Welcome to the World, Tristan James Alberts!

Judy and Jimmy Taylor Alberts are grand parents! Judy writes:

Tristan and Zach

I have very exciting news! Our first grandson was born on May 6th.

Zach (Judy and Jimmy’s son) and Andrea's new bundle of joy weighed 7lbs.2oz. Judy and Jimmy ( in Florida) cannot wait to meet the little guy who lives all the way across the country in Washington state.

And Uncle Harold? That makes him a great grandfather again!

Aunt Mallory and Tristan

Congratulations Zach and Andrea, Judy and Jimmy, Uncle Harold and ALL the Waterloo Taylors for this wonderful new addition to the TaylorBaker Family Clan!

Looking Through Newspapers and Finding Family By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

I often use a terrific website for genealogy work. If you want to find out more about your New York state relatives, go to fultonhistory.com where one man has scanned in over 26,108,000 Old New York State Historical Newspaper Pages. Here are only a very few of the snippets I have tripped over:

Cortland Democrat, November 1898: “Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Burt entertained the eighth annual Borthwick reunion at their home, Tuesday Nov. 1. A very pleasant and enjoyable day was spent by 34 members of the family. Those present from out of town were …. Mrs. L. Baker  (Nancy Borthwick) and daughter Florence and son, Byron Baker and children of Center Lisle (Ethel, Adin, Ruth and Lillian).

Batavia Daily News, May 2^nd, 1899: In one of the back pages, in amidst ads for Carter’s Little Liver Pills and ‘Wanted—100 Used Bicycles’ was this headline—‘Half a Tree Splintered’. The story followed: “West Bethany—A most thunder and rain storm passed over this place on Sunday morning, accompanied by the most blinding lightning and in some places with falls of hail stones nearly as large as hickory nuts. A large tree on William Carson’s farm was struck, half of it being torn into splinters. The rain, however, is most acceptable to farmers, doing much needed good to wheat.”

William and Jane Carson's farm

Batavia Times January 6^th, 1910-- ‘Lloyd Taylor has gone to Albany to attend the New York Central Y.M.C.A. school of telegraph.’

Batavia Daily Times, July 14^th, 1911—While most of the page is taken over by an advertisement for ‘Season’s End Sale’ for Oliver & Milne (women’s hosiery 19 cents and women’s summer coats reduced to $4.98), under Oakfield news comes this bit of information: ‘Miss Ethel Baker of Lisle, Broome County, a graduate of Cortland normal school, has been engaged as teacher of the seventh and eighth grades for next year.’ 

The Batavia Daily News, January 4^th, 1914—To the left of a drawing of a battleship and the blackened headline of ‘English Vessel Sunk By Germans’ was a smaller headline about the Oakfield, NY Grange. ‘About 109 attended the grange meeting at Odd Fellows Hall of Saturday….Open installation of officers was conducted by Past Master Bryant W. Taylor….There were vocal selections by the Woodlawn quartet, Messrs. B.W., Leon, Floyd and Lloyd Taylor.

Batavia Daily News, September 1918— In ‘News This End of the State’:

Lockport has a case of Spanish influenza

Geneseo reports that war conditions have hit nurserymen very hard

Phelps women have forsaken tea parties to labor in the harvest fields

There are reported over 200 unlicensed dogs in good barking condition on Medina streets

‘Oakfield Thimble Party’

Presbyterians to Be Entertained By Mrs. Lloyd Taylor

Oakfield, Sept. 24—The Presbyterian aid society will be entertained at the thimble party and pipe-organ fund tea at Mrs. Lloyd Taylor’s on Thursday afternoon.

Exactly what WAS a ‘thimble party’? I am not sure, as I have read different ideas, but I think it was closest to this party from 1900 Lawrence Kansas:--“The girls would bring their needlework to the thimble parties. Embroidering, crocheting lace, hemstitching, and monogramming, were popular. This work would be put on tea napkins, towels, pillow cases and lunch cloths.”

Binghamton Press, December 20^th, 1953:

Huge Headline across the entire page:

‘Knocked Down for $1000

Old Center Lisle School Sold at Auction;

Six Bucks for Bell’

‘Art Wilbur Buys School He Attended’

Auctioneer Clarence Gem pronounced the last rites yesterday afternoon at the 85-year-old Center Lisle School. “OK, I’ve got a clock over there and it runs. Who’ll give me two? Who’ll give me two? OK. I’ve got two and who’ll give me three?”

….Auctioneer Gem sold a stove, which smoked a little, for $20. He sold three school desks to Mrs. Lillian Howland for 90 cents. She runs the Center Lisle General Store and said she would try to sell, although to whom or for what purpose she did not know.

And, in the Geneva Daily Times, March 9^th, 1944:

First Aid Essay Contest

Prizes Awarded Today in Local High School

Geneva High School’s First Prize awarded to Lucille Taylor. Her essay starts: ‘The value of first aid goes back as far as 1877, for that is when it began…..It was not used extensively in World War 1, but today, in this second World War, there is not a person in the United States that does not know some simple bit of it.’

