I just returned from a pleasant walk through my lovely neighborhood. I mentioned in my last posting that, as of last Monday, April 21st, spring still had not really arrived in Maine. However, by the time I returned home Wednesday evening -- or more precisely, by the next morning, when I looked out my window -- the grass had turned a deep emerald green, trees and shrubbery were budding, some flowering bushes were even in bloom. And this weekend we at last had warm, sunny days, and now the smiling, sunny faces of daffodils are appearing in many flower beds. At last, at last.
So, some of the positive aspects of my trip to New York. Breakfast the next morning, which just about made up for the disappointing dinner the night before. Especially since it was free. This was because the young people who had checked me in, besides misleading me about the caliber of the cafe, had convinced me to sign up for the Priority Club. "It doesn't cost anything," they said, "and you get all these neat coupons." One of those coupons was for a free breakfast. So I had an excellent breakfast "skillet" -- diced potatoes, green peppers, onions, sausage and bacon bits, topped with scrambled eggs -- along with a pot of hot tea, for nothing. And because there was so much left over, I had the waitress box it up for me; and into my travel cooler it went. That tasty mixture livened up my scrambled eggs next morning, when I made my own breakfast at my friends' house where I had stayed the night, and again on the morning after I returned home. Not bad, for no cost.
Then there was the pleasant, sunny drive from Oneonta to the little town of Gilbertsville, fifteen miles away, where I would again be doing genealogical research at the tiny, adorable stone library there. [See Note of July 16 2010 for my experiences at this library on my last trip.] I was reminded as I drove how much I love this part of the country. I love my Maine, love living there, but bucolic Otsego County, New York has second place in my heart. The tree-covered hills, the little valleys with their fields, the handsome, well-kept farms, the pretty little towns with the big old trees and the big old houses. It never ceases to amaze me that my great-great grandfather, William Cole, left this place, and his family, which was apparently quite close, to live in steamy hot south Texas.
And my research turned up some fascinating new infor-mation about William. I spent most of my time reading through the diary of William's mother, which I discovered last trip. This time what I found was that William (called Willie by his mother) was there, in Gilbertsville -- or more accurately on his parents' farm, out in the country -- May-Sept. 1871. Well, his daughter, my great-grandmother, Ann Willie Cole, was born in April of that year! And not in New York, but in Refugio Co., TX. So it would seem there were problems in the relationship of the young married couple. They had been married for only two years, and there William is, back at home. He returned to Texas in Sept., after he had "packed the big trunk," and gone to pay a goodbye visit to all his married sisters. His mother reports, on Sept. 13: "R [her husband] took Willie to the stage this morning. O how hard to part with him again." And that was the last time she saw him; the following March she received a letter from "Willie's wife" that he had died. He was only 25. Everyone's life is a story.
A big positive of the trip was being able to spend the evening visiting with my friends, Kathy and Bona, an hour up the road from Gilbertsville in Binghamton. Kathy was one of my three roommates in college, and we have remained in touch over the years. I always feel so comfortable at their house -- which i refer to as the K&B Bed & Breakfast -- and it is such a pleasure to be able to enjoy interesting, stimulating conversation with like-minded people, who don't necessarily share all of your opinions, but are able to disagree with civility and good humor. This was one of the things I badly needed, in getting away. The absence of friends in my day-to-day life has become a real drag on my spirits. We all need somebody.
The trip cost more than I expected it to, and was terribly short, and tiring, but I was glad I made it. I needed it.
Showing posts with label New York State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York State. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Adventures in cemetery hunting
[Note that this continues the two previous postings.] Something I couldn't help wondering, as I drove through the area where my great-great-grandfather grew up, was how he could have exchanged this beautiful country for steamy hot south Texas. The two-lane roads I was driving on wound through green valleys sprinkled with healthy-looking farms, a number of them good-sized dairy farms, lying among hills completely covered with trees. But of course in winter it isn't green. It's frequently white, and it's cold. Perhaps William Cole disliked cold and snow. And maybe he was madly in love with Mary Jane Casterline, and willing to live wherever she wanted. This is the kind of thing you really want to know about your ancestors, more than when and where they were born.
Gilbertsville, which contains the town hall for Butternuts Township, is a very small (population 375 as of 2000 census), pretty town, lots of big old trees, attractive old houses. Not the white-with-black-shutters kind you see so much of in New England, but Victorian two-stories of different colors, many with front porches for sitting and watching the world go by. In 1983 the whole village won status as a Historic District recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, a real triumph for local citizens and people concerned with historical preservation, as they had been fighting for many years to keep a dam from being built on Butternuts Creek, which would have resulted in the entire village being flooded.
There's hardly any business at all -- I saw a quilt shop, an ice cream shop, a hardware store that at first I thought had gone out of business, it was so beat up. The cutest little library you could ever hope to see, even cuter than my little library in Hallowell, which was built to look like an English country church. The Gilbertsville Free Library looks like a small, overturned stone boat. Originally built as a school in 1818, it has served as the library since 1888. Inside it's all dark wood, with the bookcases built into the walls. This library was to prove an absolute gold mine of information, but more about that in a moment.
