Thursday October 31, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 31, 1963

Thursday, fair but cool.  I cleaned house all through, did some ironing.  Help Marlene Mayo in the afternoon while her folks called on Bea Kepper at Ellis Hospital.  Lorraine called asked about Earl etc.

Comment: Marlene Mayo was the preacher's wife, not sure who Bea Kepper is....Halloween....there was no such thing as trick or treating for us kids on the hill. The distances between the houses was too great and our folks were not the greatest supporters of this "pagan" holiday.  

However, there were Halloween parties at the parsonage where we dunked for apples, had pumpkin pie, and played some games. 

Along the line of tricks and deviltry, there were also "horn in's" where the newly married couple were subjected to a late-night visit by a group of their friends with all sorts of noisemakers, shotguns, firecrackers, and car and truck horns. The "horn in" usually started with several shotgun blasts under the couple's bedroom window and after they were appropriately awakened, they invited the whole bunch in for refreshments. In the meantime, some of the revelers were stringing toilet paper through the trees or other rather minor acts of vandalism. Most of the acts were not serious and were supposed to be humorous. Not so for a "horning" described by Socrates Hubbard for his brother Lorenzo. I can't help thinking that these incidents involved something other than a simple wedding custom........these events seem particularly violent and vindictive with the household literally being under siege....

"We pass over several years.  I am nine years old or nearly nine  Lorenzo is married and is expected home.  He dos not come when expected but a lot of riaters calling themselves horners came and the first thing I know in the ded of night was the defning discharge of musketrey and the blowing of hornes the rateling of pans the ringing of bells with all the diabolicle noises that could be amagoned.  Paul grabed his cloths and ran to Fathers and mothers room  l followed in my night shirt half frightened to death.  The whole familey dressed and sat about the fire  Father would go down and throw water on them when they came up to fire.  After a while they with drew to get dry and then on they came again.  they were led by one Dock Norwood.  I got so sleepy that during the last salley I slipt.  These hornings at wedings were common in that countrey at that time.  I have known them to tare or breake every glass out of a house."

      "A few weeks after Lorenzo did come with his wife and the Diabolical crew gathered again there names was got this time and they were prossicuted.  And each one was fined.  Sometime the next summer Lorenzo came down on a visit that night this same vile crew went into a field of rye that had just been cut and put in shocks they thrashed out every shiefe on the ground and then unbound it and scattered it.  from there they went into our garden pull up corne and everything they could get at.  from there they went into the corne field pulled a wide road to the midel of the field then tore up an half acre or more and made a road out the other side of the feald.  They also tore down a large amount of fence.  It took a long time to write things up agane."

And again, here is another recounting of a one. "Like a bachelor party gone bad"

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2011/07/it-was-like-a-bachelor-party-that-had-gone-bad.html

Wednesday, October 30, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 30, 1963

Wednesday, 25 - 33, cold, cloudy and windy.  David and I went to Cobleskill shopping.  Wrote to Marilyn and Doug.  Grandpa, Louise, Lillian and Bob here a few minutes in afternoon.  David tried to fix kitchen light but it didn't work, blew bulb.

Comment: Earl still in the hospital so Lillian and Bob are alone. David's got some wires crossed somewhere. The way that old house was wired, it's a miracle it did not burn down. Pennies in fuses, exposed junctions in the attic, extension cords all over the place. Here is how the attic looked: That's insulation hanging from the rafters and wiring running to the hot water heater in the rear..........

Tuesday October 29, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 29, 1963

Tuesday, fair in am but cool, 35, becoming cloudy, windy, 48 high and 2 pm, 40.  I finished brown dress and ironed.  Wayne went to dentist.  David laid off at Jefferson.  Wayne got new light for kitchen.

Comment: Life goes on...and on this day in history: "Black Tuesday hits Wall Street as investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, and stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the tremendous volume of trading. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression."   Mom was 16 years old and just had her 16th birthday party two days before.....

Monday, October 28, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 28, 1963

Monday, cloudy in am,cool, 40-58.  I washed, washed windows, cleaned up house.  Had letter from Marilyn and cards from Doug and LaVerne and Roberta.  LaVerne and Roberta were here at night brought me a slip and bonnet.

