James Edward and Clara Dickey farm, Smicksburg, on Barnard Road (4021), up a lane that Google now calls Rocky Road. This farm has been owned by Amish since mid or late 1960s. At the time it was sold, there was a smaller house beside the lane at the lower left in this photo, and several chicken coops up toward the barn. The house is quite old. J. E. Dickey purchased this farm from an earlier owner. Barns on this property have been set afire by lightning several times, and the barn shown may be yet another replacement. In the '20s and '30s, lightning would strike the phone line, sending pinwheels of fire out of the handcrank wall phone and rolling across the living room floor and out the front door. There was some sort of piped acetylene gas light system installed in the house and those light fixtures were still in place in early 1960s. Those are large glacial rocks scattered on the hillside in front of the house. There was a drift coal mine on the property. James E. Dickey had cattle, Clara raised chickens and sheep. Their son Park had saddle horses. James Dickey had a red ('46?) convertible which was famous around Smicksburg. He was a talented mandolin player. Clara liked harness racers and kept a framed print of Dan Patch, George Gano, and Minor Heir on her parlor wall.
Children: James Ronald Dickey of Rural Valley (m. Gertrude Dickey of Smicksburg); Delores Dickey Furman of NYC who became a Ziegfield girl (m. a Broadway and movie producer named Furman); Robert who built a house next door offscreen to the right in this photo (m. Frances Condron of Smicksburg); Orland Park Dickey, who moved to Florida and became a newspaper reporter after service in WWII.