Life on a Family Fruit Farm: the Early Years

By Philip S. Salisbury

This book was born out of an effort to recall significant characteristic, incidents, and occasions that were memorable in my young life. What has emerged is a compilation of vignettes on the diversity of the lives of one boy and his family as they work their way through the vicissitudes of life. It is seen through the new eyes of a growing boy.

What emerges is a life with ups, downs, and even times. Life on a fruit farm provides a relatively constant demand for growth and responsibility. Children are exposed to hard work, many choices, and a variety of experiences at an early time in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984537232

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Philip S. Salisbury.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018907475

ISBN:                Hardcover                    978-1-9845-3704-1

                          Softcover                       978-1-9845-3705-8

                          eBook                            978-1-9845-3723-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/13/2018

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CONTENTS

Introduction

The Farmhouse

The Cellar

Candling Eggs

Paul’s Finger

Building a Wagon Rack

The Two Barns

The Milk Cows

Bert Wilson’s Ride

The Shop

Grandma

Grandpa Lew

My Pregnancy

The Old Ford Coupe

A Week at Grandma’s

Getting Caught

Making Butter

Raising Rabbits

Fishing

The Woodlots

Siblings Fighting

Gus, the Hired Man

Threshing Time

Rusty

Rheumatic Fever

Paul’s Fall

The Swing

Strawberries

Cherry Time

Participating in the Fourth of July Parade

The Fourth of July

The Tomato and Potato Lots

Growing and Harvesting Peas

Going to Lake Cayuga

Going to Lake Keuka

Seeing New York State

Going to McFarland’s in Rochester

Storms

Learning to Play Sports

Playing Football in the Side Lot

The Arson Scare

Making Money for the Boy Scouts

The UNICEF Drive

Uncles, Aunts, and Cousins

Apples

Watching an Apple Crop Disappear

Cider Making Time

The Community Fair

Dad’s Accident

Sending Cookies to Leonard

Taken by Colds and Fever

Skating

Snowed In

Candy and Popcorn Making with Grandma and Grandpa

Christmas Time on the Farm

The Basketball Court

Introduction

This book was born out of an effort to recall significant characteristic, incidents, and occasions that were memorable in my young life. What has emerged is a compilation of vignettes on the diversity of the lives of one boy and his family as they work their way through the vicissitudes of life. It is seen through the new eyes of a growing boy.

What emerges is a life with ups, downs, and even times. Life on a fruit farm provides a relatively constant demand for growth and responsibility. Children are exposed to hard work, many choices, and a variety of experiences at an early time in life.

Constantly present is the environment of nature. One is exposed to all its vagaries. Life becomes embedded in the seasonality that rules a farmer’s existence. Individuals become interdependent and independent. One quickly learns to discern the character of others as working with people is one of the best ways to learn about them. Work and play tell us so much about each other. One of the beauties of life is that it is very difficult to avoid human association…in fact, many of us seek out interaction for some of the most treasured times in life.

A second intent of these vignettes, in addition to exploring the diversity of life, is to expose the nature of farm life at a time of transition. From the early forties forward became a time of transition for farmers. The introduction of new equipment, consolidation of farms from the family farm to the much bigger farms, and the increased complexity of life and work on farms has been a constant of farm life.

Despite this farmers and farming remains a unique style of life.

With that short introduction, I hope you find this an enjoyable read. Any shortcomings remain my responsibility.

The Farmhouse

A row of maples grew on the east side of Marbletown Road and the west side of the pasture. They led up from the south to the farmhouse with two gaps for the dirt drive way. Two maples were at the east end of the sunken tennis court. Two more maples were at the front of the house. The two trees in the front lawn were spaced with the two maples growing from the tennis court to accommodate the driveway.

The driveway was U-shaped. It connected on its southern side to what was at one time a garage. The lowest level of the newest barn held our station wagon.

On the north side of the farmhouse there was an old sweet cherry tree. In addition to being a great climbing tree it yielded some tasty sweet cherries. The tree was taken down when it stopped yielding cherries. On the other side (north) of the gravel driveway there was open land, and fruit trees that stood to the east about twenty feet off the northern edge of the road.

The old farmhouse stood situated within the horseshoe-shaped drive-way. Built in about 1906 it was designed to have two windows in every room.

