May 31, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 31, 1963

Friday, mostly sunny,  73 high.  I washed in the am and wrote to Doug.  Painted the little bedroom in pm. The girls and I went to Middleburg  as soon as they got home from school.  We stopped at Evelyn’s on the way home.  Clifton and David drove truck to work.
Comment:  Sounds like nice spring day, David and Dad are either working on the same job or very close together.  Not sure, but I think Dad was working in Cairo and David at Hunter Mountain so Dad could be dropping David then going on to Cairo.  They must be getting up pretty early...David was 19 at the time and Dad was about 55....

May 30, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 30, 1963

Thursday, nice day, cloudy in am,  60’s,  Memorial Day.  We went to Prattsville in the afternoon to parade.  Carol played in the band.  We stopped at LaVerne’s on the way home.  They were by for supper.  We went over to Grandpa and Louise’s in evening,  saw their new car.

Comment:  Here is a picture of Grandpa Elmer and Louise. They both look in very good shape.  Elmer was always working and was always trim and straight.
 Marilyn and Beth Spoor commented that "Anna" in yesterday's post was Anna Blakesley,  mother of Rudy Blakesley who was Winnie's husband.  She was married to Floyd Blakesley and they live on the corner of Blakesley and Hubbard Roads on the Hill.

May 29, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 29, 1963

Wednesday, cloudy and rainy in am,  some sun in pm.  I finished cleaning little bedroom and my room.  Winnie, Anna, Beth and Randy were here when the bus came for a few minutes.

Comment:  Aunt Winnie was my Dad's youngest sister married to Rudy Blakesley.  Her children, Beth  and Randy were with her.  Do not know who Anna is.   Not sure what "when the bus came for a few minutes" means.  The only buses I ever saw were school buses and Winnie lived in Ravenna, on the Hudson River.  Here is a picture of Aunt Winnie one day on the Hill.....the desk on the right was a hand-made gift to my parents from Grover Haner, I think....

May 28, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 28, 1963

Cloudy 50’s. I started to clean my room then paper little bedroom. Wrote to Marilyn.

Comment:  Marilyn was living in Ramona CA, and married to Jim Harris with her first daughter Marna.  She had joined the Marines just after high school.  Charlotte Haskin, her first cousin and friend joined the Waves.  Marilyn and Mom wrote to each other almost every day.  Here is a picture of both Marilyn and Charlotte while they were in the service.  Also included is a picture of LaVerne and I in our Army uniforms.  Talk about lucky, four of the five Hubbard boys and one sister were in the military and somehow skated through during times of no active wars.  My Dad's brother's were all farmers and escaped WWII.  Happy Memorial Day Weekend, 2011

May 27, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 27, 1963

Monday, lovely day,  sunny,  68.  I did a big wash and plastered little bedroom.  David went to work with Clifton.  Wayne drove David's car to school.  Grandpa and Louise were here in am a few minutes.

Comment:  Grandpa was Elmer Gamalia Hubbard, born May 18, 1882 in Broome Center, married Agnes W Haskin in 1903 and had eight children:  Madaline, Merel, Clifton, Earl, Lorraine, Evelyn, Ina Belle, and Winifred.  Agnes died in 1946 of a heart attack.  Elmer died September 21, 1964 or about 16 months after this date at the age of 82.  He married Louise Ferris later in life, probably in 1961 or so when he was in his late seventies.  Here is a picture of him and Agnes.  He and Agnes sold what our family now calls Hubbard Hill to my mom and dad for one dollar on August 18, 1938, about a month before I was born........

May 26, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 26, 1963

Sunday, rain in the am,  clearing in late afternoon.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday School. Mary Ann, Gerald, LaVerne, Roberta and Doug here for dinner.  Doug had to meet bus at Grand Gorge at 2:30.  David took him over.  We all went to charcoal plant after dinner and stopped at LaVerne's  a minute.

Comment:  Again, dinner was the noon meal and all available are gathering for Doug's departure.      Not sure why we went to the Timberland plant, maybe just to sight see.....Here is picture of David and Doug.......

May 25, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 25, 1963

Saturday, partly cloudy,  62 high.  Doug came home about 12:30.  Schermehornes saw him at Grand Gorge  and brought him home.  Gerald went to Cobleskill about noon.  I washed for Gerald.  The well was almost dry.  The three boys went to Grand Gorge in afternoon.  The girls went fishing with AWANA,  got nine fish.

