Snowish in Seattle

"Not a creature was stirring" - Downtown Seattle in the Great Snow of January 2012.

If this snow had come to upstate New York, no problem. Before the first snow flake hit the ground on Main Street, the plows would be moving out of the town garage. The day after a 24-inch snowfall, roads might still be a bit snowy, but usually passable.

But this was Seattle. On January 18, 2012, 6.8 inches of snow fell here, paralyzing the city. The snow was followed by an ice storm, which toppled huge evergreen trees onto the Interstates. For two days, little moved in the Seattle metropolitan area.

Landmark wrought iron pavilion, downtown Seattle, January 18, 2012.

In an average year, Seattle can count on a little over 8” of snow. You Nor'Easterners heard me right: that's 8" per year. It may not sound like much, considering what the NE gets. But receiving almost an entire year's worth of snow at one time is very rare. Unfortunately, it happened the morning of my first-ever trip to Seattle.

I was there visiting an old friend, who had always insisted that Pugetopolis – as the Puget Sound area is called by some – is God’s little paradise, especially in winter. “It never gets much below the 40s or so…” “It doesn’t rain as much as they say it does.” “It really warms up during the day.”

The visit was very different from how we envisioned it. The slushy streets remained unplowed. Few cars ventured out. The Monorail has a limited range - it runs between Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) and a mall downtown. To reach either of the stations, we would have to slog though blocks of unshoveled sidewalks --not a happy prospect. Offices, some shops, museums and other attractions were closed. We didn't even think about going up into the famous Space Needle - even if it were open, the visibility was zero. No sense spending the $25 for a ticket. We set out by car to see what we could see.

"Pork'n Beans,"the mascot of Pike Place Market.

Pike Place Market near the waterfront was the only spot that seemed to have some activity. The historic Market opened in 1907, and is reported to be one of the oldest continuously-operated public farmers’ markets in the United States. It is a major tourist site, as well as a prime shopping spot for the workers in the nearby office buildings. Weekend visitors in the thousands jostle one another, shoulder-to shoulder, around the stalls. And it is Mecca for Starbuck’s-lovers – the company's first store opened there in 1971.

Snow day at Pike Place Market.

That day, however, the Market was almost empty, except for the stalwarts who managed to make it into town and set up shop. The Market is a collection of unheated arcades set on a steep hill leading down to the waterfront. In order to avoid slipping our way down the sidewalk, we ducked into one of the upper level doors.

Although all was cold, wet, and dreary outside, the Market was alive with color and lights and interesting things to buy. Fresh shrimp, crabs, and salmon were piled high in the fish stalls, looking as fresh as if the boat had just docked. A little farther down, two bundled-up women were minding a tidy stall selling chocolate-covered cherries - Washington State cherries, of course. They seemed happy to make conversation, since there were very few customers around. They were even happier when I bought three boxes to take back home.

Chukar Cherries, Pike Place Market, Seattle WA

A tulip stand was open a little farther down the row –Washington is famous for its beautiful tulips. The stall manager was wrapped in wool from head to toe, but still looked freezing. The open plastic panels that were intended to keep out the rain were certainly not up to this kind of weather.

Beautiful Washington State tulips - even if these are from the greenhouse!

Without exception, the workers in the stalls remained in amazingly good humor, in spite of everything. We eventually ran out of stalls that were open, so we meandered out into the street. We stopped at a small overlook to see the harbor. Everything looked quiet and still, even though it was the middle of the week. There was very little activity on the water, aside from the occasional ferry. All was ice and snow and silence.

U.S. Coast Guard ship, Seattle Harbor, Puget Sound, WA.

By this time, I needed to dry my socks, which were wet from the icy slush that had leaked into my shoes. We got back in the car, determined to at least tour as many sections of the city as possible in spite of the weather. While I dried my wet socks on the car heater, we drove around the University of Washington Campus. The school was closed, but exuberant students were everywhere - throwing snowballs, sledding, coasting down the hills on pieces of cardboard. It was all so festive – they looked like 8th graders unexpectedly granted a reprieve from a final exam.

University of Washington students giving Alma Mater a snowball salute.

After slipping and sliding around the city for much of the day, my friend and I decided that the better part of valor was to retreat to the warmth of a pub with a fireplace. I am pleased to report that there are a billion Irish pubs in the city of Seattle. OK, maybe not a billion, but more than 200 showed up on a local Internet directory. Although they consist of only 8% of Seattle’s Caucasian population, the Irish have certainly made inroads on the local gastronomic scene. And what could have been more perfect than an Irish Coffee on such a miserable day?

A source of some of that great Seattle Irish Coffee.

Since the weather never let up during my visit – nor did the snowplows ever show up - we drank a lot of Irish Coffee and ate some great meals over the next few days. Thank goodness, the wonderful restaurants of Seattle did not fail us, even though the weather may have!

For several weeks after the storm, the debate raged in the local press: “Does Seattle have enough snowplows?” “Too many snowplows?” The truth is that Seattle has 30 plows. That’s the entire fleet for the city. Now, 30 is probably more than enough for a couple of inches at a time, but clearly not enough for almost an entire year's worth of snow dumped on the city in a single storm. So what's the magic number? I guess it all depends on which direction climate change takes Seattle.

I hope to get back to Seattle and the State of Washington some day. They tell me it is a lovely place to see …. well ... when you can actually see it. Like my trip on the Coast Starlight, if you are thinking of traveling to the Northwest in the middle of January, you may want to wait until summer. The breezes are soft, the air warm, and you will have your pick of fabulous restaurants. If, however, you go in summer, you will miss the great adventure of a snowy day in Seattle!

Resources

Berger, Knute. Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2009.

Cohen, Aubrey. “Does Seattle have too many snowplows?” SeattlePI.com. Website. Published 09:04 p.m., Monday, January 30, 2012, URL accessed 11 February 2012: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Does-Seattle-have-too-many-snowplows-2845381.php

“Does Seattle have enough snow plows?” KING 5 News. Website. Posted on January 31, 2012 at 8:43 AM; Updated Tuesday, Jan 31 at 8:48 AM URL accessed 11 February 2012:
http://www.king5.com/news/Does-Seattle-have-enough-snow-plows-138404359.html

Keane, John F., Irish Heritage Club. Irish Seattle. Charleston SC, San Francisco CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2007. 

McGuire, Terry. “Book Chronicles Irish Influence on Emerald City, Evergreen State.” Catholic New Progress (March 22, 2007). Republished on Arcadia Publishing, Inc. website, URL:
http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=745 accessed February 15, 2012.

Muhlstein, Julie. “Mukilteo Man Preserves Area’s Rich Irish Heritage.” The Herald (March 11, 2007). Republished on Arcadia Publishing, Inc. website, URL: http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=730 accessed February 15, 2012.

“Seattle's Irish: 1850 - 1900s.” The Irish Heritage Club of Seattle Washington. Official Website. URL
http://www.irishclub.org/misc.htm accessed February 15, 2012.

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Winter Trek on the Coast Starlight

Seat scarf, Amtrak Coast Starlight Line

The first ripple in the Matrix was an email from Amtrak, notifying me that the original departure time from Oakland, California, was being pushed back two hours due to track work. Instead of leaving at 9:30 pm, we were now leaving at 11:42 pm. For anyone over .... well ... a certain age, this is the difference between being a little tired and comatose.

I had been planning my trip on the Coast Starlight for some three months. I don't often get to the West Coast, so a family wedding presented a rare opportunity to not only see the family, but also to visit a colleague in Seattle. Always eager for a new adventure, I chose the train over air travel for that leg, excited to see parts of the West coast that I by-passed on my Park-to-Park tour.

The Coast Starlight is the Amtrak rail service between Santa Barbara/Los Angeles, California, and Seattle, Washington. The entire route takes a day and a half, leaving around noon from LA and arriving in Seattle at around 11:30 pm the following day. All reports I heard about traveling on the Coast Starlight were glowing. Scenery: spectacular. Accommodations: excellent. A delightful step back into yesteryear with all modern conveniences – including WiFi. In all, anyone who had taken the trip raved about it.

The news of the postponed departure was troubling. I hadn't been entirely happy about sitting alone in the Oakland train station in the evening in any event, and two hours closer to Midnight was off limits for me. On the advice of my cousin, I changed my departure to Martinez, northwest from Oakland, where they would keep me company until the train departed Martinez.

In spite of the late (or rather very, very early) hour, my cousins were kind to offer me dinner and a place on their sofa, after a full day of sightseeing along the coast. Already they had gone well above and beyond normal hospitality requirements for an out-of-town relative.

There were some fifteen people in the waiting room at the Martinez train station when we arrived at 12:15 am. The station was relatively new, with a modern, spacious design. Given the hour, the only signs of life were the sleepy faces of those waiting the arrival of the Coast Starlight. The clerk at the ticket counter gave me the bad news: departure had been pushed back to the ungodly hour of 1:30 a.m. My cousins, whose usual limits of wakefulness expired about four hours earlier, gracefully insisted on waiting with me.

At last, the Coast Starlight pulled into the station and rolled to a stop. Hugs, kisses, and [somewhat relieved] goodbyes all around. I trundled my bags up toward the engine, where an attendant was waving to me. I was the only one boarding in this section. He hoisted my duffel up to the second level of the sleeping car, where my cabin awaited with its seats folded down and made into a bed.

I was exhausted, and crawled into my little nest in my clothes, there being no room to open bags and change into nightclothes. I was too excited to fall asleep for the first hour of the trip. I watched the streetlights and the darkened warehouses glide by through the open curtain. When the lights faded away and there was nothing but blackness outside, I closed the curtain and was finally seduced into sleep by the rolling rhythm.

I woke up about six hours later. The sky was gradually turning a light gray. The eucalyptus trees of the Bay area had given way to dark stands of evergreens. An occasional house or barn appeared in the distance. Then, slowly rising above the trees, a massive snow-covered mountain appeared in the landscape, growing larger and larger with every mile.

