Memories from Mrs Bibus as told to her daughter Susan Gilbert…
Sue was born Sophie Halata in 1923 in rural Springhouse and moved to the western corner of Horsham shortly after. Her father, Michael Halata, was from Ukraine and worked as a gardener on some of the estates nearby.
The Halata family moved from Springhouse to Melody Lane off Lower State Rd just above Welsh Road sometime in the mid 1920s. Mother said Grandfather had a good deal of money, when he came over from Europe. He sent for all of my Grandmothers family sisters and brother, brought them over and gave them money to get started. Originally he had a large house in the city and transformed it into a boarding house after he and grandmother married. Per my mother While living in the city Grandfather was robbed of a good deal of what he owned by one of his renters. Subsequently, they moved out of the city to a gentler rural area.
This property borders the English Village Apartments now and Melody Lane is shown on that property. Sue’s father built their home with help from a cousin. It had a barn, corn crib, chicken coup and other small out buildings, which were there for years. She was one of 9 children who lived to be adults. Sue lived at this house until 1942 when she got married but moved back after her husband was sent overseas – staying until 1952. Her children Susan and Sheridan were born there. Melody Lane is shown on the map now as being within the English Village Apartment complex. .Along the Lane were blackberry bushes and a long row of dense lilac as you got close to our home.
Before English Village was built…there was first a small woods on that side of the lane…then open fields…then a short distance behind our house on the same side on the same side what we called “the little woods”…on the other side of the lane were large open fields with my aunts house and house at the end…ending in large woods…We had to stay near the house during the hunting season for fear of flying bullets. We grew up eating pheasant and rabbit all winter.When it snowed the men and boys would shovel the lane by hand. Mom had told me that the breadman man would drive across the frozen fields from 309 in winter to deliver bread. Grandmother baked her own bread, but occasionally used the Breadman, when the hens weren’t laying in the winter and they were snowed in at the end of the lane and couldn’t get to the stores to get baking supplies
Michael Halata gave some of his land to his sister Stella Halata Kwortnik when she got married. She and her family lived in a home in the second house on the lane that they built from wood reclaimed from a building from Oak Terrace. The wood was reported to be so hard that the carpenters had a hard time working with it. (Oak Terrace was originally Henry Pratt McKean’s Pine Run Farm and now Talamore Country Club at Oak Terrace) This home became known as “Down Home” or Down the Farm”, a place where their “huge” family gathered for holidays for many years.
When mom was a child they had a huge garden and a cow for mild and chickens of course. The house had its own well which was still in use, when I was a child. Mom’s mother cooked with a woodburning stove. there was no heat in the bedrooms. Mom said, if you put a glass of water in the room it would be frozen by morning. Her mother would heat up ‘sad irons’ on the wood stove(old fashioned irons for ironing clothes) and wrap them in cloth and put them in bed with the kids to keep them warm.As a child we had kerosene heaters for extra warmth.
Grandfather made saurkraut by the barrel and it was kept in the barn all winter. As a child we had kerosene heaters for extra warmth.
They had an outhouse, of course. Grandmother did Not believe in Chamber Pots…and..they really did use the Sears Catalog, Mother said they would crumble and work the pages to get them as soft as possible. Grandmother also boiled flour bags to get the print off and made their underwear from it. There was No installed tub or shower, just a small white enameled tub that was placed in the kitchen on bath night. This was still the case, when I lived there as a child. In summer they had an old clawfoot tub outback behind the house that they would fill for summer bathing.
A sister of Ms Halata, Susan’s Aunt Stella Kwortnik, lived in the large first house on the lane, and a family named O’Conner lived there in the 1940s…they had quite a number of horses I (Susan) enjoyed visiting there….After my mother moved out my Aunt Mary Halata Schmidt lived in the house with my Grandfather. Grandfather always had a fine stepping horse and drove a surrey literally with a fringe on top..it sat rusting on the property on lower state when I was a kid.
The home where Susan grew up was sold by her Aunt Mary Halata Schmidt “(much to all our sorrow) ..the man who bought it built another larger house completely over top of it…He dumped all kinds of heavy duty equipment, panel truck ….on the property, they are still there.There was a fire and the house within a house burnt down. The orginal foundation of my Grandfathers house that was our home is still there.”
Down Home Parties
My family held huge parties “down the farm”. Grandfather would build a wooden platform for dancing and Tents were put up for those overindulging.Grandfather played the accordian and Grandmothers cousin Joe Nyieme (who helped build the house) played the Violin)…good times abounded…and abounded often…they continued there all throughout my youth and into adulthood…Even memebers of the local police stopped by to join in.
Doctor Atlee
BY: Kevin Winters Nov 2017
Sue’s father, Michael, worked as a gardener at many of the nearby estates – including for Doctor Atlee, who lived in the farmhouse at the corner of Lower State and Welsh Road. (this farmhouse was recently restored and an addition was built on the back to become the offices of United Capital). Sue remembers the Atlee family as being very kind and generous with a pipe smoking cook who would send her home with treats for the large Halata family. She became friends with the doctor’s daughter Christafiana and remembers the two of them being allowed to play dress-up with her aunt’s fine gowns and furs. Doctor Atlee once removed a cork that Sue’s younger brother who put up his nose while playing.
One Room School House
BY: Murray Craven – No Date
Susan: My Mother attended the one room school house on Cedar Hill Rd (Pen Blair School). along with 2 older brothers from 1929 until 1932 when the Dorothea Hughes Simmons Elementary School opened on Limekiln Pike. She thought it was really a big deal to have 4 classrooms compared to the one room school. The teacher’s name at Pen-Blair was Miss Connally (who Mom said had very prominent buck teeth) She learned the Palmer Method of Penmanship there using dip pens and ink wells in the desks. In winter it was so cold at times that class was held in the basement around the furnace to keep warm. She said it was a direct walk across the fields from the end of their lane on Lower State to the One Room School House on Cedar Hill Road (crossing a couple creeks along the way…They ran home for lunch too each day. There was a bell on top of the School. Mom said the school was still there for quite a number of years afterward, but had been replaced by a Home… (pretty good Memory for a 94 year old woman.)
Dorothea Simmons Elementary School
Moms teacher at Dorothea Hughes Simmons Elementary was Miss McNair. Sue and her brothers took a bus to the new Simmons school. Her friend Christafiana did not attend school but would be waiting for them at the bus stop after school. Sue tutored Christafiana and was given fresh fruit in return with bananas being her favorite.
Log Cabin in the Woods
There was also a cabin in the woods nearby. It was there when I was a kid (Susan ..c1950s), and my Mom said it was occupied when she was a kid with little checkered curtains in the window..there was also a hand pump built into the kitchen, an outhouse, and a large barn type building. It was on the Hirokawa (spelling ?) property. We all swam in the creek there as kids. I see on Google map the creek (Upper part of Park Creek) is still there. The only way to get to the cabin which sat in a little clearing in the woods along the creek was to follow the trail that went along the fields…. then cut through some young saplings and light underbrush….We spent great times there well into our teen years.
Al Schmidt
with permission of Sue Bibus
The family was also friendly with Al Schmidt, the Pride of the Marines. “He worked down Lower State Road on the Walters Farm in summers. Mom use to go roller skating with him , she was probably 16 and he was 19. She met him through one of her brothers with whom he was a close friend. He became like one of the family and continued to visit after his War time injury, which caused his blindness,” Ms. Gilbert said.