Oak Grove Station

Oak Grove Station - sounds like the name of an old stage stop or something from a Laura Ingall's Wilder book, doesn't it? The Ingalls family did once live in Burr Oak, Iowa where Pa helped run the Masters Hotel pictured above. Laura never published a story about this time in her life, but Burr Oak was where her little sister, Grace, was born May 23, 1877. Cynthia Rylant wrote Old Town in the Green Grove based on notes left by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but it is not officially part of the Little House series.

Oak Grove Station was the name of the Phillip's 66 station operated by my Uncle Al Childers from 1947 through March of 1953. At that time, US Highway 34 ran through town. The station was located on the west edge of Corning. I had long wanted a picture of the old station. A couple weeks ago a series of "Wrecks in Adams County" were added to the Facebook page, "You Know You're From Corning If..." and this picture was among them. I do not know any of the details of the wreck, unfortunately, nor the identities of any of the people pictured.
What I remember of the station was that the office part was inside the front doors. As well as the cash register, it contained a pop machine, candy display, cigarettes, cans of oil, fuses, other automobile related items - anything a motorist might need. In the back, through a door from the station was a small kitchen,  dining area and living room. Upstairs were bedrooms for the family.
Oak Grove was so named for obvious reasons - it was situated in a small grove (an acre or two) of beautiful old oak trees. In addition to the station, there were a number of tourist cabins scattered about in the trees. By the time I was old enough to remember them, they were no longer rented out to tourists and there were only three or four still standing. A couple of the small structures were being lived in by locals. I remember playing in one of the empty ones - probably cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. I loved running through the timber whooping and hollering with my cousins and brother and sister.

Dad's sister, my Aunt Leona Lynam, moved to Davenport, Iowa after graduating high school in 1943. It was there she met Albert Childers. They moved to Corning in 1947 to be closer to her parents. George and Bessie Lynam's home was just down the hill from the station on the north side of Hwy 34.
Pictured here, in the oak grove, are: back row, left, my brother, Ronald, cousin Georgia, Grandmother, Bessie; I am in the middle with cousin Frank (we always called him 'Butch') to my left; in front are my sister, Betty and cousin, Donald. I think we had been at Grandma's for the day and took some sandwiches over to the timber for a picnic.

Here is another view of that day - Grandma, Georgia, Donald and Betty on the left, Butch, Ron and I on the right. We are sitting on foundation stones of one of the old tourist cabins. In the background is Grandma's house. There was a small stream which ran through the property clear at the back, 'down the hill'. It seemed a long way from the station at the time. It was fun to go down and wade in the creek - especially so since it was verboten - but worth the spanking when we came back all wet and muddy.

North of Grandma's house was her cave. She didn't have a refrigerator. She kept her milk, butter, etc. in the cave along with her jars of home-canned fruits and vegetables. Pictured here, back row, Grandma Bessie, Mom, Ruth, and Dad, Louis; Uncle Al and Aunt Leona seated in front.

The cave was covered all over in Iris which you can see here in the background. Left to right, Frank, Uncle Al, Georgia, Aunt Leona holding Donald. This is circa 1951 or '52. My aunt and uncle moved back to Davenport in March of 1953. We took a rare family vacation and went out to see them for a week that summer. In the fall, they moved back to Corning and Uncle Al took over the Standard Station in town. In 1959, the family moved to Glendale, AZ in hopes that the climate would be better for my uncle's asthma. He operated a Flying A service station there. Donald was the only member of their family to move back to the Midwest - he and his wife, Judy, live in a St. Paul, MN suburb.

Unrelated to this blog, but while looking through all the photos of wrecks, the only other photo I recognized was this one and that is because I was familiar with the farm home of Russell and Neva Vogel in the far background. This accident happened June 28, 1947. I don't remember the accident, but I remember hearing Mom tell about a neighbor of ours being killed in it......another story for another day.