Comment: Birthday cards and gifts coming in. Here is Fran Young, a good friend from Madison, OH, commenting on the diaries:  

Gerry, Your mom was a wonderful, strong and loving person.  I’m proud to share the name with someone so special.  I’m sorry I never had the chance to meet her when she made the trips to Ohio or…maybe that was before you moved to Madison. 

Thanks to you and Susan for sharing memories of you mom. Love ya, Fran

The Burke's said...

Susan has provided a beautiful tribute to your mother. The Burke family --on the occasions that your Mother was present--were always welcomed and treated "like family." My assessment of your mother was that she was "regal" and so proud of each of her offspring. Her funeral was also a tribute to the talents fostered on Hubbard Hill. It has been a privledge to know your family. Gerry Burke

Here is a picture of Mom when she was about 12 or so.....

Sunday October 27, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 27, 1963

Sunday, first showers since Oct. 3.  Beautiful day, 70, becoming cloudy in pm and light showers at night.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday school,  Howard's, Lorraine and Marsha called in afternoon.  Girls and I went to church at night and they had birthday party for Joyce Bailey and me at Church Hall after service.

Comment: From the phrasing not sure that Howard Vaughn was with Lorraine and Marsha and not sure what their son Roger, was doing. Mom's birthday, she was born on this day in 1913 so she is fifty years old. To learn more about the life of Frances Marietta Hubbard, here are several links for your perusal:

A 1929 newspaper article about Mom's surprise sixteenth birthday party:

http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2005/07/moms-sixteenth-birthday-party.html

Susan Hubbard Ciacci's Memories Of Her Mother:

http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2005/06/susans-memories-of-her-mother_25.html

Here is what Susan emailed when she saw this posting: Hi All!  What I’ve wanted to say since I wrote my tribute to Mom, was that while I was at her funeral, sitting in Flat Creek Baptist Church in Gilboa, New York – I looked out the window and saw the “tower mountain” – which was the direction Mom’s body was facing in the casket – and I thought then that her life came to a full circle – as she spent her final years in California – then back home, to Flat Creek Baptist, and in the shadow of Hubbard Mountain.

Love you all - Susan

And her Grand daughter, Marna Suzann Ford's Poem: Grandma

http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2005/06/grandma-by-marna-suzann-ford.html

Here is a picture of her and her family about 1935

Frances Marietta, Clifton LaVerne, Clifton John

Saturday, October 26, 1963, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 26, 1963

Saturday, lovely day, hot, 70's.  Clifton and David didn't work.  Girls, Clifton and I went to Cooperstown in pm to see Earl.  Carol, Wayne, Linda and Jay went to South Jefferson at night for hay ride and Halloween party.  Sue and Becky went to parsonage to Halloween party.

Comment: Nice weather hanging on. Hay rides and Halloween..... Barry Taylor was there when the horse fell on Uncle Earl: "Gerald, I was there when the horse fell on Uncle Earl.  We took him to Cooperstown hospital where the surgeon said they would have to snowball his leg because it was so badly broken." Cuzzin Barry


Sounds like the broken leg was bad news.  Socrates Hubbard describes another horse accident in his memoirs.  Paul Hubbard was the older brother of Socrates by six years and here Socrates describes Paul's children:

          "Paul had three children Dominick, Socrates and Ermind.  Dominick dyed soon aftir his return from Calafornia at the age of six.  The circumstances of his death were distresing in the extreem.  He fell from a horse his father was leading and apparently without serious injurey the next day he was taken with violent pain and dyed in fearfull agoney.  Socrates is now in the Navel School Rode Iseland and is a very promising youth of seventeen.  Ermind is now about 12 or 13 years of age and a very pretty and spritely child."

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.  Dwight David Eisenhower

Friday, October 25, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 25, 1963

Friday, beautiful day, hot and dry, 76.  I washed in am and cut out my dress and started it.  Gerald came home at night.  Becky came home with Sue.

