Minnesota caught in a Time Warp--Transported back to January By Carol Ann Taylor Hart

We had two snow storms within the last few days, one last Thursday night and one Monday Night.  The only one in the month of April that really loves the snow is none other than my dog Travis.  When the snow will end who knows.  Here are some pictures to enjoy!

My Favorite Pet, Shellie By Norma Bruscani

I needed to put up something good today as we are glued to our television news, hoping for a quick and speedy resolution to this terrible tragedy. One of our cousins on the Baker/Youngs side, Norma Stephens Bruscani writes about her favorite pet:

Shellie

We got Shellie at the Avon Flea Market on a very cold Sunday morning, much to my daughter's surprise, and yes, she did have fleas. She was so tiny and so alert, and just knew that I wouldn't be able to resist her. My daughter, Marisa, was 8 years old, and it was time for her to have a dog.

The two of them were adorable playing together, especially "hide and seek". Marisa would ask me to keep Shellie beside me while she would go hide. Then, I'd say, "Where's Marisa?" Shellie would search and search until Marisa would pop out from her hiding spot, when Shellie had found her. Such excitement from both of them!

They played this game, often, until one day, Marisa asked me to "hide" Shellie, which I did, under the kitchen chair on which I was sitting. Marisa would search the living room and the dining room saying "Where's Shellie? Where's Shellie?" while Shellie stayed anxiously under my chair, with my help. Then, Marisa would come out to the kitchen and pretend that she couldn't see Shellie, and say, again, "Where's Shellie?", as she walked past Shellie in her "secret hiding place".

Marisa would continue walking, still "searching", as Shellie would very quietly come out from underneath the chair and stay directly behind Marisa, following her, but not giving herself away, at all. Finally, after 2 or 3 minutes, Marisa would turn around and act "so surprised" that Shellie was right there. Such excitement would ensue! I must say, though, that Shellie and Marisa weren't the only ones that enjoyed this game of "hide and seek". My mom, and I enjoyed it, every bit as much as they did. It never got "old" for any of us.

My brother gave us a "Neurotic Dog Lives Here" sign, to put on our door, because Shellie hated him and would run right into the bottom of the refrigerator and fall down, every time he came to our home. He had a deep voice and was a smoker, maybe that's why she reacted in such a way. We never knew, for sure, why she didn't like him.

When Shellie was quite young, she had a bladder stone, the full size of her bladder, at about 2" x 1 1/2" x 1/2". Amazingly, the veterinarian said that it was the largest bladder stone that he had ever removed from a dog her size. He kept the stone and used it in training future veterinarians. Shellie was only 12 pounds, when full grown. Once that stone was removed, she never had any other health issues, thankfully.

I've had 3 other Shelties, since Shellie, but none of them ever took her place. Each one of them was special in his or her own way. Chelsea, another Sable colored, was the sweetest, by far. Kody, a Blue Merle Shelty, was the only boy. He had ice blue eyes and was the biggest and oversized, but, oh so beautiful.

Bianca, also, was a Blue Merle. She had one blue eye and one brown eye. She was, probably, the naughtiest...squatting to "pee" in my dining room, while looking right at me as I would screech "NO!", with absolutely no effect. With that said, Bianca was going to have to find a new home. My daughter, Marisa, now with a family of her own, decided that Bianca's new home would be at their house, which worked out, relatively, well. As long as they kept one particular room gated off, Bianca didn't disrespect the privilege of living there. On the other hand, if someone forgot to put that gate up...old habits resurfaced, but, they loved her. Marisa has an amazing love for animals, and their home is best described as a menagerie, these days.

I've recently retired, and I'm enjoying the freedom of coming and going, whenever the desire "hits" me. So, I don't have any pets, at this time, I believe that someday, maybe when I'm more apt to stay home, I will most likely, again, want to add a "little love" to my home.

Finding Uncle Alvan Waller By Tom Kinsella

This is the first part of a series of stories about one of our TaylorBaker ancestors, Alvan F. Waller. Alvan was younger brother to Orrin Waller, father of Cordelia (Waller) Taylor, mother of B. W. Taylor, father of Lloyd Taylor, who was CB Kinsella’s dad, and my grandfather. If I calculate correctly, this makes Alvan my great, great, great Uncle.

