Area native seeks homes his father built – Waynesboro Record Herald

By Andrea Rose

Most people who are searching for a home are looking to find something that fits their family's needs, whether it be more bedrooms, a bigger kitchen or a safer community, and they need the home to fit their price range.

But Dwaine Gipe is on a different kind of house hunt. He isn't looking to buy.

Gipe, 81, is searching for homes in this area that were built by his father, Edgar "Murphy" Gipe.

Building a family home

Gipe was born and raised in Franklin County, spending his early life in the Marion area before his parents moved to 606 S. Washington St., Greencastle.

His dad built the stone home over the course of a couple years. The homestead began with a garage. "We lived above dad's workshop and garage from 1945 when I entered seventh grade until the home was finished in 1947," Gipe, 81, recalled. "It was the first home east of Mississippi River with radiant heat in ceiling plaster, installed by Howard Cook, a plumber in Marion."

Gipe said the house was built with local materials. "The beautiful blue limestone came for a mine in West Virginia," he said. "It was my father's dream home.As most examples go, this dream home didn't come without a cost.

"This home, when registered, became one of the highest taxed homes in the county," Gipe said. "Contrary to much of today's thinking, my dad was proud to be paying the fiddler."

The elder Gipe built homes and barns, updated businesses, made bridge repairs and completed church renovations throughout Franklin County, including Marion, Greencastle and Chambersburg, as well as Halfway, Maryland, from probably 1925 through 1970.

"The part of Chambersburg most interesting was a group of properties covering about three blocks from the square to a Waffle House. Dad worked long-term in the late 1930s updating the right-hand side of old U.S. 11 south. The properties were owned by a Jerry B. Hanks or Henks by my memory and guess at his last name. He was a single poor farmer who owned a beautiful farm near New Franklin. I never saw this person wearing anything but coveralls," Gipe recalled. "The faces of the buildings were upgraded, but in keeping with design of the times. On occasion Jerry paid in hams, beef or other farm-raised foods. We ate well when Jerry came up a little short," Gipe said with a chuckle.

"In Fort Loudon, Dad turned a bank barn into the retail and mail-order business, home of the worldwide known Hawbaker's Trappers Supply."

Beyond his childhood home and a few places in Chambersburg he can recall his father working on, Gipe can't identify other properties his dad built or worked on.

He knows the accomplished craftsman sent somewhere in Virginia, working for Civilian Conservations Corps for several years in the 1930s.

His lack of knowledge clearly has nothing to do with lack of memory.

Gipe was just a boy when his dad was zig-zagging across the county working to feed his family. The young man was focused on things beyond his father's construction business.

Quest for knowledge

Gipe, who now lives in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, area, kept busy as a young man.

When he moved to Greencastle from Marion, he had a paper route for the Echo Pilot and Grit.

During high school he participated in Fred Kaley's gym circus, played varsity basketball and became a Troop 13 Eagle Scout, working seven years at the Boy Scout's Camp Sinoquipe in Fort Littleton.

He was also a junior Rescue Hose Co. fireman under Chief Dave Warren.

Gipe went on to become recognized as a top amateur Pennsylvania archer at the Greencastle Sportsman's Association's Archery Club and shot in his first Professional Archers Indoor Tournament in Chicago earning 37th among the nations best tournament archers.

He went on to marry his high-school sweetheart, Elizabeth Ziegler, and the couple raised two boys, Daniel, now a dentist in Portland, Oregon, and Douglas, a retiring professional fireman.

He graduated from Shippensburg State College in 1959 and taught for three years in the Waynesboro Area School District at Clayton Avenue and Hooverville elementary schools, before taking a job as principal of a county-run school for children with special needs in Pond Bank.

Gipe then took a job with Boy Scouts of America as a district scout executive in Williamsport, before working a variety of other jobs, including salesman, boiler restoration, tool franchise operator and doll restoration doctor.

Having worked most of his life, Gipe wasn't about to rest on his laurels in retirement. He focuses on his work with a camera as a freelance photographer and is hoping to combine his passion for photography with his desire to document some family history.

Anyone who has knowledge of homes or businesses built or worked on by Edgar "Murphy" Gipe can email Gipe at dolldoc4@comcast.net.

"I'd like to see some of the stuff my dad built," he said.

If he can find the properties, he plans to photograph them. "Hopefully, our children and grandchildren will enjoy the photo scrapbook of our family interests," he said.

Contact Andrea Rose at arose@therecordherald.com or 717-762-2151 or on Twitter@AndreaCiccociop.

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Area native seeks homes his father built - Waynesboro Record Herald