I can not remember when I first walked into that old farm of my grand parents on Pleasant Valley Road about three miles from Groton, NY. I do know that I was going there to live with them because my mother, Rita Senecal was hospitalized because of severe mental illness.
My other brothers and sisters were also moved to different homes and right away I knew that I was the lucky one to find myself, probably about three years old, being lifted up by my grand father, Erve Forrest Romaine, and as he looked me in my eyes, I noticed that his eyes where a steel-blue color and his hair was as white as snow.
He was a woodsman who, with a friend had pioneered a saw mill in the northern woods of Wisconsin and boarded at a home where he met my grandmother. They were married soon after that and so Erve built a log cabin for the two of them and continue to cut down huge trees and cut them up for timber which would be used for others to frame in their own homes.
One night a thunder storm erupted and lightening struck a large pine tree and soon the whole forest was ablaze with smoke and fire. Erve took my grand mother and laid down in a ditch where there was a little water. After fire swept over them, all that he had worked so hard for was still smoldering and all was lost.
Their next move was to journey to Central New York where he bought a good sized farm of about 70 acres and a few cows and a team of work horses. Then the Great Depression hit and the bank foreclosed on their mortgage. Stunned by all this, he went to Groton, NY and applied for a job in a new factory, the Smith-Corona typewriter company and there was employed as a common workers hauling different parts from bench to bench so that other workers could add to each part of a new typewriter. Being a proud and stubborn man, he soon grew tired of working for a booming factory, and bought a smaller farm of about 48 acres. Again he bought three cows, some chickens, and a team of horses. He had me with reins in my hands almost before I could walk; he taught me what "Haw" meant so the horses would turn to the left, and "Gee" meant for the horse to turn to the right just by the sound of my voice. Whenever we would take some grain to town, and we would drive up with an old wagon and our team of horses....men would come out to help him unload out gunny sacs full of grain...granddad would wave them off and nod to me to lift the light end as he would bend over and lift the heavy end. That is how we unloaded each sac. "I think you have a good little helper there Erve". they would kid him...he would smile just a little bit and looking at me with a twinkle in his steel blue eyes, would say back to them, "He's going to be a good farmer some day, and then we would wait until they had mixed our grain with some molasses and we would reload the bags and head on home. Up a steep hill we stopped about half way to an old water trough where horses could rest and drink water. There was a tin cup hanging by a short piece of twine and granddad would fill it up, hand it to me first, and then drink a little for himself.
There was a stand of woods of about 5 acres down at the end of the property and from there he would fall trees and snake them back up with his team of horses and would cut them by himself with a cross cut saw. He then took an axe and with the help of wooden wedges he would split wood and stacked in our wood shed attached to the two-story farm house. No electricity, nor inside running water, but only a large pot-bellied wood stove in the living room and a iron wood stove in the small kitchen provided heat and a place for his wife to bake and cook their meals.
I never saw Erve just have fun...nor tell a joke or play ball; a good day for him was to rise before the sun came up and work all day until the chores were all done and he would bring pales of water from a spring down a hill were the cows and horses drank from....cold and clear that water, and with a pail in each hand, he would walk into the kitchen and set them down waiting for grand mother to finish making supper.
Enter John Irving Romaine, a little tyke with old shoes, bib overhauls brown hair, blue eyes and ready to learn how to help his determined grand father. I had a small bed room at the top of the narrow stairs and each night after supper I would climb those stairs all alone and undress, hop into bed and thanked God for my new home.
______________________________________________________________________________
THE OLD CHURCH ON PLEASANT VALLEY ROAD...
The church was a little parcel of land; it was a swamp but it had slate for a front porch and the pews where painted while with maroon trimming. There was a wood stove in back of the church and underneath was a large tin rug which I guess was supposed to stop any embers that would fall out of the sides when it became so hot that the apple wood would make a big BANG noise and it sounded to me like the Holy Ghost had come down the chimney.
One of our preachers was a very Godly lady who prayed a lot and lived way back in the woods off a dirt road; her husband drank a lot, but she would just bare his abuse and pray some more.
My grand mother and Noami was her name, would bundle up with straw hats and old leather gloves and start walking through the briar patched where they would discover rich raspberry bushes and just chatting away would pick those berries until dark. When my grand mother came home that evening her fingers were stained purple and she had scratches all up and down her long white arms. Erve would look worried and made sure he took some salve that he used on his horses sore legs, and carefully rub some of this strong smelling salve all up and down her arms.
Me, I was busy washing all the berries off in cold water and then putting them in bowls, pour a little sugar on them and then some real cream until the berries were almost covered. "Boy Oh Boy!" they would exclaim when I set down a bowl full in front of both of them. Erve would bow his head and ask the Lord to bless this treat and to bless his wife for her work that day.
Memories like these make me realize that simple acts of love deserve the praise of simple souls who enjoy the simple fruit of labors of love.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Up and Down Pleasant Valley Road
Our mother would occasionally come home from Willard State Hospital and when she did I would stay with my father and mother and some of my brothers and sisters. That house was also a small farm with a two story house and big barn but our Father didn't like farming, When had first graduated From Groton NY, he went to work for the new company, Smith-Corona Typewriter factory and worked there until he was 62 years old. My grand father and my father were two very different people. Dad was liked by everyone and went to the bars, played pool, really liked cars...but my father was also able to do many things....he could build a cabin, wire houses for electricity, do pluming and take motors of cars apart...just a real handy man type.
Well the little farm he named "Jake's Acers", I guess some man named Jake must have sold it to dad. Si I did spend a lot of time when I was young living there; eating, sleeping, and playing with Grace, Joanne, Victor (not my father) and later Mike as a baby was there also.
Now and again my mother would dress me and send me up the road to my grand parents farm. I would walk along that newly paved road and usually a man who picked up granddad's milk cans would stop and give me a ride in his old truck. He would giggle as he opened the passenger's door for me and help pull me up to sit next to him. To tell you the truth I was too short to see out the front window of that old truck, but I could look at the front windshield and see where we had been....in other words it was like a mirror....only there must have been something in that windshield that caused the reflections of where we had been turn into many colors. That fascinated me and kept my attention while he stopped at the Torok's big farm, loaded many milk cans, and his next stop was where my grand parents lived. I would run across the front lawn, climb the steps to the front porch and my grandmother would be waiting for me and made sure that I had a my usual breakfast either of Cream of Wheat, or a bowl of Oatmeal. This hardy cereal was topped with fresh milk from the cows, a dap of real honey and some brown sugar, She had a way of making toast our of her home made bread. It was a wire hand like thing which, when she put in a slice of bread, she would take a little ring and slide that down the sides that led to that hand-like thing and then it would close tight over the bread. She then would lift one of the iron lids over the burning wood and slowly turn the bread over the small fire...soon the bread turned into a brownish color and then she would open this thing and bring that one slice of toast to me and help me put some home made butter in it and maybe some of the preserves she had made last summer when they went picking berried. Amazes me today that she and many other farm wives knew how to do things like she did...how to can tomatoes, jams, pickles, and even canned pork. Old mason jars that had a red rubber seal, and with paraffin wax on top, she would pull a hook across the top of the Mason Jar and it would seal tight. Our cellar had a dirt floor and without electricity, we would wait until day light and open a hatch way that led up some steps through two wooden doors which we could push open and walk out into our back yard,
There is much more I remember about those early days even before I went to school which was just down the hill and past the church....two small rooms....but I will write more about that the next time I write on my blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment