A New Baby, By Uncle Jack and Pat K. Herdeg

This story is from earlier this summer, but thought you all would enjoy it:


I think more than a few of my siblings were surprised as we noticed this email subject land in our computer in-boxes: ‘Surprise: New Baby at 28 English Station Rd.’

Hmmmm. NOW what are Mom and Dad up to?

Dad explains:

Your Ma and I were doing something in the backyard yesterday and it was the day the corporation was cutting the grass. Two of the young grass cutters were looking at the bushes behind our garage so I asked them what they were looking for. They said there was a baby fawn there. Finally we were able to see it but just barely.

Later when they left and things quieted down, the fawn stood up and your Ma called me to take a picture of it.

Your Ma talked to a backdoor neighbor who said the day before she noticed a deer--regular size (no doubt the mother) wandering about in our backyard; earlier, she saw a baby fawn in her yard nursing from a mother deer. Then she said, "The mother deer is still there, in your bushes, I can see her."

We looked and in the bushes near the tree the grandkids love to climb there was no doubt the mother. This is about 40 feet from the bushes where the fawn was.

Later in the evening, we went to a concert at school that Maddy was playing in and of course we told them about it. When we got back they all wanted to see the fawn. By that time the fawn and the mother had disappeared.

Exciting lives we live!


Love,

Dad

Taylor Reunion, 2011 By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

Check the right side of the blog for a link to any pictures of the Reunion as they show up in my email box! Thank you, Dad aka Uncle Jack for these!

 Aunt CB and Jon Maney

 Uncle Harold Taylor

 Jim Kinsella and Elliott Catherman

 Leah Walker and Olivia Rooks

Dave Lochner and Dan Maney

Another Terrific Reunion! As always, it was at Uncle Harold’s place on Cayuga Lake. Now, mid-September can bring all kinds of weather, and the Taylors show up no matter what, but luckily, this Saturday was a nice and sunny day for visiting with relatives.

Of the 29 cousins, (thanks to Nancy Taylor Wright for the cousins chart!), 18 turned out, along with their families, so there was a large amount of us! Aunt CB and Uncle Harold were the elders of the group, along with Aunt Barb’s sister and Uncle Jack.

The Food, as always, was varied and there was plenty of it. We had all sorts of salads, meatballs, sausages, veggies, fruit salads, cookies, brownies, elderberry pie and Tom’s Loon Cookies. NO ONE went hungry!!

Little Leah ( 16 months) and Olivia ( 13 months) had fun walking around deciding if they wanted to play with each other. The other kids remembered each other and were soon climbing trees, playing cards, seeing what objects they could launch into the lake, and creating general mayhem. Oh wait, that was their parents doing most of that.

A new winery just opened up down the street, so that had to be taste-tested.

Charlie Hawkes and Pat Kinsella Herdeg have a bet with the Jets versus the Patriots. The one with the worst record will wear the other team’s shirt next reunion, along with fitting remorseful words on the back of the jersey. Since the Patriots will win this bet, I can’t wait to see Charlie next September.

Once again, Kathy and Annie did a phenomenal job getting this all organized. Thank you!

It was so good to see everyone, even if I did not get long enough with ANY of you. Hope your autumn is kind to you. Love you all.

A Slice of Life At Age 88 –Autumn 1992 By Vince Youngs

The Youngs--Lida, Baby Vincent, Edwin, Bertha, Mable, Taken 1906

Vincent Edwin Youngs was the son of Edwin and Lida Youngs, so the nephew of Kate Youngs Baker. He married Hazel Simmons and they had two daughters. In 1992, at the age of 88, he taped himself and sent the audio tape to a relative out in Oregon. He and Hazel lived in Endicott, NY.

Here is a bit of his life at age 88:

“This is your Uncle Vince. It’s Sunday morning and it’s about forty degrees I guess out here. We just finished breakfast and we’re in pretty good shape for anyone as old as Hazel and I are. But, we’re doing pretty good.

Well, I went deer hunting the first day, just up above the house here. I can’t go too far –I can’t walk that far. So, I walked around awhile up in the brush and a big deer jumped out and I shot it and it rolled down the lawn and I hooked onto it with the little tractor and took it in and I didn’t have to drag it a foot. So, I got my venison. Well, that was okay.

Hazel’s in the bathroom getting dressed and I’m sitting here with my little white dog on my lap. She sits here on my lap a lot. She’s getting old –must be about thirteen, fourteen years old. She’s getting old along with the rest of us. Well, I just looked out here; I’ve got bird feeders out here and there’s about twenty or so mourning doves and blue jays. We have them all the time. I fed them about a hundred pound of feed this fall (as he laughs). It makes a lot of company for us.