In brief (and it’s actually a very long story), Uncle Alvan was an early Methodist missionary who left Elba, New York in 1839, departed on the ship Lausanne from New York City with his wife and three children, sailed around Cape Horn, made a brief stop in Hawaii, and finally arrived after seven months in the territory of Oregon in the summer of 1840. Along with 50 others on board, Alvan and his family were reinforcements for the earliest Methodist missionaries who had arrived in Oregon 5 years earlier. For the next eight years Alvan served as missionary among the aboriginal peoples and had many noteworthy adventures. In 1848, Oregon became a part of the United States, and Alvan’s missionary work among the Indians came to an end, but he continued to do God’s work, helping to build several Methodist churches in Oregon and playing a crucial role in the founding of Willamette University. But more on the actual details of Uncle Alvan’s life in later entries. Here I want to give you a brief description of the fun I’ve had tracking down his literary remains.

A long time ago, when I was in graduate school in Philadelphia, I needed to complete some research at the Rosenbach Library and Museum, also in Philadelphia. PENN, where I went to school, had some early editions of Robinson Crusoe; the Rosenbach had others. I wanted to read them all. So I made an appointment, walked the twenty blocks to the Rosenbach, and started to read the second and third editions. This was tiring work -- and a little boring -- so at one point I stood up, stretched, and peered into the glass-encased bookcases that lined the walls. Two volumes caught my attention. Their spines read simply “A. F. Waller, Oregon.” Not long before I had been reading Great, Great Grandma Cordelia’s journals and knew that she had an Uncle Waller in Oregon, and that on one trip back from East he had baptized her son B. W. Taylor (that is Bryant Waller Taylor). It turned out that the library had two of Alvan’s early journals, one dating from late 1839 when on board the Lausanne; the other from 1845 when he was living among and proselytizing the natives of Oregon. I came back to the Rosenbach a time or two and quickly read the journals and also, of course, told Mom (CB) about them.

Flash forward to early 2013, about 25 years after I first rapidly read Uncle Alvan’s journals. I received a letter from my mother asking that I get my butt in gear. “I’m getting Old,” she wrote. “Please go back and read those journals more thoroughly.” So, given this polite nudge, I returned to the Rosenbach about a month ago and began to reread the journals. Wonderful stuff. Wait till I tell you about them in later entries (but not yet).

As I was chatting with the librarian, she suggested that other papers having to do with Waller might have survived. She told me to check the archives of Willamette University, which is one of the Western Methodist repositories; she also told me to check out the archives of Drew University in New Jersey, which is the repository for the Methodist archives nationally. She essentially said, “start digging.”

I went home after that and told Christine Farina, my partner, about the journals. She commented, “Think about it, you Kinsellas, or Taylors, or Bakers, whoever, you all write, write, write. You know, don’t you, that your Uncle must have written like that too.” So, I began to write archives asking about Uncle Alvan, and I began to go on-line, and what I have found so far has staggered me.

First, I find that the Oregon Historical Society in Portland has at least two more journals from the period when Uncle Alvan was an active missionary (they may have as many as four more journals, although two may be copies of the Rosenbach journals, I’m not sure yet). They also have several letters to and from Uncle Alvan. The University of Puget Sound in Washington has no journals, but they have at least 5 letters from Uncle Alvan. I have seen copies of these letters, which are reports back to the Missionary Society in NYC. They are fascinating. Willamette University wrote me back and said that they have no letters from Uncle Alvan, although many letters to him. They asked whether I knew (I did not) that the oldest building on campus, for years the only building -- essentially the heart of the college -- was built with money raised from the local community by Uncle Alvan, and that it was named Waller Hall in his honor.

Waller Hall at Willamette University, Oregon

Uncle Alvan is mentioned in dozens of histories of Oregon and of the Methodist Missionaries in that state, sometimes very extensively. And there is an on-line repository of Oregon’s Historical newspapers that when searched, also turns up many articles about him.

So, I am heading to Philadelphia about every other week to continue carefully rereading the original journals, and I am planning an early summer trip to Oregon to read the materials in Portland and to visit Uncle Alvan’s university. There are many, many interesting details of his missionary life that I have already turned up and more to come surely. Let me simply close by suggesting that our Uncle Alvan was in the middle of history making (good & bad) on the west coast. I’ll report more soon.

'Coming Home' -- A Poem for Spring, by Joan Tiffany Doran

Last Autumn, Mom and Dad exchanged emails with Mom's first cousin and his wife, Tom and Joan Doran. Dad had just gotten out of the hospital and was resting up at home. Joan ended her email with:

"We hope Jack is recovering nicely--usually returning home is the best medicine. That reminds me of one of my poems, which I'll attach, with love.


--Joan (Tom, too)"

Joan and Tom Doran

COMING HOME

Today, a silent robin claims the cherry tree
and sits immobile on the topmost branch.
You’d hardly notice him at first,
but then you’d realize

his is the peace of resting after long travail.
Lately, he was just a speck against the sky,
churning through the winds
that seemed to blow the other way,

but always, he was flying toward this tree,
though its blossoms are still closed,
its fruits still to be set, its branches
waiting for the nest.

