An interesting book could be written about the life of Oscar Marold. He was born in 1876, the youngest of six children of J. B. and Matilda Marold and died in 1948. A fall from a swing when he was a small boy left Oscar paralyzed from the waist down. From that time on he depended on crutches and a wheelchair to get around.

It is hard for me to imagine the determination this young fellow must have had - after graduating from high school, he went on to earn a degree as a pharmacist. The Crescent dated Jan. 26, 1905 has a listing of county elected officials showing Oscar S. Marold as County Clerk. The many steps leading up to the Court House were just one more challenge for him to conquer. All of the years I knew Oscar, he lived at the Sa-guache Hotel and had a drug store in the same block.

For many years, Roll and Milo Means were the proprietors of this hotel. Milo remembered an occasion when someone varnished the hallway leading to Oscar’s room. When Oscar came from work that evening, the floor was still wet; so they offered the use of another room. Instead of accepting this offer, Oscar asked to have a couple of planks placed on the floor. After this was done, he told everyone to stand back and give him room while he used his crutches to travel along this 12 inch wide pathway. After watching what this man had done Milo said he had a renewed respect for Oscar and made sure that nothing of this nature ever happened again.

I’m not sure how many automobiles Oscar owned and was able to drive.  He had a brick building built across the street from where I live on Christy Ave. This was a Studebaker agency and Milo said his father, Roll bought his first car from Oscar. (I’d love to know the year). I well remember Oscar driving his last car - a 1937 Chev. Since this was before the time of automatic transmissions it was quite an engineering feat, that local mechanics were able to adapt a car with starter, clutch and brake, all on the floor for someone who had no use of legs or feet.

Those folks who were close to Oscar said he had a great vocabulary, but one word he did not know the meaning of was, defeat!