1999,
2000 –2018
These pages
are part of the Schuyler co., NY Genweb page.
Not
for commercial use without permission of the author.
*
*
Mecklenburg
Farm Life, 1905 - 1919
*
Compiled from the Diaries of Fred
DICKENS & Harriet KENNEDY DICKENS
by
Shirley Dee Taber Watt
*
"Dedicated with love to Charlotte Kennedy Dickens Taber
1913 - 1995"
The Dickens Home in Mecklenburg.
Introductory Note
Some time ago I found my grandfather Fred L. DICKENS' 1905 - 1919 diaries. A farmer, living in Mecklenburg, N.Y with his wife and three daughters, his notations mainly concern the weather, crop progress, the hours various men worked for him, and when he worked for or helped others. Then two years ago I found three partial diaries of my grandmother Harriet KENNEDY DICKENS that fleshed out the distaff side.
With additional input from my mother, the daughter born in 1913, I was able to piece together a good picture of what daily life was like for a typical Upstate New York farm family in the beginning of the 20th Century. Once concluded, the combined information seemed too valuable to be kept just for the family. My hope in presenting it here that those interested in that time period will find it of substantial aid to their research.
Shirley Dee Taber Watt 1996
Mecklenburg Farm Life, 1905 - 1919
The DICKENS family in
1905 consisted of Fred, age 35, and his wife Harriet "Hattie",
31. Their first daughter, Blanche, was five years old. Fred and
Hattie had been married seven years and had recently returned to
"Meck" so Fred could run the farm for his aging father.
When the diaries commence they are living in the tenant house.
Later, they moved into what was always
referred to as the
Dickens Homestead across the road. Over the space
covered by the diaries two more daughters were born: Grace Caroline
in 1906 and Charlotte in 1913.
At first all four of
their parents lived nearby on their own farms -- Levi and Helen (nee
BENNETT) DICKENS across the road, and Allen P. and Caroline (nee
GARDNER) KENNEDY outside Cayutaville. Fred had two brothers
living elsewhere -- Howard, married to Jennet, and Charles & his
wife Addie who had a young daughter Florence. Hattie's sister
Grace still lived at home but during the diary years would marry and
have the first two of her four
children. All around were
relatives on both sides; GARDENER, BENNETT, VanFLEET, MORRIS,
BEARDSLEY, TABER, WRIGHT, BEMENT. Other local families too
numerous to mention were related more distantly.
Fred farmed his
father's acres on a share basis in the early years. Later,
after his father died and his brothers and sisters agreed he should
own the farm outright, he also hired out additional fields on
neighboring farms. He employed a hired man who often rented the
tenant house for $3 a month and usually took on another man for the
growing season and harvest. (In 1919 a hired man got "$23 plus
horse keep, washing, ironing, mending and stay nights")
Hattie had a seamstress come in to do extra sewing. I am told
she set up in the dining room and my grandfather could not stay in
the room when she worked because "she always had her mouth full
of pins." For her newborns Hattie had a baby nurse who
stayed about a month ($43 after
Charlotte was born) and at
times someone in to help with the wash. After 1913 she had a
hired girl who evidently was like one of the family for she went on
outings with Blanche and, once, after she had been away over
Christmas, Fred noted "Mildred came home."
It was a close, companionable life. They were a step from Mecklenburg and close to Trumansburg where Fred went almost daily and always called "the Burg." Rarely a day passed that a friend or relative did not stop by, often to "stay to supper." Long before "Women's Liberation", Hattie often drove a team to visit and sometimes stay overnight with her parents, leaving the little girls with Fred. Among other trips, she went to a "sociable" in Perry City, to a "Cornell meeting" at the neighbors, and took the pastor's wife Mrs. BROOKS (grandmother of poet Joyce KILMER) to Watkins where they went through the Glen. By family account she was an expert horsewoman and the diaries show that she drove the team often, even to Ithaca, year-round. Harriet and Fred called on sick family, friends and neighbors. Visiting was an important part of Hattie's life. Many days she would go "uptown" (to Meck) for the mail and stop in on friends or relatives and often, in the evening after her chores were done, walk to a neighbors for a chat.
Fred kept
cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese. He was particularly
fond of his horses and always had two teams, heavy and light, which
he used judiciously and put out to pasture when the were too old to
work. He also used his father's and father-in-law's horses.
At one point he spoke of owning and driving a three-horse rig.
