The Bayer and DeLong Lines
Nancy Bayer Wilt’s great-great-grandfather, George Michael Bayer, was born January 11, 1778 in Schwabach, Bavaria, Germany. He was a shoemaker. At age eighteen, he left Germany and arrived in Baltimore on August 19, 1796. He bought a farm in Washington County, Maryland and married Susannah Keagy in 1802. They had eleven children. John Bayer was born September 25, 1807; he was married twice — the second marriage was to Mary Ann Miller, which produced eight children. John’s son, Joseph Miller Bayer, was born October 21, 1851 in Maryland and married Cornelia Josephine Koontz in May 1875, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1855. They lived in Baltimore and had seven children, one of whom was Nancy’s father, John William Bayer, born on June 10, 1887.
Joseph and his family moved to Huntingdon, where they had relatives who were in the retail business. In 1906, they moved to Tyrone, where Joseph became a partner in the Gillam Company, dealers in wholesale groceries in Tyrone, and the name was changed to Bayer Gillam Company. The company was part of the Mid-Penn Division of the Clover Farm chain of groceries. Joseph died in 1911 and Cornelia in 1923. Later, a son, Roy, became president, and Roy’s sons joined the firm, which upon Roy’s death, became Bayer Brothers.
John William Bayer had married Leah Cochrane while living in Maryland, but they, too, moved to the Tyrone area. After Leah died, John married Marjorie DeLong in September 1927 in Tyrone.
Marjorie was born September 8, 1889 and was raised in Burlington, Ontario, Canada until the family moved to Philipsburg about 1908. In 1909, the family moved to Tyrone. Marjorie’s father was William Adolphus DeLong, born in Burlington, Ontario on June 3, 1863 and died in Tyrone on November 20, 1933. He married Anna Elizabeth Thompson on November 12, 1890 in Colorado. They had seven children.
John and Marjorie had five children — all born in the Altoona Hospital. Nancy was born August 1, 1928, Elizabeth Ann (‘Lou’) in 1929, Marjorie (Marge) in 1930, Mary Jane in 1933, and Joseph (Joe) in 1935. John died in 1963 in Tyrone.
The Tyrone Steam Laundry
In the summer of 1928, John bought the Tyrone Steam Laundry (later known as the Tyrone Laundry), which he operated until he sold it in 1951. He was not only the owner but also was the manager. The laundry was located next to the Bald Eagle Creek, where the Tyrone Apartments are now located on 12th St. The motto of the laundry was “We wash anything.” It did finished laundry in which everything was washed, rough-dried, folded, and, if needed, ironed.
The whistle at the laundry was blown at 8 AM, 12 noon, and 5 o’clock. The whistle had come from a Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive. Henry ‘Hen’ Bonsell, a retired PRR engineman, who lived a block away, loved to hear the blast of the whistle, so he lent it to the laundry company.
The laundry had three routes: Tyrone, Huntingdon, and State College. In State College, one of the main businesses for which they did laundry was the Nittany Lion Inn. They also did laundry for hotels along the routes. The three drivers were Harry Cowher, Melvin ‘Meb’ Cowher, and Oris Hoffman.
As each truckload of laundry was brought in by the driver, it was sorted and labeled — either by printing the customer’s code on the item or tagging the piece. All the machines in the laundry were run by steam. Long belts connected them to the power source. There were the washing machines; the extractor, which removed the water; and the tumbler, which dried the clothes. Hazel Barrett and Caroline Kerchner worked in the office.
All the family siblings worked at the laundry during their high school years. Marge helped check in the laundry items, and Lou and Marge worked on the large sheet mangle; Nancy worked on the mangle as well. A mangle is a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers. It was operated by two workers for ironing sheets, and then the sheets were folded by two other workers. There was a smaller mangle for doing two handkerchiefs at a time. Socks were dried on sock forms. Other items were ironed by hand. Then each customer’s laundry was wrapped in paper or put in bags and placed in bins for the delivery truck drivers to pick up.
It was a hot job. During the summer, work began at 7 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m. with an hour for lunch. For the rest of the year, the operating hours were from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Laundry items usually were picked up on Monday and returned by Wednesday.
