by Alice Fitzgerald Wood

Page 6

The house across the road was built in the early 1800's by Smith Glidden, ancestor of Gertrude Fenner Ludington. In the late 180O's there was a family by the name of Wilson that lived there. Their son Lewis Wilson was Aunt Mabel's age. He is now head of the New York State Education Department in Albany. Then Charles Euler, Sr. bought the house. Their oldest son is Uncle Charlie Euler. There are some difficulty between the two families which I have forgotten so that there wasn't much neighboring done. When they left and moved to near North Bergen they rented the farm to a Harris Family. The daughter, Carrie Harris, was one of my teachers. When they left, a man by the name of Frank Freelove rented it. His stepson, Ashbel (Archie) Spencer, was my first love, at eleven no less. He is now a minister in Oil City, Pa. The spring of 1913 saw a new family looking it over. Mrs. Freelove, who was a semi-invalid, instructed me to show the lady over the house. She was my future mother-in-law. She was wearing the fur coat that I gave Eleanor after she was married.

April 1 of that year Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wood and their two sons Wentworth and Harry moved in. My first glimpse of them was one day when I was visiting at Ben Cook's down the road in the house where Aunt Mabel and Charlie started housekeeping. I was visiting Gertrude Cook Fuller and her sister Daisy, and we watched the boys going by on a load of corn stalks. We were all agog as girls will be at the prospect of new boys in the neighborhood.

I remember Mother and me calling on Mrs. Wood. It was a day when she was recovering from one of her terrific headaches. Mother soon left, but she left me to help with the dishes, pile up from several meals. Harry was too bashful to come into the kitchen at first. But Wentworth got a couple of pails of water from the well, and smiled shyly at me. I was anything but shy. They te11 now that when we went out the back door Harry was behind the wood pile and he shouted in a stage whisper, "She’s mine,"" and Wentworth answered, "No, she's mine." They finally lined up with their hands behind their backs leaning against the coats hung on the east side of the kitchen, and watched me do the dishes. I can still see the cap and sweater the Wentworth had, one that I kept for a long time but have forgotten what became of it.

I thought their mother Mrs. Wood, was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was months before Harry would even look at me, let alone talk to me. He was very bashful. As the spring and summer advanced Wentworth would come over and sit on the porch with me and we would take long walks. We even went as far as Myron Stroms’ place on the second road over to the west. Alice Stroms was a beautiful girl and quite a musician. She had never looked at me before but became quite friendly when she knew Wentworth was across the road. Wentworth was really a handsome lad. She would come over and play the organ, and Wentworth, she and I would sing. I felt a little jealous. On the evening of June 30th he and I were sitting on the front steps. When I asked him if he liked Alice, he said "Yes," and I asked him "Which Alice?" and he said, "You of course." So I said, very coyly, "Prove it," which he promptly did, contrary to his claim that I kissed him first. From that time on he needed no prodding. I used to sit at the organ and play and sing not knowing I had an audience out by the road (but hoping so). They still accuse me of singing "Daisies" won’t tell, come kiz me do". It used to bother me but it doesn’t anymore.

As I write things down more things come to mind which accounts for the fact that things are not in chronological order.

There was the muley (dehorned cow) and I was with my grandfather one day when he was milking her. Her little calf came toward me curiously, and picked up a stick to ward her off. The cow thought I meant harm to her calf and she kicked Daddy and the pail over and started for me. I ran and rolled under the fence just in time to escape her hooves and bunting head. From that time on she had it in for me. The sound of my voice would bring her tearing from the back of the farm. She would stand at the fence pawning the ground and bellowing. Daddy finally had to sell her for fear she might do me harm. When the butcher led her through the square (Ed: probably Holley) she chased a woman with a baby carriage into a grocery store on the corner.

Another big event in our lives was when Uncle Charlie Euler (not my uncle then) would come over and court Aunt Mabel. He would bring his phonograph with the big horn. That was quite new and a great thrill. There used to be a record they played called "Charley married Mabel." They kidded Aunt Mabel a lot, and she didn't like it. One night she stuck the record down the front of my dress and told me to hide in the pantry in the dark. Well, I dropped it and broke it and I was scared to death because I expected to be scolded severely, but when Aunt Mabel said she was glad it happened I was so relieved and I was so relieved and felt very tender and close to her.

When I must have been nothing more than a baby, Aunt Mabel would rock me to sleep singing a song about "the seashore". It haunts me to this day but I never can quite think of the name of it. There were hours I spent combing Aunt Edie's and Grandma's hair. Aunt Mabel and Mother wouldn't let me comb theirs. It made them nervous. I used to spend hours grooming Daddy’s hair and mustache. He loved it. My pet kitten loved him more than me. It used to sit on his lap and chew the buttons off his sweater.

