Earl Elliott and C. Elliott

00:04 My name is Nathan Elliott. I am 31 years old today is Saturday, August 28th, 2010. We're recording in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and I'm here today with my grandfather.

00:17 And I'm Merl Saunders Elliott Jr. I'm 84 years old working on 85. Today's date is August 28th, 2010. We're in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania talking to my grandson.

00:33 Alright, well, thank you for joining me today for this conversation. I appreciate your time and and your help and documenting our notes when you were young way back in in the Midwest. And so if you could describe for me your parents what you remember of them some some highlights things that are memorable to you.

00:59 Yeah, well, my dad was born in st.joe, Missouri.

01:02 Trey grew up and he went to work for

01:07 Burlington Railroad in downtown st. Joe

01:12 Shifting and loading cars. He was a fireman.

01:18 And then World War one came along.

01:21 And in 1917, he was drafted and he was 37 years old when he was drafted, but he was beginning to be a Railroader and they needed railroaders. So they shipped him to Indianapolis, Indiana.

01:38 2fort location there

01:41 And that's where he met his wife.

01:44 She was from Indianapolis.

01:51 Makes you think how long things were but that was in 1918 that he got ready to go to Europe and they shipped him to Europe about a month before the war ended. So he was lucky that way and he went up to the northern front in France and was helping to fire.

02:16 An engine and they were pulling troops along the line from Shadow Theory to some other locations along the front.

02:27 And then when the war was over, they stayed an extra six months to ship troops back to the United States so he came back in 1919.

02:37 And as is a

02:40 Preference he was discharged from Indianapolis.

02:45 And the next day he went to see my mom and ask her to marry him and said he was going west to st. Joe would she come along?

02:55 So she thought about it for about 10 seconds and decided that she was going to go west.

03:05 So they went to st.joe and he went back to working for the railroad. But this time he was working for the st.joe and Grand Island.

03:13 And that was a railroad line that rent from

03:17 The town of st.joe across the river into Kansas and up through division Point called Marysville. And that's where the Union Pacific had a connection line. And so through the West the Union Pacific was a major railroad Builder. So as things got bad in the world in the country and they had a big depression in the 1930s and 1929 stock market and all that things got really bad in terms of jobs for people, but fortunately since my dad was a Railroader and a fireman and he had joined the union which gave him some rank in terms of experience.

03:59 He managed to hold his job and he ran a.m.

04:04 Local train that stopped in the all the little towns between st.joe and Marysville. So one day he would take the train up to Marysville and the next day he would take the train back to Marysville. And in that process they were also trying to raise a family they were hoping to get a family but they didn't until 1926 and that was really because Mom was about 7 years older than Dad and so that she really was a late in terms of having children. So 1926. They finally got her pregnant.

04:44 And the question was

04:47 Where would she delivered so she went to a hospital in st.joe?

04:53 Don't remember the name of the hospital Methodist hospital. They

05:00 Got her ready? And she

05:03 Was talking to the doctor and the doctor turned to my dad and said now if things really go rough, who do you want us to save your baby or your wife and guess what Dad said said my wife so why that wasn't always a threat to me but it really wasn't but that was always a story that was in the down. That's a good one that the phenomena of being born in st.joe and being a little kid there from about 1926 to 1931.

05:43 Was with the same Jordan Grand Island, but as things came to the depression.

05:50 Union Pacific bought out the same to you and Grand Island. So the first thing they did was to shift their resources and since Dad had some priority with the Saint Joe on Grand Island. He kept his job, but it had to change his location and he had to change the route that he ran. So he had to move to Marysville Kansas and that made a big difference to me because I was 5 years old ready to go to school and went to Marysville High School at a place called Lincoln School and Lincoln School was interesting because it was about a block-and-a-half from where we lived so Dad rented a place that we lived in and they lived there for 20 from years.

06:38 That

06:40 Block and I have seemed like I ought to be able to get to school on time but getting up and getting to school on time was something of a challenge that's hereditary. That's definitely true.

06:53 There were times when I got to school late and the teacher didn't like it. But I like going to Lincoln School and my dad like making sure that I got there and between him and Mom Elizabeth Catherine.

07:11 What's your first and middle name Chamberlain was your last name?

