Octorara townlively.com
APRIL 3, 2024
SERVING THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES SINCE 1954
VOL XXXIV • NO 5
Local author publishes book of Pony and horse races to Brandywine Hills history, visits WFCS students highlight Point To Point
BY FRANCINE FULTON
BY FRANCINE FULTON
“Days Gone By” is the newest book by author Iris Gray Dowling.
white and color. “In the back of the book I have a picture of my grandmother’s quilt that she made 1890. I framed it and have it here in my house,” noted Dowling. “In the beginning of book, the first page after the introduction, I have a picture of my grandmother’s old platform rocking chair. I watched her sit in the chair and read the Bible. At the bottom of the page is the dining table where we spend Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners. I wrote in the book, ‘If these pieces of household furniture could talk, what an interesting story they may tell.’” Dowling also shares stories about living on the family farm. “We had a real country life. I raised the chickens,” she said. “We had two cows, and my brothers and I would milk them and then we walked to Cream to get the school
bus and that was a mile away. We made butter with the churn by hand and sold the butter. Lots of people loved to get the homemade butter.” Dowling also recalled being a member of a 4-H sewing club. “My dress won first place and was displayed in West Chester. From where I lived in those days, West Chester was a long ways off,” she shared. “It was a great thing to have your dress displayed in a store window, and it was a there for three months.” Dowling has written more than 15 books, including “History of Churches and Worship Groups in the Oxford Area” and “Mission Stories,” which details true stories from people in the Upper Oxford and Cochranville areas who served as missionaries. She also is a children’s book author. Her most
T he Brandywine Hills Point To Point, featuring horse and pony races, children’s activities and a parade of foxhounds, will be presented on Sunday, April 7, at Brandywine Red Clay Alliance’s H. E. Myrick Conservation Center, 1760 Unionville-Wawaset Road, West Chester. Gates will open at 11 a.m., and the first race will begin at noon. The 81st running of the Brandywine Hills Point to Point will feature riders on Competitors jump over a stone wall while horses competing riding side saddle. in long-distance races around races are all on the flat. The the center’s property where other races are a steeplechase competitors will jump fences, race, which is a timber race,” walls and streams. “The pony ex plained event organiz er See Point To Point pg 4
Serving the community BY ANN MEAD ASH
The delightful smell of f re s h w a f f l e s b e i n g m ad e wafted out of the kitchen at Leacock Presbyterian Church, 3181 Lincoln Highway East, Paradise, on the afternoon of March 21. Volunteers led by mission committee co-chairs Lois Eshleman and Bonnie Rice were hard at work creating the waff les for the chicken and waffle community meal that was held later that afternoon. The church provides free, hot meals for the community in the church fellowship hall
See Local author pg 2
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on the fourth Thursday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Recent offerings have included hot dogs and sauerkraut, and upcoming selections will feature lasagna and ham and green beans. “We always have traditional picnic fare in June,” reported Rice, who noted that hamburgers and hot dogs will be served. According to Eshleman, two meals that always offer the same menu are the November Thanksgiving feast and the Christmas meal. Both those meals are also offered on the second Thursday of the month rather than the fourth. Volunteer meal preparers See Community meal pg 6
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“B
ack in the days of the Depression, the sewing machine was extremely important to my mother,” recalled author Iris Gray Dowling of Cochranville. “She would take clothes from the ragman who would come around. He let my mother pick through the clothes for pennies. She would take the clothes, cut them up and make new clothes for us out of them snowpants and jackets - and she unraveled the sweaters and made new ones. That’s how she (earned money).” A photo of the sewing machine, additional personal stories, local history and more are featured in Dowling’s new book, “Days Gone By (Life in 1930s and 1940s),” which details the beginnings of Cochranville, including the history of local farms, school and churches and what life was like during the Great Depression and the World War II years. “My ancestors came from Ireland and settled in the Cochranville area. My grandmother, who is pictured on the cover, was a descendant of the Cochrans and Watersons, who settled there,” Dowling explained. “They followed the Muddy Run Creek toward Cream and lived in that area for a century.” Dowling noted that three generations of her family attended the Oak Grove one-room school and went to churches in the area for more than a century. “My mother also taught at Oak Grove, where she got her first eight years of education,” said Dowling. “She also taught at the Hopewell Building (the former Oxford High School) after having been a high school student there.” The 157-page book includes many photos both in black and
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