February 7, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 7, 1963

Thurs, cloudy, 30 in early am, grew colder all day, zero  at night.  Wrote to Marylin.  Clifton and David fixed the pump so it would shut off.  We had about a dozen calls for hay.   Junior Losie bought 68 bales and Martin And Sons from East Meredith bought and also, Wally Stryker.  I didn’t have prayer meeting at night because of my cold.  It was at Madalyn's (Blakesley).   Earl and Lillian stopped for a few minutes in their way home from Cobleskill..  We had a radio gram from Doug.

Comment:  Apparently selling off the hay because they may have sold the cows to head for California.  Not sure.  I think they were having problems with the well water pump that would not shut off and they had to fix it before it burnt out. 

 I think the Navy provided Doug with an opportunity to send a telegraphic message that was decoded from Morse to voice and sent over the phone or a hard copy was printed and mailed.  If anybody can shed more light on the radiogram, please leave a comment on the blog. 

February 6, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 6, 1963

Wed 28-40 high cloudiness warm partly sunny no wind.  I was about sick with a cold.  Clifton and David went after Gerald’s Olds in Schenectady.  Doug started basic training.  Had a package from Louise towels, pens and book.  David got the spring fixed in his car at Raymonds.  They had good luck getting the car home.  ($10 Olds.)


Comment:
Verba ipsa loquitur..The words speak for themselves

February 5, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 5, 1963

Mostly sunny 30.   David, Clifton and I went to Cobleskill to Mothers for dinner.  The ice was nearly gone from roads.  David's car had a broken spring.  I had a bad cold in my head. 

Comment:  I think David broke the spring in his car by loading a big piece of concrete guard-rail post into the trunk to help him get up the hills when it was so icy the last couple of days.  I remember seeing the car with the guard rail in the trunk and it was squatting very low in the back.  Here is a picture of my mother's mother, Bessie Laraway Barber Van Tassell  as a young woman.  She is on the right.  Not sure why they are standing in what appears to be a hay-field.

February 4, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 4, 1963

Mon.  Mostly Cloudy -8 to 12 above with light snow in the afternoon.  I washed and hung a line full outside.  Gerald started school in Albany.  The Gerkins sailed to Europe. A lot of schools closed because of icy roads, but we had school.  Gerald called in am and said he’d bought a 55 Olds in Schenectady for $10 and wanted us to get it this week. 

Comment:  I bought the car and tried to fix it up and sell but to no avail.  Never could get that damn thing fixed so it would not knock.  I think we finally dragged it into the woods and junked it.  Here is a 1956 Olds 98 convertible that I drove around for awhile when I was attending Cobleskill Ag and Tech.  Dad bought it for some reason and it always burned a lot of oil.  You can see the smoky exhaust in the picture.   I think it's my brother David in the car and Hubbard Hill is in the background.

The Gerkins lived on the "cross road" in the old Swartz place and when they were moving, I bought a black VW and a sweet little 20 gauge shotgun from them.  Here is a picture of one of the Swartz girls with my Uncle Earl.  I must have started classes at SUNY@ Albany 48 years ago today. 

56 Olds 98 

Dorothy Swartz And Uncle Earl

February 3, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 3, 1963

Sun then cloudy and cold.  5 above, high wind.  We didn’t go to church because of icy roads. They weren’t sanded until 4 p.m.  Then we went over to Earl and Lillians for a while.  Gerald left about 3 p.m.  Dougie called from Great Lakes 3:30 p.m. Could hear him real good.

Comment:  Because of the steep hills, when the roads were icy, we were at the mercy of the town's sand trucks.  This was two men in the back of a town snow plow using shovels to spread the sand in wide arcs across the road. 

It really was quite graceful as they would each alternate spreading a single shovel-full from one side then the other as the truck moved slowly over the road.    
Here is my Dad when he was the Gilboa Town Superintendent beside one of the snow plows that were used.  It was either an Oshkosh or FWD, (four wheel drive).  They often had to use tire chains also to maneuver the icy, snowy roads.  The man with Dad was the pastor of the Flat Creek Baptist Church, Reverend Shaline.  He baptized my sister Marilyn by full immersion when she was 11 years old in 1947, which, just might be the year this picture was taken.  
When Dad ran for his second term for the job, the town clerk, Alice ? dropped her pencil when she learned the vote was a tie.  The decision was made that each candidate would serve for half the term and the candidate going first would be decided by a coin toss.  Dad lost the toss and rather than serving half a term, conceded the job to his opponent.  After the loss, we moved back to Hubbard Hill, probably in 1948.

