Wright, Alberta (Ball) - Memories

Alberta (Ball) Wright

Alberta Ball Wright - Memories

My dad moved up to this farm in 1900. I can remember him telling about leading the sheep through the village of Berne. This house was just a little lot right in the middle of the farm and it was occupied by Charles Ball’s sister Aunty Van. She was married to Uncle Al who was Grandma Sholtes brother. The first memories I have of this house are 1918, at the end of the world war. I was visiting my grandparents down across the road and the school had a parade, Armistice Day, and they marched down past my grandparent’s house. I joined the parade. It was November 1918. The school was a one-room schoolhouse on the corner where Ravine Rd. branches off. There was anti war sentiment even back then. Mother had music in the piano bench. One of the songs was “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier”. Another was “America Here is My Boy”. So even back in WWI there were people against fighting.

In 1920, Clyde Ball came here and renovated this house and Gertrude and I were with him at that time. It was hard times during the depression years, but we didn’t feel it too much because we had food from the farm. We had chickens and eggs and a garden. One-year mother raised turkeys to make money to buy her first fur coat. We always had lots of tomato plants. Mother Wright always said March 4th was the day to plant your tomato seeds. You would start the plants in the house, and later you would put them out in the garden. When I was first married, we believed you needed 20 quarts of tomatoes per person, so every year while my children were growing up, I canned 100 quarts of tomatoes. We also wanted to have new potatoes and fresh peas by the 4th of July. We also had lettuce, onions and milk. We couldn’t get any extra milk from the farm next door because they had to meet a certain quota.

Over to Grandma Sholtes house there was a little room inside the back door, which was the flour room. That is where she did all her baking and making cookies. She made such good sugar cookies with caraway seeds on the top.

When I was in high school in 1928, the year Hoover vs. Al Smith, we had a saying that H2O vs. Ale. Al Smith was a catholic, which was a strike against him at that time. Hoover was our 31st president. I was glad when Jack Kennedy was elected our 35th president in 1961; I guess we had finally gotten over our narrow mindedness.

The West Mountain Church was up at the top of the hill. One of its pillars is in our museum. That was a rather recent church in my fathers time and he was born in 1888. I still don’t understand why it declined so fast. At one time it was such an active church. They even held dances there, and then it closed down. The building is still there today.

Over the shed at Farrell’s Hotel in Berne, was what was known as Farrell’s hall. That is where they used to have dances and other entertainment. Across the street was a store with a shed alongside that would hold at least two teams. Then come up to where the Berne store is now, that was Settles store. They sold tinware, patent medicines and various other items.

I taught at Averill Park School for three years when I first started teaching, for a salary of $1300.00 per year. I stopped for a while to have my three children. When my youngest child started third grade, I went back to teaching. I think it was in 1945 at Berne Knox, that I finished the last three months of the school year for a teacher that left. The next year they only offered me $1300.00 because I was a beginning teacher even though I had three years of teaching at Averill Park. Fortunately for me, the state passed a law that year stating a beginning teacher would receive $2400.00 a year. In 1958, I have a bank statement that shows my monthly paycheck was $458.00.

I am trying to gather my memories of this farm. Grandma Ball, Dad’s mother, used to go down to Albany and maybe even stay overnight. They would shop in what were called the New York stores, Whitney’s and Myer’s on North Pearl Street. They would get patterns and materials and bring them home. A seamstress would come for three or four days and help grandma and Aunt Hazel sew. That was how you got your new clothes. You had home made, not the ones that were store bought. I was so proud when I got my first new coat, I think it was the first new thing I ever had. Before that everything was what we called a makeover.

In my teenage years there was a triple tragedy. Andrew Miller’s wife, Mrs. Truax and Dan Lendrum’s wife all lost their babies in about a month’s time. Everyone thought that the doctor might have carried a germ from one family to the next.

