The Biography of a Rabbit

gland which is about fifty miles southeast of London. Sittingbourne is approximately thirty miles from Rochester, England. She came to the Unit

hapin and Main Streets. He would then drive to Seneca Castle, a distance of some ten miles, to see her. on the way home, late at night, he would sleep

first home in a house on the corner of Bristol and Mason Streets. In 1903 their first child, Clarence was born. A few years later they moved to a farm on Route 5 and 20 about one and a half miles from Canandaigua. My father worked for a painting contractor in Canandaigua at the time and Clarence has told me that Dad use

born 1904), Leon (born 1905), Adelaide (1908), M

room with the window open (there were no screens at this time). We kept a cow for milk and early in the morning it stuck its' head in the window and gave a loud moo next to my head while I was still sleeping. We also had large barns and did some farming. We grew potatoes for home use and my brothers raised cucumbers to sell. My older broth

her bought the house, almost new at the time, for $1400. During these years there were nine of us children (my brother Robert having been born in 1919) and our house was always the center of activity for the neighborhood. All of our friends w

ieces to bottles and shellac them to make vases. Raymond Smith was my buddy then and was at our house most of the time. They lived a couple of houses down the street and our mothers attended church on Sundays and Wednesday night prayer meetings together. I recall that our Sunday night suppers were always cornmeal with milk and brown sugar. We had a large dining room table, a cherry drop leaf, that would seat ten. I always sat next to my mother at the table. She would make large sugar cookies with a seeded raisin on top and put them on newsp

h banks and uneven ground helped me to become a good center-fielder when I played on a flat baseball field. That was easy after running up and down those hills and I could catch anythin

tacks of books on the floor. We would also roll marbles down the groove in the bottom of skis to knock down houses made of cards. My older brothers and sisters who were married would arrive around noon fo

the window. We had one floor register about four feet square in the living room and we would sit around it for warmth. I remember the babies would sometimes crawl on the register and wet

or several years. The library contained the Zane Grey westerns. These were all lost later when my father moved out and rented the house for several years

reet in front of our house. If we were playing out in front and heard the horses coming we would run for the front porch. Sometimes the horses would run across the front yard and barely miss us. We were so small that the horses seemed twenty feet tall. That is probably the reason I never cared much for horses. During this time my father got his f

her coming and would have plenty of time to get ready for him because he was 96 years old and it would take him about twenty minutes to walk up. He would toss the horseshoes and I

ooking, washing, sewing and caning. Saturday night was the big night of the week for everyone. to make certain we got a parking place downtown, my father would take the car down in the late afternoon and after supper we would walk down to shop and watch the people in town. I can remembe

they picked names at random from the phone book or a list of city residents. There would be crowds outside and you had several minutes to answer, so if you were not there someone could come to find you if they hurried.

nto the basket. The whole bushel went off at once! You never saw such a sight; kids running in all directions with Roman candles and pinwheels swirling around them. The house did not catch fire, but the event

ll and play cowboys. We had a cave dug out of a mound of dirt and we would defend it with spears made from long goldenrod stalks sharpened on the thick end. In the winter we nailed a wooden box on two barrel staves and would sit on the box sliding down hill trying to dodge the trees. In those days they did not plow or sand the streets and when we finally got s

heelchair was one of those old large ones with a wicker seat and back. I would go to the corner store where VanBrookers is now (Pearl and West Avenue) for groceries for my mother. Robert would sit in his wheelchair by the window and time my ru

any as they could. There would be a ten (or more) gallon container of ice cream from Johncox Ice Cream Plant. After dinner we were allowed as many ice cream cones as we wanted. I remember we could only eat two or three before we were full, then we'd feel bad that we couldn't eat more. Our favorite

e from the lake with a lane running down to a boathouse on the shore. In later years I can remember going down with Clarence and Gordon to sleep in the boathouse which was out over the water. It was a wild spot in those days with no cottages nearby. The hill f

orida, living in a tent, they worked on the road repair gang and also picked fruit. I remember they picked apples all that fall on a farm near Geneva in order to e

ries they did not feel up to driving to Nebraska so they advertised in the paper for someone to drive them home. Gordon answered the ad and drove them back. They all got along so well, they asked him to stay with them and he did ... f

d the motorcycles into Kansas City and sold them. They took the money and went by train, to Omaha where Gordon was living. They talked Gordon into going on to California with them in his truck. The roads were very poor, dirt mostly, and it took them a long time. In California they pic

aft near Cheshire, New York. One of our favorite games there was "Capture the Flag". The lane through Camp Woodcraft was the line between sides and the flag was on a pole way back in the woods. Some would guard the flag while others would circle around, try to get the other side's flag, and return across the center line with

ove. One time Ray Smith and I went up to stay overnight and it was cold. We were quite young at the time and got scared as it grew dark so we tried to sleep in the loft. We had a wood fire going in the old stove to keep warm and it made so much smoke that we coughed all nig

I still have today. It is the only one I've ever owned and it must be sixty years old. It is getting dull, but it's never been sharpened. He also bought me my first bicycle and it took me forever to learn to ride it. I don't k

gs have remained with me throughout my life. It was a great lesson because I never did anything like that again. Jack VanBrooker ran the store and when he had bananas that were too ripe to sell, he would tell Ray

n each side of the street we could stretch it across and when a car came down it would stretch the rubber about a quarter mile. We would also go to the top

"Old Lady Behan" as we called her, would come running down the street yelling and waving her arms. Guess she watched those trees all day long. One night Ray and I went over and filled our pockets with cherries

l off a big armful of pea vines. Sometimes we would get enough to take home to our mothers. You understand this was not like stealing candy from a store to our way of thinking

rns north and east of town during the winter. The herders drove the flocks down the road by our house every spring and fal

or 100 pounds and they would chip off a piece and weigh it. While the driver took the ice into the house, all the kids wou

time we played there as kids, but we found the old foundations by digging down a ways. There were a lot of old red bricks. The gully down the other side of the hill had a creek running down it. Ray and I would dig i

One time a truck load of prunes tipped over and there were prunes everywhere. Another time a load of butter in wooden crocks tipped over and the crocks rolled down people's lawns. People were coming out and carrying them into their houses, but we did

ounty Fair for 90 consecutive years. The Fair was held in September then so all the farm products were on display. The fairgrounds were off Fort Hill Avenue where the present High School stands. There was a

astman when he founded Eastman Kodak. She came to set up an annuity for my father and all my uncles. They cost $45,000 each and my father received $100 a month for the rest of his life. I remember that he was able

ould can a lot of them every year. My father loved them. We would take the pits out of some and put them on the flat garage roof to dry in the sun. We covered them with wire screen to keep the birds away. When dried, they were stored in large bags in the bottom of a big kitchen cupboard. In the winter I would get into the cupboard and sit there eating prune

", "Hide and Seek", and Holly Golly". We used to make guns out of old tire tubes, sticks and a hal