The Works and Adventures of Wayne and Elaine Strange

By Wayne Strange

This is my first attempt at writing a book and most certainly will be my last. I have had much encouragement how to do it, even though I have had no experience ,somehow I have “Gotter” done because my son and his wife Karen, by stating that his business had to get new phones and they were required to Upgrade the whole system, and my old flip phone will no longer have any service, so I am getting you a new smart phone and putting it on Buildings Inc.‘s account. l said “NO”l don’t know how to run them. They said it’ll be great you can just talk into it and it writes it down for you and then you’ll be able to write your book; and so I wrote two chapters and it wasn’t going very well, so they said what you really need is a tablet so we went and got one and it did work some better. But the pictures won’t stay in place and they keep pushing the words around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823006538

Wayne Strange

SUCCESSFUL JOBS WAYNE HAD THROUGH OUT HIS LIFETIME: RODEO RIDER, HORSE TRAINER, RANCHER, LOGGER, SAW MILLER, BALL BATT MFG, LAND DEVELOPER BUILDING. MFG, HUSBAND, FATHER, SQUARE DANCER, C D L, WIDE LOAD DRIVER, N Y S FLAGGER, MOTOR HOME TRAVELER, AUTHOR.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Dads. Family

Chapter 2     The S-S Ranch

Chapter 3     School

Chapter 4     Sawmill Work

Chapter 5     Horses

Chapter 6     Vacation To California

Chapter 7     Building Our First Home

Chapter 8     Guards

Chapter 9     Hunting

Chapter 10   Work

Chapter 11   Timberstand

Chapter 12   General Shelter Corp.

Chapter 13   R S W Associates

Chapter 14   The. Fire

Chapter 15   New. Home

Chapter 16   Florida Flywheelers Antique Engine Club

Chapter 17   Raising Kids

Chapter 18   Buildings Inc.

Chapter 19   Traveling.

Chapter 20   Mexico And Cozumel

Chapter 21   Sur - Lok Storage

Chapter 22   Special Events

Chapter 23   Fishing

Chapter 24   Wickham Park. Melbourne. Fl.

Chapter 25   Short. Trips

Chapter 26   Baltzley’s

Chapter 27   Church

Chapter 28   Mainesburg

Chapter 29   Today

INTRODUCTION

This is my first attempt at writing a book and most certainly will be my last. I have had much encouragement how to do it, even though I have had no experience, somehow I have Gotter done because my son and his wife Karen, by stating that his business had to get new phones and they were required to Upgrade the whole system, and my old flip phone will no longer have any service, so I am getting you a new smart phone and putting it on Buildings Inc.’s account. l said NO I don’t know how to run them. They said it’ll be great you can just talk into it and it writes it down for you and then you’ll be able to write your book; and so I wrote two chapters and it wasn’t going very well, so they said what you really need is a tablet so we went and got one and it did work some better. But the pictures won’t stay in place and they keep pushing the words around.

I have been a workaholic and a pusher all my life, I got on work programs in school and missed out on English and history. I meant the nicest girl in school and married her and she has been right there beside me through all my many businesses and motorhome trips that we could take winters while Steve ran the business. Every winter, we could take a different route so we could spend a few days with friends because we had the motorhome with my tools packed inside, I would do small jobs for them and take them out for meals, and after a while they would have a to do list for us when we stopped

CHAPTER 1

DADS. FAMILY

I thought I’d start my book with the oldest Strange that l remember, that was my grandpa Joe Strange and grandma Jane. Who lived in the town of Mainesburg beside the gas station and was the township supervisor in charge of the dirt roads, which were graded with steel wheeled graders pulled with old farm tractors or teams of horses, once a year. Most of the time when we were at the 450 acre farm dad bought, four miles east of Mainesburg and we had called it the S bar S ranch, we would use a steel railed stone boat and keep our 1/3 mile driveway graded. I remember stopping to see grandpa Joe on One Saturday night when we were on our way to the Twain Theater in Mansfield to watch our regular westerns each week. We stopped to see him when we were there he was laying on the couch and having a hard time breathing, in a couple of days later he passed away.

