Charlie Oldham, 95, and son Greg Oldham, 72.

Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post

Charlie Oldham and Greg Oldham share some recollections from decades past

By Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post

PENDLETON — The Oldham name is almost synonymous with the town of Pendleton. The Oldham family has been in Pendleton for more than 150 years.
A picture hangs in the Pendleton Museum of an Oldham who fought in the Civil War.
Charlie Oldham, 95, has never lived anywhere else.
He is proud to say, “I live on the farm where I was born 95 years ago.”
Oldham and his wife, JoAnn, raised three sons and a daughter, Beth, on that farm on Angle Road. He farmed 200 acres at that location.
Oldham and his son Greg, 72, reminisced recently about some changes they have seen in Pendleton in their time here.
Charlie remembers a time when the road in front of his house was gravel.
“The farmers would use their equipment to gravel the road to pay their county taxes,” he said.
All the farmers would get together and thresh wheat. When one farmer’s fields were done, they would move to another farm. Usually, the farmer’s wife would fix a noon meal for them.
“Sometimes we would put our lunch in a bucket and set it under a tree until lunchtime,” Charlie said.
When the threshing was done, the farmers would go to town and settle up their bills and have a picnic.
It usually took three or four weeks to finish up; then they would get ready to harvest beans and corn.
While he was growing up, Charlie said it was not unusual to see a man walking down the road looking for food.
“We called them hoboes,” he said.
His mother would always make sure to fix them a plate.
He doesn’t remember a time that they did not have electricity.
He said they used a Delco system for their electricity.
Greg said it was a generator in the barn.
They had a cistern under the floor that collected rain water for washing.
Charlie attended a two-room school on West Street. First and second grades were in one room, and third and fourth were in the other.
Greg and his dad talked about all the changes in the downtown area.
They remembered four grocery stores and at least one department store on State Street.
“You could buy anything you needed at Graham’s Department Store,” Greg said.
One of the grocery stores was a meat market owned by the Goff brothers. They raised the animals on their farm.
A skating rink was located across the street from the post office, and children spent Saturday nights there.
The rumor was, Charlie said, that “one of the other business owners downtown didn’t like the noise coming from the rink, so he paid some kids from Fortville to start a fight. This caused the skating rink to be shut down.”
Greg remembers the railroad track running across Fall Creek and through the middle of town.
The railroad station was behind a convenience store. Merchandise would be unloaded there.
He remembers the grain elevator located on the corner of State Street and Pendleton Avenue.
“We had the Madison County Dairy Judging inside the Reformatory,” Greg recalled.
Charlie Oldham farmed for 50 years.
He drove a Pendleton school bus for 20 years.
Father and son recalled what used to happen to the high school on Halloween.
School children would go all over town picking up things to put in the school yard.
“No outhouse or shed was safe,” Greg said with a laugh.
Charlie said it made him feel good knowing the boys would clean up the mess they had made.
Saturdays were busy days in Pendleton. Farmers came to town to do their banking and buy supplies. At night, the town was packed with people skating or going to the movies or eating out.
Greg said he remembers Saturday nights as the time he and his brothers, Steve and Charlie, would camp out in the backyard.
He laughed and said, “My parents had deliveries of milk and bread back then. One day my brothers and I got the idea to get a pie from the bread man and ice cream from the milk man. We charged them both to my dad’s account. We would sneak behind the barn and eat them; it worked fine until the end of the month when Dad got the bill.”
“We had everything we needed in Pendleton — we only went to Anderson once a month,” Charlie said. “And going to Indianapolis was unheard of.”