Plenty of Fairfield history is included in this blog. Take some time to peruse the menu on the right. The oldest is at the bottom.
TRIVIA, MOSTLY
 RURAL WEATHERRural Route 2, Brookville. No ZIP Code necessary. Zip Codes weren’t even invented yet. But the mail came through every day. Rain or shine,
snow or ice. And so we went. Fairfield spent more unplowed snow days than would
be considered safe or practical. In spite of that, we missed very few days of
school. My hunch is that it didn’t snow quite all that often, though most of us
seem to insist the winters were worse “back then.” But the winding county roads presented their own obstacles. We
used chains on our tires. Either that or we got stuck. In town, we just made do. Cinders from somebody’s old coal stove
did the trick. Three or four shovels full of it and you could melt the ice off
50 feet of street. Grandma fell once on the ice, breaking her wrist. We used to
tap on her cast. For kids, snow was its own Disneyland. We had many places to go
sledding. A favorite for Joel and me was across Dimmitt Butcher’s cornfield and
up the hill, not far from his pond. We built campfires there and toasted
marshmallows and roasted hotdogs. I took my sled down the hill once and
smashed straight into a cedar tree. Boing! I still have problems with that side
of my brain. The old drainage ditches that lined Main Street made for
interesting adventures in the snow. If you got enough of it, you could build a
little snow fort on one side of it, punch a couple of holes to see out and pack
in another wall behind you. Inside, arm yourself with hundreds of snowballs and
fend off any army. One snow fort on one side of the street, another on the
other side, 20 feet away. FIRE WHEN READY, GRIDLEY! We had no place to skate, so nobody did much of that. We did play basketball, no matter how cold it was. Somebody,
usually me, brought a shovel, cleaned off the court and … FIRE WHEN READY, GRIDLEY! For events less pugilistic, winter nights tended to draw us
inward. We did have television -- Channel 5 and Channel 9. If you turned the
antenna, Channel 12, which was the channel that carried “Superman.” With 756
channels today, not much has improved in the way of content. At Christmas, we’d go around town, singing holiday carols. No
single house was missed. Sometimes, when the storm was strong enough, the lights would go
out. For several hours. Once, our power was out for five days. Willie Davis and Burt Luker had to give food away. The ice cream all melted. The milk spoiled. Nobody knew where the break was. We may have had only one power line into town. We didn’t need much more than that. REMEMBERING Carl and Ruth Huber owned a farm on the hill near town that eventually became the site of New Fairfield, which exists today. The Huber home still stands and a road is named in their honor. Gayther Plummer and I shared some thoughts on the Hubers. (Mr. Plummer, of Athens, Ga., passed away in September 2014 at the age of 89.) * * * The creamery was
a small, one-story, 3-4-rooms structure located 3-4 buildings north of Jinks
store, as I recall. The soda fountain area was the front, largest, room. Up
front, I recall about four small tables each with heart-shaped, wire-back
chairs. The building, I think, was opposite the northern half of the town
square. At that time, the
town square had a hitching-rail along its entire west side (in front of Jinks'
store) and on the south side. We had no business on the north and east sides of
the town square -- so we didn't go there and I don't remember much about that.
Otherwise, buggies and wagons were parked (horses tied) along the railings --
4-6 hitches, especially on Saturday afternoons, which was the usual time for
farmers to "go to town". Autos came later into the evenings and
parked on the left side of the northbound road, diagonally inward -- toward the
stores. Some parked anywhere around the square -- totaling perhaps 6-10 cars.
The same people would show up about the same time each week; each one had a
favorite spot. The environment
always meant more to me than the people -- so, I didn't know many; and those
that I did learn, didn't register very distinctly. But, the 1920s and '30s were
about the same everywhere. The Great Depression slowed the economy for
everyone, but it really didn't change the culture in Fairfield. Not until the
1940s did life begin to prosper noticeably for a decade or so. After that,
Fairfield did change and I went on to do other things. The creamery was
the place in town to get an iced-cream cherry-soda. That soda-fountain was a
popular spot for refreshments on Saturday evenings -- many customers. I mentioned
previously that I recalled a saloon. More accurately, up front, it was a
billiard parlor, where "booze" was available. The one time I went in
there, I distinctly recall two brass spittoons on opposite sides of the room,
each one sitting on a large piece of linoleum. Our family did not use tobacco,
so those little brass "buckets" were the first I had ever seen -- and
the last of that kind! That pool-hall was on a corner directly across the road
from Jinks' store. Also, it was at
Jinks' store that I purchased my first pack of cigarettes -- being from a big
city, I thought I was a big fellow. Of course, the clerk took the 10 cents,
gave me the pack, then told my Uncle Carl, who not only gave me a lecture about
the dangers of fires on the farm, but gave me an uncle's stern lecture on
behavior that he expected. His discipline worked -- also indelibly. Fairfield made
many impressions on me in those days. * * * The original
rock river-road from Fairfield entered Brookville on the west side of the
river -- intersecting the Brookville Road from Indianapolis -- then both roads
crossed over an iron overhead bridge and entered town. In Indianapolis, my
family lived within a half-mile from the Brookville Road, that became US 52.
Because getting to Fairfield from Brookville was so difficult in 1932-'33, we
customarily drove by-way-of Connersville, Blooming Grove, and then to
Fairfield. The flat-lands were better to navigate than the bottom-lands. After crossing
the covered bridge near Fairfield, we traveled an elevated road and met a
T-shaped intersection on an upper terrace. The long end of the T went left into
Fairfield. The top part of the T went straight-a-way up the
Berg-Klein-Huber-hill over the top and down Rocky Hollow on the east side -- an
abandoned public road and short-cut, as I mentioned before. At that time, the
Klein place had been vacant for years. (I never knew the Kleins -- only by
name. But it was the best place to pick the biggest blackberries on the hill;
... good place too for chiggers and blacksnakes.) Whatever, beyond
the covered bridge, at the T-intersection, were three mailboxes on the right
side the road and near the left-turn to Fairfield. Mail, and the Brookville
Democrat, came but once a week then, and customarily we all looked forward to
Wednesdays. Then, a short time later, to my surprise, only two mailboxes were
newly placed along new SR 101 at the entrance to the uphill road to the
Huber-place. The mail was always carried up the hill by whomever passed the
boxes first. By then, I was already set-in-my-ways and the new location for the
mailboxes never did seem right. But, I was really
aghast when I saw the new SR101 divided the Smiester-farm into pieces. So, new SR101 was laid out freshly on the east side the river; and it made some everlasting impressions on a lot of farmers and people in general. Just think, 30 mph could get one to the McCormick-Deering store in Brookville and back home with a new part -- before noon. Further, the blacksmith in Fairfield always sharpened
sickle-blades for the hay-mowers, the reapers, and made hinges for heavy gates;
but, the new road made earning-a-living a little more difficult for him,
especially since horses, on the flatlands, were being replaced by Fordson tractors.
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