Saturday, November 25, 1950 was my day to open Feller’s Garage and Dealership at 10th Street and Blair Avenue in Tyrone. I was a senior in high school. I walked the two blocks from home on 11th Street to the garage, needing to be there at 7 a.m.
It was much colder than last evening and it had rained all night. Ice was everywhere. The electrical wires and phone lines were three times their size and sagging low, as were all the limbs on the trees. Many were cracking and falling onto the streets.
Turning the corner at Bald Eagle Avenue, the roaring of the Bald Eagle branch of the Juniata River rushing under the 11th Street bridge gave me more chills than the 29 degree weather. Approaching the 10th Street bridge, I saw water splashing against the fencing. Walking onto the bridge I saw a build-up of limbs, tires, thick brush, and even a gate ripped from someone’s fence, jammed against the bridge. I felt the bridge vibrating. I was scared.
Unlocking the garage office and starting the routine of opening up, I powered up the pump island and placed the oil rack just as the first customer drove in for gas. We both remarked about the river and agreed that this could get really bad. Little did I know then that he was the first and last customer of the weekend.
Saving the New Cars
Thinking what to do in case it would all flood over, I decided the boss would want me to get the new cars to safety. There were five new cars there — two Packards and one Hudson in the adjoining showroom, and in the bays, two Hudsons, having just arrived from Pittsburgh that Thanksgiving week. All 5 cars were 1951 models.
My helper, Bob, from Grazierville, was due in at eight so I called him to come in right away explaining what was happening. He arrived in five minutes as I was jogging the second car from the showroom. I told him to follow me to Woodland Avenue and shuttle me back and forth in his truck. The water was now spilling over everywhere and the last two cars were treading water all the way down 10th Street.
Leaving the building open and vulnerable, we removed all the cars to high ground and locked them there. Returning down 11th Street I had Bob stop at my home so I could get Daddy’s hip boots out of the fruit cellar. It was then that the horrible sounding fire whistle from the paper mill blew and didn’t stop for 30 minutes.
Arriving back, two customers were moving stuff up the narrow stairs to the second floor above the office. The steam boiler in the basement popped all the furnace doors and dampers open as the water entered the basement. I was forcing my size ten feet into Daddy’s size eight boots when the phone rang — it was Ted Feller, the boss, asking what was going on.
This was when I heard a sound I’ll never forget — the water went over the west barrier of the river and in a matter of two minutes the basement was full, the office, bays, and showroom were thigh deep. My boots were not pulled up all the way yet. The phone rang again and it was the secretary Betty, saying she heard on WTRN there was flooding downtown and asked if she should come in. I told her, “The water is at the top of your desk now.” Dozens of cans of oil, wax and polish were literally sucked out of the office to join the debris rushing down Tenth Street. It was too late to save anything left floating in the office.
Ted arrived in high boots, deeply concerned about his business, but very grateful the new cars were saved. Other employees, Frank, Tom, and Jimmy began arriving also. There was little we could do but wait for the flood to run its course and the firemen to pump out the building so we could begin the clean up. Little did we know then it wasn’t just water that had to be pumped out.
Carrying Glenna Home
I called Mamma and told her the situation and she said there wasn’t any water at our house. Before leaving the garage, I learned from Frank that Aults & Crain was packing boxes of emergency groceries so I waded to the store on west Tenth Street and charged a box to Daddy’s account. I learned later the food was free. The water was knee deep in the store and rising but all the food was saved. I carried it to Betty’s home 6 blocks from the store out Washington Avenue.
There was no flood water beyond Epworth Manor but all of Park Avenue was underwater. I was tempted to remove Daddy’s boots (which by now had to be stretched to a size nine). My feet were blistered and frozen. Now all I needed to do was grit my teeth and wade all the way home — right? Wrong!
