Recollections of Jim Bittner
This was part of the first book I self-published in 2009, The State Sanatorium at Sabillasville from 1908. At that time, I asked Dick to write something relative to the sanatorium for the book.
My late brother, Dick (1936-2024), and I had a great relationship. His wife, Mary Ellen, and family and I are still close. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into the past from his words. I miss you, Dick.
~Joan Bittner Fry
Vaguely, I can recall the day when my dad said to me, “I’m going to show you where I work.” I remember thinking that I was going to get out of Skunk Hollow for a trip up to “Cullen,” and that meant something, because our time away from our little farmette was usually only to walk to and from school in Sabillasville or to ride or walk to Sunday School and church at St. John’s Reformed Church in downtown Sabillasville.
We arrived at Dad’s place of work, and I soon learned that he worked in this humongous building made of stone masonry, with a leg of the Western Maryland Railroad running at level to the upside of the building. Recall has it that if you opened a chute on the rail car that was sitting there, the coal would gravity feed down into a bin, where it then could be hand-shoveled into a coal-fired furnace, which in turn produced heat and generated steam. I think I learned that day that the steam was piped to other buildings such as the tuberculosis patients’ hospital rooms, the chapel, the movie hall, the barbershop, and other buildings necessary to operate the State Sanatorium Tuberculosis Hospital.
Impressed by the size of the boilers and the sight of the fire when Dad opened the furnace door, I recall thinking that my dad was a proud, particular, and energetic man who was showing me the way to becoming a good old-fashioned working American.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was inadvertently saying with his show and tell, “This is not the cleanest job around, but it’s keeping my family going, and that means a lot up here in Sabillasville.” And, so, the day that I had the pleasure of seeing Dad on the job, I believe I learned that there were great stone masons on the mountain, the size of the boilers was huge, the train cars that hauled the coal were much larger than I had thought, and my dad was a hard-working father with a lot of good qualities and a work ethic to be admired.
Enter a short time later, when I learned how to take the white margarine and mix in the coloring to make it look like real butter. You see, each week, my mother (Helen) and we kids would set out to make sandwiches for Dad (Harold) to take to “the State” to sell to patients for a small amount of money per sandwich (I can’t recall the amount if I ever knew). We kids would lay out Blue Ribbon bread and spread the margarine while Mother scrambled eggs from our own chickens that we had to feed and carry water to, mixed up tuna and chicken salad, and kept us going and in line so that we didn’t argue over who got to do what. In those days, we used to fight over work! Also in those days, one could make sandwiches at home, wrap them in waxed paper, stack them neatly in a wicker or wire basket that Dad would carry to the TB hospital, and go room-to-room selling them to the patients. The Health Department didn’t seem to care.
Now I can recall vividly helping with the sandwiches, but the most vivid recall that has stuck with me is the following story: Don’t know who told me, but the story goes that Dad was walking up and down the halls of the hospital, opening room doors and announcing “sandwimpies?” when he walked into a room and there lying in bed was a person staring at the ceiling. Embarrassing for Dad to find that the patient had gone to be with his Maker, so he backed out and found a nurse to deal with the situation. Why this story has stuck with me all these years, I’m not sure, but it has.
Other memories of “Cullen” that I can recall are movies, the Cullen Farm, and how well the stone structures have held up over the years. It was about a mile from our house to the movie theatre at Cullen, and that was taking all shortcuts up around the first leg of Horseshoe Bend, and then straight up to the theatre, where we were seated in a section away from the patients. Following the movie, I recall running down through the woods in the black of night trying to keep up with Loopy and Paul and Grace Baker. I don’t recall if Mother and Dad were with us, but I can imagine they weren’t too far away, or else they knew that we were safe. In those days, crime on the mountain was restricted to making moonshine, which we only vaguely learned about later in life. I can’t recall any of the movies but do recall sitting in isolation and the trip home in the dark.
The Cullen Farm was memorable because Uncle Bob and Aunt Louise Bittner lived there and were the farm managers. Impressive were the barn and the hog shed. You see, the way the patients were fed was supplemented by crops raised on the farm, as well as pork raised there, although I don’t recall attending a butchering there. Under any circumstances, there were hogs, and there were sows and boars.
Don’t you know that this young man happened to acquire a baby girl pig (later learned that a girl was a gilt) and took on the project at about age ten or so to find a boar hog that could breed my sow so that I could sell pigs and make some money. Guess who had the boar hog? Uncle Bob did, so we set out with gilt “Tunie” (short for Petunia) to lead her down Skunk Hollow Road to the railroad tracks and around the railroad tracks to the hog barn, where we introduced her to one of Uncle Bob’s boars. We left her there a few days and then brought her home, and eventually she gave birth to nine baby pigs, which I could sell for money! Most impressive was the fact that we led this big gilt by placing a rope on her front leg so that she couldn’t get away. We walked her about a mile each way.
Last but not least! My first pet was a Beagle named Pat. He and I hunted rabbits until we couldn’t see straight all over the little farmette we called home. Eventually, he died. I don’t recall how, but I could show you to this day where we buried him. Pat left us for a trip to rabbit huntin’ heaven, and I was wanting another dog. One day, Dad and I were up at Cullen in the back woods cutting firewood, and we ran across a big mommy dog and found her nest with a bunch of puppies. I remember begging Dad to let me take one home, and he reluctantly said I could. I picked a pretty brown puppy, which quickly got the name of “Brownie.” Once home, we noticed that Brownie was blind in one eye, so Dad said we had to take her back to the nest. Once back, I picked a black and tan pup that was later named “Tub” because she got a little pudgy. Guess what? I threw a small crying spell up there at Cullen back in the old orchard area because now I didn’t want to leave Brownie behind. I won out and raised both dogs for many years to come.
As you can see, “Cullen” has played a part in my impressionable years as a youth, and in recapturing some of these memories, I have strengthened my convictions that an upbringing such as my siblings (Alice, Barbara, Joan, and Jim) and I had, where we were expected to pitch in and help out when and where needed was, after all, a very defining childhood based on good principles. I’m happy that “Cullen” was part of the mix. I’m ever grateful to my parents and my siblings.
