Did you know that four generations of Hoovers lived in West Milton?
Or that we boast a 1964 Olympic gold medal winner and record breaker?
Or that the original home basketball court was a converted tobacco barn?
How about the fact that in 1885 a West Milton woman wrote one of the most celebrated travel literature of the 19th century?
"West Milton is a treasure house for legends," Darwin Sator declares.
He is the author of a book called "West Milton, Ohio: It's First 200 Years, 1807-2007".
This collection of stories and articles is a fundraiser for the West Milton Lions Club, a service organization that promotes eye health and purchases eye exams and eyeglasses for needy West Milton children. Rather than specific chapters, the book contains snippets of little known facts and slightly stretched claims.
"I'm against organization," Sator admits, "You should have to read the whole thing. I include just enough organization to make people think you're organized."
It all started last March when Bob Menker, Lions secretary, suggested a history book to raise money. He was met with total silence, until someone suggested Darwin.
There was a motion, a second, and before Sator knew it he had just been volunteered for a project that would consume his spring and summer.
Sator told the club he would give them four months and deliver a 200 page history book. On July 4th, he snapped a picture of the fireworks, used it as the back cover, and sent the book off to the publisher.
"I haven't been that great a Lions club member," Sator reasoned for taking on the project, "I think I owe them that."
He first sent out 100 letters to various organizations, churches and businesses asking for any information about the history of their group. He got seven back.
"I thought, uh oh, this is going to be hard," Sator recalls.
So he started knocking on doors, making phone calls, and employing the help of local historian Rachel Ann Minnick.
He shares in his author's note that "this should be more like a four-year job than a four month job" because of the mass of information. Sator actually wished he had 300 pages to work with instead of the 200.
He wrote about two of those pages a day, normally between midnight and six a.m. ("I work better that way"); writing, laying it out, skipping a page and writing some more. Much of his information came from tidbits Sator was already aware of.
"Mostly I knew where these skeletons lay - I made it my business to reference them," he describes, "This book covers everything I could think of." Although Sator is quick to point out the history book is only a sampler - Milton is too rich for it to be all inclusive.
Sator was born and raised in West Milton. He knew many of the "movers and shakers" mentioned in the book, like Charles Furnas, the first airplane passenger, and Carl Brumbaugh, a Chicago Bears
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In fact, one of his favorite parts of working on the book was "getting to meet people that I already knew but wouldn't recognize on the street."
After graduating in 1950, he traveled with the Air Force and worked at newspapers for 40 years, before returning to Milton in 1990. All through those years, he continued to read the Record and stay current on town news.
"I always kept my ear to the ground," he details, "If anybody was going to write this, it was going to be me."
Sator concludes his author's note at the beginning of the book with a thank you to the town that produced him: "Someone once defined home this way: Home is the place that when you go there, they have to take you in. Thank you, West Milton, for taking me IN back in 1929, and thanks for taking me BACK 50 years later."
Right now, the Milton-Union Public Library has two copies of Sator's book that can be checked out.
Several copies will reside in the library's Local History/Genealogy Room. Sator will discuss and sign copies of his book at the Library on Thursday, November 2 at 6:30 p.m.
Be sure to find him now, because once the book gets into public hands . . .