Dad married his first wife Ruby in 1915. He was a dairy farmer and they had five children, who all worked at the farm milking cows three times a day. Then his first wife Ruby had a baby boy named Richard who died in the Blossburg hospital along with his mother. When she rang for the nurse to come in shut the window. But the nurse never came, and they caught pneumonia and they passed away.

This was just before the depression hit. So he lost a herd of cattle, he had borrowed money from the bank and could not pay them back. Then his house burnt. There he was with his five kids and no place to live. See picture below of Russ, Bob, Viv, Bing, Barb.

His oldest son Russell was born in 1916 and went to Mansfield state teachers college, then he taught school in New Albany. Later, he went into partnership with dad at the Mainesburg Lumber Co. They bought a sawmill in Covington Pa. only 8 miles over the hill from the S bar S ranch. He had two sons Marcus and Joseph. I remember setting in State Rd. Church, one day when Mr. Haskins, who had the Mainesburg store, came in and tapped dad on the shoulder and told him his sawmill was on fire. It burnt down and dad never went back to church again. Even when I got married there. But he would read the Bible most every night. And they rebuilt and grew larger with dry kilms, garage, Mill pack plant where they took short Kilm dry lumber that was plained and packed into bundles and shipped out to furniture factories. Such as white hard maple for school desks, clear white basswood for piano keys, clear hard maple for baby cribs.

Dad’s second son, Robert H, was born in 1917 and married Margaret Rohrey in 1944. His wife was a great golfer. She won the woman’s championship at Corey creek golf club between Mansfield and Mainesburg several years.

They had a boy they named Mike and a girl named Margret who they called Pudge. Bob was a worker. He built a Brick Crete plant in Mainesburg, behind the Texaco gas station. They were like little cinderblocks, they were like that old cinder block only in a smaller size, built with sand and cement in five different colors of dye, the mix was installed into elevators up to the top of the vibrator machine that filled of the blocks on shelves, on wheels, when full, we pushed into drying rooms. I know all about this because, I worked there sometimes on Saturdays while in my early teens. Bob built some homes, and a lot of milk houses, as it was when the dairy farmers were going with milking parlors, in large bulk tanks. Then he worked with dad running the mill pack section of the lumber company, running planers and joiners that made the slats for baby cribs. I remember Bob making a sample of them 3 foot long, and sent me to search for a factory in Canisteo N Y. It weighed about 800 pounds and I got to deliver them with my new horse trailer, that was a big deal for a 16year-old boy!

My dad’s next child was named Joseph Bing, but we called him Bing born in 1921 and married Joyce Campbell. He went into the second world war and ended up being killed in a fox hole in Germany.

He had three beautiful girls, Penny, Betsy, and Judy, who he only got to see the last one once when on furlough. He loved to hunt deer with his dad and played baseball with his brothers.

Dad’s next child was a girl named Vivian R, born in 1919 and married Norman Andrews, who ended up with a large family. There were Pat, Bill, Donna, Jim and Marlene, they were needed to run a large dairy farm in the upper peninsula of Michigan. One year, when they finally got to go to Florida for a vacation, they came home and had so much snow it looked just like a tunnel back into the farm. So he sold the farm and moved to Florida and worked in a grocery store packing groceries.

Then came Barbara A., in 1923, who was the tall slender blonde, who married Forest Baker in 1941. She was a clothing manager for Izard store in Elmira, New York. They had two boys, John and David and a girl, Bobby Jo. Together they built a nine hole golf course in Bentley Creek PA., and they called it Pine Creek Golf Course.

Mark, my dad, had built a small camping trailer to use when he traveled for work. He had that small camper when he came back to Mainesburg. My dad built a house with a large stone fireplace behind the store

Then dad and his first wife Ruby, had a baby boy name Richard, who died in the Blossburg Hospital along with his mother. She rang for a nurse to come to shut the window, but the nurse never came and they caught pneumonia. They both passed away. This was in 1926 and then the depression hit so he lost a herd of cattle that he had borrowed money from the bank and couldn’t pay them back. Then his house burnt and he boarded out his five kids to family and friends, and went to work for lane construction company pouring