Comment:  Doug must have rode bus up from Virginia for a weekend pass from the Navy.  Apparently Mom and Dad did not know about it.  The Schemerhornes are Wild Bill's boys who lived on top of Bull Hill just above Leonard Haskins.  Not sure why I went to Cobleskill but looks like my laundry got done....nine fish, probably bull heads from someone's pond....Earl stocked the ponds he made with trout.  I think the bull heads just came naturally...here is a picture of  LaVerne and Merel Jr with a 21 inch trout LaVerne caught in Earl's pond...do they look like farm boys or what.....

May 24, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 24, 1963

Friday, lovely day,  warmer, in the 50’s but real frosty in am,  only 25.  I did a big wash in the am and started making pillows from feather bed.  We went to Middleburg shopping at night.

Comment:  The old feather bed must have been in pretty bad shape to make pillows out of it.  Here is a tribute to feather beds from John Denver, take a look: 

May 23, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 23, 1963

Thursday, mostly cloudy,  windy, cold,  30 in am early,  35 high for day.  I tore off paper in little bedroom and papered ceiling.  Kids wore heavy coats to school.  I wrote to Doug.  So cold all day.  We went to prayer meeting at night.

Comment:  Very cool day with wind.  This is not that unusual.   I remember once in mid-May we had about 30" of snow.  Claude Castle, our school bus driver, got the bus stuck on the road over toward Uncle Earle's and had to dig it out.  I remember he had chains on the bus and still got stuck.  Claude bought a brand new Ford car every year and he would take these tremendously long rides with his family on the weekends and tell us about them as he drove us to school.  Because us kids were sometimes late in making the school bus, he started blowing the bus horn when he was about a half-mile away on the cross road.  He did this for a couple of days until Dad met the bus one day and had a word with him.  He never blew the horn again.  The Van Akens lived about a mile up a dirt road from the school bus route and were always running frantically to make the bus as Claude laid on the horn for minutes at a time, even as the kids were running down the hill.  BTW, the school buses in the 40's and early fifties were blue and not the bright yellow of today and kinda looked like the picture below....

May 22, 1963, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 22, 1963

Wednesday, partly cloudy and cool, 50’s.  I finished cleaning upstairs, all but floors and window in Davids room.  I called Ella Mae to see how they were.  Emil bad.  Boys plowed the garden at night.

Comment:  Emil and Ella Mae Roth were Mom's cousins and Dad and her visited them in New Jersey.  Here is a diary entry from April explaining the rather tangled relationship of Ella Mae and how she might be considered Mom's step mother:
http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-1-1963-frances-hubbard-diaries.html


When we planted the garden we did it on a "tractor scale" so the most of the hand work of weeding, etc could be performed with the tractor.  I never weeded a garden until we lived in a suburban area.  Here is the old Allis Chalmers C tractor that we used and abused for years.

May 21, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 21, 1963

Tuesday, nice day,  60’s.  I washed and cleaned Wayne’s room and did some more mending. Sandy was here at night, she drove over.

Comment:  Not sure who Sandy was, from Susan:  "Sandy McPherson – a foster child (Carol’s age who lived with Laura Johnson over by Goodfellows."  

Wayne's room was upstairs and this is probably it in an uncleaned condition.  You can see the hand-hewn beam at the rear.  Not an expansive bedroom by any means......

May 20, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 20, 1963

Monday, cloudy, 60 in am, hard rain, in afternoon,  clearing and colder 50.  I put in kitchen window and cleaned and did some mending.
Comment:  Mom probably got a piece of glass cut to size in Grand Gorge.  She then removed the old glazier points and old putty around the inside of the frame, inserted the glass, re-inserted the glazier points, then, puttied around the edge of the glass.  Probably the only tools used were a small tack hammer and putty knife.  I remember Dad cutting glass for one reason or another and he could do it very neatly and clean.  When I tried it, the edges were rough and uneven even if I did not break the piece of glass I was working on.  It seemed there were always cracked or broken windows in the house, especially in the barn,  and I recall the image of old rags stuffed in the broken windows to keep out the cold, bugs and dust.....

May 19, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 19, 1963

Sunday, nice, sunny day, 60’s.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday school and over to Earl's in pm.  Lorraine and Howard were here.  LaVerne and Roberta were here.  Evelyn and Cliffords 25th anniversary.  Gerald went back at 1 pm.
Comment:  Lots of relatives around.  Evelyn and Clifford got married the year I was born, 1938, so here I am at 25 leaving at 1pm to go work in hamburger joint.  Guess I'm a late bloomer...