Life on Maple Ridge Farm in 20th Century

From 2004 Vidio Tape by Alberta Ball Wrightz<br.> Transcribed by Allen Deitz

- Grandpa Ball had a tin horn. On Nov. 18, 1918 Alberta tried to blow it.

-At end of WWI, teacher Nellie Post ( at Red Brick Schoolhouse ) led a School Parade to celebrate end of the war. Ten kids paraded down Ravine Rd. singing "America, Here Is My Boy" and "Over There, Over There".

-Uncle Al (Gibbs), brother of Grandma Sholtes (Ida )lived in Grandpa and Grandma Ball's house when Charles Ball moved to the farm (1900). In 1920 Clyde renovated that house for his family.

-Charles & Minnie would go to Albany’s Whitney's and Myers stores--stay overnight, buy cloth patterns.

-Alta raised turkeys & bought first fur coat with profits. Turkeys layed eggs in field--watched them for 4 weeks to make sure mother turkey didn't move them.

-They kept pigs(behind the carriage house and current garage). Salt pork put in salt for 4 or 5 hours, then hams put in smoke house. Made sausage, sausage cakes and bacon, using corn cobb fire for smoke.

-For winter breakfast made head cheese of chops of pig, ground up, pack in pans, cut in squars, cubes in vinigar syrup.Put apples on it on buckwheat pancakes with syrup. Liverwurst-slice and cider syrup-boiled down cider for syrup.

-Beef-store in granery(in Dutch barns they stored meat in grain to keep cold)very cold-bury beef in grain to keep cold for later. Loin best part. Smoked in granery.(?)

-Kill one sheep-mutten(old sheep).

-Food on the farm during the Depression was not bad.

-March 4th, Alta planted seeds of tomatoes(must be inside). Alberta did eat 20 quarts of tomatoes a year. She canned 100 quarts a year. (Alta or Alberta or both?).

-Corn, beets, string beans & carrots stored in cellerway. Bacon, onions & string beans were very good together. Bacon fat kept on back of stove by Grandma Ball.

-Cloth tied up in cubbard for greasing griddle for pancakes. Grandpa Sholtes(Stanton) planted peas early, & new potatoes were ready on July 4th.

-Had milk, in big pans, take off cream & churn butter(not Alberta). Milk was source of revenue. Sold milk to creameries.(local and Greens Dairy in Schenectady in 1940's-50's).

-Clyde got up at 4AM to hoe corn-before it got hot. 5AM milked cows.

-When milking, set pail of milk in the creek in cold spring,. 2 pails there. When done milking, carried it up to vat in 40 quart cans in milk house. Pour milk in can. Ice kept in old barn up across the road in sawdust. Cut ice at Warner's Lake and brought over to old barn. Put ice in milk house each day. Would stand by the road waiting for Charley W. and Oscar Wright who picked up the milk.(Later, Peter Basler).

-Used coal to heat the house. Early winter cut wood all day, bring to house, put up in teepees. March, sawed in boards & chopped in small pieces, and throw in woodhouse. Wood box in kitchen. Cook stove. Coal stove in cellar. 1 or 2 ton of Penn. coal.

-Bake bread in 1900 by Grandmother Ball (Minnie). Used outdoor kitchen. Cedar kitchen for flour. At Sholtes farmhouse, first room inside hall. Rye bread and carrie seeds.

-Farming done naturally. Pasture 2 or 3 years, then grow buckwheat, next year grow oats.(killed weeds) then hayfield several years. Then back to pasture again.-"Rotation of crops".

-High School picture-1928--Hoover vrs. Al Smith. H2O vrs. ALB-Smith "not proud of this". Cathlic Al Smith."AL Smith kiss your toe" teens said. 31st Pres. Hoover against him-Catholic. But glad in 1961-63 Kennedy was President.

