Social network group brings people together
Do you remember when the milkman and bread man delivered to your door? Do you remember going to the five and dime to buy penny candy? How about having a party line and having to share your telephone with others in the community?
Lauren Mast Hershey does. Hershey graduated from Hiland High School at Berlin in 1980. After graduating from Bluffton College in northwest Ohio, she married a young man from Oregon. She currently resides in Idaho, but still calls Holmes County home.
Hershey is not alone in her continued adoration for the region where she grew up. In an attempt to bring current and former residents together, she started a group on the popular social network, Facebook. “My very first post, to start the group, was ‘do you remember when people still used to live in downtown Walnut Creek.’ I went to Walnut Creek Elementary, and Walnut Creek just used to be a normal little town. I had friends whose homes were along the road where the Carlisle Inn is now. I think Walnut Creek has changed a lot,” said Hershey.
She got the idea from reading similar group pages about other places and seeing how much fun it was to reminisce about the small, tight-knit communities of Holmes County. “I set it up around 11:30 p.m. one night and added about 30 of my Facebook friends just to start spreading the word, and by the next evening there were over 600 members. I eventually removed myself as administrator, because I was getting so many notifications all the time to add more people. I’m not sure who is doing it now. I couldn’t believe how quickly it grew - like wildfire,” said Hershey.
The group is popular with both east and west side residents and former residents of the county. “Since I grew up in East Holmes, most of the friends I added were from that end of the county, so the first posts were about East Holmes. However, it was quickly dominated by West Holmes people, and as I read back on it now, I see way more posts from the west end of the county than the east. However, there is a lot of crossover, of course, in what people have experienced. We do all live in the same county, after all,” said Hershey.
Shared memories are common in small communities and most of those memories are pleasant ones that residents enjoy recalling. The group currently has more than 1,100 members and is nearing 2,000 posts. “I remember getting meat from the butcher wrapped in brown paper and string, looking forward to the bookmobile coming, girls not being allowed to wear pants to school, even in the winter, children riding bikes for miles without fear, doctors making house calls, having ‘smoking rooms’ at the high school, and one I had forgotten about - that doctors’ offices left medications sitting out for pickup after hours on an ‘honor system.’ These kinds of posts are all signs of the era we grew up in, as well as part of being in small communities,” said Hershey.
It is amazing how many common themes are brought up by people who didn’t know each other growing up but can recall the many places that are unique to Holmes County. “I saw people waxing nostalgic on the group page about places they visited in their youth and how things had changed. Places like Norman’s Bakery and The Berlin House restaurant were mentioned multiple times. People remember Jane and Sandy’s, Birdie’s, the Castle and Duncan Theaters, the Sohio station, Berlin Burgers and dip cones at the Berlin Sweet Shoppe, Big Wheel, Fair Drug, Michael’s, sitting on the benches at German Village, the library in the basement of the courthouse, Bob’s Drive Thru, pie at Boyd and Wurthmann, Antique Festival and Berlin Pioneer Days, and, of course, the Holmes County Fair and how it always seems to rain during that week. The huge ice cream cones at the Grocery Bag were mentioned over and over. Many mentioned the headless angel at Panther Hollow, and other unofficial place names such as Seven Lick Hill, Saltillo, Becks Mills, Weaver Ridge, Mast Hill, Walnut Creek Bottom, Plains Crossroads, and The Rip in Benton,” said Hershey.
Hershey, like many current and former residents, has been shaped by her experiences in Holmes County. “Overall, I think the consensus has been that Holmes County was a special place to grow up, and that while many things have changed and will continue to change, some very important things have also stayed the same, one being that connectedness that is expressed over and over in this Facebook group,” said Hershey. Heidi DeWitt Miller, a member of the group, sums it up when she says, “No matter how far you’ve moved or how long it’s been since you moved away, when you refer to home, you mean Holmes County.”
Lauren Mast Hershey does. Hershey graduated from Hiland High School at Berlin in 1980. After graduating from Bluffton College in northwest Ohio, she married a young man from Oregon. She currently resides in Idaho, but still calls Holmes County home.
Hershey is not alone in her continued adoration for the region where she grew up. In an attempt to bring current and former residents together, she started a group on the popular social network, Facebook. “My very first post, to start the group, was ‘do you remember when people still used to live in downtown Walnut Creek.’ I went to Walnut Creek Elementary, and Walnut Creek just used to be a normal little town. I had friends whose homes were along the road where the Carlisle Inn is now. I think Walnut Creek has changed a lot,” said Hershey.
She got the idea from reading similar group pages about other places and seeing how much fun it was to reminisce about the small, tight-knit communities of Holmes County. “I set it up around 11:30 p.m. one night and added about 30 of my Facebook friends just to start spreading the word, and by the next evening there were over 600 members. I eventually removed myself as administrator, because I was getting so many notifications all the time to add more people. I’m not sure who is doing it now. I couldn’t believe how quickly it grew - like wildfire,” said Hershey.
The group is popular with both east and west side residents and former residents of the county. “Since I grew up in East Holmes, most of the friends I added were from that end of the county, so the first posts were about East Holmes. However, it was quickly dominated by West Holmes people, and as I read back on it now, I see way more posts from the west end of the county than the east. However, there is a lot of crossover, of course, in what people have experienced. We do all live in the same county, after all,” said Hershey.
Shared memories are common in small communities and most of those memories are pleasant ones that residents enjoy recalling. The group currently has more than 1,100 members and is nearing 2,000 posts. “I remember getting meat from the butcher wrapped in brown paper and string, looking forward to the bookmobile coming, girls not being allowed to wear pants to school, even in the winter, children riding bikes for miles without fear, doctors making house calls, having ‘smoking rooms’ at the high school, and one I had forgotten about - that doctors’ offices left medications sitting out for pickup after hours on an ‘honor system.’ These kinds of posts are all signs of the era we grew up in, as well as part of being in small communities,” said Hershey.
It is amazing how many common themes are brought up by people who didn’t know each other growing up but can recall the many places that are unique to Holmes County. “I saw people waxing nostalgic on the group page about places they visited in their youth and how things had changed. Places like Norman’s Bakery and The Berlin House restaurant were mentioned multiple times. People remember Jane and Sandy’s, Birdie’s, the Castle and Duncan Theaters, the Sohio station, Berlin Burgers and dip cones at the Berlin Sweet Shoppe, Big Wheel, Fair Drug, Michael’s, sitting on the benches at German Village, the library in the basement of the courthouse, Bob’s Drive Thru, pie at Boyd and Wurthmann, Antique Festival and Berlin Pioneer Days, and, of course, the Holmes County Fair and how it always seems to rain during that week. The huge ice cream cones at the Grocery Bag were mentioned over and over. Many mentioned the headless angel at Panther Hollow, and other unofficial place names such as Seven Lick Hill, Saltillo, Becks Mills, Weaver Ridge, Mast Hill, Walnut Creek Bottom, Plains Crossroads, and The Rip in Benton,” said Hershey.
Hershey, like many current and former residents, has been shaped by her experiences in Holmes County. “Overall, I think the consensus has been that Holmes County was a special place to grow up, and that while many things have changed and will continue to change, some very important things have also stayed the same, one being that connectedness that is expressed over and over in this Facebook group,” said Hershey. Heidi DeWitt Miller, a member of the group, sums it up when she says, “No matter how far you’ve moved or how long it’s been since you moved away, when you refer to home, you mean Holmes County.”
Published: August 23, 2011