February 2, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 2, 1963

Sat 20-30 Cloudy very light snow in am.  Turning to rain in afternoon and evening.  Wayne went to Middleburg. to put up poster for school.  Linda and Jay went too.  He came home around 7 P.M. and Gerald started for Gloversville but turned around and came back because roads were so icy. We’d planned to go to South Jefferson to rally but didn’t go because of ice.  Boys had to use tractor to get Gerald's and David's car home up the hill below the house.

Comment: Slippery-n-hell on the hill  and activities delayed.

Thanks to Michael Hubbard,  I just learned that my great-great grandfather Jabez Hubbard with his wife Maria Brandow moved to Hubbard Hill or to a close-by mountain in 1860 or so and was an officer in the Green County anti-slavery organizations. More about this later.

February 1, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

February 1, 1963

Fri -5 to 28 Bright Clear Day and Warmer.  I washed in am.  Washed 2 blankets and a bedspread for Gerald.  Did some ironing in pm. Wayne went to a ball game at night and David went out. Clifton's cold still bad.  

Comment:  Slow day on the hill, high school basketball game on Friday night.  These games were the social event of the week while we were in high school giving us isolated farm kids the opportunity to interact socially with kids from other schools and especially, girls from other schools.  The buses were sexually separated for away games, girls on one side, the boys on the other, and each bus drove with the interior lights on and included at least one teacher chaperon.  At the high school dances, we were also closely monitored to ensure minimal body contact between the sexes.  Dance bands stuck to the Hit Parade type of arrangements with very few up-tempo songs.  Certainly, no bumping and grinding that apparently is now accepted. 


 I was a starter for the Gilboa High School mostly because it was a Class E school with less than fifty boys eligible for sports in the entire high school and I could kinda run, dribble and chew gum at the same time.  My career came to an ignominious end when, while walking to the bus after a game, I lit up a cigarette practically in front of the coach and was thrown off the team the last game of my senior year.  I chronicle this sad event in a previous blog: Click To Listen:  Hubbard Music Mountain: Last Game At Gilboa Central Talking Blues:

Talking blues is a form of country music. It is characterized by rhythmic speech or near-speech where the melody is free, but the rhythm is strict.  See below for Wikipedia link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_blues

Kill It, Cook It, Eat It....Pistols And Pigs

We did not see many pistols on Hubbard Hill because they were really not very useful for hunting. Pistols were a  luxury only “city people” could afford.  “City people” included various family members and friends that did not live or work on the farms in the area.  

My dad had a .38 revolver that he had got when he became a deputy sheriff and that was about the only one we came across.   Once, when I saw him preparing to go on a call, I wondered why he did not act like the sheriffs I’d heard on the Lone Ranger and Tom Mix radio shows.  I wondered because he did not carry the .38 on his belt in a holster but placed it in the glove compartment of the car when he was called.  I went with him on the call and I also remember that he did not take it with him when we got to house of Pansy Reed who had called about Albert being drunk I guess.  I stayed in the car when he went to talk to Pansy.  I do not remember Albert being around.  Dad came back shortly and we went home.

The only other time I saw the .38 used was when we were butchering pigs.  Dad tried to shoot a hog between the eyes but the slug bounced off the pig’s skull.  He finally shot that pig and the remaining two pigs right into their ear to put them down.  We shot only the larger pigs that we could not hold down to slit their throats.  

We’d roll the smaller ones over on their back and sit on their belly while Dad used a “sticking knife”;  a knife with both edges of the knife blade sharpened.  He would stick the knife in the middle of the pig’s throat and moved the knife left and right to severe the two main arteries running up both sides of the pig’s neck.  The pig would shriek with piercing squeals as this happened.  We would then let the pig up and it would stagger around as it bled out and finally, drop over dead ready for scalding, scraping and gutting.

When we butchered a cow or calf too big to hold down, I remember shooting them between the eyes with a .22 rifle from about six inches.  We tried to shoot them very close to where the rigging was that we used to pull them up by the hind legs for gutting and skinning because they would drop straight down without a sound and they were too heavy to drag very far.

