My grandfather was much like my father in personality. He was quiet, gentle, and soft-spoken. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and loved the outdoors and animals. He loved his family--his immediate family, his extended family, and even his in-laws. I never heard my grandfather raised his voice except at his youngest brother, Nick. Uncle Nick was a bit of a character, cheap as cheap could be. (When his wife Josephine was alive, she had to take the remainders of the bars of used bath soap and melt them down, then let them harden into a larger, usable bar of soap. Nick and Josephine reused coffee grounds. Uncle George Kraeger once commented that he thought Josephine’s coffee was fine, until someone informed him that he was actually drinking tea.)
When I was in high school, I always went to my grandparents’ home after school for dinner. On this particular night, we were just finishing our dinner when the back door opened and in stomped Uncle Nick, my grandfather’s youngest brother. Uncle Nick was yelling, “They’ve torn down the coal bin!” He flung his gloves, hat, and scarf on the hallway floor, began crying, and kept yelling about the coal bin. Here was the problem with the coal bin: Uncle Nick’s sister Anna Kraeger’s grandson, Gerald, and his wife Corinne lived with Uncle Nick and helped take care of him. Corinne needed space in the basement of their two-flat home to hang a clothes line since Uncle Nick didn’t have a dryer (surprise). Never mind that the coal bin was empty and probably hadn’t been used in 20 or 30 years. But Uncle Nick was extremely upset that Gerald had torn out the coal bin.
Grandpa calmly got up from the table, went out to the hallway, grabbed Uncle Nick by the elbow, and pulled him into the den. It was then that I heard my grandfather raise his voice, the ONLY time. He must have gone into “older-brother mode.” Grandpa shouted, “Nick, you silly old fool! You haven’t used that coal bin in 25 years and you never WILL use it again! What is the matter with you? I’ll tell you what’s the matter, you’re an old fool. A silly old fool!” He went on to tell Uncle Nick that he should be grateful that he had a nice young couple--his sister’s grandson and wife--who were willing to put up with all of Uncle Nick’s nonsense and take damn good care of him. Uncle Nick was speechless. He must have been in shock (he didn’t even ask if there was any dinner left). Uncle Donald got involved (after dinner), got the two brothers calmed down, and took Uncle Nick back home (he had walked from his house a mile or so away). Grandma and I finished our dinner and washed up the dishes.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Grandpa Samson: Part 4--Food
One food that Grandpa loved was limberger cheese. This is a VERY smelly cheese that must be kept tightly sealed or else everything in the fridge would smell like limberger cheese. My grandfather loved limberger and onion sandwiches with mustard!
I mentioned that we ate frogs. Well, technically, we ate frogs' legs. Grandpa and Pat would go to some ponds in the woods near our house and shoot frogs and skin the legs. Then my mother would cook the frogs' legs. She would lightly batter them and fry them; I prefer them sautéed with garlic and tomatoes, the French way. Even today, if I go to a very good French restaurant, such as Le Jardin in Vermont, I will order frogs' legs, or cuisses de grenouilles. (I love escarots, as well!)
Grandpa made his own sauerkraut, which is simply pickled cabbage. In a large stoneware crock in my grandparent’s cellar, my grandfather would place shredded cabbage and kosher (large-grained) salt. He would mix these well, and place a round wooden board on top of the mixture, and hold in all down with a large brick. The cabbage and salt would ferment in the crock, and voilà! Sauerkraut! It was not until I was in college that I realized that most people actually bought sauerkraut in stores, because when we needed sauerkraut, we brought a glass Ball jar to my grandparents’ house, went down to the cellar, scooped out a jar-full of sauerkraut and took it home. Periodically, my grandfather would grate more cabbage into the crock, add a little salt, stir the mixture, and let it sit and ferment.
The common dandelions, generally considered a weed, was a plant that my grandfather used both for food and for making wine. The leaves of the dandelion plant are actually very good as a salad, with a little oil, vinegar, and sugar on them. My grandfather also made wine from dandelion flowers. He also taught my brother how to make dandelion wine. It has an interesting taste, and a powerful “kick.”
