Dining Hall (12)

Dining Hall (12)
Former names	Grange Dining Hall

Timeline

• Before 1950 - United Methodist Church of Wooster operated the dining hall
• 1950 - The Grange operated the Grange Dining Hall

Newspaper articles

Grange Feeding Fairgoers For 49 Years

Numbers, apparently, aren't the biggest issue on the minds of those in charge of the Grange Dining Hall.

"We've never really had a method of counting the number of people who eat there," said Don Elliott, Wooster, who oversees the hall during the week of the Wayne County Fair, along with the help of his wife, Iola.

"It would be hard to even give a ball park," he said. "We've just never comp up with a good idea of counting our customer."

If one number has been tallied, however, is that for 49 years the Grange Hall has stood as a haven for famished fairgoers in the familiar white building next to the Grandstand.

One active Grange member, Mary Taylor, of Wooster, remembers not only the opening of the hall as a Grange institution, but also fondly remembers her late husband, William, having direct involvement in making it possible.

"My husband was on the board," Taylor said, along with Dennis Arnold and O. L. Weygandt. According to Taylor, some of the earliest talk of the Grange fundraiser occurred in the kitchen of the Burbank Road farmhouse she still lives in today.

"The organization (Grange) is always trying to figure out ways to make money," she said. "It was the bright idea of those three men... this is one idea they thought would really make money."

Taylor, who still works as a greeter at the doors of the building during fair week, said that the dining hall, still owned by the Wayne County Fair Board, was once staff and operated by the United Methodist Church of Wooster, though on a smaller scale.

"The other organization that served the big meals wasn't going to operate it anymore," she said, "so we took it over," she said.

The acquisition took place in 1950. An article which ran in the Daily Record during early September of that year spoke briefly about the change, noting the creation during that time of eight subcommittees in charge of the hall at the time.

Taylor and her husband were the first listed as chairs of the finance committee.

The article also spoke of improvements made to the hall building, financed by the Fair Board, including new chairs, tables, and a gas line, "so that the food can be kept warm at all times."

The improvements, according to the article, totaled about $1,000 at the time.

A member of the Grange for the past 60 years, Elliott also remembers the opening of the Grange hall, though was not involved from the very beginning.

"I was involved from the very beginning.

"I was involved from 1970 on," he said, "except for four years when I was in Columbus working with the State Grange office."

Elliott, who before he retired helped operate a feed-mill with his father, later teaching agronomy for 10 years at the OARDC, said that since then, many further improvements have been made to the building, mostly to accommodate increased demand.

"We've added equipment," he said. "We put in a dishwasher, we added grills that we didn't have when we stated out. We use a lot more commodities in preparing our food now," Elliot said.

Taylor noted that, even with the changes, a dinner served at the hall today is still quite similar to the meals that were served in 1950. "We're using practically the same menu," she said.

Some changes were necessary with the times, especially as health regulations became more strict. "When we first started out," Elliott said, "we received all of our pies from all of our family Granges, but then the health department put a stop to that," Taylor said.

At the time, pies served were baked in home kitchens until the health department required that each family kitchen be inspected if the practice were to continue. "Now, they bake frozen pies in the dining hall at night," Taylor said.

Taylor, who has seen her share of changes to the Wayne County Fair (she remembers packing a lunch before catching a horse and buggy to the fairgrounds), pointed out that, regardless of who owns or operates the hall, the basic principles that have and will continue to draw people in still apply.

"Things have certainly changed," she said, "and they have certainly stayed the same. People always have to eat at the fair."