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These are excerpts from my grandfather's book "This is My Life" by John G. Burge.
"My grandfather, John G (Jack) Burge, was born in Cheddar, England in 1899 and came to the United States in 1908, arriving in Warren on South Main Street at midnight in October. His father hired a man with a team to take them to Mesopotamia, where they were to live with his sister, Polly Burge Cox and her husband, Dan Cox, who lived east of Mesopotamia.
"Polly had come over from England with the Cox girls earlier and got married. Their sister, Ellen (Nell) came next, all alone at 15 years of age. Two older brothers, Reg and Bill, were the third ones to come to the United States. Two years after Reg and Bill had come, the rest of the family crossed the ocean in the bottom of a ship.
"Coming out of Warren, the roads were all dirt and we were sure disgusted, as where we came from the roads were all paved. We lived with my sister, Polly (Dan) Cox, for two years until Dad's money ran out and our clothes were all rags. At that time, we moved into a house my brother, Reg, had bought just one mile north of Mespo. My father, mother, and sister, Rhoda, all learned how to milk cows to help pay our keep. It was hard on them as they had never had to do things like that before.
"My father had worked in paper mills and was actually afraid of cows and horses. My mother was a cook at the Cliff Hotel for 15 years in Cheddar, seven days a week, bringing home leftovers in a large basket she carried with her every day. So rural life in Mesopotamia was quite a change!
"My twin brother, Tom, and I worked out hoeing corn, mowing lawns and picking up potatoes. Sister Rhoda worked out doing housework, father dug ditches for tile and anything else he could find to do. The neighbors gave us old trees to cut up for fuel, on shares of course. Brother Bill bought us a new heating stove, so we got through the winter pretty good.
"At 14 years of age, I was hired out to Frank Boorm for $10 a month, worked three months and he gave me $12 for the first two. One of the first jobs I had was to "sprout" potatoes in the cellar. I never did see the rest of my money.
"My brother, Reg, worked for Harry Price, he hauled milk from Mespo to the Lockwood Condensery (east of Bloomfield). He hauled 80 10- gallon cans. When the spring and fall rains hit, the roads were something fierce. If you got into a set of ruts you had to stay there until you got on high ground. The ruts were so deep, you could step right off level from your high wheel wagon.
"He drove a three-horse team during the spring and winter, breaking a lot of double trees. Sometimes when the water was across the road and froze, he had to walk out on the tongue with an axe to break the ice so the horses could walk. Once at the milk factory, men would come out, take the team and unhitch them, while Reg ate his dinner. Somedays he would not get there until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. When he got back home, he would have to take a hammer to crack the frozen mud and ice off the harness in order to get it off.
"In 1913, John Markley called and wanted help in sugar making. We were so darn poor that Mother said we better go help him. Tom and I walked the two miles of mud roads to see him. He said he would give me $15 a month and asked for only me, because he had seen the way I worked for Frank Boorm. I tried to talk Tom into working for him, but he said, no he wants you. So I had to go. I caught a ride with Carl Nye who hauled milk to the cheese factory on the townline (Bundysburg) road. He had hired another man who was 3/4 blind, so I had to drive the horses. It rained and seemed to rain every day and night that we worked. It was the highest flood they ever had east of Mespo.
"Mr. McClurg hauled their horses up onto a haystack and Bertha Sealy had to put her sheep up on the second floor of her barn. Oscar Wildman rowed a boat and brought mail from Bloomfield to Mespo for a number of days, as the water was so high you could not drive through. We had 12,000 buckets of sap to gather, and I was never shown the trails or anything. One day I got into a thicket with the team, it was cold and raining like 60. I told All Cilson, the other hired man, that we have got to back up this sled. All said you can't back a sled! I said well we are going to back this one! I was young and mad, I started jerking and sawing on the lines, and the horses finally got it backed up enough we were able to get out. All could not see a bucket 50 feet away, so I let him get the close ones and I gathered the far ones. He let All go after sugaring but kept me on until fall.
"There used to be a lot of business on the Pennsylvania railroad them days. We had a hack that drove every day to bring back the freight mail and passengers. I rode it many times to Warren. I also rode the B&O passenger train and the electric one that ran from Cleveland to Chardon, then to Middlefield. I also hauled loads of milk to the Town Line Factory in Middlefield to go on the streetcar to Cleveland.
"In 1914, my brother, Bill, rented a farm on Girdle Road. It was so poor that the birds had to pack a lunch to fly over it. Reg sold the place we had been living in, so we moved in November of 1914 and lived there 16 months. Bill got a milk route for $45 per month, which gave him enough money to pay his bills.
"George Stein of Niles built a concrete bridge close by, that is when I got acquainted with bridge building. We wanted to carve our name into it and he said no. As soon as he moved his outfit down the road, Tom and I "branded" it." The names and dates are still there. (I did find their names and the date back in the 1970's when grandpa told me about it. The bridge was on Girdle Road just south of the Ashtabula County line.)
"Next brother Reg and Frank Hammond took a job cutting timber off the Hirschfield farm and then hired Tom and I to help at $1.75 per day. We worked quite a while, and Mother agreed to board us for $5 per week. The timber was all big in those days. We cut logs off 25 feet long that had to square at 12X12. It was there that Tom and I learned to swear professionally, as lots would lay on (butt and top), and when you try to cut them off they really pinch the saw.
"We had five thin wedges, we got them all started, but the trees were so heavy we were not strong enough to drive them in to lift the tree. It was our job to cut the logs off, and we swore they cut them that way on purpose. Later on, Hammond got the idea they were beating him on the measures, as they were cutting so much per thousand feet, so after a lot of arguing, they decided to quit, so Tom and I had two weeks' pay coming that we never got."
To be continued.