Susan's Memories Of Her Mother

The Life of Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard, as seen through the eyes of her youngest daughter, Susan Frances Hubbard (Reynolds) Ciacci – June, 2005.

Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard, born at home in the Pine Grove area of Huntersland - on October 27, 1913, the Town of Middleburgh, Schoharie County, New York, died in the hospital at Banning, California, on Wednesday, June 1, 2005.

Frances grew up as an only child until her mid 20’s. Her Uncle Maynard Laraway, her mother’s brother, called her “fluffy” because her hair was just that, fluffy.

Her childhood was somewhat privileged, as her father who was an only child himself inherited the family farm, which was prosperous for the times and the area.

Frances attended and had birthday parties, and spent lots of time with her cousins, Emma and Marion. Summer weekends were spent with her parents, aunts and uncles and family friends at Crystal Lake, picnicking.

She attended school in Middleburgh, where she would spend her weekdays with her “Grandma Barber” (her father’s mother), whom she loved and whom she described as having everything “just so”, right down to her starched dresses and collars. She was not the academic student that her cousin Emma was, but she loved geography, to draw and sketch, and later in life spent many hours reading.

Mom’s parents divorced when she was 16 – a scandal it was – her father Clarence marrying her mother Bessie’s younger sister Mildred Laraway, and her mother Bessie Claressa Laraway marrying Norman VanTassel, another farmer and friend of the family, who had once been married to Bessie’s cousin. All four persons accompanied each other to Las Vegas for the divorce and remarriage of the new couples.

In later years, after Mom had a child or two of her own, along came a half-sister, Judith Barber, whom Mom also loved, but with whom never established a close relationship, as she had her own family to tend to.

The Laraway sisters kept a close bind with each other despite the scandal, and with the rest of their brothers and sisters, and their friendships and relationships continued the rest of their lives. Their lives had changed, but they still were accepted by each other.

But, for Mom, although she visited with her family back and forth as though all was well, she was wounded from the shame and embarrassment it had caused her at the tender age of 16, and I don’t believe she ever really recovered from that fully.

Frances loved to dance and at about that time, it was at a dance in Livingstonville, New York, that she met Clifton John Hubbard, and soon they married, Clifton being 25 years old, Frances being18 years old . They moved to a little home in Gilboa, New York, which was recently the Gilboa Post Office, just across from the Gilboa Dam.

The Hubbards said Frances brought life to the family. Indeed she did. She was the mother of 8 children, had 28 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren at the time of her death, June 1, 2005.

Eventually she and Dad decided to move to one of the houses on the old Hubbard homestead on Hubbard Hill, the house Grandma Anna Christianna Hubbard lived in, where Anna raised her two sons, Grandpa Elmer and Uncle John. Frances and Clifton moved there when their family was still small.

At that time the house had no running water, indoor plumbing, and no electricity. When asked how she felt about that move, Mom replied that it didn’t bother her one bit. She said she had all of the strength and courage in the world.

Her life on Hubbard Hill was simple, yet busy and complex: Being married to Dad, and raising eight children, (all healthy and well, for which she as always so thankful, the boys running wild in the woods, “little devil-catchers” she would call them, with a hint of fun in her voice, and a spark in her eyes), was not an easy task, but was one for which she had tons of strength and which became most of her world.

Blessed with long arms that stretched out to her many children and grandchildren, and large hands to do the endless duties of a housewife and mother in the early 1900’s.

At times carrying water from the barn in milk pails, hoeing a rock-hard garden, roaming through the fields and woods with her children, picking wild blueberries, blackberries, and wild strawberries to make cobblers and pies, and hulling those tiny field strawberries and making an old fashioned strawberry shortcake for her family.

Her pies were plentiful and delicious, and sometimes a little unique, creating sour cream pies and sweet apple pies and current pies. In the earlier years, she would make a cake daily, to top off our supper meal she served to her large hungry bunch.

She kept a good, attractive house on meager finances, doing spring cleaning each year, wallpapering at least one room each year, and sometimes many, painting, washing, cooking and sewing for her children, dresses and skirts for the girls, embroidering dresser scarves, crocheting afghans for each child’s household, quilting blankets for grandchildren; canning vegetables, tomatoes, corn, fruits such as peaches and pears, preparing jams and jellies, relish, pickles, beet relish, homemade chili sauce, and French kraut, all stored in the cellar, some in large crocks, or in the old jelly cabinet that Grandma Anna used, and on the shelves in the cellar way.

