Willis L. Walthour

  General Notes:

In conjunction with the Family Values theme at church, one of the stories Willis Walthour relayed at our worship service on October 14, 2001, went back to the year 1921, when he was 12 years old. Every Sunday morning, he and his brothers and sisters would get up at 5:00 AM and head for the barn to milk the cows. Pulling on the cow's udder and getting the milk into the pails took a great deal of patience and perseverance. Once the milking was finished, they took the milk to the people who delivered the milk to the homes each day. Once the milking was finished, it was time for breakfast --- coffee soup. This coffee soup was a staple for the first 20 plus years of his life. Once breakfast was done on Sunday, it was time to go to church, which was 2-1/2 miles from their home - St. John's Reformed Church at Harrolds. During the winter months when the snow was the deepest, the children would line up to walk the path and follow the fence across the fields, taking a short cut to church. After church was over, they returned home for dinner. His Mother always made a full course dinner from their canned fruits and vegetables that she had preserved earlier in the season. She also made a cooked ham dinner almost every Sunday. After dinner, it was time to wash the milk bottles for the milk carrier. And later in the afternoon, it was again time to milk the cows. Willis always wondered why the cows had to give milk twice a day when once was enough.
Willis then compared the Sundays of the present time - where sports activities for the children seem to take precedence over attending church. Of course, there are Malls to go to, movies to see, and whatever else you wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon. How times had changed for this small town farm boy!
Willis was a school teacher and principal at the St. Clair Elementary School just outside of South Greensburg. He graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and his teaching career spanned a total of 44 years. He retired in 1974.

Willis married Juliette Peterson, daughter of Leroy Jerry Peterson and Margaret Susanne Keller.