FAMILY HISTORY OF

JAMES GIBSON BURNS & LOLA TANNER BURNS

 

 

 

 

(Most from records; some from recollections of Lola)

Written down in 1998-Dad and Grampa used interchangeably

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAMILY HISTORY OF JAMES GIBSON BURNS & LOLA TANNER BURNS

(Most from records; some from recollections of Lola)

Written down in 1998-Dad and Grampa used interchangeably

 

The following is taken from, THE HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY

COAST, VOL. 3, Published in 1902.

 

JOSEPH G. BURNS

 

  "JOSEPH G. BURNS, WHO IS NOW FILLING THE POSITION OF SUPERINTENDENT OF THE WATER WORKS OF PERTH AMBOY, WAS BORN IN THIS CITY ON THE 1ST OF FEBRUARY, 1861.  HIS FATHER, JOSEPH BURNS, WHO DIED IN 1898, WAS A NATIVE OF IRELAND AND WAS A TAILOR BY TRADE.  BECOMING A RESIDENT OF PERTH AMBOY AT AN EARLY AGE, HE HERE FOLLOWED TAILORING THROUGHOUT HIS BUSINESS CAREER.  WHEN THE COUNTRY BECAME INVOLVED IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO HE VOLUNTEERED FOR SERVICE AND MARCHED TO THE LAND OF MONTEZUMA, WHERE HE AIDED IN ESTABLISHING THE SUPREMACY OF THE AMERICAN ARMS.  WHEN THE SOUTH ATTEMPTED TO OVERTHROW THE UNION HE AGAIN DONNED THE SUIT OF BLUE AS A MEMBER OF THE ELEVENTH NEW JERSEY INFANTRY AND THROUGH THE WAR OF THE REBELLION SERVED WITH THE THIRD ARMY CORPS, BEING DISCHARGED WITH THE RANK OF SECOND LIEUTENANT.  HE PARTICIPATED IN THE BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG, CHANCELLORSVILLE, FREDERICKSBURG AND OTHER IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENTS AND WAS A MOST LOYAL SOLDIER.  IN HIS POLITICAL VIEWS HE WAS A DEMOCRAT AND TWICE SERVED HIS CONSTITUENTS AS A MEMBER OF THE CITY COUNCIL.

 

  JOSEPH G. BURNS IS THE ONLY SON BORN UNTO HIS PARENTS.  HE HAS ALWAYS MADE PERTH AMBOY HIS HOME, AND TO ITS PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM HE IS INDEBTED FOR THE EDUCATIONAL PRIVILEGES WHICH HE ENJOYED.  AFTER PUTTING ASIDE HIS TEXT-BOOKS, HE

ENTERED THE SERVICE OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY, WITH WHICH HE REMAINED FOR EIGHTEEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS, PART OF THE TIME UPON THE ROAD, AND THE REMAINDER OF THE PERIOD AS ITS REPRESENTATIVE AT THIS PLACE.  HIS LONG CONNECTION WITH THE COMPANY INDICATES CLEARLY HIS FIDELITY TO DUTY AND PROMPTNESS IN ITS DISCHARGE.  AT LENGTH HE RESIGNED HIS POSITION TO BECOME SUPERINTENDENT OF THE WATER WORKS OF PERTH AMBOY, TO WHICH HE WAS APPOINTED IN 1899.

 

  MR. BURNS EXERCISES HIS RIGHT OF FRANCHISE IN SUPPORT OF THE MEN AND MEASURES OF THE DEMOCRACY AND IS DEEPLY INTERESTED IN THE GROWTH AND SUCCESS OF HIS PARTY, DOING ALL IN HIS POWER FOR ITS ADVANCEMENT.  HE WAS MARRIED IN 1886 TO

MISS TILLE SIMONSON, AND UNTO THEM HAVE BEEN BORN THREE CHILDREN, NAMELY: ARTHUR, SCOTT AND FRANK.  MR. BURNS IS ONE OF THE POPULAR YOUNG MEN OF THE VILLAGE, WHERE HE HAS A WIDE ACQUAINTANCE.  HIS FRIENDS ARE INDEED MANY, INCLUDING THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN HIM FROM EARLY BOYHOOD."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sons of Joseph G.

 

ARTHUR BURNS,

 

Arthur went to Rutgers Prep.  He worked in New York.

He married Elizabeth.

He died at age 32.

Children:  Margaret and Lloyd

 

Following Arthur's death, Aunt Elizabeth married Howard

Nash (now deceased)

Aunt Elizabeth celebrated her 100th birthday in May 1992

She died in October 1992.

 

Margaret married Runyon Ernst (Runyon now deceased)

  Children: Barbara

 

Barbara married Rob McClelland

  Children: Three, one set of twins

 

Current addresses:

  Margaret:  Pittsboro Christian Village

             1825 East St., Pittsboro, N.C. 27312

   Barbara:  2726 Duke Drive

             Furlong, Pa. 18925

 

Lloyd married Eleanor

  Children:  Patricia (Pat) & Margaret (Peggy)

  They lived in Highland Park, N.J. for many years

 

Lloyd was President of The N.J. Press Association for   many years and traveled quite a bit in connection with   this job.  He died in his early sixties, I believe, of a sudden heart attack at home in bed.  He had formerly operated a garage-gas station, I believe.  Eleanor suffered Alzheimer's Disease in later life and is of this date in King James Home in Somerset, N.J. 08873.

 

Patricia married Robert Toth.  They had 4 (?) girls.  Pat is a nurse.

They live at 119 No. 7th Avenue, Highland Park, N.J. 08904

 

Peggy married Axel Velden.  He works for Johnson & Johnson.

  Children:  Kirsten & Michelle

They live at: 4 Glenwood Terrace Bridgewater, N.J. 08807

 

Kirsten is married and works in a hotel in Florida.

Michelle is a teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCOTT BURNS

First wife?

Children: One son by first marriage, Joseph

 

Second wife:  Virginia

They lived in Connecticut.

Virginia and Scott came to N.H. for our wedding and to see Jim's Dad who was very ill at the time.  I never saw them again.  They did not keep in touch with any of the family.  Joseph was brought up by his grandparents in Hamburg, N.Y.

None of the cousins saw or knew him until he was grown up.

 

Joseph married Joan

 

Children:  Six, one died of cancer in fall of 1997; the oldest daughter, I believe.

 

Dad and I visited them one week-end while Dad was at Cornell University.  We had the red carpet rolled out for us as they did not see any Burns' relatives.  Later, the whole family came to visit us when we lived on Hare Road in Milton, N.H.  Later, Joe & Joan came for a visit when we were in Rochester.  For the last few years they have gotten together with Aunt Pat & Uncle Bill in Florida.  They vacation near Venice for a few weeks each winter now.

 

FRANK WILLIAM

 

Engaged: October 10, 1919

 

Married: Anna Gertrude Peck

        Christmas Morning, 10 A.M., 1919

         The Methodist Episcopal Church of Woodbridge, N.J.

 

Honeymooned: New York City at the Herald Square Hotel.

 

Children:  Doris Carolyn, Patricia Anne, William Frank, Jr.,

           James Gibson

 

Frank worked as a accountant, I believe, for a coal firm.

 

The Many Moves of Grandma and DeeDad Burns: (list by Anna G.)

 

“Several days spent in the old Westminster House, Perth Amboy. January 1, 1920, moved into a wing of the E.H. Boynton Home, Rahway Ave., Woodridge, N.J.

 

May 1, 1920, moved to Totttenville, where we spent a wonderful summer and fall.

 

December 20, 1920, moved to So. Amboy.

 

February 8, 1921-Doris Carolyn Burns born.  7 1/2 lbs. Born at Perth Amboy City Hospital.

 

   April, 1921, spent several days with Frank's parents

 

   May, 1921, moved to Market St., Perth Amboy

 

   September 1, 1921, moved to a three room bungalow, Manor Avenue, Woodbridge

 

   August 19, 1922 - Patricia Anne Burns - 7 1/4 lb., born at Perth Amboy City Hospital.

 

   July 1924 - Bertha, Doll (Doris), Pat and I spent a week up in Dover and week in Asbury Park.

 

   June 14, 1925 - William Frank Burns, Jr., 8 1/2 lbs., born at the Perth Amboy City Hospital.

 

   June 1, 1926 - Moved to Lewis St., Woodbridge

 

   June 1, 1926 - Joseph H. Thomson came to live with us.

 

   September 1, 1926 - Moved to High St., Woodbridge.

 

   May 1927 - Opened, "Thirst Haven" a tea room on Amboy Ave. between Perth Amboy and Woodbridge

 

   September, 1927, moved to the Claire Apartments, Rahway Avenue, Woodbridge

 

   May 1, 1928, moved to Third Avenue, Woodbridge.

 

   September, 1928, moved to Barron Avenue, Woodbridge.

 

   October, 1928 - Spent ten enchanting days with Perk and Dis on a southern trip.

 

   June, 1929 - moved to Ridgedale Avenue.

 

   August 6, 1930 - James Gibson Burns, 8 lbs. 14 ounces - born at the Perth Amboy City Hospital

 

   May 1931, moved to West Avenue, Sewaren.

 

   June 1932 - moved to Woodruff Place

 

        1933 - Moved to Alice Place, West

 

        1935 - Moved to Washington St.

 

               Operation

        1937 - West Avenue S.

 

        1939 - East Avenue Home"

 

DeeDad (lovingly called that by his grandchildren) Burns worked for many years at his job for a coal company, very faithfully. When he no longer had that employment, he decided to find a business of his own. He always had a cigar.  He was active in scouting all his life.  He was a small man in stature.  He had a cat he loved when he lived in Milton.  The family also had an Airedale named Homer and an Irish Setter named Mike.

 

 

Grandma (Anne) Burns was active in her community in N.J., especially in Sewaren. She wrote news for the paper and was active in clubs.  She loved to swim and swam at one point on a daily basis from the mainland across to Staten Island and back.  They had a tree-trimming party every Christmas Eve. The family took the ferry to Staten Island every Fourth of July for a picnic. Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill loved to play a game called, Jack, the Indians, according to Aunt Pat.  She is now 75 and has helped me find some information for this history.

 

 

Mr. Joseph Thomson was a boarder who came to live with them in 1926, and became a member of the family.  In later years he married a lovely widow, Ruth, in Sewaren and went to live in her beautiful home on the waterfront.

 

1948 - Moved to New Hampshire!

 

Frank and Anna moved to Milton where they had purchased a grocery store which they called simply, Burns' Store.  Dad, who was still in high school, was the only child to move north with them.  The whole family worked in the store.

They lived above it in an apartment. Dad delivered groceries around town in an old station wagon.  His Mom became ill with cancer and went back to New Jersey for treatment in New York City-around 1950 (?). She recovered and returned to Milton to help in the store.  DeeDad Burns bought a place in Sanbornville, N.H. after a customer told him he had one for sale.  "The Farm" was half of a large house, once used as an Inn on a stagecoach route, belonging to a family named Hutchins.  Two cousins had inherited it.  One family lived in one half and the other cousin used hers as a vacation home only as she lived in Massachusetts with her husband. When she died, he had no interest in it and the other cousin was not interested in buying the other half.  DeeDad bought it and only got to live there while he was ill.  It has a beautiful room with a fieldstone fireplace, all pine-paneled, in the barn.  It is located on Route 109 across the street from the southern end of Lovell Lake.

