To begin with, I want to say that I have found out what the legal name of Jeffersonville is. I thought I knew, but I have never had it confirmed. However, attorney, Kelley A. Loy, assures me that the legal name is Jeffersonville. Folks in authority, shortened the name to Geff.

Why they put a "G" on there instead of a "J" I don't know. There is a tradition that says the land on which the plot was laid out, belonged to Jasper Branch. It seems that he wanted to give it a name beginning with the same letter that his name began with. Why he chose Jeffersonville instead of something else, I do not know, unless he was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson. That might have been it, but the legal flame is Jeffersonville.

I used to mention the name once in a while in class-room where I taught in Enid, OkIa., and the youngsters would say, "Jeffersonville?  Where's that?"   "Well!"  I would answer, "Don't you know where Jeffersonville is?  It's in Wayne County, Illinois. Its in the county that has more smart people to the square foot than any other county in the United States."

A smile would go around the room and they would challenge me to prove it. "You can prove it,"  I said.  "The next time you go through Wayne  County, stop the first citizen that you meet, and repeat my statement. and ask him if it isn't true. Every one of them  say that it is true."   I left it at that. I don't know whether any one of them ever tried it or not.

It was a two story house and stood on a corner that is now vacant.  It is just east of the Watermen Bestow home on the vacant lot next to the highway, on the north east corner of the public square.

The school in Jeffersonville began by meeting in a frame house built for a residence down near where the old Southwestern depot stood for so many years, but the school didn't remain there long. They transferred to what
was called the warehouse, up along the railroad, and held school there for several months while preparing to erect a new building.  However, the building wasn't ready when cold weather came, so they carried the school up to one of the churches and met there for several months until the school building was finished.

The first real school was a two story building.  It had four rooms, two below and two above, but only  three of these rooms were used tor school purposes.  The fourth room was used by the Masonic Lodge. They taught of course, only  through the eighth grade.

We had some excellent teachers there, I can't I name all of them, but I remember some of them very definitely.   One was Chester Borah, said to be one of the best teachers who ever taught in Geff.  Another was J. H. Kramer who was later known in Fairfield as one of its best citizens.  And there was D. 0. Illinois,  a man a who came from Clay County.  He was one of the kindest, and one of the most painstaking teachers that I ever knew.  In later years there was Robert Pifer and a man by the name of Weems, and another by the name of Bull.

And I remember Minnie Frankel.  She was one of the most patient of teachers.  I have a card of re ward -- I got honorary mention one time while in grade school.  You would not believe it, but I did.  I've got that card at home yet with Minnie Frankel's name on it.

One time when I was in the first grade, Miss Wright spent intermission times knitting on some red mittens. All of the children were anxious to know who those mittens were for, but she wouldn't tell us.  It wasn't far from Christmas, and when we would ask, she would always say that the mittens were for two of her little friends.

Well, when Christmas came, my brother Will had a pair of red mittens and so did I.  I haven't forgotten that, and I never will.  Nettie Wright was a good, patient, pains-taking teacher, and she always meant a great deal to me.

There were various songs that we sang at school for opening exercises.  There was one that we especially liked.  It was "Coming Through the Rye."  We were in our adolescent age then, and why wouldn't we be attracted with such a verse as that?  "If a body kiss a body, should a body cry"’. I've always wondered why that line was put in there  why the question should mt raised at all?  There's nothing there to cry about that I could ever see. Of course we sang "Sweet Ofton,"  "Sweet Adeline" and "My Old Kentucky Jone"’. We all liked the music to that song.  Occasionally we sang some church songs. and of course, "America" and "The Star Spangled Banner,"

Now at the present time in Geff there are: three filling stations, two lunch rooms, one barber shop, one general store. one grocery and meat store, one custard shop. two feed mills, one electric and plumbing shop, one post office, one grain elevator, a Masonic lodge, one insurance agency, one picture show, two garages, one pool room, one used furniture store, two used car dealers, two churches, and one consolidated school.

When I left Jeffersonville in 1919 there were three general stores. Mr. Decker had a store and also Jacob Logan.  And t here was run by Mrs. Rapp, grandmother of Peter C. Rapp, of Fairfield. We all called her Mother Rapp, and I remember especially Mother Rapp's store. I remember it for several reasons.

I remember the stick candy up on the shelves.  In those days stick candy came in glass jars. The yellow candy was lemon, and the peppermint had red stripes running around, and other flavors had different stripes.  Up to this day I have never seen anything that looked as petty as that candy did in those glass jars.

I remember one Christmas as we sat digging into the candy, thinking it was all candy.  I noted an object down there wrapped carefully in tissue paper-  one in each box,  A one blade Barlow knife.  Mrs. Rapp had been thoughtful enough to put a knife in each box for "her two boys."

Mrs. Rapp's Store
I remember especially Mrs. Rapp's store in Jeffersonville  . Mother Rapp, we called her.  She was the grandmother of Peter C. Rapp of Fairfield. That was the store my brother Sam worked in— the brother who lives in Bedford, Indiana.

In the late 1800’s, sugar came in barrels. They had granulated sugar, light brown sugar, and dark brown sugar. The dark brown sugar often became caked down in the bottom of the barrel and had to be chopped out with a hatchet. Sam was very short of stature— is yet, but especially was then.

One day when he was chopping out the bottom of one of those barrels with his toes just barely touching the floor behind him, those toes both slipped at the same time and Sammy went in the barrel on his head.  For a long time after that he was known all over the community as "Sugar Barrel Sammy."

Before the 1900's there were no stock laws.  Everybody's cows could run out and go wherever they could find pasture. I remember yet how the milk cows came trudging up the road from the east past the Lily Mill every evening.

Those cows were all turned loose about the
same time every morning. They would go leisurely, single file, down the road into the Martin Creek bottoms where there was plenty of pasture. They seemed to know just when to come hack. They all came back at one time, single file from the bottom  .

There was only one saloon that ever came to Jeffersonville. It was before my time-- before the Civil War at least, but that saloon was short lived. There was a group of men in Jeffersonville who called themselves the Sons of Temperance. They saw to it that that saloon got out of town. There has never been another one there since.

When I lived in Jeffersonville as a boy, there was a group of men that. ordered beer out of St. Louis. Got it every Saturday. ‘They took it up along  the rail road where the ties were piled on the right of way, and they would stay right there until that beer was all gone. There was one man of whom they said could drink more beer than any other three men in the whole crowd. That man became a very devoted, and a very effective gospel minister.  I wouldn't recommend beer drinking as a prerequisite to the ministry, but this happened to turn out that way that time.