Singing In Bed

Singing In Bed
When we were younger, LaVerne and I slept together.  I think I was about  6 and LaVerne was 10 and before we went to sleep, LaVerne would start singing old “cowboy” songs and before long we were singing them together.  I’m not sure where he learned the songs.  Dad might have sang them but I think LaVerne was also getting them from the radio.
 
I  remember singing “When The Works All Done This Fall” and another song with the line, “if she’d been the pal that she should’ve, he might have been raising a son, instead of out there on the prairie, to die by a ranger’s gun.”  One of these days I will research that song and get the lyrics.  It would be a great song to teach the grand kids.
 
I also have vague memories of singing other songs, hymns probably, and then I also remember Mom coming in and telling us that we would have to stop and go to sleep.  

Well, I researched the song and here it is in all it’s male-chauvinist-pig glory so, maybe it’s not a real good song to teach to the grand kids.  It is followed by the lyrics of “When The Works All Done This Fall”. 


I’ve Got No Use For The Women by Gene Autry

I’ve got no use for the women
A true one may seldom be found
They'll use a man for his money
When it's gone they'll turn him down
They're all alike at the bottom
Selfish and grasping for all
They'll stay by a man when he's winning
And laugh in his face when he falls
My pal was an honest young puncher
Honest and upright and true
Till he turned to a gun shooting gambler
On account of a girl named Lou
They fell in with evil companions
The kind that are better off dead
When a gambler insulted her picture
He filled him full of lead
Off in the long night they trailed him
Through mesquite and thick chaparral
I couldn't help think of that woman
As I saw him pitch and fall
If she'd been the pal that she should have
He might have been raising a son
Instead of out there on the prairie
To die by a Ranger's gun
Death's sharp sting did not trouble
His chances for life were too slim
Where they were putting his body
Was all that worried him
He lifted his head on his elbow
The blood from his wound flowed red
He gazed at his friends gathered round him
He looked up at them and he said
Bury me out on the prairie
Where the coyotes can howl o'er my grave
Bury me out on the prairie
But from them, my bones please save
Wrap me up in a blanket
Bury me deep in the ground
Cover me over with boulders
Of granite, big and brown
We buried him out on the prairie
Where the coyotes can howl o'er his grave
His soul is now a-resting
From the unkind cut she gave
And many another young puncher
As he rides past the pile of stones
Recalls some similar woman
And thinks of his mouldering' bones


When The Works All Done This Fall
1. A group of jolly cowboys, discussing plans at ease
Says one, I'll tell you something, boys, if you will listen, please
I am an old cow-puncher, you see me dressed in rags
I used to be a good one boys, and went on great big jags

2. I have got a home boys, a good one you all know
Although I haven't seen it since very long ago
I'm headed back to Dixie once more to see them all
I'm going to see my mother when the work's all done this fall

3. When I left my home, boys, my mother for me cried
She begged me not to go, boys, for me she would have died
My mother's heart is aching, breaking for me, that's all
With God's help I'll see her when the work's all done this fall"

Instrumental Break

4. That very night this cowboy went out to stand his guard
The night was dark and cloudy and storming very hard
The cattle, they got frightened and rushed in wild stampede
The cowboy tried to head them while riding at full speed

5. Riding in the darkness, so loudly he did shout
Trying hard to head them and turn the herd about
His saddle horse did stumble and on him it did fall
He'll not see his mother when the work's all done this fall

Instrumental Break

6. "Send my mother my wages, boys, the wages I have earned
I am so afraid, boys, the last steer I have turned
I'm headed for a new range, I hear my Master call
I'll not see my mother when the work's all done this fall

7. Fred, you take my saddle, George, you take my bed
Bill, you take my pistol after I am dead
Then think of me kindly when you look upon them all
I'll not see my mother when the work's all done this fall"

8. Charlie was buried at sunrise, no tombstone for his head
Nothing but a little board, and this is what it said
"Charlie died at daybreak, he died from a fall
He'll not see his mother when the work's all done this fall"

Nightmares

NIGHTMARES
Wayne Morris Hubbard As A Toddler On The Porch Of The Gilboa House
Several of us boys used to sleep together in the northeast bedroom of the house just off the “other part”.  We’d usually end up a tangle of bodies, particularly when the the younger three boys were from around three to seven years old.

