April 27 2024 - NV #88
“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” - Charlie Brown
1st PHONE PIC
DESKTALK: I lost my phone. So I’ve acquired a new one. Man-o-man. I just wanted something simple. But that’s asking a lot. The only thing that’s simple is me. Like our tv the phone is smarter than me.
The opening (above) pic is the first photo I was able to take with it. It does a reasonably nice job. But it took some time for me to learn how to send it to myself on-line (email).
The cup logo is a one off. I think I explained one time about how the logo (how I made it) cane about. I like it. But I’d feel uncomfortable if there were more. The shadowy concept (or/the idea) is something I copied from the opening title of the PBS show Father Brown.
UNEXPECTED (Verily): While I’ve had time this week to “monkey around” with microphones and some of my video equipment (I recorded Vermilionite Tom Moes speaking to a crowd at the Ritter Library) – and I’ve worried some about the cat “Maczilla” running around the neighborhood (will he survive?.). We’ve also had some out-of-town visitors tour the museum. It was “unexpected” because the weather just wasn’t that great. It’s been a tad chilly – but sunny. I thought that few people would be visiting . But. Happily, I was mistaken.
Two couples that visited were Vermilionites. That, in itself, is something I found surprising. (Not may locals bother.) They had also attended Tom’s presentation the night before.
And on Friday we had two couples from Akron tour the museum. They were staying locally. But I never asked where. I also forgot to have them sign the guest book. (I get wrapped up playing curator.)
In both cases the people were interested and somewhat surprised. More than a few folks are; The way the place looks on the outside is apparently misleading. But I can’t go out into the street and drag people in to make them realize what’s inside.
The museum is (and I’ve mentioned this before) “full”. And I am so very sorry that the Vermilion Schools don’t take advantage of it.
That, too, is unexpected. Verily.
A VERY RICH COMMENTARY
EDIFYIING: In case you can’t see it I’ll help. No business is productive without leadership. When Vermilion’s new fire station was built one did not need to be a soothsayer to understand what was going to follow.
That which once was an all-volunteer force was headed for the history books. And what soon followed was the hiring of full-time Chief. But not someone from within the force – which for the sake of preparing for an easy transition to what is now (or that which is obviously and inevitably) ahead . Nope. The full-time Chief was new to the force and the town.
So Surprise! Surprise! Predictably there are disagreements among the people who make up the volunteer force. And this is where and when leadership becomes important.
The volunteers do not have to run the department. But they have to be respected. Yet to be respected one must also give respect. When sides are chosen in a volunteer work force – no matter who is leading – someone is going to suffer. One can easily guess who.
But citizens have paid their money, and have cast their votes. And like it or not, (and I don’t especially care for it) this is the 21st century. Yesterday is history. It’s time to move on.
(Can you hear it?)
WORKING ON A SCRIPT
This is simply a “partial” script I’ve been trying to hack out this week. I had to stop after I did this – and make an outline. So this is not a finished product by along shot.
KNOWING OLD(46) see yourself / sans a mirror / but in context. / knowing / the world was never / what you / wanted / it to be. / not this time. / at least. / but still / revel / & / laugh / knowing the joy / & wonder / & love / of first timers. – March 26, 2024
VERMILION HISTORY THEATRE: Due to all the distractions surrounding me lately I neglected to keep the link to the History Audio/ Video Theatre. So – click on the name above and visit.
MILES A. SHILLING
His name, and some mention of him, has appeared in this column several times before. It could hardly be avoided. “Cuz” if you could see your shadow on the ground around town during the 1950s, ‘60s, and early 70s you surely must have known – and remember – Miles Shilling and his good wife Evelyn.
Miles was born in Freeport, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania in 1919. He grew up in South Buffalo, Pennsylvania. His father, Leroy Daniel, was a fireman on the railroad. It was a large family – 9 children. The family was of German descent. Miles’s great-grandfather had migrated to the U.S. from Germany through New Orleans, and then went on to Baltimore, Maryland. Years later, census records show the family living in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania where his father eventually died.
I am unable to say how it came to be that Miles and Evelyn settled in Vermilion – but they, along with their four children, John, Judy, Vivian, and Linda, certainly did. The couple owned and operated the “Lake Cab” company. Consequently, his face very quickly became a very familiar one about town. A kind and caring person; he transported elderly or handicapped persons without charge.