This is the only picture I have of Lorraine and Howard.....

May 18, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 18, 1963

Saturday, rain all day.  Clifton didn’t work.  I baked and the girls and I cleaned up the house. Roberta and LaVerne and Sandy were here in the evening.
Comment:  Dad rained out at work but the union probably paid him a half-day wages as "show-up" time.  Not sure what Mom baked but her rolls hot out of the oven with melted butter on top still makes my mouth water.  She could also bake incredible cinnamon rolls and I remember that a great treat was eat the bread dough spread with cinnamon, butter and brown sugar before it was cooked. Before we got our first Home Comfort gas stove, she baked and cooked with a wood stove and oven. I still remember the traveling salesman who stopped by the house with a small model of the stove and of how fascinated us kids were with the presentation.  When Dad finally said he would buy it, I thought that he was buying the small model and not a full-sized stove.  I think we bought the stove around 1944 because I was very young......

Here is a picture of a Home Comfort Combination Wood and Gas Stove almost like the one we bought:  

Thursday May 17, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 17, 1963

Thursday. Beautiful sunny day 70.  I ironed and wrote to Marilyn and sent Doug clothes.  Set house plant out.  Girls and I went to prayer meeting at night.

Comment:  Doug must want his civilian clothes sent to his base.   One more time to the Flat Creek Baptist Church for prayer meeting, probably a beautiful day on the hill similar to this.  The view is to the west and Mount Utsayantha in Stamford NY is just out of the picture on the right.  We could see the fire tower on that mountain and it was similar to the one on Hubbard Hill. 

Here is the sad legend of the mountain:

"Mount Utsayantha got its name from the legend of a local Indian maiden, Utsayantha – which means "beautiful spring." She was said to have borne a child whose father was white, something that made her father, the chief, so furious he buried a tomahawk in the white man's skull and rowed with the baby to the center of a nearby lake and drowned it. Utsayantha followed her father to the lake and in her despair, drowned herself too. Upon discovering what she had done, the legend says the chief recovered her body and carried her up the mountain, where he buried her. Her grave site was believed to have been discovered in 1862, and although many doubt its authenticity, a monument was placed at the site in 1936.

 Here is a link to Mt. Utsayantha....http://www.utsayantha.com/html/history.html

May 16, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 16, 1963

Friday, 65. Sunny in am,  cloudy pm.  I washed and did some mending.  Sue home with upset stomach etc.  Gerald came home at night. Girls went to AWANA.

Comment:  Don't know why I seem to be coming home each weekend, probably for the free food and laundry....Here is the room where Mom did the washing and sewing.  It is cluttered because this picture was taken after she had move out.....she used to have an old Maytag wringer washer and pedal-type Singer sewing machine...these are relatively modern appliances.....

May 15, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 15, 1963

Wednesday, nice day 60’s cloudy.  I painted kitchen and cleaned stove.  We went to Middleburg at night with David and Wayne shopping.  Sent Marna a birthday card and $2.00.
Comment:  Summer on the way, still doing spring fix-up.  Here is picture of me and Marna as a baby and also a post about an accident we had when Marna was 6 months old:  Talking Blues Version

Me and Marna, My Own Ballad Of Forty Dollars

From the language school in Monterey in 1958

I hitched to San Diego to take a needed break
My older sister Marilyn lived there for a while
With husband Jim and Marna, a seven-month-old child

They picked me up in a 54 bright green Ford two-door coupe,
The back seat full of groceries, to feed the weekend group
With Marilyn in the middle and Marna on her lap,
Jim drove, me in the death seat, in my beat-up Army cap

We were driving to Ramona on a fast 4 lane highway,
I recall the sun was brilliant on that cloudless summer day
At 65 we smoothly cruised through mountain vistas wide
Till some guy ran a stop sign and hit us in the side.

The death seat door snapped open, in a blink of shocked alarm,
I hit the road at 60 per with Marna in my arms
I recall my sister flying by in a storm of milk and flour
As Jim one-handed steered the car so he wouldn’t run us over

On heels and butt I slid along but then I lost my grip
As Marna’s legs began to slide real low beside my hips.
Then suddenly we took a bounce and then we flew like birds
As Marna’s leg outside my thigh hit a concrete curb

Then everything was blurry and mind and body buzzed
As I wondered what had happened and where the baby was.
In just about a second, four Navy Corpsman came
And loaded us on stretchers, made sure we knew our names.

