We went to square dances every Saturday night at Baptist Hill, Cheshire, Bristol Springs, Honeoye or Atlanta. I didn't know a thing about dancing so the first date I took to the dance, I had several drinks and they pushed me out on the floor keeping me there until I learned how. Ray Smith didn't drive and he was always getting me blind dates so he could have a ride. I went with a lot of girls-Althea Treble and Rosemary Schmuck from Honeoye, Barbara Sherman from Gainsville, Julie Jones from Bristol, and Earnestine Fairbrothers (get that name) from Atlanta, New York. For about six months I went with a beautiful girl, Ruth Richardson from Woodville. She was so pretty I guess I was lucky to have gone with her that long. These dances were all in the winter time and we had to ride four in the front seat of the car. We went to a lot of movies too, in Rochester and Geneva.
I played baseball for several years with Ken Montanye, Skip Dewey, Ray Smith and Len Pierce. I played for the Cheshire team and the Canandaigua town team. It was called semi-pro ball and we played teams from all around this area. The only one that got paid was the pitcher. They had a try-out camp for the Red Wings for three days at Red Wing Stadium in Rochester. Ken and I signed up for it and we lasted two days before being eliminated. Some of the pitchers were so fast I could hardly see the ball go by. I wish that I had been six feet tall and weighed more because I really wanted to be a baseball player.
It was during these years that Len Pierce and I became good friends. When we played for the Cheshire ball team we would hang out a lot at the barber shop in Cheshire. They had two pool tables and a coal stove at the back of the shop with chairs around it. We used to get warm in winter while waiting for a haircut or the chance to play pool. The barber was John Johnson, an older man with white hair. We got a haircut for $.25 and I went there for several years.
The gang used to hang out at Chase's Ice Cream Store on South Main Street several evenings a week. We ate a lot of ice cream and sundaes. Sometimes around 1938 I sold "Little Eva" and bought a 1935 Ford coupe that used to belong to a dentist. The finish was so dull from sitting out in the sun behind his office that I polished it for about a month before I got it to shine well. There were about six of us who went to all the square dances together every Saturday night. We would buy a half gallon of wine and at the dance we would set the jug on the hood of the car and keep running out to it for drinks. Nobody ever touched our bottles--probably didn't care for our cheap wine.
One day in 1938 when we came home from work we found my mother standing on the back porch with her head jerking and she was unable to talk. We called the doctor and he said she was having a stroke. We had no idea how long she had been like this, unable to call for help. She was paralyzed in the right arm completely and partially in the right leg. Her speech was affected a little. In those days there was no kind of rehabilitation so she was unable to do any work. My father had to continue working so we hired a housekeeper to come in days to do the cooking and housekeeping. I can imagine what this did to my mother, having a stranger doing all the things she had done for so many years. I am not sure as to how many months she lived before she had the second stroke, which was fatal. She never did go to the hospital because doctors made house calls in those days. We had a Dr. Stetson and he would walk right in the house without knocking and sit down at the dining room table and visit with everyone before he would see the one who was sick. I suppose with a family of nine children he made enough visits to feel like one of the family.
After having the stroke, my mother slept in a downstairs bedroom and my father would sit by the bed in a rocking chair and hold my mother's hand. He slept in the chair and still worked every day. In my memory this will always be the perfect definition of love. It must have been wonderful for them to have a relationship filled with such love. At this time, my mother, dad and I were the only ones living at home.
My mother's funeral was held at home in the front room which was called the parlor in those days. It was a common practice to hold funeral services in the home at that time. As I was 19 years old, playing baseball, working and in love with the girl next door, the full impact of my mother's death did not hit me until years later. Like I suppose everyone else feels, I now regret not doing more for my mother to have made her life more enjoyable and easier for her.
When I was in high school I went to a Dr. Brockmayer who had an office on Chapin Street almost down to Main St. His office was in his house, in the front room. The charge was either a dollar or two. He had a large roll top desk with a bushel basket beside it. When anyone paid, he would throw the money into the basket. I can still see that basket about half full of $1 bills.
After my mother died, my father and I tried having a housekeeper but that didn't last long and we decided to keep house for ourselves. Dad did the cooking and as near as I can remember we ate pork chops and canned peaches most of the time. I did the washing and ironing and I could do the shirts quite well. My father had a big oak roll top desk he used for all his book-keeping. He saved dimes in a codfish box with a slot in the cover. He nailed the cover on so he wouldn't use them before it was full. He couldn't resist knowing how much he had so every few days he would pull the nails out and count it. I remember one day he was sitting at the desk with one of those little rubber bladed defroster fans that they used to put in the rear window of cars. He was trying to fix it and he plugged it into the outlet. It ran like hell for a few minutes before it burned out the motor. It surprised him so he dropped it like a hot potato.
About 1937, a couple of years after high school, Skip Dewey, Ray Smith and I went to Florida for two weeks. We went in Skip's car which used a lot of oil so we carried a case of oil in the trunk and would stop a couple of times a day to add more. We rented a small cabin in Ft. Lauderdale and stayed for a week. We didn't do much while there except lay on the beach and watch the girls. At that time there wasn't much else to do as it wasn't developed the way it is now. As I recall it only cost each of us $75 for the two week trip. On the way home I remember one morning on the road through Georgia when we passed an old shack occupied by a black family. The fields were white with frost and a little boy in a white nightgown was running through the field to the outhouse way out in the back.