Airplanes, Trains, And Buses

John Bush was raised in Martinsburg and graduated from Central High in 1961. He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest. He has many memories as a boy in the 1950s that give some insight to the people and culture of Martinsburg in the 1950s. John likes to tell stories and over the years he has repeated the stories of his youth many times. His belief is that those years in Martinsburg influenced him all of his life. Some of the stories are historical in nature, some are colorful, and some are personal. He wishes that you enjoy them.

In 1949, air passenger service using DC-3 planes began to be offered at the airport in Martinsburg by All American Aviation. My dad told me that he took me to the opening day ceremony, but I don’t remember; I would have been about 5 years old. I do remember going to the airport many times to watch planes land and I thought it was a pretty big airport. I believe at the time it consisted of a small restaurant, a ticket counter, and one shed. In the summer of 1954 when I was ten, I flew on my own from Newark, New Jersey, to the airport at Martinsburg. The airline by then had changed its name to Allegheny Airlines. I had gone earlier to New Jersey by car with an aunt and uncle to stay for two weeks; my mother’s sisters, Ida and Anna, and their husbands lived in the same general area. After my visit was over, I was put on a plane in Newark and flew by myself to Martinsburg. I remember sitting alone in the front seat and getting a lot of attention from the stewardess. I don’t think any of my classmates had flown anywhere. I had no fear of flying because our fifth grade teacher, Miss Graybill, had given a presentation about how airplane travel was safer than traveling by car. Early nineteen-fifties cars had very poor safety records; they had big engines but poor brakes and steering. The plane landed to exchange passengers in Harrisburg, which I thought was the Martinsburg airport. When we circled over Martinsburg, the town and airport seemed too small to me. I panicked and had a hissy fit, because I thought they had made a mistake and I should have gotten off at what they said was Harrisburg. Eventually I calmed down and got off to my waiting parents. Of course I bragged to my friends about flying alone and never mentioned that I had panicked.

Flying radio-controlled hobby planes was a big deal in the 1950s, at least in Martinsburg. On good weather Sundays, several hobbyists would gather at the Park’s ball field. The planes were noisy but quite exciting to watch. Vern Michael was one of the men who flew his planes there. I helped by holding his planes until they started. Landing was often haphazard and the young boys would chase down the plane if it landed in nearby fields or in the outfield of the ballpark.

Bill Reese, a classmate and friend of mine, recalls a story about hobby planes. He lived just a block east of Floyd Bush’s parking lot where Uncle Floyd’s son Joe flew hobby planes. One day Joe’s plane got away from him. It was last seen flying south over my house on Spring Street toward what is now occupied by The Village cottages. When it did not come back, the kids watching spread out to look for it. Bill recalls that it was found hanging out of a south-facing window of my house. It probably was heading back to Joe, and it was either coming in too low or it ran out of fuel, a common problem. My mom was supposed to have been in the room when it crashed into the window. I don’t recall the event or my mother talking about it. Perhaps I was in New Jersey with my aunts or staying out at Potter Creek with my grandmother.

The Pennsylvania Railroad reached its peak in the 1940s and began to have troubles in the 1950s as cars and trucks were becoming more common and the interstate highway system was being built. However, the railroad was still an important part of the Martinsburg area. Judy Hinish, a classmate, lived on Spring Street and her dad parked a bus there next to Floyd Bush’s dam. The bus was used to take workers back and forth to the shops in Altoona. I don’t recall any formal buildings or staircases at the Horseshoe Curve, but as a family we climbed the hill to watch the trains go around the Curve. As an older teenager, my friends and I went there to run up the hill and wave at the engineers. I was always impressed by the rumbling of the engines.

Great-aunt Ida Shubert had a railroad pass from her husband, a railroad worker who had died suddenly in 1949. When I was 11, my 14-year-old second cousin Kenny (Ida’s son) and I were put on the train in Altoona to travel to Chicago to stay with Kenny’s sister and husband. The trip is the same as the Amtrak service today and took about 12 hours. I remember Ida talking to a Black conductor and handing him something. Kenny and I played cards most of the way, but once, the conductor came by and told us to calm down. I didn’t know it at the time but Altoona had a significant number of Blacks living there who had jobs with the railroad.

When we got to Chicago, Kenny’s brother-in-law was not at the station to pick us up, because he was tied up in traffic. Kenny called his sister and waved down a cab. When we got to their apartment, Kenny’s brother-in-law had beat us home. He had a huge argument with the taxi cab driver, who had taken us on the long way across the city. One of my first lessons was not to trust everyone. There were two young teenage boys that lived next to Kenny’s sister. They were entrusted to take us around the city during the day. In the evenings we played cards or handball off their garage. I don’t believe anyone played handball in Martinsburg at that time. We went everywhere on the bus and trolley system—to the beach on Lake Michigan, the zoo, museums, amusement parks, and major league baseball games. I remember Nellie Fox, a Baseball Hall of Famer second baseman who was a small, singles hitter but the leader and spark plug for the Chicago White Sox. Looking back, it is hard to believe we ran around the city without any adults and got back in time for supper. I don’t recall being nervous at any time about being in a city, even when we took short cuts down alleys. It seemed like there were endless things to do and to me it was quite an experience for an eleven year old from a small town.

Not everyone had personal cars in the 1950s, and the Blue & White Lines provided bus service to Roaring Spring, Hollidaysburg and Altoona. Packages were delivered by bus and just left on the bench outside Geist’s store, across from Leidy’s on the Square, when the weather was good and taken inside on bad weather days. Ida Shubert took the bus to work at Nason Hospital in Roaring Springs. Ida’s brother-in-law, a man I called Uncle Bill, roomed at her house on North Market.

He was very old, or at least I thought so, and retired from the railroad. He walked everywhere across Martinsburg, generally in a heavy gray overcoat, driver’s hat and wool scarf. Otherwise he stayed in his room where he sat close to his wooden, floor model radio. He never missed a Pirates baseball game and each day read every word in the Altoona Mirror. On Sundays after church he would get a Pittsburgh newspaper from Geist’s store only a block away. On some Sundays he came to our house on Spring Street for dinner. He would give my sister Jolene and me one dollar on birthdays and holidays. Jolene saved hers in a piggy bank; I spent mine on candy and sodas as soon as possible. Once every so often, Uncle Bill took the bus to Altoona and back. One day I went along with him. He had a routine. First was a haircut—the barbers and customers in the shop knew him by name and apparently he had gone there for many years. Then we walked to the train station to watch a couple of the trains come in. Lunch was in some dive (at least to me it was) on a side street where apparently they knew Uncle Bill quite well, because they asked him if he was having his usual and would set down a cup of coffee even before we ordered. I had a large soda pop, hamburger with fries, and a milkshake. In the afternoon, we went shopping at a couple of stores before taking the bus which was nearly empty back to Martinsburg. Many years later I realized the local bus service was at that time on its last legs as most families had cars. When the bus service ended, my dad taught Ida to drive a three speed on the tree, early 1950s Chevy, so she could drive to work in Roaring Spring.