Ziba Rice Shaver

From War over Lemuria: Richard Shaver, Ray Palmer and the Strangest Chapter of 1940s Science Fiction, by Richard Toronto

Chapter 7: Shavertown

Next door lived Ziba Bennett Rice, and his wife Elizabeth. Young Ziba was William’s best friend and worked in the same lumber mill. William and Rhoda’s second son, born in 1875, was named after William’s best friend. Thus Ziba Rice Shaver came to be.

Lumberman Ziba B. Rice was a Freemason and attended meetings at George M. Dallas Lodge No. 531. He wore the Masonic apron all the way to his initiation as Grand Master. This was the same lodge where Asa, Ira, Elmer, Lewis, and Joseph Shaver also became Grand Masters. [2]

After the birth of Ziba Rice Shaver, tragedy struck, and life changed drastically within the Shaver household...

--

...The fact that Rhoda Shaver’s insanity appeared after Ziba’s birth may have resulted from what is now called post-partum depression. It has been known to trigger severe depression, or worse, in some women.

Mania, melancholia, monomania, paresis, dementia, dipsomania, and epilepsy were standard categories of insanity in 1880. But in the case of women, physical issues were also given, such as childbirth, heredity, over-exertion, epileptic fits, domestic troubles, and the frequently used “unknown reasons”. [3]

Whatever the diagnosis, Rhoda remained in Danville until her death. This unfortunate turn changed everything. William placed baby Ziba Rice in the care of the widow Catherine Starner, a local German-American. She had the misfortune of marrying a Bavarian man who died before he could raise his five daughters. The widow Starner, always in need of extra income, took in little Ziba as a boarder at the tender age of 3...

--

Ziba Rice Shaver met Grace Taylor in her hometown of Fairmount, Pennsylvania. They were married there in 1898. Grace was the only child of Thomas Taylor, a paperhanger at that time, and his wife Kate. Thomas educated his daughter well, and she became a schoolteacher in the small nearby town of Harvey Lake. Grace was a writer, too, and spent much of her time writing poetry and prose.

In 1899, newly married Ziba Shaver found work at the American Car and Foundry Company in Berwick, Pennsylvania, temporarily leaving Grace and their newborn son Donald in the care of the elder Taylors. The plan was to find a home in Berwick when finances allowed. Within a year, Ziba had saved enough from his paychecks to move his family to Berwick. This was 1901. Berwick became the birthplace of the rest of the Ziba Shaver clan:

• Catherine Claire in 1902;
• Taylor Victor in 1904;
• Richard in 1907; and
• Isabelle in 1915.

As small as it was, Berwick was a town of big industry. The population hovered around 5,000 people, and a third of them worked for the American Car and Foundry Company. The “rolling mill”, as locals called it, produced rolling stock for the railroads - railcars of all types. The factory sat on the banks of the Susquehanna River and dominated the town.

Berwick turned out to be a fine place to raise a family. Ziba gained favor at the company and became a supervisor. The pay was mediocre and the work hard and fast. It made a man old before his time. Noise and fumes were mind-numbing. A union strike hit the factory in 1908, shutting it down long enough to make things tough for local families. The company had riled union leaders when administrators began firing employees who dared to become union officers. Blacksmith’s union vice-president W.J. Dougherty said they were forced into the strike: “This is going to be a hard fight, and as most of the men had been dealing at the Berwick Company Store, as soon as the strike was on that store would not give any more credit, so it was up to the local to take care of its members…” [4]

The Shaver family weathered the strike, but the lack of Ziba’s paycheck during his involuntary layoff forced them to open a boarding house. This would explain why the 1910 census found the Shavers living with five roomers: a married couple and three workingmen. A 15-year-old servant girl named Susan Beaver also lived in the house. All but one of the men worked at the rolling mill.

Young Dick Shaver sometimes went to the factory to deliver his father’s lunch bucket. He later described the scene in his semi-autobiographical story, “The Dream Makers”. “The tumult of the snorting metal monsters, the awful smells. Barney Freedman’s saloon across from the gate gave off a smell of beer for several blocks. I waited there to give Dad his lunch bucket.” [5]

Shaver oral history has it that Ziba lost his job at the American Car and Foundry Company as retribution during another strike, more than likely the strike of 1919. Ziba, it said, spoke up for the working men of the union. As a company supervisor, he was expected to toe the company line, and was fired.

Ziba was obligated to fill out a draft card in 1917, at the age of 42. But it was his oldest son Donald who joined the Army and fought in the First World War. “Ma” Shaver, always the schoolteacher, tutored the children in literature and poetry. Occasionally she sold poetry to popular magazines. His encouragement rubbed off on Taylor, who, on graduating high school in 1921, tried his hand at writing adventure yarns for boys. He sold stories to Boys Life, The Youth’s Companion, and The American Boy.

Donald and Taylor, with responsible and worldly acumen, overshadowed younger brother Dick, known more for his mischievous pranks and lack of direction. Dick idolized Taylor and was proud of his brother’s ambition. He often recalled how “Tate” joined “the flying cadets. He was in the same bunch of youths as cadet Lindbergh, and went to ground school with Lindbergh,” [6] he said.

Berwick instilled in young Dick Shaver with fond memories he retold throughout his life. There were his visits to the Berwick Company Store, and his father’s occasional “bouts of reform, when all the liquor in the house was poured down the sink and the kids forbidden to play cards.” [7]