Family Lore

The mill houses for employees of Dickey's Woolen Mill
(photo courtesy of Maryland Historic Trust)

As a kid, spending most Saturdays with my grandmother (because both my parents worked 6 days a week at that time) I liked the stories that my grandmother would share about growing up in Oella, a mill town nestled in the Patapsco River Valley between Ellicott City, MD and Catonsville, MD. 

My great-grandfather, Howard Barker, born in July 1890, worked for the Baltimore Transit Company, hiring on sometime during 1918; he was 28 years old at the time. He drove the trolley a 3 1/2 mile route between Ellicott City and Catonsville Junction on line #9, also known as "jerkwater".

That's what I included in some of the family lore notes I typed up on onion paper during high school, although I never clarified why it was called the "jerkwater." What a horrible nickname for a public transit line. Now a days, the trolley #9 line is a paved walking and bike trail. I checked its website and it doesn't mention any history of the line being referred to as "jerkwater" and it says that the line is about a mile long.    

According to my notes, the trolley ride lasted 13 minutes and cost 17 cents or 8 cents with a transfer from the #14 line, which met the #9 at Catonsville Junction. 

That doesn't make any sense. Which one was it? 17 cents or 8 cents? And was the #14 coming up from Baltimore? And did the #14 cost 8 cents and then you had to pay an additional 17 cents to transfer to the #9? Why would the #14 be cheaper? Was the 17 cents the round trip price between Ellicott City and Catonsville Junction or what you paid if you wanted to ride all the way into Baltimore?

Argh! My journalism skills were not the best in high school, okay. 

According to family legend, great gramps dropped out of school in the 4th grade to start work at Dickey's Woolen Mill--"the makers of fabrics of heritage." I used quotes in my typed up notes, but I didn't attribute a single one of them, so I have no idea if the quotes are direct quotes from my grandmother or if I plagiarized some resource material. (Ugh. I'm kinda of embarrassed.) 

I have no idea what job he did there at the mill. Nor do I know why he had to quit school and go to work at the age of 10. Was it necessity? Did his paycheck help feed his brothers and sisters? How much did he earn an hour? How long was his work day? Did he work 5 days a week? Six? Who on earth hires a 10 year old boy to work in a woolen factory?!

In my notes I say that he met his future wife, my great-grandmother, Clara Kelley Barker, born in July 1890 as well, at the mill. I guess she worked there too, although my notes don't specify at what age they met.  

The main building of Spring Grove Hospital, circa 1880s

At the age of 16, (which would have been 1906) great gramps quit working at the mill and worked at Spring Grove Sanitarium, which is a psychiatric hospital founded in 1797. (It's the second oldest, continuously operated psychiatric hospital in the U.S. according to its website.) 

The most horrifying and simultaneously fascinating story passed down to the my grandmother is this: great gramps described a patient who suffered from "fits" in which he had violent outbursts. This patient could predict or "feel them coming on" and warn the staff. They would put him in a padded cell for the duration of these so called "fits" so he wouldn't hurt himself or others.

One night a new orderly wasn't properly informed about this patient's "fits" or what to do once the patient warned him of an oncoming "fit." Later that night, the orderly was found dead; his throat had been slit. Everyone assumed it was this patient who done it.

How horrible, gruesome, and absolutely fascinating is that story? My grandmother insists that it was true. At the time, I accepted it as true, but now I wonder if that was a story great gramps told to my grandmother at Halloween to spook her. Who knows? 

Still. A slew of questions ping around my mind. For example, did this patient suffer from manic depression? Paranoid schizophrenia? (Even though these are modern day terms.) Were these so called "fits" seizures? How did this patient have access to a knife or straight razor in the first place to slit the throat of an orderly? Or anyone for that matter? And did he really commit the crime? Hhmmm....

What else did my great grandfather experience while employed there? Psychiatric disorders are challenging to treat nowadays in some cases, so I can imagine that it was beyond challenging in 1906. And who hires a 16 year old boy to be an orderly at a psychiatric hospital in the first place?!  

(For a rather fascinating read about Spring Grove's history, check them out here.) 

My grandmother has since passed on, so I cherish these typed notes about our family stories and memories. I have additional notes describing my grandmother's experience growing up in Oella and how she met my grandfather. (At a rolling skating rink in April 1944 in case you were wondering and yes, WWII interrupted their courtship. He served in Guam.) Maybe I'll share the other stories one day. 

I often wonder, recalling how fascinated I was with our family stories, how that influenced me to be a writer. Moreover, I often wonder if these stories will evolve into novels or appear as character embellishments someday. I can't really say for sure, though I might have to branch out into historical mysteries a la Sherlock Holmes in order to solve who killed the new orderly? Hhmm....