She was always afraid when company came, that she would not have enough food to eat, which was never the case, as she always had an excess of food for her occasional guests and family.

In the winter she would stoke the fire, and make sure the heating cable was plugged in so the water wouldn’t freeze.

She worked on the farm with Dad, milking cows, tending the chickens, replacing endless numbers of window panes broken by thrown baseballs and maybe a rock or two here and there, and gathering eggs.

She would patch the house and porch with her hammer and nails, grow tall red Hollyhocks, drive fast to neighboring towns to shop, and told of the beautiful Nippon China set she once owned – it being broken as one of her children climbed up on top of the china cabinet for some candy, and tipping over the cabinet, breaking all of the contents – including her Nippon China!

On Saturday morning she would be busy making her pies or cakes, rolls and cinnamon buns for her family to devour on the weekends, and in earlier years grabbing a chicken, chopping off it’s head, and dressing it for dinner the next day, as Sunday morning would be spent in church, Flat Creek Baptist, hearing the Word of God.

Washing she did on Mondays, as most efficient homemakers did in those days, with an old wringer washer, loads and loads, first the whites, then colors, then darks, tee shirts and jeans hanging on the yards and yards of clothesline. Modest she was: When she hung up the underwear, she’d hang a washcloth with them to cover them up from the sight of any neighbors that might happen by. (All of two neighbors, the bus driver and the mailman!)

Truly, some days the only people she saw with the exception of her beloved children’s faces, would be the mailman – Wally Stryker, and the school bus driver, Claude Castle, who drove each one of her eight children to Gilboa Conesville Central School, where we all attended kindergarten through 12th grade.

Burning the trash was sometimes a memorable event, as on at least two occasions, Mom “set the field up back on fire”. While burning the trash the wind picked up an ember from the burn barrel and carried it into the huge field behind the house. Brooms and shovels, and daughter Sue, among others helped beat out the fire, which one time burned acres of field, which necessitated calling the Conesville Fire Department to assist. But, by the time they arrived (15 minutes later) the fire-fighting Hubbards had it all under control!

Mom’s religious experience as a child and teen was at the Dutch Reformed Church in Middleburgh, which, she would say in later life, “didn’t amount to anything”. As she raised her family she had a longing for something in her life and soul, and began reading “The Sword of the Lord” newspaper and attending Flat Creek Baptist Church and finally found the longing of her heart – her Lord Jesus Christ.

Her faith grew and she became an active member at Flat Creek, teaching Sunday School, active with the ladies Missionary Meetings, Donation Suppers, and Vacation Bible School, teaming up with Lavilla Kingsley or Evelyn Bailey to teach. She was faithful at Sunday Night services and mid week Prayer Meetings as well. Her purpose on Earth was being fulfilled.

She told us that in her younger years she could “swear up a storm”, but that all changed as her heart was touched by the transforming love shown to her by her Savior.

She played the piano some and would accompany Carol and me as we practiced to sing at church services on Sundays, or when the rest of the family would gather around an old piano with missing ivories, and out-of-tune keys, and sing old hymns or old songs from sheet music she stumbled through at the keyboard.

I had the privilege of witnessing one Sunday Evening Church Service, when sophisticated Pastor Hiltsley giving his sermon said something about egg yolks and Mom gagged, and her close somewhat impish friend Lavilla Kingsley sitting with her in the pew, gave out a snicker, and the two Flat Creek Baptist women in their mid-fifties, got to laughing so hard, that the sophisticated preacher had to stop his sermon!

Mom was very attractive and slender, 5’3”, small to medium framed, with long dark brown hair she pinned up on her head and striking bright blue eyes. Except for her persistent migraine headaches and undiagnosed scoliosis, she possessed good health.

She was somewhat proud, and always conscious about her looks and her hair, and would whip up a dress or apron for herself (in earlier years from feed sack cloth) in no time. I used to call her a fabric addict. She loved going to the fabric store to buy cloth.

When meeting others, she would seem aloof, but not because she thought herself better than others, but that she was a little unsure of herself. But, as her few select true friends got to know her, they saw the rich quality of this selfless person.

She was embarrassed sometimes though, I believe, around the Barber side of the family of the disheveled shape the farm became during the 40’s and 50’s, and dreaded telling her mother (who had only one child) that “she was pregnant again”.

She wasn’t one to have long labored conversations with the neighbors or anyone really, pouring out her heart. She would just say what she had to, and then get on back to work – doing something – getting something accomplished. One saying of hers, among many, was “never put off ‘til tomorrow what you can do today”. She loved to work. It defined who she was – her accomplishments.