07:17 So the Elliott Chamberlain relationship is one that she maintained and every summer we went to visit Elliots and Chamberlain's that live back in Indiana or Illinois or other places in the midwest to keep in touch with family. And the reason we could travel was because we had a railroad pass that was a time when you can travel on any train owned by the Union Pacific no charge same priority as any other passenger.

07:49 And when you can grab hold on the foreign lines you had to have a ticket but all you had to do is request a ticket ahead of time.

07:56 So we developed a traveling experience that took me and my mom over a lot of the country. We travel to a lot of the Northeast. We went to Washington DC. We went to the West Hollow way up to the Utah. We went to the South all the way down to

08:16 Texas so they being around trains and being with my mom traveling with something that I enjoyed a great deal. My dad was still a Railroader. So he was running on what was called the extra board.

08:32 And as a railroad on the expert Lord, he had to he was one of five.

08:39 Had people who had to go when called so they would come in the middle of the night and tell him he had to train to leave in the next.

08:47 Our door to and that he would go walk up to the railroad station. Not the railroad station. It was where they change the engines and set up the

08:59 Trip schedules and all that stuff, but he had to be there on time regardless of what else was going on. So rain or shine he had to appear at the railroad take care of the engine to get it ready to go. And in that process he finally became an engineer and he finally learned that he was driving some of the biggest engines that they had in the Union Pacific that one I remember was a 9000 which was a huge steam engine with

09:32 With a drivers and that was a big boy that what they call it wasn't as big there was a big boy was bigger, but that they were didn't make as many of them but the 9000 they pulled a hundred and twenty cars at about 50 miles an hour on a main line between Topeka and Kansas City and Omaha and West to Cheyenne and out to the West Coast into Washington State and one of the major things that they all back was Apple's fruit from the state of Washington going all the way down to New Orleans and to the east

10:13 So that that road was an important connection through Marysville.

10:20 The train ran through the middle of downtown

10:25 So the one that trained came through with a hundred and twenty cars traffic had to stop on both sides of the track. You couldn't get around it. It was a major interference with local activity.

10:40 So those trains came through?

10:44 Oh 5 to 10 minutes apart going one going north one going south because Marysville was at division point.

10:54 And they changed engineers and cruise and that's where dad picked up the crew to go on the northern part of the trip up to.

11:05 I can't remember the name of the towns that they were into.

11:10 But anyway, it was a Union Pacific headed west in Kansas who ran track when you were in high school. I was a freshman in high school.

11:21 And I thought I would like to play basketball. So I played 8th grade and 9th grade basketball and got on a basketball team and then Charlie promo. Who was the coach said go out for track find something to do learn to run cuz I could hardly stand up.

11:41 14 year olds have a tough time just coordinating things. So what did I get to learn? I couldn't do the high jump. I couldn't run that fast. So the only thing they decided I could do was to run the hurdles and the hurdles in Kansas at that time where 39 in high stead of 42, which they were that's the standard Heights now, but it's measured in the metric rather than

12:11 English measurement but that hurdle they figured out a way to teach me to do it on the football field so I can hit the hurdles and fall down and not get beat up cuz you did that on the track. You picked up a lot of cinders and you could break things. So I managed to learn running the hurdles doing three at a time. I didn't win any races. I didn't place any races when I was a freshman, but as I got to be a sophomore age 15, I got stronger and being stronger. I could sleep over the hurdles better. So the first time we've had a competition in the my sophomore year, I managed to fend finish the race and come in third in the

13:00 High hurdles and from there. I managed to work it down work it down work it down came back as a junior and I took second in the state and Kansas. It went down to Wichita or Topeka whichever. It was ran in a district made and did very well as a team, but I managed to come in close.

13:23 Did the top came back as a junior and I was much stronger.

13:30 Faster, I guess better hurdler.

13:33 And so I finally won the state as a senior.

13:38 And then I went to Kansas State University because Wardell it was the coach. He was a great crack coach.

13:48 And I thought I could run the hurdles there. But meanwhile there was a war and I got I volunteered to go. So when I went they shipped me to Biloxi, Mississippi and that did basic training in Biloxi ship bloxy and then was shipped to Illinois and then I would have went overseas and went to

14:13 Rome Italy and I was in Rome for

14:17 How about the nine months first? I was stationed in Naples and then went to Rome and in Rome they were looking for.

