Hometown Visit

June 1, 2016

We reached Cousin Susan and Gary’s lovely home in New Hartford, NY late Saturday afternoon. Geezer Girl had a swim in their pool and we settled in for the next four nights.

New Hartford is about twenty minutes from Ilion, my hometown. I had not been there in over a decade. The next days were spent visiting the old neighborhoods and stomping grounds seeing what – and who- had changed and what remained.

[Much of this post is for the benefit of those friends and family members already acquainted with the area. By necessity it will be rather long and contains many photos. It may be boring to the rest of our gentle readers. We understand and are not offended if you leave early. Please do come back next time, though.]

Sunday morning we headed for the church where my brother Joe and I spent our youth and where Joe was inspired toward the priesthood and I was not. Saint Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Ilion is a very old and once prominant part of the community. I was pleased to see that it remains in very good physical condition… though the congregation has shrunk precipitously.

We were surprised to be greeted by Bishop Daniel Herzog, the retired bishop of the diocese. He and his wife are filling in while the parish search for a permanent priest, the former priest having left on very short notice.  (I’m sure there was a story there but, typical of these New Englanders, they weren’t talking.) Dan and his wife have moved temporarily to Ilion, living in the church provided Rectory. Visiting them were their friends Bishop Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore, Northern Ireland, and his wife. Lord Miller is a studied musician and took over the organ for the service.

Saint Augustine’s modest size belies the size and beauty of its organ. Someone, over a century ago, donated the 1800 pipe organ, probably as the church was being built, as it is perfectly located, physically and acoustically, in the main church. I am very familiar with it as I helped maintain it as a youth.

Lord Miller gave that organ a good workout. He was obviously in music heaven and used every register at his disposal. It was beautiful to listen to him in his enthusiasm. The thirty or so of us in the congregation were rather overwhelmed and had struggled to follow the simpler lines and notes of our sheets. But to hear it played once again to it’s fullest was a chilling pleasure to us all.

A spaghetti dinner in the parish hall followed the service. We had a good opportunity to meet Lord Miller and Bishop Herzog. They were both aware of the San Joaquin Diocese and had many questions of “the situation” there.

Almost a third of the people at dinner remembered my mother Alice and we shared stories at the table. They all mentioned their appreciation for the new restroom that was built from a bequest from her. She always hated the old one that was part of a mop closet.

The day was overcast, warm and showery.  We spent most of the day exploring the area and old neighborhoods.

Ilion was practically built by Remington. Eliphalet Remington invented some of the process of reproducing guns with consistent dimensions. The town grew and grew around Remington Arms. Then they came up with a typewriter to compete with Underwood Corp’s. Then the UniVac computer to compete with IBM.

IBM won, typewriters are collectables and hunting has declined with the privatization of land and Bambi mania. The museum presents an excellent picture of the company and it’s colorful history.

Most of the huge Remington buildings are now closed and fenced off. A few small sections have been kept alive by dribbling in military orders that could end at any time. This once prosperous manufacturing and dairy farm area of Central New York has spent many decades trying to adjust to  changing times, demographics  and labor conditions. It is only now beginning to pull out of serious decline.

Our family home on Benedict Avenue was one home that has been blessed by a couple, the Andersons, who bought it from our mother and who have meticulously maintained it. Seeing it again is always a pleasure.

I point out the very tall pine tree at the corner of the porch. As a young boy I recall being excited that it had just begun to peek above the porch roof and become visible from the upper windows.

Unfortunately it has grown to be a hazard and is scheduled to be taken down this year. Another tree, a beautiful Blue Spruce of about the same era blew down last year, narrowly missing the house. So the concern is legitimate, if sad.

A little history. The tree had been planted by my Uncle Andy when they first moved into the home, about a hundred years ago now.

In this photo our grandfather Charles “Doc” Treiber sits with our mother Alice, her sister Irene and brother Andy. It was taken shortly after their mother had passed away from TB, a common scourge in the area in those years. Irene herself died young of the same disease, before I was born.

Back to the present: while we were parked across the street looking at the home a lady came walking up with her dog. GG started a chat and we discovered she was Alice Hall, nee Dayton, now eighty-six. Alice lived in the house almost across the street from us as we grew up. She babysat us boys, an unimaginable challenge she handled with aplomb.

She married her highschool sweetheart Don and they moved back into the house after her parents died. I stopped back later and had a good chat with both of them. I remember her as a very pretty girl and she still looks good. They ascribe their health to living on the hill and having to walk a lot.

Benedict Avenue is a quarter-mile hill lined with these older homes, some not as well maintained as our old home. At one end is the Ilion Cemetery, at the lower end a monument to those who served with the Union in the Civil War. It stands in a small park in front of the Masonic Temple.

Following WW2 there were Memorial Day parades in every town. The Ilion parade would stop at the monument park… it was three times as big then… for prayers and speeches. It would then progress up Benedict Avenue to the cemetery where it would disperse. We had parade-front seats on our lawn as it passed… standing, of course, as the colors passed.

There was no Memorial Day parade this year. There hasn’t been one in years. But then we haven’t won a war in seventy years either, perhaps affirming what someone famous once said, patriotism is for victors.

My father had three sisters who all lived nearby in my youth. A favorite visit was to his sister Urilla’s large farm near Cedarville, NY.

She and husband Elden worked this very large and prosperous milk, egg and maple syrup producing farm along with Elden’s parents. They all lived in a beautiful old well-kept home, with a separate section for each family. The two daughters were slightly older than me. Nancy and I were particularly close and have remained in touch. We will be visiting her in the next episode.

Nancy’s sister, Shirley and husband Dick took over the farm as Elden and Urilla aged. Unfortunately the small farms have been under increasing competition from large corporate farming operations. They struggled and finally gave up.

A couple of later owners tried and also failed. Today the property has been mostly subdivided off and sold to neighboring farms. The home and barns stand today in sad deterioration, heartbreaking to us who loved that farm.

While we were in the area we paid visit to the Cedarville Store a few miles up the road. It’s very picturesque but barely alive.

Inside is a minimal store behind many tables awaiting yesterdays’ farmers who once gathered there.

A very amiable proprietor shared her thoughts on the world conditions, teens today and how it could all be fixed. Echos, echos  of the same conversations in the same seats of a half-century before.

We looped around a few roads to checkout the Ilion Fish and Game Club, a favorite spot for our dad and many of the skeet and trap shooters. I learned my love of clams, both steamed and raw, by emulating these childhood heros at the frequent clambakes.

They had a big shoot going so it was open and thriving… at least by today’s standards. About forty hooters from all over the state were there, many with their RVs. Not quite the yesteryears’ two to three hundred, but a good showing.

The place, now a century old,  looked little changed, though the shooters had lost much of their heroic look in my eyes.

Monday evening my daughter Erin’s Uncle David joined us for a swim and cookout on the deck.

Tuesday evening Susan and Gary took us to Tom Cavallo’s, their favorite New Hartford watering hole, for dinner and drinks. Its modest entrance belies a half-block mix of pub, restaurant and outside patio bar. I found their scallops, clams and spaghetti all prepared as they should be by an old Italian eatery.

After dinner we repaired to their deck and watched our final sunset of this visit.

-Geezer