This website is devoted to History and the 200 volunteers in every community who create the community characteristic known as quality of life.

Suffield Golf Courses - Banquet Halls - Rural Living

A Winter Wonderland – Wingfoot Lake State Park

A mid winter's day's dream is cross country skiing at Wingfoot Lake State Park. Here we see Janie, Michelle and Boosa the Snow Dog enjoying a most beautiful morning in Suffield Township.

Wingfoot Lake State Park is a great place to cure cabin fever. I never could understand why people stay inside most of the Winter. Winter's scenery is spectacular as the weather fronts come and go. There is nothing better than a deep breath of 15 degree air.

We don't have a cracker barrel or a pot-bellied stove, but the above Suffield Carry Out Chairs of Wisdom do just fine.

Folks cruise in and by for a cup of coffee and catch passing news on who's sick, wrecked, or chain-saw bucked their eyebrows off.

You can get almost anything you want at Suffield Carry Out.

Suffield Township Historical Society

Suffield, Ohio 44260

Meets the third Monday of every month in the Townhall basement or Fire Station meeting room.

Volunteers are everywhere and make the World turn.

Recently a Senior Citizen's yard filled with leaves. For decades it was his joy and passion to move them to a mulching pile for gardening. But over the decades as the rings on the tall Oaks increased his energies declined and finally he could not keep up with the falling leaves. The snow time neared and one neighbor went over and started to gather them up. Then another neighbor came and another and another. In four hours, the yard was clear.

I see stories like that everywhere. People see a need, one raises the call, others heed the call and the need is met.

The Rotary Club of Hudson with its “Bob's Bikes” Program is an example of how things get done.

Above Brad Nelson-left and Steve Thomas-right ship out a truck load of Christmas bicycles and accessories. The Rotary Club of Hudson long ago became involved with the “Bob's Bikes” Program when Bob Obendorf retired from the project and his son, Chuck, donated $1,000 with the hope the Rotary Club of Hudson could match it and continue the year round project. The continuation is a way of honoring Bob Obendorf for his many years of bringing joy to the lives of children.

Steve restores bicycles that he picks up here and there and brings them to like new condition. We were half way through our conversation when I realized that they were near perfect restorations.

You know, I get around more than most and in these days I see a lot of hardship. The little ones don't understand how life goes and flows and the gift of a bicycle goes a long way in giving them a sense of well being. Brad recalled his first bike and all us fondly remember our bikes and the adventures they carried us on. Keep up the good work Brad, Steve and the Rotary Club of Hudson and God Bless you for the good that you do. And a Jolly St. Nick pat on the back to Bob and Chuck Obendorf for the happiness they've brought to the World.

Shelby, Ohio Parades are Really Great

The tune “I Love a Parade” is true. The young and old line up an hour or so before START for the best view. Shelby, Ohio has several a year and can boast nearly 100 entries in each parade. Having helped with Suffield's Memorial Day Parade, I fully appreciate the people, time and organization needed to make a successful parade. The bands, drill teams, clubs, teams, restored cars, holiday themes and political personalities are on view for all to see what makes their home town a nice place to live in.

A Shelby Parade is always a great show.

Volunteers for Preservation

Mechanical Preservation is most often thought of in terms of Car Shows but there is a lot of historical pride in bringing an old relic back to life. Suffield Township has a buggy with a “Made in Suffield, Ohio” emblem on it. Suffield's Memorial Day Parade has at times seen a 1917 or so Mack Truck, chain driven and provided by the Harry Miller Construction Company.

Below is a picture of Larry Evans of Powell, Ohio area with his beautifully restored Minneapolis-Moline Z tractor.

Larry displayed his Moline Z at a Central Ohio antique farm machinery show hosted by the Calvin Family of Radnor, Ohio.

Above, Tim Calvin harvests wheat with a McCormick Reaper that was carefully brought back to life. The Calvins have a very large collection of old old house and barn tools and handy kitchen devices. Uh, now when I say large, I mean large as in, would you believe TWO pole buildings. Well, believe it.

The Calvins also hosted October's Ohio Corn Huskers Competition which also featured old fashioned outdoor cooking for barn raising and harvest crews in addition to the corn husking.

Shown above is Brimfield's Wayne Biltz in the husking competition with a red hatted Volunteer Judge, Josh Nease of Radnor behind him. The wagon driver is also a Volunteer who helps weave the fabric of Historical Preservation. Wayne came in third after picking and husking for 20 minutes with the Judge watching him all the way. Points were deducted for missed ears left on the stalks and ears that missed the wagon when tossed. I tried to get a better picture of Josh, but when Volunteers are in motion –>>> Volunteers are in motion.