One night, I was having nightmares wherein I was being chased by bad guys with swords with all the accompanying feelings of terror, inability to move, and the shifting scenario of swords, bloodshed and attempts to get away from them.

In one particularly horrific scene, the bad guys were cutting off every one's heads and I came awake with a start.

I was tangled up with Wayne and to my absolute horror, I discovered that his head was cut off and, very similar to the way a chicken with its head cutoff has tendons and veins protruding from the severed neck, Wayne had suffered the same fate.  There, between his arms,  were the extruding veins and tendons and no head.  I was stricken with terror.

After what seemed like an eternity of sleep paralysis and trying to find out where the bad guys were and wondering if I was next, I heard sounds coming from the bottom of the bed.  

I then realized that Wayne was sleeping upside down and what I thought were his arms were really his legs and that the tendons and veins I was feeling were his privates.

An incredible feeling of relief swept over me.  I don’t think I’ve ever related this incident before.  Of all the nightmares I’ve suffered this one is still on top of this list as the most terrifying.   

The American Psychological Association defines sleep paralysis as the “brief inability to move or speak just before falling asleep or on awakening… accompanied by hallucinations.” 1 This harmless period of immobility, derived from muscle paralysis or atonia, happens every night as a natural side-effect of dreaming sleep. But, when we become self-aware of this process, the trouble begins . . . This paralysis and its associated visions are a misunderstood aspect of the dreaming world that causes many people undue stress and shame.
-Ryan Hurd, Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer’s Guide
As Ryan Hurd explains, Sleep Paralysis is one of the most misunderstood sleep phenomenons. If you’ve ever felt these sensations during sleep, it’s likely you suffered from Sleep Paralysis:

• Unable to move or feeling of being held down
• Feeling like gravity is shifting around, or that you are floating or sinking
• Hearing strange sounds or voices such as your name being called
• Fear and terror, feeling a presence in your room
• Seeing an apparition or nightmare figure in your room
• Having an out-of-body experience

Kids And Guns

Marilyn, Marna, Doug, Wayne & David With Make Believe Guns

When I was about 12 years old in the dairy barn on Hubbard Hill,  I came within a heartbeat of shooting my brother Doug with a deer slug from a 12 gauge double-barrelled shotgun my father owned. 

Before that, when we lived in the house down in Gilboa in probably 1948, my brother LaVerne, came within a hairs breadth of shooting my mother with a single-barrel 12 gauge shotgun loaded with number 4 bird shot.
 
Shotguns and rifles were always around where we grew up, standing in the corners of various rooms, carried in the trunks of cars and bodies of pickups.  I remember double and single barrel shotguns, pump, bolt-action and semi automatic rifles and shotguns in the homes of my uncles, family friends and our own house.  We started shooting and hunting at eight or nine years old and I shot my first deer when I was fourteen.  I remember playing with shotgun shells and .30-30 cartridges pretending they were artillery shells in make-believe war games when I was probably about  eight years old.

Sometimes, we would cut the shot or slug off the end of a shotgun shell so just the wadding would come out when the gun fired.  The was kinda like a loud cap gun and we would play war and cowboys and Indians with the guns.  Cap guns were a very popular Christmas present for many kids at the time.

In the barn with Doug, I got the idea of after cutting the slug out of the shell, that I would roll the slug back down the barrel and that when I shot it, the slug would just roll out the end of the barrel.
The original plan was for Doug to stand in front of the gun while I fired but for some reason I decided to test it first by firing at a cast iron support post about four inches in diameter from about three feet away.  

To my shock and amazement, there was a tremendous blast from the 12 gauge shotgun and the slug almost penetrated the cast iron post leaving a large dent about an inch and a half in diameter.  The shot would of have killed Doug where he stood with a massive wound to his mid-section.
Until the barn was torn down, just about every time I went up on the hill,  I would go in the barn, take a look at that dent and contemplate what would have happened had I not test fired first and how incredibly lucky I and Doug were that I had not killed him.

The incident with LaVerne and my mother also sticks in my mind.  My mother was hanging clothes on the line to dry at the Gilboa house when LaVerne pulled down on her kiddingly  with the twelve gauge.   I remember Mom scolding LaVerne about pointing the gun and how dangerous it was and LaVerne insisting that the gun was not loaded.  For some reason, he did not fire and decided to show Mom the gun was empty.  When he opened it up, it was loaded.

