ON GROWING UP – THE EARLY YEARS

December 19, 2009 at 4:02 pm (General Discussion)

The Night that Londonderry Burned

In the fall of 1939 when I was 9, the most threatening event of my young life took place.  We had moved from the farm to a small house on the west end of Londonderry, Ohio  owned by my cousin Durward Tedrick.  On the east side of our house was a small garage building and just east of that was an old two-story barn that belonged to the Bond property.  The embalming building was slightly east and south of the old barn. It was close to the Bond house just a few steps south of the embalming building. Scott Bond was the local undertaker and did the embalming in this building.  Next to the Bond house east was Uncle Harry’s home that had an out building just back (north) of it where Roger, my cousin, had a windmill to produced electricity as well as their Delco plant. The next house east of Uncle Harry’s was the Bob Stockdale home.  The reason I give this detail is to describe how the Great Fire started and spread towards our house on the west end of Londonderry.

Sometime after midnight on the night that Londonderry burned, a fire started in the small building back of Uncle Harry’s house.  It quickly spread to engulf his house and then to Scott Bonds house just west of Uncle Harry’s on it’s way the embalming building and then to the old barn just east of the garage near our house. It also spread east to include Bob Stockdale’s home, thus three houses and two outbuildings are in flames in just a matter of minutes.  The only thing that saved our house was the efforts of Uncle Mason and others using long poles to push the side of the embalming building away from the old barn and the wind direction.  I remember watching this tragedy develop from the front window of our small house. The fire trucks from both Cambridge and Freeport broke down en-route and the only source of water was in a large WPA developed cistern back of the U.P. Church across U.S. 22 about 100 yards away. Some how the neighbors present managed to form a bucket line from the cistern, but it was of little use in stemming such a large fire. It was a scary night that remains vividly in my memory.