McCrea, Paul and Mary

Posted By: Bruce McCrea
Date: 3 February 2003

PAUL MARTIN MCCREA AND MARY ELIZABETH (ARNOLD) MCCREA

Paul Martin McCrea was born on October 18, 1914, at the home of his parents, Mansel and Grace McCrea, in Wayne Township, Darke County, Ohio. He was their first child, born about 4½ years after they were married. He grew up on their family farm, which was located in Darke County, partly in Wayne Township and partly in Adams Township, near the town of Webster. His grandparents, Lewis and Ora Belle McCrea and John and Elizabeth Martin, lived nearby. Paul's younger sister, Ruth, was born August 19, 1923, when he was almost 9 years old. The McCreas were active members of the Webster Methodist Church.

Mansel and Grace McCrea rented their farm from Mansel's aunt and uncle, Henry and Sarah Boyer. Sarah was the older sister of Mansel's mother. Henry Boyer died in 1924 and Sarah Boyer died in 1929. Henry and Sarah had no children, so, in her will, Sarah left the farm to be divided between Mansel and his brother Kennard. Mansel had previously purchased 80 acres of farmland, and he later traded those 80 acres to Kennard for Kennard's half of the inheritance.

The farm, like most rural homes of the time, had no electricity or running water. Electricity came to the farm in the mid-1930s, while Paul was in college. The pump and the outhouse were not replaced by indoor plumbing until Mansel and Grace built a new house in 1953.

They grew corn, oats, tobacco, and wheat on the farm, and raised chickens, cows, and hogs. They had small chicken coops with slanted tops where hens would sit on their eggs. They also had a large chicken house where they would collect the eggs to sell. They had about 6 cows, along with a bull. They milked the cows by hand and separated the milk. The skim milk would be fed to the hogs and the cream would be taken every Saturday to the nearby town of Versailles to be sold. They had no refrigeration, so the cream would be kept in a cool place in the cellar under the summer kitchen until it was taken into town. It was not until later that they added an icebox and bought ice. They kept several sows and a boar and raised pigs until the pigs were about 175 to 200 pounds. At that point they would sell most of the pigs. They would butcher a few each year for their own use. About 1925 or 1926, the milkman started coming to their home and collecting whole milk in large milk cans. Those cans were kept in the cellar until the milkman arrived. Soon after that, they sold their last hog.

They did not raise sheep in Paul's early years, but added them in the mid-1920s. Paul can remember a time when he was in the 7th or 8th grade when a pack of stray dogs had gotten into the sheep and killed some of the sheep. He and a friend, Paul Trittschuh, stayed up all night with their shotguns waiting for the dogs to return so they could shoot them.

In Paul's early years, farming was done using horses. Mansel usually had four horses. The family purchased their first tractor, a Fordson, in 1925 or 1926. It was very hard to start. Paul remembers that many times in the winter they would use a long pipe, and he, his father, and their hired hand, would all pull to try to turn the crank. They kept at least two horses for several years after they had a tractor. Paul enjoyed riding the horses. They usually had a hired hand at the farm, who would live in Webster and walk out to the farm in the morning and back home in the evening. In later years, the hired hand stayed at the farm.

For his first 8 years of school, Paul attended Wayne Township School #7 at Webster. This was a three-room school, with grades 1 through 4 in one room, grades 5 through 8 in the second room, and the third room used for play and storage. In good weather, he would walk to school or ride his bicycle. In bad weather, his father would take him to and from school. Even after they purchased their first Ford automobile, his father would often use the horse and buggy in the winter, in weather that was too bad for the car. In the 7th and 8th grades, Paul would walk back and forth from school through the woods and set a string of traps for rabbits, raccoons, and skunks. The rabbits, they would eat. The skunks he could sell in town for $2 or $3 each for their hide. He could get more for a raccoon, but caught very few of them. He remembers one time that the teacher complained that he smelled like a skunk.

In the eighth grade, they had an inexperienced teacher, just out of college. Four of the seven students in the eighth grade class failed. Paul was one of the three who passed. After completing the eighth grade, he wanted to go to Versailles High School, in Wayne Township, with his friends. Because part of the farm was in Adams Township, there was also the option for him to attend Gettysburg High School, in Adams Township. This was a consolidated school district and had school buses. Because of the opportunity to use the school buses, his parents decided he should attend Gettysburg High School.

