The Lytles of Fredericksburg, Ohio

“Carl G. Lytle cutting Holmes County Swiss Cheese in his general store in Fredericksburg, Ohio.” From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 5, 1963.

You can disagree with me if you want to, but I believe if everyone everywhere could be raised in small towns, the world would be a better place. Having been raised in a small town myself, I am both an expert on this topic and completely unbiased.

When I was a child, Mom told me our hometown, Fredericksburg, Ohio, had “about six hundred” residents. Well, she had it right: census data from 1970 shows there were 601 residents. That was the all-time high for the town (which dates back to 1850), though: the population has been steadily declining ever since. In 2020 the population was only 409.

The Freedom to Roam

When you lived in a small town in those days, you could walk or bike anywhere you needed to go without a parent. School, the general store, the post office, the bank, or down to the “crick,” it didn’t matter. Someone would be keeping an eye out and noting your location.

When we lived in our house on the north end of Fredericksburg, we boys were allowed to ride our bikes as far as the Next Tree. There were a number of large trees on our property along the sidewalk, and they all looked alike to us. So we would go as far as we thought we were allowed to, stop at a tree, and then ask Mom, “Is this the tree?” And she would holler back, “No, you can go to the Next Tree.” When we were going out to bike, she would remind us, “Don’t go past the Next Tree!”

One of my brothers, when he was just a little guy, probably four or so, started out in front of our house pushing his tricycle, his feet walking behind it, his arms on the handlebars, his face resting on his forearms looking downward. Hypnotized by the sidewalk cracks passing beneath the front wheel, he just kept walking, far beyond the Next Tree. Mom had no idea he was even gone until a neighbor called and said, “I think I just saw one of your boys go past here pushing his tricycle, and I thought you should know.”

Another time, Mom sent Keith and me down to Vacation Bible School at church on an early summer evening. We were running late, so we hurried to get there. We entered the side door, which opened onto a stairway—go left to go up, go right to go down. We turned right and looked in the basement classroom for the rest of the kids—no one was there! What was going on? What we didn’t know was that there was such a big turnout that night, all the classes had moved upstairs to the sanctuary.

Mystified and a little creeped out, we clomped back up the stairs, past where we had just come in, and loudly opened the door to the sanctuary. We froze as the teacher and what seemed to be a whole church full of kids stopped and stared at us silently.

Now, Keith was always pretty stoic. But on this occasion he took his cue from me, the antithesis of stoicism. Terribly embarrassed and horribly confused, I stared back at all those faces for a second, then slammed the door, burst into tears, and ran back down the stairs and out of the church with Keith right behind me.

We ran and ran, crying most of the way, until we got home again. We told the story to our concerned parents. I think Dad thought we had rather overreacted.

Looking back on it now, I reckon he was right.

Carl and Florence

Another boon of a small-town childhood is knowing your neighbors. I remember the Morrisons, Mr. McKee, the Lewandowskis, Mrs. Plant (I had my first regular job mowing her lawn), the Drouhards, the Lemons, the Brillhart/Cook family (I couldn’t figure out why my friend Tim had a different last name than his sister’s), the Carrs, the Greens, Mrs. Leiper (who had a goiter the size of a grapefruit under her chin), the Rices, the Spencers, the Wilkinses, the Weltmers, the Hatches . . . and the Lytles.

Carl and Florence Lytle’s former residence today.
(Google Maps) 

There were several families named “Lytle” (LIE-tull) in our town in those days. Carl and Florence Lytle lived in a house very close to downtown Fredericksburg that was white with black shutters, a house that reminds me of a proper young lady dressed up for her first communion.

Carl was thin and rather distinguished looking, and he was known by everyone in town because he owned the local general store. He was a friendly guy with a welcoming smile. His wife, Florence, was the town historian and also my first piano teacher.

Florence (Mrs. Lytle to me) was thin like her husband, with glasses and high cheekbones and hair like Thelma Ritter’s in Rear Window. She had an unusual voice, sort of as if she were speaking at the top part of her larynx with the muscles tense. Not an annoying voice—just a different voice.

Once a week I would walk down to Mrs. Lytle’s house for a piano lesson. The first time I ever saw one of those glass-domed gold mantle clocks with the spinning balls that function as a pendulum was in her living room. I was fascinated.

Mrs. Lytle really got me started off right on the piano, and I enjoyed taking lessons from her. My first recital was in her living room. I played a duet with Lisa Hoffer called “Roly Poly Baked Potato,” and I played a solo called “From a Lighthouse Window,” a dramatic piece in a minor key. I remember that at the recital I was wearing a ring I had gotten from a gum machine or maybe Cracker Jacks. Grandma Swartz loved Liberace, and we would watch him whenever he was on TV when we were at her house. Maybe his sparkling rings were an influence on me? I remember telling Mrs. Lytle that my grandma said she hoped I’d play like Liberace someday. She pulled a face and said, “Ohhh!”

