Last month’s column was about teaching music in the 1800s. Now we’ll move forward a couple decades. If it hadn’t been for Adam R. Shickle 1865-1956, Brocks Gap’s churches would have been quiet places. A school teacher in his early years, Adam gave music lessons to the future pianists and organists of at least four churches in the Gap.
Walking from house to house from Fulks Run to Criders, Adam gave music lessons to people in the community from at least 1917 until his later years. He walked to the student’s house where he conducted a lesson for 25 cents. Sometimes he taught ten lessons per day, his diaries reveal. If he was at the student’s house at the dinner hour, he ate with the family. If it was near nightfall, he spent the night before walking on to the next home in the morning. Some of Adam’s students lived more than 10 miles from his home on Little Dry River at Fulks Run. Usually, he left home on Monday and returned on Friday.
No pump organ in the home? No problem—Adam arranged for families to purchase used instruments. At that time, pianos were becoming very popular in Pennsylvania, and reed organs could be purchased inexpensively. Adam took orders and arranged for them to be delivered to the homes. There were many different styles, but most were priced around $5 each. (I now own Kermit Custer’s reed organ that his parents bought him for $5).
At least four local church organists took lessons from Adam. Margaret Fawley Custer (Mt. Carmel EUB/UM); Edna Caplinger Smith (Damascus Church of the Brethren); Pauline Ritchie Fulk (Mt. Grove Church of the Brethren); and Wilma Wittig Baker (Riverside EUB/UM). Some of his other students were Mabel Albrite Mathias, Anna Lee Wittig Lantz, Vita Souder Fulk, Lena Albrite Turner, Nora Dove Lantz, and Ina Dove Hupp. Adam was indirectly responsible for my learning to play the piano. Because of his lessons, my mother could play the piano, and I wanted to learn to play, too.
Adam and his wife Fannie Fawley Shickle 1878-1961 were faithful members of Mt. Carmel EUB (now UM) church. His diaries show that they attended church services at Mt. Carmel or other churches two or three times a week. He read the Bible through 41 times during his lifetime. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1947 with a community celebration at Mt. Carmel. Nancy Trumbo Bodkin and Mrs. Margie N. Garber, former students, played the piano or sang. Nieces Inez Shickle and Mrs. Carl Weist sang a duet.
You may be unfamiliar with the Shickle name, but you probably know some Shickle descendants. Their daughter Ilene married Roy A. Trumbo, and they had 2 sons, Kenneth S. Trumbo 1925-2007 and Warren D. Trumbo. Adam and Fannie’s daughter Beatrice married James E. Turner, and their 2 daughters were Vivian Turner Miller 1921-2023 and Kathryn Turner Fahrney 1930-2017. Adam and Fannie’s son Carl Brunk Shickle moved to Winchester, and their son Weldon lived in Broadway.
Adam died at his son’s home in Broadway in 1956, but his widow Fannie lived alone in Fulks Run for several years. When we were preschool age, my grandparents Ruth and Lloyd Turner took me and my next-oldest sisters to visit Aunt Fannie and sing our Sunday School choruses for her. About 1958, my parents bought Adam’s reed organ from Aunt Fannie, which became our home’s first musical instrument.
Descendants of some of his sisters live in Fulks Run, though none of Adam and Fannie’s great-grandchildren do. Laney A. Custer 1894-1981 was a son of Adam’s sister Mary Eva Shickle Custer, and Maynard E. Hoover 1898-1978 was a son of Adam’s sister Amanda Shickle Hoover. Both sisters died young. Another sister Elizabeth married Frank Franklin Ritchie and lived in Broadway.
The first Shickle in Brocks Gap was Adam’s father Henry Shickle. “He was a blacksmith by trade, but spent many years in the school room, being a teacher of more than average ability. He first taught many years ago, when it was the custom for school to take in before daylight and continue in session until after dark,” according to his 1905 obituary. He “was born in the Muddy Creek neighborhood about 82 years ago, where he was reared. In 1845 he married Miss Elizabeth High, who survives him, and moved to Brocks Gap when that section of the county was almost a wilderness.” He was a member of the United Brethren church for nearly 50 years. “He was a remarkable man in many respects and retained his mental facilities unimpaired until his last illness.” The Mt. Carmel church register states that Henry “died in peace.”