Comment: I must be home for the weekend, probably driving for Joe Gallo, Prospect Dairies or Timberland Charcoal. Another gorgeous day on the hill.....and 109 years before on this date, about 600 English cavalrymen charged down a valley in the Ukraine covered by Russian artillery: "Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left, cannon behind then". About half died and this tragic military blunder still became immortalized and glamorized as the Charge Of The Light Brigade......http://www.nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html

Survivors Of The Charge Of The Light Brigade 

Thursday, October 24, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 24, 1963
Thursday,  beautiful day, 70's.  Lavilla and I went to Cobleskill shopping.  I bought cloth for Carols skirt etc for her to make at school.  Had prayer meeting here at night.


Comment:  Carol must be doing a project in Homemaking Class.  I took a homemaking class and learned how to iron shirts and press pants and used these skills in the Army to make some money.  I charged a buck to iron a shirt or steam press a uniform using a wet cloth but this was only feasible "stateside" because the "houseboys" in the Far East would do all the laundry, shine all the brass, polish the shoes and boots and keep you in "inspection" shape for five bucks a month. I was "outsourced" before the term was coined......

Wednesday, October 23, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diariese

October 23, 1963

Wednesday - beautiful day 42 - 75 no wind, hot in the sun.  I finished ironing and did some mending.

Comment: Hump day and another gorgeous one....and about one hundred and fifty years prior and four miles distant, Socrates Hubbard speaks of a shot-gun wedding and a faked pregnancy concerning his great uncle Iseral:


"Iseral lived some fore milds from fathers I was never at his house but once.  He was in some things a strange man He was never known to speak on the subject of Religon he died as he had lived carless of the future.  His wifes name was Betsy.[i]  My father tells me a tale connected with their courtship that may be more amusing than rare.  The tale runs thus.  The bewitching fair to deceive her lover and about a speady union which no doubt ought to have been consimated before, wore pads on her ample front making him believe an nameless one was about to appear.  She sent her parrents to enforce the match by applying to my Grandfather.  They were married but the looked for one did not make its apearance for some years.  They were however a very happy couple peace be to there ashes.

Dr. Socrates Hubbard 1825-1888

Tuesday, October 22, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 22, 1963

Tuesday - cool and windy, 53 high, cool east wind, cloudiness.  I finished red dress, did some ironing and mending.  Mother called in pm about Earl.

Comment: Earl's accident news spreading fast. Mom's busy doing seamstress stuff. Socrates Hubbard's sister was a milliner or hat maker and his brother Paul made her the irons and pressing blocks she needed. Here is his entry:

"Feb. 13th 1863.  Eliza Hubbard.  Eliza came next to Paul was neerer my own age and was consequently more of a companion  She was tall well formed and I may say a very fine looking young lady.  I can relate but little of her as a childe only that she was sprightly full of fun and frolick:  When she was about seventeen she went to Durham and remained one summer working with some lady a milener.  When she came home Paul make her presses for ironing and blocks for shapeing and vaper baths for bleaching Laghorn Bonits.  She did a little at this but not much.  She remained with us when we moved to Fulton and after we returned to Durham and taught with Sally Orcut in Durham one summer."  


The"Laghorn bonits" were really Leghorn Bonnets made out of grass or straw and were all the rage in the early 1800's and became a cottage industry.  Here is a web site that talks about their derivation.  They come from Italy..... Probably TMI but still fascinating...to me at least.....

Inventor and businesswoman, Wethersfield's Sophia Woodhouse (1799-1883) was one of the first female entrepreneurs of the Greater Hartford area. Plying her trade during the early 19 th century, Woodhouse developed an innovative technique for treating, drying and braiding spear grass to make high quality bonnets. She patented her design in 1821, and quickly developed a cottage industry for her hats, which won awards and acclaim.

Two major historical factors were in Woodhouse's favor. Embargo acts in the early 19 th century restricted trade between the United States and certain foreign ports. Exotic imports such as fashionable Leghorn hats from Livorno, Italy (the city was known as Leghorn in English) were no longer available. A second factor was a directive from President James Monroe in which he encouraged Americans to become a "nation of manufacturers" and develop new businesses and products.