 

Dad's father became ill in January of 1955.  He was diagnosed with leukemia.  He was in a Boston Hospital for a while and then at home at "The Farm."  Peaslee's in Union transported him three times a week to Frisbee Hospital for blood transfusions.  Dad came home from his job in N.J. to run the store and to find a buyer for it.  It is now a restaurant.  Dad debated buying the Willy Hardware Store across the street and continue running the Burns' Store or to go to veterinary school.

 

His Dad died in July of 1955, a very few days after our wedding.  His funeral was in N.J. and he and Mom Burns are both buried in a Perth Amboy cemetery. He was only in his late fifties.  Mom Burns continued to remain in New Hampshire and lived at "The Farm" in Sanbornville.  She had not driven in many years, but renewed her license when DeeDad got ill.  She had the twins, Eric and Richard, for most of one summer while Doris, Tony, Ajax and Karen were in Europe camping. I believe they had just turned four and communicated between themselves and others with pointing and sounds.  Grandma Burns told them that they must ask for anything they wanted.  After missing some playtime at the park and cookies, etc., they soon decided to use the words they knew all along.

 

Anthony (Ajax, Tony) came to live with his grandmother while he attended high school at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro.

 

Mom Burns became interested in rug-hooking and made some lovely rugs.  She became friends with my Aunt Cordelia Tanner through the rug-hooking classes.

 

Grandma Burns became ill about three years after DeeDad's death. She had cancer and died in her late fifties, also.  Her funeral was in N.J. and she, too, is buried in Perth Amboy, N.J.

 

"The Farm" passed to Doris, Pat, Bill & Jim.  Dad gave up his interest and currently the place belongs to all the cousins that are children of Doris, Pat and Bill.  They have added a new deck off the barn.

 

 

THE PECK FAMILY

 

Anna, Helen, Bertha, Alfred and Harold

 

Anna:

Married Frank Burns 1919.

 

Helen: Married to a Mr. Straight.  Deceased before I

   came into the family.

Children: Cynthia and Joan

Lived in Denville, N.J.

Aunt Helen is now dead.

Cynthia married Russell Lutz.  They moved from N.J. to Collinsville, Va. in the late 70's.  Cynthia died a few years ago with cancer.  She was very artistic.  They had several children. Joan married Ron Homer.  They moved from N.J. to Spring Hill, Fl.  They had several children.  They see Uncle Bill and Aunt Sherlie quite often.  They have them down to Clearwater for special occasions.  Joan has been ill quite a lot of her life.  They have several children.

 

Arthur - He worked for American Smelting and Refining (AS & R) in Perth Amboy (a section called Barber, north of the city). He was sent by the company to Northern Rhodesia in Africa for a time. He brought back some marvelous African primitive carvings which I now have.  He was quite a character and Dad was very fond of him.  He never married, but I am told he had lots of girlfriends.

 

 

Harold:

 

He worked for AS & R in (Barber) Perth Amboy, N.J. and in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Married Gertrude He is deceased and Aunt Gert died in August of 1988.

 

Children: Gertrude (Trudy, Mickey) They lived in Cumberland, Md. in later years.

 

Trudy - Married Jacob Little.  They lived in Baltimore, Md.

   Trudy was a nurse.  She developed cancer and died at a

   young age, leaving two boys, Harold (Hap) and Joe.

 

BERTHA

 

Married: Charles Schwenzer

 

Children:  Charles, Bobbie and Marge

 

They lived in Woodbridge, N.J.

 

Charles and two of his brothers owned and operated Schwenzer Brothers Trucking.  They had a fleet of tankers and did a lot of trucking for Shell Oil.

 

Charles lives in Aunt Bert's place in Tamarac, Fl. He operated Schwenzer Bros. Trucking, also.

 

Bobbie lives in Colonia with her husband Andy.  They have several children.  Her married name is Perdek.

 

Margie lives in Colonia with her husband Ed.  They have several children. Her married name is Fofrich.

 

Aunt Bert died as the result of injuries suffered in a fall down the cellar stairs as she went to do her laundry on January 18, 1998.  She was 94 and still living alone in her house.  She just loved playing cards and going to the races of any kind.  She was a lovely lady. 

 

Aunt Gert came up from Md. to stay quite often and to play cards.  Uncle Bill always played with her when he was in New Jersey. She was very active in the United Methodist Church of Woodbridge.

 

Great-grandmother Karen Peck came from Sweden. She was nicknamed Carrie.  She went across country in a covered wagon after arriving in the U.S. (?)

 

 

 

Doris Carolyn Burns

 

Born: February 8, 1921

 

Married: Anthony Joseph Leitner

 

Children: Anthony, Jr., Karen, Eric, Richard

 

Doris and Tony were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on Valentine's Day, 1943.  They were married in a side chapel there.  Uncle Tony was a dentist for many years in Perth Amboy, N.J.  They lived at 113 Water Street in Amboy, right across the street from the Raritan Yacht Club and across the bay from Staten Island.  They loved sailing and owned and sailed boats

all their lives.  Tony was Commodore of the Club at one time.  They sailed the Seafeather in competitions all over.  One time, they sailed it to Portsmouth and came up for a visit.  Aunt Doris was a very early activist for the monitoring and clean-up of the water along the Jersey coast.  Sewaren and Perth Amboy had many tanker farms and oil refineries and ships loading and unloading with many leaks in the fifties and sixties.  She was a force to be reckoned with and was very successful in her efforts.  She was on a state board.

 

The Burns family was very close, a great deal of it due to the efforts of Doris. Doris became ill with cancer, also, and died in her late fifties.  At that time, she and Tony were sailing to Florida in the winter and living in the Fort Myers area.  Tony was a naval officer when he married.  He started his own dentistry practice after that.  He once ran for Mayor of Perth Amboy.  It was a very sad day for him when a mini-tornado swung around Sandy Hook and into Raritan Bay and sunk his beloved Seafeather.  He remarried a few years after Doris' death to Jane.  They spend winters in Florida at her place and in Perth Amboy in the summer at Tony's.  Tony is now 87.  Jane was someone he knew in high school.  She is a former Superintendent of Schools in Fl.

 

 

Anthony Joseph Leitner, Jr. (Ajax, Tony)

 

Born December 16, 1943 in Perth Amboy, N.J., first child of Uncle Tony and Aunt Doris. He graduated from Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H.  He had come to live with his Grandma Burns as the Amboy schools were in trouble because of

a huge group of Puerto Rican children who had emigrated and did not speak English.  Since he was very precocious, he wanted a good high school education.  He then went on to Columbia University.  He played on the soccer team there.

Then he did law school at Northwestern, where I believe Uncle Tony had gone. And then, went to Cambridge University in England to study.  He met and married Jennifer Yates who was English and a student at Cambridge.  Tony (Ajax to the family), went to work for a big company in NYC.  At one time, he managed their firm in Mexico City.  In later years, he has worked for Goldman Sachs Investment Co. in New York City.

 

He was named Ajax by DeeDad Burns who did not want him called Jr.-it was the name of a shell used in World War I, I am told.  Jennifer and Ajax have three girls: Megan, Wendy and Helen.  Megan and Wendy are graduates of Duke University.  Megan is currently working for Goldman Sachs and became engaged at Christmas 1997.  Wendy works in various area in social work.  Helen is in high school. They live in Maplewood, N.J.

 

Karen Leitner

 

Born on March 7, 1947.

Second child of Uncle Tony and Aunt Doris

Married Robert Guidi

Children: Laura, Elizabeth, Catherine, Victoria

Live in Rahway, N.J.

 

Bob was killed by an assassin terrorist's bullet as he ate breakfast in an Egyptian hotel on the Nile River.  He was there with two other employees of Brooklyn Gas Co. discussing a pipe-line from Egypt to Israel.  One of the others was killed, also and the third badly wounded.  This was in October of 1993.  Laura graduated from the U. of R.I. and is married now.  Elizabeth graduated from college and is just finishing two years with the Peace Corps in Tibet (?)

 

Catherine is in college.

 

Victoria, born the day Aunt Doris died, is in high school.

 

Eric

 

Born on May 30, 1953.  One of the twins.  A great sailor, former Commodore of the Raritan Yacht Club, Captain of the boats the family owns & sails along the Jersey coast.  He and his twin, Richard were once the Jr. National Champions in their class sail boat.

They spent two years preparing and racing for the Olympic competition in Montreal.  Only one boat could make it and they were second to that one.  Eric has sailed a boat across the Atlantic and been in international competitions.

Eric is married to Doreen.  They live at 113 Water Street in Uncle Tony's house.  Doreen teaches.

 

 

Richard

 

Born on May 30, 1953.  One of the twins.  Also, did much sailing in his younger days with Eric.  He is now married to Nancy.  They have three children: Scott, Erin and Jordan.  They live in Metuchen, N.J.

 

 

 

PATRICIA ANNE

 

Second child of Frank and Anna

Born August 19, 1922

Married Chester Filarowitz a week after Doris & Tony's wedding at St. John's Church in Sewaren, N.J. on Feb. 21, 1943. 

Children: John (Flip) and Thomas

 

Uncle Chet worked all his life at AS & R, a copper smelting company in Perth Amboy, N.J. where they lived.  They retired to St. Petersbury, Fl. with friends they knew from P.A. Uncle Chet died and Aunt Pat still stays there.

 

John (Flippy)

 

Born February 24, 1945

 

Attended college and served in the Army in Vietnam.  During high school he spent a summer with Dad and I at our place on Hare Road in Milton.  He helped Dad on the track.  With his first wife, he came back to work for Dad and lived up at "The Farm."  He later married Dianne. 

Children:  Keith, Tammy

Married last year to Carlotta, a professional singer.  He works for Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, N.J.  and lives in Old Bridge, N.J.  (17 Central Ave.) Zip: 08857

 

Keith is a graduate of Rutgers and Tammy is working.

Tammy graduated from high school and is working.

 

Thomas

Born January 18, 1947

 

Lives in his old family home in Perth Amboy which he purchased.  He attended Columbia University and is a lawyer.  He lives with Karyn Reinart.  He was quite a tennis player.  He also once worked for Uncle Jim for a short period and lived at "The Farm."  They live at 153 State Street.

 

 

William Frank Burns, Jr.

 

Born: June 14, 1925** June 14th is Flag Day

Joined the U.S. Navy before his 18th birthday.  Celebrated his 18th on a submarine in Tokyo Harbor.  The submarine, the Tonasa, an old cigar-shaped one from that era, was depth-charged and heavily damaged, losing its communication system and power.  They stayed submerged by day and finally drifted to Australia after a long period of time.  They had been reported missing in action to the parents of sailors.  Dad had overheard this news on a bus before his parents were notified.

 

Married: Catherine Clark of Sewaren, N.J. at the Woodbridge Presbyterian Church on December 27, 1947 in a huge snowstorm.