After the animals were gutted, we let them hang till the carcass could stiffen up and then, for the smaller animals, we’d take them inside to the dining room table, (covered in newspaper) and cut them up.  The larger cattle had to skinned outside then cut up into portions outside that could be handled to bring inside and cut up into smaller steaks etc.

The knives were always very sharp, the scalding water for the pigs was very hot and the weather was usually pretty cold.   We’d sometimes cut ourselves with the knives, wet ourselves with the water and our hands would get very cold and stiff as we were working but, we usually got through it without major trauma.  I do remember that we had to be very careful with the two-edged sticking knife and I remember my Dad cutting himself with that.

If you would like to see a sanitized view of the butchering we did on the farm, the BBC has a new show called “Kill it, Cook It, Eat It.  http://current.com/shows/kill-it-cook-it-eat-it/

January 31, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 31, 1963

Thurs  partly Cloudy in AM becoming fair in PM 5-20. I wrote to Marilyn and ironed.  Gerald and Roger went to clean up apartment and get settled.  Girls and I went to prayer meeting at parsonage.  Myrtie called and asked if Doug had gone.  Clifton had a bad cold.

Comment:  Myrtie and Otis Hall lived up the road about a quarter of a mile and really were good people if perhaps a little parochial.  They were brother and sister and neither ever married. Because they were our closest neighbors and without any children in their lives,  they probably watched and listened in wonder as we kids grew up as the ultimate  "free range" kids with access to tractors, motor vehicles and firearms. Otis got the mumps as a young man.  He became sterile and could not sire children.  Here is my previous blog about them:

Otis & Myrtie

Ote and Myrtie were our neighbors up the road a quarter mile.
Spinster maid and bachelor brother and you seldom saw them smile.

Pinched lips, all prim and proper, all clothes buttoned to the top.
But always free and easy with the rumors they would drop.

Myrtie was a teacher long retired but taught in church.
While Otis ran some “young stock” and I guess he never "worked".

Got the mumps when just a child and my Dad said they “moved down”
He said that was the reason that no children were around.

'Cause I always thought them married when I saw them on the road
In that pretty two-door Chevy with their monthly grocery load.

We usually did not see or hear them very much at all
‘Less our cows got in their garden then we’d get an angry call.

Us kids and Dad would get the cows and try to fix the fence,
But for gardens ruined and trampled, there is no recompense.

“Good fences make good neighbors” are the words of Robert Frost
And we should have kept them better no matter what the cost.

Then I get a slightest comfort when I think about it all
He also wrote “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulder in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there,

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there,

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.”

Robert Frost

January 30, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 30, 1963

Cloudy,  I did a big wash and hung some outside. Gerald and Roger went back to Albany for an apartment.  David and Clifton went to Grand Gorge with Gerald's car.   We didn’t hear anything from Doug so he must have gone to Great Lakes Naval Training Station.  Gerald and Roger (Cohn) found a place to live in Latham. 

Comment:  Doug apparently left for the Navy for four years without Twittering, emailing, Facebooking, cell phoning, Blackberrying or even pay-phoning.  Probably did not have access to a phone or the deal was if they did not hear from him, he was gone.  A far cry from today's instantaneous communication.  

Below, Doug and David in a home-made cart with casters. This must be in the early fifities.   They used to push each other all over with this.  Kinda yesterday's version of skateboards or Big Wheels.

 In the background, a 1934 Ford that my father bought From Pinder's in Grand Gorge.  It sat there wrecked for a long time.  It was parked on the dirt road in front of the house and for some reason, ran away down the hill and crashed into a massive tree in the corner of the lot below the barn.  It was totaled and we kids played in it all the time pretending to drive. 

 In the background is the "cross road" that leads to Conesville.  All the empty hay fields and pastures are now grown up with trees.  The lot directly beyond the car is "The Spring Lot" that I've blogged about.  See below.  I remember shooting at deer crossing the spring lot from the front porch of the house with a Savage bolt-action 30-30 with 150 grain bullets.

The foundation to the right of the car is where the two-story "wagon house" stood before we tore it down before it collapsed and,  is where we re-assembled the "chicken house" as a garage.

