Continue reading “Welcome to Patricksburg” →

Being raised in a small town with two older sisters has probly had effect on
what interests and skills I developed. As a child, there was seldom a time when I couldn’t find sometime to do to occupy my time when I was either by myself or friends. When I was alone I enjoyed putting together jigsaw puzzles and constructing things with Legos, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs or my Erector set. I loved building things.
My hobbies included drawing, stamp and coin collecting. My penpal from Italy started me out collecting coins when he sent me some from his country.
During my childhood days in Patricksburg, I played games of touch football, basketball, baseball, and spent many hours just roaming the neighborhood on my bike.
Growing up in Southern Indiana most likely can be linked to the fact that all four seasons are my favorite seasons. I loved watching the snow fall, accumulating from four to ten inches, expecting school to be cancelled. I could look forward to a great time building snowmen and snow forts, snow all fights and sled rides down my street. We had one of the best hills in town for sleding.
I was always ready for spring, when it came along. I wouldn’t wish disaster upon anyone but I couldn’t help from being fascinated with severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. I guess I was just amazed by the power of the weather.
I also enjoyed flying kites during the windy months of spring.
During the summer my favorite pastime were bike riding, hiking through the woods along creeks or beaten paths. I frequently watched television shows like Scooby-Doo and Home Improvement, just to name a few.
In the fall I raked and piled leaves then played in them. Whatever the season, I had fun in our small town of Patricksburg

By Charles Estep, 1994

 

 

 

Continue reading “Thoughts About “Pburg” from an 18 year old back in 1994″ →

If you’ve been personally invited to view this site it’s because of one of three reasons, Your a former resident, or you presently reside in Patricksburg, or we think possibility you’re up for a challenge.

My husband and I and our three young children moved to Owen Co, in the Fall of 1976. Back then Spencer the county seat was a sleepy little town that “rolled up the sidewalks” so to speak at six clock pm. Our first drive to town, was on a weekend, the streets were vacant of cars. It had a ghost-town feel. Later we returned during the week and found the courthouse square to be the center of activity.

We were living in Indianapolis at the time. Our youngest child our son Charlie was just a baby. We arrived in Owen Co hoping to view a rock house in Vandalia a neighboring town west of Spencer. We’d seen it advertised in the Indianpolis newspaper. We called and were given directions but aparently we’d misunderstood them as the rockhouse was nowhere to be found.

Later on we saw an advertisment for a house in Coal City a town in the southern most part of Owen Co. It was a house with five acreas of land. We contacted the agent and drove down to view it. The house wasn’t anything to write home about but the barn was huge and hads lots of potential. I thought it would maybe make a great house someday. People were remodeling barns back then changing them into houses. My husband was anxious to get out of the city. He was raised a country boy in West Virginia and dreamed of having a small gentleman’s farm to raise a garden, grow fruit trees and raise chickens.

To make my husband happy I agreed to go along with the purchase even those the small house had much to desire. We moved in just before Thanksgiving in 1976. My husband a retired Marine hoped to find a job in the area as soon as possible. It seemed like a very long wait until it happened. Meantime I got a job in Terre Haute in order to keep our family fed.

A few months later Dick Thatcher the owner of Thatcher Trucking knocked on our door and offered my husband a job driving a coal truck. It was a joyous day for us all. At least now we weren’t going to starve. I’d already quit my job finding it too far to drive and the 2 pm wakeup becoming extremly tiring.

You might wonder how we eventually ended up in Patricksburg. The first time we’d passed through there, I remarked to my husband. “Why don’t they tear all these old buildings down. I would never want to live here. ”

It looked so uninviting. The elementary chool was the nicest building in town. It was where our children went to school after we purchased the five acrea with the two bedroom house.

Buying the house was a mistake we soon learned. It had a shallow well and water had to be hauled in quite frequently. I made many trips to the laundrymat in Jasonville and Worthington several miles away. Shopping for groceries before returning home. It made for a very long and tiring day. Adding to the hardship was the fact our girls had to get up at dawn to catch the school bus and make the long journey to Patricksburg to attend school. It was almost be sundown when they returned home. With my husband working long hours on the road, it became one of the most undappy times in our married life.

Living so far out in the country had never been my dream. I’d been raised in a small town in California. But living there in the middle of nothing but a cornfield was nothing like I imagined it would be.

Finally after two years I’d had enough of that life and I packed up our children and our belonging and my husband escorted me and the children to California, my home state. My two sisters and parents were there. My husband Jim returned to “The Little House on the Prarie.” a name we’d given our little home in the middle of no man’s land.

A year later the house finally sold by then I was ready to reunite our family and agreed to move back to Indiana temporialy until a good plan could be exuetcuted for a permanent move to California. With not many rental houses available and not wanting to put our children in a different school district then previously, we found the Nazarene Church in Patricksburg had a vacant parsonage. They agreed to rent it to us. Living there I found a more relaxing lifestyle more conductive to my peace of mine. It was an easy walk to the elementary school for our children. A leisurely walk to the post office. I began to make friends and appreciated the people who were so accomadating and neighborly.

As stated before, Patricksburg never apealed to me on any level. The the old gray falling-down buildings on main street were eyesores in my mind. However later we would come to know the real value of Patricksburg. It was the hometown folks. A variety of people of all ages and backgrounds, in a quaint little town on a hill ten miles from Spencer. The road to it, Route 246 a curvey narrow two lane path through valleys, cattle farms, and corn fields. It was a very pleasant scenic drive if you weren’t in a hurry. Occasionally you’ld find a cow in the road or a deer crossing your path. One had to be on the lookout for those creatures.

We left there in 1996 two years after the sudden and tragic death of our son at college. We headed south for a warmer climate and a change of scenry. Now after being gone from Patricksburg for twenty-two years, I look back on Patricksburg as a place I’ll always have fond memories of. It will always hold a special place in my heart for the people living there the friendships we formed during those years

If you don’t live there or never have, please on’t look it up and make a special trip there. Not yet anyway, hopefully later when it returns to it’s former glory of the past. The people will welcome you to a grand event showing off the town that desires to be revived. Recently I made a trip back…and in doing so I had the strong and compelling urge to start this website with hopes to restore the town that gave me so much peace and feeling of belonging. I hope it will be your dream as much as it is mine. If you would like to help fulfill this dream with me or I’ve inpired a flicker of hope for this small town, please let me know how you can help make Patircksburg Proud. Together we can make it a bright and shining star on hill. Thank you all for reading. Please comment.. Share your good memories of Pburg. Photos? Anthing you can do will be appreciated.

More to come…

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton