bryson

Tremont City's oldest living resident celebrated her 90th birthday De c. 19. Born in 1875 in a log cabin one and one-half miles northwest of Tre mont City on Upper Valley Pike she has lived her entire life in Clark Coun ty. The last 65 years have been spent at her home on Blose St. in Tremo nt City. She was the second youngest of nine children born to Ruben (si c) and Nancy Smith Sager. Ada is the last surviving member of the famil y. Her eldest brother, Henry, would now be 108 years old, if still livin g. Besides Henry there were brothers, Winfield, Forest, John and Charle s, followed by sisters Lillian, Viola, then Ada, and Annie. Ada remembe rs trudging through deep snow as the children cut across fields and wooded hills to the old Jones school on Willow Dale Rd., a distan ce of about three and one-half miles by road. Teachers who stand out in h er mind were Hettie Harley of North Hampton, Clifford Baines of New Mooref ield, Charles Kiser of Lawrenceville and Manuel Circle of Lawrencevill e. Floods were a hazard, very often marooning the family for as lo ng as a week when the Upper Valley Pike was flooded. She recalls a gre at wind storm ripping out whole sections of Giant Beech trees from the hil ls behind their home when she was nine or 10 years old. Reuben Sager, Ad a's father died when she was but eight years old, and consequently, the la rge family worked diligently and on their two acres raised enormous quanti ties of produce for canning berries and plums for jellies, and apples whi ch were wonderful when dried. They raised chickens, ducks and geese and h ad such a large flock of turkeys that turkey shoots were popular at the ir home. A contestant paid 10 cents for the chance to compete. Sometim es very large crowds assembled for the sport. The woods were full of squ irrels, raccoons and polecats, and the wood pigeons (passenger pigeons) we re so numerous and tame that they would eat with the poultry. They beca me such a nuisance that her brothers would shoot them by the dozens and th row them away. There were a variety of dangers, not the least an incident when her moth er defended the family from two ruffians with the family revolver. Two sh ots apparently wounded one and discouraged both men, who left hurriedl y. Though toys were rare in those days, Ada still has a set of tiny t oy dishes given to her for a Christmas present. Another momento of her childho od is a hand-whittled rolling pin made for her by a relative, Mr. Baylo r, when she was nine years old. One childhood diversion was watching t he making of bricks in the large kilns which were operated close by, usi ng clay from the surrounding hills. In the winter her brothers took an o ld wagon bed, mounted it on runners and suspending a large bell on a fra me above the front of the improvised giant sled, would careen wildly do wn the Church St. hill in Tremont, with the bell sounding loudly to warn a pproaching traffic on Mulberry St. When William Sager, brother of Reube n, returned from the Civil War, he brought with him the large key to the o ld Libby Prison, where he had been held a prisoner during the war. Mrs. P attison still has the very large shiny key. William Sager later married h is brother's widow, Ada's mother. Family circumstances forced A da to go to work at the tender age of 10. Her mother was locally renown ed for her ability to cure "short growth," a condition in which a child re mained small and generally sickly. Although her treatment was unorthod ox and involved the use of linen thread for measuring and incantations whi ch were secret, still her uncanny success in all of her cases soon convert ed most local skeptics. Ada married John Elmer Pattison in Urbana Fe b. 7, 1892 (sic). Mr. Pattison operated a threshing machine and a sawmil l. Later he became an auto mechanic and repaired watches and clocks in h is home on Blose St. He died in 1948. Ada and John Pattison had four ch ildren - Hazel (Mrs. Vernon Adams of 2151 Old Clifton Rd.), Oscar, now dec eased, Esta, who resides with her mother, and Frieda (Mrs. Charles Zerkle of 1856 Broadway, Springfield.) Ada has fo ur grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchild ren."