 

Aunt Kaye's father was President of the American Toy Association in New York City.  We have pictures of Grampa when he was little, all dressed up and playing with toys for a toy catalog of the company.  Aunt Kaye's Mom, Florence, was just a marvelously lovely lady.  Aunt Kaye still lives in her family home.  Aunt Kaye was an interior designer in NYC before she had her children.  Later, she worked for a paint and wallpaper store in Perth Amboy, N.J. as their consultant on decorating.  She is now retired and busy volunteering.  She sings in her church choir.   She has two sisters, one in Md. & one in Ca.

 

Children:  Barry and David

Uncle Bill and Aunt Kaye lived in Sewaren, N.J. in their own home and then moved to the second floor apartment in Mrs. Clark's house on Cliff Road.  We were very close friends with them.  They always were there to help when we needed it.  They came for Christmas the year Piper was born: 1963.  They brought Mrs. Clark with them, too. We had a wonderful Christmas at Sunny Ridge Farm in Milton. When we moved to Rochester in 1969, they came up and helped us pack and move. I stayed with them in Sewaren when Dad worked on the farm in N.J., also.

 

Uncle Bill and Aunt Kaye divorced after 25 years of marriage.

He married Sherlie in Milton, N.H. at the Community Church.

 

Their reception was at "The Farm."  Sherlie's two grown daughters were bridesmaids. Uncle Bill and Aunt Sherlie were both 50 years old at the time.  They lived in N.J. and in Sanbornville, N.H. for awhile.  Uncle Bill has had several bouts with cancer and a heart bypass.  He is extremely well now and still working.  They moved to Clearwater, Fl. several years ago.  Uncle Bill was on the police force, rising to rank of Captain in Woodbridge, N.J. for many years.  He is now a security officer for the St. Petersburg, Fl. Times, a newspaper there.

 

Aunt Kaye still lives on Cliff Road in Sewaren.  She is active in her church choir and civic activities.

 

Barry

 

Born on March 18, 1952.

Married at 20 and divorced.  Now married to Donna.

Children:  Barry, Jr., Tracey, Sean

Cousin Barry is a Captain with the Woodbridge Police Force.  They live in Iselin, N.J.  Uncle Bill flew to N.J. when Barry was made Captain and presented him with his own Captain's badge. 

 

David

 

Born on March 2, 1956

Married and divorced, now remarried to Paulette

Three children from first marriage: Christopher, David and Amy (?)

 

Lives in Hackettstown, NJ now.  Runs a catering service and provides entertainment. Lovely home there with an in-law apt. for Paulette's Mom.  His daughter had a baby this year, making Uncle Bill a great grandfather.  She was only 15. (1998)

 

JAMES GIBSON BURNS

 

Born August 6, 1930 in Perth Amboy, N.J. at the Perth Amboy City Hospital, the fourth child of Anna Peck and William Frank Burns.  He was five years younger than his brother, William.  Aunt Pat was 7 years older and Aunt Doris 9 years older.  He was baptized on June 14, 1931 in The First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy.  He was industrious even as a child.  He loved his family pets and raised chickens.  He delivered coal on Saturdays for his father's company.  He loved sports and was an outstanding football player for Woodbridge High School.

He was a great baseball player as well.  And, a great dancer!  He spent some of his summers at Boy Scout Camp, Raritan Council, near the Delaware Water Gap.  He was a nature counselor and a hike director.  On one hike, he captured a rattlesnake.  They brought it back to camp in a rucksack.  The cook at a neighboring camp cooked it for them.  Dad said it was quite a delicacy.  We have a picture of him with the snake and the rattles and skin. The peak of his scouting career was on April 29, 1948 when he became an Eagle Scout.  That day his family left for Milton, N.H. Grampa was not too happy about that move-from a large high school to a very small school where they didn't even have a football team.  He only had six weeks of school remaining for his Junior year.  The first day he arrived at Nute High School in Milton, they asked him if he had a glove.  They didn't even ask him what position he played-and he was on the team, playing that afternoon.

 

He worked very hard in the store for his parents.  They all lived up over the store, called Burns' Store.  He drove an old truck to deliver groceries around the town and over onto the Maine side of the river.

 

The next year, his Senior year in high school, he transferred to Spaulding High School, in Rochester, N.H. He usually hitch-hiked to Rochester and back each day. He was very popular there and was the quarterback for the Spaulding football team. He graduated with the Class of 1949 and made many friends there.  He enjoyed the reunions that we went to after coming back to the area.

 

Following high school, he joined the U.S. Navy on December 26, 1950.  He had hoped to be on submarines, as Uncle Bill had, but due to the outbreak of the Korean War and the need for medical corpsmen, he was assigned to train for that.  He enjoyed this very much.

  

He did his "boot camp" in R.I. and corps school training in Portsmouth, Va.  He was assigned to the U. S. Naval Hospital in Key West, Fl.  Then he was assigned to duty in Korea.  He fell ill with hepatitis as the result of shots received for duty overseas.  He had returned home for his leave before going to Korea and was running the store so his Mom and Dad could spend Christmas in N.J. with the rest of the family.  He became ill while they were gone.  I was home from Keene Teachers' College for my Christmas holidays.  Dad and I had dated a couple times while in high school and we got together to do a few things while we were both home in Milton that Christmas.  When the doctor told him why he was ill, he tried to run the store until his family returned, but I had to take him to the Portsmouth Naval Hospital at the Portsmouth Navy Yard on the Sunday before

Christmas this was on a Tuesday in 1950.  He gave me the keys to the store and I worked a very busy day.  They employed a meat cutter and another employee at that time.  I knew what to do as I had worked in that grocery for a previous owner.  Dad was very ill and was in the hospital for over two months.

  

When he recovered, he was sent to Japan to the Yokosuka Naval Hospital.  There he worked as a corpsman (nurse) on the surgery ward where the wounded men from Korea were sent.  Then, it was his turn to be sent to Korea.  He served with the U.S. Marine Corps at a mobile (tents) operating unit (a mash unit), where the most seriously wounded men were brought, located just back from the front lines.

 

Grampa Jim learned many things while a corpsman.  He enjoyed Japan and got to see many things in that country during his 26 months spent in Japan and Korea.  He made many friends, both in the Navy and in Japan.  During this time he decided that he might like to be a veterinarian.  He said he did not have the patience or "bedside manner" to work with older people that a medical doctor would require.

 

The Peace agreement between North and South Korea took place while he served in Korea.  He returned to Japan and then finished out his service in the Navy, a matter of a few months, in Astoria, Oregon.  While there, he was part of an honor guard with other Navy men to welcome Haile Salassie, the Emperor of the Ethiopian government.

 

Within a couple weeks of his discharge, he was enrolled in the pre-med course at the University of N.H.  This included students who planned to later attend dental, medical or veterinary colleges.  By Thanksgiving his marks were not as high as he needed to get into vet school, so he decided to take the year off.  The transition from the Navy to school was too much.  He went to New Jersey and got a job at Walker-Gordon Farms in N.J.  They had a huge merry-go-round that 1500 cows, I believe, got on to be milked twice a day.  They also operated a fertilizer company that manufactured cow manure into a product called, Bovung, that sold all over the country.  Dad did all kinds of jobs there at the farm.

  

However, it was at this time that DeeDad Burns got sick and Dad came home to N.H. to run the store and find a buyer for it.  I had been teaching a fifth grade in Conway, N.H. that year.  Dad would drive up and down to see me after he closed the store.  We became engaged in the spring of 1955.  We bought the perfect stone from a jeweler who was friends of Doris and Tony.  He rolled the stones out on velvet and we picked the one we could afford.  It was a beautiful one.  Jim gave it to me on the waterfront in Perth Amboy.  We took

a trip to Washington, D.C. during my vacation week.  Ruth and Joe Thompson had us to lunch in Sewaren.  They lived in a lovely house on the bay across from Staten Island and were good friends of Jim's Mom and Dad.

 

We were married on July 2, 1955 at the Milton Community Church by Rev. Ralph Townsend.  The reception was in the Milton Grange Hall.  My attendants were: Lois Plimpton, Maid of Honor, Janet Tibbetts (Auntie Tib), Aunt Therese Tanner

and Mabel Scott my bridesmaids.  Dad's attendants were: Uncle Bill Burns, best man, Ushers: Tippy Achimovic of Sewaren, Ed Lea of N.J. & Robert Strome of NYC who replaced Evan Orphanos of Lynn, Ma. Karen Leitner was a Jr. bridesmaid

and Barry Burns was the ring bearer.  (He wouldn't go down the aisle!)  "Cookie" Piper was the flower girl. (Eddie and Dot Piper's youngest daughter).  Tippy was a boyhood friend and Ed and Bob were Navy corpsmen buddies.  Evan was a friend

from the Navy, too, but could not come because his uncle, Harry Agganis of Boston Red Sox fame, died suddenly and the Greek mourning period did not permit it.  He was in N.H. to see us when we got back from our honeymoon on

Frenchmen's Bay across from Bar Harbor in Acadia National Park in Maine.  We had a three day honey-moon as Jim had to be back for summer classes at UNH and I had to go to work at the General Wolfe Inn in Wolfeboro.

 

After service in the Navy, Ed Lea became a dentist in Phillipsburg, N.J. and Evan became Dr. Orphanos with a medical practice in Massachusetts. He and Joan live in Peabody, MA now. 

 

Auntie Tib married Dave Woodruff whom she met at Cornell in Sept. 1960. Mabel Scott was a dear friend from my days working at Allen "A" resort.  She was from Swampscott, Ma.

 

We moved in with Jim's Mom & Dad at "The Farm" so Jim could help care for his Dad and give him shots.  Jim attended classes at UNH each morning in order to brush up on his math in preparation for starting pre-vet courses again in the fall.  In the evenings, he stocked shelves at the Stinchfield Market in Wolfeboro.  I drove to Wolfeboro to wait tables at breakfast at the General Wolfe Inn.  We both drove back up at night-Jim to Stinchfields and I to waitress again.

 

I believe it was twelve days after our wedding that Jim's Dad died.  A short time later Jim went to N.J. to work on the building of the New Jersey Turnpike where he could earn more money. I later joined him because there was a polio scare on the Lake at a resort, the Chanticleer, on the other side of Winnipesauke.  No one came out to eat.  (It was later that year that the polio vaccine was available).  Because there was no work, I spent the last couple weeks of summer in N.J.  We stayed with Bill and Kaye.  I flew back to start teaching a sixth grade at the East Rochester School.  My principal there, Mrs. Tuttle, had been my 7th and 8th grade teacher in Milton.  She drove a carload of teachers out there from Rochester each day.  I walked from the apartment in Rochester to the Square and waited in front of Ainslie's Drugstore for my ride. All the other teachers in the school were old enough to be my mother.  I chaperoned my 6th grade group to Boston for their graduation trip.  We went on a Budliner from the Rochester Railroad Station, returning the same day.