Old Sarah, the big sow, was "taken up the
road" to
the neighbors each year and dutifully produced large litters.
The heifers, which all had pretty names such as "Pet,"
calved, as did "Reddie" the big red cow and the yellow cow
who seems to have had no name. There were two orchards and they
sold apples both locally and in lthaca. Fred also had plum,
cherry, pear and peach trees that must have been only for family
consumption.
To further supplement their diet, they traveled to buy honey and grapes and Fred wrote of picking wild carrots on the hill. The family also gathered walnuts to eat and sell. There was buttermilk and sweet milk and butter from the cows. And there was ice cream! My grandfather evidently loved it for he mentioned making it often (under the horse chestnut tree in summer) as well as noting numerous ice cream socials and Catha GOLDSMITH's ice cream parlor.
A farmer in the early
1900's had to do many things by hand that are mechanized now and he
made or devised tools and implements he could not readily acquire.
Among the many things Fred mentioned doing are re-wooding a tackle
block, soldering a milk can, making whiffletrees and a 25-foot pole
ladder, constructing a stone boat, and a wire stretcher to string
fence.
Amusing for me to read, but not for him, was the year he
broke his axe handle. He proceeded to make another and then two
back-ups. He wasn't going to be caught short again!
During the early diary years Fred also tore down the tenant louse barn and the "old house on the hill." Everything was salvaged. The wood and stone was drawn away for other use and he made a special nail chisel at the blacksmith's to pull the nails after he constructed out buildings from the cement floor up, shingled the house and barn, laid sidewalk, ran water to the barn, moved "the closet to a new foundation"... and fixed the alarm clock.
Farmers would also lend and borrow equipment and teams, work for and with each other and let their hired men contract out to a neighbor for a day or so. In 1918 Fred noted that he had borrowed "KELSEY's buzz saw and Steve WILSON's engine" to saw wood. They also helped each other fill icehouses, thresh, and raise barns, etc.
The farm year from seed to harvest turned much as it does today. In January Fred cut and drew wood, hay and coal ($5.50 a ton in 1907). He slaughtered his hogs himself until one bit him and thereafter had Lawrence McCARTHY the butcher do it for 30 cents and later 50 cents each. He smoked some of the meat, cut up and put some in brine, and made some into sausage. In winter he repaired equipment, did maintenance and spent hour upon hour picking over beans to sell. Eventually he acquired two bean pickers to help with the chore, but one or the other seems to have always been broken down.
In late January or
early February he cleaned and filled the ice house. It took 6
wagonloads, 123 cakes 13" thick, and was covered with a load of
sawdust, which he bought for 25 cents. He also took wood to be
cut at the sawmill from which he made vegetable crates. In
March he drew phosphate, sold apples, trimmed fruit trees, tapped
maples and boiled sap, sent his hog to be
bred, continued
drawing wood, manure and hay, and did out building maintenance.
In April he grafted fruit trees and his recipe for grafting wax is in
one of the diary pockets. He sharpened fence posts, pulled or
blasted out and drew stumps and rocks, pulled and burned brush and
started plowing. Before the month was over, weather permitting,
he would drill oats, sow
wheat, cabbage, radish and grass seed
and plant potatoes, sweet corn and peas. A few years he planted
popcorn, which he and Hattie sold in Ithaca for a good price.
May was the time
to mark out fields and gardens for himself as well as for his father
and neighbors. One diary entry shows helped a relative survey
some land. The cattle and horses were put out to pasture.
He planted tomatoes, cucumbers and muskmelon in one or both of his
two gardens. In June he set up scarecrows, plowed, harrowed and
drilled buckwheat, turned the
calves out, cultivated, cut
thistle and burdocks out of the fields, set out pepper plants, beans,
cabbage and the second half of the cucumbers. He acquired the
road warrant for District 99 and worked with mower and scythe on his
share as well as his father's. At the end of the month he would
always especially note drawing the first loads of hay of the year.
He would finish
the wheat and hay by the end of July.
In August he cut and drew oats, began to plow for wheat again, dug potatoes and set out 250 strawberry plants. Toward the end of the month he would buy coal before the threshers arrived and Hattie would work overtime preparing food. When the threshing crew came in to eat they washed up outside using wash basins, some hot and soapy, others cold for rinsing. Towels were on the wash line above and there was even a mirror hung on a tree for them to use.
