There were a lot of Warriners in and around Greenwood. At times, I bet you struggled to figure out who belonged to whom. Well, I am Wayne Francis (1919-2009), son of Marshall and Iowa, grandson of Frank and Susan and great grandson of the third Nathan, Nathan Allen, who went by Allen, and Mary. Making me the tenth generation of Warriners in America and the fourth to live on the farm there on the Greenwood - Jasper line.
I think you heard about Bess and Gyp in Dad's story. This is me with them on the farm.
But, let me back up and tell a bit about my childhood there. You see, I started going to the barn for milking with my mother when I was 4 years old. I guess going to the barn each day became a habit that I couldn't break, I spent my life going to that old barn. I attended the one-room school at West Jasper through 8th grade and graduated at 16 from the old Greenwood Union School. Then back to the farm.
A quick peek at what it looks like today.
On March 6th of 1941, I married Helen Lucille Foster (1922-2006). That old farm house had four generations living in it. Helen and I had the south bedroom on the second floor. We kept a room for my sister Verle, she lived and worked in Elmira; but, came home quite frequently. Mother and Dad had their room of course and my maternal grandfather, Edgar Hayes had the old birthing room off the dining room. The fourth being Helen's and my first child, Wayne Francis Jr, who was born in 1943.
Wayne Jr here. Before Dad tells about us, let me share a bit about Great Grandpa Edgar. He suffered from diabetes and had three amputations; first his toe, then a foot and finally his leg above the knee; leaving him needing crutches to get around, hence the first floor bedroom. I remember sitting on the front porch with him listening to birds sing. I remember his funeral in the fall of 1945. I think it must have been then; I would have been two years old that summer.
The only other thing I remember about that year was falling off a wagon load of stone being hauled to the new house by the horses. I fell in front of one of the wheels and broke my collar bone, or so Dr. Hardenburg diagnosed. All those years ago and I still have arthritis in that shoulder.
Wayne Sr back. Yes, in 1945 with the availability of electricity and Helen and I planning for more children, we started building a new house across the road. We moved into the first floor in 1946, same year, Harlan Leroy was born, and finishing the second floor in '47 as Cheryl Ann was born, or was it '48. Now Wayne Jr, was set on staying at the old house with my parents which you might have guessed from the pancake episode. When Carol Marie was born in 1949, I insisted that Wayne Jr move up from the lower house with us.
We bought the farm from Dad in 1956, after Mother passed away and he went on Social Security. We continued to develop the registered Holstein heard that had been started by Frank and Marshall back in the 1920s.
Wayne Jr again. For many years their herd average was near the top of all the herds in Steuben County and we sold many calves and heifers for breeding stock.
Our sweet Cheryl succumbed to pre-acute leukemia ten days before John Kennedy's assassination; just 35 days short of her 16th birthday, almost exactly the age of her second great aunt Effie Isadore Warriner, who died in 1880. We adopted Marc Jason in 1965. But, tragedy struck again. Harlan; while working a summer job on the Delmarva Peninsula at Painter, VA; was killed in a motor vehicle accident in July of 1966.
Wayne Jr back again. It was a sad day when Dad had a heart attack and needed triple bypass surgery. They had to sell off the milking herd. Francis Meehan found a good home for all of them on a place in Pennsylvania.
Now, once a dairyman, always a dairyman, Helen and I were back milking again as soon as the young stock matured. We were happy again, working the farm as we always had, until Helen developed Parkinson's disease. I gave up the cows once again to care for her. Here we are at our 60th anniversary party.
Wayne Jr back. Sadly, there was no longer anyone to carry on at the farm. Even after all the cattle were gone and my mother had passed away, Dad still went to the barn everyday to feed the cats. The year before he came to live with my family, he said, "Before winter I wish you would put that cat away." That cat was Elvira, a black cat that Marc's girls had tamed as a kitten and left behind when they moved. Mother had fed her on the front porch and she continued to have kittens year after year. It must have been getting hard for him to get to the barn to feed them by then. I couldn't bring myself to put her down; so, I brought her home.
The old farm, at least as the Warriner farm, slowly retired into the sunset. Elvira, the last of the farm animals, like me, lived out her days with Wayne Jr and his family, she lounged in my son's veterinarian office.