There was A. Lusk who would stop by, and Tony Crane who would spend this evening and eat popcorn and apples with us, and never take the cud of tobacco out of one cheek. There were evenings in the spring when Mother and I ate supper at Tony's house with his sister, Mary Ann Crane, and feasted on her home made rolls and maple syrup and soft sugar. I remember how we welcomed the sugar snow in late spring. We would pack it into pans, then dribble hot syrup over it and it would be like candy, delectable.

One day when I caught Grandpa kissing Grandma, I was so awed. To me they were "old people" and I thought only young people kissed. They were younger at that time than Wentworth and I are now and we haven't stopped kissing yet.

My mind goes back to the summer of 1913. That June I had taken my Regents exams and was ready to enter Holley High School in the fall. The latter part of September, Wentworth’s mother left one Saturday afternoon to visit her son Arthur in Rochester. She had a stroke and died in a couple of hours. Wentworth was heart broken and turned to Mother and me for comfort. She and I moved to Holley. Grandfather wouldn't come.

My life in Holley is another story. Wentworth lived with us and we were married on Feb. 21, 1918. I graduated in 1917 from high school and went to Brockport Normal School for one year. On May 26, 1918 Wentworth left for World War I. Alice was born Feb. 7, 19l9. Mother died in July 1920. Eleanor was born the same week.

In 1920 the west place farm was sold to John Rexinger. The east place to Frank Euler. Grandfather went to live with Aunt Mabel though he spent some time with me and died with us in 1926.

My great grandfather's will tied things up so that the property came down to the third generation. I received my mother's third share, and that was the money with which we bought our present home. John Rexinger sold the old place to a Mr. Seifert in 1953. At that time we found the old spinning wheel which started me off to spinning this yarn.

At his death he left a will which had changed from his original which left everything to his children. Just prior to his death someone told him that John Gray, Naomi's husband, "when in his cups" was bragging about what he and Jim would do with "the old man's money" when he died. Great-grandfather called his lawyer and personal friend, Benjamin Pettengill and made a new one. It tied up all his property to the third generation, us, it turned out. Great Aunt Charlotte was left life use of the west 50 acres and the first house built. Grandma (Emily) was left the east 50 with the new house which he built for her. My mother was born there. On Emily's death it would pass to her children. (Bennett, Blanche, Edith, John, Mabel.) It was assumed Charlotte would have a family, but if not, her part was to go to any of his grandchildren still living. He left the north 25 acres and $1,500 in trust to Naomi. At her death it was to go to John Bennett, Emily's oldest son. But Bennett died a minor so it would revert to his father at Naomi's death. She knew this and was always bitter about it. She died a few months before James McCormick. So when James McCormick died in 1926, after all of James Lusk's children, everything was left to Emily's living children: Edith, Mabel, and Blanche’s heir (Alice Fitzgerald Wood).

Inscriptions on stones in Calico Hill Cemetery (Ed. - now known as the Glidden cemetery on Glidden Road, Clarendon)

There are also Williams Graves. Patience was a sister of Susannah Lusk.

I James Sam Lusk - son of James and Charlotte Bennett Lusk (his first wife) Died Sept. 14, 1836, aged 9 months, 26 days. She was of the Bennett family after which Bennett’s Corners were named.

II Charlotte Bennett Lusk - first wife of James Lusk. Died July 8,

1836, aged 20 years (born 1816)

III James Lusk - born July 18, 1811, died May 17, 1885

IV Susannah Williams Lusk - wife of James Lusk, died Jan. 19, 1860 aged 42 years, 12 days, born Jan. 7, 1818

V James Bennett Lusk - son of James Lusk and Susannah, died June 1864 aged 21 years, 10 months, 13 days. (born 1842)

VI Maria Lusk (James Lusk's sister) daughter of Samuel and

Comfort Williams Lusk (no relation to Susannah Williams) died Nov. 28, 1842

She also has a sister who married a Mr. Wood somewhere in Niagara Co. Her daughter lived at Sommerset.

Martha Wood Henning >>>          Grandma's cousins whom we

Maria Wood Stone    >>>             always called "Aunt"

Stones in Hillside Cemetery (Holley, N.Y.)

James McCormick lot

J. Bennett McCormick 1870-1890 July

John McCormick 1880-1900 July

Emily (Ella) McCormick (Lusk) 1854-1910 July

James McCormick 1846-1926 Oct.

Blanche McCormick Fitzgerald 1877-1920 July

Charlotte Lusk Trump 1841-1919 July

Just a short distance to the north

John McCormick 1879-1949

Edith McCormick 1879-1944

Wentworth B. Wood 1895-1907

Alice M. Wood 1900-1962

In new part of Hillside Cemetery near Pumping Station Road just south of the tool house.

Chas Euler 1881 -

Mabel McCormick Euler 1885