Apparently Mrs. Lytle didn’t think Liberace was much of a role model for youngsters.

There is one event I particularly remember from taking lessons from Mrs. Lytle. Occasionally she would take a week or two off for vacation, and she would tell me when I should return for my next lesson. One week she said she would not be giving lessons for two weeks, which I interpreted as “Come back in two weeks.”

So after skipping one week’s lesson, I headed back down to her house the following week. The leaves on the trees were bright with colors, and I scuffed and crunched through the ones on the busted sidewalks as I walked.

I reached her house and, per her standard instructions, went right in and sat at the piano, waiting for her to come out of the kitchen and start the lesson.

I waited and I waited that day. I began to think something was wrong. Then I heard someone moving around in the kitchen, so I turned around on the piano bench to look.

The kitchen was separated from the piano room by one of those full-sized swinging doors. There was a crack between the door and the doorframe on one side of the door, wide enough for me to see through. I could see my teacher there in the kitchen, but she was wearing a full-length pink flannel robe, and it appeared that she was going to sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in her hand. (“How in the world could you see all that through a little crack by the door?” I have no idea. But that’s the way I remember it.)

Suddenly a horrible realization hit me. “No lessons for two weeks” didn’t mean “The next lesson is in two weeks.” It meant “No lessons for two weeks,” and that meant I was not supposed to be there! I was sitting in her piano room, but she had no idea I was even present!

Now, to my credit, I did not burst into tears. But I did stealthily pack up my books and tiptoe to the front door, shut it behind me (not as quietly as I had hoped!), and took off for home at a run. I was thoroughly embarrassed and scared to death of the humiliation that I would have felt if she had caught me! But I don’t think she ever knew.

JB and Marianne

JB Lytle was Carl’s brother. He his wife, Marianne, lived in the three-story Victorian monstrosity next door to our modest home. I call it a “monstrosity,” but it really was a showplace, with big front columns, multiple gables, a faux balcony, a brick exterior on the first floor and deep maroon siding on the upper floors, and at least two chimneys. The Lytles were older than my parents, and their kids were pretty much grown up when I was still quite young. Mom told me I impressed their teenage daughter, Hope, when I was about five years old, by explaining to her the difference between a camel and a dromedary—a difference that I no longer retain in my memory.

JB and Marianne Lytle’s former home today. (Google Maps)

I loved visiting the Lytles’ home as a kid, either when Mom and Marianne had coffee together or when Marianne babysat me. The toys in other people’s homes are always much more fascinating than one’s own toys. One toy the Lytles had was a magnet set with variously shaped metal pieces that you could build into amazing constructions. Another toy was . . . a Ouija board. I remember playing with it only once. Marianne was babysitting me, and another child was also there, and Marianne told us you could ask the Ouija board questions while keeping your fingers on the planchette, and it would answer your questions. I had no idea of its associations with the occult at that age, of course, so the three of us tried it together in her dark parlor on a rainy afternoon.

After we asked a question, it began to move beneath our fingers. “Are you moving it?” Marianne asked. “No!” I assured her. We asked several questions and got several answers before tiring of it (it moved so slowly!) and putting it away.

I suspect the only “spirit” we were communicating with was a thin older female with reddish hair and a throaty laugh who was having fun at our expense. But you never know. For example, it predicted I would marry someone whose first name started with “B,” and, amazingly, about seventeen years later, Cindy became my wife. I mean, her name doesn’t start with B, but B is right next to C in the alphabet! And if that’s not proof of the paranormal, well . . .!

JB and Marianne’s home also had a feature that, at the time, was unique in town: an in-ground swimming pool! And it was right next door to our house! We boys spent a lot of sultry afternoons over there under Mom’s watchful eye. (She always looked so glamorous in her modest red, white, and blue bathing suit, her sunglasses, and her lovely white rubber bathing cap.) JB and Marianne were always very accommodating when Mom would call and ask if we could come over and swim.

Once, though, I think maybe Marianne had had enough of noisy boys out behind her house. One irrefutable rule was that if thunder or lightning was evident, everyone was out of the pool, and swimming was over. On this particular afternoon she and Mom were sitting poolside talking while we boys acted like boys. Marianne looked into the cow pasture just beyond the pool. “Oh my!” she said. “All the cows are lying down!”

I looked. She was right.

“When all the cows are lying down, that means it’s going to storm! Everybody out of the pool!”

Disappointed, we climbed out even though the sky was clear, and Mom walked us across the yard to our side door.

“‘When all the cows are lying down, it’s going to storm!’” Mom grumped. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!”

Copyright 2023, Steven Nyle Skaggs

JB and Marianne’s house on the left. My childhood home on the right. “X” marks the former location of the Next Tree. I’m encouraged that these old homes are still being well cared for! (Google Maps)

Above: Former Lytle home, early 1900s. Below: Same view today. (Google Maps)