Christmas 1996

This is an article I wrote years ago, and I realize it has been a long time since I contributed to this blog so I'll continue with this past history. Much of what I wrote has changed, my parents are deceased, the pastor of the church we joined has continued on to another pastorate, we no longer travel like we used to. Other than that, this is a piece of history in our life that bears remembering.

This year has been an interesting one. We started out with a cold, wet spring, and summer was relatively cool. Fall turned to winter weather pretty fast though but the cold snaps are interspersed with warm sunny weather, which is a little unusual for this time of year. Ohio usually starts seriously bedding down for the winter in November already. Personally, Lucy and I would like to fly south for the winter, or go into hibernation.

Early in the spring I had the idea to plant morning glories. Someone from work gave me a whole handful of morning glory seeds and we sprouted them and then planted them at every fence post along the driveway, and in back of the grape arbor, and by the telephone pole, and at the south end of the porch. Because we started late, they didn't take off right away but by July and August they were all blooming all over the place ... the ones our resident wild rabbit left alone.

We had a strawberry bed that was too old to bear much fruit so the plants were pulled and I started digging up the garden. The part I dug up was planted in tomatoes. We settled for pick-your-own strawberries at some nearby berry patches in the neighborhood.

This is corn and soybean country but they got a late start due to wet fields. In the spring you see a lot of plowing done with horses since there are quite a few Amish in the area. Plows pulled by five or six horses. The horse-and-buggy Mennonites just down the road use their steel-wheel tractors for plowing and planting.

In April, our Sunday School class gave a surprise 50th birthday party for Lucy. I kept the secret for two weeks or so and she was quite surprised because it was held at the church a week after her birthday. My 50th had gone by without fanfare a couple years before, but I do remember one thing--that was the day (in February) that I proposed to Lucy!

In June, Lucy and I became members of the Mennonite Christian Assembly congregation in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Scott Hochstetler is pastor there. The Hochstetler family got a newborn recently so Lucy and I catered a Fellowship Lunch to them on Nov. 24th. She spent all day in the kitchen on Saturday of that week baking bread, pecan pies, making candy, and preparing the main dish, Shepherd's Pie, letting me in the kitchen only to make the cranberry relish. On Sunday morning we transported it all to Fredericksburg and someone fired up the oven in the kitchen to warm up the food in time for lunch after church. We also invited a couple of widows and other friends to the lunch--15 in all.

Around August we attended the Jerry Yoder (Lucy's great-grandfather) reunion near Berne, Indiana on the Roman Schwartz farm. Lucy was the only one to represent Michael Yoder (her grandfather) at the reunion. Everyone brought a covered dish, and for the whole afternoon we feasted on casseroles and desserts of all kinds. It was a hot day but there was a nice breeze. I wore myself out pitching horseshoes for a couple hours. I didn't feel it until the next day; by then I could hardly walk. On the way home we visited with Lucy's cousin Eli Troyer's in Hicksville, Ohio.

Lucy and I took two week-long trips this year. In June we stayed in Medford Lakes, New Jersey at sister Jane's house while they were on vacation. My parents also live there. We took them for an overnight trip to the Souderton Retirement Community in Pennsylvania to visit with Mom's,sister Tilly Freed and dad's sister, Lydia Landis; and other friends and acquaintenances of years gone by. Dad is 86 this year and Mom is 75. They celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on December 24. After we spent a few days with my parents we traveled to Myerstown, Pa. at the invitation of cousin Warren Hackman, Jr., who treated his employees to a chicken dinner at Kauffman's. We then stayed at his place and took him along to Wellsboro, Pa. where we attended his niece's wedding, Willard Hackman's daughter, Lorraine. On the way back to Ohio we traveled through the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania, stopping in Belleville, Saturday evening, to visit the John L. Zook family. Ten o'clock p.m. is almost too late for a surprise visit so we stayed at a nearby motel for the night. The next morning I called them and they were delighted to hear from us and invited us to church. It's the first time we ever attended a Beachy Amish church. We then stayed for the noon meal, and then left around 3 p.m. for Ohio.

The second big trip we took was in September, going to Canada by way of Kentucky. We took a 6-hour drive south and stayed a couple nights at the Galilean Children's Home near Liberty, Kentucky. On Saturday afternoon we went with a group of the children and Jerry and Sandy Tucker on their bus where they put on a program near Guthrie, Kentucky, not far from the Tennessee border. Then we traveled toward Watertown, New York where we would attend the wedding of Maryann and Lloyd Martin's Loyal's wedding. We had a few days to travel and we stopped in Berea, Kentucky and had a pleasant visit with Levi and Miriam Yoder.