Take a listen  to "The Spring Lot" by clicking this link....Hubbard Music Mountain: The Spring Lot by Gerry Hubbard, David Hubbard Per...:

The Spring Lot

The “Spring Lot” was three acres out southeast across the road
Beyond the “crik” with minnows, frogs, the barnyard with its loads
Some years we’d plant Sudan Grass, tall, billows, green, in waves
In other years, we planted corn. Between the rows, dark caves


Lairs, from which we’d “hide n’ seek” and hunt for dangerous game
The rustling winds and dank dark earth held fears we couldn’t name
The lot was close and in full view of folks from our front porch
And through the trembling grass or corn, light flickered, as a torch


One day I lay beside the spring in warm and tender sun
And overturned a rock to watch the insects’ frantic run
I pondered their perceptions in a world I couldn’t see
And wondered if their eyes and minds could see that it was “ME”


The “ME” who made the calls about their right to live or die
I thought that this was how we were when looked at through God’s eyes
And then I saw wild strawberries, a sweet and acrid taste
And left that rock turned over, the insects to their fate


I often think if there be gods, they must be like a child
Playing in a “Spring Lot” while we skitter, scared and wild
They’ll never know the why, the what, the wonder of our days
'Cause all they see are strawberries and blithely move away....

The Spring Lot

The “Spring Lot” was three acres out southeast across the road
Beyond the “crik” with minnows, frogs, the barnyard with its loads
Some years we’d plant Sudan Grass, tall, billows, green, in waves
In other years, we planted corn. Between the rows, dark caves

Lairs, from which we’d “hide n’ seek” and hunt for dangerous game
The rustling winds and dank dark earth held fears we couldn’t name
The lot was close and in full view of folks from our front porch
And through the trembling grass or corn, light flickered, as a torch

One day I lay beside the spring in warm and tender sun
And overturned a rock to watch the insects’ frantic run
I pondered their perceptions in a world I couldn’t see
And wondered if their eyes and minds could see that it was “ME”

The “ME” who made the calls about their right to live or die
I thought that this was how we were when looked at through God’s eyes
And then I saw wild strawberries, a sweet and acrid taste
And left that rock turned over, the insects to their fate

I often think if there be gods, they must be like a child
Playing in a “Spring Lot” while we skitter, scared and wild
They’ll never know the why, the what, the wonder of our days
'Cause all they see are strawberries and blithely move away....

January 29, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 29, 1963

Tues  Bright and fair in am cloudy middle of the afternoon -5 to about 20.  Doug met Navy man at the school at 2 P.M. took bus from Oneonta to Albany and stayed all night.  Clifton and I went to Cobleskill by Jefferson and 2 lbs off Churchills. Stopped at Mothers a minute and got car license.  Gerald and and Roger Cohn went to Albany looking for an apartment.

Comment:  Not sure what "2 lbs off Churchills" means.  I and Roger Cohn would start going to SUNY @ Albany to get our 4-year bachelor's degrees.  We were both looking for jobs and I got mine first as a grill man at the now defunct Carroll's Fifteen Cent Hamburger joint near Latham circle.  

When I think about it now, I'm still kinda surprised how hard I had to work, cooking 30 hamburgers at a time, then adding all the stuff, then passing them on for wrapping.  It was hotter than hell in the grill area and the work was just constant as we tried to keep the cooked inventory at a minimum but at the same time quickly meet the demands of the customers for almost instant service when they came in.

The raw hamburgers were in big boxes in stacks of six with waxed paper between each patty. With lots of practice, (after working one shift),  the grill men were able to grab the wax paper by the corner and snap and flip the patty onto the grill in one quick motion, kinda like throwing a frisebee,  and quickly fill the grill with 30 patties.  We would then add 30 split open buns to the other side of the grill to start them toasting, flip the burgers, take the toasted open buns off and place them on a big sheet,  top them with the 30 patties, shoot mustard and ketchup on them from a gun-like device, top them with a pickle, put the top bun on and shove them to a wrapper.

It was constant motion and when we were busy, we did not stop for almost the entire six hour shift.  The busyness was the bad part but there was a good part also.

If there was unsold inventory at closing time, the official policy was to trash it.   Employees could not eat it on site, but unofficially we could divert it on the way to the trash bin. 

When there was not enough inventory to take home the manager, knowing most of the employee's  situations, would usually suggest that I cook up a dozen or so cheeseburgers and a few bags of fries "just in case of a last minute rush" and then Roger and I were supplied for awhile.  Nothing else was ever mentioned about the unsold inventory that had to be disposed of....