 

At the end of the year, I was asked by the Superintendent if I would consider being the principal at Allen School.  I told him I was leaving Rochester and had a job in Dover.  Dad returned to start his first year of pre-vet at UNH around mid-September.  We lived with Gram Rita in her apartment on Congress St. in Rochester.  She had just sold our house in Milton as my father, George, died in 1954, my senior year at Keene.

  

Every weekend, weather permitting, we drove up to Lovell Lake to spend it with Mom Burns and help her with the place.  We dug a water line by hand for her among other things.  We drove up after Jim finished Saturday morning classes.

We were big Pro Football fans at that time.  There were some great teams playing on Sunday afternoons.  Oh, we had purchased a new 1955 Pontiac just before our wedding.  It was a light blue.

 

The summer of 1956 we both went to New Jersey.  Jim worked again on the N.J. Turnpike (building third lane, then, I think) and I applied for jobs that I saw advertised in the paper.  I was interviewed and hired to be a "Pikette" for

Cities Service Oil Co. (now Citgo) on the New Jersey Turnpike.  We were living at Doris and Tony's house as they were on a camping trip for the summer in Europe.  The twins were up with Mom Burns in NH and Ajax and Karen had gone on the trip.  Aunt Doris wanted someone in the house so she could keep the maid.  Lucky for me! I worked from 12 A.M. to 8 P.M. selling sunglasses, seat cushions, etc., answering questions and mapping routes for tourists and travelers. I also did some bookkeeping.  That year I was at the station on the southbound side of the NJ Tpk. I rode a bus from the center of Perth Amboy through side streets to work.  It took one hour.  If I had taken a car it would have been about 15 min.  The bus often had Polish and Slavic ladies on board with live chickens from the market.  It was the #38 bus!

 

We had a wonderful summer.  Dad would pick me up from work at 8 o'clock and we would go to different pubs in the Woodbridge area for sandwiches.  I would still have on my uniform from work.  We also did many things with our friends Erma and

Bill Brown from South Amboy.  Dad knew Brownie from Boy Scout camp and also the Navy.  Brownie ran a grocery store with his father in South Amboy.

 

We bought a trailer (8' X 32')- one of four allowed in Durham, N.H.  It was located behind a gas station.  It was small.  Dad attended his second year of pre-vet and I taught school in Dover, N.H. Durham did not hire wives of students in their school system because they wouldn't stay long.  I flew back to teach as Dad could work a couple weeks longer in N.J.  My dear friend, Jean Donnellen and I taught in the Council Chamber rooms on the second floor of the City Hall.

We each had 42 kids that year!  What fun marching 84 kids down two flights of stairs, stopping traffic on a busy street and getting them onto a playground behind what was then Dover High School.  We had no desks & chairs for 6 weeks and Jean and I had to stamp all our books the day before school started.  We were connected with the Anna B. Hanson School beyond the High School.  We had to take our children into the High School cafeteria for their lunch.  They even had a third grade that year inside the high school.  Nancy Zimmer had that delightful job.

 

Mrs. Baumgartner, the Head of the Art Department for the state of N.H. came over to see some of my art projects and asked me to consider returning to college and just teaching elementary art.  With Jim's education started, I was not free to even consider that.  I knew we would be leaving the state for a vet school.

 

Dad applied to a few veterinary schools that year.  There were not many schools in those days, and none in New England.  He applied to the U. of Pa., Cornell U. and the U. of Washington on the west coast.  With only two years of Pre-vet he was not sure he would be accepted.  He was accepted to all and decided to go for an interview at Cornell, scheduled for the Monday after Memorial weekend.  We drove out on Sunday. The call was so sudden that even though I had applications

all ready for all the places, I had no time to send them.  I called Monday AM to the Superintendent's office in Ithaca, N.Y. for an appointment that AM and was interviewed by an assistant superintendent, named Mr. Kuppinger, who said that

as far as he was concerned, if Jim got accepted, I had a job.  Since Jim's interview was later in the day we hunted up a place for our trailer, just in case!  Dad was accepted, mainly because of his operating experience in the Navy.  Only 60 students were accepted each year, the majority of places going to New York State boys.

 

That summer Dad found a job with a dairy farmer outside of New Brunswick, N.J.  Cornell required farm credits if you had not grown up on a farm.  He lived on a huge farm that got in three cuttings in a summer and put it into a giant barn.  We attended a square dance in the place the night before they started to put the hay in.  The people were of Dutch heritage and had six children from seven down.  He lost thirty pounds that summer driving a John Deere tractor and helping cut &

bale acres of fields.  They got in three cuttings in Jersey.  I lived with Uncle Bill and Aunt Kaye and drove out to the farm once or twice a week down Route 1 to visit.  I worked again on the N.J. Turnpike.  I got Tues. & Weds. off.  This summer I worked on the North bound side because of my knowledge of New England and New York State.  However, a large part of my work was mapping people into New York City. 

 

On my days off, I went into NYC, trying all the different routes: Train to ferry to Battery Park and subway to midtown, across Lincoln Tunnel by bus to 42nd street, etc.  Then I visited around the city, alone!  Safe to do in the late

'50's.  One day I went to see the United Nations building.  I found that President Eisenhower was coming and no one was allowed in.  I stood in the front line on a curb waving to him as he went right by me.  In those days, he was in an open convertible.

 

I also did several interviews and games for a slot on a major quiz show, but before I got on they all shut down because of charges of cheating on similar shows. 

 

We had pulled our trailer from Durham, N.H. to N.J. with our car.  We had problems with the lights on the trailer and had to get off in Ma. to have them repaired as we had to drive at night.  As we left town, the car stalled and jackknifed the trailer.  We had to get a tow truck.  It provided some unexpected entertainment for a baby shower in a nearby house.  I was upset because my pet chinchilla was inside it!  We slept beside the road that night beside busy Rt. 128!!  Jim drove it alone to Ithaca, N.Y.  We had lost our place in the trailer park (sold their own trailers for the spots) and were notified in late summer.  We had gone up to find another and there were NONE.  Arranged to buy 1 acre of land to put it on.  Left it on some land owned by a professor until Jim got a cellar built-nearly two months, what with our busy schedules.  Uncle Bill, Stevie Kopcho and other friends from New Jersey came up some weekends to help.  We laid our own cinderblocks and dug our septic system.  The land was in Etna, N.Y., 8 miles north of Ithaca on the road to Syracuse.  It had a combination grocery and post office.  We lived for the two months in a room downtown and ate every night at a Chinese restaurant a variety of fried rice which cost $2.00.

  

Dad had a heavy schedule: 8AM to 5PM, sometimes later, each day and until 1PM on Saturdays.  He joined Alpha Psi Fraternity.  There were only two for the vet school.  The vet school was in a new building and had a commanding view as

it was at the top of the hill and the campus overlooking Cayuga Lake. He played some baseball for the fraternity and he and his good friend, Bob Lynk, were horseshoe champions of their fraternity and then won over all the fraternities.  He worked for one of his professors doing manual labor on his farm for flying lessons. He flew out of Ithaca Airport in an old Aronca airplane that seated two.  He soloed to N.J. He also worked at Cornell on week-ends.

 

I taught a fifth grade: 33 kids, 23 boys-in one of 4 fifth grades at South Hill School.  They grouped their children homogeneously and had a Merit Pay rating system in place.  It was a marvelous school system.  My room was on the end of a

new L-shaped school and I looked north up Cayuga Lake.  My principal, Mrs. Gelder, was super.  I taught all four years in this school.  One year I had the advanced class of the four as they rotated their teachers, too.  I had the children of four of the Deans at Cornell in the class.  One year another fourth grade teacher and I produced a play (required by all each year).  We did the Nutcracker Suite.  I choreographed dances for the play.  It went over so well, we were asked to do a show on the closed circuit TV of Ithaca College for the community. Room mothers made costumes from old men's shirts and curtains for us.

   

Back to New Jersey for the summer.  Dad worked on the Jersey Turnpike again, building.  I went back to the North-bound Woodbridge Station for Cities Service.  We studied, taught and enjoyed a very limited social life (money & time).  We had many wonderful friends at Cornell. (NY State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell).  Many were veterans as well, were married and some even had children.  Of the younger ones, just out of pre-vet, we often had their girlfriends sleeping on our sofa when they came to visit the guys.  We had wonderful neighbors just across the street, Mary & Carl.  They had us over at 8 PM every Sunday night to watch the Ed Sullivan Show with them.  We did not own a TV then.

 

One Thanksgiving, I was too ill with the Asian Flu to get out of bed.  The couple who ran the store brought Jim a complete Thanksgiving dinner.

  

The next summer, Jim went to work for Dr. John Steele, a veterinarian in Cortland, N.Y. who had left a large dairy practice to do standard bred horses on the racetrack circuit from Monticello to Buffalo.  Jim just loved it and decided then what he would do after vet school.  During that year, 1960, Tibby talked to me about applying to be leaders for The Experiment in International Living. She was completing a two year program for her Master's Degree in Home Economics.

She supervised the house where the senior girls lived and practiced.  I dragged my feet as I wasn't sure I wanted to be away from Jim for three months.  Soon after I applied Auntie Tib got her letter that said she had been turned down.  Because of the qualifications, I assumed I would be, too.  We started making plans to waitress in Colorado.  Then, after several interviews and a trip in a blizzard with an Afghan puppy to Putney, Vt., I was accepted to lead a group to England.  Auntie Tib married Uncle Dave in Sept. that year--and I missed the wedding--still sailing home from England.

  

I sailed from Montreal the day after I got done school.  Gram came out from N.H. and drove me up to the boat.  We all met (ten American college girls and me) for the first time in Montreal the afternoon before we sailed.  The "student ship" was German, an old aircraft carrier remodeled.

 

We sailed out the St. Lawrence River, past Newfoundland and across the Arctic route: seals, whales, icebergs!  Just beautiful.  It took ten days.  We landed in Southampton.

   

My co-leaders in Plymouth, England were Win and Merv Mallard.  They had a flat in the city and no car.  Merv managed a group of office girls for an insurance company.  They were in my age group.  We had a marvelous four weeks together.  We supervised activities and visits to the girls who were with ten families in Plymouth and Yelverton which was out on the Moors.  On week-ends, the three of us rode trains & busses to places in the West Country and hiked for miles around the ocean and sometimes out over the Moors.  It was a wonderful four weeks.  Following that, my group plus several of the English and Win, went on a hostelling tour up through the Wye River Valley from Bristol between Wales and

England (Please see my diaries of this trip if interested in more detail).  We hiked, caught rides on lorries and rode trains & busses.  We stayed each night in hostels.  The English returned to their homes and the girls and I went on to London for 10 days.  We stayed in a guest house and packed as much as we could of shopping, sightseeing and theatre into our days.  Oh, one very special highlight of the hostel trip was seeing, "Taming of the Shrew" at Stratford-on-Avon.  Actors, actresses in it were: Peggy Ashcroft, Elizabeth Sellers, Peter O'Toole and Peter Jeffreys!  In London, I saw Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting at Albert Hall, saw "The Visit" starring Lund & Joan Fontanne, and "Richard the Third" starring Laurence Olivier.  Watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and saw most of the other famous London sights. Spent a week in Swansea, Wales with several other Experiment groups & Welsh & British students.  Heard a marvelous Welsh choir from coal mining country nearby.

