My Last Two Years in Single Life

We are back to Alfred Moehlmann's story As I Was. Alfred has just been discharged from the service and is back in Linton, Indiana. It is January 1919 and Alfred will be 25 in October.  He is making plans for his future.

"I got back home to Linton from the Army on a Sunday night.  A lot of people rode the trains at that time and there was a big crowd at the I.C. Depot that night, not to see me, but seeing off and others arriving, but befor the train stopped I saw Mom, Aunt Grace and Uncle Russell Pope.  The some reason when I got off the train, Aunt Grace was there and gave me a big “smooch” which Mom didn’t like at all.  Well the Big Studebaker Touring car was here and with the driver being Mom we soon were home.  We had a lot of things to talk about and Uncle Russell left a short while befor me.  Then Mom flashed the letter in front of me that the girl from Asbury Park, N.J. had written her and I had some stammering and explaining to do. 

  After being home a week or so I began making contacts for a job.  My old jobs were filled and the promises that you would get your old job back when the war was over was forgotten,  So I got a job at Black Creek No. 2 mine known as North Linton as a coal miner.  I didn’t like the low coal but kept my eyes open for something better.  While working there Uncle Russell and I took Mom, Aunt Grace and Aunt Tress down in the mine and showed them the inside for their first time.  They were a sore bunch of girls after walking and crawling a mile or so to where we worked. 

The 20^th of June 1919 I got a job of keeping books for the Gladstone Coal Co., at Petersburg, Ind.  But I only stayed there 4 months.  First it was too far from home and secondly they wanted me to weigh coal at the mine and work on the books at night and idle days.  I quit and came back to Linton.  (Befor I went to Petersburg, in fact befor I started at North Linton I bought a driving horse, Jeff.  He was a fractious animal and you could hardly get in the buggy until he started running  A few months latter I bought a Model T Ford Touring car 565³⁷ – no starter or heater – (30 x 3 tires in front & 30 x 3 ½ rear – non demountable rims.)  I again got a job at North Linton mine but had a much better place on the 7 South off the main East with coal about 4 ft. high and made pretty good money. 

Mom began showing signs of wondering if our steady company meant anything, anyhow she had a perfect right to wonder.  Finally we decided on getting married and set the date for March 26, 1921 about a year off.  Our idea of setting the date a year off I felt like I needed more money to start house keeping.  We told Aunt Grace and Uncle Russell about our plan and they wanted us to wait until May and have a double wedding, but we decided on our date.

In the spring of 1920 Albert Kramer and I got a job at Tower Hill Mine at Midland.  I was the first time I ever worked in high coal.  The seam of coal was from 6 to 8 feet high.  The mine had not been in operation for many years and we got jobs as “Jerrymen” really ordinary labor at 7⁵⁰ per day.  We had good steady work even on Sundays and I built my bank account up considerably that year.  The close association that the four us – Mom, Aunt Grace, Uncle Russell and I had made us all very close to one another and this could be defined as “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”  This was not a passionate love but a love that kept us very close to each other both during courtship and after we were married.  I can’t remember too much of our courtship – I guess we were mostly Parlor Sitters which we shared most all the time with Aunt Grace and Uncle Russell.  Of course we started “sparking” in a horse and buggy and wound up in a Model T Ford.  One Sunday the girls arranged for a picnic supper.  Mom drove the family Studebaker and we took a drive that afternoon and went to Freedom on what now is State Road 67.  At that time it was just a gravel road.  Back in those times you always had spark plug trouble and everybody carried a supply.  We had it on the outing climbing a long hill.  It was up to Uncle Russell and me to do the changing – Soon a crowd surrounded us.  I think they must of thought we were “Big Shots” driving a big 7 passenger Studebaker or the 2 good looking girls in the car was the attraction.  (It is to remember that a Studebaker back in those days was a car of distinction and only prominent people could afford one.)  When we got back home, Wayne who was quite young then, checked the speedometer and told his Dad how far we had driven.