Grandpa Samson: Part 3--Grandpa and His Grandkids
Grandpa loved to walk. That probably had something to do with his longevity; he lived to be 85 years old. As I said, he walked to the various construction sites; he also walked through the Forest Lawn cemetery and through the woods to our house. This was about 3 miles "as the crow flies." He would call my mother to let her know he was coming--a safety measure. He nearly always carried his rifle when he walked through the cemetery and woods to our house--another safety measure. In the summer, he would then take us kids walking in the woods. That's how I learned to recognize different trees, as he pointed them out to us. Sometimes we would take pails and secure them on our belts, and we would pick wild strawberries, wild blackberries, and gooseberries. Of course, we would eat as many berries as we picked! But we loved to walk with Grandpa as he told us stories of his youth.
In the summer when raspberries ripened, my mother would take us with my Grandpa to Aunt Anna's house to pick the raspberries from her many raspberry bushes. She had 4 or 5 rows of raspberry bushes which grew up along wooden railings. I LOVED to help pick raspberries! Grandpa would leave some for Anna for her cereal and dessert, and take a bucket home to Grandma. But we took the rest home, and my mother would make a pie and usually can the rest of make jam or jelly. But I would have preferred to just eat fresh raspberries with a little sugar syrup!
Grandpa told wonderful stories. He had a slight accent; he never said "th's." One day he told about seeing many birds on his walk through the woods to our house. I remember him saying, "D'ere must have been tousant ['thousand'] unt ['and'] tousant of dem!"
When I think of Grandpa, I can still smell his pipe tobacco. Grandpa smoked a pipe, and the smell to me was smoky and sweet. It was a very pleasant, comforting, safe smell. Grandpa (and Grandma and Uncle Donald) were people who always made me feel safe, appreciated, and loved, which I often did not feel around my parents, sad to say.
My grandfather loved animals. My grandmother wasn't keen on dogs, but when I was young, they had a cat named Ginger, a yellow tabby. He wasn't fond of children and we learned to keep our distance early on. But Grandpa had a special relationship with our dog Sissy, whom we got when I was in the 7th grade. Grandpa loved Sissy and she loved him. He would pet her and say, "Oh, if only you could talk!" What would you tell us?" If Grandpa walked home through the woods, even if we kept Sissy in until an hour later, she would follow his scent and turn up at my grandparents' home. So my mother or father usually took Grandpa home after he had had a glass of beer so that Sissy wouldn't follow him.
In the summer when raspberries ripened, my mother would take us with my Grandpa to Aunt Anna's house to pick the raspberries from her many raspberry bushes. She had 4 or 5 rows of raspberry bushes which grew up along wooden railings. I LOVED to help pick raspberries! Grandpa would leave some for Anna for her cereal and dessert, and take a bucket home to Grandma. But we took the rest home, and my mother would make a pie and usually can the rest of make jam or jelly. But I would have preferred to just eat fresh raspberries with a little sugar syrup!
Grandpa told wonderful stories. He had a slight accent; he never said "th's." One day he told about seeing many birds on his walk through the woods to our house. I remember him saying, "D'ere must have been tousant ['thousand'] unt ['and'] tousant of dem!"
When I think of Grandpa, I can still smell his pipe tobacco. Grandpa smoked a pipe, and the smell to me was smoky and sweet. It was a very pleasant, comforting, safe smell. Grandpa (and Grandma and Uncle Donald) were people who always made me feel safe, appreciated, and loved, which I often did not feel around my parents, sad to say.
My grandfather loved animals. My grandmother wasn't keen on dogs, but when I was young, they had a cat named Ginger, a yellow tabby. He wasn't fond of children and we learned to keep our distance early on. But Grandpa had a special relationship with our dog Sissy, whom we got when I was in the 7th grade. Grandpa loved Sissy and she loved him. He would pet her and say, "Oh, if only you could talk!" What would you tell us?" If Grandpa walked home through the woods, even if we kept Sissy in until an hour later, she would follow his scent and turn up at my grandparents' home. So my mother or father usually took Grandpa home after he had had a glass of beer so that Sissy wouldn't follow him.
Grandpa Samson: Part 2--My father
My father was very close to his father. They both loved to hunt and fish, and even when my father was an adult and my grandfather elderly, they never missed a deer-hunting season nor at least one fishing trip for rainbow trout. When my brother Pat was old enough, he, too, always went along on these trips and learned not only to hunt and fish, but to also respect the land and animals. What they killed or caught was ALWAYS eaten--deer, squirrel, rabbit, trout, bullheads, and frogs. I was not (am still not) a great fan of venison (deer meat), not just because it came from a deer, but because I don't like the taste. I ate everything else (except the bullheads).