I also heard of some wild boys holding .22 cartridges with pliers and hitting them with another hard object to make them fire and of other boys playing cowboys and Indians with .22s and firing live ammo at each other.  Our family did not do that.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”  “You damn betcha” replied the old grizzled Texas Ranger when asked about the loaded and cocked six-gun he carried on his hip.
 
And it was and it still is.  And we were lucky to live through it....

January 14, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 14, 1963

Mon Cold 0 to 12 above I did a big wash and ironed all afternoon.  Boys went to Sunday school in P.M. David had knock in his car.  Called the dealer but couldn’t reach him.

Comment:  I think this is his car, 1956 Plymouth Fury, pretty cool.

January 13, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 13, 1963

Sun Cloudy 30 in am and 6 inches of heavy wet snow. Lines and everything covered.  Wayne took the girls and me to church and Sunday school and picked us up.  David went to Roxbury. Gerald didn’t come home.

Comment:  A 1938 Chevy pickup truck in the wet heavy snow.

January 12, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 12, 1963

Sat Cloudy and rain in the a.m. 30-35 very icy in the a.m. I baked pies set girls hair.  Clifton and David and Wayne went after the truck down by Wyckoff's.  Carol and I took Sue for her music lesson and went to Awana at night Rained nearly all night.  LaVerne and Roberta here for supper.

Comment: Awana is an international evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in child and youth discipleship. "Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed" as taken from 2 Timothy 2:15.^[3] 

January 11, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 11, 1963

Fri Partly Cloudy in A.M. 40 started to rain about 12:30 P.M. Roads icy at night.  Some rain all night.  I washed in A.M. hung a line of clothes out and they got mostly dry.  Fred Oppenheimer was here to look at cattle in a.m.  Had a letter from Marilyn. Everyone out at night but Sue and I.  LaVerne. brought Clifton home.

Comment:  Dad ran his truck off the icy roads somewhere down around Wyckoff's and I think walked to LaVerne's to get a ride home.

January 10, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 10, 1963

Thursday  Beautiful sunny day 46.   I washed curtains in living rooms and kitchen and windows.  Doug and David cut a load of wood in a.m.  Clifton went to Oneonta to cattle sale in P.M. home 12:30  Girls and I went to the prayer meeting at Evelyn Bailey’s.  Gerald called about 10 and said he and Mary Ann wouldn’t be home for dinner.  Mary Ann’s Uncle had died.

Comment:  I think it was Uncle Ed who died.  He was In his eighties and had lived with the Hallenbeck's for awhile after he could not live alone.  He was bent over and shriveled up at the time but I think he had been quite the rake in his youth.  He used to carry a "belly gun" that did not have a barrel but you could shool seven .22 shorts right out of the rotating cylinder.  I still have it.

The Diaries Of Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard

http://gilboahub.tumblr.com/The Diaries Of Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard

January 9, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 9, 1963

Wed Cloudy in A.M. 35 with sunshine in am,  a little sunshine in the afternoon.  Sue was home because of a tooth she had out,  I cut out her blue dress and worked on it.  Clifton and boys cut apple trees at the foot of the hill below the road.  Grandpa (Elmer Hubbard) and Louise left for Florida.   I talked to her before they went.  Wrote a letter to Marilyn,  one to Ella Mae Roth.   Sent Dean’s (Dean Harris, Marilyn's son) birthday card and $1.00.  Sent Roberta a birthday card too.  Paul Rickenburg came to look at cattle, but wouldn’t give what we wanted for them.

Comment:  Paul Rickenburg was "The Calf Man" as posted here:   A quite rough take "talking blues" style.

Gerry Hubbard's SongPoemStories: The Calf Man:

Janurary 8, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 8, 1963

Tues  Cloudy no wind 39 all night about 33 all through the day.  Clifton, Sue and I went to Cobleskill and Mother’s for dinner.  Sue went to Dentist and had 6 yr molar out  Clifton stopped at the Auction at Bartholomew's.  Doug Van Aken here at night.  Clifton came home from the sale with Earl.

Comment:  Seems like a "January Thaw" is in effect.  Doug Van Aken contracted polio in the fifties and it affected only the right side of his body.  The opposite side did all the work and his arm was particularly muscular.  He always walked with a limp but he was always irrepressibly good humored.  He developed a business of finding, refurbishing and selling old US Army trailers and would scour the country to find them.   This is a picture of him and his daughter on Hubbard Hill.