  

Trip home to U.S. very exciting.  We had to stay out in ocean-delayed for two days because of the 1960 hurricane that hit the N.J. shore and NYC, LI, etc.  Pretty rough!!

  

Dad's senior year at Cornell. A very busy one for him. I continued teaching at South Hill School.  Broke my leg skiing at Greek Peak that winter of 1961. We invited the Lynks, Jones to join us at 7th Lake for a week-end in the Adirondacks.  Aunt Kaye's family owned it & they came, too.

  

Graduation was exciting.  Bill, Kaye, Doris, Tony, Pat & Chet and William Brown all came up from New Jersey.  We had a huge barbecue out in our backyard in Etna built with grills from the Alpha Psi fraternity house.  Then we all went

up to the Town Hall and partied and danced for hours.  Dad rented it for $1.00.  We had about 50 at the barbecue and nearly 100 at the Town Hall.

  

We sold our trailer and one acre to some people and packed all our belongings and headed for Vermont where Dad took his State Boards.  He had already taken a three day one in New York State.  He later took the Maine, Ma., and N.H. ones.

We traveled to Westbrook, Maine where Dad took his first job as a veterinarian at the Westbrook Animal Hospital owned at that time by Hank Bither and Ed Sullivan.  I taught in the Westbrook system; a 5th grade in the morning at the Pride's Corner School and across town, a 6th grade in the afternoon at the Sacarappa School.  In mid-year, I had the 6th grade all day as the other teacher became an Ass't. Supt. We lived in an apt. over a barn area of Sam Aceto's Farm.

 

The Aceto's owned some very good race horses. Alsam was his great one. I did my first jogging of racehorses on his track.  Dad did all kinds of animals that year from vaccinating pigs to cats, dogs, cows, beef cattle and horses.  We loved the Portland area.  We bought a little miniature poodle that year that we named,  Le Ski Chamonix, or Chamie for short.  He was a delightful black one.  We also still had Loji, the Afghan.  I took some oil painting lessons at Portland School of Art the summer of 1961.  Did some skiing with Ed and Mary Kaye Sullivan, who were great skiers.  Bither and Sullivan offered Dad a position with their hospital, but Dad wanted to start his own racetrack practice.

  

So, we left Westbrook in June, bought a house with 40A on Nute Ridge, Hare Road, Milton, N.H.  It was a lovely 250 year old center-chimney cape with guest house and barn and 8 bedrooms.  Dad started practicing at Rockingham Park, Hinsdale Raceway, Suffolk Downs and Foxboro Raceway on Standardbred race horses, the kind that pull the sulkies. He worked from his car and traveled constantly.

  

Michael William was born on October 13, 1962.  He weighed 8lb.15 oz. He was born with Hyaline Membrane which interferes with breathing.  Dr. Richard Roy, new to Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.H. knew how to save his life, thankfully.

  

Piper Ann was born on December 8, 1963 and weighed 9lb.1/2oz.

  

Peter Kirk was born on December 31, 1965 and weighed 9lb. 1/2oz. also.

  

We enjoyed a few years at our lovely farm on the Ridge.  During that time, Cousin Flip came to live for a summer and work for Dad.

  

Gramma Rita married Grampa Dana Armstrong.  We held their wedding at our Farm with an outdoor reception.  That was in 1963.

  

Then Dad decided to buy the Rowe Farm on Ten Rod Road in Rochester, N.H.  It had 100 Acres and a half-mile training track.  We sold our Farm and moved there in the fall of 1969.  We built the Rochester Equine Clinic, a hay barn and another barn.  Dad built a surgery and a swimming pool into the complex.  It was an outstanding clinic for N.H. at that time.  (See lots of clippings in scrap book).  We often had 90 to 100 horses on the Farm.  It grew to several vets and as many as 500 surgeries under anesthesia done there.  Dad designed the surgery table, the block and fall system, the pool and the recovery stall.  He continued to do his track practice as well.  I worked in the clinic doing stalls, bookkeeping and swimming the horses in the pool; sometimes as many as twenty per day.

  

Dad began a one day program for veterinarians in New England to earn yearly credits in 1981. It has continued until this day and has become a two day seminar.  Uncle Giggy designed the first cover with a drawing of the Clinic.

 

We also did tours of the Clinic for groups from kindergarten to pre-vet students from the U. of NH and U. of Ma.

 

Mike and Piper went off to Winnie-the-Pooh Kindergarten which was operated by Jean Edgerly, a very good friend of mine.  They called her "Aunt" Jean.  Mike & Piper went to public school at Brock Street School.  Peter went to Winnie-the-Pooh kindergarten.

 

We operated the Rochester Equine Clinic for 14 years.  We had several veterinarians working for us and some that became partners.  We sold it in the early 1980's to two of the vets who worked for us.

 

Dad was involved in several other businesses:  Fast Fractions, Equine Products and International Trends, all businesses that manufactured leg paints, feed supplements, etc.  He also raced some standardbred horses over the years.

We raced some under the stable name of PMP Trust, for Piper, Michael & Peter. One year, he took time off the track and took a stable of 23 horses to a training track in Harrington Delaware for several months.  The children and I drove down in a station wagon to visit.  He worked for most of the big name trainers in the business over the years and on some of the best horses for some very important people, such as the Schultz hot dog people and the founder of Dunkin' Donuts.  He was highly respected for his veterinary skills and very well-liked as a person.  He had a wonderful sense of humor, had unending stamina and loved his work.

  

Dad and I enjoyed some wonderful trips while he worked on horses and attending conferences, especially the yearly American Association of Equine Practitioners meetings held in early December each year.  We made several trips right after the New Year.  We went to race and training tracks from Maine to Florida in the early days when they did not have year-round racing in New England.  We stopped at tracks such as: Ocean Downs in Md., Pinehurst in the Carolinas, Roanoke Rapids, one in Sanford, Fl. and Pompano in Florida.  Mike made the trip by car with us when he was only a few months old.  We ended up with a vacation in Key West.  When Mike was two and Piper one, I flew to Miami Airport and Dad met us after a working trip down.  Again, we vacationed in the Florida Keys, this time at Islamorada.  Dad loved to go out to fish on one of the charter boats.

  

One year, we took our Dodge pick-up with the camper on and the five of us drove south, finally stopping for ten days at a campground at Myrtle Beach, S.C.  It was around the Memorial Week-end time and both the weather and the water temperature were perfect.  Peter was just a few months old.  Piper wanted "shrumps" for all three meals.  We visited Chincoteague Island and saw the wild ponies and visited the Battleship, North Carolina at Wilmington Harbor in N.C. We also stopped in Pinehurst, N.C. to see friends from the racetrack as there was a big training track there.

 

We vacationed, especially week-ends, with the camper at campgrounds in Maine in the 1960's. 

 

Some of the places that Dad & I visited while he attended conferences were: Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Orleans, San Diego and Philadelphia.  Grampa also visited several others such as St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Lexington, Ky., etc.

  

I brought my skis along, rented a car and skied at Arapahoe and Loveland Ski Areas in the Rockies when we went to Denver.  It was an hour drive out which I did for three days.  Dad bought me a beautiful sheepskin coat on that trip.  One evening, he and some of the others went to see Sally Rand, the famous fan-dancer of another era at one of her last shows. I went to bed!  This trip was in the 60's before there were programs for the wives.  On the flight back east, I was the only woman on board except for the stewardesses.  It was a plane load of veterinarians who worked on horses only. At the Atlanta Conference Dad presented a paper on the importance of fluids in the horse.  He had been asked to do this by the President of the Association.  I attended a meeting at that conference on swimming therapy for the horse.  New Orleans was marvelous.  We stayed extra days after the conference to really see the sights.  We enjoyed some activities with the Shaads, a veterinarian and his wife from Brattleboro, Vt.  He had been at Cornell with Dad.  I left all three children with Uncle Bill and Aunt Sherlie.  Uncle Bill drove me over the Outer bridge in Amboy to Staten Island and then over the Varrazanno Bridge from Staten Island to Long Island and then to Kennedy Airport to catch a plane to New Orleans.  Dad had driven down to Florida to work and had a driver, Charlie McIntire, I think, from Milton, drive the car back to NH. (I used to baby-sit Charlie when he was little.)  We took the helicopter back from Kennedy Airport to the top of a building (?) in New York City.  That was an interesting experience.  Uncle Bill met us there.

 

Los Angeles was very elegant and spectacular.  They brought a "Roy Rogers" type horse, a palomino, up on a freight elevator to the auditorium at the hotel for a performance!  The women had tours of Hollywood, etc.  We went to Disney Land. A fellow vet from Alabama jitterbugged with me there.  They had a great Dixieland Band.  He was so terrific, people stopped dancing to watch.  He said he taught himself to dance in front of a mirror when he got to college.

 

In San Francisco, Dad and I met Richard Nixon very late one night in our hotel lobby.  Dad went up and introduced himself to him.  This was before he became President of the U.S. We met a veterinary friend and his wife while walking in Chinatown.  They rented a car and we toured the wine country the next day.  That night they took us to the Blue Fox for the most elegant dining we have ever had.  Her family had owned hotels and she ordered all the courses and we were given a privileged tour of the wine cellar.  The San Diego trip was a Performance Horse Conference.  We toured everything: The Zoo, the Seaquarium, the Harbor, etc.

I went to Tiajuna with a hotel bus tour, also.  It was a marvelous trip.

 

More trips:  One year (60's when all the children were pre-school) we were in Florida with Dad.  When he finished his work at Pompano Park, we flew to Jamaica.  We stayed at the Racquet Club overlooking Montego Bay.  It was in January and such a beautiful place.  We did lots of swimming.  The kids all rode donkeys up a hill and we ate dishes made with goat at a restaurant there.

 

We spent a few days one fall at Martha's Vineyard.  We came back by ferry early because a hurricane was threatening.

  

We did Disney World one year when the kids were teens. Mike did not want to go and stayed with Uncle Gig and Aunt Therese so he could ski.  It was the year of the gas shortage and I guess everyone got "stir-crazy" at once and decided to go anyway.  The place was mobbed and they were not prepared for this because they had laid off help earlier because of the lack of people.  We had planned to stay in Tampa, but the "red tide" was there and we couldn't swim.  We did two days at Disney and stayed over on the east coast for some swimming.

  

Dad and I took Gram, Marion Stanley, Peter and Piper to Florida one year.  We stayed at a hotel in North Miami Beach.  Piper and Peter did a para-sail.

  

Mike and Dad did a camping trip to Mt. Washington and rode the Cog Railway in the fog, at Mike's insistence. 

 

Peter and Dad went to Hope and took the wherry, the Draaka, out in the ocean.  They were driven into harbor by thunderstorms.  As they left again from Rockport harbor, another storm blew up suddenly and dumped them in the water.  They were rescued by the ferry boat and made the headlines of the paper in Camden. They had sailed down from Camden.  In their defense, the ferry had to rescue them because the Coast Guard, etc. were busy with other rescues.

  

The family visited the site of the Montreal Olympics one year.  We also attended one of Dad's Acupuncture Conferences in Montreal.  Dad went up early and Piper, Peter and I drove to Vermont to pick up Mike who was a freshman at Norwich University.  They used Mike for a demonstration because of his dyslexia.  Two doctors from California had a machine that they were demonstrating.  They did auricular acupuncture on Mike.  It did help him for awhile.  We drove back to

Burlington in a blizzard and had to get off and stay in a motel.

  

During Mike's college years at Norwich Univ. we stayed at the Mad River Lodge for four fall week-ends.  We enjoyed the place very much and Dad especially liked the Shuffleboard Game which he had played a lot and was pretty good at.

  

For Mike's graduation we stayed at a working dairy farm in the area.  A large group attended and we all stayed there.  It was great fun-the food excellent.

Henry & Lee Sullivan, Uncle Giggy & Aunt Therese, Gram Rita and all of us attended the graduation which was very, very impressive.

  

The family, minus Mike, drove to N.J. to attend the funeral of Uncle Tony's Mom, Mrs. Leitner.  She lived into her 90's and was a lovely lady.  Then, we drove to

Gettysburg, Pa. where we spent the night.  We toured all of the Gettysburg Battlefields.  It was a beautiful day in early summer and we thoroughly enjoyed learning first-hand about the battles.  The next day we drove Piper to

Mercersbury Academy in Mercersburg, Pa. to attend a Swim Camp there for two weeks.  After getting her situated, Pete, Dad and I drove back to Perth Amboy, N.J. for Richard Leitner's wedding to Nancy.

  

Dad and I went to N.J. to attend Eric Leitner's wedding to Doreen.

  

We went down for the 80th birthday of Uncle Tony Leitner held at the Raritan Yacht Club where he had been a Commodore.  It was a very large affair and most of the family was there.  Piper and Jeff drove up from Philadelphia to attend.

  

In 1960, Dad and I went to England and Scotland to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  We went in October, though.  We flew to London and Win and Merv met us at the airport.  We rented a car and followed them back to their home on the Moors near Tavistock.  We stayed in a hotel there and did sightseeing, etc. with them for a week.  We got to meet Jane and David.  Andy was away at College in Leeds at the time.  Then Dad and I drove north along the coast and up into the Lakes Country which is absolutely beautiful.  We stopped in Halesowen and had a lovely dinner with Jen's Mom, Ann Yates.  She is such a lovely lady.  Then on to Scotland and Edinburgh.  We toured the Castle, of course.  We had a lot of rain during the two weeks, sadly.

 

Win and Merv came to visit us in the United States.  They came while we were in Rochester for their 25th Anniversary and again when we were in Ossipee, N.H.  We had some wonderful times together and remain great friends.

  

During the 80's, we entertained a Japanese man, Toshihoko Iwasaki (Toshi) from Komaki City who had come to The Experiment in International Living in Brattleboro, Vt. to study English.  I also placed Gerda Hohenwarter, an Austrian girl from Graz with Henry and Lee Sullivan.  This was a two week stay and the six of us did lots of sightseeing throughout northern N.E.  We had a wonderful time together and still stay in touch.

  

Because of my connection with The Experiment, I was a co-host in the U.S. for several groups in the 60's when we lived at Sunnyridge Farm on Hare Road in Milton.  Groups consisted of 1 leader and 10 students, usually of college age.  I found homes for them and planned trips and activities.  The leader lived with us.  We had groups from England, Japan, Mexico, and Switzerland.  The Farmington Women's Club became a sponsor and most of the students lived with families in the Farmington area. They lived with the families for one month and then traveled in the U.S. for another month.  Many families became lifelong friends.  Mrs. Buelah Thayer was a great help to me in this.

  

We saw John, leader of the English group when we were on our trip to England. He lived in the resort town of Blackpool on the west coast of England bordering the Irish Sea. 

  

Makiko Iwao was our Japanese guest.  She came from a very wealthy family who were in the printing business in Japan.  We call her "Kiko" because the children were little and called her that. She has kept in close touch and we have many lovely things she has sent.  She married Renichi Okumura and she lives in Tokyo with two daughters, Wakako & Mayuko.  We met the whole family in the early 90's in Boston at the Four Seasons Hotel where they were staying on a trip to the

U.S.  We spent a lovely day sightseeing with them and at lunch.

  

Kiko's brother, Junichi, also of Tokyo, studied one year at Kodak in Rochester, N.Y.  He spent his Christmas holiday with us.  He sends a calendar from his company every year. 

 

We entertained several students from “Up With People” when they came to Rochester to perform.  Some were from the U.S. and some from Europe.

  

When the children were young we visited the Sea Aquarium and the Science Museum in Boston.  One year, I took Piper and Jamie Gardner, daughter of my good friend, Dawna Gardner (also, my skiing partner & hairdresser) to Boston to see "The Nutcracker."  Dad took the boys to the Science Museum.  I took Jamie, Piper and a couple other children to have breakfast with Santa at Jordan Marsh in the Maine Mall one year.

  

Jim had pets while growing up, including chickens.  The pets that I know moved up from N.J. with the family: Homer Airedale and Mike Red Setter.

 

Our family had Spot Dalmatian who wandered onto the ski area behind our house and we brought home and Pan-Tan, a mix, and a little dog.  He used to ride in the basket on my bicycle.  We also had cats at times and even a wild bird.

 

Loji Afghan was the first dog Dad and I had together.  Dad purchased her from a kennel in N.J. the summer before he entered Vet School.  Her brothers and sisters were selling for $500.00, but because of her less full coat, she sold

for $50.00.  However, she had her papers, which were the best for that breed.  I took her to obedience classes in the judging barns at Cornell.  She was very smart, but did not like all the noise.  After basic and one advanced class

I stopped.  She won a silver bowl her last year.  She was definitely Dad's dog and accompanied him as much as she could.  A lady who saw her at obedience school and who was there with a gorgeous black Afghan, asked me one day about

her breeding and the next day found Dad at Vet School and asked if we would consider breeding her.  We did.  She had eight pups.  One was born dead.  The rest ranged in color from creampuff to black.  Loji was a red-brown herself.

Her name, by the way, was given to her by Jim's Mom, using letters from our two names.  Her registered name was Regina Larook of Estioc.  Some puppies we sold for show dogs and some for pets.  I took several puppies to shows in the area

and one trip to the big Boston show to see how they compared with others in the breed. Loji died at Sunnyridge Farm in Milton.

 

Dad bought Chami, mentioned earlier, in Westbrook, ME.  Loji was very patient with him.  He moved to Milton and then Rochester with us.  He did not know he was a poodle.  He had a wonderful temperament.

 

Dad came home from the track in Foxboro, MA one night with a little German Shepard dog.  Some Canadians had bought him in Chicago and found they could not keep him at the track.  So, they asked Dad to take him.  Carl Fiocchi who worked for Dad as a student and lived up back in the barn, renamed him Tack Room.  He was a super dog!

 

Then there was Inky, a black lab who disappeared.  We also had two big lab-types for a short time who came from a farm in Berwick.  They went to live at the Acton Fairgrounds. 

 

Piper wanted an Airedale.  Dad found a kennel and finally Stanley Dog came with us.  He was my best pal and such a happy dog.  He had a bad habit of swallowing stones, we think accidentally.  He loved to chase after sticks, etc.  He had surgery to have one removed, but the second one had done too much damage.  He was only four.

 

Mrs. Kimball's dog, Fractious, from Hope, Me. came to live with us at age seven after his mistress died.  He was a Standard Poodle and did not adjust well to his new life.  I walked around the racetrack with him every morning as he wouldn't leave the steps unless someone went with him.  He moved to Ossipee with us and died there.

 

One summer, I was asked to baby-sit a Doberman.  He was used to city-life in N.Y.  He didn't want Tack Room or Chami near me.  After accidentally biting my thigh in his exuberance and knocking me down the back steps flat on my back as he chased a cat, I sent him back to Foxboro before he killed me.  He started fights and Tack Room would win.  He often had "yellow spray" on his beautiful red/brown back.

 

After being without a dog for a few months, Dad chose a little Welsh Terrier he named Lord Wellington, "Wellybear."  He was adorable and Dad just loved him.  He dashed out of our back yard one day and was hit by a car.  Very sad for us.

 

The next day Dad brought home a little Australian Terrier that Mike named Dundee.  He only weighed 15 lb. when full-grown.  He developed Epilepsy which couldn't be controlled.  One night, after an attack, he disappeared in the dark and was never seen again.  He had never left the porch unless someone came.  As Dad put on his boots (Dec.) he dashed past the front porch.  We hunted for hours, advertised, to no avail. We missed him terribly.  We had gotten another Welsh after Dundee.  He was named Swansea after the city of Swansea in Wales.  He is still here with me.  He loves to walk and hike the mountains, too.  He enjoys riding as much as he can and makes trips to Vermont when I get Ian and his two Border collie types, Simon and Mars.

 

Grampa, at one point, raced a stable of around 20 horses.  Once we hired one driver, Ted Wing (later became one of the very top drivers at the major tracks of Roosevelt, Yonkers in New York and the Meadowlands in N.J.)  Favorites were

Princess Fair, a fast mare and Dillion Purdue.  One year I posed the children on him for a Christmas Card.  He was a pacer that Dad purchased from an old couple who had bred and raised him.  He raced very well, got claimed once, and Dad bought him back, did surgery on him and we kept him as a good friend.  He even came to Ossipee and finally had to be put down at the age of 33!

 

Oh, I almost forgot the saga of Gingerboy, the Pony!  Dad had a lady client who insisted he needed a pony for the kids.  Dad had told her NO| One day a van pulled up at Rockingham Park with the pony.  Grampa Dana, who lived next door, took over the supervision of Gingerboy.  Have a Christmas card of the 3 kids in the cart with Gingerboy, too).  After we moved to Rochester, the kids wanted to show Grampa Dana how they could drive him around the track.  Mike, Piper and Tim

Woodruff, visiting from Williamstown, Ma., were in the cart.  They decided to change drivers while underway and stood up to change places.  Gingerboy went off the track, the cart tipped over and the kids came tumbling out.  Then they got

righted, on the track and raced around the half-mile track.  Grampie was not duly impressed!

 

We bought a house in Hope, Me. in the '70's.  It was built of stone, new & delightful. We had many good times there, one year spending Thanksgiving and going there right after Christmas for skiing at the Camden Ski Area and rest for Dad.

 

In the summer, there were many lakes in which to swim and places to ride bikes and walk. We sailed several times on a replica of the Bluenose out of Camden Harbor with its owner, a boy from N.J. that moved to Camden to run a business.  We would picnic on an island.  Special times from the Hope days were picnics with the neighbors, a ferry trip from Rockland to Vinalhaven & No. Vinalhaven Island where we saw the huge granite quarries used for many buildings in Washington, D.C., trips out by ferry to Islesboro, the Morris Dancers, watching

the schooners at the Camden docks, Moliere in the Camden Park, a visit to the Whaling Museum in Searsport, Union Fair and the wonderful Christmas parties at John Trowbridge's and Duncan Vass's place in Lincolnville Beach.  During our vacations in Hope The Kings and the Woodruffs, among others, vacationed with us.  One summer, Mike took a photography course in Rockport.  He rode his bike in every AM and we picked him up at night.  We often took rides to Deer Isle.  We loved so many of the places there; Castine, home of the Maine Maritime Academy and where we saw Walter Cronkite's(radio/TV announcer) large yacht, also, where the gallery was that Dad and I purchased the "Jitterbug Painting," the village of Blue Hill Stonington, way down at the tip.

