By Gaylen Duskey
I made a trip to Richardson recently and I forgot how far it was.
Since I am no longer the editor of the Calhoun Chronicle and fighting crime in the big city I find I have some time to do a few things like catching up on my life.
So I asked my wife if we could go to Richardson to see where my grandfather’s house used to be.
Now I knew over the years that arsonists had burned down much of Richardson, but I felt I needed to go there anyhow just to see if what I remembered, I actually remembered.
But I had forgotten how far Richardson was down the road from the Walnut Grove Church. I’d also forgotten how big the church building was. Or maybe it has just been enlarged over the years.
The trip, I guess, was a way to regain some of my younger years and it gave me a chance to tell my wife about what a thriving community Richardson was about a 100 years ago.
It also was a chance to reminisce about going to my grandparents house on holidays such as Easter when my dad would get to come home from his job at Babcock and Wilcox in Barberton, Ohio.
I was a kid and enjoyed fishing for crawdads in the creek running by the house and sometimes getting to see my cousins when my Uncle Jim or Aunt Doll was there. Aunt Doll, at that time lived in what had at one time been a hotel in what I assume was downtown Richardson.
Back then there was still some of the glory days of Richardson left. The old mill was gone as was the store owned by my great-grandparents James and Joanna Duskey. But the old main pump station was still on the hill up from my Aunt Doll’s and there was still a church in the turn at the bottom of the hill between Aunt Doll’s and my grandfather’s house.
But now?
Nothing.
My grandparents were Opal and George Duskey and the lived just past the church on the opposite side of the road and my great uncle French lived in the cellar house behind the house.
My grandmother died of natural causes tied to diabetes I think, and my grandfather was living alone when four young guys stopped by his house and asked for money. When he refused they proceeded to beat him to death with his cane then shoved him on the stove and tried to set the house on fire to make his death look like an accident.
The house did not burn then and the four were arrested. Three were sent to prison and the fourth, who had stayed out in the car, was taken into custody by the military where he had been AWOL and imprisoned my them. Of the other three one died in prison and the other two after getting out tried robbing another old man who was not as trusting as my grandfather and he shot and killed both of them. He was not convicted of a crime.
The house burned down some time after that. The same was true of Aunt Doll’s house as arsonists got it too.
Where my grandfather’s house had been there was now a trailer. Where Aunt Doll’s house had been there was some sort of out building.
It was getting dark while we were there and it was appropriate since my memories were getting dim too.
I guess you can come home but there is no guarantee that home will be the same.