January 7, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 7, 1963

Mon  Cloudy about 30 no wind.  I washed and cleaned up the house.  Doug went to Dr’s with David and washed his car in the P.M.

Comment:  David still nursing his damaged hand from the charcoal plant accident where he got his hand caught in a "Brix" press.

January 6, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 6, 1963

Sun Cloudy 25 no wind Girls and I went to church and Sunday school.  Clifton and all the boys but David came to Sunday school.  David went to Sandy’s for dinner.  Gerald went back to school in the afternoon.  Wayne and Linda were here at night.  Howards and Rudys came in the afternoon for a few minutes.  Had induction of Sunday School officers:

Myself  - Supt

Donna Brown - Ass. Supt

Evelyn Bailey - Sec. Treas.

Joyce Bailey - Point System Sec.


Comment:  I went back to Cobleskill Ag and Tech for the final classes for my two year Associates Degree In Business Management.  Later in the month, I would start at SUNY @ Albany for a degree in business education which would take another two years.  I would attend with Roger Cohn and Mary Ann Hallenbeck.  Here is Mary Ann and me when we graduated.

Howard and Lorraine Vaughn and Rudy and Winny Blakesley were my uncles and aunts.  Lorraine and Winifred were my father's sisters.  I have a posting about Uncle Rudy @
 http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2005/02/uncle-rudy-barry-taylor.html

January 5, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries: 53 Years Ago Today

January 5, 1963

Sat.  Cloudy very light snow 20’s no wind.  I baked in the a.m. Mrs. Mayo (?) came to see boys in am about coming to S.S. (Sunday School). I ironed in PM.  Girls and I went to annual business meeting at church at night.  Boys all went out.

Comment:"Boys all went out."  You damn betcha...where did they go?  Prowling the bars probably:  The Waterfall House in Gilboa, The Prattsville Tavern And Prattsville Hotel, The Rendezvous in Gilboa above the dam, or a fast run to Grand Gorge, Stamford or Roxbury.  We would sometimes cover hundreds of miles bar hopping through the mountains getting home after the bars closed at three, sometimes five or six in the morning.

January 4, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 4, 1963

Fri. Cloudy very light snow.  I washed again, men cut wood in the a.m.  Gerald went to Mary Ann’s about 3 P.M.  Carol went home from school with Linda and I went to a ball game.  N.Y. conservation man came.  (Mr. Scubner(not sure of name hard to read) from Gloversville) sold mountain.  Dolores called and said Louise was sick in bed and the house at the camp was a mess with broken water pipes and paper falling.

Comment:

The "camp" is Ferris Camp that Claude Ferris developed for the "city people", mostly hunters, to come up to and stay.  There were several cabins and also an empty swimming pool where Claude & Louise's two-year old son had drowned in many years ago.  After the drowning, they never filled the pool again.  Ferris Camp was a "beer joint" and was one of the first places in the mountains that had a television.  It was small, black and white with about a 12" screen that set high up in the corner of the bar very close to the ceiling. 

 One of my first memories of television was when my Dad took me and the other kids, Marilyn & Laverne, to see the Billy Conn-Joe Louis fight on June 19th, 1946.  Joe Louis won.  I was 7 years old.  

Dad said that Legs Diamond had visited the camp once to encourage Claude to sell his bootleg liquor and that Claude had been very scared of the famous gangster and had quickly complied with the request.

 The camp later became a Christian bible camp after Claude died. 

 Claude was relatively well to do and I remember once when my dad went there with me when I was about fourteen to borrow some money from Claude.  I seem to remember that Claude loaned him $200.  I remember that Claude was in the barn milking cows when Dad was talking to him and Claude was very jovial and respectful.
Delores was Claude's daughter about a year younger than I.  She married  Donald Armlin and he was shot and killed by a friend after he climbed up a tree to dislodge a treed raccoon.  His friend shot at the raccoon and missed but hit Donald in the chest killing him.  I heard that he climbed down from the tree and died along side of the road.

