Thelma 3

Grandad Moser attended church all his life. Before he moved his family to Baltimore County, he went to the same church that his mother and father went to. It was a little Lutheran church just outside of Woodsboro, Md. His mother and father are buried here and their grave is right up along the fence by the parking lot. His mothers name was never put on the grave stone.

Ellie and I went up there one Sunday - it was the Sunday before Labor Day in 1975, and the people had a picnic on the outside after church and they invited us to stay and eat with them. Up until this time I thought my people were always Methodists, but the Moser family did not become Methodists until sometime after they had moved to Gwynbrook. Mother was confirmed when she was 11 yrs old and the certificate shows her joining the All Saints Episcopal Church in Reisterstown, Md.

When they did start going to Gills Methodist Church - they all would come home on the buckboard (I can see my mother now in her Sunday-go-to-meetin clothes with about five petticoats on) and find people sitting on their front porch waiting for them to get back from church. The company had not been invited and grandma would say - There they are - waiting for their Sunday dinner - maybe grandma did not show it but she would sizzle.

Well, the preacher came home - following them on his own horse - he was invited, but the people on the porch did this a little too often. Do you remember Erse Fox that had the Plymouth dealership in Reisterstown - these people were his mother and father. Well, in front of the preacher, grandma couldn't show anger so she made the best of it. The preacher ate with them, rested a while and then went to his next church to preach. The preacher would always eat his desert while riding to his next church - Aunt Helen told me this and it usually was a pie cut in four pieces stacked on top of each other and a quart of milk. She would hand the goodies up to him after he had mounted his horse ... Preaching can give you a big appetite.

Mentioning Aunt Helen makes me think of another little story that Mom told. Grandad Moser had proved himself to be successful and he begin to relax a little bit - he would take Saturday afternoons off and he and Grandma would go to Visit someone.

Picture - Left: Moser Family and friends. Back:Isabelle(Grandma), Guy, Carrie, Roy, Charles (Grandad), Unknown, Unknown. Middle: Unknown, Nellie Grace, Helen, Unknown. Front: Ethel, Eugene.

One hot summer day while they were gone the girls are leisurely sitting around probably complaining how hot it was - but where is Helen?

Helen, wanting to make points with her Mom and Dad is out in the corn field gathering a couple bushels of corn. She lugs the corn into the kitchen and starts barking out orders to this one and that one. Of course with the corn picked, it had to be canned immediately. Talk about the urge to kill! So, here we haw Helen, Nellie, Carrie and Ethel putting up corn on their afternoon off. I might add right here that it isn't always bad to want to be No. 1 ..Aunt Helen, in addition to her being a Sunday School teacher for many many years, engineered about every supper that Glyndon church ever put on and her decoration of the church at Christmas has been enjoyed and appreciated by hundreds of people.

Grandma Moser had many talents and one of them was the making of a salve. Her salve was a healing ointment that was second to none. The story goes that there was an old black man that had an open wound that would not heal. His condition was made known to Grandmother and she gave him some of it and told him how to use it. The salve healed the old man and everytime he saw grandma after that he would bow to her. Sometime after this, it also healed a very bad burn on Evelyn, Uncle Roys second daughter. Grand Dads older brother went door to door selling it for a while.

I do not know what year Clarence married, nor do I know the maiden name of his wife, but growing up Clarence was grandmas favorite. Someone heard her say once Clarence is an Eby and possibly this was fore-ordained of her when he was born because she named the child Clarence Lemuel, named for her father.

Next to get married is my mother. Nellie Grace Moser and William Thomas Alban became man and wife on October 28, 1915. Bill worked for Mr. Davis, the owner of the store at the railroad track. The store sold evrything - groceries, meat, dry goods, furniture, coal, wood, kerosene (called coal-oil in those days) and chicken and cattle feed. Nellie and Bill lived on the third floor over the store.

Previously, he was employed as a secretary for the Pennsylvenia RR but he got layed off. Mr. Davis said I can't hire you, as soon as the railroad calls you back, you will be gone.Dad promised to stay with him even if the railroad did call him back.

Bill was a clerk in the store and their delivery man as well. Nellie and Bill were expecting their first baby in 1917 and moved from the store to Tom Gills house on Gwynbrook Ave. Mother fell in the cellar at this house, causing the baby to be born premature, it only lived a couple of hours. Another son was born to them on November 28, 1917 but it died also on September 3, 1918.

It may be fortunate that Mother was expecting their third child, due to be born in another four months - how else could she survive the heart break of losing her first two babies. Ethel Isabelle Alban was born to them on January 17, 1919

Bill left Davis Store in 1920 and went to work for the Baltimore Transit. He was a street car mechanic and worked at Owings Mills. He built a house across the road where they had lived in Tom Gills House and the next year, they had another. They named her Mary Elizabeth Alban and she was born September 15, 1921

 

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