A Little, Okay a lot, of Background
Albert and Flora, to date, created a family of 138 with spouses, grandchildren, their spouses, great grandchildren and spouses and great great grandchildren...have I added enough greats?
Now a few words from Flora, herself...
I was not a native of the Greenwood area. I was born in my grandmother’s home on Monroe Street in New Hudson, New York to Glenn Madison, who had returned from North Dakota to his home in Belfast, New York and Iva Amina Dolph of New Hudson, New York. I was named for my grandmother, Flora Madison who passed away when having my father’s youngest sister Evva.
When I was about eight months old, we took a train from Cuba to homestead in Montana with my Aunt Blanche and Uncle Albert. I had a sister named after Blanche. And, my youngest sister Bernice, you know her as Bernice Mann, wife of Lloyd eventually went to live with Aunt Blanche. When we got there, it became obvious that all the good farmland was taken. Dad went to work in a store for awhile, then at a refinery, and finally on a ranch where my brother Taylor was born.
After a time, we moved to Graybull Wyoming where Dad worked at a refinery. He was drafted into the service for WWI. He never saw combat as the war ended before he had to go. We lived along the Bighorn River and raised some goats. Mother became ill. The doctor thought it was from the alkaline in the water, so Dad took us back to North Dakota. He went to work on a wheat ranch in Warwick. Mother worked on what they called a cook car, similar to what we call a camper today, cooking for the workers while they built us a house. One day Taylor came up missing. We looked and looked. We were worried as there were coyotes. Finally, we checked the cook car and there he was fast asleep in the back. My sister Alice was born here and in 1921, Blanche was born. You know Blanche, she lived up on Williamson Road in West Greenwood.
In 1922, a depression hit so we loaded up an old 1912 Ford Model T truck with a tent over all our belongings and headed back for New York. During our trip we stayed in many barns along the way. At one of the last, they through fresh hay in a manure spreader for us to sleep. I also remember staying in an old schoolhouse with four room and it actually had a wash tub. We arrived unannounced at my grandparents while they were at church. The first thing my grandpa said was about the truck, “whose contraption is that?” Mother had started some dinner. Taylor and Alice were over by the stove. Grandma exclaimed, “whose young’ens be ye? It was here, that for the first time, I tasted maple syrup, saw electric lights and water being pumped from a pipe outdoors.
Taylor and I started school in Bellville. We walked two miles each way. Sometimes we would stop and eat some snow apples off a tree along the road while we rested. Initially, we rented the Sheehan Place and later about two miles away, another farm on Rossman Road owned by Addison and Mina Perry. They were a lovely couple. Our first Christmas there, they gave Alice, Blanche, Taylor and me a pencil and a tablet. My brother Bill was born in 1925.
Next we moved to a place on Cloverleaf Valley in Rockville. Bernice was born there in 1926. I started school in Belfast in 1929. I used to ride the Pennsylvania Railroad train to Belfast. I moved in with the Perrys. During this time, I contracted scarlet fever. Mother came down and took care of me.
We moved up on the Vandermark when Dad got a job at the Sinclair Refinery in Wellsville. This is when I met Albert Lounsberry. One day when I was about 16, Dad asked me to take some tubes from the barn to the creek to see if they had any leaks. When I got to the barn, there stood a young man holding a gun with his hat pulled down over his head and his dog. He asked me to a dance that night. While we were dating, my sisters Blanche and Alice contracted scarlet fever over on Pigrey Hill. I went to help take care of them and was quarantined for six weeks. It was during this time that Albert and I decided to get married. We had to wait for the quarantine to be lifted. But, on March 17, 1934 we were married. You know, we were married for 61 years.
How Did I Get to West Greenwood?