In September Fred rolled and harrowed the wheat and cut and pressed hay. The hay press stayed 4 days and he helped bring "the power" to his farm and then move it to the next place after his crop was finished. In 1906 he wrote: "WIXOM pressed 12 tons of hay - I pitched it alone." Lester N. CHAPMAN, who read and commented on the manuscript, said: "I assume that the hay was in the barn or a stack and he pitched to an upright hay press where two men jumped the hay to make bales that would weigh nearly 200 pounds each."
During this busy
autumn month Fred also got the second cutting of clover, dug
potatoes, picked peas and set out 250 more strawberry plants.
Apple-picking began and would continue through November. One
year he mentioned taking apples to "the dry house" for 30
cents/hwt. Now he cut corn, gleaned the wheat, threshed the
buckwheat, began to shock up the corn, pulled and
forked out
beans, husked corn and picked pumpkins.
In November he cleaned and divided the buckwheat, picked, shucked and washed walnuts, set traps, made cider, put potatoes and turnips in the cellar and culled old trees out of the orchard. He had another pig killed, sold apples and hay, drew loads of corn stalks, sold ducks …and the year turned again.
With some exceptions,
the farm wife's work was mostly structured on a daily and weekly
basis. Evidently Hattie had a regular schedule. Entries
include: "did my Saturday work," and "Worked hard
today, did Friday and Saturday work." She cooked, baked,
cleaned, churned, processed the daily milk, sewed, ("...finishing
up a second nightshirt for Fred when I could
find time
during the day") and cared for her children, especially when
ill. A 1916 entry when her youngest daughter is very sick about
sums it up: "I got my work all done up early, got along nicely.
Had to take lots of steps waiting on Lottie."
As the old adage goes, "Man works from sun to sun, women's work is never done." In one notation Harriet remarked, "Mopped the kitchen after lamplight." Another time she wrote: "I have not felt good at all," then proceeded to list what she had accomplished during the day, "Cleaned up the kitchen chamber, store room, the little room, my room, cellar steps, etc., and ironed a table cloth." Another day she "cleaned the woodhouse, kitchen and bedroom" in addition to her regular work.
Washing clothes was a backbreaking job. In the early years of their marriage Fred sometimes helped his young wife with the heavy chore that entailed collecting rain water, scrubbing and pounding. In her late 30s, after three children, Hattie had a neighbor, Mrs. REISH, come in to help. Teenaged Blanche and father Kennedy also helped out. Harriet wrote: "Blanche did all the rubbing except 2 sheets, 1 wool drawers and a counterpane. Pa did the pounding and rubbed the big heavy blanket." No wonder that Fred was so proud and happy when he wrote in 1909; " New washing machine came...it is a dandy...does good work!" Of course, all that washing had to be ironed with big, heavy, aptly named "sad" irons that were heated on the stove.
Bread, cookies, cake and pie were baked almost every day and sometimes candy was made as well. Fred liked his pie, even for breakfast. Both Blanche and Grace Caroline baked at quite a young age and even Mrs. Reish sometimes whipped up a batch of cookies on washing day. Callers were frequent and, along with the family, certainly enjoyed all those sweets without worrying about calories and "healthy eating."
Serving big meals was common for Hattie. Most Sundays found her preparing dinner for extended family and often friends as well. A family joke centered around Blanche wondering why they were so "poor" they had to have chicken every Sunday. For holidays Harriet really outdid herself, producing special menus. In 1903 Fred proudly noted that New Year's dinner had included turkey, chicken and oysters.
Food was the usual contribution to parties as well. Blanche took a cake, milk and a book to a friend's birthday party and the Dickens family's contribution to a fundraiser for the minister included "a platter of beef, dish of Jello, and milk." Another time Harriet mentioned taking mashed potatoes to two ladies.
Fred kept
chickens (and sometimes geese and ducks) and always had four cows.
Surplus eggs, milk and butter bought in extra income. Harriet
notes that the doctor came to "pay his milk" bill and that
she sold a crock of butter to Ward's store for 47 cents a pound
($5.12). Another time she took a basket of eggs and sold them
for 35 cents a dozen. They also sold butter
Ithaca (40
cents/lb in 1917) and in 1919, when they couldn't find a buyer, went
on to Elmira to sell it. In 1914 Fred wrote that they took
cream to the station for the first time.
