Log Cabin Days in Avon – Part 2

Here's the rest of the article about Mr and Mrs. Ben Herwodel, a pioneering Avon couple whose story appeared in the Lorain Times-Herald on November 14, 1928. The article tells of their memories of living in a log cabin in Avon in the 1880s.

The story picks up with more reminisces by Mrs. Herwodel.

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60 Years – In Retrospect
Avon Couple Looks Back to Log Cabin Days When
Village Was a Forest – They were Wed in
’68 When Living Was Dirt Cheap

Part Two

“When my family moved to Avon we built a log cabin down on the Lear-rd,” she states. “Many is the time that we children have awakened with a foot of snow at our bed where it drifted in through the cracks between the logs.

“I used to be the candlestick maker for our family. My father bought me a three-candle mould and I’d mould the tallow which be obtained from sheep and then pull the wicks through with a darning needle/

“Of food there was not enough for a family to live on and many a time we fed up on nuts from the forest. There were many hard times, and yet I’ve seen the time we could buy pork for three dollars a hundredweight – and now look at the prices, ten times that much.”

‘Expensive’ Shoes
“When I hear of how much young girls spend on clothes these days, it makes me think of the time I worked four weeks to pay for a pair of $4 shoes. I was earning a dollar a week.”

And the lady chuckled to herself and slapped her knee as she thought of it. “Just imagine four weeks to pay for a pair of shoes.” Her graying hair has detracted not a whit from a keen sense of humor and her smile is just as broad and friendly as it probably was 60 years ago, when she first met “Ben.”

“Why do people in the country live to be so old?” repeats Ben. “Because they don’t live as high as the city folks, that’s why! You don’t see us galavanting’ around until midnight and going to dances and theaters. I smoke my pipe everyday and I’m healthier than a lot of city folk, and I’m livin’ longer.”

“My years of bridge and ship building have made me strong and robust,” he declares.

“I used to work down at Cleveland buildin’ these old wooden vessels. Once I worked in the old Lorain yards.”

Just One Horse Car
“Lorain was a funny place with its lone horse car. It cost three cents to ride from the bridge down to the Nickel Plate tracks. That’s all the farther the ‘goldarned’ wagon went. I heard the driver say he made nice cents one day.”

Ben has worked on bridges all over the country, down south, in Indiana, Toledo, Cleveland, Lorain, Willoughby, Columbus and many other places.

Mr. and Mrs. Herwodel have six children living. They are Bernard, Jr. 59 of Cleveland; Frank, 57, of Steve Moore-rd, Avon; John W., 50, Cleveland; Miss Sophia Herwodel, 48, Cleveland; Mrs. Anna Dehard, 44, Cleveland; Mrs. Kathryn Hall, 40, at home with her parents.