Overcoming Challenges
by Mallory Chessman
My family and I moved to Lancaster in 1974. My son, Kevin, was only in third grade back then. And I’ll tell you Lancaster back then was one of those towns where they weren't too nice. My son had a hard time in school with the other kids. He would come home and really not want to go outside. The kids would bully him out there. But times have changed now and the people around here are a lot nicer.
This town has changed a lot since then. I remember you could walk down Main Street and go to any store you wanted. They had a shoe store, a dress shop, everything you needed was right in town. Now you gotta head over to Littleton for the Walmart. That or the Job Lots. A lot of people like the Job Lots.
As you can tell from the story Ann illustrates, Lancaster used to have a very different environment in the 70’s. She also explained how far the economic environment had changed from when she first moved here in 1974 to current day.
Back in the 70’s kids wore all kinds of things. People would wear plaid pants, corduroy, and singe belts. The hair, too, was something else. All big and teased up. and white buck shoes. I had white bucks when I was back in school, too. It was so hard to keep them clean. I mean, some kids would put a white polish on them, but then they would lose their fuzz. It seems to me that you might as well keep your clothes for 20 years and they will come back around.
This section of the interview I especially found interesting. We also talked about how styles change and evolve. Some looks come back around and others seem totally bizarre to later generations.
Biggest snowstorm I can remember was back in 1978. I’ll tell you that Larry never missed a day of work. We went outside to see if he’d be able to make it to work through the snow, walked down the road and saw Frank the barber talking to an officer and they told us might as well go back inside. I’ll tell you the snow was level with the plowed sidewalks. The winters have really changed. Every year there is less snow, yet the years get harder. This winter I have just hoped to get through my hip replacement. In the spring I will be getting back to walking.
In conclusion I found the biggest take away from Ann's stories was that with time comes change.