And she told me once, “never tell anyone what you don’t want the whole world to know”. She was also discrete.

But Mom secretly wished to be a man, (Go figure! Can you imagine that?!! With all of the demands as a wife, mother, and woman with a large family and her migraine racked head), and to be a carpenter. She loved a hammer and nails. I’m sure the nails that were driven in her Savior’s hands and feet were especially meaningful to her.

Of all of her prayers that went up to heaven every day for her family, the most important one to her was that they would all be “saved”. She became very concerned and grieved at times over certain couples of her family, as marriages failed and divorces became final, but would always accept a new spouse as one of us.

She “preached and harped” as my brothers would say, at her family of her convictions and the things she thought were wrong with our lives. She would have her little scripture verse, or religious saying posted on the wall next to the door, so that when members of her beloved family went by the doorway, they couldn’t help but glance at it. Right there, staring us in the face – warning, pleading, encouraging, inspiring.

She had very few luxuries in her life compared to a lot of other women, and certainly nothing in comparison to what we have today, including leisure time. And some days her migraine headaches would rage, and leave her sick in bed for hours and recovering for days.

But I only know of one time when she didn’t/couldn’t get out of bed in the morning when Dad did to fix him breakfast, and send him off work and start her day.

Frances grew to hate the consumption of alcohol of any kind, by any one. She left Dad a time or two as well, as his disposition from drinking was too much to bear.
But you know, she returned and fulfilled her commitment to her husband.

I’m told at the beginning of their marriage they loved each other, and I have to say in the last years they found comfort with one another. But I think they had several years when their relationship was a struggle, and displays of affection toward each other are absent from my recollection growing up, but that wasn’t the custom of that day anyway. This would have been a topic never discussed back then.

Her luxuries were trips across country to California, Ohio, Niagara Falls and Florida to see her children and grandchildren; the Sundays after church, as she prepared huge, delicious meals for her family as we would all gather upon the farm with our spouses and our children, and the joy of her heart was that (with the exception of Dear Roberta) we were all well , and that we were there to spend some time with her and each other - these were her blessings.

Mom loved each one of her grandchildren, step grandchildren, and great-grandchildren –each one being naughty, and unique. She would “baby sit” the ones near by and the bond between grandmother and grandchild was great.

Among the multitude of things Mom taught me, she taught me to drive, and to sew. She sang nursery rhymes to me as a child when I was lonely or sad, and when I was eight years old, while tucking me into bed one night, told me that Jesus died on the cross for me, so that I could be forgiven of my sins, and someday to go Heaven to be with Him.

She was lots of times my best friend, and some times the last person in the world I wanted to know something.

Frances’ mother, Bessie Clarissa Laraway Barber VanTassel, whom Mom loved dearly and was devoted to, lived the remaining five or so years of her life with Mom and Dad, Mom “seeing to” her aging Mother.

During that time Dad had a stroke and for 10 years was a partial invalid himself.

Grandma Bessie died, Dad died, and Mom remained on the Hill ((some say the God-Forsaken Hill), but to her it wasn’t God forsaken.

She found God there, while sitting on the porch, looking at the majestic view of the mountains and valley, watching and feeding the birds, peering out the back windows at the deer and wild turkeys, seeing the autumn colors of the woods, watching the weather move in from the West: snow storms, howling winds, pouring rain, and dark sunless days, seeing rainbows and so often a breathtaking sunset.

It was her home – where she found consolation from her hard work, rest, comfort, sometimes loneliness, but mostly contentment and peace. She also renewed her friendship with Aunt Ella & Maude Haskin to the point where they were called the "Three Musketeers" by some of locals.

Until she could not be alone any more, and the same courage and spirit that took her to Hubbard Hill, took her to California to live with her daughter Marilyn where she lived five more years. And the sense of contentment she learned on Hubbard Hill saw her through to the end of her life.

She lived the last three years in a nursing home, her little body increasingly weakening, in California, far away from New York, still contented at her existence even though she became a total invalid in her last months from osteoporosis, an immensely enlarged heart, lungs laboring often with pneumonia and finally failed kidneys.

She died on Wednesday, June 1, 2005, at age 91.

Oh, I will never be the strong woman my mother was. I can never tell of the positive influences she had on me, her family, her neighborhood and the world.

This world will be less of a place – Hubbard Hill will never be the same – after having women like Grandma Anna Christianna Hubbard, Grandma Agnes Haskins, and Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard walk those fields and hills, and now, having them absent from it.

But Heaven is richer. God has another of his Chosen with Him now.