Springtime meant an additional chore for both Fred and Hattie. He tapped the numerous maples on the property then went around each day, sometimes twice, with the horse-drawn stoneboat and emptied the sap buckets into a huge barrel--so big little Charlotte could not see over it. One maple yields approximately one gallon of syrup, a long continuous boiling down process that needs constant attention. Harriet noted: "March 3, Fred, Grace and Charlotte gathered sap, tapped trees, etc." On the 4th "Fred boiled sap all day." On the 10th her father kept the sap boiling while she and Fred went to look at a horse, but the next day she wrote: "I boiled down syrup all the afternoon. Very tired tonight." On the 13th she took her sister-in-law a quart of syrup. The process was still continuing on the 19th when Hattie wrote: "Pa boiled sap all day. This p.m. I cleansed and canned 5 gallons of maple syrup." On reading this my mother, who had done a fair amount of maple syrup making herself, commented: "That's 20 quarts! Ye gods!"
I could not determine through the diaries where the sap was boiled down, but a good guess might be in or just outside of the summer kitchen. A map drawn by my mother shows "kettle" behind the summer kitchen and this may have been because the sap kettle was huge and had to be hung over an outside fire. Also I remember being told that sap was often boiled down right in the sugar bush (a grove of maples). One of my grandfather's stories was that once when he was boiling down sap he was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. He quickly turned the vat over and got underneath. The pesky giants ran their stingers right through the iron cauldron, but Fred bent them over with his ever-ready hammer. When the mosquitoes flew away he was carried off, straddle the bail, until he finally dropped off into a haystack.
In autumn when
the threshers came through their meals were part of the contract and
the farm wives vied to provide the best spread in the neighborhood.
Hattie's table would have groaned with meat, potatoes, biscuits,
gravy, sauce, Jell-O, pudding, pitchers of milk and pie, pie, pie.
In 1916 Harriet reported having a hungry crew of 16 for supper
and breakfast. The fact that they came a day-and-a-half later
than expected must have made holding the food, or its preparation, an
even more difficult task than usual.
Another autumn chore for Hattie and the older girls was canning all the vegetables from Fred's gardens as well as the fruit gathered from trees and bushes. On her 44th birthday in September 1918 Harriet wrote that Blanche had gotten up before her to make a birthday cake and then canned 15 pints of yellow plumbs. Hattie canned cucumber pickles and tomatoes and next day wrote that she made tomato butter "to keep them from spoiling."
Nearly all winter the whole family spent their spare minutes picking over beans. Even Mrs. REISH and her children were recruited to help. Fred paid them all, including his wife and 5-year-old Charlotte who learned what to do and demanded a wage. Her mother wrote: "Lottie picked beans this week and Fred paid her. She figured up her own account--30 cents--dear little girl, first money she ever earned. How pleased she was." Another winter chore was cleaning the carpets which meant taking them outside and sweeping them with snow.
Many friends and relatives came to stay for days, weeks and even the whole winter, as in the case of an elderly relative, Jonathan VanFLEETE. All this, of course, meant extra work for Harriet, though I suspect she enjoyed the company.
Everyone helped.
Sometime after his wife died, Allen KENNEDY "retired" and
invited his younger daughter Grace and her husband and their growing
family to live with him. He spent a good deal of time with
Hattie and her family as well. Retirement did not mean
work-free leisure for this hardy man who was esteemed by both family
and community. At age 75 he no longer farmed, but numerous
diary entries show that he was involved in the heavy work both in and
out of the house. He is mentioned helping Fred kill the pigs
and several times splitting sizeable amounts of wood as when Hattie
and Fred went to Ithaca to sell apples at the railroad and his
daughter noted in her diary; "Pa had split wood all the
time we were gone." More than once Hattie wrote: "Pa
and Fred unloaded and sawed logs all day." As noted above
he helped with
the heavy washing, kept the sap boiling.
He churned the butter as well.
Fred shot birds
with his father or friends and fished for bullheads and suckers using
a pole or spear, and once dynamite! (They got "a small
mess.") He gleefully reported another incident when:
"Silas HOVENCAMP and I went up the creek last night. Had a
lantern. Got a big sucker-he stomped it with his foot!"
I've been told that Hattie also fished for bullheads as a young woman
and was considered very brave to do so as they are vicious.
Fred also set traps, catching skunks, raccoons, rabbits, mink and
muskrats. He mentioned having rabbit for supper when a relative
was over. (A notation in Hattie's diary says: "Blanche got
her furs today," and my mother thought it meant that they had
sent away skins to be made into a garment.) In 1908 Fred sold
10 muskrats for $3.30 and skunk skins for $2 a piece. When his
dog Duey caught a
black skunk Levi paid $1 for it (for a
conversation piece?). By 1919 prices had evidently gone up as
Fred wrote: "caught a skunk--got $4.50 for it."