Grandpa and my father also went snowshoeing: walking on top of deep snow on snowshoes. He also taught my father to hunt with a bow and arrow, and taught my father to make his own arrows, as well. He taught me how to shoot a rifle, as well as teaching my brother and sister. And most importantly, he taught us that we are stewards of God's creature, and he taught us to respect our environment (before environmentalism was a big thing.)
Grandpa was a skilled carpenter and cabinet-maker. He built the home that my grandparents' lived in at 1925 Storrs Avenue in Utica. My father and his brothers grew up there, and my Uncle Donald lived there for a while even after my grandparents' deaths.
When my father graduated from high school in 1930, just months after the Great Stock Market Crash of October 1929 which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, he was unable to go to college to become an architect as he had hoped to do. Instead, he went to work as a carpenter with my grandfather and his brother. They were all members of the carpenters' union, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. (The union gave me a scholarship of $100 every year that I attended Niagara University; this scholarship paid for my books all through my undergraduate years.) They most often worked for the Alt Brothers Construction Company; even after my grandfather had retired, he would walk to one of the Alts' construction sites to see how the work was progressing, visit my father in the summer when he worked for the Alts' on summer break from teaching school, and "chew the fat" with other carpenters.
Grandpa and my father also went snowshoeing: walking on top of deep snow on snowshoes. He also taught my father to hunt with a bow and arrow, and taught my father to make his own arrows, as well. He taught me how to shoot a rifle, as well as teaching my brother and sister. And most importantly, he taught us that we are stewards of God's creature, and he taught us to respect our environment (before environmentalism was a big thing.)
Grandpa was a skilled carpenter and cabinet-maker. He built the home that my grandparents' lived in at 1925 Storrs Avenue in Utica. My father and his brothers grew up there, and my Uncle Donald lived there for a while even after my grandparents' deaths.
When my father graduated from high school in 1930, just months after the Great Stock Market Crash of October 1929 which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, he was unable to go to college to become an architect as he had hoped to do. Instead, he went to work as a carpenter with my grandfather and his brother. They were all members of the carpenters' union, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. (The union gave me a scholarship of $100 every year that I attended Niagara University; this scholarship paid for my books all through my undergraduate years.) They most often worked for the Alt Brothers Construction Company; even after my grandfather had retired, he would walk to one of the Alts' construction sites to see how the work was progressing, visit my father in the summer when he worked for the Alts' on summer break from teaching school, and "chew the fat" with other carpenters.
Grandma Samson: Part 1--Miss Shibley
Since I wrote quite a bit about Grandpa Samson, I really need to write about the person I loved most in the entire world: Grandma Samson. My grandmother went the world to me, and I want to share everything I know and remember about her with you.
Grandma, my father’s mother, was born on April 21, 1888, the daughter of Catherine (Kate) O’Melia Shibley and Joseph Shibley. Shibley is most likely an anglicization of the German name Scheible, since Joseph’s parents, Matthias and Grace came from Baden-Baden in Prussia. Great-grandfather Joseph never used the word “German”; his parents were “Prussian,” which is more correct since Germany was a collection of princely states when they arrived in American with their older son Enos. Joseph was the first child of his parents born in American. They were German-speaking people. Kate O’Melia (whose parents came from Ireland) married Joseph Shibley and they lived in Fish Creek, NY with the elder Shibleys. Kate desperately wanted to learn to speak German to that she could speak with the neighbor ladies of the area who were mostly German-speaking, so only German was spoken in the Shibley home.
Joseph and Kate had four children. Howard was born in 1886, my grandmother Rosa Anna was born in 1888, and they had two younger children: Flora, born in 1892, and John (Jack) who was born in 1894. Howard and Rosa were very close all their lives. Howard never married, and eventually inherited Kate’s brother Martin O’Melia’s cabin and all its contents in Fish Creek. I remembering visiting Uncle Howard often. The cabin was at the foot of a hill, on which he had sheep and goats that grazed on the land. He also had a small pond on his land. It was a beautiful, rustic little place, quite cozy. No central heating, of course, but no one had heating heating in that are then (and NO air conditioning, of course).
Grandma and Flora were rather rivals for their father’s attention, it seems. Grandma felt that her father spoiled and favored Flora. And Jack was the baby, totally spoiled, of course. Flora eventually married Floyd Canfield and moved to Utica, as did my grandmother when she married my grandfather. Flora had a son, Roy, my father’s cousin, and the Samson boys and Roy Canfield were very close.
