by Roxy Triebel
treebz65@hotmail.com
Moving Days
Being the youngest of the seven children in our family, I missed out on many moving days that occurred before I was born. The family moved often - always within a radius of probably 50 miles; probably at least 15 times before the ones that I remember. Dad was a blacksmith, as older members of the family told me. He just seemed to get his business established when Mom saw greener pastures down the road or in the next town, and away they went.My oldest brother, Gordon, was born in what is now the middle of the Ashokan Reservoir - Olive City - but before that, they had lived on the Upper Samsonville Road.
My oldest sister, Roxy, was born on "The Corner", the road leading to Samsonville.
I think Everett was born at Chestnut Hill. Vera was born at Kripplebush. Freeman was born around Krumville, I think. Elta was born at "the Corner" in the same house Roxy arrived in. Guess they thought she turned out OK so went back for a repeat.
Then they moved to Kingston. I think they lived a few months at Mutton Hollow, just across the creek out Washington Avenue, but, then, in a few months moved in across the creek to Washington Avenue where the Holiday Inn is now located (1987). They made a few moves in between those I have listed, but I don't know where. They lived in Tillson for a time. Gordon went to school there. The first day he said most of the kids came to him and said they were relations. (Many Van Kleecks lived in that area.) Roxy remembered attending a Quaker wedding at the Friends Quaker Church there.
They lived in the Shokan area at one time. Dad had paid own on a place and then he was laid up with blood poisoning and could not work, and they lost it. Elta was a baby when they moved to Washington Avenue in Kingston.
Dad worked for Charlie Abrams in his blacksmith shop on Washington Avenue before he had his own shop. It was not the best place to live, along the railroad tracks, and the creek that overflowed its banks every spring.
Mother used to tell of one spring Aunt Addie Anderson had come to help her for a few weeks. They had cleaned the house thoroughly; sewed and cut up every scrap of cloth for carpet rags. Never had everything been in such good order. Then came a heavy rain. The creek was very high, but still they did not have to move out, until one night an old shed nearby caught fire. Really no danger to them, but the kind neighbors thought so, and came and dragged furniture and everything through the mud to get it away from the fire. The fire never did endanger the house...
About this same time, a band of Gypsies came along. One of the fortune-telling ladies came to our door. She wanted to tell Mom's fortune. Mom did not believe in any of that stuff. She told the Gypsy that "she had her fortune in her arms" (she had Elta, then a baby) and to be on her way. the woman was so persistent that Mom gave her an ill-spared quarter and said to be on her way. As she went out the gate, she said to Mom "You will some day own your own home, but you will not stay in it. Only a short time you'll move on, and you will in a couple years have another child." Mom said "I don't believe a word you say. After all our moving, IF we ever owned our own home, I would never move." Well, the Gypsy was right...
About two years later, in 1909, I was born. When I was about 15 months old, they bought a home on Apple Street. Even though I was that young, I do remember a few things about the Washington Avenue house and the moving.
The spring of 1917 we moved to the big boarding house "Cold Brook House" near Mount Tremper. Brother Gordon went in the Army that spring. Everett and Freeman ran the farm, and Mom and the girls ran the boarding house. Dad had his blacksmith shop out along the drive under the big trees.
The "Cold Brook House" had 52 rooms. The folks worked so hard getting the bedrooms all painted and papered, making table cloths and napkins, etc. It was 3 floors, had one bathroom on the 2nd floor. The water was pumped from the brook with a "ram" and seems most of the time, it did not work; so could not get water up into the big water tank on the roof to work the bathroom. It had two six-holers out back, and of course each bedroom was supplied with all the necessary equipment.
I remember our first night in the house. It was a cold March day. Mom, Dad, and Freeman (a teenager), Elta age 11, and I age 8, went up to get started and stay. The others all had jobs in Kingston, and stayed there a few weeks. We slept, or tried to sleep, in the huge kitchen. No one had lived in the house for several years, and it was COLD and DAMP. Dad built a fire in the big, black kitchen stove. He carried springs and mattresses down there, and Mom made up our beds. Brave Freeman decided to sleep in a small bedroom at the top of the back stairway. After putting out the kerosene lamps and crawling in, the "fun" began. RATS - all sizes and all voices - they were all over the place. We sure were glad when daylight came. Dad and Freeman, armed with brooms and whatever they could find, opened up the basement and began pounding and yelling. It was some time before we moved them out. I know we got some white rats. People told us they would scare the others out, but next day we found bits and pieces of the white ones. We put poison down and eventually we got a couple of good cats and a dog. Then the rats quieted down and, I guess moved on.
