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What the Town of West Union Means to me Essay Contest has a winner - see Press Release

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What West Union Means To Me
By Frances Smearman Vaca

August 15, 1945, will be a day I will never forget. As most know, World War II ended that day. We had finished packing our truck and were moving out of the government housing where we lived in Baltimore. On any given day, you could see the security guards patrolling up and down the roads of the housing project. As we traveled from town to town, everyone was out celebrating that the Japanese had surrendered and the war was over. It seems as if every big city we drove through contained a “ticker-tape parade”. We reached West Union the same day we left Baltimore. It was quite different from where we had come. The city itself seemed to have a sense of peace surrounding it, of which I was in awe.

Looking back, it seems quite odd to me that we lived a way of life that has disappeared over the years. For our generation in West Union, you made friends in elementary school and stayed friends until graduating from high school. Although I can recall some families who were better off financially than others, and my family was very poor, it didn’t seem to matter. No one had labels of being rich or poor.

Since we had a very large family of 13, we lived in the Gribble Mansion that set at the highest point in West Union, which you can no longer see, as I believe the house itself has fallen to the ground. The reality is, that as poor as my family was, my childhood was extremely rich. We worked hard for everything that we had. I remember working in our garden, where we grew our own vegetables and picking berries, both of which we spent the summer canning so that we had food for the winter months. We even raised our own pigs and cows, which – you guessed it – saw us through the winter as well.

It would be hard for today’s children to understand that the technology that they have, did not exist for our generation. Cars were not things we thought of actually owning, televisions were not around during that time, and toys were not given on a daily basis, but rather once a year at Christmas. During the remainder of the year, we had to make our own toys. I was especially fond of making dolls from the old-fashioned, round-top clothespins, painting faces at the tip of the pin and making clothes from scraps of material. For me, though, winters were the best. We would block off the road and make big sled-runs on them. We did not have to worry about traffic then.

My fondest memories come from my grandparents. My grandfather was the Justice of the Peace for many years. In those days, kids did not wind up in my grandfather’s courtroom as they do today. My grandmother, just as stern, was a most respected member of the community. It was she who taught me and my siblings about respect, not only for the senior members of West Union, but for everyone in town.

Each year, when I return to West Union, I get together with a few friends that I grew up with, but as I enter West Union, I feel like the city is embracing me with arms full of peace and tranquility. I feel the same love and warmth that I felt in West Union as a child. A lot of the people there now are probably the next generation of families I grew up with.

I would love to make West Union my home again, and possibly take my grandchildren there and let them experience the beautiful life that I knew, loved, and still hold very dear to my heart today. I would love for them to feel the warmth that I feel when I return each summer. It’s like coming home.

Years later, I can sum up growing up in West Union, by a television theme song, which says “you wanna go where people know troubles are just the same, you wanna go where everyone knows your name.” I can honestly say that I never felt any safer or more peaceful than I did while living in West Union. I feel very blessed to have grown up in West Union and to have experienced the life that I did. In 1950, we had some real disasters, but the community came together like one big family, as only a city like West Union could.

Bless you all.