Alfred & Helen on left and Russell & Grace on right c. 1920.
Both pictures taken in front of the Bovenschen family home.
Moehlmann Family Collection

 During my last two years of single life it wasn't all courtship and work for I got a mania of wanting to see the 500 mile automobile races at Indianapolis on Decoration Day – Albert Kramer and I went to see the races in 1919 in his Saxon 6 cyl. Touring car.  We left Linton around midnight and got to the speedway at 5 am.  It was a long dusty trip – All gravel roads. In those days we went through Martinsville; the following year we went with some fellow from Midland who worked at Tower Hill Mine in a Dort car.  Also in 1919 Albert Kramer and I took a sudden notion while working at North Linton to go to the State Fair.  The “Turn” which means in the mine cars was slow so we talked the Mule skinner (driver) to give us a couple of “fast” cars – we loaded them quickly, was washed up by noon, went home, changed clothes, back to Linton caught a train at 1:15 (over what is now the St. Paul R.R.) to Beehunter and a Pennsy train from there to Indianapolis.  The following year Sheldon Goodman and I went to the Fair for a couple of days.  He like myself liked horse racing (harness) and we sure saw a lot of it the 3 days we were there.  On our trip home (the I.C.R.R.) I told him that Mom and I were going to get married the following March and I can’t help but see the expression on his face – Sheldon had a deep affection for Mom and I was in a sense sorry for him for he was one of my best friends. 

 Sometime during the fall of 1920 my mother went through a very serious operation at St. Anthonys Hospital at Terre Haute.  Mrs. Bovenschen went up with me the day of surgery and after the operation Dr. Knoefel told me her chances of recover was far from good.  I made several trips up there on a train and one day the Doctor asked me if I could bring some wine up for the following Sunday.  This was during the Prohibition and liquors were hard to get, but he knew Uncle Dietz made a keg of grape wine every year.  Uncle Dietz was out of it however so I went to Jake Cerar for I knew he also made wine.  He didn’t have but a little on hand and was reluctant to let me have any but when I told what I wanted it for he gave me a quart and would have no pay for it and said if I needed more he would get it for me.  It was elderberry wine and I carefully packed it in a grip and took it on the train to Terre Haute and the hospital, with a feeling that I would be picked up for transporting alcoholic beverages.  When I arrived at the hospital Dr. Knoefel was in the room and the first thing he asked me if I had brought the wine.  He had the nurse get a small wine glass, poured out a small quantity offered it to my mother and when she said she couldn’t drink the stuff, he gave it to the nurse.  Then he said, “Tillie, I knew you couldn’t drink it, I wanted it for myself, because the Shriners are getting together this afternoon and I didn’t have anything for my part of the drinks.” 

 While my mother was in the hospital, Uncle Dietz and I “batched.”  One incident in cooking experience – made a pot of rice – too much rice – wound up with more on the stove and the floor than in the pot.  After my mother came back home, we hired Ethel Higar to keep house for us. 

A week befor our wedding day I had to do the hardest job in my life.  I had to face Mom's father and ask for her hand.  I didn’t know why I feared that moment, when I was well aware that he was a stern man but a just and honorable man.  He acted like he was surprised but admitted that he detected evidence that we planned marriage."

Alfred has taken advantage of his last years as a single man by attending auto and horse racing events in Indianapolis

Howdy Wilcox won the Indianapolis 500 in 1919 driving a Packard.

In those days the mechanic actually rode with the driver. Wilcox's mechanic in 1919 was Leo Banks. In 1920 the race was won by  Gaston Chevrolet with John Bresnahan as mechanic. It was Gaston's older brother Louis that founded the Chevrolet car company. Gaston broke the dominance of European cars winning the 500 when he did it in a Frontenac, a company he and his brother started. He also was the first to win without making a tire change.  Both of these drivers lost their lives in crashes during a race while still young men. 

1920 Winner of Indianapolis 500 Gaston Chevrolet

Besides enjoying car racing, Alfred also enjoyed horse racing.  He talked about the the horse track in New Jersey and now he is going to the Indiana State Fair to see the horse races.

The surgery of Alfred's mother left him and his uncle "Dietz" on their own. Will her long recovery have an impact on his upcoming marriage?  

St.  Anthony's Hospital, Terre Haute, Indiana
from http://brisray.com/th/tpcards200.htm

Alfred tells us about talking with William Bovenschen about his and Helen's future plans just a week before the planned marriage. It's hard to believe that the happy couple has kept their plans secret for a year.