FARM EXPERIENCES

I suppose that many of you grew up on a farm, as I did; there are many memories of how we did things back then. It was a 48 acre farm in central New York, where we owned only 4 cows, a pig, many chickens, and a team on horses. My grand father, Erve Forrest Romaine was born in Augusta WS. on December 3rd, 1885. I started as a young man who cut down huge trees and with another man, started their own saw mill. He roomed at a home where he met my grand mother Gwendolny Ione Scott, and soon the were married. A forest fire wiped out their saw mill and so they headed east and settled on a farm a couple miles outside of Groton, NY. It was during the Great Depression, and soon the bank foreclosed on him and he lost that farm. He then bough the farm where they raised me from about 6 years old, until I was twelve and then I moved to Moravia, NY and lived with my father and his new wife, Harriet Keller Romaine. It was a big step for me and my grand parents too, but I would return and help him during haying season, following the same routine we had for so many years. That seemed to be enough for both of us...he needed my help and I needed him to continue to accept my move to Moravia. In Moravia I continued to work at many different jobs; I set pins at the local bowling alley, also opened a restaurant named "Norm's" where I was a short order cook, frying eggs, bacon, fixing coffee and generally cleaning the place up before I headed off to school. I really enjoyed sports, and even though I tried out for a JV basketball team, I didn't make the cut...but the next year I did, and started as a point guard which ended with winning our division championship. Football and baseball teams where I excelled playing for Ted Fay and Lloyd VanNest, I still go back there and walk around the fields where I played in my teens.