by David Flint
Memories of the Fifties was the topic last week at the Stephentown Historical Society meeting. A common theme seemed to be that people were closer and there was more community back then.
Nine speakers provided a glimpse backward of life in Stephentown.
[private]Isabel Krebs recalled Sykes Store. “In its heyday it rivaled Walmart – no doubt about it,” she said. It was open daily except Sunday and open late on Thursday night. That was the big night in Stephentown and Sykes Store was the place to be – boys in the basement checking out the hardware – girls in the basement, checking out the boys in the basement. Krebs said people came from all around to shop at Sykes. She knew even of one family who came every year from England for Christmas shopping.
Bev McClave didn’t live in Stephentown then but spoke of the Rutland Railroad fading out in its last days. By 1951 it ran only on Wednesdays. In 1953 it was all over, and the rails were torn up between Chatham and Bennington.
Wyatt Haley reminisced about the Stonebridge Community House where there was always something going on – suppers, shows, Halloween parties and
baseball games. In colder weather Hattie Snow would come down and stoke up the wood stove, and the gang would play softball games inside the building. One of the main meeting places in the center of town was the Grange Hall. Wyatt recalled in earlier days helping to convert an old two story blacksmith shop, cleaning soot off the windows, into the new meeting place for the Grange after they moved out of their former place at Burdick’s Hall which was close by the Fire House. Wyatt bought his first decent car at McClintock’s, “a brand spankin’ new 1950 Chevy.” It had every gadget you’d want, including a visor and two spotlights. He drove it to California when in military service and drove it back home following his discharge. Wyatt recalled John Whitman’s store located in the center of town, the only place in town you could buy bottled beer. “Passing by the cat sitting on the cheese, you had to stick your hand down into that ancient cooler and kinda break the water apart. What a store that was! But John was a really nice guy,” Wyatt said.
Pat Flint read some items from diaries kept for some 60 years by Carrie Bateman Sykes, wife of Walter Sykes and mother of Paul. On January 3, 1950, she wrote that Walt had taken Paul to Albany and put him on a train to Ithaca where he was attending college. On the same day Allen Phelps died of a heart attack while driving a school bus with 25 students. The bus ended up against a tree, but, fortunately, there were no injuries. On January 4 Carrie noted that they went to a shower for the Lawlesses at the Grange Hall. On January 19 a man from New Jersey Fire Apparatus came, and Walt traded the old fire engine for one from the Ghent Fire Department. Two days later Mike Ward and Bob Higgins went to Ghent to pick up the new equipment. On January 30, 1952, “Aunt Emma is 74 today, and Sam Dodd is 86. I weigh 138 pounds.” On January 14, 1956, “Jane Silvernail and Danny McCumber were married at home by Grandpa Silvernail.” On January 29, 1959, thieves broke into McClintock’s Garage, got $332 and ruined some tools.
Norma Lasch recalled fun times growing up in what had been the old post office and general store in Garfield, purchased by her parents, Doug and Edith Williams. In winter when it snowed she and her sisters and brother would take their Flexible Flyer over to Freling Smith’s hill. Their dad worked at Cal Atwater’s lumber yard across the Kinderhook Creek. They went to the little red schoolhouse in Garfield, now the residence of Ruth Rieger. For spending money they earned a nickel driving the cows home nightly across the creek to Ernie Lindsay’s barn. On summer days the kids spent a lot of time at the swimming hole in that creek. And they were often invited into the home of Aunt Elsie and Blanche Coffey where there was always fresh gingerbread with a new topping called Cool Whip. Lasch recalled as a teenager during WW II working out of the old library building for Civil Defense as a volunteer plane spotter. When calling in a report the code name was “Bravo nectar thirty-three black.” Lasch and her sisters would take the family grocery list to Whitman’s store after stopping to visit with Theda Elwell “who always had hot cocoa or lemonade and a smiling word of encouragement.” Leaving the list with Whitman to fill. “We never got sick,” she noted. They went over to Eva Maier’s soda fountain for a 25 cent ice cream soda – money earned from picking strawberries at Gus Johnson’s berry patch. Lasch remembered, too, the good times with ping pong, table games, cards and listening to records at the Stephentown Youth Center, located in the building which was the former Methodist Church and is now the Heritage Center. And on Monday nights
there was always baseball in the park that is now the Veterans Park. One of the teams was sponsored by McClintock’s Chevrolet. Doc Green was the umpire. Rita Sykes would pass a baseball cap for donations for uniforms. For local news there was The Echo in which Erma Graham would report who went shopping in Troy with whom.
Dean Herrick grew up down on Horse Heaven Road, sort of a separate community quite removed from the center of town. But there was a Ladies Aid Society there that organized frequent community suppers at 25 cents a head. One of the ladies, Herrick recalled, (he thinks it was Mrs. Greenspan) came up with a wacky idea to raise money by selling knitted bloomers for the local farmers’ chickens to keep them warm during moulting season. Herrick did not know how successful this fundraising scheme was.
Herrick bought his first car, a ’39 Dodge, from Sy Close. Later he got a nice ’49 Chevy from McClintock’s. Johnny Johnson had offered, not seriously, to sell him this nice car for only $200 thinking the young Dean could never raise that much money. But Dean went across the street to Sykes, and Walt, hearing of this bogus offer made by his brother-in-law, pulled out a roll of bills and made the loan on the spot to young Dean. Johnson was caught and had to make good on his offer. Stephentown changed a lot, Herrick said, after the Rutland Railroad closed down and then shortly afterward Route 22 bypassed the town.
Janet Edwards remembers McClintock’s well, her father being Ernest McClintock, its founder. Starting with a gas station and appliance store in a building leased from Chauncey Bateman, McClintock opened a Chevrolet dealership in 1947. Later he sold Datsuns, too, the predecessor of Nissan cars. Open house events were held whenever a new model came out. Edwards’ brother Bob took over the business in 1968, and the business closed in 1980. Edwards recalled that in the early fifties, “Business was booming.”
Everett Madden noted that he, like Wyatt Haley, never got far from his birthplace. “I’m still sleeping in my grandfather’s bedroom,” he said. When he was growing up, there were three generations living in that same house and running a farm. In the fifties it was a time of transition from horse powered equipment to tractors and such. A lot of the horse-drawn equipment was adapted for the tractor. Loose hay eventually gave over to baled hay. There were pigs and a lot of chickens. Madden’s chickens could be had at Sykes Store. Everett’s grandfather was famous for his cider. He would put up about 15 barrels of it in a season. “It was a cash crop,” Everett said. Folks would come with their jugs and sit on the porch sipping and shooting the breeze. “Always had to pull a few of ‘em later out of the swamp along the driveway,” he recalled.
Everett remembered the Whitman store, too, next to Sykes. Besides the beer cooler there was also a soda cooler – “Pretty ripe,” he said. But people weren’t bothered by that. “Sanitation today makes people weak,” Everett opined.
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