You see, a Navy ambulance was just behind our Ford
They quickly gathered us all up and took us to their ward.
Marna’s leg was badly bruised, my sister cut her lip,
I seemed fine but my old jeans were split up to the hip.

We finally got all sorted out and went on home to eat,
Bruised and sore and all of us unsteady on our feet.
When I got up next morning, I felt a little sick
I figured every inch of me’d been beaten with a stick.

I caught a bus to Monterey an 8-hour painful ride
I had to get back to the base before my pass expired.
When I signed in next morning I heard the top kick say,
Who dragged you through a knothole? You look like hell today.”

“I heard you went much further than the limits of your pass,
If you did and you admit it, the CO will have your ass.”
I was stiff and awful sore for just about a week
Then Top Kick called me in to meet a slick insurance geek.

He said “I want to settle and my client wants release,
Here’s a check for $40 dollars, cash it quickly if you please.
The top kick growled at me and said “I can’t believe your luck,
You took the world’s best friggin ride and got paid forty bucks.”

Marna’s a grown woman now, she grew up warm and sweet
She’s got a loving family and every time we meet
I remind her that I saved her life and that she had all the luck
While all I got was a skinned-up butt and a measly forty bucks.

May 14, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 14, 1963

Tuesday, rainy and cloudy,  windy, 50.  Hard thunder showers and windy in afternoon.  Kitchen window blew out.  I started to clean the kitchen.  LaVerne and Roberta here at night.  Clifton went to union meeting.
Comment:  There were only two windows in the kitchen, one facing north and the other south.  I would think the southern window blew out which would be to the left in the following picture.  This was as modern as the kitchen got, progressing from a wood-fueled cooking stove with a hot water reservoir and a hand pump in the kitchen sink for water.  We also had a water pail in the sink with a dipper for drinking.  The out house was through the brown door in the right of the picture.  That door led to the wood house where we stored a lot of junk, usually with some split wood for the stoves.  We used to shoot at woodchucks and deer through the north window on the right in the picture and I remember when shooting with the Savage 30-30,  the shot would reverberate very loudly through the room......

May 13, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 13, 1963

Monday, sunny,  clouding up in the afternoon, 60 no wind.  I washed, planted flower seed etc.  Sue was home with a sore throat.
Comment:  Slow Monday, but, this day data:

May 12, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 12, 1963

Sun. Mothers Day. Mostly sunny 60’s. We went to church and SS. Mother and Norm here for dinner. Papa and Billy here in afternoon. Merel borrowed our truck and he and Ella were here a few minutes in the afternoon.
Comment:  A busy, happy Mother's day.

May 11, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 11, 1963

Saturday, cloudy, foggy, cold,  38 hi.  I baked and made slipcovers for chair and fixed a dress. David was home at noon.  Wayne got tires on the truck had it greased etc. and cleaned the chicken house in the afternoon.
Comment:  Mom made a lot of stuff on the Singer sewing machine she had.  The first one was a peddle job but I can't remember the newer ones.  Wayne was pretty active on the farm and was seventeen at the time.  Bleak kind of day on the hill...Here is a peddle Singer Machine exactly like her first one:  

May 10, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 10, 1963

Friday, cloudy and rain,  58 early am to 35.  Rained hard almost all night.  I washed and hung clothes inside.  Finished cleaning bathroom.  Wrote Marilyn.  Clifton started work at Cairo.  Wayne was home from school didn’t feel good. Girls went to AWANA.
Comment:  Not sure why it took a couple of days to clean the bathroom, it was not that big..this was put in in 1955 and was improved upon till this final configuration.  I was 17 when the bathroom was put in.  Prior to that, we used an outhouse that was attached to the woodshed.  You don't want to know what it was like to answer a call of nature in either the cold of winter or the heat of summer, or what it was like when we had to clean the outhouse.....

May 9, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 9, 1963

Thursday, cloudy in am,  clearing and very nice and warm, 75.  I cleaned the cupboard in the kitchen and went to Mıssıonary meetıng in afternoon at church.  Girls went to prayer meeting at night.   David and Wayne went to Middelburg after Davids's car.   Clifton was called to come to work at Cairo Friday am.  Clifton got license for truck.
Comment:  I cannot remember what truck she ıs talkıng about....lıfe contınues wıth Dad startıng work agaın.....Dad (on the right) when he was the Gilboa Town Road Superintendant. Late Forties..Next to a Walter Sno-Fighter.

