Without the never-failing interest of the readers of “Your Town and My Town,” it would be impossible for the writer of this column to have in it the wide variety of stories and of pictures of Wayne and its surroundings that appear each week. Some of these stories have to do with Wayne and with Radnor township of an era long past, others of a time that seems but yesterday to many among us. Into this latter category today’s column and picture fall, and, as so often happens, the material for this column has come from a reader of “Your Town and My Town.” Several years ago Miss Harriet E. Weed gave the writer a very handsome booklet which had been in her office files for more than 25 years, a 1928 copy of “The Main Line Beautiful.” Although its publishers, J. Howard Goodwin and Company, of Philadelphia, stated on its first page that it was to be published annually, it seems probable that this was its only appearance. At any rate, various local real estate dealers to whom your columnist has shown the booklet have its duplicate in their files, but none has mentioned any later numbers of “Main Line Beautiful.”

A guarantee of 100,000 readers for the booklet was given by the Goodwin Company, and free copies could be obtained “by applying in person to any real estate dealer whose advertisement appears herein.”

The purpose of the publication was to “foster the better upkeep and beautification of the Main Line, that it may remain as it now is – the most desirable suburban residential section in America.” And to many loyal Main Liners, this rather broad statement seems as true today as it did to the publishers of the booklet 27 years ago.

In the midst of all the pictures of handsome homes, churches, office buildings, banks and shops of the Main Line which fill the pages of the booklet, the picture shown at the head of this column is refreshing because of its human interest. Among the four boys all so intent on lifting stones from the creek, there may be this columnist’s own sons, and certainly must be their playmates.

The dog, as intent as the boys on the business in hand, might have been “Sooner,” property of the
Patterson boys and playmate of all the Midland avenue children. And the clothes these boys are wearing! They bring back nostalgic memories of the days when corduroy or tweed knickers, long stockings and heavy woolen sweaters constituted the “uniform” of the boys of the 1920’s as universally as dungarees and plaid shirts do now.

It is quite apparent from the length of hair of three of the boys in the picture that a trip to the barber was as much of an ordeal then as it is to those of their age nowadays. And no mother of boys in the 1920’s can fail to remember the struggle to keep the knickers from “drooping” and the garter from losing all connection with the long stockings with their rolled-over plaid tops.

“Kids Having Fun at St. Davids” certainly tells the story of this picture. The writer has tentatively located the brook, with its large stones, as one of the small streams on the former Charles E. Walton estate, now the property of Eastern Baptist College. More positive identification by some one who may recognize the boys in this picture would be interesting.

(to be continued)

Of the old postcards from the collection stored until recently in the basement of Wack’s Drug Store, none perhaps has as much artistic beauty and interest as the first picture illustrating today’s column, showing the old Waterloo Mill, on Darby Creek. The second postcard, which has been lent by the William Henry Roberts family, is equally artistic, with its view of Old Eagle School road in Strafford.

The reverse side of this 40 to 50-year-old postcard has on it the notation: “On the Darby at Waterloo Mills. These mills are about one and one half miles south of the Devon Inn. The mills and hamlet are situated in a romantic valley where the road crosses the Darby Creek. Since 50 or 60 years ago this hamlet is known locally as Cabbagetown.”

In an effort to find out whether the remains of the old mill are still in existence, your columnist consulted Albert N. Curley, who gave a talk on “The Old Mills of Radnor” at the November meeting of the Radnor Historical Society during the summer of 1954. Mr. Curley and the boys of his Scout Troop had tramped the banks of Darby, Little Darby and Ithan Creeks in order to explore the sites of the mills and the homes of the early settlers.

In reply, Mr. Curley wrote that in following Darby Creek, he and his scouts did not trace it as far as Cabbagetown and therefore he had no information on Waterloo Mills. If any of our readers possess such information, or if they have other pictures of the old mill, it would be interesting to use both information and pictures later on in this column.

(Editor’s Note: We are sure that some of our Devon readers, mindful of the recent controversy over street names, will have some interesting items of local history.)

Although this postcard bears only the caption, “Strafford, Pa.,” the picture is obviously one of Old Eagle School road as it makes its way north of the overpass of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was undoubtedly from this overpass that the photographer took his picture 40 or more years ago. Just out of sight, in the lower right hand corner of the postcard, is the shelter station on the north side of the railroad tracks, while the road on the right is Crestline road. The once neatly fenced-in grass plot shown in the picture, just this side of Crestline road, is now no longer either a grass plot nor fenced-in, since it has become the parking lot for those who leave their cars at Strafford station.

There are few roads in this entire section that have been travelled for as long as Old Eagle School road, which takes its name from the quaint little building erected about 1767 by early German settlers for church and school purposes.

The present building, so carefully preserved and tended, has a stone marker in its south gable, inscribed 1788. This stone supposedly belonged to a second building which was erected close to the first. Later on, the two buildings were apparently made into one. Surrounded by its neatly kept grounds and adjacent to the old graveyard, where “the great trees spring as often from the graves themselves as from the ground between,” the building is now under the supervision of seven trustees appointed by the court.

In this picture the old school could almost be seen up the hill, on the right side of the road, were it not for the great overhanging trees.

To the present day spectator watching the never ending flow of passenger automobiles and of trucks going so rapidly in both directions under the railroad underpass, it seems a far cry indeed to the days when the traffic on this same road consisted of desultory farm carts drawn by oxen. Their owners, driving along the narrow dirt road through the forest, were usually on their way to or from the little German settlement that sprang up in the middle 1700’s around the first small Spread Eagle Inn. That was even before the days of the second and more pretentious inn of the same name, and of the stone turnpike which, when it was completed in 1794, was the first of its kind in the entire United States.

Even in the earliest days of the turnpike, community life, simple as it was, centered around the inn. Later the second hostelry became the stopping place for the stage, and indeed the last relay station eastward on the turnpike. The mail, too, was left there. And around the inn, which was situated on the north side of the turnpike just to the west of the present Spread Eagle Apartments, there grew up the blacksmith and the wheelwright shops as well as the cobbler’s. And so, to provide for these simple needs, these early German settlers of 200 years ago travelled back and forth along the narrow dirt road which, in its present widened and paved state, is still called by the first name given it, Old Eagle School Road.

From a collection of old postcards gathered from several sources your columnist has selected four, with the thought that her readers might be interested in seeing how various familiar corners of Wayne looked some years ago. Although there is no date noted on any of these cards, except the Poplar avenue one, it would be fairly accurate to say that all of them are more than 40 years old. The Poplar avenue card is postmarked “Wayne, Pa., May 4, 1909.”

The pictures of Windermere avenue and of Aberdeen avenue have been lent by members of the Roberts family who came to live in Wayne in 1900. In that year Dr. William Henry Roberts, who was Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States for 36 years, settled in Wayne with his family in one of the Wayne Estate houses on Windermere avenue. The home, which is still occupied by several members of his family, is one of those that is just barely visible on the left hand side of the street in the picture.

Both of these pictures were taken from the intersection of Windermere avenue and South Aberdeen avenue, the first one looking west along Windermere avenue and the second looking south along Aberdeen avenue with Upland way taking off to the right. Although the houses are all little changed from then to the present time, the general appearance of the streets is quite different due to the growth of trees and hedges.

This third picture, which is from the Wack collection, is taken from the corner just a block east of the corner from which the first two were taken. For some now obscure reason, Windermere avenue as it goes east becomes St. Davids road after it passes Aberdeen avenue.

This picture, looking east along St.Davids road from Pembroke avenue, shows the houses looking again then very much as they do today. The southeast corner was evidently a vacant lot at the time indicating that the homes later built and occupied by George W. Pepper, Jr., and Sheldon Catlin had not yet been constructed.

This picture of Poplar avenue is one looking west from its intersection with Radnor road. The old John P. Wood homestead, the grounds of which went from Walnut avenue to Poplar avenue on Radnor road, is just out of sight in the right hand corner of the picture. And although this picture was taken at least 45 years ago, the street still looks very much the same except that the stretch of vacant land on the left hand side of Poplar avenue is now occupied by houses.

In the December 7 and 14 issues of this column reproductions of old postcard pictures were used as illustrations. These postcards were from a collection salvaged by Dr. Norman Wack from the cellar of his drugstore several weeks ago.