 

We had wonderful neighbors:  John & Duncan across the street, the Provonchees just above us and Mrs.  Kimball who was in her 80's then and her hired hand.  They were still plowing the fields together with a horse and handheld plow.

Fractious the Poodle had been her baby. We sold the house in the 80's.

 

We did a Christmas Party at our house each year for the employees and their children.  One year, I arranged for everyone to have a sleigh ride at Les Barden's Farm on the Meaderboro Road.  We then went to a restaurant on Rt. 125

for a dinner.  We had the whole place to ourselves. 

 

Dad and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary at our farm.  Many people came to help us celebrate.  It was a beautiful sunny day so that we could be outside on the lawns.

 

On special holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving we invited a group of widows and single friends to join us for their dinners.  Among those who came were Marion Stanley, Marjorie Goodwin, Lois Fogg, her sister Clara

Kimball and Clara's son.  Marion and Marjorie had been my neighbors in Milton.  Marjorie had taught me Commercial subjects at Nute High School.  She had also taught Gram Rita. Lois was a marvelous piano player and had been a neighbor in

Milton. We had her entertain us.

 

While in Ithaca, New York we attended the Presbyterian Church.  However, when we got back to N.E., there were none in the area.  While we lived in Milton, we attended the Community Church where we had been married.  I taught Sunday School there.  The children were baptized there. When we moved to Rochester, we joined the Church of the Redeemer.  All the children were confirmed there by Father Donald Marsh.  He and his wife, Deane, became very special friends of ours. Dad became a vestryman there and we attended regularly.  I taught Sunday School for many years and directed the Christmas Pageants for several.  Mike carried a flag for holiday services in his Norwich uniform.  We started holding an Epiphany Party in the large room we had made on the front of the back barn.  Grampa would pile everyone's Christmas tree out in the infield of the racetrack and have a huge bonfire.  Everyone brought food and we all had a grand time.  Usually 60 plus people came.

 

I helped make wreaths (about 125) for the Holiday Sale. I also made many grapevine wreaths and decorated them with dried flowers for the sale.  One year, I was President of the Women's Guild. When we did the green wreaths that year, I

hung them all over the stall doors in the back barn to keep them cool and fresh.

 

We later joined our friends when they left the Redeemer because of differences with doctrines of the church.  We drove from Ossipee down for a long time to the new Trinity Anglican Church on Rochester Hill.

 

During the Rochester/Clinic years the children were growing up.  They helped with many chores on the farm and had many pets. This included sheep which all three showed through 4-H at the N.H. fairs: Rochester, Plymouth & Stratham. Mike had a beautiful Suffolk named Dutchess Image.  She had come from the Judge Eugene Nute and Elizabeth Nute flock.  Her mother had died and she had been bottle-fed, so thought she was a people.  She would come in the house if you would let her.  She showed so well, that Mike was asked to bring her to

Stratham Fair because the Governor was going to be there.  Piper had Dolly and Peter decided on a ram, a devil called Billy, that really gave him a hard time.  Billy had a mind of his own!

 

They all helped with the clinic beginning with wheeling loads of sawdust and sweeping.  They later helped Dad with surgeries.  They were all good with the horses.

 

Piper and Peter both took piano and dance lessons.  All three owned and showed sheep as 4-H projects at the Fairs in N.H. Piper took some riding lessons for awhile.  They all rode on Dillion. Piper swam competitively for seven years. Peter took bass guitar lessons.  They all learned to ski very well.  They had Wednesday afternoons off from school when they were in elementary school.  I would take them and some friends to Gunstock Ski Area where they had lessons.

 

Mike, Piper and Peter went to Berwick Academy.  They traveled by bus each day to South Berwick, Me. with other children from the area.  Mike went for his 8th grade year and the other two went as 7th graders.  Piper attended St. Thomas Aquinas for a few months one year.

 

We sold the clinic and then the entire farm in the 80's.  We purchased a 70 A property in Ossipee, N.H. from Stella Eldridge.  She had a life-estate and stayed on in her little house on the front of the property and we built a new post and beam house further back.  There was a barn on the property that Dad, with Peter's help, fixed up.  He also built a 3-sided shed for storage of tractors.  He planted a large strawberry bed and another of asparagus (5 rows, each 100 ft. long).  He continued to work at tracks and farms in the State of Maine.  He decided to build a green-house and grow tomatoes.  That greenhouse was 96' long and had heated hot water pipes running beneath the raised beds.

We sold the first tomatoes to a store in Wolfeboro.  Later, we started to retail them right from our greenhouse.  They were delicious and popular.  We named the farm, Windy Fields. We had a large sign made for the front and added another

Green-house; this one 120" long.  I began to do bedding plants and about 350 hanging plants.  Grampa started all the tomato plants from seed-about 350 of these, as well.  He started them on the sun porch of our house.  In mid-February, we moved them to the greenhouse.  We did all this with the help of only one girl, part-time and Jill Kennard, who was Dad's driver and assistant on the racetrack.  Sometimes, we got some friends to help transplant in April when we really got in a lot of plugs.  Grampa loved to garden and use his tractor-a very large Kubota with a bucket on the front-around the farm.  He cleared, and got another bulldozer guy in to help, all the huge boulders from his fields.  The greenhouses were successful and we ran them from opening to the public in early May through fall when we raised and sold Mums.  One year, we did poinsettias and sold wreaths and Christmas trees.

 

During our Ossipee period, we began to do some leisure activities again.  We had done some hiking in the 50's.  One trip was an eight hour climb over the Presidentials from Crawford Notch to the summit of Mt. Washington.  We camped that night outside at the Lake of the Clouds just beneath the summit of Mt. Washington.  It was my birthday week-end, around the 20th of September.  The Saturday and Sunday venture was great with two perfect fall days.  We came down

to the Cog Railway Station and Grampa hitched a ride back to where our car was in Crawford Notch.  During my year at E. Rochester School and Grampa's at UNH, I had joined three other girls for a 2 1/2 hour climb with our skis on our backs into Tuckerman's Ravine on the easterly side of Mt. Washington.  We skied back down, drove back to Rochester and returned the next day and did the same thing.  This was in late May of 1956.

  

Anyway, in the late 80's we began to climb again in the mountains.  We did Mt. Chocorua, which we could see so clearly from our house, one Sunday.  Dundee and Swansea climbed with us to the summit.  We also canoed a lot, especially up to the mouth of the Pine River where it joins Ossipee Lake.  It would take about a half-hour to go from our put-in on Rt. 25E to the lake.  We would go around

to a beautiful sandy beach for a swim.  Dundee and Swansea loved this, too.

 

During this period we took several trips to Florida.  We went down to Uncle Bill's for an anniversary party for Aunt Pat and Uncle Chet, their 45th, I believe.  We went down again to visit.  We visited Busch Gardens and Aunt Sherlie and I went down to Venice, Fl. to visit Hazel Ramsey, a gal in her nineties who had been my landlady when I lived in Conway, N.H.

 

We drove on these trips.  We stopped in Philadelphia on the first trip to pick up Piper, who accompanied us.  Tony & Jane Leitner, Ajax, Karen, Tom, Karen, Joan, Ron, a friend of Toms, Piper, Dad and I joined the anniversary party. On one trip, Dad and I stopped to see Gram Rita's niece, Shirley Piper Gaumond in Cocoa Beach, Fl. on the way home.  We also went home via Route 1 and the coast from the Carolina's thru the Bay Bridge-Tunnel and up through Delaware.  We stopped and visited a huge rose-growing greenhouse complex on the Delmarva Peninsula.  They gave me a bouquet of roses.  While in Florida on one trip, Dad attended a Strawberry Conference in Tampa.  I joined him for a bus trip to the strawberry growing center. They grow three crops of berries each year.

  

Dad began to have trouble with his right arm sometime in 1994.  He thought it might be from a kick. In early January, he finally saw a Dr. He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  We went to Lahey Clinic for a final evaluation. He continued to go to the track and to work for a few more months as he rapidly lost the use of his limbs. Many friends and relatives came to visit, especially in May.  There were old friends from high school, veterinarians, clients from the racehorse business and college friends. One special friend who came was Robert (Bob) Lynk and his wife Nancy, who had been special friends from Cornell.  Bob had a practice in Delmar, N.Y.  He sent letters to all the 60 members of Jim's 1961 graduating class at Cornell so that they would know and send letters.

 

The horsemen did a special day for Dad at the Scarborough Raceway.  They had one race in his name and another for the ALS Society.  We were invited to dinner at the Clubhouse and they interviewed several of the horsemen and Jill, too.  They videotaped all of it and gave a copy to Dad.  He had been able to tell me what he wanted to say and it was read over the loudspeaker.  He walked to the infield when the blanket "cooler" was given to the winning horse of his race.  All the horsemen came out for the presentation.  Mike, Tracy, Matt and Mikie, Ian, Lee and Henry, Father and Deane, Jill, and Mike and Woodruff were all there.  Peter and Piper came up from New York where they were doing a show.  It was a wonderful tribute.

  

He was able to stay at home until the morning he died.  He died on Sunday, June 25, 1995.  He was 64 years old.  We would have been married for 40 years on July 2, 1995.  His visiting hours were at the Edgerly Funeral Home in Rochester and his funeral was held at the Trinity Anglican Church in Rochester.  Father Donald Marsh, Father Chandler McCarty and Father Von Fleckenstein-Curle officiated at the service.  His nephews were the pall-bearers.  They were: John Filarowitz, Thomas Filarowitz, Barry Burns, David Burns and Eric and Richard Leitner.  His nephew, Tony Leitner, did the Eulogy.  This was excellent and a copy is in the memorabilia I assembled from his illness and funeral. (Please see these books for more on his last months.) Grampa loved his three grandchildren: Michael and Matthew Burns and Ian Strong, fiercely.  He had looked forward to watching them grow up.

 

I have stayed on in the house and continued to run the greenhouses, successfully.  It is a lot of work without Grampa.  This year, 1998, I decided not to do it.  I have sold the larger bedding greenhouse and they will move it.

I have the house up for sale because the maintenance of the property is more than I want to deal with.  It is such a beautiful house with such beautiful views of Mt. Chocorua and Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range that I will miss it very much.  At this point, I do have some people interested in buying it.

  

Gram Rita Piper Tanner Armstrong became ill in October of 1997.  She was hospitalized for a week-end and had blood transfusions for anemia.  She then had to move up to Ossipee to live with me here.  Here in March of 1998, she is still barely above the anemic level and the doctor cannot seem to find out why.