14:27 People that play instruments in a band because the band played Retreat 5 days a week at the Piazza Peninsula. What was it called?

14:40 Piazza

14:42 It was a main Piazza where all the

14:47 Governments were located the military had to the English to French.

14:56 The Russians were there.

14:58 Have the English were british-american. So there were five different songs that the band had to play at Retreat each day.

15:12 So my friend that I was with when we went up to go to roam wanted to play a saxophone in the band and he was pretty good. The problem was that the band didn't want any saxophones. They wanted clarinets and they wanted.

15:30 E flat alto sax I played a French horn and I went along with them just because I wanted to see what they was up.

15:40 So I got in the band and he didn't wow, he got sent to a different office. So we kept friendship going and went to different places around them. So room so we visited it that you know, there's over 500. I want to say 500 churches in room. There's an awful lot of churches around the Rome area. So we visited each weekend went to a different location and visited a lot of points of interest in ancient Rome and other parts of the city. So we got around a lot and enjoyed it a great deal. It was a good Adventure so when I came back

16:20 That was 1946. I went back to Kansas State and where the hell it was still coaching and I was still interested in that Lennox. I was interested in football the white lettered in football.

16:35 I was more interested in running the hurdles in track. So since I was a World War II veteran I had two tuition and books and a place to live $90 a month.

16:51 So I managed to make that into a great experience for me in terms of getting to run track and go to different track meets and learn the competition.

17:02 So as I went through I got better as a sophomore. I got competitive is a junior, but I never placed above maybe 10th or 11th.

17:14 In the Nationals, there are a lot of other people who were a lot faster. I was a better hurdler, but there were other people who were faster. I couldn't run a 10 second hundred I could come close but couldn't do it and a lot of the guys who are running it was a guy from Ohio on a Terrace and Dillard who was a sprinter.

17:37 He ran a 9 400 that's fast.

17:42 But

17:44 He was also a hurdler.

17:46 So when I was running 14-5 he was running.

17:51 13 V

17:54 So he was like 10 yards ahead.

17:57 So when it came up to the finals semifinals in a Nationals icollege competition to get into

18:08 The 1948 Olympics he tripped on a hurdle and didn't make it an Earl.

18:15 Didn't make it as a hurdler.

18:17 So they invited him to come back and run the Sprint. So he turned around and run the spread and run the Olympics with this 9 for Sprint of his.

18:29 In the 100

18:32 Tell he was a great hurdler. I was good. He was great. But so then when I worked into a major at Kansas State I took

18:50 What would be call recreation parks now? I got into a

18:56 Working in physical education physical education working with kids. I'd like to work with kids. So I became a high school coach for a couple years up in Marshall County and then Jenny and I both got jobs.

19:14 In Topeka, and that's also a place where we raised our family we lived in a place called 306 Woodlawn was a bunch of old houses. We've managed to get the note house to Jenny's dad Charles Drake who was a electrical contractor and he had friends who are electric but he also had friends who were General Contractors. So we managed to buy a house for $6,000 put $6,000 in the house and get it repaired and coordinated and built and that was where they lived for about 10 years.

19:56 Now we're in that in that sequence. Did you meet your wife, Virginia Lee, Arkansas State?

20:03 Met her at a fraternity. I was a member of that TKE fraternity.

20:10 Just happened to run into her she was with another friend. Kyle Simonton who is Heather is a date and I saw her and I thought she was the perfect person for me and Cal didn't appreciate that. But anyway, I didn't get to see her for a while and a friend of mine who's but a fellow friend is Don Ford. He and I both went to school together. We travel together for Marysville and in the process he met a girl.

20:44 From Topeka and Carol Clark was a good friend to me and she was Don's girlfriend and

20:54 They got married in 1948.

20:58 And they introduced me to Virginia leash rake and so by 1948. We were very interested in each other. But we waited in her dad said she had to graduate and so before we can get married she graduated in home economics and started teaching in a town about 10 miles north of Manhattan.

21:24 And she taught him that can be computed commuted back to finish my degree, but also to work out and track.

