We remember...1920's East Pal

History - Newark

george farrell We remember...
1920's East Pal
By George Edward Farrell
(From his talk on March 21, 1998)

My father was Edward Dennis Farrell and my mother was Louella Ann Corlett Farrell. I was born on August 19, 1916 in Turkey Hollow, northwest of Palmyra. My folks, two older sisters, Muriel, Dorothy, and I moved to the Hardy farm in 1918. My brother Wallace was born on that farm in 1922. The Hardys had lived there a great many years and raised sheep but they decided to move west.

Traveling on North Creek Road, westward from the north end of Whitbeck Road, the farm is on the north side at the first big bend as you go down the hill. The 100-acre farm had a big white house that still stands. Several years after we sold Dad's farm in 1945, the barns burned, at which time some of the big shade trees were lost.

My father was a successful farmer with a herd of 30 to 35 head of cattle. That does not sound like much in this day, but Dad worked hard. He raised cash crops of cabbage, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, some fruit, primarily pears, apples, a sweet cherry tree or two, strawberries, and raspberries. He depended on us kids to help in the harvest in order to get the produce to market. My younger brother helped on the farm until he finished high school, at which time he left Dad and went other places to work. When we were not in school we were expected to help with the jobs outside. There was always a chore to do. Always lots of work. Dad also raised chickens and pigs. More work. More chores. Farmers in those days were quite self-sufficient and the once-a-week trip to the country store was an event.

We had four or five work horses. Dad broke horses so there was always a young one to get ready for work. In the mid 1920s, Dad purchased a tractor with iron lug wheels and, later, a Model T pick-up truck which he used to take the milk to the East Palmyra railroad station for shipment to Rochester. Prior to that time he had used horses and sleighs in the winter and a wagon in the summer. As I recall we had a Whippet car.

There was no anti-freeze. Kerosene was put in the radiators and left all winter. It was a yearly job to flush out the great amount of rust before once again filling the radiator with water. There were no starters on the equipment and everyone had to crank by hand. The engines started well in warm weather but during cold spells you just cranked and cranked. I remember Dad getting so worked-up and worn out. Sometimes he did not win.

Our farm was all workable land except for a sharp knoll on the north end that he did not use. The land across North Creek Road was used for pasture.

Farmers, in that period, exchanged services. They helped one another whenever help was needed, especially during any large project such as threshing, filling silo, drawing in hay or harvesting crops. Very little money changed hands. A farmer went back to give a hand to those who had helped him. Neighbor helped neighbor. This dependable way of life is regrettably lacking today.

I started school in District #7 which is the cobblestone building that Glenn Young now owns at the top of the hill on the corner of North Creek Road and Lyon Road. In my first year of school there were 77 students in the eight grades. There was no kindergarten.

I remember that the huge wood burning stove in the rear of the one-room schoolhouse used to get red-hot in the cold weather. I believe coal was used as fuel later. There was one teacher... and, many problems.

The new Union School on South Creek Road was opened in 1923. This led to the closing of most of the one-room schools. One teacher taught two grades in each of the four rooms. Marian Hollister and Emerson Hyman were two of our four teachers.

About 1930 East Palmyra sent their students to Newark at the completion of the eighth grade, if they continued their schooling. Many stayed home and worked on the family farm. Until that time, the students went to Palmyra via the New York Central Railroad which had passenger service. My two older sisters graduated from Palmyra High School. I think one of the reasons the district chose Newark was due to its program of agriculture, which Palmyra did not offer. The taxpayers thought the Ag classes (taught by Prof Leon F. Lee) would better benefit the sons of farmers.

It was a big disadvantage to go to the big Newark High School after years of "country schooling." The East Palmyra Union School did have a gym and the boys played sports and had teams, particularly baseball and basketball. Being able to play helped us "break the ice" for being from the outside, when we entered as freshmen.

In 1929, The Great Depression hit and it had a big impact on everyone. Banks closed. There was no money to buy anything. Living on a farm, we never went hungry as many people did. We had to patch clothes and economize in every way possible.

I remember that my Dad put 300 to 400 bushels of potatoes and 300 to 400 tons of cabbage in storage because he was unable to sell them at harvest time. He could not sell them through the winter. In late spring, we drew out the rotten vegetables, spread them on the land and plowed them under. That mess was probably the worst smelling job I ever had!

In the 1930s, there was a big incidence of tuberculosis and they found out that a lot of it was coming from the milk of infected cows. Every dairyman had to have his stock tested. My Dad lost all his cattle except two calves and one bull. The diseased cows were taken to Rochester and destroyed. Dad had to buy a new herd and paying for it was a great hardship.

Soon after that, there was a milk strike. Daily, for several weeks farmers drew their 40-quart cans of milk into the fields and dumped the milk because they could not market that vital source of their livelihood. Again, plowing-under destroyed the odors. Another big loss!

Wanting to earn some extra money while in school, I did some trapping. I caught shunks, muskrats and raccoons. Furs were easy to sell and brought a good price. Things went well for a couple years until I tangled with a skunk. He won! I smelled like a skunk! Thereafter, every time I perspired the odor came back. In a warm school room and when I played sports, the odor came back. In the spring, Mother buried my clothes in the garden for a couple weeks. She gave me something with which to bathe. Finally, the smell left.