The 1936 Flood
During the 1936 flood, John and John Jr. worked to move as much equipment and supplies as they could to higher places in the laundry building and were the last persons to cross the 12th St. bridge before it was destroyed by the violent flood waters. Nancy was attending 2nd grade at Logan School during the flooding. Her teacher was Miss Lois Wolfe, who later became Mrs. Lois Miller. It had been raining, and pupils were dismissed according to where they lived. The first to be dismissed were those who lived on Bald Eagle and Blair Avenues. As the Bayer family lived across the street from the Logan School on Logan Ave., Nancy was among the last to be sent home. She remembers seeing the water come down 14th St. like a river. Water in the cellar caused their furnace to go out, so the family stayed with the next door neighbors, whose furnace didn’t flood.
There were two other laundries in town: the F&F Cleaning & Dye Works, which was on 10th St., and the Yee Laundry, first located on Pennsylvania Ave. and later on 12th St. Jean Yee went to school with Marge. The Yee family moved to California in the early 1960s.
Growing Up in Tyrone
John and Marjorie lived on Logan Ave. — at first, across from the Logan School and later, at a house two blocks farther down the street and finally, the house in which Nancy now lives, next door to the Ace Hardware Store. Summers were spent at the family cottage in Upper Bald Eagle during the 1930s and ’40s. Joe and his wife, Norma, live there now.
The teenagers also came into town to go swimming at the Athletic Park’s swimming pool. First they came back to the house on Logan Ave. and then walked to the Athletic Park, with one person riding on a bicycle and another riding it back to the house. Bland’s Park, which had a roller-skating rink, was a favorite during the 1940s.
Nancy said she read a lot and borrowed books from the YMCA library or bought books from Gable’s Department Store, in Altoona. Mrs. Kienzle, who sold baby clothes in her store on Pennsylvania Ave., also had a small lending library that Nancy often visited. As a teenager, Nancy frequented Artie’s Restaurant, on E. 10th St., and Paul’s, on W. 10th St., which had a soda fountain. Both places were popular hangouts for the kids.
She also went to the El Patio and Wilson Theatres to watch movies on Fridays and Saturdays. The El Patio always had a movie program consisting of double features. Admission prices started out at 10 cents, then went up to 12 cents, then to 15 cents, and finally to 17 cents. On Saturdays, the Wilson Theatre had giveaways of toys and all sorts of things.
In winter, they went to Brewery Hill, where large groups of people sledded down the hill. In high-school football season, bonfires were built on the empty lot by the Tyrone Laundry. Nancy recalls that, in 1940, after the Tyrone team tied Shenandoah High School, 0-0, in a “state championship” game, there was a parade from 14th St. to the Athletic Park, where they had a huge bonfire.
Nancy was vaccinated for entering school by Dr. Nason, whose office was on the corner of Logan Ave. and 10th St. (where Radio Shack is now). At that time, the family doctor was general practitioner Dr. Charles Daugherty, whose office was in the house at the corner of Logan and 11th St. Dr. Daugherty had a small operating room, where he removed her tonsils in the 1930s!
College and Marriage
While in high school, Nancy sang in the chorus and in her senior year, joined the Gamma Tri High Y Sorority. In 1946, she graduated in the honors group from Tyrone High School.
Nancy was accepted by the Altoona Undergraduate Center, which at that time was part of Pennsylvania State College, and attended there for two years. This was the fall of 1946, when the members of the armed forces were returning from World War II and attending college under the GI Bill. There were about 400 men and 25 women students in two buildings that were across from each other over by the railroad tracks in downtown Altoona. In her third year at Penn State, Nancy transferred to the Main Campus at University Park. She majored in science and earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 1951 (before Penn State became a university). She participated in what was to be the first outdoor graduation ceremonies ever held there. Milton Eisenhower was president of the college, and the speaker for the graduation was General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Milton’s brother).
She first met her future husband, Bradley Wilt, in 7th grade and knew him through high school, but their first date was not until New Year’s Eve, 1951. Bradley’s mother was Hazel Wilt O’Rourke. Hazel and Brad lived with Hazel’s parents, George and Bessie Fisher Wilt, on Oak St., and they attended Columbia Avenue Methodist Church. George worked as a trainman and was a councilman for Tyrone Borough in the 1940s. Bessie was a midwife in East Tyrone and delivered more than thirty-five babies, including a set of twins. Bradley was a member of the Boy Scouts and earned his Eagle Scout rank in Troop 20. His love of photography began with a photography merit badge that he earned from scout leader Harold ‘Moose’ Beringer. He worked as a paperboy for East Tyrone and then worked at Harry Gardner’s Clothing Store. Later, Brad worked at Clarence Batcheler’s Gulf gas station before entering the Army.