The first picture in today’s column is from that same collection of old postcards. According to the caption it is the “Spring-Gail Swimming Pool, Edgewood Lake, St. Davids.” Back in the 1880’s it was called Fenimore’s Dam, from the well-known Fenimore family, which owned much acreage in that part of St. Davids. Although it is now part of the property of Eastern Baptist College, it is still the Walton pond to many residents who have spent pleasant hours in summer swimming in its water, and in Winter skating on its frozen surface. Before the big mansion home and its surrounding acreage was sold to the college it was the property of the Charles S. Walton estate.

In this picture, the small building in the center shows a pumping station of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was located at this pond, manned by “Billy Pump,” whom many remember as general custodian of the Walton pond for many years.

For this picture of St. Davids toll gate the writer is indebted to DeBourg Tees, of East Lancaster avenue, St. Davids. It was taken by him in 1912, not long before the toll house was demolished. Standing near the western boundary of what is now the Main Line Golf Club, this was the last of the local toll gates to be in operation on the Old Lancaster pike. Among the present residents of this section there are still those who can remember paying toll from a horse-drawn vehicle. And some, perhaps, who were small fry then, can remember circuitous routes they took on their bicycles to avoid the payment of a few pennies toll.

The residence just to the left of the toll house is now the home of Mr and Mrs. H. Raymond Dahm. In the background are some of the first houses to be built in St. Davids Court.

It might be difficult to convince a newcomer to Wayne that the entrance to one of Wayne’s smartest dress shops once looked like this! Nevertheless the picture above shows the original appearance of the steps and doorway leading to the present Natalie Collett shop, on the northeast corner of Lancaster avenue and North Wayne avenue.

When originally built in the early 1870’s on ground donated by Henry Askin, one of Wayne’s early residents, this building was known as the Lyceum. It was then used for lectures and debates. Later it was called the Wayne Opera House, where many concerts and amateur theatrical performances were held.

When this picture was taken the entire western end of the first floor of the building was occupied by the Wayne Postoffice. In 1914 much of the interior of the old Opera House, including the Postoffice, was burned out in one of Wayne’s most disastrous fires. However, all parts of it were quickly restored. In its present state the Colonial Building, as it is now called, is the result of a complete renovation plan of Main Line Investments Company, Inc., in 1950-51.

Although this postcard picture is not dated, it must have been taken before the fire, probably in the early 1900’s. The man at the left has been identified by several old timers as A.A.H. Canizares, and the man at the right, may be Postmaster Brown.

(Those with old pictures suitable for use in this column are invited to send them to Mrs. T. M. Patterson, Windermere Court.)

In the collection of old picture postcards recently rescued from the cellar of the Wack Drug Store by Dr. Norman A. Wack for this column, the one shown here is undoubtedly the most artistic and perhaps the most interesting.

It is marked ”Golf Links, St. Davids,” and the view shown is one looking from the eastern boundary of what was until recently the Helms estate, on the southeast corner of Lancaster avenue and St. Davids road. Within the past few years the large Helms house has been demolished to make room for the St. Davids Park Apartments, which now occupy all of the Helms property.

At the time this picture was taken the land on either side of Lancaster avenue, now the Main Line Golf Club, was occupied by the St. Davids Golf Club, now on Radnor road north of Wayne. The white stone house to the left in the picture, which probably dates back to the time of the early Welsh settlers, still looks very much as it always has.

On the southern side of the Pike, where it intersects Iven avenue, a war memorial has been erected to the memory of those from Radnor township who died in World War I, and in the middle background, partially hidden by trees, is the site of the new Rowland School and the nearby Wyeth Laboratories.

To the extreme right, in the distance, several Villanova College buildings are just visible.

But to many who will see this old picture, the fondest memories of all will be stirred by its immediate foreground, which marks the foot of the old golf links hill, the best spot for miles around for sledding, as the youth of many generations can well remember!

The above picture shows Poplar avenue as it appeared soon after its first houses were built, a matter of almost 50 years now. The double houses on the right still look about the same, as do the individual homes on the left. At that time the street had not been paved, although good sidewalks had been laid. In the intervening years since the picture was taken, many smaller places have been built beyond the double houses on what was then the property of Dr. George Wells, one of the best-known Wayne physicians of his time.

Many of the homes shown in this picture were Wayne estate houses that date back to the middle eighties. Since the street was built up so solidly even then, and since the houses were so sturdily built, there has been little change from the time the postcard was printed, except that a few houses have been remodeled, the street has been paved, and the trees have greatly increased in size.