First, I had to get to the town from Oneonta, seventeen miles away, where I'd stop to have a quick meal, and buy batteries for my camera, since I'd discovered, as I was getting ready to leave Maine, that the batteries on said camera were dead (there's always something). I was trying to follow a map I'd pulled off the Internet, but those little back roads simply didn't run the way the map indicated they should. At one point I was idling at a stop sign, pouring over that map and my regular New York state map, when a car pulled up behind me (practically the only traffic I'd encountered since I left the highway 10 minutes before). I ran back to ask if they could direct me to the town of Gilbertsville. It turned out they lived on the edge of same, and suggested I follow them. When we reached their house the male half of the couple came back to my car and told me where he and his wife thought I would be able to find Brookside Cemetery, where various ancestors were buried.
Ah, yes what would we do without the "kindness of strangers."
Brookside is a very pretty country cemetery, with lots of the local "big, old trees." It isn't that large, but large enough for me to spend over an hour walking and driving around it, trying to find the Coles. I was just about to give up -- it was almost seven p.m., the sun was all but gone, I was getting hungry again, and knew I had to go find someplace to spend the night -- when I spotted a very tall, imposing monument across from where I was. I had visited virtually every other area in the cemetery, some of them more than once, but not that one. I was thinking, "No, it couldn't be that." But of course, it was.
I took pictures, but really could not determine if William Cole was, indeed, buried there. There were a number of small stones around the monument, which might very well have marked the actual graves of the several people listed on the monument, but they were sunk so low in the earth they couldn't be read.
At last I tore myself away, made the 20 minute drive to a town with the unlikely name of Unadilla, where I found the old-fashioned Country Motel, with a little old lady in a knick-knack cluttered office, complete with yapping small dog, running it. Was amused when I moved my stuff into my room and discovered I had to plug in all the electric amenities -- microwave, small refrigerator, air conditioner. Then I discovered that even plugged in the ac wouldn't work because there were no knobs on it. When i went back to the office to report this situation the LOL said, "Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that. The last person, I just gave him a screwdriver, but of course he was a man..." And she gave me another room, into which I had to move all my stuff from the original room, and where I again had to plug everything in. But at least the ac had knobs on it.
Next: Serendipity
Gilbertsville, which contains the town hall for Butternuts Township, is a very small (population 375 as of 2000 census), pretty town, lots of big old trees, attractive old houses. Not the white-with-black-shutters kind you see so much of in New England, but Victorian two-stories of different colors, many with front porches for sitting and watching the world go by. In 1983 the whole village won status as a Historic District recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, a real triumph for local citizens and people concerned with historical preservation, as they had been fighting for many years to keep a dam from being built on Butternuts Creek, which would have resulted in the entire village being flooded.
There's hardly any business at all -- I saw a quilt shop, an ice cream shop, a hardware store that at first I thought had gone out of business, it was so beat up. The cutest little library you could ever hope to see, even cuter than my little library in Hallowell, which was built to look like an English country church. The Gilbertsville Free Library looks like a small, overturned stone boat. Originally built as a school in 1818, it has served as the library since 1888. Inside it's all dark wood, with the bookcases built into the walls. This library was to prove an absolute gold mine of information, but more about that in a moment.
First, I had to get to the town from Oneonta, seventeen miles away, where I'd stop to have a quick meal, and buy batteries for my camera, since I'd discovered, as I was getting ready to leave Maine, that the batteries on said camera were dead (there's always something). I was trying to follow a map I'd pulled off the Internet, but those little back roads simply didn't run the way the map indicated they should. At one point I was idling at a stop sign, pouring over that map and my regular New York state map, when a car pulled up behind me (practically the only traffic I'd encountered since I left the highway 10 minutes before). I ran back to ask if they could direct me to the town of Gilbertsville. It turned out they lived on the edge of same, and suggested I follow them. When we reached their house the male half of the couple came back to my car and told me where he and his wife thought I would be able to find Brookside Cemetery, where various ancestors were buried.
Ah, yes what would we do without the "kindness of strangers."
Brookside is a very pretty country cemetery, with lots of the local "big, old trees." It isn't that large, but large enough for me to spend over an hour walking and driving around it, trying to find the Coles. I was just about to give up -- it was almost seven p.m., the sun was all but gone, I was getting hungry again, and knew I had to go find someplace to spend the night -- when I spotted a very tall, imposing monument across from where I was. I had visited virtually every other area in the cemetery, some of them more than once, but not that one. I was thinking, "No, it couldn't be that." But of course, it was.
I took pictures, but really could not determine if William Cole was, indeed, buried there. There were a number of small stones around the monument, which might very well have marked the actual graves of the several people listed on the monument, but they were sunk so low in the earth they couldn't be read.