I love you all and I hope that you’re all well and everything goes just fine. So, I guess I’ll sign off and send this tape to you and see if you can understand it (as he gently laughs). I hope you can. So, this is Old Vince saying goodbye and love to all of you.”

‘Old Vince’ as he called himself lived to age 91, dying five months after his Hazel.

Thank you to cousin Norma Stephens Bruscani for supplying the audio tape.

Remembering 9/11—Ten Years On—

I think most of us have been pausing this weekend to reflect on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. We didn’t have facebook ten years ago, but we DID have our family quarterly newsletter. So, I have what we wrote after 9/11. Here is just a small portion of the twenty pages we wrote:

From Essays written --One month after 9/11, In October 2001:

From Beth Kinsella Sakanishi living in Japan:

“It’s hard to write about something so wrenching, so completely mind and emotion-saturating. I still feel as if I am made of glass as I walk around. I guess one place for me to start is what none of you experience: life lived elsewhere during a national crisis.

It was ten in the evening here and we were watching ABC as the second plane hit. We stayed up until three and then I could not bear to watch anymore. Everyone here has been so sympathetic and caring. Not only my students and neighbors have asked if my family and friends are safe, but the people in the post office and supermarket.

It occurred to me that the truth about clichés is that, while in ordinary times they may seem banal, in times of great grief, they are safety lines. They are rungs in a ladder to help us peer out of a deep well, to help us test the air.”

From Julie Lochner Riber:

“We had gotten up early that morning. We turned on the TV, as we usually do, debating over whether we’d watch cartoons (Wes) or the news (Julie). I won the battle that morning. Wes exclaimed “Oh my God! Someone just flew a plane into the World Trade Center!”

I want to know all I can so I can tell future generations honestly how I felt and why. I owe it to those who died September 11th and those who are fighting this war. Am I afraid? Not really. Am I aware? Intensely. If I could do anything more than that, would I? You bet.”

From Kristin Kinsella Walker ( Kristin Kinsella then):

“The patriotism that this country is displaying makes me proud. Since I wasn’t around in any of the World War I or II times, I don’t know if this is how America was then, but that is how I imagine it. Houses, cars, buildings, trees, everything has a flag on it.

It seems that nothing can go back to how it used to be, and that makes me sad. I try to go on with my life as normal, but I don’t really know if it’s possible.”

From Pat Kinsella Herdeg:

“Norman Rockwell’s ‘Four Freedoms’ comes to mind—in particular , ‘Freedom from Fear’: A mother and father tucking their young children into bed in an upstairs attic room, the floor scattered with toys and dolls. The parents’ wear looks of tender love and of worry. The father holds a folded newspaper in his one hand—headlines from Pearl Harbor.

Now, as I look back I am struck that my first emotion after the horror was one of anger. For all of my life, we lived in what might be innocent arrogance—our country could not be touched by war. Pearl Harbor? Act of war and on a faraway group of islands. But the idea of 9/11….And, now, my children will have to grow up in a world far different from the one I did, if only emotionally.”

From Nick Herdeg ( age 10) : “ Bin Laden is a bum.”

From Lucille ‘Aunt CB’ Taylor Kinsella:

“With Pearl Harbor we had an immediate enemy to marshal our forces on. We all became ‘brothers’ and every sacrifice was made without complaint.

This time it is different in that ‘terrorists’ come in many colors and costumes. This war will be fought differently.

Mom writes eloquently that we need a new ‘Marshall Plan’ to help the poorer countries. She ends with: “hopefully we will settle down to a determination to pursue not only terrorists but help the poor societies which spawn them.”

John ‘Uncle Jack’ Kinsella:

“Will it change America? My answer is yes—it certainly has changed my thinking forever. I have always believed in the concept of “Fortress America”. We were safe in our ‘Fortress’ with the largest moat in the world—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

I now know that it is possible for people who hate us to easily cross our moats and do our country serious harm.”

Chris Kinsella wrote a well-thought out essay on war throughout the ages and ends with:

“It is interesting that history has shown that the superpowers are constantly threatened where they are most vulnerable. We must learn from this.

I believe the government needs to provide funds and protection on our planes, trains, mass transit and other terrorist targets.”

Sue Kinsella wrote:

When I drive in to San Francisco now, I slow down before the Golden Gate Bridge and look for planes. I do not feel safer knowing that military generals can give the order to shoot down commercial jetliners.

I am very grateful that we got filled up on family time this summer, when we got to see all of you. Have I told you, each and every one of you, that I love you?”

Jen Dalle Kinsella wrote:

“My mind kept racing back to the summer of 1991 when I worked at the World Trade Center. I still have my access badge—44th floor of Tower One. Doesn’t do me any good now.

