Wandering Around The Family Tree

The house on East Avenue had no wall under it, or cellar and the next fall we moved to the Mrs Judge Hiram Haskell house on East Main, next to the Olmstead home, both standing in 1936. There was a large library there and I had a good time browsing among the books. The next spring we moved a mile west of Le Roy to the Graves place, a small farm now owned by Frank Service. There was an orchard with lovely apples west of the house. I was twelve that fall, still a little girl, - always rather large for my age. Our folks had a good deal of company, - Dr Wentworth's family - Lilly, Clara, Stephanie, Dick and John, and among the young folks, E.F. and Mary went with and entertained were Geo. and Mary Sperry, P.T. Lynn and sisters Fannie and Jennie, Will Stowell. That year, while living west of Le Roy, the twins and I went to the Stone school house on the northeast corner about two miles west of Le Roy. A few years ago a wooden school house was built there. I think it was a happy year we sp...

 In the spring of 1936, my grandparent Francis William Hankins (1897-1983) and Evelyn Clara Call (1895-1962) moved from Dunellen, New Jersey to Long Lane Farm in Collegeville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania with their three children. My grandfather owned the farm until about 1972.  I've just started digitizing a family photo album from the 1940s and 1950s, which starts with a series of photographs of the farm from about 1940. My guess is that most of the photographs were taken by my Grandmother - my Grandfather appears in many more photos than she does, and we have photos albums of hers with photos from as early as 1904.  Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long Lane Farm, Collegeville, Pennsylvania c 1940 Long ...

 We younger girls went to school at once in an old stone school house on East Main St., on the north side of the street. Cousin Josie, Mrs. Josephine Crocker Pratt, taught the school. She was considered one of the best public school teachers of her day. She began to teach when she was fifteen. She was nearing thirty when she married Peabody Pratt, a civil war veteran. He did no live very long. They had one daughter, Alice - Mrs Cartter Weaver of Pittsburg. She was home only a few years, and resumed teaching, continuing until she was about sixty. The last years she taught in preparatory department of the Le Roy Academy, which was later the Le Roy High School.  I think I went to her only that year. At her advice I was sent to Ingham the next fall. I received the prize for being at the head the most times in my spelling class. it was a pretty earthen ware basket broken long, long ago. In those days, we spelled orally. A line was formed and words pronounced. When a word was misspe...

 Returning to the early days, Le Roy always seemed our home town. It was our Post Office address when we lived in the town of Pavilion and the place for advance schooling. In the spring of 1873 the family moved into a new home on East Avenue, a new street not running through, in the southeast part of Le Roy. The lot was close to G.C. Well's lot which he called "Dreamland." His place was well planted with beautiful trees, and I used to greatly enjoy wandering there. There was no house there then, but it is the home of the the family. Le Roy always seemed to me the prettiest town of its size I know of. Now, with the improvements on the Oatka it is still most lovely. I believe it has always been superior from a social and intellectual standpoint, possibly, moral also. This superiority is accounted for by its excellent schools, Ingham in particular. From Ingham I received my "Artium Primarius" in 1883, and Carrie and Clara Bachelor of Arts in 1885.  ______ Patty...

 The real glamour of Fourth of July  seems to have been in our early days. Father would hitch up the team and we would all go to Le Roy in the Democrat, a two seated light wagon, to the "doings." There was a program, singing, reading the Declaration of Independence, an oration by some one from away or possibly a distinguished citizen, but the great even, to us children, at least was the Kalathumpian procession. I find I cannot describe them clearly. There were bands, caricatures of noted people, but the most I can recall was the living moving picture of men in gay colored fantastic costumes with masks of variety, creations of a dream world to me. Wonderfully delightful were the fireworks. I love them to this day with a sense of regret that anything costing so much should vanish in one ecstatic, glorious moment. Fire crackers and noise was no part of the enjoyment to me. Charles says that in the early days he and Albert and Lizzie had one bunch of firecrackers among them. I su...