Nineteen-year-old Sophia Woodhouse responded to the president's call (perhaps indirectly) and was able to fill the American market's demand for fashionable bonnets by producing grass bonnets made in the Leghorn style. Using the common spear grass that grew in the Wethersfield meadows alongside the Connecticut River, she developed a process in which spear grass was boiled, bleached, moistened, fumigated and then dried to make it suitable for plaiting or braiding to make Leghorn-style bonnets. A clever businesswoman, Woodhouse had her hat-making process patented in 1821 as "a new and useful improvement in the manufacture of grass bonnets and hats." (Though she shared the patent with her husband, Gurdon Welles, it is Sophia Woodhouse's name that is closely associated with this extraordinary and innovative local industry of grass bonnet making.)

It was not uncommon for women of that era to braid grass and straw bonnets for their own use as well as selling them to local merchants or hat dealers. But Woodhouse's singular success stemmed from the fact that she manufactured a high-quality product: The fineness of her braiding made the caliber of her bonnets unparalleled. She won awards for best "Grass Bonnet" by the Hartford County Society for Promoting Agriculture and Domestic Manufacturers in 1819 and again in 1820. The following year, she was awarded a medal and cash prize from London's prestigious Society of the Arts. The Society was so impressed with Woodhouse's technique that they requested a sample of the spear grass used in her unique process.

With her international success, the demand for Woodhouse's bonnets increased. She employed several women from Wethersfield to manufacture her hats. Although she had a workshop at her house, it is very likely that the women who worked for her did so in their own homes, thus creating a cottage industry of grass bonnet making in Wethersfield. A particularly gifted woman in her employ, Maria Francis, produced 300 bonnets in one summer!

Woodhouse's bonnets were widely admired by socially prominent women, and worn by two former First Ladies, Dolley Madison and Louisa Adams. The latter's husband, John Quincy Adams, pronounced it "an extraordinary specimen of American manufacture."

One of the best examples of Sophia Woodhouse's straw bonnets is included in the exhibit, Legendary People, Ordinary Lives, on permanent display at the Wethersfield Museum, 200 Main Street, Wethersfield. For more information call 860-529-7656 or 529-7161 or visit the museum's Web site at www.wethhist.org.

http://www.hogriver.org/issues/v01n04/grass_bonnets.htm  

Monday, October 21, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 21, 1963

Monday - another beautiful day, east wind and hazy, 68.  I did a big wash and cut out red dotted dress.  Grandpa and Louise stopped in am a minute, they'd been over to see Lillian.  I wrote to Doug, Gerald, and Marilyn about Earl.

Comment: News traveling fast about Uncle Earl. He was popular and well-known in the area so letters were written, he was the topic of many face-to-face conversations, and I'm sure, was mentioned on The Party Line as many other incidents on the hill were: Click Here:

The Party Line

Sunday, October 20, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 20, 1963

Sunday - beautiful day, 70's.  Girls and I went to church and sunday school.  LaVerne and Roberta here for dinner.  Dougie went back to Va.  Wayne and Linda took Carol to Oneonta after her coat she left at Joyce Glen's party.  Clifford and Rudy called in pm.  Earl had crushed foot and broken leg from horse falling on him.

Comment: Lots going on, visitors, travel, serious accident. Uncle Earl was 53, being born in 1910, and had exactly 4 years, 6 months and 14 days to live before he died of untreated heart disease. I vaguely remember him in a cast but remember a lot else about him. I think many of you have heard it but I think it's worth repeating, my tribute to Uncle Earl: Hubbard Music Mountain: Uncle Earl Born August 1, 1910, Died May 4, 1968: 

Saturday, October 19, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 19, 1963

Saturday, 53 - 75, beautiful, hot and dry.  I baked and cleaned up the house.  Doug plowed the garden.  Clifton had to work but David didn't.  I was tired out at night.