The farmhouse was built with four different levels – the cellar, the first floor where Grandpa and Grandma lived, a second floor that had been remodeled to accommodate our family, and an attic. There were stairs on both the east and west ends of the house and between the second floor and the attic.

In its early years, it had been a single-house that accommodated Grandpa and Grandma and their four boys. Dad, who graduated from the Wharton School, worked a short spell with C.H. Stuart in Newark, New York. It was the predecessor to Sarah Coventry jewelry. World War II was beginning. Farm workers were one of the classes of working people that were exempt from the draft. Grandpa Lew had experienced a heart problem. Dad got the call to return to the farm. He cast his lot with his father and stayed working on the farm.

In search of housing, the natural move was into the second floor of the old farmhouse. The move from Newark was a vague memory.

The first floor of the farmhouse had a kitchen, a pantry, a dining room, living room (with an old Franklin fireplace in one corner where the chimney went up), and a bathroom with doors into my grandparents bedroom and into the dining room. There was a set of cupboards between the kitchen and dining room. Beneath the cupboards was a pass-thru that allowed for passing dishes between the kitchen and the dining room and vice-versa.

In the living room a large, covered mahogany desk was placed in one corner. It had a myriad of drawers, open cubby-holes, a small drawer, and a hinged cover which doubled as a writing surface. Here, Grandpa wielding a well-worn letter-opener, opened his mail, took care of the farm’s business, and talked on the crank-phone box that hung on the wall next to his desk.

Our phone number was 10F3. To dial out you rang the operator, gave her the number, and waited until she rang it. The operator was the center of much communication. If she wanted she could listen in on calls. It was a small town and some people were in the know about everyone’s business.

At the back of the house, a stairway ascended from the utility room to a landing at the top of the stairs. On the north wall of the landing were a series of hooks attached to a brown painted board. The coat-rack was long enough to easily accommodate a family of two adults and five kids (John born 4/13/1940, Philip born 9/2/1941, Paul born 11/17/1942, Elizabeth born 10/2/1946), Sarah Louise born 7/2/19 49). The floor was covered with dark green linoleum to resist the mud, snow, and rain that were frequently carried upstairs from feet that had been outdoors.

From the landing there were three doors. One of them was a wood-framed pressed-fiber door opening to a passageway that led around the back wall of a bathroom. In the passageway to the hall there was a door which opened onto stairs connecting to the attic. As one went through the passageway a door opened on the end of the hall. Several rooms (the dining room, the living room, the bathroom, and two (eventually three) bedrooms were connected to the hall. What became the master bedroom started out as the bedroom for the three boys. When the utility room burned down, Paul and I moved to a newly built bedroom on the western end of the farmhouse over the utility room. Dad converted the landing over the west most stairs into a bedroom for John.

The second door was to the east of the landing and led to Paul’s and my bedroom. After opening the bedroom door one took two or three steps down into the bedroom. The entire back of the house had been a utility room without a second floor. A fire destroyed that room. The local Fire Department saved the rest of the farmhouse, but the utility room which provided entrance ways to both floors of the house, was a total loss.

There were two needs that the reconstruction of that part of the house met. First, the utility room and then a bedroom for Paul and me were part of the construction plan. Lew Holtz, the carpenter in town, helped Dad frame in the two-floor structure on a concrete surface. The second floor was remarkable for the fact it had windows on three sides exposed to the elements. When the windows, clapboard, wiring, switches, light fixtures, electrical outlets, plasterboard, and insulation, were in place, finishing touches were applied. This consisted of putting in trim, baseboard, a closet, and painting (two coats). The respective rooms were filled with their contents.

The old utility room had a zinc-tank washing machine with a ringer attached to the upper edge of the tank. The washing machine was a total loss. The milk separator survived and was reinstalled in its traditional place by the doorway into the utility room entrance from outside.

A large two-door upright freezer was installed. This was about the time most fruit and vegetables were frozen rather than canned. The freezer became the alternative to canning. There were some exceptions…pickles, tomatoes, and pears were still canned for use when they were out of season. The utility room had a door that led into Grandma’s kitchen. From the downstairs kitchen there was a door that opened onto a short set of