I had the opportunity to go out on the catwalk on the 110th floor. I have no fear of heights—there is no glass, no guardrail, and no noise. Just you and a breathtaking view of the city at night. And now it is gone.”

And, I have to end with Dan Kinsella’s thoughts:

“One of the things that travel to other countries brings is a realization of how good we have it here. Our way of life is not ordained, it is not guaranteed; it is only achieved by much hard work every generation. It’s time for more hard work to maintain it.

We’ve been able to do it for the last 225 years, here’s hoping we can do it again.”

As Sue said ten years ago: “Have I told you, each and every one of you, that I love you?”

Grandparents’ Kitchens, by Aunt CB

Grandma's Porch, Center Lisle
Thinking back to the 1930’s when I went down to Grandma Baker’s for vacations, I can still see in my mind’s eye her kitchen, a large sunny room with a big iron cooking stove, a cot under the back window to nap on, a rocking chair near the front window, back in the corner with the farm journals near at hand to read in any spare time—but the real center of life was the round dining table off to the side.

Grandma Baker--I love this picture! Is this how she waited for the grandchildren to arrive? With pie in hand and sitting in the snow?

Surrounded by chairs, the table center was covered with a special cloth which covered all the important things left there from meal to meal. Everyone did this, to ward off flies, for tables in those days were set with more than plates and silverware. There was always a spoon holder, a vase like glass from which the spoon handles protruded. There was too, the sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and Grandma’s table always had a pedestal cake stand, loaded with not cake but cookies, great big lemony sugar cookies or molasses ones. There was need for a covering cloth with all the sweet stuff calling the flies.

Emily Carr Taylor, Grandpa Taylor's second wife

My Grandfather Taylor had a castor set for the table center. This was a silver handled round basket like tray with holes where glass bottles were inserted. These were filled with vinegar, home made ketchup, maybe hot sauce or mustard. When we had family dinners at his house above each place was set a tiny glass dish filled with salt to dip radishes or celery in. The celery stood in a tall round vase-like glass while the radishes, all cut to resemble roses, were passed in boat like dishes. The Taylors were more formal than the Bakers. Another accessory dish to any meal where chicken was served was the small individual kidney shaped dish, nestled to the left of your plate. You placed the bones there.

Meals were heavier in those early days, vitamins were just being discovered. Salads were hearty macaroni, potato or cabbage, not tossed lettuce or jello molds. Regardless of the food content, a well set table contained all of the above and was covered after each meal.

A lot more work than today!

40 Porter Street in Batavia--where Grandpa Taylor and Emily lived

September Birthdays 2011

Hard to believe that the summer is almost over, but the month of September IS here. And, that means fall birthdays.

In Aunt Glady’s family, Gail L. Kinney ( Gladys’ daughter) , Sylvia Langstaff ( daughter of Kayte Barron Langstaff), Nance Wood Drumm ( daughter of Lester – Chic-Wood, son of Gladys), and Daniel Decker (son of Laurel Decker, daughter of Gladys) all enjoy September Birthdays.

Gail Kinney

Sylvia Langstaff

Nancy Wood Drumm

Laurel Wood Decker and her two sons, Michael and Daniel
Uncle Dick

Chuck Lochner

In Aunt Esther’s family, her husband, Richard Edward Lochner, her son--- Charles Edward Lochner, and James Andrew Lochner—Ted’s son, all blow out candles this month.

Jimmy Lochner

In Aunt Phyllis’ family, Liam Asahel Marlatt, son of Kathleen Henderson, grandson of Wendell, and Robert Coleman ( married to Phyllis Howland) both have birthdays.

Aunt Doris
In Aunt Doris’ family, Aunt Doris herself is the Birthday Girl—Yay—you would have been 87 years old this month.

In Aunt Ruth’s family, Patrick Michael Maney (son of Dan), and Lorraine Liberatore Maney—Mike’s wife, both are September Birthday Kids.

In Aunt Sylva’s family, Timothy Eugene Arnold ( Linda Emhof Arnold’s son) is the Birthday Boy.
In the Floyd Taylor family, Jennifer Taylor (daughter of Barry and Cathy Taylor) is the Birthday Girl.

In the Older Generations, Daniel Rockwell Taylor and Olive ( Aunt Nell to Ethel, Adin, Ruth and Lil) Baker Barrows are September Births.

Aunt Maria
In Uncle Arnon’s family, his wife--Maria Robey Taylor, Andrew Laurens Taylor (George’s son), Donnie Wright (son of Nancy Taylor Wright), and Ashley Taylor Wright (Stephen's daughter, granddaughter of Nancy Taylor Wright) all are September Birthday Kids.

Andrew Taylor

Donnie and Sarah

Congratulations to all!