(To be Continued)

In regard to the several pictures of the old Radnor School No. 4, on King of Prussia road, which we described recently, the following letter from Marie Good Hunt, Librarian at the Memorial Library, is an interesting follow-up which your columnist greatly appreciates, Mrs. Hunt says:
“We have been interested in your articles on the early schools of Radnor township as we have a close connection with them. My grandmother, Mary Morgan, was the teacher at Morgan’s Corner (Radnor) in 1865. The old building, a one room structure, was a few yards back of the gas station just off Radnor road. The other three schools were at Ithan, the Eagle (Strafford) and one on the ground of the old Baptist Church off Conestoga road, now torn down. Nathan P. Pechin’s oldest sister was one of her students. Grandma had many fond memories of her stay in Radnor, but unfortunately, when she talked of the incidents, we made no notes.”

(To this letter your columnist wishes to add that she would like to do a series of articles on the original old schools of Radnor township. She would welcome all information on the subject and any pictures.)

It would be interesting to know how many of our readers recognize the picture below of one of the unusual sights of Wayne in the early 1900’s. The postcard from which it is taken is marked “Wayne Sanatorium,” and it is one of a collection of old cards, stored for many years in the basement of Wack’s
Pharmacy.

The collection was turned over to your columnist by Dr. Wack when he was asked what had become of the many postcards of local interest which had once been on sale at the Hadley Drug Store, predecessor of the present pharmacy.

The Wayne sanatorium was a cottage colony for tubercular patients, located on part of what is now St. Davids Golf Course, when all of that section was known as the Henry Farm. The three-story house shown in the background of the picture faces Gulph road, and was at that time the home of John Henry.

The sanatorium, which was directed by a woman, may well have been patterned after the famous Trudeau Sanatorium, at Saranac Lake, N.Y., an institution pioneering in the use of “curing cottages” for small groups of tuberculosis patients.

A close study of the picture of the Wayne Sanatorium seems to indicate that its cottages were almost tent-like in construction. Dr. Wack recalls that as an errand boy for the Hadley Drug Store, he often went out to the sanatorium to deliver medicine to the patients. On these trips, which were made on a bicycle with a small basket tied to the handle bars, he often saw the invalids sitting in chairs in front of the tents, basking in the sunlight.

For some reason, or perhaps for many reasons, this venture in “curing cottages” was a short-lived one. Perhaps its owner found that the air was not at all the same as at the Adirondack resort, and certain it is that she met with many objections from those who lived in the neighborhood. And so the tuberculosis colony was closed, with this post card perhaps one of the very few records that it ever existed.

As we sat at the desk in Dr. Wack’s office in the back of his pharmacy and looked over these old views of Wayne, we asked him why he had discontinued the sale of local postcards. It was, he answered, a matter of the cost of making them. Some years ago pictures taken locally could be sent to Germany for reproduction at such a low figure that the cards could be sold at retail for a penny apiece. As the years went by the price rose to five cents, with a consequent dropping off of sales, and, eventually, the disappearance of the postcard rack from its familiar place on the counter. What was left of them was relegated to a box in the basement, where they stayed until their recent rescue.

The address side of this particular postcard is marked “The Rotograph Co., New York City. Printed in Germany.” The majority, however, are marked “C.W. Bensinger. Printed in Germany.” The name “Bensinger” brings back to Wayne’s old timers many memories of the small store, once housed on the premises of the present Wack Pharmacy, which was then located where the M-R Shop now stands. For some years it was run by Mr. and Mrs. Bensinger and their daughter, Helen.

Primarily, Bensinger’s might have been called a stationery store, but its stock of small articles was about as diversified and inclusive as that in the Miller store which many, even comparative newcomers to Wayne, remember when it was located in the present Cobb and Lawless site. On the Bensinger counter one could even find firecrackers in the proper season.

After the Bensingers had vacated the shop, the American Stores had a branch there for a short time. They were followed by Master’s Meat and Grocery Store, which suffered a disastrous fire in the ‘30s. The morning after the fire, Norman Wack bought what was left of the building and remodelled it for rental purposes. It was several years, however, before he moved to his new location.

(To be continued)

Three of the October columns of “Your Town and My Town” were founded on the reminiscences of Ray Yocom of Long Branch, Calif., whose youthful days were spent in the home of his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar S. Dillin at the Old Store in Radnor.