I quickly dug in my bag and pulled out the road map I had brought along. I had no idea how far we had gone. A train schedule I picked up at Martinez helped me calculate, based on the elapsed time, that we were somewhere around Dunsmuir, CA. I was looking at Mount Shasta, the second highest peak in the Cascades. Its flattened cone profile reminded me somewhat of Lassen Peak, the volcano in Lassen Volcanic National Park, located just south of our present location. Both are found in the southernmost section of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, which stretches from British Columbia to Northern California. And both are currently “quiet,” but as the sudden eruption of Mount St. Helen's in 1980 proved, that status can change any time.

Mount Shasta, Southern Cascades, California

After Mount Shasta disappeared out of sight, the landscape became less interesting on my side of the train. I ventured into the narrow hallway and rocked my way back through three or four cars to the dining car for breakfast. The car was almost empty at that early hour, with only three tables occupied.

Rather than seating me at my own table, the waiter directed me to a table where two others were already dining. I was later told that Coast Starlight protocol dictates that diners be mixed together, so that they can enjoy the opportunity of meeting new people while aboard. However, it was 7:00 am. My hair was a mess. I was hungry. I was a bit numb from my restless night. And I had slept in my clothes, fergodssake. I wasn't prepared to make cheerful conversation. I admired my stalwart breakfast partner – a woman much cheerier than I who had been sitting in coach since Los Angeles.

Klamath Mountains, Northern California

After breakfast, I settled into a chair in the parlour car, where I could enjoy the view passing on both sides. Alongside, the ground was black with crushed volcanic rock. The Klamath Mountains were off to the west, but between us and the mountain range was a ghostly valley, with pointed black cones popping up from the mists along the valley floor. Somewhere through that valley, the Klamath River threads its way westward, reaching its outlet to the sea. I had overlooked that very spot not long ago, on my visit to the Redwood National and State Park. But that felt a long way from Klamath Falls, where the train had stopped to take on passengers.

Amtrak Station, Klamath Falls, OR

After leaving Klamath Falls, the route turned northwest. The train began its ascent over part of the Cascades toward Eugene, Oregon. It was in this section of the trip that the scenery was to be most spectacular, by all accounts. There wasn't much snow on the ground along the way, although some dirty grey piles lingering at the edges of the parking lots was evidence of earlier accumulation.

Parlour Car, Coast Starlight

As we climbed higher into the mountains, the flat lands gave way to hills thick with evergreen trees. The sky was beginning to darken. It started to snow, a few flakes at first, then more. And more. Soon the air was gray with snow swirling past my window. I stayed in my cabin, turned up the heater, and snuggled under the blanket.

The rumble of the steel wheels grew muffled as the snow piled up on the tracks. Our progress slowed to a steady crawl. Silently we pushed upward, the boughs of the evergreens now weighed down with several inches of new white snow. Occasionally, the storm would let up enough to reveal the landscape – a river gorge, a lake, a canyon that dropped steeply away from the tracks. The train passed through several tunnels through the mountains, each preceded by a concrete arcade that they tell me was to protect the train from being pushed off the tracks by an errant avalanche crashing down the steep slope. Mostly, however, our view was of the spikes of tall, narrow evergreens lining the tracks.

Snow in the Cascades

Finally the snow lifted somewhat, just as a body of water came into sight. The water sat low in its earthen basin, the bare sides angling to the bottom of the channel. For mile after mile, the drying basin continued on. This was Lookout Point Lake, a reservoir impounded by a 1954 earth and gravel-filled dam on the Middle Fork of the Willamette River. The drought that was severely affecting California this year was clearly being felt this far north as well – the reservoir looked only about 30% full.

Lookout Point Reservoir, Oregon

We passed the town of Cascade Summit on our way down to Portland. From there, the mountains smoothed out and were replaced by flat green fields and barns. The snow melted into a heavy rain that continued until we reached Seattle.

Rain north of Eugene, Oregon

Seattle's historic King Street Station marked the terminus of my journey. After all the delays, the track work, the snow, and the rain, we pulled in at 10:30 pm - on time, as per the schedule. As you walk through the waiting room, you can't help but gaze up at the remarkable ceiling, which has recently been freed from an unfortunate drop ceiling.

King Street Station, Seattle, WA (1906). Courtesy of Washington State Dept of Transportation.

The ornate, once-elegant, 1906 station was designed by the noted firm of Reed and Stem (Grand Central Station, NYC). Since the City of Seattle acquired it in 2008, there have been several campaigns to restore the building to its former grandeur. Although there remains a considerable way to go to full restoration, the impressive bones of the work are at least now visible.

As we emerged from the station, a phalanx of Yellow Cabs stood waiting. Within minutes, I was efficiently whisked away to my hotel, thus ending my winter adventure on the Coast Starlight. Memorable, to be sure. But perhaps not a trip I will repeat in this lifetime.

The romantic idea of an overnight journey by train still has its appeal. I encourage everyone to work up his or her own train adventure. However, based on my experience, there may be some benefit to making some teensy weensy modifications to make your trip more appealing:

1. Find a train that does not depart at 1:30 in the morning (it goes without saying); 
2. Get a cabin big enough to have a sink, toilet and room to change your clothes; 
3. Bring your own WiFi hotspot (The one in the parlour car was not working for most of the trip. We were saved only by the kindness of a fellow passenger who let me and six other desperate souls glom off his signal.);
4. Encourage Amtrak to develop better informational materials for its passengers as to what they will see on the trip. Road maps just don't do it. I know, I had one. It was useless. The only helpful details about the actual route taken was gleaned from the names of cities listed on the train schedule. And while en route, there is no time to figure out what you are looking at without a guide.
5. Go in summer.

