Dad Runs to the Drugstore, 1934

1) Gray Chapel  2) old Delta Tau Delta house at Franklin St. and Griswold

3) location of old Winter Street Drugstore, next to Bun's, at 4 W. Winter St.

4) Austin Hall  5) OWU Archives at Beeghly Library 6) Oak Hill Avenue

My brothers and I know the story well. Mom and Dad first saw one another at Ohio Wesleyan’s Gray Chapel on October 31, 1936. Dad was already a senior at OWU, while Mom was a 17-year old high school senior and prospective freshman for the OWU class entering the following September 1937. That morning, Mom had driven the “four to five hour” car ride from Cleveland to Delaware, Ohio with her parents so that all could participate in Homecoming Weekend at OWU. It was already 11am when Mom and her mother, Elba Nile Kingman Crow (OWU 1906), were dropped off to get seats in Gray Chapel, while her father, Howard Malley Crow (OWU 1906), went to park the car. The pep rally program was underway and so Mom and Elba came in the side door of Gray Chapel and sat at the back on the left side, nearer Sandusky St.

As Mom writes: “in the front row were five or six obviously college men … OWU sweaters, books, etc. Though we had come in quietly, a couple of them glanced around at us, but a third young man turned around and looked straight at us – more aptly, he looked right at me! Corny as it may sound, I think I fell in love with your father at that very moment --- not that I would ever have admitted it to anyone, or even to myself in quite those terms. I truly remember thinking, though I had no idea who he was, how I hoped he would be around next Fall when I would be a student.”

Gray Chapel at the Methodist college, Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, OH.
(Photo c. 1900)

Mary Alice Austin re-enacting her 1936 story in Gray Chapel in 1997.
My brothers and I just buried Mom near OWU on June 22, 2012.

Later that October 1936 day, Mom did meet Dad again at the Delt house. It turns out her father, Howard Crow, was a member of the OWU Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and so was Dad. The two men had met two years earlier, in October 1934, when a chance event presented itself and Dad conducted himself in a very memorable way. Neither man could have known at the time that they would become father- and son-in-law eleven years later in October 1945, when Mom and Dad married after an untraditional war-time courtship carried out entirely by letter writing.

This brings me to the “chewing gum” family story that I’ve been thinking about again because it is such an early and clear example of Dad’s willingness to step up and go the extra mile – literally – to take care of someone else’s problem.

 Jason McVay Austin (1915-1996)
Dad's OWU graduation photo, 1937.

Jason McVay Austin and his father-in-law Howard M. Crow at OWU after WWII,  c. 1946.

Here is Mom’s account, often told:

“To digress – my father always hated chewing gum – I was not supposed to chew it ever – but to his dismay, at the Homecoming game two years earlier [1934], he had somehow gotten some on his trouser leg and try as he did, he couldn’t get it off. After the game, he had gone as usual, to the Delt House alone, and as soon as he got there he inquired if anyone knew how to get that gum off, other than by using scissors. The young men all commiserated with him – and they too tried to pick it off, but to no success. Then a young Sophomore appeared, saw the problem, and said to just wait about ten minutes, and he’d be back. With that Mac sprinted out the door, down the length of Franklin St. to a drug store, and in less than ten minutes was back with a small bottle of carbon tetrachloride. A vigorous application of that and mirabile dictum – the gum all came off. My father was forever indebted to that young budding chemist – and then remembered that he also knew Mac’s father and grandparents… in fact Jason Senior had been in school with both of my parents – and of course everyone had known Mac’s grandfather who was a professor of Math and Astronomy, and most prominently lived at Monnett Hall, the women’s dormitory. Prof. Austin had died in 1923, but his widow, Aunt Mary as she was affectionately called, still lived on Winter St. In fact she lived in a little Victorian house right next door to a similar house that was the Theta headquarters.”

Two things stand out to me now in 2012 about the chewing gum story. First, Dad knew what solvent would remove chewing gum and that he could procure it easily somewhat nearby. Second, unlike everyone else, Dad offered to do it – and he did.

The original Delta Tau Delta Fraternity House at OWU,
on the corner of Franklin St. and Griswold.

In the 1930s and '40s, the Farmer's Almanac and other  farm manuals  recommend
carbon tetrachloride as a home remedy for removing chewing gum.

As to the first point: It turns out that government farm manuals from this time period included specific instructions on how to remove chewing gum using carbon tetrachloride, kerosene, or turpentine. Thus, the “how” part of the problem might not have been as obscure as we think, or particularly reflecting on Dad’s expert knowledge of chemistry.

Indeed, the 1935 Farmer’s Almanac I could locate online helpfully states on page 42, “Stains made by chewing gum can be removed with carbon tetrachloride.” Perhaps the Farmer’s Almanac was the seed of his knowledge, made clear by his study of chemistry? We’ll never know now, because we didn’t think to ask more specifically when we could have. All we have to go on now are our lifelong memories of Dad always religiously buying each year’s Farmer’s Almanac, and quoting it to us as gospel. 

The second point about the run to the drug store is far more revealing of character. Think about it. It’s Homecoming Weekend at the fraternity house. You are a 20-year old college student stepping up to help a 53-year old gentleman you don’t know. He has chewing gum on his pants and wants someone to help him. Not only do you say you know how to solve the problem – -- just sit tight for ten minutes and I’ll be back to help ---  you then take off and run 1/3 mile to the drugstore, buy the solvent presumably with your own money (in the Depression) which you had with you, and run or walk about 7 minutes back to help the old man out.  And that is exactly what Dad did.

Last Monday June 25, 2012 I asked the Ohio Wesleyan Archivist, Carol Holliger, if she might be able to help me visualize Dad’s “run to the drugstore” in 1934. (Actually, this is not Carol’s field of expertise in the OWU Archives, but her colleague in charge of the historic OWU archives was away on her honeymoon.) Carol enthusiastically stepped up to help out. She found an OWU campus map from 1936 that showed where the Delt House was (at the intersection of Franklin St. and Griswold). Carol Holliger then went through the OWU Bijou yearbooks for the 1930s and wrote down the six drugstores that advertised, and their addresses. For various reasons, we were able to narrow the possibilities down to two. From there we reread Mom writing that Dad “sprinted down the length of Franklin St.” and came up with the finalist. The Winter Street Drugstore was located at 4 West Winter, right next door to Bun's Restaurant at 6 West Winter St.

The postcard image illustrated below helps me imagine Dad’s victorious turn from Franklin St on to West Winter St as he headed like a hero toward Bun's “Triumphal Arch” over the street, just opposite the drug store. 

           Kharma?

Bun's rebuilt restaurant today, 2012. Bun's arch remains.