The Lives and Times of Dennis and Mae

When Mae Dingess was a young girl, she was a housekeeper for a family with seven children.  She was responsible for the care of all the children and all of the housework.  She had to hand wash a lot of the lingerie.  To do the wash, she had to carry buckets of water from the river uphill to the house.  She loved to squaredance and she got to go out dancing on Saturday nights.     When Dennis Shumate was young, he would trap animals (skunks, minks, etc.) to sell their skins.  He would catch skunks, bring them home and feed them pumpkins to fatten them up so he would get more money for them.  He killed them and stretched their skins out to dry.  He would pick berries, crab apples or anything that was in season that he could sell to make a little money.    When Mae and Dennis met, she was a cook in a logging camp and he was working at the camp.  His job was to go into the woods and drag timbers (trees) out and load them on a truck.  The camp was a place where all of the men would stay all week and work.  They didn't get very much to eat.  The people that owned it would only have small bowls of gravy and eggs.  By the time the food was passed to you, there was hardly any food left.  They hired Mae to help cook and she made such good food and gave larger servings.  Needless to say she didn't last long there and she was fired.    Mae and Dennis later married and they moved to West Virginia.  Dennis got a job at a saw mill hauling timbers.  He would drag timbers out of the woods all day, load them, take them back to the mill, and unload them late at night.  A lot of nights, he would have to deliver groceries from the company store to customers.  After a few years, and two children (Bill and Jane), Dennis and Mae started picking up dry cleaning door to door.  Mae would go to every door telling them they were starting a route through their neighborhood and why their company was better.  They built up a very good business.   Mae went to work at the dry cleaners and the first job she had was sewing buttons back on and sewing ripped seams.  She did that for awhile, until she found out that the people that pressed the clothing made more money.  She wasn't long asking for that job.  She kept that job for many yeas.      Mae also worked for a restaurant close to home.  She would get upset and quit, they would call and beg her to come back.  The restaurant always got good marks from the health inspector when she was there.  She opened her won restaurant for awhile, but it was too far away from home.  Then she bought a service station when her son Bill was old enough to help but that didn't prove to be a good investment.      Mae then decided she would open her own dry cleaning business.  Her son Bill did the cleaning, she did the pressing, her older son Donald would go on the road door to door.  Around that time, Dennis had bought a coal truck and was hauling coal to the mining temples.  In 1959, some friends that had lived in West Virginia came back on vacation from Pennsylvania, and they were telling them all about the jobs in Pennsylvania.  Mae decided to sell out and she moved the whole family to Pennsylvania.  Dennis went to work for Victor Weaver within a few days of arriving.  Mae went to work in a sewing factory (New Holland Lingerie).  Bill got a job at the silk mill, Frank Ix.  Jane stayed home to care for Dennis and Mae's foster daughter Rosa Lee.  At one point, the whole family worked for Victor Weaver.      As time went on, Bill and Mae worked together for a dry cleaner in Lancaster.  Later Bill opened his own cleaning place and Mae worked for him.  When his business closed, she worked for a dry cleaner in Ephrata.  When she retired, she started doing crafts, especially quilting and sewing.  Dennis had retired from Weaver's earlier and he kept busy doing repairs around the house and raising a garden.  He enjoyed giving tomatoes, beans and cucumbers to the neighbors.  Through all the years, they always attented church.                 They had a very good life.