Happy traveling!

Resources:

“King Street Station [Seattle] Restoration.” City of Seattle [WA], Department of Transportation. Official Website. URL http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/kingstreet.htm accessed January 29, 2012.

“Klamath National Forest.” United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Official website. http://www.fs.usda.gov/klamath accessed January 29, 2012.

Muir, John. “Snow-Storm on Mount Shasta.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume 55, Number 328 (September 1877), pages 521-530. Republished on Dan Anderson, Yosemite Online Library. URL http://www.yosemite.ca.us/john_muir_writings/snow_storm_on_mount_shasta/ accessed January 29, 2012.

"Project Info - King Street Station Renovation." Washington State Department of Transportation. Official website. URL http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/rail/kingstreetstationrenovation/ accessed January 29, 2012.

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Gentle Ending to a Long Journey

She looks smaller than I remembered. I was here just two weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime.

My mother's head rests on a pillow. Her eyes are closed. There are hollows in her cheeks that weren't there at the last visit. In spite of the warm day, she is covered with a sheet and a navy blue quilted bedspread. She feels warm to my touch.

In the intervening two weeks, my home state had been shaken by an earthquake, battered by a hurricane, and much of it is still under flood waters. This all seems of only passing interest at the moment.

This morning I drove from New Jersey to upstate New York on a road that I had traveled so many times, for so many years. This time was different. This time, my mother is dying.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, and kiss her on her forehead. I linger longer than usual to catch a bit of her scent. She smells clean, of hand lotion and soap. Her skin is delicate and soft. “I hear you are not eating very much these days,” I say.

She opens her eyes slightly. It takes her a minute to focus her gaze on mine. Not a smile this time. Just recognition. It's enough, however, for the moment. I had not even expected that much.

“I don't want anything,” she whispers. It is barely audible. Just a movement of the lips. But I am happy for any sign of consciousness. Even if her response signals the endgame.

On my previous visit, my brother and I brought ice cream - her favorite. As a child, I remember the voluptuous bowls of ice cream she consumed after dinner, when the table had been cleared and the dishes were still dripping in the dish rack. That Sunday, however, she did not reach eagerly for the dish as she usually did. I half-filled the little plastic spoon and touched it to her lips. Maybe  this would excite her taste buds. Maybe she'd want more. She closed her lips over it, letting it slide off the spoon and then melt on her tongue. She closed her eyes. When I offered her another, her lips tightened. No amount of enticement could tempt her to open her mouth for another taste. Her message was clear. Not interested.

This afternoon I read to her. The book was Paddle-to-the-Sea (1941) by Holling Clancy Holling, which is about a small carved canoe in which an Indian brave sat tall, crafted by the hands of a young boy in the wilds of Canada. The boy sets it on its journey from the mountains of Canada through the Great Lakes and then to the sea. It was a story I loved as a child and only recently rediscovered. Mom slept as I read. I kept on, if only to keep the sound of my voice resonating in her subconscious. I wanted her to know that someone who loved her was nearby.

It reminded me of the many times she would read to my brother and me as children. Not only the Little Golden Books that formed the core of our book collection, but also the latest edition of the comic book Little Lulu – our very first magazine subscription. Without fail, the afternoon it arrived in the mailbox we would run to the living room couch, where we sat, one on each side of her, resting our heads against her soft bosom as she read each panel to us. We hung on every word.

I finish Paddle-to-the-Sea. I stroke her hair. The administrator and nursing supervisor come in. We discuss how Mom is doing. It's hard to talk. My eyes keep filling up. I help to turn her to her other side – she has to be turned every hour. I want to be able to do more.

Mom sleeps. Occasionally she opens her eyes and looks at me. I say, “Hi, Mom. Can I do anything for you?” She closes her eyes again.

As the afternoon wears on, it seems she is having a harder time holding focus in the brief moments that her lids are raised, although she sometimes responds when directly addressed. I know she's in there, somewhere. I just can't get to her. She's on her own journey to the sea.

Mom was a nurse before she married Dad during World War II. She admitted that nursing was never her first love, and was happy to leave it to become a homemaker. Nonetheless, her life was spent appreciating nature and trying to understand the world around her.  I first learned the names of wildflowers while on walks in the woods with my mother and Grandmother. I am a historian today, in part, as a result of Mom's voracious appetite for the subject. Her quiet moments were often spent immersed in some enormous tome about the Crusades, the Popes, the lives of the Presidents, or some other similarly dense topic (as they seemed to me then).  She lead me on fascinating walks through many a country cemetery, reading the epitaphs aloud and looking for ancestors. She traced the genealogy of not only her family, but Dad's as well - even undertaking a journey with Dad to Canada's Gaspe Peninsula seeking some record of his Irish grandmother who was shipwrecked there over a hundred years before. And organization? Well, OK .... I never really mastered Mom's tidiness, but learned enough from her to at least feel remorse when I am messy.

