2.4.4.1.9 Sidney Earl Pollock

[Last amended: April 26, 2004]

Sidney Earl Pollock was the nineth and final child of Mary Barnett and James "Jim" Pollock. He was born on June 10, 1895 in Ohio.

Sidney Earl Pollock
[Photo courtesy of Mary Williams]

Sidney married Elnora Belle Noward on July 10, 1920. She was the daughter of Samuel Noward, a farmer from Waterville, Lucas Co, Ohio. She had been born in Ohio December 10, 1895.

When the 1920 US census was taken in the Waterville area on February 25, Elnora (24) was listed as Elnora Pollock in her father's household.

At the time of the 1930 census the family was living in Waterville Township, Lucas co, Ohio. Sid was a farmer, aged 34. The rest of the household were Elnora (34), Waldo (8), and Merlin and Mary (2).

From their daughter, Mary:

Sidney Earl Pollock son of James Pollock and Mary Barnett

Sidney, the youngest of nine children of James Pollock and Mary Barnett, was born on their family farm in an old log house on Bailey Rd near Grand Rapids, Ohio on June 10th, 1895. His siblings were James Arthur, John Chester, Myrtle, Benjamin, Jean and Esther Glee as well as two babies who died (Belle who was a little over one year old and another only a few hours old).

We often heard stories of this old log home with the cracks and crevices in the walls which allowed the rats through, and very cold air to blow in. The floors were so crooked that the doors would not close properly. All this before a new home was built to replace it.

Dad told of having to sit at the corner of the table since he was the youngest and they were to fill up on bread first so that the food would go further and last longer. Aunt Ann and Aunt Jane had lived with them at times also. He often told how Aunt Ann Pollock had made life miserable for them. She even got the warmest bedroom in the house.

He attended school in the school at the corner of Box and Heller roads. This school was like many of the small one room schools scattered throughout rural areas across the country. Walking to school could be mighty cold in the winter months. He completed his schooling at the age of 16 - then helped on the farm.

It seems that teaching school was a large part of his families’ occupations - if they were not farming. Somehow they were able to take a test of some kind and then were able to teach. Evidently their mother, Mary, and possibly their father, James, as well as James Arthur, Myrtle and Ben had taught sometime or another. Uncle Arthur (James Arthur) did go on to become a Principal of Waite High School in Toledo.

Elnora Belle Noward
[Photo courtesy of Mary Williams]

Sidney married Elnora Belle Noward in January of 1920 very quietly in Toledo, Ohio. I wish I had ask more about that. They were able to start married life on a farm owned by Elnora's father, Sam Noward, on Neowash Rd in Waterville Township which was only a few miles away. Dad would tell us that he married Mom for her money and she married him for his brains and that they were both wrong. Elnora had finished school at 16 also when her mother died - and it would be necessary to pay tuition for school in town.

Sid and Elnora had 5 children - Waldo, Burton, Merlin and Mary (twins) and Richard. Burton was about 18 months old when he and his Grandpa, James Pollock, who was living with the family at the time both died of an influenza type illness with two days of each other (October 3rd and 5th of 1926). Waldo was 11 years old when he died of a bursted appendix in 1932. These were sad times for them but life in general was mostly good even with the hard farm work.

The twins, Merlin and Mary, were born in 1927 weighing 8-1/4 and 7-1/2 pounds respectively, which must have been a load for Mom. Dr. Buck along with a new doctor in town, Dr. Waldo Suter came to the house to deliver them. Grandma Mary Barnett had also been a twin with brother Francis.

Nine years later Richard Emmet Pollock was born at home also, while Merlin and Mary were in school. And can you believe that it was truly a surprise. They had not even known that their mother was pregnant. How times have changed!

In 1939 Sid and Elnora bought a farm down the road east of them across the railroad tracks which would be their very own. It was so close that they just drove the cows, pigs and horses etc. down the road instead of loading them into trucks. It was necessary to do a little remodeling in the house and I do remember Uncle Ben helping to turn a set of stairs around. The basement stairs had come up in the living-dining room area and the second floor stairs came up into the kitchen. There was no bathroom or electricity - so that was done as time went on.

They farmed this land until Sid died on October 11, 1975 at 80 years of age. He had been to the doctor that day and was given a water pill, which evidently did not work. After going to bed that night, and while Mom was preparing to go, he gasp and breathed his last. I remember the phone call telling us, and getting down there before they came to get him.

A few months earlier Dad had an accident with the tractor while mowing a ditch bank when the tractor tipped over into this big ditch and it was necessary to do skin graft on his leg. This seemed to slow his farming down. I think that cataracts on his eyes may have attributed to this mishap.

Elnora passed away on September 27, 1983 at home, having been in a wheel chair for several years and breaking her hip due to Osteosclerosis.

[Information provided by Mary Williams]

Sidney and Elnora are both buried in the Wakeman Cemetery, Waterville, Ohio, as are their sons Waldo and Burton.

Children of Sidney Pollock and Elnora Noward: