Autumn/Winter, 1917 and 1922
After 18 days of rain, muddy roads and flat tires, we finally arrived in Cattaraugus, New York and our family moved in with my Great Grandmother Kysor.
This is Grandmother Kysor's home in 1908.
We children were placed in the local school system. Once, it snowed and on the way home from school I became disoriented because the landscape appeared to have completely changed. Dusk came early and I wandered around, crying, until a man trimming the gas street lamps found me. (Remember, he was only about 6 years old.) He looked at me and said he knew where I belonged. Straightaway he took me to Grandmother's house. Even as a small child, I resembled my father so much that he knew where I belonged. It did help that it was a small town - about 500 people.
This is a photo of Jess (left) and his father (Pop, right) standing, Pop's father sitting (my great-great-great grandfather!), and Jess' first son as a baby. Jess is obviously older than 6 in this picture, but I wanted to put it here because you can really tell how alike they looked.
On that trip we also spent several days in Buffalo at Grandfather Lord's house. I remember little of him, but I do recall one finger was missing about halfway up. My brother and I speculated about how neat it looked and we viewed it with considerable awe; it was healed over all slick and nice. We didn't consider it an infirmity; it was something to be proud of -- a badge of courage! For some time thereafter we went around bending one finger at the joint and showing the back of our hand, as if the finger were cut off and neatly healed over.
The second time we visited Grandfather Lord in Buffalo I was ten and Bill (my brother) was thirteen. (1922) He and I were always making things, some of which turned out well enough. While there we built a little wagon. Since we couldn't find any wheels we sawed some wood into circles. Then we would go in the wagon, one riding and the other pulling, around to the opposite side of the block where a grocer sold delicious grape jaw breakers for a penny each.
While visiting Grandfather Lord in Buffalo we were only about 30 miles from Niagara Falls. Although my father had been raised in Cattaraugus, 80 miles from Niagara, he'd never been to see the falls.
(Niagara Falls didn't become much of a tourist destination until after The Great War and automobiles became more accessible. The fact that Pop hadn't made it out there until 1917 isn't surprising.)
We went in the dead of winter, and an unusual winter it was. The falls were frozen over from top to bottom. I think that has only happened one other time since that winter. It is difficult to imagine how such a force of falling water could freeze over, although water did continue to flow beneath the outer coating of ice.
His dates don't match with history here. The falls froze once in 1906 and again in 1932. I can't find anything documenting a freeze or even semi-freeze during both of these mentioned trips to New York in the winters of 1916/1917 when he was six, or 1922/1923 when he was ten. Perhaps the falls were frozen over on top but not recorded as an official freeze in the history books since water continued to flow beneath.
This photo is an aerial from 1922. The horseshoe-shaped falls on
the right are the Canadian side and the straight-line falls on the
left are the American side. The American falls also include the 1/3
of the horseshoe-shaped falls that juts out a bit, on the visual left
of the horseshoe. The international line bisects those falls, as shown
below in the screenshot from Google (just use your imagination and flip it around to match the perspective of the 1922 shot). Bridal Falls are the smaller fall on the far right of the straight-line American Falls
At that time, the rim of the falls on the American side bowed out in the middle, as an arc extending outward at the center. A thick stratum of hard limestone at the top resisted wear as the thunderous torrent poured over the edge. Underneath, softer layers of rock eroded, leaving a space at the bottom of the falls, behind the roar of the falling water. We could actually walk from one side to the other behind the falls - a frightening experience. Now, erosion has worked its way up the middle until there is a reverse curve. Huge chunks of hard limestone piled up in the bottom and eliminated the passageway behind the falls. Those rocks now discourage all but the most foolish in trying to go over the falls in barrels, which occasionally took place with some success back in those days.
The space he's referring to is a natural cave behind Bridal Falls on the American side. For $1, you could walk behind the falls in a space about 150 feet long.
In 1954 a rock fall destroyed the cave. Today there's a behind the falls tour on the Canadian horseshoe side that has concrete reinforced tunnels with electric lights. Much more civilized, but probably less thrilling. My brother took that tour as a child.
Incidentally, and because it's kind of a funny read, the King and Queen of Belgium toured the natural cave behind the falls in 1919 - read the full article at The New York Times archives here. Apparently, it was an event "not in the program" and after a spirited discussion of it over breakfast, the King announced, "I am going." Then the Queen announced that if HE was going then she would and Prince Leopold piped up that he'd not be left behind either.
After the trip through the cave, the King said of the Queen, "Well, she's a mighty game little woman!"
Ha!
On the Canadian side in a curio shop, Pop bought something and paid for it with a gold coin. Although use of gold coins was not uncommon in that day, the woman took the coin, looked it over, turned behind the counter, raised her skirt and slipped it under her garter.
This is a 1915 $10 gold coin. I don't know which denomination Pop used or what he purchased, but I found $2.50, $10 and $20 examples at several sites. This particular coin is worth about $10,000 today. I feel certain that whatever Pop bought with that coin in 1917 is NOT worth $10,000 today. Kind of a cool looking coin though.
***
(This is me talking now, but I won't put you through the pains of italics since it's difficult to read for long text.)
My family went to Cattaraugus in 1986, when I was seven, and I remember being THOROUGHLY unimpressed by the whole thing. This old house is important WHY? You want me to pose in a CEMETERY? Um, NO THANKS MOM, THAT'S CREEPY.
We also made what seems like a THOUSAND trips to Niagara Falls while we lived in New York in the early 80's. Any time ANYONE came to visit we would load up the car and head to the falls. My brother and I grew to hate Niagara Falls. It got to the point where we asked if we could stay in the car and read books while everyone else walked up to the edge and gaped at the water.
Here's me and my brother at the falls:
We also made it to Cattaraugus one time. The blue house behind me in the picture below? That's Grandmother Kysor's house where Pop grew up, same one as the 1908 black-and-white photo up top! It's still there; I was able to even find it on Google Maps and see from street-view this afternoon. It's blue and looks pretty much the same. I wonder if the current residents know just how old it is or anything about its past occupants?
Here we are posing in the cemetery. I cannot tell you how UNCOMFORTABLE my brother and I were while doing this. First, we were in a cemetery, which was creepy enough, but now the adults wanted us to TOUCH the headstones and POSE with them? AND SMILE? With the dead people RIGHT THERE?
It should be noted that this is the only photo that we are smiling in. The rest of them show us sporting some pretty serious scowls.
My brother is with Grandmother Kysor's grave, below. (Our great-great-great-great grandmother.) That's her husband, Archibald next to her, but he died a year before Jess was born in 1911.
This post has taught me that I need to wear more shirts with horizontal stripes on the chest, and you need to go back to wearing more pink.
Posted by: Rollo | 04/26/2010 at 07:37 PM
OMG you should totally pt together a packet and mail it to them... they may totally not care, but they might be really into it! I know I would be!
:)
Posted by: beth | 04/26/2010 at 08:47 PM