I turn the pages of a book I am reading, while I stroke her hair. I leave the television on, thinking the sound of voices is helping to keep her tethered to me, to life, even if we are not conversing. Tomorrow, I will read to her again. This time I will choose an article from one of her favorite magazines - National Geographic or Birds and Blooms - still stacked in a neat pile on the bedside table.

There is so much I want to tell her. I want her to know what she has meant to me. How much my life has been shaped by her. About all the important things I learned from her. And yet, in spite of how much she has enriched my life, in spite of all I owe her, all I can manage at this end point is “I love you, Mom.” This, and anything else I might say, seems so inadequate.

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In Memoriam: Janet Travis Delaney

Janet Travis Delaney, ca. 1940

Janet Travis Delaney died Monday, September 5, 2011. She was 98. Mrs. Delaney was born in Endicott, New York, on December 22, 1912, to Earl Winfield Travis and Jane L. Travis (née Lusk). She was a life-long resident of Endicott, graduating from Union-Endicott High School in 1930. She received her nursing degree from St. Joseph's Hospital, Elmira, N.Y., in 1935, and later joined the nursing staff of Ideal Hospital in Endicott, where she practiced until her marriage to Raymond W. Delaney in 1941.

As the parent of a child with developmental disabilities, Mrs. Delaney, together with her husband Raymond, helped form one of the first parents groups focused on the needs of such children. Over the years, she contributed her volunteer efforts in many ways and was recognized for her work by the Broome Developmental Disabilities Services Office (BDDSO) in 1994. Mrs. Delaney was an ardent avocational historian and genealogist, as well as member of the Old Village of Union Historical Society, an organization for which she served as Secretary for some time.

Mrs. Delaney is survived by children Mary Delaney Krugman and Philip Lockwood Delaney; and grandchildren Sean Dennis Delaney; Erin Delaney Guidici, Daniel Delaney Krugman, and Casey Winfield Krugman. She was predeceased by her husband, Raymond William Delaney, and son, John Travis Delaney.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that Mrs. Delaney's memory be honored by a donation to the Parents Group of Broome Developmental Services Office, 249 Glenwood Road, Binghamton, New York 13905 (607) 770-0255.

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Silent Conversations

Evergreen Cemetery, Owego, New York

 Well, we have got what was coming to us, and here in this burial plot we lie: - We fourteen skeletons of Gibsons, Tinkhams, Drakes, Pixleys and Curtises, that once were clothed with flesh and lived and loved and laughed and danced and sang and suffered just like you till the God-created life transmitting spark that had been passed down to us from its beginning died.

 -- Captain Edward Tinkham Gibson, 1935

Epitaph in Evergreen Cemetery, Owego NY

At the top of a long, narrow drive that ascends the side of a ragged shale outcrop in Tioga County, New York, is a hamlet distinguished by a long history, picturesque landscaping, and exceptional works of art and architecture. Its residents – many distinguished, powerful, and/or wealthy, some less so – are universally well known for their quiet demeanor. Very quiet. In fact, they are all dead. 

Evergreen Cemetery sits on a scenic promontory overlooking the Susquehanna River and the Village of Owego.  A white marble obelisk perched on its summit is visible from miles away. Founded in 1851, this graveyard is a remarkably intact example of a rural or “garden cemetery” that first appeared in the United States in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Landscaped with ornamental shrubs, trees, and other plantings casually arranged in an organic way, it reflected the new appreciation for nature and natural forms inspired by the American Transcendentalists. Although later in the Nineteenth Century, Fredrick Law Olmsted would refine the tenets of this philosophy into the art of landscape design, the rural cemeteries were the first examples of this approach to register in the public’s consciousness. 

The Notables

Evergreen Cemetery was established at a time when Owego was evolving from a frontier town into a town of substance and graceful civility. Among its inhabitants, the cemetery counts a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, numerous New York State Senators and Assemblymen, many of Owego’s Village Presidents and fire chiefs, business leaders, the editors of various publications, both local and national, and the scions of these and other prominent families.

There were also individuals credited with exceptional achievements. Among them was Helen Dean King, Ph.D., a professor who specialized in genetics research, who was honored in 1932 as one of two women recognized for highest achievement in scientific research in the world. And there is the grave of J. Alden Loring, renowned naturalist and author who traveled the world for the Smithsonian, the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Zoological Societies of the City of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Loring was one of three naturalists who accompanied President Teddy Roosevelt on his year-long African safari. We’re in heady company here.

 

Croke Family Monument.

The Artistry and Architecture

The imposing granite monuments found throughout the cemetery are fitting memorials to those buried at their bases. The topography requires them to be grouped in small clusters rather than laid out in straight rows. The cemetery is founded on a steep slope traversed by several ravines, brooks, and culverts that tumble down the hillside towards town. Those who staked their claim on various plots up and down the incline arranged their headstones on terraces. Typically, they had commissioned a large monument with the family name prominently embossed on it, surrounded by smaller stones, one for each individual buried there. 