January 3, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries: 53 Years Ago Today

January 3, 1963

Thurs Cloudy warm 30.  Finished a letter to Marilyn.  Did a lot of ironing.  Gerald and David went to Schoharie in am. for license for Gerald's  car.  Clifton and Doug cut wood.  Didn’t go to prayer meeting at church didn’t feel very good.
Comment:
In the winter it was cold as hell and every week the boys as well as Dad would go to cut some firewood.
With that old Farmall and Mall chainsaw we’d find a tree and make a fall and cut it up as quickly as we could.
For the winter wind and chill was bearing down,
As we struggled in the that cold and muddy ground,
Then we loaded up a half a cord and shivered while the tractor roared and took us tired half frozen homeward bound.

January 2, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries: The First Car I Bought

January 2, 1963 Frances Marietta Hubbard Diaries

Wed Cloudy warm 8 above kids went back to school.  Clifton and Doug fixed water pipes over kitchen, they were still leaking a little.  I did a big wash and washed the windows; Tired out at night.  Read a nice long letter from Marilyn.  The boys went to Midd in P.M.  Gerald bought a car (Opel) for $87.50.

The 1954 Opel For $87.50

The dealer wanted a couple of hundred for it but the engine had what I thought was a knock and so was very leery of the car.  While David and I were taking it for a test drive, we ran into Donald Tompkins who was very savvy about cars and equipment.  He determined that the “knocking” was a bent push rod and could be fixed very easily.
 Donald helped me take the valve cover off the engine, pulled out the 8” push rod, hit it with a ball peen hammer a couple of times to straighten and reinstalled it.  Donald did the repair on the street in Middleburg with tools he carried in his truck. 
 The car ran perfectly. We took the car back to the dealer and  I dickered for awhile until we agreed upon $87.50 and I bought the car.
 I ran the car for about 3 years.  It was super in snow plowing through 8-10 inch snow drifts on Rt 30A  while driving to Gloversville to see Mary Ann .
We ended up dragging it over in the woods and junking it after I broke a rear axle somehow.  I loved that car

January 1, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 1, 1963

Tues Cloudy very cold 2 above.  Windy very light snow flurries Earl and Bob (Segeritz) were here for dinner.  Mother called in the afternoon.  Water pipes above kitchen broke.  LaVerne and Roberta here for supper.  Wayne was at mothers (in Richmondville)  in the P.M.  Gerald came home from Mary Ann’s.


Comment:  Earl married late in life to Lillian Segeritz who had a son, Bob. 
 From LaVerne:  After they married Earl did renovation work on the house she owned, fireplace etc. Lillian owned horses, Bob, Lillian's son and Earl cared for them, Earl was injured, broken foot I think, by one of them. He was laid up for some time.
Lillian and her first husband had Harley motorcycles, they would ride over cross road to Otis's and turn around.

"Water pipes above the kitchen broke." The phrase belies the hassle that frozen water pipes and even frozen fuel lines to the oil burner in the living room entailed.  This meant  a lot of work in freezing cold to get the pipes thawed and the water and fuel flowing.

Here is my Tribute To Uncle Earl:  https://hubbardfamilymusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/uncle-earl-born-august-1-1910-died-may.html

Hubbard & Clarks Christmas Eve 2010

Tom O'Hara And The Deluge

In the spring of 1948 there was a short but very heavy deluge of rain in the area of Hubbard Hill.  I remember getting up in the morning and seeing a swiftly moving brown stream of water in the ditch in front of our house and, later, the three to five feet deep canyon the water had carved.  This was in a ditch that was usually dry and even in the heaviest storms in my memory,  only swelled the stream to about a foot of water.

Across the road and barnyard, the creek behind the barn was a rushing torrent and all this water was coming from the just the very top of the watershed.

Lower down the mountains and rolling hills, the Flat Creek valley accumulated all this water and more as it drained the whole area around Hubbard Hill and fed if finally, into the Gilboa Dam or, the Schoharie Creek flowing into Middleburg.

We drove down through Flat Creek to get a look at the damage and I remember lots of water in the flats around the Merel Hubbard and Pickett places. Further down the road where the grade increased, the road was partially washed out with a deep and wide gully cut through by the rushing water.  Out in the middle of that creek,  caught on a large rock in a cluster of small trees and sitting there crookedly, was a brown coupe that was owned by Tom O’Hara.

It seemed that the previous night, Tom had been seeing my first cousin Betty at Merel Hubbard’s farm and decided to drive back to Prattsville during the storm. The flood somehow got his car.