January 28, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 28, 1963

Mon Cloudy -3 to 8 above snow squalls and windy till middle of afternoon.  There  was bright sunshine but still windy and cold and drifting snow. No school because roads drifted, boys went to Grand Gorge in the P.M. to get medicine for Dougs cold.  I did some ironing, men spent most of the day getting cars and tractors started and garage shoveled out.  Miserable day.  LaVerne and Roberta here at night a few minutes, took our chain saw to use at the plant. (Timberland Charcoal, Stamford, NY.)

Comment:  LaVerne was the manager of of the charcoal plant and helped me get a job driving tractor trailer for Joe Gallo (an investor in the plant) delivering the charcoal to retail outlets through out New York State, I took some runs into northern Pennsylvania to pick up product from a sister plant there.  I also hauled bark out of the Mechanicville, NY paper mills  I got 8 cents a mile and had to unload the damned stuff and not matter how hard I tried to stay clean, I was black as coal with charcoal dust embedded in every pore after unloading.  The dust was so fine that it would seep through the stitchings on the containers.   I chronicled some of those incidents in a previous blog post:  Click this link to listen:  Hubbard Music Mountain: Truck Driving, By Gerry Hubbard, Performed By Davi...:

January 27, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 27, 1963

Sun about 10” new cloudy windy and snow 18 and squalls in afternoon.  Wayne took us to church picked up Bev, Donna H, Donna Brown and Janette.  Had church and Sunday School at parsonage as heater in church didn’t work at night.  Clifton picked us up after Sunday School.  Boys all went out after dinner.  David and Doug got stuck over the cross road and had to go get trucks to pull them out.  Gerald came back from Mary Anns about 5:30. David stayed at LaVerne’s all night to go with Roberta with mail.

Comment: Another snowy day on the hill.  Not sure who Donna H, Bev, and Janette are.  Below are pictures of 1951 Chevy and 1951 Ford parked facing downhill so if they would not start with the battery,  we could "roll-start" them down the hill.  The Ford had a manual transmission and after popping the clutch, would turn the engine over easily and start.  The Chevy had an automatic and would have to get up to about 18 miles per hour before we pulled it into low.  Because of this, we had to wait till it got to the last, steepest part of the hill before we tried to start it and if it did not start, we were stuck with the car at the bottom of the hill on the level and had to jump start it with the Ford.  This meant walking back up the hill, finding the jumper cables, driving back with the Ford, starting the Chevy, then getting both cars back up the hill ready to go somewhere, probably leaving late for where ever we were heading.

January 26, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 26, 1963

Sat Mostly sunny 18 in am. I washed in am,  hung a line full outside and really dried good.  Didn’t do much in the PM had a headache.  The girls went sleigh riding with Awana at night.  Clifton  and I went to Evelyn's and Clifford's for a few minutes and picked up girls at parsonage.  It started to snow in evening and continued all night.  Gerald called from Mary Ann's and said he wouldn't be home.  Sold 3 cows to Bartholomew's, they picked them up at night.

Comment:  Probably stayed overnight in Gloversville because of the snow.  Rt30A was a nightmare in the winter with heavy drifting snow.  Evelyn and Clifford Taylor lived in Franklington, NY and Clifford ran a general store there for several years.  The picture is of Evelyn and Clifford with Glenn and Barry Taylor in front of the Elmer Hubbard home.  Glenn died of kidney failure when he was 21.  Here is a SongPoemStory about my last ride with him:  Click To Hear:  Hubbard Music Mountain: Last Ride With Glenn Taylor, Gerry Hubbard:

Glen Taylor was a gorgeous kid.  I’ve got a picture where
He’s standing with my brother Doug with big curls in his hair.
He grew up warm and kind and fun and I’m still pissed off today, that He died of kidney failure cause his family couldn't pay.

He drove a Karmen Ghia in the last year of his life,
He was in his early twenties and about to take a wife.
I must have been on army leave when he took me for a ride
In that hot foreign convertible and we both damn nearly died.

We were driving on the fire roads in the hills behind Earl’s lake
When he said “I’ve never seen a curve this baby couldn’t take.
He drove that narrow gravel road at 80 miles per
Then spun the wheel and tapped the brakes and broad slid thru the curve.

Then the dust and gravel flew, tag alders slapped the side
As he hit the gas & straightened out and kept on that wild ride.
He looked at me and flashed a grin, the devil in his eye,
And slyly chuckled as he said, “You think you want to try?”