He’ll rest a little while, this traveler,
while snow melts from the mountainside,
spring rivers overflow their banks,
the valleys flush at last with green–

and in good time, the nest will fill,
the time to sing will come.
But when your passage has been long
and your only compass, thoughts of home,
just being home at last is song enough.

Thanks, Joan! And, Happy Spring to All Cousins!

Favorite Pets Part Two--Fish! By Evelyn Taylor

     To paraphrase a saying:  “what is one man’s pet, is another man’s poison.”  Some would have no other than a dog or cat as a pet. Our family has had our share of those, but goldfish have played a very important part in the “stories” of our family.

     When our two boys were little, each had a goldfish, sharing the same bowl.  Of course, they were duly named and recognized by the owner.  One day Mitch’s fish died!  Soon afterwards, we noticed a long line of black streaming out of the gills of Lance’s fish.  Expecting it to die also, we rushed it out to our large pond in the back of our property, where it was promptly swallowed up by the vastness of the pond. Two years later we were amazed to see this large goldfish swimming out there.  We did not realize that the size of goldfish depended on their environment!

      It was not until as adults, when we were recalling this event that Mitch admitted that he had been very angry that his fish had died and not Lance’s, so he had sprinkled black pepper into the bowl---thus, the gasping fish!

     Later on, at the same house, we made a small goldfish pond close to the house, rimmed with limestone rocks and flowers.  However, we were plagued by the build-up of algae, which turned the water green so that the fish could not be seen.  Bryant bought a box of algae-killer and carefully read the directions.  He decided on his own that if a little of the powder would be good, a little more would be better.  One half hour after the application, he went out to check, and most of the fish were “belly-up.”  He yelled for help, and we all frantically scooped out fish and put them into pails of fresh water.   This was all to no avail. We had to start over from scratch.

     The lesson learned was not only to read directions, but FOLLOW THEM!

     On Exchange Street we also had a small goldfish pool.  We stocked it with Japanese Koi and four special ones that swim near the surface of the water, so they are more visible. When winter approached, it was time to bring in the fish. They were put in a 50-gallon oil drum in the basement near the sump pump hole.  Bryant fed them each morning and noticed one day that the surface-swimming fish were missing.  They were jumpers (a fact we did not know) and had jumped out of the drum, but they were not dead on the floor.  No, they had landed in a narrow trench around the perimeter of the cellar, heading for the sump pump and the “great beyond!”

     In this same pool, the fish bred, and the little ones hid in the vegetation.  When it came time to take them in, the pool had to be drained in order to get them all.  We had a 25-foot-long garden hose siphoning the water out.  As Bryant stood at the end of it, along came a little goldfish.  What a traumatic first trip that must have been for him!

“Reap What You Sow” By Aunt CB Kinsella

Ethel and Lloyd Taylor

This story begins long before I was born. Ethel, having taught in the country school where she grew up and also in a distant town (Oakfield) school, wanted to now travel and “see the world!” Her aunt and uncle lived in Scranton, Pa, and she’d been there. Uncle Frank was a conductor on the railroad and his “turn around” trip was in Newark, N. J. and he would know people she could trust there, so she applied for a job and was accepted. She began work Sept. 3, 1913 in Orange, N.J. ($650 per year--another factor in her choice—her boyfriend, Lloyd Taylor, was to attend telegraphy school in Albany in the fall).

While teaching there she again attended several churches before she chose the Methodist Episcopal church and also joined the Young People’s League on Sunday night, where I think she met her good friend, Adelia Guernsey. “Dede” was a secretary in an insurance office and over the two years she taught in N. J., they became close friends. She often had Sunday dinner with Dede, her sister Lily, and their mother their apartment.

Aunt Dede, 1929

Time moved on, Ethel and Lloyd married, had a family (six children) and when the days I’m going to speak of came about they lived in Geneva, N.Y. It was the height of the depression and while Lloyd had a job, in the late 1920's he had to go into bankruptcy and lost his farm. Now he worked as a seed analyst at the Experimental Station and the children, age 3-15 were all growing!

Harold, Doris, Lucille

We had as much as everyone we knew, and it never occurred to us that we were poor. The girl next door always wore clothing of the latest style and bought lots of magazines but she shared and we got her cast off clothes and we all played together. She was one and we were six, so we understood when she got loads of Christmas gifts. Besides, we were lucky, we had our “Aunt Dede!”

