Our Horatio Alger House

worked from morning until night on the farm seven days a week '\.vith no time off even for Christmas. After he left home, my father went to Cincinnati where he worked for an insurance company. and a clothing store. He saved money, married my mother, and decided to have a store of his own. He bought a store in Cedarville feeling that the presence of the college there guaranteed an education to any children he might have. Both my parents wanted to get away from their families' life styles and create a new one of their own -- different from the ruthless materialism 'that my father had known, different from the irresponsible alcoholism and gambling that had characterized my maternal grandfather. Although neither had ever been a part of a church -- I suspect my mother had never seen the inside of a church before she left home -- they joined the Cedarville Methodist Church as part of their new life- style endeavors.. My father always said, however, that he could never be a member of the Cedarville Establishment, "You need to be a Presbyterian and a Republican to be really accepted in this town." He was elected to membership on the Cedarville College Board of Trustees, the lone Methodist among all those Presbyterians. Long before the words were invented, he saw himself as "the token Methodist" put on public display to prove that the Presbyterians really did value diversity. By 1925, rumors were rife in Cedarville that Oscar Smith had a "lady friend" -- as an extramarital partner was designated in those days. I never heard the term "mistress" until I was in college. Since I remember hearing the terms of endearment he used to her on the telephone, I suspect that the local telephone operators were the reporters. It was said that he bought her expensive presents and each time, to salve his conscience, he bought an identical item for his wife. Both women wore beautiful fur coats and I believe the "other woman" may even have been driving a Cadillac. Whatever the cause, Oscar Smith was spending more than he could afford. Whether he actually embezzled money from the bank or just gave himself temporary loans that he felt he could pay back in time, I would not know -- nor, I suspect, would anyone else except the directors as it was all kept very quiet. But the missing money could not remain a secret forever and the directors, knowing the bank examiner would soon be coming, proposed a deal to Oscar. "Ifyou will turn over all your assets to the bank -- your farm, your house, your investments -- and leave town, we wiJJ not prosecute you." The directors had no desire to make a spectacle out of one of their own, a pillar of both the church and community. The neighbors said it was 2:00 o'clock in the morning when Oscar and Blanche Smith, their two daughters and much baggage drove off in their Cadillac. Rumor had it that they were headed for Cleveland. So far as I know, none of them was ever seen in Cedarville again. A moving van came later and took their furniture. The house must have seemed a white elephant to the bank directors. Completely out of proportion to most of the other houses on the street, who could or would buy it? My brother tells me he remembers that a doctor in Springfield was interested in the house and hoped to start a practice in Cedarville. He says this is why Dr. Marsh worked so hard to secure the house for us!