Paul started playing the cornet in his first year at Gettysburg High School. That year, they had an orchestra. The next year, a man named Hopkins organized a band with 25 to 30 members. Paul had given very little thought to attending college until the superintendent of the Gettysburg schools, Mr. Sandoe, took him and two other Gettysburg High School seniors to visit Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and encouraged them to go to school there. All three of them attended Miami. Paul's father wanted him to stay at home and work on the farm, but his mother strongly encouraged him to go to college. Tuition at Miami was $40 a semester when he enrolled there in the fall of 1932.

At Miami, Paul majored in education. His major field was physical science (chemistry and physics), with minors in math and music. After student teaching in chemistry, he decided that he did not want to continue in that field. While at Miami, he played his cornet in the marching band, the concert band, and the orchestra. He remembers being amazed at what the orchestra sounded like the first time he played with them. He also played in the Campus Owls dance band in his junior and senior years. They played at Heck's Coffee Shop on High Street one hour a day Monday through Friday and two hours in Sunday for which they received two plate lunches each day. On weekends, they performed at fraternity dances or other dances on campus or out-of-town dances in Dayton, Springfield, or Cincinnati. For those jobs, they were paid from $1 to $6 each. Over 50 years later, he wrote "One of the best memories is when the Owls played as the intermission band for the Duke Ellington Band at the Senior Prom. A less pleasant recollection is of the ride back to Oxford after playing a dance job in Connersville, Indiana, on a bus with a non-functioning heater in sub-zero weather."

After graduating from Miami in 1936, Paul accepted a job teaching math and band at Forest, Ohio, near Lima. Later that summer, he received an offer to teach music at Monroe Township School in Pitsburg, Darke County, Ohio, near his home, and took that job instead. For the next six years, he taught both vocal and instrumental music at all grade levels, first through twelfth, at Monroe Township School. He led the orchestra and girls and boys glee clubs, directed elementary school and high school operettas each year, and organized and directed the first school band.

Mary Elizabeth Arnold was born June 5, 1914, in Dayton, Ohio, the second child of Orrie and Bessie Arnold. Her older brother, Win, was two years older than she was. Her father was a preacher in the United Brethren Church and was pastor of High Street Church in Dayton at the time of her birth. He had begun his ministry in the Darke County, Ohio, circuit of Abbottsville, Ithaca, and Savona, and met his future wife, Bessie Viets, in the Savona congregation. Mary's grandparents, A. L. W. S. and Rebecca Arnold and Orville and Harriet Viets, were residents of Darke County.

In the fall of 1914, Orrie was reassigned to Miami Chapel Church in Dayton. Mary spent her first five years living in the parsonage there. Two younger brothers were born while the family lived there, Dick in 1917 and Jim in 1918. In the fall of 1919, Orrie was assigned to the Hamilton, Ohio, United Brethren Church. The family spent five years in Hamilton, and Mary attended the first four grades of school there. Two more children were born to the family in Hamilton, Louise in 1921 and Paul in 1923. In the fall of 1924, Orrie was assigned to the Greenville United Brethren Church. He would spend twelve years there. The youngest Arnold child, Regina, was born there in 1927. Mary completed grades five through twelve in Greenville and graduated from Greenville High School in 1932. In the next two years, she completed some post-graduate classes at Greenville High School and some Miami University extension classes. At that time, someone with two years of college training could be certified as an elementary school teacher. Mary completed that training by taking classes on the Miami University campus in Oxford one summer and one academic year. She did her practice teaching in Hamilton and received her Miami University degree in the summer of 1935. She began her first teaching position that fall, teaching first grade at Gettysburg School in Darke County. During the 1935-36 school year, she lived with her parents in Greenville and commuted to Gettysburg. In the fall of 1936, Orrie Arnold was assigned to the Germantown, Ohio, United Brethren Church, and her family moved to the parsonage there, so Mary boarded in Gettysburg during the 1936-37 school year.

Mary Arnold and Paul McCrea met during the 1936-37 school year. Paul was in his first year teaching at Monroe and living with his parents. Mary was in her second year teaching at Gettysburg and was boarding in Gettysburg. That winter, Paul attended a basketball game at Gettysburg High School, the school he had graduated from, and he and Mary were introduced. They then began dating.

The dating became more long distance in the fall of 1937 when Mary accepted a position teaching first grade in the Middletown, Ohio, schools. She moved into the parsonage in Germantown with her parents, brothers, and sisters, and commuted to Middletown. She was only able to teach at Middletown for a few months, as she became sick with tuberculosis in the fall of 1937. She was hospitalized. One method of treatment that was used was to collapse one lung to let it rest and heal. She spent about a year recovering. Paul was attending classes at Miami on Saturdays so he could get enough credits to have a major in music education added to his certificate, and he would stop in Germantown to visit Mary while she was sick.

