Janice Gantz – 95 years Growing Up in Boonsboro

We interviewed Janice Gantz in 2018 at age 95 in her kitchen at 202 Potomac Street. Her neice, Karen (Snyder) Cunningham who calls her by her nickname “Peck”, sat with us during the interview, helping to prompt memories. 

Janice Gantz, born in 1923 at her grandparents farm at 6821 King Road, has lived in the Boonsboro area for 95 years. Her mother was Carrie Estelle (Cline) Gantz, born 1894, and her father was Ross Martin Gantz, born 1898. She came from a musical family and with her sisters Bernice (Gantz) Snyder and Miriam (Gantz) Marker, they were known as the “Gantz Sisters”. They all sang and performed, including Janice who performed special music at Trinity Lutheran up until her early 90s.

Her family lived on several farms, including the Schildtknecht Farm on Moser Road and one in Rorhersville, where she attended Mt. Caramel School. In 1947, at age 24, her parents moved to 202 Potomac Street, a home built in 1900. Janice lived all her adult life there until she moved this year (2018).

Their farms supported their needs and Janice recalls helping around the farm. She recalls her mother taking their eggs and butter to be sold at Reeder’s store on Main Street, picking raspberries like so many who grew in Boonsboro, getting ice cream at Mrs. Barrs and shopping for shoes at the store owned by the Huffers.

Janice graduated from Boonsboro High School in 1942 during World War II, a time when women were likely to get married and keep house. Her mother didn’t care for her to work, but Janice set her own path, working at M.P. Moller pipe organ builders. They prepped

lumber for organs and also for the aircraft industry. When Moller closed, Janice went to work for Fairchild Aircraft in accounting. After Fairchild, she worked for Mack Truck and then for the Social Security Administration, from which she retired.

Karen also remembers growing up in Boonsboro – the flooding which was common, high school activities, sledding and even a murder that occurred in Boonsboro.

 

(** Update – Janice passed away December 14, 2020.)

 

Pick audio clips of Janice’s memories regarding farm chores, the Boone Hotel, working at Mollers, and using telephone party lines below OR just continue listening as each clip will play one after another.