Ron Snider
Ron Snider has been a member of the Historical Society for some 11 years. Like so many others, he was invited to join by someone already involved - former president, the late Harry Smith. Ron knew Harry when they worked together. Ron was a math teacher for 32 years at the old-Hilliard and at Davidson high schools until he retired in 2001.
“Harry was always on me to join. I turned him down for about two years before he finally wore me down. Harry was right: this is a good thing to do,” said Ron.
“When I joined I had no idea what I’d be doing. I mostly joined to get Harry off my back. He could be pretty insistent,” said Ron. “I discovered I liked what people are doing here. It made me feel good to be part of an organization that was trying to do good for the community. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done here,” he said.
He works behind the scenes for the most part.
“The Historical Society needs people like me who don’t mind doing the physical work in the background - getting things done. I really I enjoy that a lot,” he said.
“When I joined, the first person I met was Tim Woodruff. He called me and said he was doing a bunch of work in the museum. I got involved in building the doctor’s office, the barber shop, the parlor -- none of that was there when I came, it was just display cases,” he said.
“Tim kept calling me back to do other things around the museum. I put up shelving in the new part of museum. I did a lot of the painting in there with Ben Buoni,” said Ron.
Ron and Ben also collaborated on painting the church exterior.
“That is the sort of thing I like to do,” said Ron.
He’s not always in the background, however. “I work with many of the school tours. I do whatever they want me to do. I’ve presented in the caboose, the train station, occasionally the log cabin. Sometimes I’m the timer. It just depends on whatever Megan (Martin, volunteer coordinator) needs me to do. I’m fine to do that, it’s always interesting,” said Ron.
Ron especially gets a kick out of showing children the caboose. “Virtually never can I find a kid on the tour who has any idea what a caboose was for. The younger teachers don’t even know. The last cabooses came off trains in the 1970s-early 80s. I have to explain to kids the caboose is basically a recreational vehicle on railroad tracks. Kids always know what that is, and that gets the conversation going. Like a RV, the caboose has a table, beds, ice box, and a sort of toilet.”
Ron added that most children don’t know who John Hilliard was.
“It is nice to explain how this town came to be as a railroad stop - to give children a sense of history. Afterwards, you feel like you passed on some information - things children should know about their community,” he said.
Ron said it’s hard to say what he enjoys most.
“I like the times when I’ve been talking to second- and third-graders on a school tour. I like the times working with people to build displays because afterwards you can look and say: I did that. That is a nice feeling. It makes me sort of proud of what I’ve done.”
What he likes best about the society is the sense of history it gives residents.
“Most of the people who live here didn’t grow up here and have no sense of how long the town has been here and what the history is. I really like the idea of passing on all that knowledge.”
He added, “The village is a hidden gem, not just in Hilliard but in Franklin County because a lot of the history of the county is reflected in the history of Hilliard.”
Ron calls it critical that the society attract younger people as new members.
“You look at people like Tim or Bob (Eggerichs) or me, we are all the same age. Though we keep doing it, it is getting more and more difficult because of our age.”
“What we haven’t done enough of is attracting people in their 20s and 30s who can take over. We need somehow or other to get younger people involved,” he said, adding, “I don’t have an answer, I only have questions.”
Ron and his wife, Coral, have three children: Jenny of Hilliard, Jill of Lewis Center, and Nick of
Galloway. They have six grandchildren.