I remember him talking about it and I asked him how he escaped.  He said he had climbed through the trees out of the creek and, at the time, the branches he used seemed about the size of his fingers. He held up his hand with spread fingers to show me.  He was kind of laughing while he said this and I can still see his face as he described his escape.  

In thinking about it now, his easy manner must have belied the truly harrowing experience it must have been when he felt the car, caught by the flood waters, moving off the road into the deluge and, the subsequent wind and rain driven escape.

In my mind, his story conjured up an image of him desperately opening the car door and scrambling back to safety through the finger-sized branches at the top of the trees above the rushing water.  To a nine year old boy, this was a heroic tale of danger, bravery and adventure and I never forgot it.  This only added to his degree of  “coolness” that I did not encounter again until James Dean came on the scene.

By the way, I believe this was the same car they used for their wedding get-away in June of that year.

Tom Ohara and Betty Hubbard's Wedding Reception

I well remember Tom Ohara and Betty Hubbard’s  wedding held at Uncle Merel’s farm on a very nice day in the summer.

Tommy had a very cool brown two-door coupe, I think it was a Chevy and of course, it was in impeccable condition.

As the reception was going on, several of the younger men at the wedding commenced to rigging the car for the drive-away.  They tied lots of tin cans and streamers to the under carriage of the car.  They then also somehow attached a large fire-cracker that would somehow explode when the car drove off.

I remember Tom and Betty emerging from the front of the house and making their way to the car parked under the trees along Flat Creek Road.  They were showered with rice;  noise makers and hand clapping accompanied them.  They were laughing and grinning.

I was standing close to the car and when they approached, I said, “Boy, you’re really starting off with a bang”.  Some of the people groaned.

As they drove off there was a very loud bang and the streamers, cans and junk attached to the car rattled off with them.

After they left,  several people including my sister Marilyn, told me that I had given away the surprise.  

I thought I had just expressed a clever pun.....

Swinging In The Barn

I was working around the west end of the barn one day.  It must have been about 1952.  Wayne was about six years old.

Something caused a disturbance and I remember Wayne walking down the road in front of the barn saying over and over “I think I’m going crazy” and he was obviously very distressed.

When we asked him what happened, he said that he had been swinging on the ropes in the barn and on one swing, he had crashed his head into one of the upright beams in the barn.

We used to take the hay ropes and tie them off on one of rafters, then stand on one of the large horizontal beams,  probably about 15 feet high, swing off the beam, arc up then drop into a pile of hay in the mow or stacked on the barn floor.

I remember Wayne being very pale and disoriented for quite a while.  I’ve often wondered if this accident contributed to the rather tortured life he seemed to lead.

A Darker Shade Of Blue, The Ballad Of Patty Russell

Hubbard Family & Friends: Remember When The Music

Hubbard Family & Friends Picking & Singing; Many Generations

You Should Have Seen It In Color

Hubbard Hill In Black And White
Photographs Remind Us Of What We Now Think We Once Were......

Natura non contristatur: A Horse Story

A Horse Story

Conesville—Mrs. Gamalia Hubbard met with a singular accident not long since, which might have proved very serious.
She was reaching in the horse manger after eggs, when the horse caught her hood and hair between it’s teeth and jammed her head against the manger with such force that her eyes were badly injured; so much so that for a short time she supposed that she had lost the sight of one eye; and they are still badly swollen and discolored.
..Gilboa Monitor, April 8, 1886

This was Margaret Ann Christiana, (1849-1933), married to Gamalia Hubbard, (1852-1883), who died of appendicitis when he was 31 or so. She was called Anna.

They met while both worked for Col. Zadock Pratt in Prattsville, of Pratt's Rocks fame. He started a leather tanning business in the area.

On April 24, 1882, they bought land on what is now known as Hubbard Hill. The middle part of the our homestead was the original log cabin that Gamalia and Anna lived in. Previous to that, they lived further up the mountain on the old foundation behind David's campsite.

Their children were Elmer, my grandfather, & John, who had no children. Gamalia & Anna are buried in Grand Gorge Cemetery.

She was apparently a much loved grandmother of Elmer's children and I remember my Dad talking about his visits to her.


This incident happened about 3 years after her husband's death, when she was about thirty seven years old. Elmer, born in 1882, was about one year old when his father died and about 3 years old when this incident occured. It also must have occured on Hubbard Hill.

