Looking Back to learn what is ahead
I recently talked to an elderly friend and she asked me if I remember the watering trough in the road at Depot and Fox St by Woodburn's grocery store, well I remember hearing about it when I was a kid. That trough was for horses before cars were prevalent in Owego. It got me thinking that in a very short time we have gone from wilderness to urban and all that comes with that.
My Great Grandparents were born in the early 1880's just after the Civil War, they grew up on farms and didn't have cars but walked to town or rode on the horse drawn wagon . There were no immunizations of any type and radio was just starting to begin but not in their area. You got your news from the local paper or the neighbor . In those days the Preacher in the church many times delivered news from the City and Church was the social center of the town. My Grand Parents McDowell were born in 1902 and 1904 , neither went beyond elementary school. My Grandfather ran off at 13 or 14 and enlisted in the Navy during WWI and served on a Battleship in naval battles in the North Atlantic, until his mother wrote the Navy and they found him and sent him home. My Grand mother was one of 8 girls in her family and they were tenant farmers. My other Grand parents were born in 1909 and 1911 , they lived in town and both graduated High School a great accomplishment for a women in those days. That Grand father lost his father when he was 13 and he and his mother came to town and served as servants for a rich family Grampa did the yard work, etc. and his mother was the cook and maid. Both sets of Grandparents remember the first time they saw a car and listened to the radio, they loved going to the theater for movies with my great Grandfather and my Grandmother playing the tuba and piano or violin and piano. When my Grand parents were married they were both sets married by Reverend Edgar Frank , This was just after or during the Great Depression , both Grandfathers had to leave to get work one with WPA and the other on the Bridge gang for the Railroad. My Mom and Dad were born in 1932 and 1935 , just after the Depression. In most of the country the economy had came back but not in upstate NY . Both my parents had to struggle to get any cash and hunted and fished for food or worked cleaning houses. When they were married they too were married by Rev. Frank . I was born in 1956 and my Brother and 3 sisters came over the next 10 years. We were poor by anyone's standards but we had a lot of love. We spent many nights getting a bath in a tub in the center of the kitchen floor with mom pouring in the water she had heated on the stove. We lived in what was called a cold water flat, when I was about 5 we rented a house down the street on Depot St and we lived there for several years this was by the Railroad yard and the Depot . So we saw our share of hobos come through and come to the door begging for food or water. They always came to the steps of the porch and the dog would bark , Mom would look out and always gave them something of what little we had. They would go to the back door every time to get the items so that other hobos would not flag the house as an easy mark. We didn't have a car so Dad had to hitchhike to Ithaca and back everyday even in the winter. Finally , Dad got a car and we moved one block over into an upstairs apartment. The next year dad bought the house and we moved down stairs. It was a 13 room house heated by a stove with a heater on the side in the kitchen and two gas space heaters one on the first floor and one on the second floor. Both sets of Grandparents lived within 2 blocks of us , so we always saw of Grand parents every day or two.
See up to the 1970's family ate together talked and played together. We all went to Church and we all gained knowledge from our elders. TV began to erode this but the advent of the Computer changed the family structure tremendously , now you could instantly get information , talk to a relative and spend hours on end playing games inside by yourself. Now if you can get kids and parents to do things together it is most times playing a video game and screaming at the unit. This is why many of us just do not understand how to communicate with the new generations they have no history of learning from elders . How Sad
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