21:35 So between the two things we were busy very very

21:40 So after we both graduated, we got a job in Centre County.

21:47 Marshall County that's where Marysville was a little town called Frankfort. So for two years she got home. She was racing family. I guess. Yeah, that was it and I taught physical education and Athletics there and then we got a job in Topeka and I went to teach at Boswell junior high school and I was there about the seven or eight years but teaching physical education.

22:20 And working with kids boys in particular. It's always a good school. I had a good experience when you were teaching the landmark case of Brown vs. Topeka Board the girls physical education and there was a separate operation, but the issue was there and there were a lot of it was a small group of black kids who lived about two blocks away from Boswell Junior High School was like a separate Enclave cuz they were when Deepika got started the allowed black to live in the area, but they had to live outside of town and that's where Boswell was as it expanded the expanded around this Enclave.

23:20 So there were several hundred black people who lived in this area. So that was a very active group and in 1954 that was kind of a center of activity, because Kansas and the Board of Education in Topeka. We're the ones that took the case to the Supreme Court.

23:41 And Kansas and Topeka were interested in improving it but the people wanted to have it as a legal case that would affect everybody across the country. So that's why the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. What was it like for you and your family during that time? And in that Community would what was yours nice place to live?

24:03 Even the even during the the the tension in the illegal use of the the time and actually it wasn't bad at all because it was a lot of support for the black community that also was away Topeka was built most of the black people in the working-class people. They've done one side of the town which was Easter Pica and most of the people with better jobs in connections lived on the west side of town. So Boswell is on the west side of town. So it got better support from the community and they didn't the east side button Athletics East Topeka was a junior high school. It was very competitive played well performed. Well at good students.

24:50 Very interesting

24:52 So what brought you do you and your wife Virginia and your daughter Diana and Son Charles? What brought you to, Pennsylvania?

25:02 I have the opportunity to go to graduate school. And when I mentioned a guy named on Ford, he was also an education. He came East to Pennsylvania Penn State University in the 1950s and he became

25:20 Edina of one of the colleges that worked with students and academic advising and counseling and I was looking for a position in counseling cuz I went back to KU and got a doctorate degree in guidance and counseling and I was applying for jobs and all I want so I got a call from Don Ford saying you want to come to Pennsylvania and work for Penn State University and the division of undergraduate studies. It was called the division at counseling with Don was it head of it?

25:54 So I said yeah, and he said well you can set up a Counseling Center at Mont Alto campus man out there was about a hundred miles south of State College in an interesting area. It was call Franklin County. It was on the way to Washington DC and it was a campus that was relatively small but it brought in housing. It was the location for Forestry at Penn State from the 1920s to the 1960s. That was the first year place where they sent egg students in forestry for their first year training.

26:34 But in 1964 it became a commonwealth campus and that's where they need to set up different kinds of facilities cuz they were going to get students from different areas and they had facilities live on Camp so they got about

26:49 40 or 50 women on campus for the first time in 1964 and they needed to another person around to work with students.

27:00 And to make things coordinated so that's where I became a counselor for.

27:07 Students at at this campus for about 2 years setting up the Counseling Center.

27:15 And then I was invited to go to.

27:19 Harrisburg

27:21 We live within walking distance of this campus. So then we went to

27:29 A place near Harrisburg with it was a campus Penn State opened up a campus in an old army base that was maybe 20 miles south of Harrisburg and that became a major focus in terms of development, but it was to be a junior senior campus. So now it's a major campus for the University and Graduate Studies is located there as well as Junior and seniors. So I set up a Counseling Center there.

28:02 In about 3 years I moved from

28:05 This campus that Harrisburg campus to University Park in the College of human development. And then I was in the college human development working with students and contacting, campus people's so I got to run to the 18, what campus is almost every year visiting different people in the fall in the spring to see how things were working for Penn State students.

28:33 What was your your Tyler roll when you were here at University Park to Jeff more than one or is you assistant Dean and assistant Dean for, campus programs and I helped in the Dean's office in terms of working with freshmen who were in The College who run designated and hadn't identified a program area that they were interested in yet. But as they develop that twice

29:00 They broke off into got in the major areas.

