Tim: [00:00:00] What's today, January 29th, 2020? Is today the 29th? Yeah, it's Rolfe's birthday. Oh, yeah, it was in the paper. You know how I put those in the News? But I wanted to ask you, since this is the first time I've recorded something. When you were five or six years old, did you have four grandparents that lived nearby?

Mom: Certainly.  

Tim: All four?  

Mom: Yes. Joseph and Harriet Kelly. And Thomas and Mary Louise Hoag.  

Tim: So how long were they alive during your youth?  

Mom: They didn't pass away until in the thirties.  

Tim: You were in your teens?  

Mom: Yes.  

Tim: All four of them passed away ...  

Mom: well, I can't remember Grandpa Kelly that much. He had a dairy farm.

And, at one point, when he was driving on his horse and wagon, and they lived where you could cross the road and go right into Johnson Road, [00:01:00] he, he, uh, A car came by, which was unusual in that day, scared the horses, and they tipped the whole thing over and Grandpa, broke his neck.  

Tim: Did he kill him?

Mom: He survived.  

Tim: Was he alone?

Mom: With Grandma Kelly and my mother, and that's when my mother was into this seance kind of stuff.  

Tim: Founded at Lily Dale?  

Mom: And a guy in Canada, a doctor, and she got him to come over to see Grandpa Kelly and he cured him.  

Tim: He cured him of a broken neck? Yes. That's pretty something. That's pretty amazing. What do you mean, did he like, was he paralyzed and laying on a bed?

Mom: I was too little, Tim.  

Tim: But you remember.  

Mom: Well, yes. Cause it was my mother.  

Tim: She, the man came over, you weren't there when she, he, uh. No. What did he do, say a prayer, light a candle, or mumble jumbo?  

Mom: I would [00:02:00] not know what a seance or whatever they have.  

Tim: Did he live much after that?  

Mom: I can't remember details, tim.

Tim: Was that the first of your four grandparents to die, though? Probably. So you, you were...  

Mom: Grandma Kelly lived in our house. I was about 13 then, maybe. Anyway, one night, a bunch of us, Warren's Corners kids, guys and gals, took the Crystal Beach boat, And we didn't get back home until almost one o'clock, and I walked in, and my grandmother had died, and I was caught being out so late.  

Tim: Was there people up in the home?  

Mom: I think so. She had not been removed? Not that I remember.  

Tim: Well, I didn't know that she lived with you then. Oh, yeah. So that, that, and it was her husband who had the accident on the,  

uh, [00:03:00] buggy?  

Mom: Then the Hoags lived.... You know, we had a circular driveway, and they built their home over there, with the driveway connected to our driveway, so they were close by.

Tim: I didn't know that. Had the farm been  

Mom: Dad worked the farm with his father.  

Tim: So he started the farm, or did his father start the farm? I think his father probably did. So your dad, your father was third generation? Probably. He should have passed it on. We could have run that farm.  

Mom: Raymond didn't want to.  

Tim: Yeah, well, you should have taken it.

Mom: I wasn't asked.  

Tim: Brian could have run it, and then me, then Dennis, then Kevin.  

Mom: Yeah, how profitable?  

Tim: Well, I don't know. Maybe we started growing chickens. We could grow chickens and sell them to McDonald's or KFC. So, but your grandfather, father obviously sold it. So you had two grandparents that lived on the same property.

Mom: Yes.  

Tim: Did you go over there and eat dinner and things like that a lot?  

Mom: Not that I remember. Uh huh. [00:04:00] Uh, Grandma Toohey liked to be taken out. Not Grandma Toohey, Grandma Hoag.  

And, uh, we had a 33 car which we drive to the Chicago World's fair in.

Tim: What year was that? Thirty six? Thirty four. Thirty four? Thirty four.

Wow.  

Mom: Brand new Dodge. Who went, do you remember? Mom and Dad, Mildred and I. Rachel and Ray didn't, Raymond didn't go? They were older?  

They were probably working in Niagara Falls by then. You were eleven. And they were, Rachel was seven years older. So she was eighteen. Yes, and footloose and fancy free, I think.  

Tim: Was she, what was she, a loose woman?  

Mom: I, I think she, kept busy at her apartment. She had an apartment at 18? Yes. Cause she worked for Niagara Mohawk, or Niagara Power, down on 3rd Street. Man, at age 18? And Ray worked [00:05:00] for Wentz Dairy. So they moved out.  

Tim: They didn't share an apartment though? No. They each had their own apartments?

Yes. Did you ever go and hang out with them? No. You didn't?  

Mom: Where Ray worked. What the hell was her name?  

Tim: Was it a landlady or something, you mean?  

Mom: They had a daughter, and one time Mildred and I went and rode bikes with her.  

Tim: That's nice. Now that must have been quite a trip to the World's Fair. Do you remember it?

Mom: Yes. Uh, we lived in Uh, apartment complex building.  

Oh, like an Airbnb 1934 style. Huh? They had an  

outdoor veranda, so the summertime we had breakfast out on the upper porch.  

They must have thought you were some fancy New Yorkers.  

My dad got lost. We drove through the stockyards.  

Did it smell? Yes.  

Tim: Did any other family members go [00:06:00] just, uh, like cousins or anything?

No.  

He was a, that's an adventure. Did you, did you go drive straight out or did you stop in like, uh?  

Mom: Oh, we probably had to stop for gas and stuff.  

Tim: No, but overnight? I don't remember that. That's, I don't know, Chicago's about 750 miles I think, isn't it? You should have taken a boat. Really? No? Okay, well that's good for today.