His last words were “I’ve had it.” his brother Barry said,
As his family and his fiancé were gathered round his bed.
I think if he had had the chance to be with us today,
He’d be lot like Uncle Earle, I remember him that way.

As I remember all these folks in corny line and verse
“Being a lot like Uncle Earle?” You could do a whole lot worse.
So there you have it, it’s all done, a great kid’s come and gone,
That gorgeous child with the great big curl, dead at 21.

January 25, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 25, 1963

Fri Sunny 10 below in the am 10 to 0 at night.  Wayne didn’t have to go to school David and Clifton went to Middleburg after Chimmney Sweep for the big Chimmney which was full.  They cleaned that in the P.M. The water came out of water pipe over kitchen and that had to be fixed. Gerald came home at night.  Clifton,  the girls and I went to LaVerne's and Roberta's at night.

Comment:  Again a frigid day with water leaking from the pipes that froze and were fixed a couple of days ago.  Now the chimney is plugged and probably the wood stoves would not work or would fill the house with smoke.  I must have come home from Cobleskill Ag & Tech and it must be just about graduation time.  This is the chimney in the Hubbard Hill House and it ain't pretty.  The chimney is supported by a 2x12 cantilevered support that's resting on a large hand-hewn beam on the 2nd story floor.  The picture below is a view to the attic where the hot water heater was and probably where the leaking water pipe is.

January 24, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 24, 1963

Thurs Mostly sunny, windy and very cold:   -7 all day,  -12 early in a.m.  Wayne drove to school, only 1/2 day for him.  We didn’t go to prayer meeting because it was so cold.  I finished Carol's dress in evening.  David went to Sandy's for supper.

Comment:  Another frigid day with wind chills probably to minus 30.  Could probably feel cold drafts from most windows and doors.  Probably had to wear several layers to keep warm.  To keep warm in bed, we would fill quart canning jars with hot water, wrap them in newspaper and put them in the beds to cuddle up to.  We never seemed to have rubber hot water bottles.  I remember sleeping in the attic and the snow would be covering the blankets in the morning.  Here is a SongPoemStory I wrote about winter mornings:
Take a listen by clicking this link... Hubbard Music Mountain: Winter Mornings, Gerry Hubbard:

Winter Mornings

Winter Mornings

We boys slept in the attic on that Catskill Mountain Farm
And though the rain and snow blew in it seemed to cause no harm
We’d get up winter mornings, shake the snow off of our beds
Then grab our clothes and run downstairs where that old wood stove was fed

We’d dress as fast as young kids could, we pulled on several layers
And “Sword Of The Lord” from the radio blared out those Baptist prayers
Mom would bake some pancakes, fry up some ham and eggs
Then we brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink from the brushes hung on pegs

The only running water from the hand pump by the sink
We used to wash ourselves and cook and fill the pail to drink
We finally put a bathroom in when I was seventeen
But with ceiling low, you had to squat to get remotely clean

When younger, all us kids would group around the kitchen stove
And huddle with the oven open, as scents of wood smoke wove
All through the house and smells of ham and pancakes filled the air
I close my eyes, recall it all, it’s like I’m standing there

Marilyn fell flat-palmed one time upon that sizzling iron
And burned her hands with blisters while the rest of us looked on
She couldn’t balance, put her hands down several times at least
Till Mother finally grabbed her and salved her hands with grease

Those winter mornings come to me in Ohio winter’s cold
And seem to keep their clarity even as I grow more old
And the fireplace that burns with gas in our modern family room
Seems not as warm as that old stove on that run-down family farm.

January 23, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 23, 1963

Wed Warmer, cloudy, snow starting in the afternoon and contiuned part of night.  6 in evening,  very cold wind came in -12 and windy.  Drifting snow.  I worked on Carols dress in the P.M and evening.  Clifton went to Stamford with Bob Laux in am to see about a job.  I wrote to Marilyn.

Comment:  Wow, minus 12 and very windy.  Sure would hate to take out the manure in that weather.  Barn would have been freezing, tractor and manure spreader would have been parked in the dairy portion so the tractor would start.  The cattle body heat would raise the temp in the dairy portion to about freezing if the doors were kept closed.  The hay mow would have been frigid when we went up to throw down the hay bales.  Probably would have had to jump or roll start the cars and/or trucks.  All in all, probably a pretty miserable day on the farm.