Comment: Busy Saturday, Dad getting overtime, Doug still home working, another gorgeous day. Here is Socrates Hubbard's descriptions of the gardens his family worked and a picture of approximately where his home was:

The Garden

          "We had a garden, a small patch in the corner of the meddow across the road from the house  It was surrounded by a rale fence.  along the fence next the road grew harty chokes seeding themselves and had been there from all time.  There was also a Hop vine and a long pole for it to run up.  Below the garden in the corner of the fence was an other fine Hop vine and just west of it a fine bunch of Peonas.  I used to think them most beautiful flower in the world:  In this garden we planted beens potatos etc. generaly went to the feeld for green corne peas etc.

          Then in my recolection (altho I must have been very small) Father surrounded an old colpet bed below the lower woods with a logg fence and made a garden there I think it must have been falieer for it was soon abandened and the fence moved.  Sage bushes was growing there maney years after its abandonment.

          Also an other garden was made below the barn a half acre ground was fenced off of a paster lot a fine wall made round it.  This was in the field next below the barn  We had in this several years a very fine garden.  The first year had quite a lot of watermellons.  This was the only patch I ever know of being grown upon the hill.  The seasons were too short and cold. We raised corn beens potatos squashes cucumbers etc. etc. string beens was a staple article in these days."

Scott's Patent  Hulbert Cemetary

Thanks To Donald Howard for the picture.

Friday, October 18, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 18, 1963

Friday, 80 high, another hot day.  I did a big wash in am.  Doug went to Middleburgh after paint for the house but did not get any.  He raked the corn etc out of the garden.  Lillian, Earl and Bob rode horses over in afternoon.  Boys went out at night.

Comment: Unusually warm day, Doug working in the garden. Here is part of what Socrates Hubbard says about planting corn in mid 1800's in Scott's Patent: 

"An other weeks work...

          The corne ground is now to be ridged  my servises come in requisition again in driving the oxen.  This takes several days. This don about the 20th of May we plant the corne  This was always don with the hoe making a soft place drop in the corn and cover with soft dirt.  My business was droping corne.  Neer a week is ocupyed in planting the usual amount of ground five or six acres.  As soon as the corn was planted the crows came in for there share which they dug out of the hills.  To prevent this we took an old coat pants and hat drove stakes in the ground put the pants on stuffed them with straw then the coat stuffing it in the same way.  This crowned with a hat with stick in hand to represent a gun would deceive Mr. Crow for some time.  This was called a scare crow. Hence when a man is none of the best looking or dressed in the very best tast he is said to look like a scare crow.  There was still an other device that Father always resorted to which was to stretch strings of toptow all over the field  Mr Crow was very suspisious of these strings he could not make out in what the precise danger lay but that there was some infurnel trick in it some how he had no doubt and thought it prudant to keepe cleere of them.

          The corn begins to come up and now an other enamy appears that cant be scared by two strings, and straw men.  He coms in the shape of a brown grub.  He coms out of the ground cuts of the tender corne and then burrows in the ground again.  In the morning we go through the field and where ever his work is seen digg around and find him he is usualy clost by coerse him into measures by crushing him.  Then the little chip muck coms in for his share along the finces he has to be shot or drilled.

          A wise man a man of observation some years ago discovered a plan to prevent the Squerels diging up the corn.  It was this.  He had observed that they always dug up the outside row:  His plan was to have no outside row no doubt this would prevent it.

          The corne was now left for two or three weeks.  In the mean time the potato was to be planted.  A peace of sod ground was broken up furrowed then droped with potatos and covered with sods.  An acre of potatos put in in this way would produce several hundred bushels and the best potatos in the world.  They are howed but once then sods heaped around them for the hill.

            The corn is now large enough for the first howing.  I have to ride the horse to plough it out.  It is plowed one way two furrows between each row and then came the howing all the grass had to be pulled out between the stems of corne, and soft loos dirt dressed around it.  This was hard work I would take a row but of course could not keepe up.  Father would every now and then how some hills for me to encourage me.  The days were long, and as I counted every row it seemed as tho it would take forever. It is finely don and after a while comes the second, then the third howing.  This time the furrows were run both ways and the corne hilled up.