There is an interesting story about Aunt Flora. At one point in her lifetime, she painted nearly everything a light, turquoise-like green. Everything. Beds, wicker furniture, dressers, tables, EVERYTHING. When I was grown and needed a bed frame in 1979, my father said that he had his grandparents’ bed that Joseph had had made for his wedding to Kate in 1891 in the upstairs of his garage. It was, unfortunately, been at Aunt Flora’s during the “Aunt Flora Green” period, so my father took it to be stripped by dipping it in a paint remover. He felt that there was good wood underneath, and he was indeed correct! The bed was made of black walnut and was absolutely beautiful. The huge headboard was made of a single piece of black walnut. The bed was incredibly heavy, being that it was solid wood, not veneer. I used that bed until I moved to Austin in 2002. Then I gave the bed for Cassie to use. The sideboards eventually rotted and broke in around 2007 or 2008.
After my Aunt Elsie, Uncle Bob’s wife, died at the early age of 55, and Roy Canfield had passed away, Roy’s widow Fran and Uncle Bob became quite good friends and were good company for each other, as they shared many of the same interests. Uncle Bob and Cousin Fran were great friends until Fran’s death of heart disease. Jack, too, married and moved to Utica. He married Florence XXX. They had one adopted daughter, Jane, and one child, Rosemary, of their own.
As with most of the children in the area, the Shibley children were educated in the one-room school in the town. They knew English but had only spoken German at home until Howard and Rosa went to school. Grandma aspired to be a teacher, so she continued her education past the 8th grade, and eventually attended Normal School, which was teachers’ training college in New York State. When Grandma graduated from Normal School, her graduation gift from her parents was a rifle. She had secured a job in the one-room school near their village, and when she walked to the school, she had to walk through a wooded area where there were wild animals. So she needed the rifle for protection from the animals, such as bobcats and lynx.
Miss Shibley, as she was known to her students, met my grandfather while she was a teacher and he was a carpenter. They married in Fish Creek at the Catholic Church in November 1911. Grandpa was 27 and Grandma was 23 years old. They moved to Utica, about 45 miles to the south, which was the largest city in the area. It was easier for Grandpa to find work as a carpenter there. And each of them had siblings who also lived there: Grandpa’s youngest brother Nick and his wife (Nick was also a carpenter); and Grandma’s younger sister Flora and her husband Floyd Canfield, as well as her younger brother Jack and his wife Florence (Jack was also a carpenter).
Grandma, my father’s mother, was born on April 21, 1888, the daughter of Catherine (Kate) O’Melia Shibley and Joseph Shibley. Shibley is most likely an anglicization of the German name Scheible, since Joseph’s parents, Matthias and Grace came from Baden-Baden in Prussia. Great-grandfather Joseph never used the word “German”; his parents were “Prussian,” which is more correct since Germany was a collection of princely states when they arrived in American with their older son Enos. Joseph was the first child of his parents born in American. They were German-speaking people. Kate O’Melia (whose parents came from Ireland) married Joseph Shibley and they lived in Fish Creek, NY with the elder Shibleys. Kate desperately wanted to learn to speak German to that she could speak with the neighbor ladies of the area who were mostly German-speaking, so only German was spoken in the Shibley home.
Joseph and Kate had four children. Howard was born in 1886, my grandmother Rosa Anna was born in 1888, and they had two younger children: Flora, born in 1892, and John (Jack) who was born in 1894. Howard and Rosa were very close all their lives. Howard never married, and eventually inherited Kate’s brother Martin O’Melia’s cabin and all its contents in Fish Creek. I remembering visiting Uncle Howard often. The cabin was at the foot of a hill, on which he had sheep and goats that grazed on the land. He also had a small pond on his land. It was a beautiful, rustic little place, quite cozy. No central heating, of course, but no one had heating heating in that are then (and NO air conditioning, of course).
Grandma and Flora were rather rivals for their father’s attention, it seems. Grandma felt that her father spoiled and favored Flora. And Jack was the baby, totally spoiled, of course. Flora eventually married Floyd Canfield and moved to Utica, as did my grandmother when she married my grandfather. Flora had a son, Roy, my father’s cousin, and the Samson boys and Roy Canfield were very close.
