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"I was born in the old Swick Homestead on Harper's Ferry Road, in 1896. The Doctor gave Mother a stick of horehound candy when I was born and she saved it for years. When I was old enough to know what it was I asked her if I could eat it, but when I went to get it, the stick of candy had just melted down to a sticky glob. I was just five years old when I started school. Classes started in September and my birthday was not until October. I remember that I wore high felt boots to school when it was rainy or snowing. I suppose that I had other low shoes to put on after I got to school. Sometimes we had to walk through drifts almost as high as I was at the time. Daddy was awfully good to me though, and if it was too bad, he would hitch up the horse and take me to school in the wagon, and come and get me after school. And he would pick up any other kids on the way. It was one mile from home to the school at the foot of the Harper's Ferry hill. My teacher was Amanda Senor, she taught all the eight grades. Once we had a male teacher whose name was Charlie Jackson. I remember that he hit me across the top of my hands when I could not remember one of my multiplication tables, and he hit with the sharp edge of the ruler, not the flat. There was a pot bellied stove in the school, and one time I was pushed against it and burned my arms.
When I was a little older, I would help Mother haul apple butter down to the town that was once located where the turnpike goes through below Douglass Road. We called it "Red Row" because all of the houses were painted red. It was a little coal mining town and the railroad came up through there. One side of the road was Shady Side and the other was Sunny Side. There was a school back there, just about where the Ostrom house is located. Sunday School class was held in the school house and one time I was in a contest in which we were to see who could remember the greatest number of Bible verses. Glenn Funkhouser, Dr. Jay Funkhouser's father won the contest and got a Bible. (When we later talked with Mrs. Wise and Olive Funkhouser, they both decided that it was Glenn's sister, Alice, who won the Bible and not Glenn.)
There was a small store in that town and Martha Funkhouser was the storekeeper. Mother and I used to visit the Funkhouser's there. Daddy and I also went to Sunday School in the old school house. We would go to Church at Concord, then home and have our dinner, then he and I would walk over to the Sunday School class. The little town was still in existence in 1925. That was called Thompson Run down in there before the name was changed to Douglass Road.
After I got out of school, Supt. Locke gave me a teacher's certificate, then I took one summer course at Geneva to get the required teacher's points. My first term was taught at the Bologne Valley school. I also taught at Laurel Point and Bennett's Run school. In my first school there were 52 students, ranging from first to eighth grade. I was married in 1918 to Eugene Wise and we rented rooms in Beaver Falls. I would walk from up there on College Hill to the school on Bologne Valley. Gene worked at the Union Drawn in Beaver Falls.
My Father's name was Samuel Orrin Swick, my Mother's was Eva Jane Frazier Swick. I was named Grace Verl, and I had three brothers, Frank Frazier, Fred Harold, and Orrin Alexander. The night Orrin was born it was so bad out that Mother said she pitied a dog who would have to be out that night. Then Uncle Doc Swick had to get to our place. He got as far as Brandenbergers and then had to ride a big bay horse from there across to our farm.
Gene and I moved out here to North Sewickley and I've been here ever since. The roads were all mud roads when we came here and it has not been too many years that the roads in the township have been blacktopped or paved. My husband and I raised one son of our own, Norman, who now lives in the farm house in front of my trailer, and we also raised fifty-two foster children. Sometimes when I'm just sitting here doing nothing, I think to myself, "Marie, you should get up and be doing something", then I think again, "I've done my share" and I sit back and relax."