After graduating from Newark High School in 1936 and having taken agriculture courses, I raised several pigs. The first year I had real good luck, I sold my pigs and made a profit. The next year, I had the pigs almost ready for market and they got sick, lay down and died off. The pigs had shippers fever. The germ must have been tracked in from some place. I lost every pig I had. That was the end of my pig business.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932. In his platform he promised that he would extend electricity into the rural areas. In the middle 1930s we got electric power on the farm. Lettie Taylor and I were married on November 25, 1937 and we lived in the east side of my folk's house. One of the first things we did was to have a bathroom. It sure beat those outside houses.

I bought a gas and service station business in Newark in 1940. Two years later we left East Palmyra and bought a house in East Newark to be closer to my work.

We have may good memories of East Pal. People often ask what we ever did with our time. We had a real close group of boys and girls who spent many happy hours together.

We used to ride down hill in the road at District #7 schoolhouse. We ice skated on the ponds and Mud Creek (or Ganargua) Flats. We boys swam in the old swimming hole east of the bridge just north of this East Palmyra Firehall. We were dirtier when we got out than when we went in the water. We had picnics. Every year we had a church picnic at Pultneyville. With the old-type inner tube tires we always had one or two flats on that long round trip.

In the spring of the year, we boys went spear fishing for suckers and carp in Mud Creek. One night in early April, our old flat-bottomed rowboat started to rock. The three of us fell overboard into water up to our shoulders. We had to walk two miles home in cold, wet clothes.

We played basketball in someone's barn during the winter. We fished and played baseball in the summer. There was my Dad's unwritten law that, if you were too sick to go to church and Sunday School on Sunday morning, you also were too sick to play ball in the afternoon.

Some of the things we did were the things we should not have done.

Some of the young fellows put a big old wagon on the top of the Browning barn located at the top of #7 hill. Also, a wagon was put on the porch of Union School thus blocking the entrance. To this day the older folks wonder how "the unknowns" ever did these things. Both wagons were all intact. Another time the school lawn was all dug up by a grader. I had no part of that.

There is the story of some boys tying a cow to the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church. Imagine the church-goers surprise that Sunday morning. I do not remember who claimed the cow. Bert Ryckbost had some melons and a bunch of us boys got into his precious crop. Bert was pretty unhappy with us at that time.

Mr. Robinson ran the country store in East Pal. His son Allyn had a search light that he flashed on and off when the night mail plane passed over traveling from Albany to Buffalo or vice versa. The mail plane flashed their lights back. That was always intriguing.

Discipline. Children did what the teacher said in school. Whenever the older folks said something, that is what we did. My Dad disciplined, and order was the name of the game. One time I sassed my mother back when she asked me to do something. I never knew where Dad's hand came from, but it came across my face. He took me by the hand and we went to the woodshed. After we got through in the woodshed, I could hardly walk. Upstairs I went without any supper. I never sassed my mother after that.

We had a real cold winter in the early 30s and the underground waterline that furnished the water for the cattle and for the house froze up. There was a gasoline engine in the milkhouse that pumped the water to both the barn and the house. Kenneth Dey and I felt we knew enough about electricity that we could thaw out the line. We hooked up all the equipment. Suddenly there was a big flash in the night sky. Whatever we did, it blew a transformer and all East Palmyra was without electricity.

Ken and I were in a bad situation. We were lucky to know Lee McParland who was head of, and line foreman for, New York State Electric and Gas Company. He knew what had happened even before we spoke to him. He bailed us out and that was the last time we ever tried to thaw out any pipes.

In the winter, the church ladies made candy at mother's home for Christmas. They stored it in the cellar until it was laid out on long tables in our front room in preparation for filling the gift boxes. These were given to the children at the annual church Christmas party. I can remember getting into the candy and getting into trouble with the ladies of the church.

Another happening that stands out in my mind is that there was a fellow, Jacob Boeye, who lived across the Mud Creek Flats on South Creek Road, who played the accordion. On summer nights his music was carried for long distances through the valley. We enjoyed his music as we sat on our porch or in the yard. Sometimes he played for as long as an hour or an hour and a half.

Another outstanding experience was to visit the New York Central Railroad water station just west of East Palmyra. The steam engines lowered a chute and scooped up water from a long tray between the rails as the trains sped through without stopping. If the wind was just right, the spectator got a bath. When the weather was cold, ice formed on the train, the chute and the tracks.

During the Depression there were many "down and out" men who hitched rides on the top of boxcars. When they became hungry they got off the train and went to nearby homes and asked for food. This happened especially in the summertime. I think my folks' house was marked. Mother gave food and hot coffee or tea to the hobos. They told interesting stories of all the places they had been, riding the rails.

There was a watchman at the railroad crossing before the signals were installed. With two westbound tracks and two eastbound tracks, anyone crossing still had to be careful that all tracks were clear. I remember well the aftermath of a woman walking across, trying to beat the train.

East Pal had a passenger station, tool house and storage buildings. Many farmers shipped milk on the railroad. When there was no scheduled passenger train stop, incoming mail, stashed in a canvas mailbag, was thrown toward the station and the outgoing mail bag was caught on a hook on the side of the mail car as the fast train went through.

Bert Ryckbost, Ray and Bill DeVries and several other men of East Palmyra worked "on the railroad."

Lettie and I had many good times and made many good friends, with whom we still keep in touch. We will always "look up" to East Palmyra. It gives us great pleasure to meet you wherever and whenever it might be. We, as others here tonight, love to get back to East Pal.

top of page
return to history index