Dear Group, This evening I called my dear friend, Cora Gushee, our local Town of Porter Historian, with just a personal question that didn't have ALL that much to do with the history of our town. In the course of our conversation she mentioned that she had read a query in the most recent Niagara County Genealogical Society newsletter from someone who had mentioned the HACKETT family of Town of Wilson. She said she had been very tempted to respond to it, but felt that the only information she could contribute regarding the family was just her personal memory of the family. And then Cora and I had an interesting conversation regarding the Hackett family of Wilson. First off, Cora was born in March of 1903 in Town of Wilson. Yes, she's 97 years old but don't let her age fool you. Her brain is still so active and is filled with so much historical information that it's a pity that we can't just cut-and-paste all that huge amount of information. Cora started out by telling me that the query had to do with Justus Hackett. Well, she remembered him-she remembered that he was always called Jud. She remembered when she was a young girl in Wilson when he was the Postmaster. She figured that she must have been around 15 or 16 years old at the time and when she went to the post office to pick up the mail, he would always embarrass her whenever she received a post card from someone. He would always read it out loud to her in front of everyone else at the post office at the time. But then she also remembered that during the time that Jud had a dairy farm, he would pick her up and take her to school, and on the way he would deliver his milk to the train. She also mentioned that he had a son Glenn Hackett who had a grocery store in Niagara Falls. And when she mentioned that, the first thing that popped into my mind was Hackett's Bakery. I asked her if it was the store on Main St. right next to the First Baptist Church? Yes! Oh, wow!! I REMEMBER it! I then told her why I particularly remembered it. It was during the long years of WW II when butter was so scarce that it was called "Dairy Gold." One cold winter day Mother came home with a loaf of fresh bread from Hackett 's that was still warm and with it she brought home one quarter of a pound of real BUTTER! Mother was so excited when she came through the door with her bag of groceries and I remember her blurting out to me, "I found some BUTTER!" And even though we knew it wasn't fair to the other members of the family who weren't there right then, Mother and I sat right down and had the most delicious treat in all of our lives-a slice of fresh warm bread from Hackett's Bakery spread with real BUTTER! I can still remember the occasion. I was about 11 years old then (ca 1942) and there was just Mother and me sitting across the kitchen table from each other feeling absolutely decadent that we were enjoying such a treat when the rest of the family didn't even know that we had butter on the table. Nothing in my life has EVER tasted as good as that! But I also remember that Mother limited us to only one slice of bread and butter. Oh how difficult it was for both of us for her to set such a limit! So that was about the extent of my conversation with Cora this evening. However, after we hung up, I was curious to see if I could find out something about old Jud Hackett who Cora still remembers so clearly. And, By George, there he is in the local history books! He was Justus W. Hackett, born in Wilson, NY, on Oct. 14, 1854, son of Justus W. and Betsey (Felt) Hackett. And, yes, he was the Wilson Postmaster from 1914 to 1918, just as Cora had remembered-she said she was around 15 or 16 years old at the time (she was born in 1903). And Cora KNEW him and REMEMBERS him! Now here's what's a bit of a pity. Cora had noticed that the person who had posted that query in the Niagara County Genealogical Society newsletter had included his/her email address. Now, none of us want to discourage anyone with access to email from NOT posting queries to a newsletter that is mailed out via the post office and, instead, post them to our list or to the appropriate RootsWeb site. All of us know that RootsWeb is the best way to go to post queries and get responses. But do you know what? If someone had posted such a Town of Wilson HACKETT query to our list or anywhere else, I wouldn't have recognized the family name and maybe I wouldn't have been encouraged to research the family further. Chances are that I would have just read it over and then deleted it. But leave it up to dear old Cora! She may not have a computer or an email address, but there are some times when she just has to tell me about a query that she has read and wants to share with me what she remembers about the family. As a result, if there are any of you out there who want to know what the history books have to say about Justus Hackett, just ask me. Who knows but what I could encourage Cora to give some more details that the history books don't cover! vee