This is the house & barn on the “Wilson” farm where Homer & Lucy lived. They ran a cash crop & dairy farm there from 1933 until 1946. The photos are ca 2009. The house looks much like it did during their time. The house had been an inn/tavern at sometime during the 1800’s. When they lived there foundations were still visible indicating that a much larger building existed of which the house was a part. Other foundations just to the north of the house were for a giant barn which was probably used to shelter the travelers horses. During their tenure the barn in the photo above was one of the biggest & best in the area. It has now been taken down. The silo was not there during their time.

    The barn was modern for its day with milking machines & running water piped in so each cow had its own drinking fountain. A separate building sat over a drilled well & had an electric pump. Also in that building was a refrigerated water tank to keep the milk in cans cool until it was picked up. The house had no such amenities during their stay. The house had a wood/coal stove in the living room. The kitchen had an wood fired iron cook stove later converted to kerosene. Not much heat for that big old house. Lucy did all the cooking on that stove plus heated hand pumped water from the cistern to wash clothes, dishes,etc. PLUS she washed all the milking machines & other equipment, pails, strainers, etc, twice a day, every day. At first she had help from Olive & Alice, but when they moved away she was on her own. One day she had enough. When the owners made one of their periodic visits, she told the wife [the actual owner], “Mrs Fitch, i will no longer wash the milking equipment without hot & cold running water in the house”. Mrs. Fitch replied: “Mrs. Blakesley, you should not & will not have to do that job without hot & cold running water”. Shortly thereafter a hot water heater was installed. NOT in the main house but in the milk house which already had running water. Lucy never did get running water in her house, but she never washed another piece of milking equipment. Someone else got that job!

    Life on the farm was hard. Homer had one tractor & a pair of horses. A plow, drag, disc, roller & a manure spreader. The farm also had a hay mower, hay loader & a grain binder. Hay was put in the barn loose. No bales. Grain was put in the barn in tied bundles [sheaves]. As was then common in those days, a gang of men with a large tractor & thrashing machine would travel farm to farm to thrash the grain. They might be at the farm a week or more. Part of the deal was a noon time dinner. Not a lunch, but DINNER. To the author as child this was Christmas every day ! It wasn’t for Lucy or the other ladies who had to do all the work. All very labor intensive.

    In the early years Homer had help on the farm from the older boys & later from Robert & Donald. The older ones had gone out on their own. By 1937 Charlie had his own trucking business. John followed in the early 1940s. Merrill joined the Army Air Force in 1942. They all continued to help out  when they could. Another source of labor was from a couple of Homer’s nephews who worked for room & board & whatever cash Homer could spare. A common occurrence during the Depression era. He had at least two hired men who may have been Orville & Floyd Lane, brothers of Alice Blakesley.

    Life on the farm was not all work & no play. Homer & Lucy had their pleasures. There were family visits, reunions, etc. When visiting relatives in the Italy Hill area, Homer would often slip over to the famous Blue Eagle Tavern for refreshment with old friends. As a child the author would keep him company. Another pleasure they both liked was the radio, in particular the Saturday night shows. The radio also led to Lucy’s “Radio Burnt Potatoes”. She was a fan of the “soap box operas” that were running on the radio at that time. Her intense concentration occasionally led to burnt dinners. Her son John sent her young innocent grandson [me] in to ask if we having her Radio Burnt Potatoes for supper again. For the first & only time in her life she blew up all over her favorite grandboy.

He had been setup by his Uncle John. Other things they did together was to go to square dances. Homer would sometimes call the sets. Lucy liked jig-saw puzzles & checkers at which she was unbeatable. You move first, she moved first you were beaten. When asked how she always was able to win, she said as child she watched her father while away the winter by playing checkers by mail. The long time between letters gave lots of time to study the next move & so she learned every move & countermove possible. Another pleasure she had was going to the movies. On Saturdays Homer took her to Canandaigua to do her grocery shopping or as she said “do her trading”. All the stores were on main street so she would shop in each one leaving the goods to be  picked up later. She would walk up the street & go to the Saturday matinée double feature usually grade B westerns. Her favorite actor was an ex-football player named Johnny Mack Brown, “the most handsome man that ever lived”. Homer returned to the farm during good weather, coming back to town for her later. During bad weather & in the winter he would stay in town. On those occasions he would go to Ryan’s Bar & Grill at 208-210 So. Main. It was usually full of farmers & others on a similar mission. As a child, the author, often went with them & went with Lucy to the movies. When Homer stayed in town, the boy had to decide between Ryan’s with soda pop, bar cheese, hot dogs & hamburgers or a great western. Both were great fun !

    Sometime in the mid 1940s, Lucy about 60, decided to learn how to drive a car. The author saw this event. At the time Homer owned a 1934 Buick sedan. Lucy’s sister, Mary Dean, was the instructor. With Lucy at the wheel, they were heading west on Lake to Lake road when she made a right to the house driveway. On the edge of the drive was a large tree that she hit dead center. No damage was done to the occupants & only slight damage to the car bumper. Lucy let out a screech, got out of the car & stomped in the house. That was the end of her driving career.

    As the years rolled by it became obvious that Homer & Lucy could not continue the hard work of running the farm. In 1946 Homer age 67 & Lucy age 64 retired. Their son Charles bought the old #8 schoolhouse located at the intersection of Co. Rd. 18 & DePew Rd. in Reeds Corners, Ontario Co. NY. It was converted in to a retirement home for them consisting of a living room with a coal stove, a kitchen with a kerosene stove, two bedrooms & a storage room containing a closed-in one hole privy. Homer was used to privies, but not inside the house . His take on this was there was something wrong with a society that shit in the house & ate in the backyard. Over time he got used to it. For the first time in her life Lucy was enjoying running water in her kitchen. It was a gravity fed cold water tap supplied by a tank mounted up the wall in the back room & fed by rain water. At least she did not have to pump it or carry it from the well. These folks were a hardy bunch.

    On August 22 1946 Homer was driving a tractor on son Charles’s farm when the seat broke. He fell off & was run over by a disc. The tractor continued on until it got caught in a ditch. His son John noticed smoke & noise coming across the field. Investigating, he found Homer trying to get up. An article in the Geneva [NY] Daily Times says he had 3 fractures of his arm & shoulder, & a broken hip. This may be partly true. Don’t think his hip was broken then. It was broken when he was a young man.  This earlier injury had left him with one leg about 2 inches shorter then the other. As was said he was 6 foot or 5 foot 10 depending on which leg he stood on. Later he was able to get around using a cane. He said the two worst things about the accident were [1] While in the hospital the nearby church bells rang on the hour every hour. [2] When he fell off the tractor he was chewing tobacco as had been his habit for over 50 years. When he hit the ground he went gulp & swallowed the whole cud. This made him deathly sick but cured the habit. A tough old bird was he.

    Just as tough, maybe more so, was Lucy. She was a long time diabetic & had to take insulin shots. She still did all her own housework & took care of Homer for the rest of his life.