To a farmer the
weather is of major importance and the record of it takes up a large
portion of both Fred and Harriet's diaries. My grandfather
never appeared to be a sentimental man and it surprised me to see
that he noted things like hearing the first peepers of the year and
seeing the first bluebird and robin. In 1908 he saw a "golden
robin" which would seem to be a
Baltimore oriole. He
wrote about finding dandelions in January "some in blow, some
gone to seed," and another January noted seeing an angleworm
crawling on top of the ground. In February 1919 he and Arista
SMITH went "up to the woods and caught some crickets and
grasshoppers." One November he wrote: "Rained some a
nice rainbow in the north."
During the
diary years there were some real extremes in weather. In 1905
the roads were drifted full in January and in July it was 110 degrees
in the sun. An entry for January 1906 notes: "Horses sweat
standing in the stable-8O degrees," but by February temperatures
were down to 10 and 12 below. The summer of 1908 was "hot
and dusty, the air full of smoke." The drought lasted
until December when Fred wrote that three families, the DOLIWAYS,
CLOCKS and KILMERS, were still getting water from his well. But
by January of 1909 he reported that "the boys can skate anywhere
on the snow it is so hard." Later in that year there was a
hard frost in June that froze the potatoes and corn. The next
June was cold as well. On the 12th he wrote
"corn
looks bad - only about 4 inches high" and on the 14th "first
night warm enough to sit out on the stoop."
In the winter of 1912 "the stage came on sleigh" and he wrote, as he would other years, about driving the sleigh over the fields when the roads were impassable. January 1914 brought 20 below temperatures and March 1-3 a blizzard that halted traffic. "T'burg road drifted full, had to be shoveled out, our road drifted worse than I can ever remember," he wrote, "Snow blew through every crack, 3-4 feet deep on the stoop." In 1916 Hattie reported that the roads were very bad with mud up to the hubs of the wagon wheels. That same year a cloud burst in Trumansburg flooded some of the stores. 1919 produced another warm January which both described as "warm like summer" with little snow all month, Fred noting on the 23rd "still warm no snow...people plowing" and on the 24th "Ed CURRY plowed his garden today."
I was astonished to find how much damage lightning did. In 1907 "Uncle" John EDDY was struck and killed by a bolt "out of a clear sky," according to my grandmother, while she and Mrs. Eddy were sitting on the porch watching. In May 1908 lightning burned John BAKER's barn and Burt CUMMINGS' barn in Enfield Center. In June Fred wrote that another storm "killed J. MORGAN's cow, struck Tom WARREN's barn, and killed Fred GARDNER's wife." (The sequence in which he reports these events is interesting to say the least.) Cook STILLWELL's barn burned in 1910 after being hit and the Park Hotel barn in Trumansburg in 1916. In 1917 lightning killed Elmer NEWBURY, struck Thomas BOYD's house and Herb CURRY's barn, and killed two of William MORRIS' horses. During the same storm lightning "slivered" the siding of the Dickens house while the family was away. Their hired man Stewart PARKER and neighbor Mr. DARLING and his sons put out the fire.
Tag and garage
sales, a favorite pastime today, is nothing new. In the early
years of the century vendues (auctions) were the thing to do.
Fred and Hattie attended many acquiring things both for the house and
farm: a work table for $1, cultivator $4, corn planter $1.05,
McCormack wheel rake $16.50, sewing table $1.25, corn sheller $2,
wagon $5, team collar $2 and pad 30
cents, 2-seated cutter $8,
double light harness $14. For the house they got a mahogany
davenport, a wash dish for 12 cents, cream separator, cupboard,
4-legged stool, wash bench, cherry table, looking glass, marble top
table, spider (iron frying pan) set of scales, chairs and bedding.
