John Reever knows all about life in a small town. The seventy-three year old New, Midway transplant has lived in this hamlet, just north of Woodsboro on Md. 194, for the past sixty years. Naturally, he is even more aware of New Midway's history. For he himself has left an indelible thumbprint on the shape the municipality has taken during the twentieth century. Just about anywhere you look. Mr. Reever's past can be seen.

Arriving from Fairfield. Pennsylvania when he was thirteen, Mr. Reever set out to join the ranks of New Midway's business establishment. Apparently making a name for himself from the beginning as a hard and reliable worker, he literally held the keys to at least one commercial outfit. Meeting up with the renowned Jesse Renner, himself quite an enterprising fellow and thrill-seeker. Mr. Reever was entrusted with the doing of Renner general store in Jesse's absence. Looking back, he says. "l ran the store before I got drafted into the Arm in 1943. I ran the store for Jesse for while. I was there from the time it opened 'til the time it closed, when I got back from the Army'. I worked there again. Altogether, I worked there for about nine years."

Going back a bit further. Jesse's father, Francis, started the general store. When his father passed away. Jesse took over as owner. Before Francis died though, he also had begun filling in the legacy his father Isaac left vacant. Francis, a preacher. owned the first care in Frederick County and his son had a Ford dealership in what later became the site of the general store.

Starting the venture around 1910. Jesse helped steer Ford through its heyday, selling the Model "A" and Model "T" from his showroom floor. Jesse, following in his father's visionary footsteps, really turned heads in purchasing and flying the first airplane in Frederick County. Calling it the "Queen of Frederick County" and storing it on the Renner farm inside the "hangar," his flirtation with the blue skies took off and landed on the makeshift runway carved out of the property and continued the long tradition of Renner family influence in New Midway. Jesse also boasted the first motorcycle in the county, to go along with his motorized sled.

The prominence of the family name might be best exemplified in the Renner general store. Seemingly the trophy in their assembly of business and other pet projects, the store was flanked b1'the Ford dealership, the town post office. the Rose Jelly Salve Company, the coal bin storage facility, all of which sat beneath the-cupola, whose presence at the top of the building still reminds Mr. Reever, a retired firefighter, of the birds-eve view firemen scurried to for calling out the quickest route to blazes in the area.

Jesse owned the entire structure. Mr. Reever, who was appointed to executor of the Renner estate when Jesse died in 1948, eventually, bought his way into the same investment. He now leases the space he does not use for himself, having renovated part of the lodging for craftsman, leading up to current lessee Gary Crum's "Creative Woodwork" custom design business. The other unused portion was offer for a monthly fee to Dean and Lois Kramer, of Kramer's Piano Shop. Mr. Reever says he had to reinforce the floors to bear the tremendous weight of the pianos. Right across Md. 194 is the old creamery that Jesse also owned. Cheese, buttermilk, and ice cream were shipped form there to Baltimore. The building was sold by Mr. Reever to the fire company in 1948. After that sale, he let the station keep one of its engines in a facility behind his house, the type of vehicle he drove for a stretch during his stint as a firefighter.

Rose Jelly Salve Company, whose employees at one point numbered twelve, including Mr. Reever, used 55-gallon drums to mix up batches of the relief aid Mr. Reever calls better than anything on the market today. The concocting occurred in what is now Mr. Reever's living room. He still has two containers of the stuff dating back to 1948 and uses it for things like splinter removal. Amazingly, its rosy odor is a fragrant and soothing as ever. Its remarkable staying power over the years is not a surprise to Mi. Reever. "Twelve ladies worked in there making salve, canning it, and packing it. They shipped it all over the world. It even went to china" Jesse's brother, Calvin, took over after Jesse died. Calvin produced the globally acclaimed ointment until his death. Subsequently, the company shut down.

Although Jesse perpetuated the commercial standard in New Midway, his best-laid plans were not unveiled without facing some stiff competition. But it is the true mark of a friendly rivalry to hear that the Renner store and its owner where usually on good terms with the likes of A. A. Haugh and Milton. T. Butt.

Mr. Hall had the store when I was around here. He was Milt's partner. A.A. brought out Milt. That's when I came here in 1937. There was Haugh store and Renner's store. They sold everything. I even have a catalog that Miller used to put out, Mr. Reever claimed. The inventory at the store included furniture, clothing, shoes, groceries, and harnesses, among the assortment of goods. Horse carriages made in New Midway, Mr. Reever said, could be bought through the store, if one had such a need. Over at Reever's shoppers purchase hair tonic, liver pills, kidney tonic. These goods comprised the specialty section at Renner's.

