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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v04n05)
The History of Broad Ripple: The Scott Family of Old Broad Ripple - part three - by Paul Walker
posted: Mar. 09, 2007

The History of Broad Ripple header

The Scott Family of Old Broad Ripple - part three
by Gladys Scott Coffee

It was a constant struggle to keep our growing family fed and clothed. Every year Dad put in a garden in the lot that came with our house. He had a green thumb and produced beautiful crops of tomatoes, green beans and corn plus a salad garden of lettuce, carrots, radishes, and green onions. All summer long we enjoyed delicious fresh vegetables from his garden. I remember as a kid getting a thick slice of bread slathered with butter and a salt shaker and going out in the tomato patch. I'd find the biggest, ripest tomato and, sitting right down in the middle of the patch, I'd eat my bread and butter and tomato as the juices ran down my chin. Now, that was heaven! When the summer came to a close, Mother spent steamy August days canning the tomatoes and green beans left in the garden.
Every summer we'd drive out to the Eli Lilly farm and pick apples for making pies, jellies, apple butter, and for just eating. They were the best tasting apples in the world. Mother would also buy fruit from the farmers who brought wagon loads of fruit and watermelon. They would go up and down the alleys of our neighborhood, calling out their wares as they passed.
The church was a big part of both our spiritual and social life. Soon after Mother and Dad moved to Broad Ripple they joined the Broad Ripple Christian Church. Dad became a deacon and then later an elder of the church. Mother worked with the women's group organizing and contributing to church suppers and fish fries. We kids started church attendance when we were just babies, and all our growing up years we were expected to go to Sunday School, no excuses accepted. When we got older we belonged to the Youth Group and took part in all of their activities.
The only time I really got in bad trouble was when Wally and I decided to hang on to our nickel that was supposed to go in the Sunday School collection box. As soon as Sunday School was over we hightailed it to Lobraico's Pharmacy and we each bought a candy bar with our nickel. Of course, someone ratted on us and we both got a whipping. Believe me, we never did that again.
Evelyn continued to serve the church as an adult. She sang in the choir and played the violin in the church orchestra right up to the day she died in 2004 at the age of eighty-seven. Wally and Jack are also faithful church goers. Wally is an elder in the church, which is now called the 91st Street Christian Church. Jack and his wife, Janet, serve in another Christian Church.
In the early 1930's, just as our lives were getting a little better, the Great Depression hit. We were better off than some families because Dad kept his job with AT&T. He had to take pay cuts, but he brought a pay check home every week. Even with that we had to live very frugally. Neighbors helped each other by passing out-grown clothing on to other families. We had no new clothes for several years.
But we kids didn't care about new clothes. We were having too much fun. We enjoyed a great deal of freedom. The whole neighborhood was our playground and there were a lot of other kids to play with. We played games we knew and when we got tired of them we made up new ones. We made our own toys too--out of anything we could scrounge around and find. I remember my brothers made nifty scooters out of old pieces of wood and the wheels off of skates or broken tricycles. They really flew! When we got old enough most of us had a paper route so we could earn a little spending money. Part of that money we used to pay our way into the Saturday morning movie at what we kids called "The Broken Seat Theater". (I don't remember what it was really named.) There, we would see an exciting western movie about cowboys and Indians or the sheriff and the bad guys, plus a cartoon and an installment of a serial that always left us hanging on the edge of our seats. When the boys were big enough to carry a golf bag, they also earned money caddying at the Country Club.
The End - part three



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