The family lived and kept an office for the cab company in a little building on the east side of Grand Street just north of the railroad tracks. [Note: The aforementioned building, now gone, once housed a tailor shop owned by George Ritter’s father. George Ritter is, of course, the person who gave Vermilion its wonderful public library.]
I came to know Mr. Shilling best when he frequented a little 24-hour diner called Ann’s Lunch back in the 1950s. Ann’s was located in a storefront in the Fischer Building on Liberty Avenue. It was a popular meeting place for drunks, insomniacs, juvenile delinquents (like me), truck drivers and other sundry denizens of the night. Miles frequented the place because he was the guy who chauffeured the inebriated after all the town saloons closed. Miles and another well-known Vermilionite named William “Corky” Harpley were regular patrons of the place. Corky’s night job was a mounted newspaper delivery route for the Cleveland Plain Dealer into the rural areas surrounding the town. Sometimes a younger Vermilionite named Bobby Braden accompanied Cork on his rounds. And each and every night at the diner Miles and Corky actively collaborated in solving all the problems of the town – and sometimes the world. In short, their wisdom and stories were both entertaining and boundless.
Miles’s wife Evelyn was one of the most pleasant persons you could ever meet. She was a long-time employee at the former Buyer’s Fair store now part of Moes Marine Service on Liberty. I don’t think she ever forgot a face. And I know for a fact that at least two of the Shilling children, Judy and Linda, definitely took after their mother in that respect.
After being involved in a terrible automobile accident west of town in 1958 – an accident that nearly stole his life – Miles actively (and loudly) lobbied for a hospital to be built in the Vermilion area. While his idea did receive a great deal of support it, of course, never materialized. But that which did was the Lorain Community Hospital (now Mercy Regional Medical Center) along Kolbe Road in Lorain – “near Vermilion”. And that is where he passed along into the next life in late January 1970.
Well folks, if somewhere there was an official list of Vermilion’s most “memorable” persons of our yesteryear, the name of Miles A. Shilling would most assuredly be on it. And so would that of his wife and all their children. (Note: Corky and his dad, Fred, would be on it as well.) God bless ’em – each and every one. They made life fun.
Ref: U.S. Census records; The Vermilion Photojournal photo archives; Chronicle Telegram, Elyria, Ohio 12/03 – 08/1958.
Vermilion resident Rich Tarrant is Curator of the Vermilion History Museum and a son and a grandson of the late proprietors of The Vermilion News (1897-1964). Readers may email him at: rnt@twc.com
© RNT April 7, 2024
the history of erie county in ohio (Continued)
458ec…ren only three were living in 1880. He himself died in 1870 at the age of seventy-six. He held several prominent positions in the county and was at one time clerk of Court of Common Pleas. Although there were Indians in the neighborhood of the new settlement, there was no cause of fear and no hostilities were known.
Samuel Bemiss came from Buffalo, by water, on the steamer Superior, the only vessel on the lake, she having taken the place of Walk-on-the-Water, which had foundered a short time before. The interest in this ancient craft has just been revived by a picture of the steamboat just as she looked in those early days.
A post-office was not established until 1854, previous to which time the inhabitants of Groton received their mail at Bloomingville. The postmaster was at that time a Methodist Episcopal minister, named Rev. Zar Patch. The office is now in the center of the township.
Religious meetings were held in the dwellings of the settlers by Rev. Mr. Gurley and others. The pioneer church was Methodist and met in the north east corner of the township, where they now have a church edifice. Another church is located on lot number thirty-five in section third.
A grist mill was built by Eli and Edward Ford on Pipe Creek, and a distillery just above it on the same stream. There was also, at one time, a cabinet-shop of large capacity that carried on a good business.
Charles Rash found his way to the fire-lands even earlier than the preceding, having arrived in 1815 from Ontario County, N. Y. He made the journey on horseback and was followed by his brother in the same way in 1819. The journey occupied nine days, and the brothers settled on the farm since owned by the brother, Libey Rash. Charles afterward became justice of the peace in 1820 and served in that capacity for eighteen years consecutively. He died in 1853 aged sixty-one. The homestead has under good cultivation one hundred and seventy acres of land.
Worthington Nims came from Massachusetts in 1826, and selected his home, then went back to marry his wife, and come to reside here. He built a cozy frame house which has since become his carriage house, while a more pretentious building takes its place.
There is no village in this township. The Seven-mile House is the only center. Sand Hill Church is union of all denominations.
HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY OHIO – With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers – Edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich – Syracuse N.Y. – D. Mason & Co., Publishers – 1889