Thursday, October 17, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 17, 1963

Thursday, 75, beautiful hot day, cloudy in the pm.  I did some ironing.  Lavilla went to school with me in the pm to see Mr. Hill about Wayne leaving.  Sue and I went to prayer meeting with Lyles to Leonard's, (Reynolds I believe). Wrote to Marilyn.

Comment: Not sure what's going on with Wayne. He may be leaving school, not sure if he graduated, anyone in the family know? Another gorgeous fall day. I can almost smell the Autumn in the air...here is what Socrates Hubbard wrote about the seasons in those hills:  
 "I was born on the 19th of March 1825 and first opened my eyes to the world on the old Broom Hills, amid the most romantic and sublime seanery in the world. 
The house in which I was born was situated on the side of the mountain neer a mild from its base over looking the Catskill mountains that were spred out in front like an imence panerama.  
The view extended for forty milds towards the east across the Hudson to the mountains in Coneticut blew in the distance.  Imediately in front some three to five milds and possibley seven or eight miles to the top of the oposit mounton lay hundreds of farmes.  
Each farm with its sunny farme house and out buildings, the orchard the little patch of wood land, the ploughed fields and fields of corne potatos rye & medow Buckwheete.  all giving a different coller of green, each field small only containing four to eight acris, gave a most pleasing prospict. 
With the naced eye we could see what all our neighbors were doing for ten milds sround.  See when they commensed to plough, when they planted when they commenced to reepe etc. and we could see cattle and sheap feeding to the very mountain top.  
The variaty in this picture was immence, ever vareying, from the soft unfolding spring to the maturing summer, and ripening autom.  I think no place in the world looked half so beautiful as this when the mountain forists were clothed in the maney coulers of fall. The bright yellow of the hard maple, the fire like scarlet of the soft maple the amber ash, and iron wood.  With all the varing coulers of the oaks the beach and the walnut.

          Winter too had its charmes the old man horey and stern sat a king.  The distant mountain sides glistened in the sun like literal mountains of christle."

Here is a collage of pictures on and from Hubbard Hill showing the many seasons and the incredible views from the house, similar to what Socrates describes.  The bottom right frost scene is a stock photo I found that seems to illustrate Socrates's description of winter above...... 

Wednesday, October 16, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 16, 1963

Wednesday, 70's, beautiful, sunny, warm day.  Carol, Sue and I went to dentist.  There from 9-2:45.  Doug went to Albany for Timberland with David's car.

Comment: The dentist's office probably looked a little like this, maybe a little bit more modern, sound like they all had some work done. Doug still on leave picking up a little bit of extra cash....

Tuesday, October 15, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 15, 1963

Tuesday, beautiful day, 45 in am - 70's.  I fixed Carol's and Sue's shirts.  The leaves are all fallen except on poplar trees.  Can sit on the porch without a sweater and be too warm.  Doug worked on garage roof.

Comment: Apparently in the throes of "Indian Summer"..here is one sinister etymology of 'Indian summer' from Wikipedia: "the term originated from raids on European colonies by Indian war parties; these raids usually ended in late autumn (due to snow-covered ground), hence summer-like weather in the late fall and mid-winter was an Indian Summer, a time raiding parties could be expected".....so back about 250 years ago in the hills, a time of nice weather was definitely a  mixed blessing at best......

Monday, October 14, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 14, 1963

Monday, beautiful day, 67, warm.  I did a big wash.  David started work with Clifton. at Jefferson again.  Doug went to Middleburgh in am after roofing and tar for garage.

Comment: Doug must be home on leave for a while. Keeping the roofs repaired was a never ending job. I remember putting out pots and pans to catch the water in the living room of the house when it rained really hard.  
The garage was rebuilt from an old chicken house that used to be behind the barn. Here is a picture of us boys working on it probably in about 1954......

Looking over the hood of a 1951 Ford.  From left:
Wayne, Doug, Gerald, LaVerne

Sunday, October 13, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

October 13, 1963

Sunday.  Beautiful sunny day 60's.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday school.  We went to Evelyn and George Baileys 25th Wedding Anniversary in pm and to Catskill with Wayne and Linda.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday school at night.  Gerald went back in pm.

