had worked at seemingly every Packard Electric plant in the county, later retired and moved to Bazetta township.

    Roger is author and administrator of a blog for Christian Social Witness, TalkofJESUS.com which is NOT a personal blog about Roger.

    Since Roger has always loved to travel and once traveling to Europe in 1965 added an interest in history, you may find him guiding a virtual first century missionary tour of Paul throughout the Mediterranean from Acts of the Apostles, complete with Google Earth satellite views along the route. Check it out.

    For a deep dive into what I now teach (since the years I taught band in Maplewood Local Schools and conducted The Cortland Community Band prior to moving to Florida and now back to the Cincinnati area), READ some of my 1000+ posts about the Bible and study or ask me about the teachings or doctrines of the church.

    I currently worship at Hope Evangelical Free Church in Mason Ohio. I was first a member of Cortland Methodist Church and later, along with my wife Becky we were members of Christ Episcopal Church on Atlantic NE in Warren near where we lived at the time. Becky (d.1999) was a physical therapist for Trumbull County Schools working in Lakeview Schools with physically handicapped kids and coaching Jr. High Girls Track & Field, H.S. Wheelchair Track and H.S. Gymnastics for Lakeview (where I graduated in 1968).

    Always thrilled to hear from and about my Cortland friends. 
    All you have to do is begin a comment with 'Private' since
    I moderate all comments and questions on TalkofJESUS.com 
    
    - Roger Harned 
    
    Here's a link below to more ABOUT ROGER (generally found on the menu at the top of my site. 
  • Cortland Ohio

    Cortland Ohio

    This is my Grandpa Harned (Al to everyone) at the 1959 Cortland Street Fair.  He moved to Cortland from Conneaut Lake PA.  He was born August 2, 1903, as I recall, was married to my Grandma Gen until her death, & lived to age 93. They are buried in the cemetery by Mosquito Lake at the foot of W. Main St. This is how I remembered him as a kid (going on 9).  My birthday is August 21.  I am 63 today.

    Grandpa Al was Mayor of Cortland Village & superintendent of Richard’s Milling [W. Main @ Mecca St.], and later owned the Atlantic station @SR5 &SR46. (Dad, Bob, & Ornetta all graduated from Cortland HS [Park Ave. @ Pearl St.], where I attended Cortland Elementary & junior high through 7th grade.

    CORTLAND OHIO 44410, where I grew up, didn’t have ZIP codes then. The first phone number I remember is NEStor 72722. (We dialed 637 for the NES before push button phones.) We shared a party line with my Uncle Bob (who still lives on SR 46 near SR 305.)

    Now I can hardly remember my cell number or anyone else’s. I just tell my phone, “Call Dad.”

    I grew up on E. Main St @ Willow, just down the street from my grandfather’s little 2 acre farm in the village where my Dad grew up [@ Stahl] & my Grandma Gen had the last horses & ponies in Cortland, which pulled floats in the Cortland Street Fair parade every year.

    We attended Cortland Methodist Church every week. I practically grew up on skates at Cortland Roller Rink [S. High] when my dad managed it & mom sometimes played the organ (before 45rpm records & D.J.’s changed the landscape of America).

    I took organ lessons from Wilhemena Viets on N. High St. [now Viets Library]. Dad & Bob built some of the houses in Cortland & part of the Sparkle Market on S High over an old movie theater. Dad was also Cortland Volunteer Fire Department Chief & later Lakeview High School Board President. [Bill Harned is still an active resident of Bazetta Township & God willing will turn 90, September 15, 2013.]

    After I left Cortland, my mom, Marie [d.2007] took up her saxophone again to play in the Cortland Community Band, in which my wife Becky [d.1999] had played bass drum & I was the first director.  Becky was first physical therapist at Lakeview and was instrumental in early accessibility for Trumbull County’s physically handicapped students, including the handicapped playground at the then-new Lakeview Middle School & a wheelchair sports program at Lakeview HS.

    The Cortland Community Band will perform a 30th anniversary concert on Sunday, November 3, 2013,  3:00 p.m., at Lakeview High School Auditorium.

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