Nancy and Brad were married on Friday, June 8, 1951 at the First Presbyterian Church, in Tyrone. Nancy graduated from college on the Monday after they were married! That evening, after graduation, they traveled by bus to Mexico City, where Bradley attended Mexico City College (now the University of the Americas). Nancy and Brad had to return to the U.S. in August 1951 due to the altitude sickness that afflicted Bradley.
Penn State and Family
After the couple returned to Tyrone, Bradley started work at the Crystal Structure Laboratory at Penn State. The lab had a large computer, Exrac, which was similar to the Eniac and Univac computers. The computer filled a room the size of a house. It was used to calculate crystal structures. Brad and two others, Robert Ebling and Malcolm Eckley, photographed the results, which were shown on a screen. The computer used so much electricity it wasn’t turned on until 6:45 a.m. so that the power drain would not cause a blackout in that part of the campus!
Brad had served in postwar Germany at the 375 Army Hospital, in Weisbaden. He was an operating-room technician. Since few Leica cameras were made at that time, the post exchange would hold monthly drawings for them. Luckily, he won one, and through the ensuing years, took pictures and developed them himself.
Their son, David Bradley, was born in 1952 at Mercy Hospital, Altoona. In 1953, Brad reenlisted in the Army. He served at Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky, where he worked in the hospital’s operating room. He was transferred to Camp Pickett, Virginia and later to Ft. Meade, Maryland. Daughter Marta Louise was born in 1955 while Brad was stationed in Maryland. After he was discharged, the family moved back to Tyrone. Julia Catherine was born on Mother’s Day, 1959, in Altoona Hospital.
Brad went back to work at Penn State in the Materials Research Lab as Dr. Rustum Roy’s administrative assistant and photographer. He worked for Penn State for thirty-five years. Bradley passed away in February 1987.
During the years while the children were growing up, the family vacations consisted of traveling and camping through Canada and the eastern U.S. seaboard.
Girl Scouts and Community
Nancy was a Girl Scout for about three years at the junior level. Vesta Fasick was her leader. In turn, she became a Girl Scout leader when daughter Marta became a Brownie. Dot McKee was Marta’s leader. As a Scout leader, Nancy had several troops of Juniors and Cadettes. She worked at the summer day camps at Camp Anderson and also as camp director at Camp Anderson and at Camp Barree.
The Tyrone Area Girl Scout Council existed from 1918 until 1962, when the council changed its affiliation to the Hemlock Girl Scout Council. Tyrone was associated with Philipsburg, Clearfield, Huntingdon, and State College for camping and councilwide projects. Then in 1982, the Tyrone group switched to the Talus Rock Girl Scout Council, with which it is affiliated at present.
Nancy has served on the Tyrone-Snyder Public Library’s board of directors for twenty-four years, beginning in 1969. She was a member of deacons at the First Presbyterian Church as well as a Sunday-school teacher, and is currently a member of Presbyterian Women. She also serves as recording secretary for the Tyrone Area Historical Society.
Nancy has been active with daughter Julia in the Special Olympics, beginning in 1974 with track and swimming. Julie being picked in 2000 to compete at the 2001 World Special Olympics in Raleigh, N.C., representing Pennsylvania on the bowling team and subsequently winning a gold medal, was a highlight for Julie and the family.
Nancy’s hobbies are artistic. She weaves, knits, and uses a spinning wheel. She is a collector of teapots, books, any kind of sheep objects, and knitting items.
Hen Bonsell and His Train Whistle
When Henry ‘Hen’ Bonsell, of Tyrone, well-known PRR Honor Roll man, retired from the engine cab in 1925, after exemplary service of forty-nine years, he was so attached to his locomotive that he just couldn’t leave the works without having a memento. So, with the permission of the master mechanic, George Van Brunt, he was given the whistle that had been on locomotives he had run for more than twenty-five years.
The idea of seeing and not hearing the old faithful soon got on Hen’s nerves. So he conceived the happy idea of lending it to the Tyrone Laundry Company — the company being located but a block from his home. Then, his ears were greeted three times daily — except Sunday — with the music of the blast of the whistle so dear to his heart. Hen’s name and engine No. 445 were engraved on the whistle.
Share your memories