They also bought things new. Fred duly recorded each purchase, prefacing those for himself with "I bought me ..." -overalls 50 cents; pair of high shoes $3.50, sox 40 cents, overcoat $15, cap $1, rubber boots $4, 2 pair overalls $1, a shotgun $2.50 and in 1919 a soldier's overcoat for $10. The 1907 he bought "arctic overshoes for Blanche - 80 cents," but when she was going away to school he spent $6.75 for a dress and $4.50 for shoes. The other girls got their share as well. Fred bought things for Hattie too, never mentioning the cost, among them lots and lots of hats. Fred also recorded the smallest expenditures: paint brush 35 cents, can of paint 50 cents, and even that he bought a violin string. Twice he mentioned that he and Hattie went to "do some trading," once to Watkins and another time by train to Ithaca where they "did $25 worth."
The horses had to be
shod regularly. In 1906 shoeing the team cost $1.50 in
Trumansburg but it cost $4 in Ithaca in 1912. Clipping a horse
was 75 cents. Trumansburg stable fees amounted to $3.50 for
four days. Taxes took their cut. In 1910 the farm was evaluated
at $3,000 and taxes ($11.50/thousand) came to $34.50. He paid
$1 more for a dog license. Thirty-five cents commission was added to
the bill. In 1919 his taxes were $52.40 and he also paid the taxes
(school tax $19.09, valuation $21.10) on the 95-acre "Eddy
place" which he was also
farming.
The bulk of the family's outside activities centered around church, school, and Grange. Although they joined the Baptist church, they also attended Methodist and Presbyterian services, often going to one church on Sunday morning and another in the evening as well as attending services during the week. Whenever there was a new preacher in town they were definitely there to hear him.
I was amazed at
how much the family traveled. From what I could gather from the
diaries they owned a Democrat wagon, buggy, two-seat cutter, trap
wagon, truck wagon, lumber wagon, bob sleds, and the "big
sleigh" (so there must have been another smaller one).
Several times, when Fred had large items to carry or a group to take
to a funeral or outing, he borrowed D. E.
Goldsmith's wagon and
used his own team for the trip. Trains were used often--to
Ithaca and Watkins, etc., by them and other members of the family
when they came to visit.
Then came the automobile! In 1907 Fred's brother Charles and his wife arrived in "an automobile" and "we all had a ride." In 1912 Hattie and Fred went with A. T. KELSEY and his wife in their auto to visit brother Charles in Endicott. In 1914 Frank BEARDSLEY took Fred in his car to Watkins to see "an automobile moving picture show 'The Maxwell'." Fred, the horse lover, liked this automobile travel but held fast for a while. However, by 1915 he was getting bombarded from all sides. Harry COVERT, the model T Ford agent, took him to Trumansburg in his Ford auto, and soon Aunt Settie and cousin Winnie BENNETT arrived and took the family for a ride in their car.
Fred took a trip
with three others to Seneca Falls, Auburn and Ithaca. The
round-trip of 120 miles, left him in amazement and shortly thereafter
he and Hattie "drove a Dodge car to Ithaca to try it out."
By October my grandfather could resist no longer. He bought a Buick
in Watkins and drove home the next morning with a Mr. TIMMS who
taught him to drive. The following
day Hattie and Fred
took Mr. Timms back to Watkins and, Fred wrote proudly: "We came
back alone in our auto."
He immediately
bought a year's auto insurance for $12. From here on the
diaries tell of frequent car trips all around the area including
Ovid, Ithaca and Elmira "for footwear for the family."
During this time Dr. FORDHAM came back to Meck and used Fred's car
for demonstration. But all was not fun and freewheeling.
In December they went to Ithaca to get "some Xmas for the
children," and got stuck in a snow bank on the way home. A
few days later
they went back - in the wagon!
In 1916 Fred sent $10 for an auto license and received tag number l70. He had to run the car in the shop to "charge the batteries" (sic). On the way back from a ride to Syracuse he wrote: "A son of a gun ran into us at Romulus." The next day Fred took the car to Ithaca for repairs. Soon after he bought a tire and tube for the car ($5).
Levi Dickens' sons evidently had a touch of the entrepreneur in them. (Brother Charles was always on the road, once as far away as Manitoba and another time "up north selling silos.") Evidently Fred decided to use his new possession to make some extra money--something farmers could always use. He went to Elmira and acquired a chauffeur's license ($15). Right away some people hired him to take them to Elmira for $8 and D. E. GOLDSMITH "and his men" went for a ride to Ithaca and Elmira for $10. Many other trips for hire followed and Harriet kept track of the extra income in the back of her diary.