There is an interesting story about Aunt Flora. At one point in her lifetime, she painted nearly everything a light, turquoise-like green. Everything. Beds, wicker furniture, dressers, tables, EVERYTHING. When I was grown and needed a bed frame in 1979, my father said that he had his grandparents’ bed that Joseph had had made for his wedding to Kate in 1891 in the upstairs of his garage. It was, unfortunately, been at Aunt Flora’s during the “Aunt Flora Green” period, so my father took it to be stripped by dipping it in a paint remover. He felt that there was good wood underneath, and he was indeed correct! The bed was made of black walnut and was absolutely beautiful. The huge headboard was made of a single piece of black walnut. The bed was incredibly heavy, being that it was solid wood, not veneer. I used that bed until I moved to Austin in 2002. Then I gave the bed for Cassie to use. The sideboards eventually rotted and broke in around 2007 or 2008.
After my Aunt Elsie, Uncle Bob’s wife, died at the early age of 55, and Roy Canfield had passed away, Roy’s widow Fran and Uncle Bob became quite good friends and were good company for each other, as they shared many of the same interests. Uncle Bob and Cousin Fran were great friends until Fran’s death of heart disease. Jack, too, married and moved to Utica. He married Florence XXX. They had one adopted daughter, Jane, and one child, Rosemary, of their own.
As with most of the children in the area, the Shibley children were educated in the one-room school in the town. They knew English but had only spoken German at home until Howard and Rosa went to school. Grandma aspired to be a teacher, so she continued her education past the 8th grade, and eventually attended Normal School, which was teachers’ training college in New York State. When Grandma graduated from Normal School, her graduation gift from her parents was a rifle. She had secured a job in the one-room school near their village, and when she walked to the school, she had to walk through a wooded area where there were wild animals. So she needed the rifle for protection from the animals, such as bobcats and lynx.
Miss Shibley, as she was known to her students, met my grandfather while she was a teacher and he was a carpenter. They married in Fish Creek at the Catholic Church in November 1911. Grandpa was 27 and Grandma was 23 years old. They moved to Utica, about 45 miles to the south, which was the largest city in the area. It was easier for Grandpa to find work as a carpenter there. And each of them had siblings who also lived there: Grandpa’s youngest brother Nick and his wife (Nick was also a carpenter); and Grandma’s younger sister Flora and her husband Floyd Canfield, as well as her younger brother Jack and his wife Florence (Jack was also a carpenter).
Monday, October 25, 2010
Halloween
Halloween will soon be upon us, in just a week. All American children LOVE Halloween, and I certainly was no exception. First, there is the mother-load of candy that you get from all those lovely people who are so sweet to you as you sing out, “Trick-or-treat!” When I was growing up, nobody worried about some sick-o tampering with candy, with only accepting store-bought, wrapped candy. It never occurred to anybody that some nut-job would stick razor-blades or straight pins or poison into candy.
Secondly, I loved to dress up and pretend to be someone else. I really didn’t like who I was; I didn’t like my life. This was the one holiday when it was acceptable to pretend to be someone else. One year, I was a pilgrim lady. My mother would make our costumes, and I think I used this costume for a reenactment of Thanksgiving the next month. I never had a desire to be a fairy princess. An American Indian princess, yes. I was enamored of Princes Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on the Howdy Dowdy Show. But my all-time favorite pretending was dressing up like a gypsy. I loved wearing the long, colorful skirt, loads of necklaces and bracelets, and a colorful scarf around my head. Also, in central New York State where it was often very cold on Halloween, as well as dark at an early hour, I could wear several shirts and a pullover sweater, and not have to wear a coat, thus covering up one’s costume. The whole point of dressing up was so that people could see what you were pretending to be, and they could then ask the obvious question, “And who are YOU supposed to be?” Duh! What do I look like? I’m wearing a gypsy costume, so OBVIOUSLY I am supposed to be a gypsy!
We lived in what most people would have considered “the country.” There were no sidewalks and it was pitch dark--no street lights. So generally, NO ONE came to our house to ring the doorbell. The house was situated far back from the road, with woods on either side of our property. When I was rather young, in the early primary grades, my father took me to my aunt and uncle’s house in the city, and I went trick-or-treating with my cousins. We also stopped at my grandparents’ house so that they could see our costumes. Grandma often made popcorn balls for us: popcorn rolled in caramel and formed into balls. When we were older, my father would drive us down our road to the more populated area, where we would ring doorbells for candy.
