by Alice Fitzgerald Wood

Page 3

The only clothes press in the house was at the head of these stairs. When I was little I always discouraged from going in there because it contained so many things my grandfather cherished. In there was the little chest that contained my grandmother’s corset that she was wearing when she held Uncle Johnnie in her arms after he was fatally injured on July 4 1900. The family were preparing to go to Troutburg for a picnic. Early that morning Uncle Johnnie had fixed a homemade firecracker out of an old bicycle pump and he had placed it in a forked stick in the back yard. He lit it but because it was raining the firecracker failed to explode. Daddy (my grandfather) was at the barn hitching the horses to the old Democrat wagon that I remember so well. Grandma McCormick was in her bedroom putting on her hat and my mother stood at the back door watching Johnnie take down the firecracker so that no one would get hurt while they were gone. The fuse must have been smoldering because as he raised one hand it exploded and went through his body tearing out some ribs and the finger off one hand. Grandma rushed out and held him in her arms until they could get the doctor. Uncle Johnnie looked up at Grandpa, who was weeping, and he said, "Don’t cry, Pa, if this is God’s plan for me it is all right." He lived a couple of days. As he lay dying he seemed to have second sight. The bedroom was at the back of the house but he said to Grandma: "There is a white horse and buggy coming down the road and it is my girl coming to see me." It was she! No one knew how he could possibly know it. She died that fall of typhoid fever.

Grandma’s clothes were saturated with his blood and she wrapped them in a cloth and newspapers and kept them. Aunt Edie McCormick burned them about 1917.

In that closet were other old things that belonged to Great Grandfather Lusk – books, etc. There was a cupboard back of the stovepipe under the chimney. In it were years collection of an old magazine, "The People’s Home Journal." I used to get subscriptions for it and win premiums and to me they were precious treasures.

I rebelled one time and insisted on moving into the southwest room to have a room alone. I only stayed about two nights. In this east bedroom I remember as a tiny child sleeping with my grandmother and how she used to take hard crusts of bread to bed* on the sly to nibble on at night and be scolded next morning for getting crumbs in the bed. This is the room where great grandfather’s cherry chest always sat. At the east window my mother and I watched Hailey’s comet. And from that window Dec. 26, 1899 my father pointed to the rising sun and said, "As sure as that sun is rising in the east, I’ll be back." Mom never saw him again.

* Under his bed was Uncle Johnnie’s zither, which he always coveted.

I can remember standing by Grandma’s chair and her saying to me "Bless your old gizzard," which was here way of saying, "Bless your heart." Before her death Aunt Charlotte Trump was visiting her from Michigan. They were going over some of their father’s papers and there was a diary and account book that he had kept for years and years. He told of his wife’s death and so may things that would be priceless today. Before Grandma could stop her, Aunt Charlotte said, "No on will want these," and she threw them into the fire. She never dreamed how we would have loved to have them today.

They had set Grandma’s bed in the parlor because of the bedroom being too small. I can remember Rev. Weber of the Sweden Center Presbyterian Church visiting her. I attended Sunday School at that church. One day in July 1910 I went to stay overnight with Adah Lusk on the South Road. Grandma didn’t want me to go but Mother said I could so I went. Adah was about the only playmate I ever had because there were no other children within a mile or two of home. When I returned the next afternoon my teacher, Carrie Harris, who lived across the road, met me and told me Grandma was dead. I was inconsolable for days. They told me how she was sitting on the commode between two west windows of the parlor. She and Aunt Naomi, who was visiting her at the time, were laughing at some joke on Aunt Naomi’s minister. Grandma just slumped over dead in the midst of her laugh. We had had a nurse from Rochester for 3 weeks before, a Miss Elizabeth Rockwood, who was later my nurse when both Alice and Eleanor were born. I remember pinning a rose on Grandma’s dress just before they closed the coffin. In those days they had a fine silk screen over the opening in the coffin because flies weren’t as well controlled in those days. They had a slate rough box, which was an innovation in those days. At least they paid for one, but my mother said she would always believe it was pine painted gray. That night there was a terrific thunder and rainstorm and Aunt Mabel grieved so for fear the water was running into Grandma’s grave.

They tell me how everyone doted on me as a babe and about my grandmother losing her big brass thimble when I was about 2 or 2½ years. She looked all over for it and I kept saying, "I swallowed it, gran’ma." She couldn’t believe it but later found it when it passed through me. I can remember lying in bed and listening to the squirrels rolling nuts around under the roof and also listening to the switch engine on the railroad in Holley and being frightened so that I would snuggle close to Mother for protection. I can remember standing in the north window of the kitchen on a clear day in summer and being able to see Lake Ontario and sometimes a steam boat. Troutburg was where we always went once during the summer. (Troutburg is on Lake Ontario where Orleans County meets Monroe County). We started early, and left early to come home. The 17 miles took a long time with a horse and buggy.

Before and around Civil War times the Spiritualists from Lily Dale started up a congregation in Clarendon. In fact it was in the 1850’s. My great grandfather and grandmother and Aunt Naomi Gray joined their cult and died in their belief. The family was originally Presbyterian but clung to the belief of communication with the dead. Aunt Naomi believed in the spirits up to her death in 1926. When I was small I was awe inspired by tales of the friendly visits of spirits and the "dear departed."