In January 1917
Hattie and Fred made a trip in the Buick to Elmira - with two hogs
and two bags of beans! Hattie evidently had had enough of that
because later in the month when Fred put two more pigs in the car to
sell to Atwaters in Ithaca he had his daughter Grace Caroline with
him. In addition to taking "fares" various places and
transporting livestock, Fred and Hattie
drove family and
friends on many trips - Ithaca, Union Springs, Watkins, around Seneca
Lake, Waverly, Endicott, Interlaken -- and soon the Buick was back in
Ithaca for a new battery ($34.12), brake bands, and then to have the
batteries (sic) charged again. In September and October Fred
went out selling automobiles. He also noted that they went to
Ithaca to see a show after dinner. Then December came again.
Fred got stuck in a
snow bank and had to leave the car overnight. The next day he
went back with a team and some friends to help him shovel out.
"I had to put them on some bad banks" he noted remorsefully
about the horses. He took the car to BEARDSLEY's Garage to thaw
the snow and ice off. A few days later one can sense his
happiness at being back with familiar, reliable transportation when
he wrote: "Went in the big sleigh to a family party at
Winnie's." In January he noted: "sleighs, wagons and
autos all running - not much snow," but in February it was
"Roads drifted some, no autos on the road; sleighs and wagons
both running" and he drew hay to Trumansburg in both
sleigh and wagon.
In March he bought a
colt.
In 1918 Fred went to Ithaca for
ball bearings, sent away for an "omnibus license" ($15),
"slipped in a ditch with the car," bought a new tire, sent
for number plates, went for another tire, spark plugs, a rubber
connector "for water circulator of car engine," and a
backup light-all separate trips to Ithaca. In 1919 he had his
chauffeur's license picture taken (70 cents)
and on a trip to
Elmira had three blowouts.
He bought another
horse.
During this time the family suffered
what must have been among the first auto fatalities. In his
diary notation for Saturday Sept. 15, 1917 Fred wrote: "Frank
TABER (Hattie's cousin) got killed with his auto up to Elmira--ran in
the railroad gates--broke his neck."
All families have
their share of joys and sorrows and I am sure the Dickens family was
typical of many others. In December 1909 Fred's father, Levi,
died of a stroke and in January 1914 Hattie's mother Caroline died of
the same. Fred's mother Helen suffered a stroke in 1916 but
lived. Several other family members and close friends also
passed away and Fred and Harriet
dutifully noted them all, Fred
often adding that he was a bearer at the funeral. (He also
noted the deaths of family dogs and horses and where he buried them.)
[See vital
records extracted from these diaries.]
Joyous events are
included also. Fred recorded his sister-in-laws' wedding at
their house and the birth of her babies. A few days after his
hired man's brother married Minta HOVENCAMP in 1917 he wrote: "The
boys horned Will PARKER tonight." The births of livestock
got equal time on his pages. When his daughter Charlotte was
born in 1913 Fred's diary entry reads
in full: "Had a
little girl baby come to live with us at half past 1 o'clock this
p.m. Warm. Very muddy. Roads frozen had this morning. Hattie doing
quite well. Had some pigs come this morning - 9 in all. Robins here
for the first time."
Sickness
was common and, pre-antibiotics and "the miracles of modern
medicine," it is amazing how many survived serious illness.
Despite the lack of powerful remedies in his little black bag, the
family doctor deserves a large share of the credit. He made
house calls, often twice in one day, and no doubt his common sense
and caring had much to do with the recovery rate. The Dickens
family's medical history is probably similar to that of most other
families at that time. Fred recorded everything from colds to
tooth extractions (sadly there were many). Often the cold or "grippe"
[flu] turned to pneumonia as it did for 5-year-old Blanche on March
7, 1905. Dr. Davis came for the next several days and at last
on March 12th, Fred noted "Had some ice cream today, Blanche ate
some." At last, on the 26th, he was able to write:
"Blanche sat up a little while today." January
1908 saw the family suffering through a particularly trying period.
Around the 1st Hattie fell ill and wasn't able to "go to town"
until the 18th. The kitchen chimney burned out and mid-month
Fred badly sprained his ankle. On the 28th he finally visited
the doctor and on the 30th could finally report "F. SWICK did my
chores this
morning, I did them tonight." (Evidently
men were considered to be truly on the mend when they could "go
to the barn.") Then Levi's cold turned to pneumonia!
March 4th they got a new stove but it wasn't until April that Dan UPDIKE "laid up" the new chimney. (What my grandmother did about cooking in the meantime I have no idea, perhaps the "summer kitchen" served.) In May Fred "drew away three loads of broken brick and plaster from the old chimney and two loads of coal ashes."