Already dreaming of her career in nursing?

The Day I Went Curly, By Evelyn Taylor

I did not inherit my mother’s curly hair but had straight black hair like my dad’s. This had never bothered me until seventh grade. Going to Madison High School seemed to call for more style: like nail polish, sweaters and skirts instead of cotton dresses, silk stockings instead of socks, and curly hair.

I am sure this last change would not have happened except for the fact that a new beauty salon had opened on Main Street, fairly close to where I lived, and the price of the permanent was right. The huge sign in the window read, “Permanents--$1.25”

This shy twelve year old was delivered into the hands of several beauty operators, for this was a production line operation—one shampooed, one wound, one unwound, another combed, and yet another set the hair. All these strangers working on me, along with my shyness and inexperience in the world of the beauty salon, made me almost mute the whole day. And it was a day—I was there eight hours! Looking back on it, I do not think it was because the process took so long, as much as I, in the production line, got pushed aside for some adult to go through.

At noon, Mom who had never needed a permanent came to see what had happened to me. I was in one of the ‘stages’, but not nearly close to the end. She gave me a candy bar (my lunch) and told them not to bother setting my hair as I was tired. She later regretted this decision.

Permanents in the 1930’s were a form of torture. The hair was wound on metal rods and tied with string. The pulling and tugging made tears come to my eyes. These rods were then encased in a metal tube and heated. The head was surrounded by metal rods, sticking straight out and hooked to the machine by adjustable cords. An outer space creature would be a good comparison, but at that time, I had no concept of such beings. No test curl was done, and later on I learned that I only needed about four minutes of heat as my hair curls very easily.

After eight hours of this torture, I walked home with my head a mass of kinky curls. Poor Mom,  When she saw me, she burst into tears. As I was told later, she thought she had ruined me for life.

We hurried across the street to consult with Hattie, a young woman who used makeup and went to beauty salons, neither of which Mom did. The suggestion was that I return to the salon the next day and have my hair set. Then a ‘set’ meant putting a gooey setting gel on and making finger waves.

Frankly, I cannot remember how I looked after the set. On the day I went curly, my memory is only of the wild mass of hair and my mother’s horror. Little did I know that day that I was the forerunner of the ‘Afro’ style of the 1970’s – born 40 years too soon!

Evelyn today WITHOUT the curly hair!

A Taylor New Year’s Day of Snow and Feasting, From Upstate New York, 1851 By Elizabeth Taylor Sizer

I know we are NOT near to New Year's Day, but I see that some cousins on facebook have yet MORE snow as of yesterday; so here is one last burst of winter before surely Spring shows its face?!

This blog story is by a special correspondent—Elizabeth Taylor who was the sister of our Daniel Rockwell Taylor, great grandfather to Aunt CB. Aunt CB has some old letters tucked away, and I spent the better part of an evening poring over the small writing trying to decipher words.

Readers of the blog know Elizabeth Taylor Sizer. She was born in 1830 and died in 1852, so she was 21 years old when she wrote this letter to her brother Daniel.

 She married Albert Sizer in July of 1851, and spent much of that first summer tending to her brother Daniel, who left Yale very sick. The next year Elizabeth bore her son and died days later, but not before naming her son after her favorite brother. The story is told in more detail here:

http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2010/04/daniel-rockwell-taylortwo-years-in.html

The town the Taylors live in is Alabama, New York, a small community halfway between Rochester and Buffalo.

At the time of this letter, Daniel is away at Yale, Elizabeth has not yet married ‘Mr. Sizer’ and all seems joyful ahead of them.

Oakfield January 19, 1851

Dear Brother,

We received your letter dated January 11 last night, and were very glad to hear of your continued good health and happiness.

Perhaps you think it is my turn to plead guilty, for not writing sooner. I have many excuses but I think one will suffice, and that is this --Mr. Sizer was here between Christmas and New Year's, and wrote a long letter to you which I concluded by the length must contain all the news, both in the kitchen and parlor, and I finally came to the conclusion that I would delay writing for a few days at least, and perhaps something new would transpire. But the snow has been so deep most of the Yorkers have housed up for the winter, and as we are not so well supplied as we were before the emigration to the steam sawmill, and as the roads are so we could not attend church, I thought I would employ the time in writing. (Editor’s Note: Elizabeth will go on to marry Albert Sizer in less than six months; it does not sound like the family knows this yet. Perhaps Albert wrote to Daniel telling him about it).

Oh! Daniel I wish you had been here New Year's for we had a fine time outdoors especially. Imagine yourself in a place where the snow is some less than 4.0 feet deep, the wind blowing so hard that the sheep have to brace themselves against the fence to keep from going away, and the snow flying in all directions, and you can form some idea of the outdoors prospect at least in old Alabama, New Year's Day.