The more affluent built mausoleums for their families. The snide among us might say this was due to a desire for exclusivity, even in death; but it might also have been due to a desire to conserve space on the steep slope. Some of the mausoleums, in particular, are architectural gems, including the Cheney crypt (1897) and the Curtis family crypt (built 1907). 

Curtis Family Mausoleum (1907), Evergreen Cemetery.

The Curtis crypt, designed by the McDonnell plant in Buffalo, NY and executed in granite from Barre, Vermont, is both masculine and elegant. It is also a masterful feat of engineering. The roof is made of a single slab of rusticated granite, chamfered at the edges and almost a foot thick at the center. According to a brochure published by the Owego Historical Society, the stone on the roof alone weighs some 18 tons. That slab is capped with a second monolith, shaped to form the ridgeline of the structure, that reportedly weighs over 8 tons. These sit on a yet a third monolithic slab that forms the upper seal of the chamber within. The walls are formed of huge rusticated blocks of granite. The only refinements found on this massive composition are the elegant bronze doors and the perfectly-turned, piston-like Doric columns that flank the entrance.

Cheney Family Crypt (1897), Evergreen Cemetery.

The Cheney mausoleum is much more “feminine” in design, if we’re assigning genders to structures. The crypt is made slender by a tall center pavilion with a steeply pitched roof, topped off with a bronze urn. Like the Curtis crypt, elegant bronze doors are ornamented with grillwork, albeit much more effusive than those of its neighbor. The entrance is flanked by two attenuated columns with stylized Composite capitals. A flat, pointed frontispiece embossed with “Cheney” follows the gable profile, emphasizing the height of the center bay. A trefoil intrados is an interesting ornamental refinement of the main entry, which is echoed in the vent in the upper gable. Two low side wings come off the main pavilion, looking for all the world like a bustle under a dress from that century. 

Among the headstones is the massive Croke family monument somewhat farther down the hill (photo above). At some time, one of its ancestors ran Croke’s Livery, a prominent Owego business in the 19^th Century.

The Birdsall monument is graced by a lovely flowering hydrangea; someone in the Birdsall family obviously took great pride in his or her membership in the Order of the Eastern Star, whose emblem is emblazoned on the face of the stone. 

The Birdsall Family Monument, Evergreen Cemetery.

The headstone of U.S. Congressman and Senator and all-around political king-maker Thomas C. (“Boss”) Platt (1833 – 1910) is reported to be found somewhere in the cemetery, although I missed seeing it on this visit. It was designed by the noted New York City architect Ernest Flagg (Singer Building and St. Luke’s Hospital, NYC; Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC).

In another area, the graves of Civil War soldiers of Tioga County now rest, the identical stones standing in orderly ranks, one after the other, as the soldiers did during their last deployment. The section was originally opened by the by the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) in 1865; it was restored in 2007 thanks to the Tioga County War Service Medal Commission.

Civil War Section, Evergreen Cemetery. Created 1865; Restored 2007.

The Stories

The artistry embodied in Evergreen’s monuments and mausoleums, however, was not the only thing that captivated me. Rather it was the sense that I was stepping into a set from Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, where there seemed to be an eternal conversation taking place among the decedents. It was not only the expressive form of those artful headstones, but also the inscriptions that connect you with the people who rest under them. The sense of love, loss, disaster, honor – it’s all there. The emotions surrounding the events that brought those souls to this place still vibrate in the air, even on a still, languid summer afternoon like the one I was enjoying that day.

My car climbed the hill to the first stop along my tour: the white obelisk on the promontory. I wondered as I approached it, “Is a war memorial? The grave of a U.S. Senator, or maybe even a U.S. President?” Not at all. It turned out to be the grave of a young Native American woman who died in a train wreck in a town some miles away. It was erected by the people of Owego from private donations.

The epitaph reads: 

In memory of Sa-Sa-Na Loft, an Indian Maiden of Mohawk-Woods, Canada West, who lost her life in the railroad disaster at Deposit, N.Y., February 18, 1852, Aged 21 years. 

By birth a daughter of the forest, by adoption a child of God.

This, of course, intrigued me. It was the first story I researched when I returned to my office. The accounts revealed that Sa Sa Na Loft did not live in Owego. She had no relatives here at all. Reportedly, she was a direct descendant of Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader prominent in the Revolutionary War. Brant’s second wife was named Susanna, which suggests that she may have been Sa Sa Na's namesake.

Sa Sa Na had traveled to Owego from Canada with her brother and sister on a mission to raise funds for the education of Mohawk children. For two days in February 1852, she and her siblings stayed with the family of Judge Avery, a prominent local citizen. She reportedly gave two concerts, during which the people of Owego thrilled at her beautiful singing voice. Then, the three siblings boarded the train for the little town of Deposit, New York, where they were going to spend the night. A freight train, which had left the station just a few minutes before, lost traction on a steep and icy grade just a mile outside of town. It raced uncontrollably down the slope backwards, slamming into the passenger train where Sa Sa Na sat. The lives of her brother and sister were spared, thanks only to happenstance.