As if it that were not enough that Jesse Renner left his stamp wherever his travels took him, he made many a journey as the driver of a privately contracted school bus. Not surprisingly, the humble Mr. Reever eventually took over the route, remaining at the helm for forty-one years.

The post office making its home in the Reever/Renner building since its construction in the mid-1800's, also has taken a meandering course in its history, Mr. Reever indicated that the post office has been moved three or four times, but it always stayed in this building. It stated down at one end. They put it in the middle and it stayed there fore several years. My wife was postmaster from 1955 to 1957. Then it was moved back into the old storeroom. John Dougherty and his wife ran it for a while. Joan Holland has been postmaster for the last twelve years.

Over at the old Haugh general store, A.A.'s wife relinquished her ties to it when she closed a deal with Bob Von Gunten. Referring to his store as "Brand X," he marketed furniture tools, and presided over an occasional auction. Groceries were phased out and replaced by such things as school desks. Mr. Reever has in his possession one that never made it to sale. He also has managed to preserve the old cash register from Renner's general store, in addition to a vintage flip-top desk typewriter as well as a telephone. According to him, Mr. Von Gunmen left the store some time in the i970's.

For a while the building sat idle, but available. Dean and Lois Kramer started punching the clock at the place in 1979, pulling it from swing line of the wrecking ball. With their hands more than full, given the structure s near disrepair, they launched an enthusiastic campaign of revitalization, still evident today. Vowing to make the place better than it ever was. An unending attempt at bringing the shop up to speed has yielded a wonderfully modern, multi-roomed interior, whose dated, yet pampered exterior still rings true to its 1908 novelty. Rooms have been added to the third floor, partitions that cordon off individual music studios for training and rehearsal sessions with aspiring musicians. Also on that floor are offices and even a guest room.

Since moving in back in 1979 Mr. And Mrs. Kramer have made the third floor their permanent address. Mr. Kramer's sister and store manager, Cheryl Ostrander, herself and accomplished pianist and vocalist with thirteen gospel music albums to her credit, teaches piano in her home. Speaking of the outfit where one in every fifteen sales is a baby-grand piano, Mrs. Ostrander says. "Every couple of years. we've made some improvements."

Now boasting a staff of sixteen full and part-time employees, Mr. Kramer seems to have turned an accident at the store before its premier into a sort of emblem of the hard work put into the place over the years. A wayward dump truck plowed into the side of the building, penetrating the thankfully empty showroom some fifteen to twenty feet, pushing the entire structure a full fourteen inches askew of its foundation. The result was quite a fiasco, with no report of injuries other than wounded spirits, and the Kramer's recovered to continue their assault on redoing a little piece of New Midway.

About five hundred feet down the road from Kramer's rests what is arguably the most stored entity in this town. Tammv and Rick Eaves currently reside in this magnificent 1717 Jacob-cookerly-built home. As legend has it, George Washington spent a portion of a day there. There remains a dispute as to whether he was headed to Pennsylvania or Virginia. William's History of Frederick County, says that "Francis Scott Key made it his boarding place in the summer." There is no doubt. However, that this home was once the property of the Renner family. Isaac Renner was the first to put down roots here.

Tammy Eaves is something of a history buff and has done some research of her own on the home's popularity, tracing the line of owners who have come and gone from its inception until present day' She found as previous inhabitants Charles Stover, a minister, who followed on the heels of the Renner endowment. His son, Wilbur came next. Succeeding that ownership, the Stover's sold the property to New Midway Fire hall in 1978, including six acres, a barn, and shed for one-hundred-thousand dollars. In 1982, Kyle and Lola Frame purchased the home. Tammy's father-in-law, Green Eaves, took it off the Frame's hands in 1987.

Tammy has loved this home since she can remember. She was ecstatic when Mr. Eaves agreed to restore the place to its former grandeur. His undertaking was massive, including a new fieldstone facing on the rear-side of the estate, with rock taken from area grounds. The kitchen floor was rotted out, as Tammy reports it: "They took crow bars and actually dug out horse hair, acorns, corn cobs, and more. That's what they insulated with when the house was built in 1717. We replaced the whole thing."

Lots of other activity followed, all to make the home look historical, authentic, what could be spared of the genuine article has been, including the upstairs flooring, the staircase, and the foyer. All modernized parts match up perfectly with the pre-existing features. The only thing that remains as a question is whether to remove the German wood siding, to expose the log edifice.

But, even like the contemporary firehouse, built in 1985, nothing here seems out of place. And the friendliness of its citizens could not be more flawlessly suited to bring the town into the twenty-first century.