  

Ian Campbell Strong spends many week-ends and holidays with me as Piper does her craft shows across the country.  Mattie and Mikie are busy with their school in Dover and I don't see them as often as I'd like.  They came up this winter and brought me some wood from Milton for my wood stove.  We got a terrible ice storm this winter that damaged and broke many of my tree limbs.  It will be a mess to clean up this spring.  We were without (Ian, Gram and I) electricity for four days, which was not much compared with many others in NH and Maine.

 

It took me weeks, as it turned out, to clean up the yard!  Arthur came many afternoons with his chain saw as soon as the snow had gone and I would load the bucket of the tractor with the branches and take them down in the field to burn.

We had a drought in late spring and I could not burn.  I finally hired a man who took 4 dump truck loads out of the field.  The town took another dump truck load from along the road that I had piled up there.

 

In February I accepted an offer on my property from a couple in Hampton, N.H.  However, they had a house to sell there.  I started cleaning out drawers and file cabinets! 

 

In June we decided to rent Gram's house to the new priest at Trinity Anglican Church, Father Barber.  Mike who attended church there and the head of the vestry that lived across the street knew it was empty.  It took me, with some help from Becky, Therese and Gig, a month to get it ready!!  He moved

In, in late June and stayed until Dec. 31st.  Mike moved in following that as he an Tracy separated in the fall. 

 

My house sold in July-actual closing Aug. 21.  It was a wild rush to deal with furniture: kids, yard sales, down to auction place, farm equipment, greenhouse equipment and greenhouse, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDWIN AND MARY (MOLLY) O'HARE T

 

 

I don't have information on Edwin, my paternal grandfather.  My grandmother came from County Armagh in Ireland at the age of 17 to work as a chambermaid in a

big hotel on the Isle of Shoals. I discussed this with the captain of the ferry from Portsmouth to The Isles one day.  He said that they did do that and asked me to write a little bit about this in a diary he kept where he recorded things

that passengers knew about happenings out there.  He has written a book which I hope to get.  They would have come by ship and were met in Boston by the owner of the hotel.  I do not know how she met Edwin.  At some point they married, had ten children and moved to Wakefield, N.H.  They had George (my father), Stanley,

Charles, Hervey, Patrick, Marion, Consuela, Mildred, Eleanor and Audrey.

 

 

GEORGE:

Children: ????

 

 

STANLEY:    Lived in Milton and married Cordelia.  They had no children, but raised some foster children.  I remember one named Sterling.  They adopted a girl named Charlotte.  She is married and lives in Rochester, NH now.  She was younger than the rest of the cousins and we did not see her very much as she lived on the other end of town and Aunt Connie thought we were little devils up on the north end!  Charlotte had one son.  Aunt Connie was a visiting nurse and made house calls.  She hooked rugs and was a good friend of Mom Burns through rug hooking groups.  Uncle Stanley owned the Milton Garage with my father, George.  In later years he was part owner of the blueberry fields on the top of Teneriffe Mountain in Milton.

 

 

CHARLES:    Lived in Milton.  Had one son by his first wife.  He was older than us and was brought up in Union.  His name was Lloyd.  Uncle Charlie later married Helen.  They did not have children.  They took "Fresh-Air Kids" as children who came for two weeks, or more, in the summer to communities in the country, were called.  They were usually black children who lived in places like New York City.  We had fun meeting and playing with them.  Uncle Charlie was a very cheerful person.  Aunt Helen had a brain tumor that left her with some problems after surgery.  Uncle Charlie died in the Strafford County Nursing home, as did Helen just a couple years ago.  He sharpened tools and saws at his home in later years.

 

PATRICK:    Little information about.  He died when quite young from tuberculosis, I believe.

 

HERVEY:     Lived in Milton, N.H. He was a barber in town and also ran a furniture store on Main St.  He married Yvonne from Rochester, N.H.  Her parents, Mame' and Papa' came to live in later years in an apartment next door to the Burns' Store in Milton.

 

Children:   Hervey Cornelius, Jr., Norman and Patrick Norman was born with problems and was never able to walk, talk or understand.  He lived at home for many years, which was in an apartment up over the barbershop and furniture store.  Later he lived at the Laconia School and more recently, in an apartment with round the clock care in Dover, N.H.

 

Hervey, Jr.:      (Poochie) attended St. Charles Orphanage School in Rochester during the week and was in Milton on week-ends.  His brother, Patrick, did this also.  Their Mother worked in the shoe shop in Rochester.  He was two years younger than I and one behind Uncle Giggy.  The three of us did many things together, especially downhill skiing.  He married Georgette and they had five children, four girls and a boy: Donna, Debbie, Dawn, Diane and Phillip. They are all married and have children:

Debbie married Joseph Irvine, has Erin, Jennifer and a little boy; lives in Brookfield, N.H.

 

Diane married Steve Kendall and has Scott, Kristin & Kevin. They live in Maine.

 

Donna married William Irvine (brother to Debbie's Joe), has Nicole & Sean and lives in Virginia Beach, Va.

 

Dawn married Michael Mitchell and has Matthew & Melissa and lives in Milton.

 

Philip married Jessica Pitman and has Joey & Laura and lives in Rochester.

 

Poochie and Georgette live on Silver St. in Milton.  Poochie was a longtime postmaster in Milton.  Georgette worked for many years at Penny's in Rochester.

 

Eleanor: Married Robert Whetnall and lived for some time in Ohio where he was from, I believe.

 

Children:  Ruth and Palma

They came back to NH to live and at one time, Palma lived with us for awhile during elementary school.

 

Aunt Eleanor was very quiet, but cheerful. 

 

Ruthie, was the oldest of the Tanner cousins.  She is now 70.  She married Norman Sanborn of Rochester.  They had their 50th wedding anniversary last year (1997).  They have 3 children:  Ruthann, Norman, Jr. and Robert.  Ruthann is married to Ben and lives in Exeter, N.H.  Her husband is in the real estate business.  They have two sons.  Norman and Bobby are both married and have children.  They are both fulltime firemen at the Rochester Fire Station.

 

Palma: Married to Warren Adjutant of Union.  They have two children, a son and a daughter.  They both worked at Davidson Rubber in Farmington for many years.  They love hiking and camping and camped each year in the White Mts.  After retirement, they have spent winters traveling with their camper around the U.S. and spending time in Florida.

 

Marion:  Lived in Derry, N.H.  She was a fancy-stitcher at shoe factories in Derry, owned her own home there and never married.  She was once involved in a bookie operation at Rockingham Park, but due to her friendship with the Mayor,

did not get into trouble!  I remember her as tall and striking with beautiful clothes.  She and my Aunts Connie and Millie came home to my grandmother's house in Milton every Christmas and Memorial, or was it 4th of July?  When I was small, I went to visit for a week a couple of times.  I went by train.  One time the signals got mixed and I sat waiting in a train station for hours before they found me.  Apparently, the train took me to another town-Lawrence, Ma., I thing! She was upset with me when I got married because she thought it was a waste of my education, marrying after teaching for only one year.  She did not come to my wedding. Later, she went with Jim and I to look at properties to buy in the Salem area and all was forgiven.  Dad had charmed her!  And, I was still teaching after seven years!

 

She lived to be 90 and was only in a nursing home in Derry for a couple years. Cousin Mary and I would go over to visit her.  She smoked all her life and was in the nursing home because of lung problems.  As a small child I would marvel as she curled smoke, even from her nostrils.  My favorite Aunt Marion story was when Mary and I took her out to lunch for her 90th birthday.  The "old maid" aunts (3 of them) could hold their own, too, with their brothers, all good Irish drinkers. We went to a new restaurant she had heard about.  Mary was on one side, I on the other as we entered.  She immediately asked the hostess if they had a bar.  The hostess laughed heartily and said "yes".  When the waitress came for the order, Aunt Marion said she would like a drink: a Vodka Collins.  Since it was her birthday, we reluctantly agreed, not wanting to get in trouble when we took her back to the nursing home.  When the waitress came again, Aunt

Marion said she'd have another!  We said, why not order now, too?  Mary asked the waitress in a stage whisper to make it a light one.  Aunt Marion said she wasn't very hungry now and preferred to only have a grilled cheese.  We've chuckled over that a few times since.  She died there and is buried in Milton, over in the Tanner plot in the cemetery on the hill.  She was an accomplished artist working in watercolors and oils.  She had a one-woman show in a bank in Derry and other places.

 

CONSUELA: Aunt Connie was a more aloof person than Aunt Marion who really liked us kids.  Aunt Connie preferred that she see us out the window of Grammie Tanner's house.  My house was only two houses above there, so we usually played there with my mother watching us while the grown-ups gathered at my Grandmother's.  She was also very pretty and wore beautiful suits.  She was a hairdresser in Boston and owned her own shop there-Norway Street, I think.  She did not marry and changed her name, officially, to Connie Carey.  She did not drive and came by train from Boston to Milton when we came for visits.  Her mind failed and she had to come to a nursing home in Portsmouth, where she died and is also buried in the family plot in Milton, (W. Lebanon) just across the bridge.  She was a very talented artist and studied art during vacations in Ogunquit and on Cape Cod.

 

MILDRED: The third of the girls not to marry.  She also was a shoeworker, like Aunt Marion, and lived and worked in Derry, N.H. for many years.  She was very fun-loving and always very happy.  In later years, she came home to Milton to take care of Grammy Molly Tanner.  The rest of the family paid her expenses.  She also looked after my father, George in the late 1950's after his strokes while my mother, Rita, worked at Spaulding Fibre Co. in North Rochester.

After their deaths, she continued to live in Gram Tanner's house and helped Marier Stanley and Marjorie look after their mother.  They lived three houses up from her.  One Christmas, she gave them a teapot and saucer.  A Christmas, several years later, Marion and Marjorie gave it to me.  It was a wonderful gift that I treasure; the only thing I have from Grammie Tanner's family.  Aunt Millie went to the

     

Nursing Home in Rochester.  I visited her there and had her to our house on Ten Rod Road for Christmas that year.  She died during the following year. The house belonged to my Uncle Stanley then, and it was sold soon after.

 

AUDREY; Aunt Audrey married Henry "Hank" Lawson.  He was from Iowa, had been married before and had one daughter, Shirley from his first marriage who still lived in Iowa.  He bought and operated the garage that my Uncle Stanley and my father had owned and operated in downtown Milton.  They had one daughter, Mary Autumn who was several years younger than I.  They lived up the street from us in Milton.  Uncle Hank died one day while out road testing a car, up near the Townhouse.  Mary was quite young and I was only about ten, I guess.  Aunt Audrey was a quiet, happy lady.  Mary got tuberculosis and spent all of her senior year in high school at Glencliff, a TB Sanatorium up in the mountains.  There had been quite a bit of TB in the Tanner family.  I believe Aunt Audrey had been ill with it too at one time. Near the end of her life, she spent her winter months with her daughter, Mary and her husband, Lloyd.  Aunt Audrey gave me a blouse for my graduation from college that I just loved!  I still have it

today! 

 

Shirley used to come to visit sometimes in the summer.  Mary married Lloyd Perkins in the 1950's.  Lloyd's father was the Shop teacher at Nute High School for a time and had been my softball coach in high school.