Turning the corner at Washington & Tenth, fire trucks were parked at several stores including McCrorys 5 & 10, where Gardner’s Candies is now, plus two adjacent stores. I suddenly remembered my sister Glenna worked there so I waded into the store in thigh-deep water. It was a total mess, the aisles floating with all kinds of merchandise. The clerks, including my sister, were all gathered at the rear of the store with wet clothing and feet waiting for the manager to order the store closed so they could find a way home. My sister was ready to leave but the water was knee deep in the alley behind the store.
I told her I could carry her to dry ground; so I picked her up, waded through behind the post office to 11th Street, across Pennsylvania and Blair Avenues, across the dangerous 11th Street bridge and put her down at Willard Hickes’ home at 11th Street and Bald Eagle Avenue. We then walked the block to our home. There was no flood water east of the raging river. My sister slowly pulled my boots off showing spots of blood on my socks and several colors of the rainbow and some raw meat on my feet. I was done. What a day!
Sunday: The Boiler and the Woolrich
Sunday showed the river returning to its banks but still a serious threat to villages downstream and much of Huntingdon County. Water receded slowly and pumpers from all around Tyrone and towns miles away started pumping building basements, including Feller’s garage. Tenth Street started to drain.
Arriving at the garage about noon Sunday, with two very sore feet, I found Ted there laying money bills from his soaked safe all over the desk with two electric heaters drying them out. He told me not to open the office door to the bays because a 55 gallon drum of used oil had upset in the grease pit and the oil was all over the top of the water. He said in a few hours we would be able to clean the fire box of the boiler to get a fire going and some steam up to heat at least the office, did I want that job? I told him yes, but I needed to go home for warmer clothes.
Just then two others showed up to help. Bob took me home in his truck and loaded a few buckets of coal from our coal bin and some scrap wood while I changed into my brother’s brand new Woolrich hunting outfit. We returned to the garage which seemed much colder inside and I helped in the office until the pumpers sucked out the water and the oil that settled down on top of everything. The floor was very slippery especially the steps to the basement which had no hand railing.
Rigging up a drag light to see inside the firebox, it was clear this would not be a one hour job. To get all the ashes and muck out, I literally crawled inside the boiler — up to my waist, scooping the mess out onto the soaked floor; in and out repeatedly. Finally, I managed to get a small warm fire going with wood and coal from home and babied it into a larger fire. After more than two hours the heat started to register on the steam pressure gauge. Ted and others upstairs yelled down the steps, “Keep it coming!” Can you imagine what my brother’s Woolrich looked like by now? Ted said that he and Frank would fire the boiler all night with wet coal; and for the rest of the week, too.
Unfortunately, when I got home my brother was there. For the second time this weekend I was scared. I thought I created a good head of steam at the garage but the head of steam on my brother’s face when he saw his Woolrich, was in the red zone ready to blow a head gasket — and he did. You see, the next day was the opening day of deer season. I didn’t think this was a good time to complain to him that the pants to his new outfit were too big around my waist!
For the next 20 minutes I thought it was open season on little brothers! It was the first time I know of that my Dad saved my life! This had been a very bad call on my part to borrow the new clothes and I deserved all that I got and more; but all I could think of was getting heat in the garage. The Woolrich outfit ended up at the cleaners and so did I! I felt the outfit was ruined and Puritan Cleaners agreed. It took me almost to the next hunting season to pay for it.
Monday’s Headlines
Monday, school was closed. All 5 new cars were returned to the garage and lined up outside in the showroom driveway. The massive clean-up in the whole business district began. The Villa Restaurant across the street was nearly destroyed.
The Tyrone Herald headlines on Tuesday, November 28, 1950 read: “Business District Hit Hard; Scores Flee Flooded Homes; Damage May Reach Million; Blair Avenue–10th Street Under Water.” One comment from a woman printed in the paper read: “I live in Hillcrest and didn’t know the town was flooded until evening when a group of us were going to a movie at the Wilson theater and were stopped by a police road block on Washington Avenue. They sent us back home.”
And that’s the way it was in Tyrone sixty years ago today, November 25, 1950.
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