Interesting that she outlived her husband by fifty years....... Also interesting to think about how many of the current generation would have died of appendicitis had we been unlucky enough to have been born a hundred years earlier.

Thanks To Bea Haskin For The Information

Reprise: Hubbard Hill Memories

I was born in late September and some things that I remember are a pair of new red rubber cowboy boots.

In the Catskill Mountain sunshine, I remember like in dream time how I ran the fields with happy shouts & hoots.
And in the summer on a sultry day,
While my mother worked the windrows making hay
I was still a baby on a blanket neath a shade tree and I played & napped the afternoon away.

When my father brought the horses then they stacked the hay in courses on a steel wheeled wagon that my grandpa made
As I rode down in the haystack and my father held the horses back, my mother sang a hymn or softy prayed.
And in the barn the dust and hayseed swirled,
As I reveled in this fascinating world,
Then my mother brought us all a drink from the hand pump by the kitchen sink while barnyard sounds & smells around us curled.

In the winter it was cold as hell and every week the boys as well as Dad would go to cut some firewood.
With that old Farmall and Mall chainsaw we’d find a tree and make a fall and cut it up as quickly as we could.
For the winter wind and chill was bearing down,
As we struggled in the that cold and muddy ground,
Then we loaded up a half a cord and shivered while the tractor roared and took us tired half frozen homeward bound.

In the springtime we would load manure from piles that we had to store because we could not get through winter snow.
When I think of all the jobs I’ve had and some of them have been real bad, well that job has to be an all time low.
'Cause the springtime winds could blow it in your face,
And every load turned out to be a race,
Between the spreader breaking down or getting stuck in muddy ground and leaving the whole rig there in it’s place.

The third time Wayne drank kerosene from old Coke bottles he had seen sitting on the shelves in the wood shed,
Grandma Bessie said to Mom, "I know you mean nobody harm, but if he keeps doing that, he’ll soon be dead".
Doug’s eye got hurt while hunting from a car.
When Marilyn burned her hands it left some scars.
Merle Jr chopped my middle finger, thoughts of all that blood still linger, those are things that made us what we are.

When LaVerne turned over that old milk truck on Earl’s hill when black ice he struck, what happened after always makes me smile.
As I drove the Farmall to the spill I hit that same damned icy hill and skidded almost to the milk can pile.

To turn that old truck upright took an hour.
And on the road the milk began to sour.
Then I put that Farmall in low gear and towed that wreck till almost near the barn where we just stared at it awhile.

In the fall we’d often kill a pig and hang it from a tripod rig and gut it out to take inside to treat.
When mom would cook the tenderloin with home made pancakes we’d all join in dining on a meal called “ fit to eat”.
And the rhythm of the family filled our veins,
And the autumn breezes hummed in soft refrain.
Then we laid on the grassy lawn to look at stars until we’d yawn then go to sleep and start it all again.

Sue could take a .22 and hit the nail heads that popped through that old wood shed roof baking in the sun.
And we shot rats and dogs and chipmunks, hunted squirrel and deer and woodchucks, some for food and others just for fun.
And we hunt 'coon on Autumn rainy nights,
With dogs and guns and beer and big flashlights.
While that hound dog pack was barking "treed", we’d crash half drunk through brush and weeds, to get that scared raccoon in our gun sights.

Susan sat with a BB gun while all us kids were having fun looking at Bonanza on TV.
A big gun fight at a mountain shack and Susan thought she'd fire back, she hit an outlaw with one brass BB.
The television set just buzzed then died.
While Susan grinned and looked around wide eyed.
And we stared at that tiny hole till Carol dropped the popcorn bowl then we all laughed until we almost cried.

Thanksgiving came with hunting season and lot’s of family found a reason to come “up home” to join in meals and song.
We gather around that old piano, Dad sang bass Mom sang soprano and uncles , aunts and cousins sang along.
And the old time Christian hymns would soar and chime
With harmonies so sweet and so sublime.
Then all the men went to hunt deer while all the ladies helped to clear the table for the meal at supper time.

Of the windows in that old farm house, some faced directly west and south and all the family many times a day,
Would check that eighteen mile view to guess the weather coming through and then you’d usually hear somebody say,
“When the rain comes it’ll be to wet to plow",
Or “The snows too deep there’ll be no school bus now",
And those windows from that farm house knoll were also windows to our souls and taught us love of hills and life somehow.