The columns were illustrated by pictures from Mr. Yocom’s scrap book, including both an exterior and interior picture of the store, as well as one of Frank, the horse, and the store’s delivery wagon. And then there was the picture of the second Radnor School No. 4 as it looked in 1896, with its pupils and teacher standing in front of it. With today’s illustration we are using the last of those scrap book pictures which we feel are of general interest.

This picture might well be called “a quiet Sunday afternoon” since young Ray is so obviously dressed as he would be for Sunday school and church. “Frank,” the white horse, is enjoying his day of rest after six days between the shafts of the delivery wagon. On the back of the picture Mr. Yocom bas made a notation that he was about 15 years old when this picture was taken, and that the background shows the rear of the store and the house.

Mr. Dillin, who was proprietor for many years of the store that bore his name, died in 1915. Here he is standing on the loading platform on the side of the Old Store, facing the Lindenwood Hotel, as part of the present Radnor Inn apartments was once known.

In connection with the picture of the old Radnor School, we related the pastimes of youngsters in the 1880’s and 1890’s as given in Mr. Yocom’s notes. We continue today with notes on what these youngsters did as they grew somewhat older.

“We could have fox hunts. The Torpey family had a bunch of foxhounds,” Mr. Yocom writes. “When there was a real fox hunt my Uncle Oscar would close the store for the day… we would get one day a year at Atlantic City, taking the train from Camden, $1.00 round trip. We had everything with us including fried chicken… the only things we had to get there were our bathing suits.

“At home we had clay pigeon shoots and live pigeon shooting matches… ‘Old Maid’ was our game of cards… quite often we could take in a good train wreck on the railroad at Radnor. It would take several days to get these wrecks cleaned up… of course in winter there was sledding and sleighing and skating on Motts Dam… we drank hard cider from cider presses and got almost woozy… we held boxing matches in the field in front of the Dillin Store… we held contests to see who could drink the most water… Dave Casey and Henry Strunkey had a raw egg eating contest… Dave ate 34 and Henry 33. Johnny Gallagher got water-logged from drinking so much water. We had to roll it out of him.

“We would drive Bill Torpey’s milk wagon or the old ‘hack’ at the station… we took J.W. Paul from Radnor to Villanova once, he gave us a tip of two dollars… also we would hire a stage and four horses from Gene Thompson’s livery stable and make trips to Norristown dances, eat and drink beer, and drive home singing some of the old songs like “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie, Meet Me at the Fair,” and “I Wonder If She’s Waiting, the Girl I Left Behind.”

“Well, I guess we had a good time…”

Mrs. Louis Goebel, of Berwyn, telephoned your columnist that she can identify five pupils in the picture of Radnor School No. 4 in addition to those named by Mr. Yocom. These include her brother and herself, Norman and Helen Famous, also Lane Cox, Kate Quigley and Laura Noblett.

One of the many fascinating angles of the work of your columnist is the unexpected help that comes along the way in collecting small bits of information which, when painstakingly put together, form stories of the past about the community in which we live.

In the midst of a quiet Monday evening at home a week or two ago, the telephone rang and the operator announced it was Milford, Pa., calling! The voice at the other end of the line belonged to none other than O. Howard Wolfe, a resident of Radnor for some 65 years before he and his wife moved to Milford.

While Mrs. Wolfe was cleaning out a closet that afternoon, she had found an “old and rare photograph of Radnor School No. 4, as it was about 1886,” to quote Mr. Wolfe himself, and within a day or two the picture arrived by mail, accompanied by a letter supplementing the information given your columnist over the telephone.

This picture is indeed an “old and rare one,” antedating by some 10 years the one sent in by Ray Yocom, of Long Beach, Calif., for use in the October 15 issue of “Your Town and My Town.” Mr. Wolfe dated the photograph about 1886 when he wrote the following: “This letter is by way of a ‘footnote to history’ and in reference to the enclosed clipping from your interesting column of October 15. However, no contradiction need or should be printed, since I am sure very few of the students are still living who attended the little one room school house at Radnor which is (and was) the one shown on the map Paul Thomas sent you. My first year in school was spent in the little school house, which stood just in the rear of the present building back of which Ray Yocom’s photograph was made. I would say its front door was just about at the spot on which the photographer must have stood. It was torn down about 1890, when the present building was erected. Architecturally, it was like most others of the period – a corridor at the entrance, on each side of which was an open closet for the hats and coats, boys’ on one side and girls’ on the other.

