Tidal
Early Nineteen Hundreds

1. Looking back 75 years ago, to the early Nineteen Hundreds.I'm pressed to write some history on the little village of Shoup Town. The people of this generation know it as Tidal.

John Lewis Shoup and his wife Sara Ann Hawk Shoup were some of the first settlers.Having a family of nine boys and two girls most of them were business people. John had a blacksmith's shop hammering out iron and steel,repairing wagon and buggy wheels and shoeing horses and anything else that might require the skills and strong hands of a good Blacksmith.

Ross Shoup had a large General Store where Elizabeth Shoup was the main store keeper.The back part of the store had any kind of equipment a farmer needed to go into business.If they did not have it ,they would get it for you.The name of the store was R.F.Shoup Inc.Ross had a country coal mine,sold house coal, and also had a Chevrolet Dealership where he sold new cars.Ross and wife Annie had one son,Charles who married Charlotte Craig.

The Shoups also had a large fruit orchard with all kinds of fruit trees.They would pick the fruit and pack it and ship it to Pittsburgh to sell it.Their main fruit pickers were myself and the late Herman George Twelve noon was the highlight of the day, a good home cooked meal. Emma Shoup was the cook. We got $1.50 a day for picking fruit and we were glad to make that back in those days.On cold nights when they thought it was going to frost they would lite up the smudge pots to keep the fruit from freezing.The whole hill side looked like it was on fire,what a sight to behold.

The Shoups were of German decent.Very friendly and lovable people.Emma would always say to me ."how's the folks up on the hill?" meaning my Grandparents,Harvey and Mary Helm.When I look back to my tender years,how great it was to live in a small, business town like Shoup town and the love every one had for each other.There were large crowds in Church and lots of Ball Games & Socials and what not. So many things that used to be in Shoup town are gone.

The Shoups were very accomidating people. They had banches to sit on in the store for those who wanted to visit.Chickasaw Coal Mine provided work for a number of men in the vicinity,they and others would come to the store and sit and visit and buy peanuts and shell them on the floor.The floor would be covered with shells.The girls didn't mind sweeping up the shells at the end of the day. I guess they enjoyed the tales of woe.

Back in those days every one had a coal stove for heat, and a cook stove for cooking.They had a large old stove in the parlor or some had fire places.They had to heat their wash water in a large copper boiler on top of the cook stove. They used two tubs to wash their clothes in and they had a wash board and had to rub the clothes up &down in the water to get thm clean.Some times they would use a scrub brush to wash the knees on the mens pants as they would be black dirty.It was hard work back then.They ironed thier clothes with an old Sad iron.You heated it on the stove and then took a couple hot pads to hold onto the handle.Most of the women had a sewing day. They would darn the socks and patch the pants or make dresses and shirtsorwhat not.They were really busy back in those days. The women would also bake bread at least two times a week .They baked large loaves of bread, sometimes six loaves each time,depending on the size of the family. Sometimes they did not have a thrrmomter in the old coal cook stove to go by so they had to guess

There was a Telephone Switch Board in the Village. The old Crank type Telephone.I ran across an old bill for a month ,it was $1.85. Back in those days everyone knew your business because there were no private lines. W. E. Paine was the operator and also provided Justice of the Peace services for the vicinity.

The way Shoup town got its new name Tidal; Samuel Heath and his wife Anna had a large store. It was a variety store,almost any thing you needed ; a showcase of candy,wash tubs,copper boilers, buckets, shovels, stovepipe,etc.Anna had the other side of the store in which she had boltsof all kinds of cloth.Clothes& button shoes for men, women and children ,anything you wanted in dry goods .Sam wanted to have a post office but they told him he had to have a name for it so he took the Bible and in Genesis, chapter 14 he found the name Tidal, so he called Shoup Town-Tidal.That is how Tidal got its name.Sam also had a Grist Mill. We took our wheat there to be ground into flour, our cornn and oats for chop for our live stock.To run the mill,he had to build a large pond to supply enough water. Thn Sam got abrighter idea, this pond will make a lot of ice in the Winter,so he built an ice house to store enough ice to do till summer.Hetook a hand cross cut saw and cut the ice in chunks, then he stored it in the ice house,a layer of saw dust then a layerof ice, over and over till he had enough ice to last till sumer. They bought the ice and made homemade icecream. The people thought that was a real treat to be able to make homemade icecream in the summer. Whata blessing for our little village of Shoup Town,as we celebrated the Fourth of July by making homemade icecream.

For relaxing Sam had several bee hives to take care of.I watched him tend to one. The back of his hand was almost covered with bees, he told me the main thing about tending to the bees is working very slowly with them,he said "I very seldom get stung."

Jake Early had a small confection store and gas pumps.Lonza Wolfe had a saloon on the second floor he had movies once a week,the price was 10cents to get in. We really enjoyed the movies back in those days .He also had gas pumps. Martha Craig had a small store with all kinds of grocries. There was another small snack store and a garage there also,which at that time maybe a Wolfe owned it Quite a few years later Thomas Minick owned and operated a small store with groceries ,snacks and gas pumps. He also repaired rifles and shot guns and reloaded ammunition. Thomas Heath had a large building on the lower end of Shoup Town and he had a good size chicken business.We also had a little old one room school house. The second floorof the Shoup building accomadated two lodges,The Red Men and The Mechanics,whichis where we also had our icecream and pie socials to help in some needed event. So it was a lively little village back in the early Nineteen-Hundreds. Another activity we enjoyed was going to sernade a young couple when they got married. I remember well of the marriage of George & Elizabeth Hopper.When a couple got married we would go to their home and beat on old pans, ring bells,blow hornes or anything to make noise. A Captain was selected to go to the door to invite themout. Then the bride & groom would come out on the porch to greet you . They would give you money to go get candy .They gave the captain $10.00 so we all went to Shoups store and got a large bag of candy for each one.

We also we had pie socials at the little old school house .One day some of the girls baked pies and they took them to the school and the boys or men would bid on the pies . Jim Haggerty liked a girl named Violet crow so him and another fellow were bidding on Violets pie , they bid it up to $27.00 before they stopped and Jim had the highest bid . So he got the pie and he also married Violet. There was lots of good clean fun back in those days.

I forgotto mention there was a lovely Presbyterian Church to which is still standing and in good shape. Ihave to say there isn't the crowds in the church that there was one day. Today they have a fair attendance and the Church is kept up very well.The Church and Hawks Garage is all that is left in Shoup Town or Tidal now,besides the homes that people own.

Merle H. DeLaCour- writer

I first saw a copy of this writing in 1998 or 99 not sure but my father in law Bud Craig had a copy and I read it and being interested in history I thought it was great .I thought it would be a good thing to be on the Craig Home Page. I can relate to some of the things the way they were.This tells how Tidal was when the Craig Reunion started ----David J. Huffman
This is the Tidal School Reunion Web Site www.tidalschoolreunion.homestead.com