Paul McCrea and Mary Arnold were married by her father at the Germantown, Ohio, United Brethren Church, on August 26, 1939. For the first three years Paul taught at Monroe, he had lived at his parents' home and commuted to school. After Paul and Mary were married, they rented a house at 102 S. High Street in Arcanum, Ohio, for $18 a month plus electricity and coal. They lived there the first three years of their marriage, until the summer of 1942.

That year, Paul decided to move to a different school. He accepted a job teaching instrumental music at the Bradford, Ohio, public schools, but then was offered a job teaching music in the Dayton, Ohio, public schools and accepted that job. Paul and Mary moved to Dayton in the summer of 1942 and leased a home at 132 Niagara Avenue. Paul taught school until Thanksgiving and then enlisted in the Army. He served in the Army from December 7, 1942, to February 6, 1946, as a member of the 228th Army Ground Force Band stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The band played for trainees and official army functions and made a tour with an infantry unit to help promote the sale of war bonds. The director of this band was Robert Hance, who Paul knew from their time together in the Greenville Band. Paul would later spend many years playing in the Piqua Civic Band under the direction of Bob Hance. At first, while Paul was stationed at Fort Knox, Mary remained in Dayton and worked at Inland. In March, 1942, she joined Paul in Louisville, and worked at Reynolds and Reynolds there. Their first child, Bruce, was born in Louisville while they were living there, on July 31, 1944.

Paul and Mary had sublet their home, including all their furniture, during the war, so they returned to 132 Niagara Avenue after Paul was discharged from the army in February, 1946. Paul taught vocal music the rest of that school year. Their second child, Marcia, was born in Dayton on April 20, 1946. In the fall of 1946, Paul was assigned to teach instrumental music at five elementary schools, two half days each week at each school. That fall, he also became a member of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Paul Blagg, who had given Paul trumpet lessens while he was in high school, was very helpful in getting him that position. Paul was a member of the Dayton Philharmonic until 1968. Over the years, Paul has also performed in many other bands and orchestras, playing for operas, ballets, ice shows, circuses, dances, musical shows and concerts.

Also in 1946, Paul began giving private instrumental music lessons at Helwagen's (later Roetter's) Music Store in downtown Dayton and began to work on his Masters degree at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, which he completed in 1949.

It was in 1946, soon after they returned to Dayton, that Paul, Mary, and their family began attending Fairview Evangelical United Brethren Church and Paul and Mary became members of the Homebuilders Sunday School Class. They were active in the church, now Fairview United Methodist Church, and in the Homebuilders Sunday School Class for more than 50 years. In 1952, they became charter members of the Alpha discussion group that was organized by the church. Mary was a Sunday school teacher at Fairview Church during the years her children were growing up.

In 1947, Paul and Mary decided that four people sharing the same bedroom was too crowded, so they decide to buy a house. They discovered that Mr. Royer, a Dayton school administrator, who had been Paul's first school superintendent at Monroe, had a house for sale that fit their needs, so they purchased that house, at 2142 Auburn Avenue, in Dayton. The family moved into their new home the same day, January 30, 1948, that Keith, their third child, was born.

Paul taught elementary school instrumental music in the Dayton school system for more than 37 years. In the early years, he taught at five different schools. He would spend one morning and one afternoon each week at each school and stop at home for lunch as he traveled from one school to another. Later, he was given an extra half day at some of the schools and the number of schools was reduced. Paul was offered positions as high school band director but preferred to teach at the elementary school level. For a number of years, he organized and directed the All-City Honors Band, which had more than 100 members. He also organized and led summer bands at Belle Haven School. In Paul's last year of school teaching, he was at Belle Haven Elementary School and Fairview Middle School. He retired from school teaching in 1983.

In the spring of 1959, Paul and Mary discovered a lot for sale at the end of Mayfair Road, with a tremendous view of the city of Dayton. They purchased that land and build their dream house there. They worked very closely with the architect in designing a house that fit their needs. Construction on the house began in September of 1959, and they moved into their new home in August of 1960. They enjoyed that home for 35 years until September of 1995, when they moved into an apartment in Friendship Village, northwest of Dayton. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 1999. Mary died at Friendship Village peacefully in her sleep on April 3, 2001. Paul was a steadfast companion to Mary during her final years. After her death, Paul continued to attend Fairview Church, to give private instrumental music lessons at Hauer Music Store, and to play his trumpet in the Hauer Swing Band and the Piqua Civic Band until his death at Friendship Village on January 24, 2003, less than two weeks after he gave his last private music lesson.

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