“In the center of the single room was a large stove. We boys sat on one side and the girls on the other, usually two children to a single desk. One of the very severe punishments was to make an unruly boy move over to sit at a desk with an older girl. Miss Ellen Buzby, our teacher, was a firm believer in the use of the rod, in this case a heavy blackboard oak ruler.

“My sister Katharine (still living) and myself were the first two students who left the ‘new’ stone school at Radnor to attend the newly-organized high school in Wayne about 1895. It is natural, I suppose, that I remember so clearly the days spent in the old one room school and I could write a whole chapter on that system of teaching which, in spite of its shortcomings, had much to recommend it. Perhaps my memory is the fresher because of more than one administration of Miss Buzby’s ‘correction’.”

According to Mr. Wolfe’s identification, the smiling-faced little boy in the exact middle of the front row is the late Colonel Robert L. Montgomery, prominent Philadelphian who lived at “Ardrossan Farms,” Ithan. On his left is Dave Casey, a retired Pennsylvania Railroad conductor when he died a few years ago. Next to him is W.W. Montgomery, Jr., well known lawyer and older brother of Robert L. Montgomery. On the latter’s Left is Jimmy Geary, who lived at what was once Upton Station, between Radnor and Villanova.

Reading the other way from Bob Montgomery, in the center of the picture on the front row is Charlie Pugh, next to him the late Charlie Fellows and on his right his brother, Walter, who is a physician, living at 2048 North 63d street, in Overbrook, according to Mr. Wolfe. On the extreme left of the second row Mr. Wolfe names the late sheriff of Delaware County, Nathan P. Pechin. On his left are Jerry Casey and Hiram Pugh. Standing at the extreme left of the back row is the late Matt Wolfe, with his brother, Charlie, the second on the left.

“The teacher,” Howard Wolfe writes, “if it is the teacher with the buttons on her dress (back row), I do not recognize. Ellen Buzby should have been the teacher at that time, so I guess ‘Miss Buttons’ might have been one of the seven girl scholars.” On her left is Agnes Neary, whose father operated one of the Martha Brown farms, later St. Davids Golf Club. Fourth from the right, back row, is Lily Schreiber.

“Continuing his identificatlon in a more general way, Mr. Wolfe writes, “There should be a Torpey or two in the picture (another Martha Brown farm family). And I am pretty sure the good looking boy on Charlie Wolfe’s left is Will Hinkle, and the equally good looking lad on the right of Hiram Pugh in the center ought to be Fred Schreiber… and I could guess at one or two others.”

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Wolfe who, on closing his letter, says, “It has been a great pleasure to me to be able to give you some slight help in collecting data of Radnor long ago.” Surely no one is more qualified to do so than the lad who grew up in the Radnor of which he writes, and who later became, not only president of the Radnor Township School Board, but president of the Board of Township Commissioners as well.

The date of the picture shown above is not known, but it was probably made to illustrate a small advertising folder which promised that “this delightful hotel in the beautiful Main Line country adjacent to Philadelphia is a perfect stopping point for permanent suburban residence. It is particularly suited to the tourist interested in Philadelphia and its historical landmarks, to the business man with calls to make in the area, to the family, and to the single person or ‘summer bachelor’ desiring a pleasant temporary or permanent country residence.”

Mrs. Malcolm Sausser, former assistant to Charles Wood, builder of the hostelry, recalls that its register contained many interesting names, among them that of the French consul to Philadelphia and his Belgian wife. Others on the list were a Mrs. Gardiner, who was the daughter of Henry Terry Baird, a prominent Philadelphian of his day, and Bodine Wallace and his mother.

Long-time residents of Wayne who lived at the hotel before buying homes of their own were Mr. and Mrs. A.I. Wood, with their daughter and son, Anne and Nelson, and Mr. and Mrs. John Turner, with their children, Velma and Warren.

Life was lived more formally in the early days of the Waynewood Hotel than it was later, a formality which often demanded evening dress for its guests when they assembled in the great dining room with its enormous bay window to the East. This sunny addition to the room shows very plainly in the picture. The tree to the extreme right is probably the same one that blew down the night of Hurricane Hazel which preceded the opening of Miss Kellogg’s restaurant by just 24 hours.