We stopped in Winchester, KY for the night and it was during that time that the tone of the trip changed drastically. I was saddled with a bad case of indigestion for a couple days. I drove 310 miles on an upset stomach all the way to Morgantown, WV where we stayed the night (Thursday night). If I didn't get better by morning, we'd execute Plan A, travel west to Ohio and home. Plan B, we'd continue on, taking I-68 east through Maryland to I-81 north through Pennsylvania to Watertown, New York. As it turned out, I nursed myself carefully sipping ice water every hour or so to alleviate nausea. At 4 a.m. I finally slept solid until 7:30, waking up hungry and in no pain whatsoever. We happily went with Plan B, arriving in Watertown in the evening. The next day was the wedding. We stayed overnight at Lloyd and Maryann's and then headed into Canada in heavy rainfall. We spent the next night at Niagara Falls and after some sightseeing the next day we headed for Ohio and home.

On a sad note, maybe most of you know, my dear sister Sally (Hackman) Lee passed away suddenly on November 23. leaving behind her husband, John, and her two daughters, Samra and Sharon.

We wish everyone a nice holiday season and a blessed New Year.

Wes and Lucy Hackman

My Grandfather

I never met my grandfather, John M. Hackman, my Dad's father. In fact, my Dad was 7 years old when his Dad passed away from typhoid fever in 1917. But an interesting story came about in his relatively short life. There was a contract to dig a well on the property. A couple of well-diggers who were brothers from Hatfield, PA or thereabouts were contracted to dig the well. It took a long time, with intermittent frustrations but finally they announced that they found water. However, some neighbors reported that they saw the well-diggers carrying water in the middle of the night and pouring it down the well.

When it came time to pay for the work, John apparently mentioned it and an argument ensued. Finally, John said he would go into the house to get the money. He went into the house and locked the door. He went to the opposite side of the house and crawled out a window, and reported it to the police.

Meanwhile, one of the contractors waited and waited, and then realized that something was afoot. He went up to the door and pulled out a knife saying, "This knife has seen blood before!" Grammy was frightened and exclaimed, in Pennsylvania German, "Next he'll kill us all!"

What was not realized at the time was that three-year-old John Jr. was outside on the porch with the man but he was not harmed.

But a neighbor saw John Sr. leave the house by way of the window, and later found out he had gone to the police. Members of the Mennonite Church do not usually go to the police, and when it was known in the community, he had to make confession in church.

John M. Hackman was born on August 10, 1879 and died on November 14, 1917. The Gospel Herald published his obituary:

GOSPEL HERALD - February 14, 1918 - Pages 846, 847 HACKMAN. - John M. Hackman, a faithful brother in the Franconia, Pa. congregation, passed away peacefully Nov. 14, 1917, after five weeks illness of typhoid fever. He endured his portion of suffering very patiently, offering many short prayers. He leaves a sorrowing widow and five children. This happy Christian family and their beautiful home is broken up. His voice is stilled, his smiles are past, his presence remains to be remembered as a dear loving husband and a kind father. O what a change in so short a time, but we know it was the Lord's will. Age, 38y. 3m. 4d. "Beloved husband, Father of my five He left us all too soon. He longed to stay, and longed to go, But God claimed him His own. We watched him breathing through the night, His breathing soft and low, As in his breast the tide of life Kept heaving to and fro."

His children were: Henry, Warren, John (my Dad), Willis (passed away in 1918 at the age of six), and Lydia. Their mother, who was born July 21, 1880, never married again and died in June 1959.

Henry S. Hackman - December 29, 1905 - December 3, 1992. I usually had quite a few conversations with Uncle Henry and he told me that he remembers his grandfather, John O. Hackman (Feb. 21, 1849-May 30, 1912). The scene he remembers was a snowy day and he was driving into the lane with horse and wagon with a rather dour look on his face. Henry was around six or seven years old. Uncle Henry had a lot of of memories about people and places and I regret not writing it all down. He was a goldmine of local and family history.

Warren S. Hackman - July 21, 1908 - September 2, 1995. Warren's first wife was Mary Godshall who was my mother's sister. Her children are my double cousins.

John S. Hackman - July 25, 1910 - June 30, 1999.

Willis S. Hackman - October 10, 1912 - October 18, 1918. Lydia told me that Willis was a sickly child. He frequently suffered from boils which his mother treated by lancing. He was glad to finally attend school in the first grade. He attended for one day, and then became too ill to continue, and died before being able to go back to school.

Lydia S. Hackman Landis - March 10, 1916 - October 25, 2005.