Comment: Another busy Sunday with visitors and visits. Lots of church. Here is a recounting of a Sabbath day by Socrates Hubbard, possibly a relation of ours who lived in Scott's Patent and went to church probably at Scott's Patent church that I cannot remember well. He was born March 19th, 1825 so this recounting was probably in the 1840s or so. This the original spelling and was sent to me by Craig Evan Hubbard of Nuevo,  CA who is Group Administrator of the Hubbard DNA Project.  I'm working with him trying to determine our lineage and if it intersects with his somewhere.  Right now we are stuck trying to find out the father of Jabez Hubbard, the father of Gamalia.  Here is what Socrates wrote about Sundays.  The last line refers to a "dinner of bread and milk".  Wonder if that's where our Dad go the idea....

The Sabath and Church

          The morning is bright and a solem stillness seems to pervade all nature.  The very cows seem to know that it is Sunday.  There is no husel about the house  the children are all got ready for Sunday School.

          Mary and myself are at last ready washed and dressed cleene, and start for the church which is perhaps three quarters of a mild off.  We arive there  we are early but few have got there yet: so we sit down on the square blocks of timber in front of the house and look around us.  The church stands in a grove of Beach  the tender leaves have just put out and the soft light green is magnificent.  The birds seem full of joy almost crack there throats with there melodious songs.  The distant mountains seem so blew and peacefull while on the opisit mountain side is seen no signes of labor.  The cattle are seen quiately feeding in the pastures but the plough is left in the furrow, and all shows that it is Gods holy day.  I shall never forget the influence of these peasfull Sabaths.  To say that I was happey would not express the feeling.  My verry soul over flowed with joy and prase to God for the beautiful world he had placed me in.

          At length all are here  Hurshel Hurlbert is the superintendent. There is fifteen or twenty children present.  The opening cervices are solem feeling and seeme to impress every mind taking us as it were into the very presance of our Saveier.  My lesson was the reading a portion of the New Testiment and perhaps saying a few verses.  We had no Question books.  The superintendant was generaly my teacher and how affectionately and earnestly he always pointed me to the way of salvation.  We had some thirty or forty books of the sunday school sermon.  they were kept in a table drawer and were considered by the children a very large liberary.  Books were not so plenty then as now and how eagerly we received one of them and if it chanced to have a picture or two it was a prize indeed.

          The Sabath School generaly closed an half hour before church time. The children generaly remained to meting.  This half hour was spent walking about in the shade of the woods.  Somtimes geting over the fence and going some distance in the center of the wood to a spring and refresh ourselves with the cool clear water.  Then we would sit on the blocks in front of the house watching the people come to church.  They came young ladys from the Hollow and oposit mountain across the fields, climeing the fence in front of the Church.  Then came women carreying there babys. Women and men on horseback.  Lumber wagons full of people, men, women, and children seated on chairs.  Then a lot in a wagon all seated on straw in the bottom.  And now a wagon with a hay rigin on and girls boys and men purched about on it like chickens at roost.

          We have preaching every two weeks and this happens to be preaching day, which accounts for the immence crowd of people  The church or (meeting House as it is always called) is nearly full.  I am siting or standing out yet wating for Father and Mother to come.  Directly Eliza Hulbert comes a tall bashfull awkward girl.  The crowd out side so abash her that she dont see where she is going.  in assending the half doz steps to the church she takes the last step for the church floore and gos to walk in and coms with a loud rattle of elbows and knees upon the floor in side the room.  There was of course maney ill bread and cruil enough to laugh out right.

          The Preacher has come his name is Cook.  The serveses are gon throu with I can tell but little of them at this late day.  After the preaching all the members of the church were invited to remain to class meeting  I was not a member at this time but remained.  The Preacher asked each one the state of his mind and then gave some good advice.  Somtimes mearly saying go on brother, or persevear Sister.  Each one said from Sunday to Sunday about the same thing.  Complants of a hard hearte of neglect of duty living far from Christe hopes of living better and a desire for prayers of Gods people.  I had maney of these little speaches by hearte.

          Servises over we go home and have dinner of bread and milk.  The rest of the day is spent in rest.