After receiving news of her death, Judge Avery immediately sought permission from her family to bury her in Evergreen Cemetery as one of their own -- a request her family granted. Donations were collected for the marble memorial, which was erected some two years later on the promontory above the town. And there, after that brief two-day encounter, she has remained for almost 160 years, overlooking the Susquehanna River, a daughter of the Village of Owego. Today, some might wonder if Sa Sa Na would have preferred to take her final rest near her beloved Mohawk children in the forests of her native Canada, in spite of the great kindness shown her here. But we’ll never know, of course.

Epitaph of Cornil Bloodgood (d. 1876)

Another heartbreaking story unfolds on a stone along “Summit Road,” one of the drives in the cemetery. There, the Bloodgood family gravestone is marked by rustic stone cross of carved tree trunks that adorns the top of the monument. The cross is entwined with limestone leaves and roses that cascade down around its sides and encircle the main inscription on the front. But another inscription, located on the side of the headstone, near its base, was most intriguing. It was for “Cornil,” a 30-year old daughter of one of the Bloodgoods (although where she fits in the family tree, I am still at a loss to figure out), who died in the “Ashtabula disaster” on December 29, 1876. Of course, I had to look that one up, too. 

The Ashtabula train disaster was caused by the failure of an iron Howe truss bridge, which dumped an entire trainload of holiday travelers 60 feet into a ravine on a snowy Ohio night, just minutes away from the station. Those who weren’t killed by the impact were burned to death in the fire that immediately engulfed the wreck - a fire caused by lanterns and the coal burners that warmed the passengers on that freezing night. So here lay poor Cornil, 135 years later, at the base of this aged stone bouquet. I hope she was pleased to make it back to Owego and the relatives with whom she now shares the plot. 

Wood engraving of the Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster, published in Harper's Weekly, January 20, 1877.

Tragedy also visited the prominent Cheney family, whose mausoleum was completed in 1897.  Alfred C. Cheney was a self-made businessman, who ultimately became president of the Garfield National Bank and Safe Deposit Company in New York. He was also Treasurer of the Republican State Committee for a period and was one of the leading proponents of the Nicaragua Canal, a plan abandoned in the early 20^th Century in favor of the Panama Canal. Alfred surprised everyone when he died in 1893 while vacationing in Lake George. I suspect the Cheney crypt we see today was built for him. On a rainy summer’s morning exactly 10 years and 4 days after her husband’s death, Adeline Hull Chaney, beset with “nervousness,” jumped fully clothed into the waters of the Susquehanna River at Owego while visiting her sisters. After her body was recovered floating near the steamboat Dewey (who knew that there were steamboats on the Susquehanna?), she was interred in the Cheney crypt, too. For the Hull sisters, that sad procession up the long drive to the crypt at the top of the hill must have seemed interminable. Let’s hope that, for more than a century now, Adeline and Alfred have enjoyed the lovely view of the valley together.

View of the Susquehanna River valley from the summit of Evergreen Cemetery.

As my car returned down the hill and exited through the main gates of Evergreen Cemetery, I felt I had just attended some kind of social gathering, even though I had not seen a single person while I was there. Although it’s true that many of the stories of the dead only became clear after I had done a bit of research, the conversations the stones offer to the living can be very enlightening, if we stop to listen.

Evergreen Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Resources:

“Alfred C. Cheney.” Obituary. New York Times. 15 July 1893.

“Ashtabula Train Disaster of 1876.” Ohio History Central. Website. Columbus OH: Ohio Historical Society. URL: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=466 accessed 25 July 2011.

 “Do not Stand by my Grave and Cry... A monument to a loved one, a tribute to a community.” Treasures of the Tier: A Monthly Column on Historic Structures of New York's Southern Tier. Website URL http://nyslandmarks.com/treasures/08aug.htmaccessed July 25, 2011.

“The Erie Railroad Accident at Deposit – Verdict of Coroner’s Jury.” New York Times. 21 February 1852.  c

“Railroad Smashing – ‘Crowner’s Quest.’” New York Times. 23 February 1852: 2. Courtesy of Proquest, Historical New York Times.

R. M. “The Erie Railroad Disaster.” Letter to the Editor.  New York Times. 27 February 1852:1. Courtesy of Proquest, Historical New York Times.

Sedore, Emma M., Tioga County Historian. Walking Tour: Evergreen Cemetery, Owego, New York. Brochure. Funded in part by a Preserve America grant. Owego NY:  Village of Owego, 2010.

Sedore, Emma, and Anthony Opalka. Evergreen Cemetery, Owego, Tioga County, New York. Nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places. Listed on the New York and National Registers of Historic Places, 2002. Courtesy of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Database and Document Imaging. Website URL: http://nysparks.state.ny.us/shpo/online-tools  accessed 25 July 2011.

“Suicide of Mrs. Cheney: Widow of Alfred C. Cheney Drowns Herself at Owego.” New York Times. 20 July 1903: 2. Courtesy of Proquest, Historical New York Times.

Taylor, Troy. “Horror for the Holidays: Ghosts of the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.”  2003. Prairie Ghosts. Website. URL: http://www.prairieghosts.com/rr_disaster.html  accessed 25 July 2011.

Weiser, Kathy, ed. and comp. “Railroad Tales: Ashtabula, Ohio, Train Wreck – Historic Accounts.” Legends of America. Website. Updated 2010. URL: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/rr-ashtabula.html  accessed 25 July 2011.