In this age of space and cell phones with those idiotic ring tones I return to those old times on Hubbard Hill.
And of often think of going back but now the house is just a shack and so I know I probly never will.
Still thoughts of friends and family gently bind,
As I think about those pure and peaceful times.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go to Hubbard Hill just in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to the Catskills in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to my old home in my mind.

Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard, Mourned By Many, Loved By All.

Mother of: Clifton LaVerne, Marilyn Ann, Gerald Elmer, Douglas Maynard, David John, Wayne Morris, Carol Sylvia & Susan Frances

Born: Oct 27, 1913, Died: June 1, 2005, 845 am EST.

Services At The Flat Creek Baptist Church, Gilboa, NY at 1100 am. Tue, 6/7/05.

"May Angels Prepare Her Way Into Paradise"...John Irving, "A Prayer For Owen Meany"

Mothers & Their Children

Happy Mother's Day 

A Confession About Dad: 101 Years Old Yesterday

Solidarity Forever

An Operating Engineer was what my dad was called
He ran the big equipment, and I guess he drove them all
Dozers, graders, drag-line cranes, he worked ten hours a day
From spring through fall, six days a week, he drew good union pay

He’d usually come home close to dark, all sunburned, cloaked with dust
Us kids would all race down the hill, to greet him, to be first
He’d stop the car and pick us up, on fenders up we’d ride
We hung from running boards and doors, rising like the tide

Euclid scrapers, high-speed pumps, he “sloped” with Cat D8s
Through parts of west New England and all through New York State
He worked the New York Thruway and Route One-Forty-Five,
Milking cows at four am to keep the farm alive

In summer’s dust and searing sun his lips and hands would crack,
And he’d rub in Bag Balm Ointment that he carried in a sack
In winter’s numbing wind and cold, he stood ten hours a day
To watch an air compressor pump water from a quay

We’d go to work with him sometimes when work sites were nearby
And ride the big equipment, it was dusty, hot and dry
LaVerne and I and sometimes Doug would go and spend the day
With diesel fumes & roaring “Eucs” as dozers pushed away

And though he had his issues, he was held in high regard
And I never heard him once complain ‘bout working so damned hard.
When someone said I looked like him at a Hill reunion chat
Tom O’Hara softly said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that”.

And though I’m not religious, as all friends will attest
Here’s a spiritual iota to which I must confess
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high
I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky...
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky.

100 Years Ago, 1908 Was A Leap Year Starting On A Wednesday

On Sunday April 27, Clifton John Hubbard Was Born
On Sunday, February 1, Mary Carbonelli, Mary Ann’s Mother Was Born
On Monday, July 14, George Vincent Hallenbeck, Mary Ann’s Father Was Born

Mass productions arrives as the first Model T rolls of the assembly line. It sold for $850 & a Cincinnati mayor said woman aren’t physically fit to operate a car. 200,000 cars from 24 manufactures were sold that year.

· The Air Age arrives as Orville Wright was awarded a $25,000 contract by The War Department to build the first military airplane. He builds the plane and uses it to makes the 1st one-hour airplane flight but it ends in a crash and his passenger, Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, became the first person to die in an aircraft accident.

· The Great White Fleet was sailing around the world and at the time, the event was a logistical and technical triumph for the US and President Teddy Roosevelt
· The first Mother’s Day was held in Philadelphia, cellophane was patented, Ex-Lax Co. is founded and the Geiger counter was developed

You Should Have Seen It In Color

Photographs Remind Us Of What We 

Now Think We Once Were

Hubbard Hill Blue Berrying

The memory of that day is priceless; but not as priceless as the memory of the blueberry pie and muffins Mom fixed for us that weekend.  That wonderful lady could sure bake a pie!  

For those of you who were not there, we went up with little tins for gathering and the kids were putting blue berries in their shirts. So after working for about a half hour and with us all eating as many as we picked, there really weren't too many berries.  

Then someone (can't remember, who) came upon a large pan of blue berries that someone had picked and left behind.  Boy, were we proud of the great job we did when we got back to the house!  Comment by Mary Ann Hubbard

This One Is Gonna Be Trouble...

Craig Hubbard's New Music Site

Take A Look: All Original Music.....

http://craighubbardmusic.com/