Chester Arthur Chasteen worked hard raising a family during the depression. He met Madie Mae Beam when he was 20 years old. His mother, Ida belle Phelps Chasteen, invited her over for a dinner with a few other church members. Chester was a religious boy, but he had back sledded to the ways of the world. He was a sinner, but after he met Madie he went to church whenever the church doors opened. Ida Belle said he got saved and quit smoking cigars. I’m Chester’s son, Paul Chester Chasteen, writing this.

Madie had married Lovell Arnold Beam in 1922. They had a son the next year named Jack Lovell Beam. Four years later on 21 Feb 1926 Lovell died of TB. She got a job at the sanitarium where Lovell was being treated to be near him. Lovell played the piano and one day he passed a church and went in. They needed a piano player so he volunteered. He told them of his illness so they prayed for his healing. He was converted and was baptized. Madie was also baptized. They attended the same church as Ida Belle. After Lovell died mom had met dad at this dinner party in 1927. They were attracted to each other and shortly thereafter they got married and on 17 June 1928 John and I arrived. Eighteen months they had a daughter named Marcene Mae Chasteen. They referred to her as a blue baby, but at the time they were afraid it could be catching so Ida Bell took the twins and didn’t give them back until they were 15 years old. Marcene lived for nine months. Years later they learned her heart did not allowed the blood to be purified.

During World War two he worked for the New York Central Railroad Repair Shops in Beech Grove Indiana. He bought three acres of land on South Emerson Avenue about one and half miles from the RR shops. As he could afford it he built three houses. The first one was later referred to as the chicken house. He raised chickens in the first house for the eggs which he sold. Mom would kill the chickens when they stopped producing and sell them. Dad dug a water well and an outside toilet. The outhouse (privy) was well equipped with a Sears and Roebuck Catalog, and it wasn’t there to look at. Every Monday mom would the laundry outside in a large cast iron tub and hang it outside to dry. Dad had a large garden and mom would can the veggies. He also worked on weekends for the Railway Express sorting boxes being mailed in boxcars. He also worked for the Barbersol shaving cream company. At the railroad he bucked rivets on the metal boxcars. That was a hot, dirty and noisy job. After the war he was allowed to quit the railroad job.

After the war he had two more sons James Rodney and Stephen Lee and a daughter named Rebecca Ann. He quit the railroad after the war ended and worked as a machine operator for International Harvester where they made truck engines. As time went by he built two more houses each bigger and better that the earlier ones. They all had inside plumbing and inside automatic washing machines and dryers. He retired from there about 1963.

As the children got married and left home things got a bit easier for dad. Rebecca got married in 1949, James in 1952 and Stephen in 1967. A few years later in 1948 he built small cabin near Counot Lake near Cloverdale, Indiana. All the grand children would spend time with him at the lake. He got a boat and a moped mainly for the grandchildren.