I thought maybe the web site would like this as it is about people from the community.I am the great grand daughter of Morgan Putney and Moriah Cusick Jann Whalen Parks Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. Woodrow Wilson ----- Original Message ----- From: MARTHA To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 2:46 PM Subject: Fw: Great Grandpa John Putney...Let me know if you need me to copy for you ----- Original Message ----- From: Bernice M Pagliaro To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 12:28 PM Subject: Great Grandpa John Putney Hi - Mom just wrote this info for Martha about things she remembered about her grandfather, and I thought I'd pass it along to you. Bernie JOHN PUTNEY I believe that my Grandfather, John Putney, was born on November 7 or 8, 1852, son of John and Merilla Putney. He was in a "middle set" of children. His Father had a first wife, and there were children Frank, Isaac, Horace, Morgan & Mary from that marriage. Grandpa's father was killed in a farm accident when he was still a teenager. After his first wife died, John married again and had John (Jr.), my grandfather, and a sister Alicia. We knew her as "Aunt Vice Prentice". She had a son named Wade that we children always called Uncle Wade, although he was really a cousin. Wade was one of Warsaw's best known dentists, who never married. Grandpa's mother married again to a George Webster, and there were several more half brothers and sisters - Florida, Gillman and Frank. I don't know when Grandpa was married, but his wife had consumption - TB - and died when my father Jay was very young. A picture of their house & family has been found and he looked to be about 4 yrs. old around that time. Grandpa had left the area with some neighbors to go "Out West". The group had gotten as far as Illinois when word came of his Father's death, and he was called back to New York to help care for the family and work on the farm. About the only thing I remember of his telling about this trip was that there had been a terrible storm. When they came out from wherever they had taken shelter, there was only one horse tied to a large post that was still standing. His (half) sister Mary must have gone with them, as we just knew that our Aunt Mary Case Nelson was the grandmother of the Henry Case from California who lived "out west" and would return to visit occasionally. (Henry came to me a few years ago looking for family information.) She was not well; I think she must have had cancer. I remember they said she put poultices of raw steak on her breast so that the disease would "eat the meat instead of her". I must have been 4 years old or younger at the time. I know Grandpa ! always let her sit in his rocking chair when she visited - nobody else ever did that! It was customary at that time for young women to "hire out" in homes with health problems or too many people for the wife to care for alone. Some women helped out at Grandpa's house.. One was named "Ora", and that is who I was named for. Another was Elizabeth Zimmerman who Grandpa married later. She was called "Lizzie" - our Grandma Putney. When my mother Nellie went to board with them at the time she was teaching in their school district, and this was how she met my father, Jay. My antique organ came from their home. I remember that Grandma Putney would speak German on the telephone when she was talking to her sister Mary Shumaker, so we children wouldn't understand what she was saying. Grandpa was a farmer who had a dairy of cows. However, he also did threshing for some of the neighbors. This meant that he went from farm to farm in the area, and he would always take his son Jay (my Dad) with him. Therefore Dad had very little formal schooling, as he mainly attendrf school only in the winter when he wasn't helping Grandpa. Grandpa also ran a "fertilizer business". He would go to Buffalo on the train to buy his fertilizer, a whole railroad car full at a time. When it arrived in Warsaw, the farmers came with their teams and wagons to take a load back to their farms. When the crops began to mature in late summer or early fall, Grandpa would go around and get his money for the fertilizer they had bought. Uncle Clifford told me that at least once, Grandpa also took him on the train to Buffalo. I also remember that when I was young, sometimes Grandpa went to Buffalo and had a "skin cancer" taken off his ear. He was always working in the hot sun. When Dad (Jay) was married, Grandpa gave him the adjoining farm on the south. They always worked the two farms as "one". I remember when daylight savings time first went into effect, Grandpa insisted that they keep the same hours. Dad would have to get up around 4 a.m. and go to the pasture to get the cows down to the barn because it was still dark. I think he would have preferred to stay in bed a bit longer! Grandpa usually had a hired man to help with the farm work. I suppose this was because he had so much "other business". These men were usually from the city and had to "learn" about farming. When I was a teenager, he used to have boys or young men who had had a bit of a problem in the city and just needed a good home and food. They were usually around Clifford's age, and we had many good times together. We caught June bugs in pails at night, using a lantern to attract them, and we played games both inside and outdoors. Momma and Grandma "mothered" them, and lots of good came from their work. Grandpa kept bees. He had about a half dozen hives set in a far corner of the orchard that was north of the house. This area was "off limits" for us children. Grandpa would wear a large straw hat with a veil that came down to his shoulders when he was at the hives, putting in little wooden boxes with no bottoms or tops. The bees would fill the space in each box with honeycomb - wax with pockets of honey. They didn't sting him very often - I never knew why. In the spring and early summer, the honey would be a light clear yellow - clover honey. Later in summer the honey was a light brown, made from the buckwheat flowers. Buckwheat was a grain crop that isn't grown much now. The blossoms were small, white and very fragrant. From the grain we got our buckwheat flour that became buckwheat pancakes and dark wheat bread. At our house we always had as much of this honey as we wanted. The clover honey was considered to be the most desirable, so it was sold.. One day when we were visiting Grandma, she noticed that the bees had begun to collect on a branch of the crab apple tree in the front yard. She called Grandpa from the field, and he hurried in. He gave each of us a large tin pan and a large cooking spoon so we could bang and bang. We made a terrible noise, which somehow affected the bees. He hurried and got a new hive ready and put it beside the others. I'm not sure if he put it under the ball of bees first or not. By now there was a large ball about the size of a basketball. He said it was a new queen who had developed and half of the workers were going with her. Somehow the ball of bees was gotten into the new hive. They called this swarming, and if he hadn't successively gotten them into this new home, they would have eventually gone into the woods to find a hollow tree. I don't think we had more than one or two stings out of the whole episode. Every year Grandpa & Grandma planted a large garden. He was especially proud of his large pumpkins. Sometimes he put them near the road where people could see them as they went by. He also liked his tomatoes and would take a nice red one and eat it like an apple. Later in our lives we learned to like them that way or with salt, but at that time we children preferred our tomatoes with sugar. There was a quince bush near the garden gate, and Grandma made wonderful quince jelly. She would give us a slice of "just baked bread" with jelly. It was so good my mouth still waters now just thinking about it. Unfortunately, when their house burned in the late 1930's, the quince bush was destroyed, too. When Clifford was young - probably under twelve - he and Grandpa would go squirrel hunting in the woods. He taught Clifford all about using a rifle correctly and how to shoot woodchucks. Woodchucks would often dig their holes in the field or near stone piles. If a horse stepped into one, he was in danger of breaking a leg. When Clifford and Grandpa brought their squirrels home, my mother would refuse to cook them. But Grandma would fix up a "squirrel dinner", and Clifford was always a "guest" to dinner at their house that evening. Clifford used to tell me about it and laugh and laugh. When cars became available, my Dad (Jay) bought a 1914 Ford. Grandpa had what was considered a "better car" - a Chevrolet. It was larger, but it was open sided, just like the Ford. Somehow Grandpa couldn't ever "get the hang" of shifting gears. The Ford did it with foot pedals, but the Chevrolet had a hand shift. Whenever he started it, there would be a big jerk that almost threw us out of the back seat. If he had to change gears it was the same thing. For some reason he had the front floor boards out so the "working part" could be seen. We always sat in the rear seat. If the weather was rainy, side curtains were snapped on between the top and side of the car. There were a few habits that Grandpa had that were grievous to both my mother and Grandma, although she never complained or scolded. She was very proud of being Grandpa's wife. Grandpa rarely smoked, but he chewed tobacco a great deal. He bought his tobacco in round, tin pails - about a quart or quart and a half size. We children used the empty pails as lunch pails for school until I was in the upper grades. They had nice firm handles so were easy to carry. His other bad habit was "in the cellars". In those days, in the fall apples were taken to a mill and the juice squeezed for apple cider. Everyone made their own vinegar from apples in those days. There would be a large barrel of apple juice. They would take a half cup or so of the "mother", a brown gooky mess, and put it into a new barrel of juice; in a month or two it would be vinegar. People did lots of pickling, so a good amount of vinegar was needed for a whole year. However, Grandpa also had a smaller barrel that he filled with cider that "just sat", I guess - anyway, it became an alcoholic drink, hard cider. On occasions he would take a visitor to the cellar. Grandma never approved, and we children were never allowed down there, of course. Sometimes it made him cross and complaining. Grandpa had good health until his later years when he had some "heart problems". Some nights his legs would cramp, too. I can remember him saying many a time that he "walked the floor" until three o'clock. I don't suppose they had enough vegetables, especially in mid-winter. Oranges were a specialty to be had only at Christmas, and I can't even remember eating bananas. We did have lots of apples. When radios were invented, Grandpa was the first in the neighborhood to have one. It was so exciting to think that we could hear music which was being played in Philadelphia or Boston. Often, rather than listening to a whole program, he was always searching for a different station. We spent many evenings at his home listening to that radio. He had two sets of earphones which would be taken apart so four people could listen at a time. When we were down home and he found something special on the radio, he would phone us and hold an earphone to the receiver. As we were on a five party line, I imagine this was not always appreciated by our neighbors! I remember mid-winter walks to his house over crunching snow with many stars and the sky just streaked with northern lights. Clear, cold nights were always when he got the best radio reception, and the northern lights were the most colorful. Grandpa died May 1938, just three weeks before my wedding to Eldon. Grandma was also sick-a-bed, and I don't think she was conscious enough to know when he was gone. She died 5 days later. My grandparents were buried in the small Buffalo Road Cemetery.