This column is not about me- it concerns my continual search for interesting people and events related to Morrow County and Cardington specifically.
However, this week, the week after my 90th birthday, I want to share one personal encounter – with a teacher. I can name every teacher I had from first grade through my senior year. There was one teacher who was NOT my teacher but her words of wisdom have stuck with me since May 6, 1949.
That was the day I stood in front of a full length mirror in the home economics room at Cardington High School. I was dressed in a full length white gown, ready to walk up the canvas covered path to the Queen’s Court on the high school baseball field. However, all I could see was the acne (zits) on my face. Then, an arm went around my shoulder and this teacher said, “Evelyn, I know what you are looking at. Remember, your friends elected you May Queen because of your activities and years from now your skin won’t matter but the event from today will always be with you.”
Now, those aren’t the exact words but that was her meaning. That teacher was Marian Lake Patterson. She was the home economics teacher – and I did not take home economics. Her words gave me the needed encouragement and I walked out there and up that aisle in record heat, 90 degrees, at 10 am. with a record crowd of 1,000 people. I never forgot her words. In fact, at various times I would write her a note and tell her again what her words meant to me; words I never forgot.
My point is that words even at a young age can make or even break a youngster and affect their life. She was right, the acne left and I was never bothered by it again. At times when something negative would come into my life, I would hark back to Marian Lake Patterson and those words of encouragement.
100 years ago in Cardington: July, 1922: The Isaly Dairy Store on South Marion Street advertised the biggest ice cream cone in town for a dime. Miss Hazel Miller and Howard McMillan were united in marriage on July 20 in the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Miller of Cardington.
Note: Howard McMillan would go on to be president of HPM in Mount Gilead in the late 1930’s.
Joe Arnold of Cardington, bought a new Ford Touring card.
July, 1942: 80 years ago: Sixty five of the 110 men trained as Air Raid wardens in Morrow County were from Cardington.
July, 1952,70 years ago: Clarence Longshore of Cardington retired after 15 years in the Morrow County treasurer’s office. Ralph Mosher, 19, of north of Cardington, won the Morrow County Level Land Plowing contest.