I was always thrilled when we went to the Roberts’ house on our road. Mrs. Roberts always made popcorn balls. Then she wrapped them in colored plastic. I adored popcorn balls. Some people went all-out, preparing little bags filled with candy. Some people made cookies. Others gave candied apples or caramel-covered apples, wrapped in colored plastic. They were soooo good. I also loved bubble-gum and red licorice. Not the black licorice. I HATED black licorice or those candies (Good N’ Plenty, I think) that were licorice covered in a hard sugar shell. So any black licorice or Good N’ Plenties went to my mother who LOVED licorice. And I also hated anything with coconut in it, but my mother loved coconut. So the two types of Mounds candies, which were coconut candy bars--one milk chocolate, the other dark chocolate--went to my mother. Most chocolate candy was milk chocolate, which is NOT my favorite. For me, chocolate has to be DARK, DARK, DARK and NOT sweet. And today research shows that dark chocolate has antioxidents and is actually not bad for you in moderation. (I knew I was right!)
My Poor Sabrina. For her Halloween was usually a disaster. It seemed that she was always sick on Halloween. We would get her dressed and go to one or two houses and then go home because she was sick. But one year, when she was around 8 or 9, she had a great idea for a costume: she took a cardboard box, decorated it with colored squares of construction paper, and voilá, she was a Rubic’s Cube! Unfortunately, she was sick that year, too, but did wear her costume as she helped hand out candy. My favorite costume of her’s was one she had when she was about 3 years-old. I bought it; it was a Snoopy costume. She was so cute, but sick with a strep throat. So after 2 houses, she was done, and went home to bed.
So much for Halloween.
Secondly, I loved to dress up and pretend to be someone else. I really didn’t like who I was; I didn’t like my life. This was the one holiday when it was acceptable to pretend to be someone else. One year, I was a pilgrim lady. My mother would make our costumes, and I think I used this costume for a reenactment of Thanksgiving the next month. I never had a desire to be a fairy princess. An American Indian princess, yes. I was enamored of Princes Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on the Howdy Dowdy Show. But my all-time favorite pretending was dressing up like a gypsy. I loved wearing the long, colorful skirt, loads of necklaces and bracelets, and a colorful scarf around my head. Also, in central New York State where it was often very cold on Halloween, as well as dark at an early hour, I could wear several shirts and a pullover sweater, and not have to wear a coat, thus covering up one’s costume. The whole point of dressing up was so that people could see what you were pretending to be, and they could then ask the obvious question, “And who are YOU supposed to be?” Duh! What do I look like? I’m wearing a gypsy costume, so OBVIOUSLY I am supposed to be a gypsy!
We lived in what most people would have considered “the country.” There were no sidewalks and it was pitch dark--no street lights. So generally, NO ONE came to our house to ring the doorbell. The house was situated far back from the road, with woods on either side of our property. When I was rather young, in the early primary grades, my father took me to my aunt and uncle’s house in the city, and I went trick-or-treating with my cousins. We also stopped at my grandparents’ house so that they could see our costumes. Grandma often made popcorn balls for us: popcorn rolled in caramel and formed into balls. When we were older, my father would drive us down our road to the more populated area, where we would ring doorbells for candy.
I was always thrilled when we went to the Roberts’ house on our road. Mrs. Roberts always made popcorn balls. Then she wrapped them in colored plastic. I adored popcorn balls. Some people went all-out, preparing little bags filled with candy. Some people made cookies. Others gave candied apples or caramel-covered apples, wrapped in colored plastic. They were soooo good. I also loved bubble-gum and red licorice. Not the black licorice. I HATED black licorice or those candies (Good N’ Plenty, I think) that were licorice covered in a hard sugar shell. So any black licorice or Good N’ Plenties went to my mother who LOVED licorice. And I also hated anything with coconut in it, but my mother loved coconut. So the two types of Mounds candies, which were coconut candy bars--one milk chocolate, the other dark chocolate--went to my mother. Most chocolate candy was milk chocolate, which is NOT my favorite. For me, chocolate has to be DARK, DARK, DARK and NOT sweet. And today research shows that dark chocolate has antioxidents and is actually not bad for you in moderation. (I knew I was right!)