At last I tore myself away, made the 20 minute drive to a town with the unlikely name of Unadilla, where I found the old-fashioned Country Motel, with a little old lady in a knick-knack cluttered office, complete with yapping small dog, running it. Was amused when I moved my stuff into my room and discovered I had to plug in all the electric amenities -- microwave, small refrigerator, air conditioner. Then I discovered that even plugged in the ac wouldn't work because there were no knobs on it. When i went back to the office to report this situation the LOL said, "Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that. The last person, I just gave him a screwdriver, but of course he was a man..." And she gave me another room, into which I had to move all my stuff from the original room, and where I again had to plug everything in. But at least the ac had knobs on it.
Next: Serendipity
Monday, June 8, 2009
The other New York
For most of the 114 miles separating Albany and Binghamton, New York there stretches a beautiful, bucolic valley, liberally sprinkled with small dairy farms. Near the Binghamton end is the small college town, Oneonta, where I was an undergraduate. I so loved the area that I tried to stay on after I graduated, but teaching jobs were hard to find (before I was a librarian I was a teacher), so I ended up moving to Boston, where I spent the next nineteen years of my life.
But I always derive great satisfaction from making the drive along Route 88, that runs the length of that valley, for much of the way along a shelf cut out of the side of the hills, which then continue down into that shallow, peaceful valley. When you look out from that shelf you see hills across the way that recede in a way that makes me think of old-fashioned stage scenery – a flat painted to look like a hill, and a little way beyond that, another flat, then another, to give a sense of distance. This vista is very different from the terrain of the Berkshires, even though both places are full of hills and trees. In the Berkshires the furry round hills crowd around you, there are few actual vistas. And this is clearly domesticated land while the Berkshires give the appearance, anyway, of being in their pristine state. The Berkshires also depend utterly on the tourist trade, while this valley sees tourists mainly just passing through, though some do make a destination of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
I would live in this valley in a heartbeat, just as I would in the Berkshires, even though both would make my heeding the occasional call of the sea more difficult. But both contain at least two of my residential requirements : natural beauty that's heavy on the color green, and a climate that knows more cool weather than hot. The Berkshires are full of artists, while the valley between Albany and Binghamton is full of no-nonsense farmers. I love art, but dislike nonsense, so either place would suit me. Admittedly, the politics of the Berkshires would probably be closer to mine than those of struggling upstate New York.
The reason I was driving this route was that I was stopping off for the night at the home, in Binghamton, of one of my college roommates. Kathy was the roommate who got me through physics (I would come home from class, utterly bewildered, and she would explain everything in terms of apples and oranges), and who taught me to drive. She was the perfect driving instructor, completely unflappable. I remember once we were coming down and around a steep curve, during a practice drive, and I suddenly realized I was going way too fast. Instead of screaming and grabbing the wheel Kathy calmly said, "It might be good to slow down a little."
Kathy, husband Bona and son Bryan inhabit what I call the K&B Bed and Breakfast, since I almost always stay overnight at their house when I am headed anyplace west. They are located a convenient 8-hour drive from my home in Maine, and always welcome me with open arms, into a relaxed, like-minded atmosphere where we inevitably have stimulating political and moral discussions, with all of us managing to be our most entertaining at the same time. How can you beat that?
But I always derive great satisfaction from making the drive along Route 88, that runs the length of that valley, for much of the way along a shelf cut out of the side of the hills, which then continue down into that shallow, peaceful valley. When you look out from that shelf you see hills across the way that recede in a way that makes me think of old-fashioned stage scenery – a flat painted to look like a hill, and a little way beyond that, another flat, then another, to give a sense of distance. This vista is very different from the terrain of the Berkshires, even though both places are full of hills and trees. In the Berkshires the furry round hills crowd around you, there are few actual vistas. And this is clearly domesticated land while the Berkshires give the appearance, anyway, of being in their pristine state. The Berkshires also depend utterly on the tourist trade, while this valley sees tourists mainly just passing through, though some do make a destination of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
I would live in this valley in a heartbeat, just as I would in the Berkshires, even though both would make my heeding the occasional call of the sea more difficult. But both contain at least two of my residential requirements : natural beauty that's heavy on the color green, and a climate that knows more cool weather than hot. The Berkshires are full of artists, while the valley between Albany and Binghamton is full of no-nonsense farmers. I love art, but dislike nonsense, so either place would suit me. Admittedly, the politics of the Berkshires would probably be closer to mine than those of struggling upstate New York.
The reason I was driving this route was that I was stopping off for the night at the home, in Binghamton, of one of my college roommates. Kathy was the roommate who got me through physics (I would come home from class, utterly bewildered, and she would explain everything in terms of apples and oranges), and who taught me to drive. She was the perfect driving instructor, completely unflappable. I remember once we were coming down and around a steep curve, during a practice drive, and I suddenly realized I was going way too fast. Instead of screaming and grabbing the wheel Kathy calmly said, "It might be good to slow down a little."
Kathy, husband Bona and son Bryan inhabit what I call the K&B Bed and Breakfast, since I almost always stay overnight at their house when I am headed anyplace west. They are located a convenient 8-hour drive from my home in Maine, and always welcome me with open arms, into a relaxed, like-minded atmosphere where we inevitably have stimulating political and moral discussions, with all of us managing to be our most entertaining at the same time. How can you beat that?
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