| Notes |
- George and Ruth married on December 28, 1936. After their honeymoon trip to Gettysburg and Washington D. C. they moved in with George's parents on the farm. Ruth taught 3rd grade at Porter Township Consolidated until the end of the school year.
George got a job with Penn Power out of Clarion so they moved to a rental house near Limestone they called "the Eaker House". Mary Jane was born at home on 2/21/38. They moved to "the Deitz house" in 1939 to get even closer to Clarion for George's job. George bought some chickens so Ruth would "get out of the house." When World War II started copper was in demand for the war so there was not enough available to make electric lines. George heard from a friend that General Electric in Erie was hiring so he went there to work while he rented a room from a family. He was really lonely and when it was time for the corn harvest he quit his job and came home to help on the family farm.
In 1942 George went to Greenville with his electric lineman tools to get a job building the new "Army Camp" at Reynolds. He stayed at a local farm until his brother-in-law, Bob Blair came to get a job as a carpenter and then his other brother-in-law, Jay Myers came to get a job as a carpenter. All three then roomed with the Morrison family on Rt. 18. When the "Army Camp" was finished Bob Blair joined the service and George went to work at Butler at the Power Station for 4-6 weeks. While in Butler George stayed with his cousin Geraldine. A Major Ponder from Reynolds Army Camp called George to come back to the Camp to work maintenance.
In May 1943 George rented the upstairs of a house from Elma Reichard near Fredonia and then moved Mary Jane and Ruth to be with him.
In April 1944 they purchased their store from the Winters family. It had previously been a small ice cream plant and ice cream parlor. During this time George was still working at the Reynolds Army Camp on the 4 - 11p.m. shift so Ruth and Mary Jane ran the store while he was at work.
George was drafted in May or June of 1945 at age 29 (the cut off age was 30). He was sent to Camp Hill, Pa. and then sent to Camp Clayborn, Louisiana for basics. While he was at Camp Clayborn he had a tooth pulled, his jaw came out of joint as had happened in the past. This time his muscles were stretched enough even a large yawn would unhinge his jaw so he was given a medical discharge and sent home in August of 1945. He was hired back on the maintenance crew at Camp Reynold until Camp Reynolds was dismantled in 1945. From the close out sale at Camp Reynolds he purchased the Oak butcher block and a large table for the meat room at the store, wool blankets, large electric grill and metal bed frames.
Over the years improvements were made to the store: They dug a basement for a furnace in 1945, put rental meat lockers in the old ice cream hardening room in 1946, black topped the area around the store in 1949 and finished the upstairs in 1950. For a short while after the war Harry Zuschlagh installed his barber chair at one end of the store.
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