My Poor Sabrina. For her Halloween was usually a disaster. It seemed that she was always sick on Halloween. We would get her dressed and go to one or two houses and then go home because she was sick. But one year, when she was around 8 or 9, she had a great idea for a costume: she took a cardboard box, decorated it with colored squares of construction paper, and voilá, she was a Rubic’s Cube! Unfortunately, she was sick that year, too, but did wear her costume as she helped hand out candy. My favorite costume of her’s was one she had when she was about 3 years-old. I bought it; it was a Snoopy costume. She was so cute, but sick with a strep throat. So after 2 houses, she was done, and went home to bed.
So much for Halloween.
Grandpa Samson: Part 1--Early Years
I decided that I needed to write about a very important person who was in my life for a mere short 20 years--my Grandpa Samson.
Grandpa was born on April 13, 1884, in Mohawk Hill, in New York State, on the Tug Hill Plateau region. John Walter Samson ("Grandpa" or "Pop," as he was known to his sons) was the fourth child born to Bernard Samson, who immigrated to the USA from Luxembourg as a child, and Maria Witzigmann, who was of Swiss descent. Grandpa had two older brothers, Louis (pronounced "Louie," in the French manner, and Joseph; an older sister Anna; and five younger brothers, only two of whom survived to adulthood (Martin and Nicholas). Louis, and Martin never married. My grandfather was very close to his sister Anna, who married George Kraeger and lived at, worked on, and eventually inherited Anna's Uncle Michel Samson's diary farm in Constableville, NY. Uncle Louis was a lumberjack; Joe married and farmed on Mohawk Hill (maybe on his father Bernard's farm?); Martin never married, but I don't know what his profession was (haven't investigated that far yet); and Nick married Josephine Bernadt, a second cousin related to his grandmother, Anne Bernadt, my great-grandfather Michel Samson's wife who had emigrated from Luxembourg with her husband and children (apparently at least one of her brothers had also emigrated; this was Josephine's grandfather, most likely). Both John and Nick were carpenters.
My grandfather met my grandmother Rosa Shibley (Rose) when she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse after she had completed Normal School, which was teacher training school/college. She was four years younger than Grandpa, and they were married in November 1911, when she was 23 years old and Grandpa was 27. They moved to Utica, NY, the largest city in the area. My Uncle Nick and Aunt Josephine also moved to Utica; they never had children and were very close to John and Rose.
About 10 months after their marriage, John and Rose had their first child, my father. When I asked Grandma one time why they had named my father "Floyd," which we thought was an odd name, she replied, "That was your grandfather's idea; after that, I named the children." How funny!
Grandpa was born on April 13, 1884, in Mohawk Hill, in New York State, on the Tug Hill Plateau region. John Walter Samson ("Grandpa" or "Pop," as he was known to his sons) was the fourth child born to Bernard Samson, who immigrated to the USA from Luxembourg as a child, and Maria Witzigmann, who was of Swiss descent. Grandpa had two older brothers, Louis (pronounced "Louie," in the French manner, and Joseph; an older sister Anna; and five younger brothers, only two of whom survived to adulthood (Martin and Nicholas). Louis, and Martin never married. My grandfather was very close to his sister Anna, who married George Kraeger and lived at, worked on, and eventually inherited Anna's Uncle Michel Samson's diary farm in Constableville, NY. Uncle Louis was a lumberjack; Joe married and farmed on Mohawk Hill (maybe on his father Bernard's farm?); Martin never married, but I don't know what his profession was (haven't investigated that far yet); and Nick married Josephine Bernadt, a second cousin related to his grandmother, Anne Bernadt, my great-grandfather Michel Samson's wife who had emigrated from Luxembourg with her husband and children (apparently at least one of her brothers had also emigrated; this was Josephine's grandfather, most likely). Both John and Nick were carpenters.
My grandfather met my grandmother Rosa Shibley (Rose) when she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse after she had completed Normal School, which was teacher training school/college. She was four years younger than Grandpa, and they were married in November 1911, when she was 23 years old and Grandpa was 27. They moved to Utica, NY, the largest city in the area. My Uncle Nick and Aunt Josephine also moved to Utica; they never had children and were very close to John and Rose.
About 10 months after their marriage, John and Rose had their first child, my father. When I asked Grandma one time why they had named my father "Floyd," which we thought was an odd name, she replied, "That was your grandfather's idea; after that, I named the children." How funny!
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