We stayed there one year. The next March we moved up to Phoenicia, not far. It was Everett this time that saw greener pastures. The boarding house was a success, and we had as many as 50 most of the time, but Everett wanted to try another farm up Phoenicia way, and made the arrangements, so we were off again. I don't remember much about that move.
Gordon was in Germany and very disappointed at our leaving the Cold Brook House. He, like I and most of the family, loved it there, though he only got to spend several weeks before he went into the Army.
The new house was a much smaller house - probably 10 rooms, but Mom took summer boarders again, not many, just a few wives and kids. THAT was a big thing. The husbands would come up from the city weekends on the "Husband Train", as we called it. Dad had his shop up from the corner of the Woodland Valley Road. Roxy worked in Kingston and Vera worked for Schwartswalder Co. up in Chichester. She walked it back and forth each day, even in deep snow.
That winter, Dad and Everett and Freeman worked up on the construction of the Gilboa Dam. Gordon had come home from Germany and went back on the shipyard in Kingston, so he and Roxy were not with us then. 
Come the next March, we were off again. Everett decided that we could make our fortunes if we moved on the Cherry Hill farm on the Sawkill Road out of Kingston. (All these years, Mom and Dad had rented their Apple Street house.) This move, for some reason, made a deep impression on me. I remember the day the wagons came - two big "hay wagons" and teams of horses. My Uncle Henry Van Kleeck with one team, and a neighbor of his with another team of horses. We were moving near Uncle Henry.
I was out in the yard saying "goodbye" to all my favorite play spaces and the swing tree. Dad always put up a big rope swing every place we lived. It was cold and snow flurries were coming faster and faster. By dark, it was really coming down. Mom had been for days baking pies, donuts, extra bread, a big ham, and a big pan of baked beans. The family had to be fed and also the men moving us - no stopping at McDonald's in those days; also had to put the men up to sleep. There was, as always, the big batter pot of pancakes - buckwheat - and home-made sausage. We knew by dark that we would not be able to move the next day - with all that snow coming down. Mom made up beds for the men and we all turned in. She had let the parlor stove go out, as we thought that could be one of the first things loaded the next day. We always had to leave the kitchen stove till last so we could have coffee and something hot to eat in the morning, and also that would be the first item unloaded when we arrived, and set up so a hot meal could be cooking, and the new house warm in one spot.
We were snowed in for three days. Just think, all our clothes and household items packed and two extra men to feed, and trying to keep the washing done. No washing machine then. It sure must have been a hard time for Mom.
Vera and Bert got married the day we moved, and Roxy was working and staying at the Eagle Hotel in Kingston. I am sure I was not any help, and Elta not much more. She had been sick all Winter.
Grandma and cat - possibly "Boob McNutt"We did have the Overland car at that time and I remember Mom, Elta, and Everett - to drive - and I went in the car with all the items we could possibly pack around us. I think they hitched the cow on one of the wagons. I do remember we churned, the last thing the night before leaving. I know our dog, Carlo, rode on one wagon, and they must have put my cat, Boob ("Boob McNutt" - after a popular comic strip character of the time -- RT), in a box on the wagon. It wasn't in the car, but was at Cherry Hill later. It had kittens, so I had to change its name to Boobetta.
We arrived! Oh! what a dirty house - guess the former tenants resented that they had to move, but WHY did they have to take it out on us? A huge big kitchen did have a stove set up; had a black sink with a pump, and the big pantry off it had been used for chickens all winter from the looks. They'd had a dog that was apparently trained to use the closets. What a smell! The buckets and yellow soap sure was dug out fast. A fire was built to get some hot water for scrubbing.
This house was a lovely house - big rooms - five big fireplaces - what big, heavy doors, and lovely woodwork, but SO DIRTY! We had no bathroom here. There had been one that worked at the Phoenicia house. Roxy came and gave a hand. I remember we "calsomined" (a water paint) the bedrooms and put pretty flowered paper borders along the ceilings. I could help with that. With the "matting" on the floors and some with rag carpeting, they soon loooked lovely, and smelled good too.
We had a happy summer there and next March, Everett decided he had enough of farming, so we moved back to Apple Street. That was the final move for my Mom and Dad. They were there about 40 years when they died.
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