With 141 years listed, the Grange Fair is certainly a tradition that has hung on in the midst of dramatic changes in economy and styles of living.
For many who still earn their living in agriculture and related fields, Grange Fair is a chance to slow down a little and spend time with family and friends.
Farmers bring their bathed and clipped and groomed animals to show them off and to aim for a good price if the animals are sold.
I admit that, after moving to Centre County a few years ago, I did not “get” the Grange Fair. I had been to many fairs in other places — the Colorado State Fair, for example, and had never heard people seemingly planning their lives in August around “the fair.”
“I can’t meet with you then, I’ll be at the fair.” I heard such comments repeatedly in the days leading up to the Grange Fair in my first year in Centre County.
So I agreed to go with a friend to “walk around a little.” What I saw was amazing and startling at the same time. We were invited to the tent of a woman we knew and I could not believe that people would actually take the time and trouble to haul stoves, refrigerators, sofas etc. and set them up in a tent!
Why do they do that? I was told it was tradition. The woman’s grandmother had owned the tent, then her mother and finally she and her husband. I watched that first year as the couple attached a porch on the front to extend their space and create a welcoming atmosphere for visitors. Little lights were added to their tent, and a placard with the family’s name.
This year as the 2,500 tent and RV sites begin to fill, I am struck anew with the magnitude of the planning and execution of such an encampment.
The word encampment is what signals that this fair is different. Farmers wishing to provide fellowship, with Leonard Rhone as the organizer, held a picnic for Rhone’s Progress Grange and several other local Grange chapters in 1874. Hoping to promote the benefits of Grange membership, Rhone borrowed fifty tents from the Pennsylvania National Guard. Today there are 1,000 tents, owned by the fair. The spaces are passed down through generations. The RV sites add the other 1,500 camps to the total. Over 200,000 people attend the fair annually, according to the Centre County Fair Brochure.
You can understand a little better the draw of this unique fair when you talk to some of the local people who have gone there for years—many, many years.
Agnes Homan was charming and told many interesting tales of fairs gone by.
“I have always gone to the fair,” she said. “I was born here (referring to the house she lives in now) and lived here until I was 13 when my father died.”
Homan moved back to the farm as a married woman and has stayed on the 100-year-old property since then. She has been a grange member for over 80 years. She remembered that the Grange organization decided to start a Junior Grange and she became part of that. Her family tent is, of course, in the same place as her grandparents first had it.
When she was young and attended the fair, said a railroad ran behind her tent.
“There was an up-train which went through around 8 a.m. and a down-train which came back by around 11:15 a.m.,” she said. “The old expression was, ‘up-train down and nothing did,’ which meant nothing had been accomplished for the day as yet.”
The Whistle Stop Restaurant in Centre Hall was a train station until the 1960s. Agnes told of her father going there to pick up a tent that her parents had ordered for her.
Homan’s grandparents had 11 grandchildren so she said there was always lots of company at the family tent during the fair. In her early days about 60-705 of the tents were rented to Grangers. The usual plan then was to move in on Friday and on Sunday, her mother would return home to wash clothes. The Grange provided tables and benches then, but when the organization stopped doing that, Agnes and her family were able to purchase a table and two benches that are still in use.
“There was only one year I didn’t attend and there was a year during the war when the fair wasn’t held,” she explained. “Ice was delivered to the sites and a meat man came around to offer his hams etc. The parades were very nice then and all the granges would have floats. There were money prizes for the best floats from the organization and the granges also put on plays. There were thirteen granges in Centre County at one time,” she added.
Agnes remembers entering flowers and sewing projects in the fair. She talked of the benches made for the Garbrick rides by the Girl Scouts. It was always hot standing in line for the rides. “The playground with the swings, sandbox and see-saws was always popular,” said Agnes. “And we could go there ourselves even when we were seven or eight.”
A new dress for girls or a shirt and pants for boys were always worn to the fair ahead of the first day of school for which they were bought. “It was always great to see your friends and some family members you only saw at fair time,” recalled Agnes. “I always had a new dress for the fair.” Agnes said it’s all right to tell that she is 91 years old and I say, “You would never guess that!”
Catching Jack Garbrick at Brother’s Pizza in Centre Hall, I waited for him to finish lunch before picking his brain regarding the Garbrick Amusements that he owns with his brother Henry.
Garbrick’s father had Garbrick Manufacturing and there they turned out a kind of saw — about 115 a day during WWII. Most of these saws went to Russia. Jack was drafted into the Navy in 1943 and when he came out in 1946, there was less manufacturing at the plant. Jack had an idea and bought one kiddie ride (in a junk pile) from a cousin and began to haul it to carnivals. He then approached his father to expand the equipment he had into a full machine shop where they could design and build rides. His resulting Merry Mixer and swing rides are patented and he has Ferris Wheels all over the world. At least thirteen different rides carry the Garbrick name.
Garbrick said: “I recently received a call from American Samoa where a guy hauling a wheel on a barge to another location needed to find a cable for it. Oh sure, I was able to help him.”
He described the prices in the earlier days.
“Rides were 10 cents and cotton candy was 15 cents,” he said.
Jack will turn 90 on Oct. 13 and he shared what he feels is his secret to long life.
“I never smoked and I am the oldest Garbrick that ever lived,” he boasted. “When I was in the Navy, I sold my cigarette rations and when I came out in 1946, I was able to buy a 1946 green and black Buick Roadmaster with my cigarette money. It cost $2,800,” he recalled.
Garbrick was also a pilot and owned many planes. He taught others to fly and would help out at the fair with the plane rides. He also holds a card that attests that he is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol. He has 11,000 flying hours and has personally flown in all states except Alaska and Hawaii.
You will find Jack at the fair.
Most people go to the Grange Fair as a sort of vacation from their day jobs, although if their job is farming, someone still must take care of the animals, milking etc. Many of the men and women describe getting up at 4 a.m. to take care of the chores. When evening comes, someone must repeat the process. Some families handle this by taking turns staying in the tents or RVs and caring for the business at home.
Some business owners take their work right with them. Vicki Homan has Traditional Styles at the fair. She bought a barbershop that had been Red’s Barbershop, owned by Glenn Fetterhoff, A.K.A. “Red.” When she wanted to establish a beauty shop at the Grange Fair, she had to follow all the same steps to make it a legitimate, licensed business, with its own name.
“The. fair is a long-standing tradition, and you can’t get much more traditional than ”Traditional Styles”, Vicki explained. She says the shop is a full service salon. They shampoo, cut, dye and perm like any other beauty shop. Vicki says she first set up in a camper by the grandstand, then moved to her father-in-law’s maintenance shed building. She and her employees, Shari Brown who has been with her for 18 years, Ciara Musser (four years), Ashley Shaffer (five years) close the shop and go to the fair. “Since everyone around is out there, there wouldn’t be any business,” said Vicki.
You can also get a massage at the beauty shop. Vicki’s sister, massage therapist Denise Gray, will provide that relaxing interlude.
“We love going to the fair,” said Vicki. It’s our vacation from our day-to-day jobs, even though we’re working. We enjoy all the people.”
The multi-talented Vicki, I discovered, is also an artist/painter. She did paintings of owner’s tents, but that became much too demanding she said, as the people wanted painting of the inside of their tents also.
She will have pictures displayed in October and November at Mount Nittany Medical Center. Look for her work there and for her — where else — but at the fair.