 In Le Roy was an Academy, as well as Ingham University, famous in the early days as one of the first institutions of learning for women in the United States. Mary had been to a girl's boarding school at Gainsville before I can remember. Both she and E.F. had been to the Academy five and a half miles with roads frequently impassable in winter's snow, and almost so in the mud of spring. i think it would be hard for our grandchildren to conceive the condition of the roads in those early days. A covered carriage was very rare till after the '70s. I do not remember when had we our first one.  In those days the roads in each locality were in charge of a "pathmaster" appointed by the Highway Commissioner - elected by the town - from some one in the road district. This "pathmaster" had charge of the patch to be kept in repair. It was expected he would take particular care of the road which he had to travel most. These repairs, of course, varied. They usually co...

 Rev. Phineas T. Lynn is an old friend of the family who still corresponds with E.F. (1936). He visited often at our home, and worked for father some, boarding there, a matter of course, in those days. In a letter to E.F. dated April 1928 he wrote "By the way, I think I have never told you how blessedly I was impressed as a young man with the charming Christian home of your parents out there on the farm. I have used it as an illustration of the kind of homes that make our land great. It was indeed an ideal family life to me." Lynn has always been a fine singer, as well as preacher. He visited us a few years ago, held sister Carrie by the hand for some minutes while he told her what I have written above, to much greater length, in an impassioned way. We were all smiling (behind his back) as Carrie is one of the most carefully modest of women, and she once stole a glance at Frank. Her daughter-in-law, Katherine, was still more amused, because on the drive over here, Carrie said...

 A lady was vising Sarah once, when they, father and mother, were old people. Father told this lady something of his love story, and said that he loved her more and more as the years went by. He made some pretty remark about mother after she dressed for their Golden Wedding "As sweet as she was fifty years ago!" I am sorry I cannot recall exactly. The winter of his last illness he so wanted her by his side all the time, and could would turn with such a look of utter weariness to lay his head against her. Before he went away he said, "You won't be long, will you, Mother?" In their old age, they used a playful wit and humor and badinage with each other that was most charming, but I doubt if I could reproduce it in writing, even if I could remember it.  They were strict Methodists, and were against card playing and dancing, which were never introduced in our home. They played other games, however, tho I think neither of them cared for them much. I doubt if there wa...

 their fiftieth anniversary. By that time many of the old friends were gone, but there were many new relatives. I find a short account of this in the Family Record, as follows: "We celebrated Grandpa and Grandma Coe's Golden Wedding Anniversary New Year's Eve, 1900. There were about fifty guests present tho many more were invited, whom distance or their infirmities". (in the middle of the winter) "prevented from attending. Carrie, Sarah and I helped about the refreshments and Clara sent delicious fruit cake. The "very large parlor was prettily decorated with evergreens, holly, some yellow roses Clara E. Coe made, and hot house flowers. Father and Mother wore yellow roses and looked very nice indeed. Some interesting letters were read, -" one article in Will Stowell's newspaper noted "We children gave mother a pretty watch chain and our children gave them for both Christmas and golden wedding an aquarium with five gold fish. The guests were invi...

Dressmaker  In later years when we younger girls were growing into young ladies, and were at school in Le Roy, she would have a dress maker come to the house. Other work would be put aside as much as possible, and the dressmaker would plan, advise and cut the goods, and the women of the family would sew as fast as possible. With five women to sew for, there was a lot to be done, if each one only had a dress or two.  Father was full of fun and jokes. Once mother sent him to see if Miss Sarah Skinner, now Mrs John Sandles, could sew a day for her. She did a great deal of our sewing. She has told that she make the wedding dresses for all four of us. At this time she was engaged so far ahead, that father said disgustedly, "I engage you for a year from to-day!" She entered it in her book, and when the date drew near she wrote mother a card saying she reserved that day, but if mother didn't need her it was all right. But mother had her.  I there were many years, when in the pre...