Every year, from mid December on, we waited breathlessly for the UPS man. She always sent a large package with a gift each for all six of us. We didn’t have to know her to love her, nor did we wonder how she knew what to give each of us (we were not privy to their correspondence!) Thus she was our “Santa Claus,” the one who made our Christmas tree worthwhile. So I loved my “Betsy-Wetsy” doll the year she came, and proudly wore my Girl Scout belt with a whistle attached over my cast off uniform from a cousin! It was never a chore to write our “thank you’s.”

Each year we agonized as the days came closer to December 25th with no package. In all the years that I remember, it only once came late--the next day--and that was a sad one, but it was usually a squeaker, arriving in the afternoon of the 24th! But as I said, time moved on and we grew up. When the packages stopped coming I don’t know but I do know that when I was in Nurse’s training and found myself in Poughkeepsie for a 3 month’s psychiatric assignment, I took the three days I had free at the end, hopped on a bus and went to E. Orange N. J. Aunt “Dede” and Lily met me and I stayed with them, enjoying their hospitality. Now their mother was gone but I thanked them, telling them all they had meant to us over the years, acknowledging their work in purchasing, wrapping and mailing those many packages. All this in the days of no scotch tape and tie the boxes well with string! They did admit it was difficult for them to find the time, thus the “late day” packages.

The moral of this story is simple. “You Reap What You Sow”— they looked for our childhood notes, they showed me some they’d saved and knew they’d gained our love. They had no other “grand children” but considered us to be theirs. So watch what you do for others, it can come back to LOVE you!!

Lucille, the Author

Favorite Pets--Poultry Can Make Nice Pets Too!

So, here begins our first installment of 'Favorite Pets'--

Uncle Jack writes:

 

Most of the chickens we had when I was growing up were White Leghorns because they were the best egg producers. However, they were wilder than most other breeds. The one exception to this was a chicken I named Jim. One day, Jim walked right up to me and let me pick him up, something the other chickens never let me do. So I made a pet out of him. He would follow me around and when I went for a bike ride he would jump up on the handlebars and ride there as I pedaled around the block.

I made a nice spot for him in the garage and kept him there. Up until the time I met Jim I thought that all chickens were dumb. Jim changed my mind. There was no doubt that Jim realized he was something special because of the way he would lord it over the other chickens—especially on hot summer days.. He would strut back and forth in front of the screen door on the front of the chicken coop where the poor chickens were almost dying from the heat. You could almost hear him saying to them, “You poor clucks. Here you are almost roasting to death and here I am walking around free as a bird.” It was then I learned that chickens have a memory as well as a vengeance streak.

I learned this one day when the chickens got out—AGAIN. We finally caught them all and put them back into their chicken coop. By mistake, we put Jim in with the rest of the chickens. Luckily I missed him and went looking for him. I found him cowering in a corner, his body covered with blood from the numerous pecks he had received from the vengeful chickens. He did survive but he never did make that mistake again; he always stayed clear of the chicken coop. In the end, his friendliness did him in. One day he turned up missing, never to be seen again. We always suspected that our neighbor, Mrs. Patti, had caught him and the Patti family had a nice chicken dinner that night.

Aunt CB writes:

Well, this is a crazy thing! I get a request through the “Pet-Heaven-O-Gram to write a story about my life—seventy-five years ago!!

So, OK, here goes————

“Cock-a-dodle-do!” (I’m a little rusty here)

Make no mistake, I am the master of the barnyard at 30 West St! I have 10 or 12 handmaidens, (well, they are not all “maidens”) all of whom do my bidding! They scratch and poke the ground in our “yard” and when they see a worm, they “cluck-cluck” and I race over and grab it! (I must keep up my strength as they keep me pretty busy!) They also lay eggs and when they do so, I try to let my boss know by crowing. Then he sends out one of the scrubby kids to gather them and they are supposed to remember to feed us! Mostly they do.

On Sunday mornings I get my pampering. They bring me in their big room where they eat and feed me left-over pancakes. These are pretty sweet because they dip sticky stuff over them but I can get them down. I try not to stay too long, though, cause that sticky stuff travels through me fast and they get upset when it leaks out! Why do they use it then?

I am a lucky rooster, because there are few in the area. Even the 1st and 6th grade teachers know that I am special, every so often they send home with one of those scrubby kids, a coffee can full of their special leftovers. Theirs are better than pancakes!

So now I’ll sign off—

Tommy, the Rhode Island Red Rooster, King of the Plymouth Rock hens

Thanks Mom and Dad--Wonderful stories! Anyone else have a favorite pet they want to write about? Please send them my way!