We had a rousing fire built up in tother room, (not much like your city fire I reckon), ditto one in the kitchen and then what do you think we did? Well! We didn't do nothing, no I guess we didn't but we stuffed a dead goose and then put her in the oven to roast. About 10 o'clock, if you had looked through one of them big telescopes you have heard tell about, one of them 'ere things what big men look through and seen such wonderfications on the moon, you probably would not have seen Elliot and his better half (their older brother and his wife, Sarah, married one year earlier) wading through the snow up their ankles, but they like hard and weatherbeaten sailors put on bold faces and braved the storm manfully and thus came off conquerors, leaving their white antagonist none the better for interfering with the plans of others.

 Daniel Taylor, later in life

The other guests did not make their appearance, however we had quite a little party of Taylor's, and enjoyed ourselves first rate, especially about 4 o'clock for about this time the roast goose looked very tempting and but few in old Genesee worked much harder than we did, as we sat around the long table, levered with geese, chicken pies, plum puddings, bison cakes, with a little cabbage on it, with many other things too numerous to mention, justice was done to them all.

Thank you Elizabeth for writing letters! I wish we had a picture of you, and perhaps in the future, through finding Sizer cousins, we will find one, but I did not think a picture of your grave would be appropriate. In this letter, you are so alive and filled with energy, thoughts and love. Again, an ancestor I wish I could sit down with and get to know over coffee (or tea?).

Kinsella Concert By Pat Kinsella Herdeg

Last November we had a grand Kinsella concert in Greece, NY. As Mom and Dad and Pat watched via skype, the musicians assembled in my brother Jim’s music room. And, it was never such a ‘music room’ as that afternoon!

My sister Beth had flown in from Japan for the first time in two years, so we were all anxious to see her. But, what Mom and Dad did NOT know is that she and Tim and Jim and Jim’s daughter Maddy had been practicing three songs for a surprise concert.

Jim and Jill’s nearby elementary school graciously let them borrow a large harp for Beth to play, since of course hers in Japan was NOT coming to America for the trip. Tim was practicing the songs on his piano in Syracuse, Jim was practicing on his Irish tin whistle, Maddy on her cello and Kelly on her bass. They got together several times via skype to try and get some long distance practicing in. The excitement was growing for this visit!

Maddy, Tim

During the week that Beth was in Greece, she would go to Jim and Jill’s home to practice, telling Mom and Dad that the girls were asking her advice on some project. Since Dad was just out of the hospital and having various nurses’ visits and medical people coming and going, they were more than happy to have Beth ‘do her thing’ without asking too many questions. Beth and Jim giggled as they could see this might just work—they weren’t half bad!

Beth

A few days before the concert, Jill suddenly remembered that they better tune their piano—a hand-me-down from cousin Rick Lochner, it had not been tuned in about fifteen years. Luckily, Jill found a piano tuner—blind as it turns out but a terrific ear for sound—to come two days before our big event. Piano tuned, harp in place, cello, tin whistle and bass in the small room—the room swelled with musical instruments, anticipation and musicality.

Maddy and her cello

When the big day arrived, Dad was not doing well enough to go over in person, so he and Mom and I used the internet to watch. Glenn Herdeg was filming on his camera, and Tom Kinsella on his Ipad. Pat, on Mom and Dad’s end, was also filming on her Ipad, to get the parents’ reactions. Dan Kinsella and his wife Liz were there as cherished fans, with front row seats no less.

The concert began—Three songs with different groups of musicians playing rung out—‘Amazing Grace’, ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘Greensleeves’. Jim’s daughter Kelly’s sweet voice lifted up ‘Amazing Grace’ and Tom Kinsella’s Bob Dylan-like vocals rounded out ‘Greensleeves’. Each instrument in turn found its way into the spotlight—sometimes Tim on the piano, Kelly on her bass, Maddy sitting with her cello, Jim scrunched in the corner with his tin whistle, Beth on her harp. Since we had never seen or heard Beth on her harp before, despite years of practice on her part in Japan, it was a special treat.

Jim, Kelly, Tom

And Mom and Dad, they could only watch and listen and clap and exclaim at what they heard and saw. Mom said several times that her grandfather, Bryant Taylor would be so proud of the group. He and his sons had a well-known quartet in western New York in the late 1800’s (see The Taylor Male Quartet, written by Aunt CB here at the cousins blog:

http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2008/03/taylor-male-quartet-written-by-aunt-cb.html).

That story from 2008 ended with the questions: ‘And, did the musical gene get passed down to YOUR side of the family?!’

For the Kinsellas, we now know the answer! 

As the harp was brought back to the school and the piano bench pushed back in, as the music room slowly reverted back to its original music AND art room, we heard all exclaim “Until Next Time—Perhaps the Beatles mixed in with traditional choices?” Aha—A Next Time!