A Fish Story. Charles Randall Poppleton.

WARNING: This story is not for those who get grossed out easily.

I believe that I mentioned my great-grandfather's love of fishing in a previous post. I also spoke of spending time at Bummie and Bumpie's most Sundays, but our family were frequent visitors. Not that we were a real close-knit family or anything like that. Visiting family was simply the culturally accepted norm. Potluck dinners, impromptu picnics and birthdays were standard gathering times for us all.

Life in small-town America was both good and bad. As so often happens in rural towns not every technological and cultural trend had caught up with the population.  Not everyone owned televisions. Telephones still had "party" lines. Computers wouldn't become popular (affordable) to the general public until the 1980s. Most people didn't lock their doors - AT ALL. Children played together or alone outside until called in for dinner or it got too dark to see. Times were simpler then.

Sometime right around 1964, my great-grandfather came chuckling up to the house on Ellison Avenue. Fishing pole in hand and a funny story on his lips. The fishing pole was left on the porch and he quickly whispered in Bummie's ear when he came inside.

We Called Them Bummie and Bumpie.

Florence Marie (Berchtold) and Charles Randall Poppleton  were my great-grandparents on my maternal grandmother's parents. Here they are standing by the garage behind their Ellison Avenue home.

As mentioned before, Charles worked for Bell Telephone and Florence was a stay at home mom.

My mother, Gail is credited with giving them the nicknames 'Bummie' and 'Bumpie'. When queried Mom stated that she doesn't recall why or how those names came about. 'It was probably something that just came out of my mouth.'

As a child I thought we called her Bummie because of the way she dressed. Not that she dressed badly, but because most of the time when I saw her she had been working in her flower beds. More than likely she had dirt on her hands or pants.

Bumpie was born 15 January 1891 in Irvine, Pennsylvania. Bummie was born on the 2 April 1894  in Erie, Pennsylvania. Both came from relatively large families. Bumpie had seven brothers and sisters; Bummie twelve. Bumpie's family was primarily English; Bummie was of German descent.


The world they were born into was much different than today.