I have plenty of far-back ancestors who witnessed or participated in historical events. But this week I want to feature my grandma, Charmie Granger Maffett. She hosted so many family Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts, so she's on my mind this time of year. After big family dinners, when extended family came from out of state, we would sometimes sit around the table and tell stories. She was fond of marveling at how, when she was growing up in rural Ohio, they went to church in a horse and buggy. "And in my lifetime I've watched men land on the Moon!"
Sometimes she would tell the story of the bank robbery. Before she married Grandpa, in the early 1930's, Grandma worked as a teller at a bank in Mercer County, Ohio. I always thought it was Celina, because the Celina Daily Standard newspaper (she received it daily by mail until she died) reprinted the original article many years later and she read excerpts to us one Thanksgiving, but it may have been the one at St. Marys in Auglaize co. I wish I had a copy of the article now. Parts of it were high comedy, although I'm sure Grandma was terrified at the time.
The bank robbers were supposedly members of the Dillinger gang, or a branch of it, and the first part of the robbery went just like in the movies: armed gangsters waving the tellers and bankers off to the side, while they stuffed bills into their bags. I imagine Grandma, much younger, with her sweet quiet face and wearing a flowered dress, maybe huddled together with all the other scared tellers.
Then there was the shopkeeper across the street, who saw what was going on and ran to the back room for his shotgun. He was so agitated to fire at the robbers before they got away that he fired the shotgun from INSIDE his store, breaking his own brand new plate glass front window.
The getaway car was parked outside on the street, and one robber was a bit late getting in... as I recall the story, the car was moving when he jumped in and the door was still open when the driver stepped on the gas, resulting in the car door being sheared off by the post of a street lamp.
That's what I can remember of Grandma's bank robbery story. One of these days, I will have to search for that newspaper article.