When Mr. Wood built his hotel the wide porch extended not only across the entire front of the building, but also around the east side as far as the bay window. This section was later enclosed with glass as shown in the picture, and remembering the days when guests enjoyed leisurely hours in rocking chairs on the side porch, Mrs. Sausser feels that the hotel lost some of its charm when the change was made.

The picture shown above was taken by Mrs. Sausser when the porch was still open. The grounds of the Waynewood adjoined those of the Louella, neighboring shops had not been built, and on Louella court and Louella drive there were only trees, many of them dating back to the days of the Indians and the following Welsh settlers. Almost in the center of the background the familiar outlines of the old Louella, originally the home of the Askin family, can be seen.

This picture shows the same view as the preceding one, except that a heavy snow lay on the ground and weighted the branches of the trees. Another picture taken on the same snowy day shows St. Mary’s Church, just across the Pike.

When the once great lawns of the Waynewood and Louella gave way to businesses and homes, much of the beauty of their vistas was lost. One of the largest of the old trees, which grew on the site of Halligan’s store, became in 1922 Wayne’s official Christmas tree and the first community singing, led by Edgar L. Hunt, was held under its branches. Two years ago this December its place was taken by a handsome Douglas fir, planted at the entrance to the Wayne Presbyterian Chapel by Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Newlin in memory of their son, Frank Battles Newlin.

As an interesting postscript to the story, Mrs. Sausser says that she remembers clearly the day she purchased the Brownie camera she used for the pictures. It came from Fronefield’s Drug Store, located on the corner the Sun Ray Company now occupies. Like Leinhardt’s Bakery, the shop was then approached by a flight of stone steps.

Pictures of the same place, taken at periods as much as 50 years apart, are usually shown to point up the changes the years have made. But in this case it is the lack of changes rather than the presence of them that makes for interest in these two pictures.

To at least one person in the well-filled dining room last Saturday, this similarity was almost startling. Malcolm G. Sausser, who took the second picture many years ago, remembers the room when the softly burning candles were used on every table each evening during the greater elegance of living of 50 years ago.

On October 16, when Miss Kellogg opened her new dining room to the public, candles were again a necessity. Twenty-four hours before, the hurricane that swept its way through the Philadelphia area had torn down trees, electric poles and wires in its path, throwing streets, homes and other buildings into total darkness. Miss Kellogg had her opening night without benefit of electric lights or of heat.

In contrast to the darkness of the outside world, the softly lighted interior of the building was a delight.
Many well-wishers among local merchants and townspeople sent flowers in such profusion that every wide window sill in the room, as well as all the tables and sideboards had their generous share. Each table had on it a small round glass vase filled with flowers, with a candle upright in the center of each, and tall candelabra on the sideboard shared in the illumination of the room.

The candles turned back the years to the turn of the century when Charles Wood first bought the large tract of land, on which he later built the Waynewood Hotel.

A musician and an organist by profession, Mr. Wood had been the manager of the old Louella Hotel in the era when many families left the heat of Philadelphia homes for the comparative coolness and comfort of Main Line hotels. After a few seasons of managing the Louella, Mr. Wood bought the large tract of ground directly adjacent to it on the west, and later built his hotel.

Probably no one except its owner was more closely connected with the management of the new hotel than Miss Frances Hughes, now Mrs. Malcolm G. Sausser. With a business initiative uncommon in a young woman of that period she obtained a position that in present day parlance might be called that of a “hostess.” Her duties were many and varied, since Mr. Wood was more musician than hotel manager. She had entire charge of the office and the safe, answered all telephone calls and assigned rooms to guests. In addition, she directed the hotel’s personnel. “Old Jack” was then the chef and there was a large crew of waiters, with whom the young Miss Hughes had at one time to settle a strike.

In addition to his ability as a musician, Mr. Wood possessed a really extraordinarily keen mechanical mind, according to Mrs. Sausser. She recalls with admiration, as well as amusement, some of the mechanical devices by which he took care of the large amount of washing necessary in a hotel. For instance, he utilized the heat from the machinery that ran the elevator to dry the hotel linens once they were washed!

In addition to this picture of the old dining room, Mrs. Sausser has lent your columnist three other pictures, all of them of the grounds of the Waynewood Hotel as it looked in the early 1900’s. These will be used in next week’s column for which Mrs. Patterson would welcome other old pictures and further reminiscences of the hotel.