Reclaimed Memories
ca. 1942 - 1945

 worked almost all the time Troy was in Otterbein and in Ohio State University, otherwise we could not have made it. My first job was in the Penney Store, in Columbus, as saleslady in ladies' dresses in the basement. Then National Biscuit advertised for sales people and I was hired. There was another lady employed at about the same time. All the rest were men and the only reason we got the jobs was because they could not find men. It was during World War II and some salesmen had quit the company, because the work would not be considered essential. They were afraid of the draft.

I had a lot of walking to do four days each week, because I had to call on every place of business in the downtown area that bought National Biscuit products. The next week I would be in a different area. I would alternate between the two districts every two weeks. Every Wednesday I had a route that took in several of the smaller towns or settlements and selling on a different route on the following Wednesdays. I rode the bus into Columbus four days each week, then took the city buses to where I had to go. On Wednesdays I drove between every stopping place.

After walking all day four days a week I was always so tired when I got on the bus for home that I could hardly hold my head up. One day I went to sleep and when I woke up I knew I had passed my stop. The bus driver told me we were three or four miles south of Harrisburg and I asked him to let me off at the first place of business. He stopped at a combination service station and store and I called Troy to come and get me. After talking a few minutes to the couple who ran the business, I walked outside to wait for Troy. I always carried a book along to read on the bus and I was standing by one of the pumps reading. A car drove up at an excessive rate of speed and screeched to a stop a few feet beyond me. A couple got out and went into the store.

Almost immediately I heard loud voices in the store and walked back over to look in the door to see what was happening. Just about that time the man from the car began to wreck havoc on the store. He broke a showcase and was generally tearing up the place. This scared me and I went away from the front of the store to where I had been standing. Shortly the couple came back out of the store and were going toward their car. I looked at them, but did not say one word! The man walked over to me, doubled up his fist and struck me severely under my chin. I felt as though I were lifted completely off my feet and I fell stretched out on my back on the pavement. I thought to myself, he will kick me to death, but he turned and started toward his car. I jumped up and ran to a large brick house directly across the street and pounded on the door. A lady let me in and I said to her, "There is a crazy man across the street and I want to call the police."

We watched the man through the glass of the front door. There was a nice wrought-iron fence around the house. He gunned the car and instead of turning north or south on the highway he backed the car, at full speed through the fence and up to the steps of the house. It scared us both nearly to death when he started to get out of the car! The lady locked the door and we ran to the back of the house and she locked the back door. He started to pound on the front door. The lady said, "Oh, my poor sister. Help me get her upstairs." Her sister was in a wheel chair and, I think, we carried her upstairs. I know we got her upstairs, and we heard him pounding on the back door. After a futile effort to get into the house, he got back into the car and took a road going directly east on the south side of the filling station. By that time the people at the store had called the cops and one came about the time that Troy reached there.

The police brought him back and he was as docile as a lamb. He said he was a veteran and had been shell-shocked in the war. They asked me if I wanted to prefer charges against him for battery. I said "No. Not if what he says is true. But he should have help. He is a dangerous man to be loose." The woman with him said that she would see that he got help. It took several days for the bruise marks, from the blow he had given me, to disappear from my face. I was coming home from work a few days later and saw his car wrecked on the side of the road.