-Social Life. During Civil War, early 1900's and 1800's (Diary Allan gave you) churches were social centers. Went to church every week & wrote have songs and Sunday School picnics at Warner's Lake.(George Warner Diary). White Sulpher Springs Church picnic every year (Lutheran Church).Banner used every year in 1800's.Whichever Sunday School had largest attendance got the Banner in 1800's.

-Surprise parties at peoples house for social & plan ahead.

-Larkin Club-a social club evenings in 1900's.

-Pinochle parties. Hornings when people married. One was held for Harold Cowen and bride.

- Gospel songs Sunday evenings were good .

-Dances- held at West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church. Built 1888. (Clyde and Alta once got caught in snowstorm on West Mt. at church dance and had to stay the night on the mt. No- one worried.)

-Dances were held over sheds of Farrells Hall Hotel in Berne & classes & entertainment also there.

-Furniture store, near sheds for 2 teams of horses, Berne store-Settles Store(tin ware, patton medicines)

-There were sheds on other side of Charles Dietz Store also. (old Post Office in 1970's).Warren Wood postmaster lived in Tim Wiedman house. Tom Wood a big wig in my days.(Alberta). (slave house, son Jesse & son Warren lived on farm.) Daughter Ella given the "Wood House"in Berne. In 1916, Clyde and Alta lived there. June 1, 1911 their wedding at Rock Road Sholtes house. Livery took them to Voorhesville, there to Albany, Dayboat to NYC for one month honeymoon .

Info on Maple Ridge Farm

By Allen Deitz, from discussions with Alberta Ball Wright

- In 1913, Charles Ball's sister, Aunt Eva Ann and husband, Albert Gibbs lived in the house Clyde and Alta moved into in 1920. Albert Gibbs and Eva Ann Ball had children-Harry Gibbs and Floyd Gibbs.Called the "Albert Gibbs House".

-In 1900, Charles and Minnie Ball moved to the farm and lived in the "Robert Ball" house, built by John B. Deitz. 12year old Clyde was born in Knox at the Altamont Reservoir land when he helped drive cattle and sheep from Knox to Switzkill farm thru Berne with Charles, Minnie, Hazel and neighbor boy in one day. Aunt Eva Ann had a big dinner for them that night.

-The Wright family moved to the farm in 1940. Charles Wolford built their new house for them.

More from Alberta Ball Wright memories

From notes of Allen Deitz

- Clyde Ball, farmer in the 1920’s and 1930’s would milk cows until he got a pail of milk, then take it to the spring in the creek, go back to the Dutch Barn and milk. When he got two pails full, he would put the milk in a milk can in the milk house, go up across the road to the small barn near their house to get stored ice from Warner’s Lake. He would bring the ice to the milk house and pack it around the milk can. When done milking in the A.M. , he would take the milk cans up to the road and put them on a platform under a large elm tree to be picked up (I remember Peter Basler driving the milk truck.) Everet Rau suggested that the building next to Dutch Barn in the colored photo might be an ice house (from an earlier time). Maybe they got ice from the creek in the 1800’s and stored it there.

- The land on the bank of the west side of the Switzkill on Maple Ridge Farm was called the “creek fields” by the Wright family. They ran the full length of the creek on the farm from LeRoy Baily’s to Alton Beckers’. They were never plowed or planted because of boulders etc. This area also flooded often in the spring .( there is a second bank about 60 feet from the Switzkill before the hayfields.) On this strip near Baily’s are the foundation stones from the origional farmhouse built by Adam Dietz Jr. and those of the sawmill –now covered by silt. Alberta remembers the stone foundation of the house shown her by Clyde (my grandfather). A. D.

- Alton Becker bought a north line parcel of the Ball farm to built his house. Looks like 2 acres from the road to the creek. It had been there in the 1950’s. I don’t know for sure, but I guess he bought it in the 1900’s from Charles Ball. No ancestors of his were mentioned. (A. D.)

Life on Maple Ridge Farm in 20th Century<br.>From 2004 Vidio Tape by Alberta Ball Wright<br.>notes by nephew, Allen Deitz