29:03 In your room your relationship with Vaughn Ford. That was one that goes way back in your life ever since and still are still stick it keep in touch.

29:22 So, you know, you've done a lot of work in the last couple years will last many since you retiring from Penn State in the in the 80s on genealogy done a lot of work. What are some things that you've learned in your in your endeavors to track down our family history and I both retired in 1989. And one of the things we wanted to do was get a motorhome and travel and I wanted to travel and find out what happened to my grandfather Nathan Saunders Elliott, cuz he been in the Civil War and at the time I was really interested in what was happening what happened in the Civil War and you can go back to the battlefields and find out a lot about what

30:08 What happened at the Battle but also what happened to the units and what happened to the people that were involved. So we went to Shiloh which is one of those big battles that occurred the night 1862 in which there was a big battle in the west between the North and the South at this.

30:29 What anything really it was just kind of a place in the woods, but the Confederacy came up from the south and attacked the union troops that were starting to form their and as they formed and turned into a big debate today battle in which the

30:48 Major generals had to make some great decisions about how to fight cuz they're both sides. They really didn't know how to fight.

30:58 Militarily, they just fought each other personally, and it was a deadly battle.

31:05 There are a lot of food. That was the first time that they had to set up a hospital on the battlefield to take care of the Wounded because there were a lot of people who were survivors but they're also a lot of people who are dead.

31:20 So U S Grant was the guy who was in charge of the Union lines at that battle and he'd been a very successful Union general. So he won the battle with the help of a lot of Union troops the second day.

31:41 So from there, they went down to mobile all the way down to Mobile Alabama all the way down to Vicksburg and in Vicksburg. There was another big battle the following year and then they came back and went across two parts of Tennessee and on down to Atlanta for a huge battle there and then went on down to Savannah and then up the coast towards Washington DC.

32:11 And eventually the war was over by 1865 and then

32:17 Nathan had the Nathan Saunders Elliott had stayed with the same company. He was in Company B.

32:25 Have the the 43rd or 53rd Ohio volunteer infantry, so he went from

32:34 Private to Corporal to Sergeant to Master Sergeant to Lieutenant who was in charge of that one company all the way through the war that was very unusual to stay with the same outfit and you're in through that research and finding these these stories and connections you've been able to reconnect with some people in the midwest to living family members and restarted it reunions in st.joe.

33:05 Are we got a large number of families together a couple of cousins organized it in the 1980s and made it tape of it and share the information with me and we started going in to see it must have been the 1990s. So for about 10 years, we went each year to a about the 4th of July the week before that or in the middle of June to our Union was held there and they would get to several hundred people to come to that reunions.

33:41 Made a lot of connections that way and shared information that you you documented in the last that got me interested in how you collect the information. It turns out collecting information about people at that time in the 1960s and 70s was all go see it yourself and write it down and collect the information.

34:05 By 1990 they were beginning to get this stuff online and then By Night by 2000 they got it so that there's a program that's called ancestry.com where you can go and collect your information what you know, and that you can use additional resources to find more information about your own family line. And that works very well. It's a good way to do the research now, I know your mother had some letters is that right? I need some cheap document some of her travels and connection. She collected a bunch of letters that she told about the places that we went. She always wrote letters to my dad and kept in touch. And so those laters gave me a lot of information about family her family and her family line so that begin to put that information together and develop a family history.

35:00 So it's something that took me about 30-40 years to collect a little bit at a time, but on now online it's much more efficient and you can get more connections faster so that it really is a good thing to people for people to do that gives us a starting point as we try to pick up that trail and continued turned into several books and I've still got one more book to write that puts it together. So you don't bring things together for me. What have you enjoyed most about your own kids and grandkids in and now you got to great-grandkids what the the family connection doing the genealogical research and then putting the connections together. So those who are living now your descendants. What what have you enjoyed most about all that?

35:53 Keeping in touch. They tend to keep in touch and come by I try to see people so that that whole business of how family goes depends on your initiating connections and going out of your way to keep in touch that's important.

36:09 The most important thing I can tell about if you write it down that helps, but keeping in touch verbally with people is a important activity for all your relatives to remember my headsets why we're here today, so, I think that's about what I wanted to cover. So, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you.