Mantua Restoration Society, Inc.

We'd love to hear and share your Tales of Mantua Center School.  They can be about anything you remember: a favorite teacher, a prank, a snowball fight, (are kids still allowed to have those?) or almost anything else. You can always remain anonymous (although the statute of limitations has long since expired!).  Please tell your friends about this because we'd like to keep that page full and we see it as a possible way to reconnect with long-lost classmates from Mantua Center School days.

All stories can be submitted through our Contact Us page.

                                                                    Guy Root's "Horse Race"

       Many of us remember our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Mabel Root. She and her husband,Guy, lived at the corner of Chamberlain  and Mennonite roads. Guy was a farmer with a love of horses and an eye for good horseflesh. He had a silo-filling business, and by the mid-1960's, his Fall route took him from Rootstown to Eagleville, north of U.S.Rte. 6 in Ashtabula County, and from Solon to the east side of Nelson. When I worked for him in 1967- 1968, he would hitch two forage wagons behind the chopper and move to the next job at a top speed of 22 MPH. I followed with the power unit, the silage blower, and third wagon hitched behind the Jeep. My top safe speed was 20 MPH; above that, my "tail" began to fishtail, and by 22MPH, it was starting to whip. 

       On a beautiful Fall day, we were moving from south of Parkman to a farm on Rte. 528 about 1 mile south of Rte.322  in Huntsburg Twp., Geauga County. I had to wait for the traffic light at Rte.87 outside Middlefield, home of the 4th largest Amish community in the world. Guy went on, over the rise north of the intersection. At that time, there were no buggy lanes, as there are now. All traffic shared the two-lane highway, and you really had to stay alert at night!  

      As I topped the rise, there below me was Guy, just  at the start of a two-mile long straight, nearly  level stretch of road, with no traffic except for an Amish buggy, also heading north. Guy pulled out to pass. He crept up even with the buggy....... and stayed there .  He actually began to drop back, and I thought he was going to pull in behind the buggy again. He must have bent the throttle lever as he once again sloooowly began to pass, again staying alongside the buggy for so long that I thought, "Man! There must be a really pretty girl in there!"  He finally inched past, and it was finally my turn. I crept up beside that buggy with everything just starting to fishtail, and yes, there WAS a very pretty Amish girl in there, sitting between two boys, all three teen-agers grinning from ear ro ear. Out front was a beautiful dark bay horse, head and ears up, sweat just beginning to lather, and just steppin' it out at a high trot. What a sight on a perfect autumn day! By the time I crept past, my whole " tail " was starting to whip.  At the farm, I kidded Guy, "I didn't think you were ever going to pass that buggy!"  He shook his head and said,"I didn't think I was going to be ABLE TO!  But man! DID YOU SEE THAT HORSE ?!??!"

                                                     Submitted by Dave Pollard