Family:John Walley and Bertha Walley (1)

John William Walley and Bertha Ellen Smith were married at the home of the brides parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Smith of Morrisdale, PA. Emily Stoker and John Stoker attended the couple.

Ruth Wrye, eight years older than Morrell, once sowed a sun suit for Morrell and pranced Morrell over to a girlfriend's house to show it off. For Christmas the children would get an orange and some nuts in the bottom of their stocking. For a Christmas tree everyone would march into the woods and pick a tree, on Christmas night Santa Claus would come and trim the tree.

Ruth had a small doll with a painted metal head, during the year the paint would get chipped and come off. At Christmas Minnie Walley would secretly take the doll, repaint the head and create new clothes. When the children got older they mostly got clothes for Christmas presents.

The house was wood frame and later shingled with gray-green shingles and belonged to Minnie Walley. There were three big sweet cherry trees in the front yard as large as the house, a half dozen sour cherry trees next to the house and about four apple trees in the back, the trees were great for climbing. Rather than try and convince young Ruth not to climb the tree Bertha bought Ruth a pair of knickers.

Water was piped up to the house from spring in the woods behind the house. After the children moved away the government came through and made a pond out of the spring. The pond was stocked with fish and froze over for skating during the winter. At 80 years old Bertha was still ice skating on the pond.

During the summer Bertha would tend about 1/4 to 1/3 acre garden with cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, peas, beans, lettuce, radish, horse radish, and onion. John would tend a field of potatoes. During the summer the potato plants would get covered in potato bugs, the children would have to knock the potato bugs off the plants and into a bucket. In the fall John would go back over the field with a machine and unearth all the potatoes and store them in the cellar for winter. Bertha would can peaches, huckleberries, cherries, beans, pickles and tomatoes. Beans would be dried on the vine and shucked and stored. Corn and apples would also be dried. The family would also collect wild berries in the woods. Because of all this food the depression was not such a hardship on the Walley family.

On Saturday Bertha would prepare the meal for Sunday night. This way they wouldn't have to work too much on the sabbath. The food would simply be reheated on Sunday evening.

The family had a horse named Bess that would pull a buggy the summer and sleigh in the winter. One time Beatrice complained that she could walk faster than the horse was going. John, stopped the sleigh, let Beatrice out then encouraged Bess to run on up around the corner before waiting. Needless to say, Beatrice was very glad to crawl back into the sleigh.

Mrs. Ferguson, who was part Indian, lived across the road and was midwife for the children.

All the children went to the same school, each grade had a separate room except seventh and eighth grades were in the same room. High school was in the same building, but the children went from room to room for each subject. The children walked to school in the morning, back home for lunch, back to school for the afternoon, and back home yet again at four o'clock.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Walley, Ruth Ellen. Memories of My Life. (2004).