From Charles Titus

Born in the Doylestown Hospital, March 31st, 1929 my parents, grandparents and sister lived on an 86 acre farm "behind" the Neshaminy Hotel on route 611, about 1 1/2 miles south of Street Road. We always knew we resided in Frog Hollow.

My sister and I attended the two room Neshaminy Grade School - converted from a creamery - located 1/2 mile south of route 611 on Street Road. It was replete with outside toilets, one for girls and one for boys, and a pump that often required priming. In the wintertime, the older boys carried scuttles of coal from a ground floor coal bin area to stoke the big black stoves, one in each classroom. Ironically, the coal was stored in one of two ground floor rooms that at one time had served as bathrooms and apparently no longer functioned in an acceptable manner - hence, the outdoor toilets.

The F. D. Titus Elementary School in Warrington was name after our Grandmother.

As a lad I literally learned to swim under the bridge by clinging to the ledges that were part of the bridge support base. Later, as confidence built, I and other lads would jump from the top of the bridge which was a four foot high arched wall at the edge of the roadway. We were not mindful of the warnings that told of the dangers lurking beneath the water. The bridge was a stones throw away from the Power House that was an essential part of the old trolley system that ran between Willow Grove and Doylestown.

The Power House lay vacant for many years. At one point in time a German gentleman operated a cabinet manufacturing shop in the facility. It was there that I worked after school, for a time, to earn spending money to but ice cream from the Tea Room restaurant located less than a mile to the South or to buy a soda pop from the Sunoco gas station an equal direction to the North.

The bookkeeper for the cabinet shop was a very attractive girl who also earned spending money by working part time after school. Perhaps it was the fact that she was four years my senior that made it impossible for her to see eye to eye with me and my almost honorable intentions.

The Power House, as was said in your reply to me, was part of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit system. This company name found its way into a math class taught in one of the two classrooms of the grade school located one mile to the East of the bridge. The teacher implanted in my mind forever a basic mathematical interest formula by referring to the president of the transit company and what it was he could say,"I = PRT."

Progress for the area meant pulling up the old trolley rails which allowed the addition of a third lane to Route 611.The added black topped roadway joined the existing two lane cement highway and brought with it enough safety that my parents let me ride my bike to school.

The two wheeled mode of transportation gave me a great sense of relief. I no longer was driven to school in the old model T with its black curtain flaps that only partially shielded me from the embarrassment I felt. The old car was bad enough, but to have my Mother drive me to school was not considered cool.

Progress also meant the construction of a swimming pool in nearby Warrington. It was clearly an upgrade from the swimming hole in the Neshaminy Creek at the bridge.

I often rode my bike to the new swimming pool. Shortly after my sixteenth birthday I visited the pool in a rented Piper Cub and swooped low, dipped a wing, and at tree top level circled the pool. The up turned faces in the pool acknowledged my presence as did the occupants in the ladies dressing room for there was not a roof to shield them. I then swung North and landed at the Doylestown Airport where I resumed gassing an polishing planes in another part time job. It was a temptation to tell the airport owner, Bill Hughes, of my most recent adventure. I didn't though and savored the thought that I knew something that others didn't.

The Power House, the pool and Route 611 bring back many fond memories of the farming community of Frog Hollow. Nancy, thanks for allowing me to reminisce. Chuck Titus.