May 8, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 8, 1963

Wednesday. 68 mostly cloudy and very windy.  Few drops of rain.  I painted the bathroom. Clifton did some plowing for potatoes and the corn patch.   David home at noon and took his car to Middleburg.  Rained through the night.  Grandpa and Louise were here at night.
Comment:  Picture of Louise and Grandpa Elmer Gamalia Hubbard, just after they were married.  He was 82 I think....

May 7, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 7, 1963

Tuesday, sunny little windy,  60’s. Clifton and I went to Cobleskill and to Mothers for dinner.  Sold 5 head of stock to Bartholomews in am.   David home late, rotary broke on his car.  Clifton, the girls and I went over to Earl and Lillian’s at night.
Comment:  Unemployment sign-up, must be a slow spring for Dad's work, maybe needed to sell the cows to stay afloat which is something we often did...David's car broke down again......but pretty nice weather.....

May 6, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 6, 1963

Monday, nice warm day 60, no wind.  Begins to look quite green.   I washed and baked 2 batches of cookies.   Richard Bartholomew came and looked at cattle
.

Comment:  Not sure what is going on with the cattle.  Dad was raising some young stock for sale I guess.  Mom could whip up a batch of cookies almost at a minutes notice.  Her chocolate cookies with white icing were great with a glass of cold milk.... 
From Susan Re Concert at school:  Concert at school – Carol was in the band a few years playing clarinet – perhaps that was part of the concert event, and I was in the choir for some years, and I think Carol was as well.  But, I would have been 11 – so I was too young for choir, but Carol was old enough and probably a part of it.  :) Love - Susan
Carol and Susan, Susan's first day at school:

May 5, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 5, 1963

Sunday, nice day.  We were at Laverne and Roberta’s for dinner and supper. Gerald and Mary Ann came too.  We took a ride in the afternoon.   The girls and I went to church and Sunday school in am.  Young men from Binghamton had special music and sermon.
Comment:  Church, Sunday School, ride through the mountains and dinner with family..pretty typical..not the dinner and supper..the dinner was the larger, noon meal and supper, the smaller evening meal....many of the rides involved driving through "The Deep Notch" with the gorgeous views of the Catskill Mountains:  Here is a picture of "The Notch" and the Wikipedia article explaining it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Notch

May 4, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 4, 1963

Saturday, mostly fair and warmer,  73,  windy.  Clifton and Wayne finished fixing fence.  Gerald went to Cobleskill at noon to alumni doings.  Earl and Lillian here in afternoon.  They rode horses over.  Girls and I went to rally at church.   There were three young men from bible learning school  with special music and message.   Roger Wagner, Ed Begly and Rev. Benson.

Comment:  I went to Cobleskill Agricultural and Technical Institute starting in January 1961, a year after I was discharged from the Army.  The only cost was books and about $100 in fees.  The next year they instituted a $400 per semester tuition charge and that forced me to borrow money from the Middleburg bank.  I was getting along driving semi on weekends and vacations and had saved some money from working the previous year on various construction jobs...not sure what the alumni stuff was because I usually was not involved in those types of activities......this is how it looked when I went there.  It is now a vast complex of modern buildings.  Here is some history about the school......"SUNY Cobleskill was chartered by an act of the state legislature in 1911 and opened its doors as the Schoharie State School of Agriculture in 1916. It is one of the oldest institutions of its kind in New York State.

In 1917, a home economics division was added to the existing agriculture program. Programs developed in food service and hospitality administration, and in early childhood, to fulfill the rising need for specialized preparation in these fields.

From 1920 to 1931, SUNY Cobleskill offered a rural teacher training program, which was later transferred to the state's teachers colleges. In the early 1950's, the Business division evolved from the Agriculture division. Courses in Liberal Arts and Sciences have been offered since the college's founding in 1916."

May 2, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

May 2, 1963

Thursday, fair and warmer ın pm. We had an inch of snow on the ground ın the am.  Clifton and I took Doug to Beacon to meet train for Virgınıa.  Home at 7 pm. I had sick head ache. Had letter from Marilyn.
Comment:  Doug shıppıng out.  Mom often had poor spells, probably mıgraın headaches that as far as İ remember, never had treatments for. She would sometımes stay ın bed most of the day but also always dıd the meals and whatever else was necessary around the house or barn.   Mountaın weather unpredıctable as usual....