Note: Italicized words are my own memories. I interviewed Phylis Horning in her room at the Lutheran Community at Telford in 2012, two years prior to her death at 86 years of age.
Phylis M. Horning was a daughter of the late Frank A. and Stella (Kinsey) Horning of Telford. She worked in Philadelphia her entire life, as a secretary at J. M. Korn & Son Advertising, General Building Contractors Association, and later at Consolidated Rail Corp. for 14 years prior to her retirement. She was a lifelong member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Telford and that is how I knew her. I remember Phylis from growing up at Trinity Church where she and her father had attended church regularly. I also remember she and her father were about the only people who walked to church in those days. Phylis had agreed to speak with me about growing up in Telford, but she didn’t believe she remembered much at this time in her life. As we spoke we each began reminiscing about bits and pieces we had lived, witnessed or heard about Telford.
Phylis’ father, Frank, worked as a Reading Railroad ticket agent at Fern Rock Station and then as a telegrapher at Telford Station – Phylis remembered delivering telegraphs for him around town. Sometimes he had to work on Sundays, which he did not like to do, and Phylis had to take Sunday dinner to him at the station. She thought he had been a ticket agent in Perkasie before he married.
Speaking about the train reminded me of the newspaper boys. The Philadelphia Inquirer would come up on the train in the late afternoon. The paperboys cut open the stacks that were thrown from the train and then sat next to the tracks folding their individual newspapers before they could be delivered around town. As a kid, I was intrigued by the way the papers were tightly folded so they wouldn’t come apart when the boys threw the papers from their bikes. I lost interest when they began using rubber bands to wrap the newspapers.
Phylis then talked about her mother, Stella and where she shopped in town. At that time, the Wolf Building (currently Burke’s Detailing Shop and formerly Kuhn’s Buick car dealership) on Penn Ave was a grocery store where Stella did most of her shopping. They lived nearby on South Main Street. She would, however, also get groceries delivered to the house on alternate weeks from both Nobel Stover’s Store (on the corner of Main and West Broad Streets) as well as Heffentrager’s Store (currently Tell-Tale Art Studios on Main Street.) Phylis loved taking the payment owed to John Heffentrager, because he would always give her a free candy bar. (Nobel Stover did not offer any candy.)
When you speak about groceries you then have to talk about milk as well. Gangloff was the Telford dairy located on West Broad Street where the Popcorn Works is located today. Gangloff sold out to Hoffman’s Dairy. (Hoffman’s was the milk we got when I was growing up). In the Hoffman’s Dairy days, the milkmen, dressed in white shirts, pants and a cap, delivered the milk to your door in glass quart or half-gallon bottles. If not hand-delivered, bottles were left in an insulated metal box on your doorstep. Hoffman’s was later sold to Rosenberger’s Dairies. According to my mother, the milk wasn’t nearly as good. She could tell the milk didn’t have as much cream left in it, and it took a while to adjust to the ‘thin’ milk.
Phylis and I got to talking a bit about the ‘tramps’ that were in the area. Phylis remembered that her mother, Stella, gave them food but did not ask for any work be done by the tramps in exchange. Apparently Stella was a bit afraid to not give them food. From speaking with my own grandmother, it seems that tramps would know what house to approach and never went to any other. She once told me tramps had a ‘sign’ designating the houses that gave food. To this day, however, it is not known what or where any such signs were. Some tramps did odd jobs or fixed umbrellas for their food, because they did not want to receive hand-outs.
IF YOU HAVE ANY OLD PHOTOS OR MEMORABILIA PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING THEM TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY (not the trash can!)