Over the years the girls had all the childhood diseases -- whooping cough (Fred wrote it "hooping cough"), German measles, chickenpox, etc. In 1918 4-year-old Charlotte was ill and being seen by the doctor in Trumansburg from mid-January through February 8. During this time they received a letter from Blanche who was attending school in Union Springs, saying she was ill. Hattie and Fred rushed to her (an over-night trip) and found her "lame with rheumatism." In mid-February both Grace Caroline and Charlotte had the measles and Hattie was "sick in bed," evidently not to fully recover until the end of April. A separate note at the end of one diary reads: "Aspirin tablets for rheumatism - Dr. SAWYER."
Several operations are
reported. On July 2, 1912 Blanche had surgery "for a
rupture." Fred noted that her uncle, Ira SEARS, gave her a
book, and on the 21st was finally able to write: "Blanche came
to the table for the first time." In 1916 Hattie's sister
Grace had an appendectomy on December 6th and returned home on the
22nd. No long stays for Charlotte however. She had had a rough
start, coming down with pneumonia when only a month-and-a-half old,
but
in 1919 she bounced back from having her tonsils and
adenoids out and came home the next day. All the operations took
place in Ithaca Hospital.
There were none
of today's quick recoveries from childbirth in those years.
When Hattie had Charlotte it was two weeks before she was "up
and dressed." Yet some things that would have sent us
rushing to the doctor today caused little or no concern. In
August 1919 Fred reported "Home all day, my foot some better --
stuck a fork in it." It was a manure fork! It
"bothered"
him for three or four days and then
nothing more was mentioned of the incident. (I remember him
telling me that when someone was cut while working in the barn they
simply stuffed a wad of cobwebs in the wound to stop the bleeding.)
Although both Fred and
Harriet often wrote and received letters from family and friends,
direct communication with the outside world was in its infancy.
When Fred received a Valentine from a young relative it was unusual
enough to be noted in his diary. In 1908 he wrote that the
telephone men had put up the first part of the wires and poles and
that he had helped them for 8 hours. Fred bought telephone
poles from his father, father-in-law and a neighbor for 50 cents
each. (Whether these were poles or trees that could be made
into poles and why he had to buy them I was not able to tell.)
Calls made or received were also recorded and he always spoke of
"getting a telephone from..." rather than a "telephone
call". In 1918 he "Paid for Bell
phone $7.50 in
full." My mother said they had two telephones, one that
covered Trumansburg and the other Watkins Glen.
Although they
subscribed to the "Review and World" by the year, and I
remember my grandfather as being highly interested (and vocal) about
politics and national and world events, there is amazingly little
reference to any news outside their own and neighboring communities.
In 15 years only the following items are mentioned. On April
15, 1912, after noting that he had
worked most of the day on
the fence between his property and D, U. Becker and that he changed
his rubber boots for a new pair, Fred gave details of the "Titanic"
sinking including the number of dead and rescued. In 1917 he
noted that 41 had signed up in the first War Draft registration.
In 1918 there are references to the family going to Ithaca, Watkins
and Trumansburg for
"Liberty Loan meetings." On
November 11th he wrote: "News came this morning at 2:55 o'clock
that Germany had surrendered. Had a parade at the Burg. I
played in the band. Went on to Ithaca." The
following day "We all went to Ithaca to a war parade and a
flying machine exposition." The only other references are
from the following year when on January 6 he wrote: "Teddy
Roosevelt died this a.m. at 4:15," and when he tells of a
neighbor who "lost
his leg fighting in France" coming
to visit while home on furlough.
Crime was minimal in those days. A 1908 diary entry states:
"Someone stole the horse blanket out of the wagon house."
It was found a week later by a friend "in an old barn down by
the Perry City cider mill." At a dance in the Hall in 1916
"the boys had a fight with some Ithaca fellows," and in
June of 1917 Fred reported two crimes in the same entry: "Two
men stopped Floyd DOTY with A. T. KELSEY's peddling wagon and robbed
him and hammered him. Someone stole Maud HAVENS' Regents
papers." It was a quiet, insular and safe world. The
Great War was over and the economy looked bright. Little did the
DICKENS family and their neighbors know that the Great Depression and
another World War would soon come...their way of life was passing.
But during the diary years of 1905-1919 there was a time that the
Dickens family, and we, would always look on as near idyllic.
-end-