Utica, Marcellus & Stow Play – Volunteer for a Play

These days there is a lot of oil/gas talk about layers of oil/gas bearing layers of shale described as Utica and Marcellus Plays. It amuses me to hear the oil people refer to a well as a play. I guess it is a gamble like playing at Mountaineer.

Not all of us have acreages that would interest those oil players, but we may be interested in a local “Players Group” like the Stow Players on Young Road.

They have a great Christmas program and others too. Click www.stowplayers.net for more information.

George's Pin

(circled below in red)

Recently I came upon an industrial application for one of George Kirkendall's inventions. On the farm we called them lynch pins but I don't know the formal name for this simple but overwhelmingly useful device that you find everywhere. Seeing this pin set me to reminiscing.

Only a few remain who knew George Kirkendall. He was quite a guy. We lived across the road from him. He was seldom home and we only saw him briefly as he “flew in and flew out”. I say “flew in and flew out” because he was one of Aviation's Pioneers. He knew one of the Wright Brothers and George had an old old chair with a brass nameplate on the back of it that identified it as one of the pieces of furniture in the tent at Kitty Hawk, NC on that famous December day. George's Pilots License was signed by Orville Wright.

George was the first Test Pilot for the Piper Cub airplanes and he was a member of a related Emeritus club. The last time that I saw George was at one of our early 90's Memorial Day Parades and he was wearing a large and decorative belt buckle that noted the Piper Cub airplanes.

I had seen a plaque in George's house with the pin on it and noted patent information about George and the pin. He told me the story of how it came to be.

George said that he was a newly graduated Engineering Student who was employed by Curtiss Aircraft or some such named firm. There was work being done for the new concept of seaborne airplane boats, aircraft carriers with flight decks. The biplane motors were housed behind the propellers in a metal shroud, housing, or cowl that was nut and bolted to the engine framing. George said it took forever to remove the cowl to service the engines and he was given the task of finding a faster way of getting to the engines.

He came up with the idea of the above pictured pin with a bent sort of washer to hold the cowl fast to the engine frames.

How did he come up with the idea? He never told that. George liked stories that had a wry twist and a message about life to them and he focused on that. If you are one of the lucky ones, you'll remember his smile and the bright joy in his eyes as he told you his story.

He began by asking, “ Yes, I invented that,” as he told of the early aircraft carriers. Do you know how much I got for that idea?”

My mind flashed, “Those pins are everywhere, hay balers, copying machines, boat hitches everywhere. Let's see, long time ago dollars compared to today....” I guessed $100,000.

George laughed, “Nope, all I got was my paycheck. When I was hired I signed a paper that said any idea that I came up with was their idea.”

George liked stories like that.

After George died, one of his elderly friends stopped by, a Mr. Wolcott from the Waterloo School District area. They both had been members of an Akron Lighter than Air (Blimp) Society of some sort. Wolcott told me that George was the Best Man in Charles and Anne Lindbergh's May 27, 1929 wedding. I haven't been able to find any newspaper item to support that. Wolcott told me the most amazing story about Lindbergh and Kirkendall saving Lindbergh's life in the barnstorming days. I hate to repeat it here because it just couldn't be true.

Suffield Soldiers saw the Holocaust

Here and there you hear a media moment when someone claims that the Holocaust didn't happen. For the last decade the Iranian Leader has been making that statement. You wonder how such statements can be made in the face of the Historical Record.

Well, near us lives a mid-80's WW2 Vet who drove a dump truck from N. Africa up through Italy and Germany. Last Spring I stopped by to visit him and he talked about some of his WW2 experiences. I mentioned the below Soldier's account of the Concentration Camp. He said that he saw one too. He told me that it was horrible. The number of dead were too great to individually bury. “They scooped them up with front loaders and dumped them into our dump trucks. We hauled them to a mass grave and dumped them in. There was nothing else we could do.” With that he lowered his head and looked down at the table, shaking his head, “I don't know how people can be so mean to each other.”

The below soldier's account in his pre-war employer's paper was sent to me. He wanted me to do something with it. He had sent it in response to then Suffield Historical Society President Josephine Demboski's call for Veterans to share accounts of their Military time with the Historical Society.

Wilfred did say it that really irked him to hear that guy in Iran and others say that the Holocaust never happened, “I saw it. I smelled it.” When I visited him in the Spring of 2003, he had just gotten the DVD set of “Band of Brothers” which he had watched several times that week. During the concentration camp scene, he muttered several times, “That's just how it was.” Only the scenes he described were much worse than the movie depicted.

Buchenwald was the concentration camp that he entered.

Well as Iran nears having a nuclear weapon, I'll let the Soldiers' words echo from the past to show that today's Iranian Leader lies when he says the Holocaust didn't happen.