Remembering Family and Visiting Reid and Bev

After leaving Connecticut, we headed toward the Troy/Selkirk area. We wanted to see and/or visit several places, including former homes, the cemeteries where loved ones were buried, Mom's high school, RPI fraternity houses (where Dad delivered hundreds of the sandwiches which Mom made on their kitchen table at their house on Courtland St), and, of course, the road on which Mom had her first and only driving experience. We wanted to see where Mom got "pulled over" for suspected drunk driving :)

Some of the following might be a little confusing, but I want to get it recorded for anyone who might want to know more about this at some later date....

We visited 3 different cemeteries, bringing flowers to remember those who were buried there. The first cemetery was located in Valatie (pronounced Valay-sha). This is the cemetery where Mom's birth mother is buried. She is in the Boice family plot along with the parents of her husband (George Boice)....in other words, Mom Woolsey's paternal grandparents. Along with her birth mother, Mary, are 2 babies.....both of these babies were named Mary Elizabeth. The first baby was 8 months old when she died of pneumonia....she was the firstborn child of Mom's parents, George & Mary. The second baby was only 4 hours old when she died...she was the lastborn child of George & Mary. Mary died giving birth to the 2nd baby girl. (I didn't remember that there were actually 6 children born to that family----2 other girls besides Margaret, Dorothy, George & Jack)

The Boice family plot was difficult to locate. In fact, we never would have found it without the help of a groundsworker who went and found someone who had a plot map and then helped us to locate the plot. The family plot is a rectangular area and is only marked with small stones that have the letter "B" on them. Within the plot there is one weathered headstone that has Lillian Boice's name on it. Lillian was Mom's aunt (her Dad's sister). The individual graves of Mary Boice, her 2 small children and others buried in the plot are not marked....they are just buried somewhere within the 4 "B" markers.

We next went to the cemetery where Aunt Margaret and Uncle Reid are buried. That cemetery is located in Selkirk, a short distance from where Aunt Margaret and Uncle Reid lived. We were met at the cemetery by Reid Jr. and his wife, Beverly. It was wonderful for Dad and I to meet both of them and Mom was very happy that she had the opportunity to see them again. Mom has always wanted to bring some flowers in remembrance of Aunt Margaret and we found some beautiful roses that she was able to leave at the headstone. After our cemetery visit, Bev joined us at a local diner and visited for awhile. Mom remembers very fondly how devoted Reid and Bev were toward Aunt Margaret when she was so ill, and it made her very happy to see both of them again.

Our third cemetery of the day was in Cohoes. We spent quite a while trying to locate the grave sites of Mom's Dad, George, and her stepmom, Marcelle. We finally had to give up for the night, but before we gave up, we were able to find where Mom's Uncle John and Aunt Anna Mae were buried and she was able to leave some flowers for them. (Note that in reality, they were not actually Mom's Aunt & Uncle...... Anna Mae was actually George Boice's 1st cousin....but, both John & Anna Mae were always called Aunt and Uncle by the Boice children and the two of them were wonderful to all of the children. She remembers Uncle John and Aunt Anna Mae making trips from Cohoes to Catskill, NY and other locations to bring Easter baskets for each of the 4 Boice children....which was a huge treat. Every summer they would also take the 4 children home with them for several weeks and bought all of them school clothes before returning the children to George & Marcelle.)

Bright and early the next morning, we called the cemetery and got some guidance on finding the grave sites of Mom's father and stepmom. We brought some more beautiful roses and Mom was able to place them on the headstones.

Besides cemeteries, we drove past the Courtland St house (famous for sandwich-making), saw the Catholic grade school that the kids walked to from the Courtland house, drove past fraternity row at RPI (the engineering college) where Dad sold so many sandwiches to the students at night to raise money for his family, saw the "house on the hill", and drove on the road where Mom had her first (and last) driving lesson. THE ROAD has a yellow divider now, but there was only a solid white line when Mom had her driving lesson. We saw a state trooper close to that road and we talked about asking him whether his grandfather might have been a trooper way back when...who knows, maybe he was related to the officer who pulled Mom over for suspected drunk driving. (We all know that Mom wasn't drinking, she just couldn't steer straight her first time out on the road....but it makes for a good story and that event really did keep her from ever getting behind the wheel again!)

We spent the rest of Wednesday driving up through the Vermont countryside, crossing Lake Champlain and entering New York. We are now at Jo & Bob's house which is located on Lake Champlain. It is a beautiful setting. Pictures to follow in the next blog....