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The Girls at the Corner

They like to play hide-and-seek. Well, the truth is they are not really playing anything. Just going about their business. I am the one who looks eagerly for them each time I pass by, wherever they have wandered. Between the months of May and October, whether it be rainy or sunny, hot or chilly, the girls can usually be found congregating somewhere in the fields that straddle a hill in the northeast corner of the Town of Union, NY.

The cows belong to one of the few working farms left in my hometown. The survival of any farms in this part of upstate New York surprises me, as development has steadily crept up the hillsides of my valley over the years. As a child, I remember there being more of them. Although my family was firmly tethered to the Village of Endicott by work and relations, the countryside was always special to us; we explored it extensively in our Sunday afternoon excursions.

Case Road, looking toward Robinson Hill, Town of Union, NY

These recent bovine friendships flowered when my mother moved to a new senior care facility on the hills outside Endicott. This shift in my center of gravity required me to forge new routes from the highway to my mother's complex. Rather than follow my usual route along Main Street, I now exit Route 17 at the Oakdale Mall, the regional shopping center in Johnson City just east of Endicott. Five minutes from the highway and only a mile above the mall, I am on Robinson Hill, in the lush and fragrant uplands of the Susquehanna Valley. Wildflowers grow by the side of the road. Red-winged blackbirds soar overhead, their calls reminding me of picnics by the streams of my youth. There are trees and meadows, hills and dales, brooks and ponds. 

Farm at Robinson Hill and Case Roads, Town of Union, NY

At the corner of Case and Robinson Hill Roads where I make the turn toward the senior housing complex, there is a working farm complete with picture-perfect black and white cows. Not being an expert, I hear that these are Holsteins, the archetypical dairy cow of New York State. They would often hang out in the field nearest the corner where I turned up the hill. I could easily see their soft nuzzling noses scruffling among the hillocks. Some would look up at my car, bored, chewing. Then they would slowly resume their foraging. Occasionally, they would have arranged themselves in a circle to gossip in the shade of a stand of trees. Other times, they had meandered along a woodland cowpath to the other side of the hill, where I would find them grazing in the north pasture.

Seeing these cows always fills me with a sense of constancy. Beyond the ever-changing storefronts of downtown; beyond the industries that had built the town, and then abandoned it; beyond the big-box retail that now populates the valley ... this farm, these fields, these cows, have survived.

Farm in the Town of Union, Broome County, NY

Late last fall, after the cows had retired to the barn for the winter, the farmer removed the fencing at the corner where I turn off. I worried that perhaps this signaled the disappearance of yet another dairy farm. Was the field soon to be lost to a housing development (something more typical of my current home state of New Jersey)? Or was this evidence of some farm management strategy (something about which I am totally uninformed)?

Farming is not an idyllic profession. It's a hard life. Many farmers give up, looking for an easier way to earn living wage that doesn't depend on the vagaries of nature. 

According to the Town of Union Unified Comprehensive Plan for 2007:

There are only a handful of working farms remaining in the Town of Union. The decline of agricultural practices has been the result of many factors. In a survey of 448 owners of idle agricultural land in New York, forty-one percent said that they wanted to sell their land because they couldn't afford the taxes. Thirty-one percent wanted to sell because they needed the money. In most cases it has just become more profitable to sell the land to developers than to try to make a living selling agricultural goods. Twelve percent said that farming was impractical (Kay, D. and Bills, N., 2007). Whatever the reason, agriculture in New York and the Town has seen a steady decline in recent years.

At last count, the Town of Union has fourteen individual tax parcels that are locally designated as Agricultural Districts, accounting for approximately three percent of the land (2007 Town of Union Unified Comprehensive Plan). Among them is the farm I always pass on Case Road. There are several more farms along that road, although I found only one that seemed to still be a working farm. 

The decline of farming in this area is not new. As early as 1909, Ralph S. Tarr, Professor of Physical Geography at Cornell University, selected Broome County as one of seven Southern Tier counties for his article, “The Decline of Farming in South-Central New York State.” His opening paragraph offers up the stunning news that, while previous studies expressed concern about the decline of farming in New England, in New York State there were some 20,000 farms for sale at the time of writing.

The seven counties Tarr considered were all located within the hilly plateau of Southern New York and all were well connected with other parts of the state by virtue of numerous railroad lines. In addition, the region had access to the Erie Canal through the two of the Finger Lakes and was served by three major rivers, the Susquehanna, the Chenango, and the Chemung. Normally these would be factors that facilitate marketing of farm products. Nonetheless, the farming population in Broome County continued to decline during the 19th Century - over 3% in the years between 1890 to 1900.

Due to the poor condition of the soil in the uplands of the plateau, dairying was often the principal farm industry. Dairy cows can graze on very poor lands like those found in Broome County. And even poor lands can produce the forage needed to get the herd through the long winters of upstate New York.

Dairying, an industry in which New York State lead the country in 1900, still remains a major component of New York State economy. After decades of decline, Broome County evidenced an 8% increase in the number of dairy cows between 1969 and 1987. By 2007, the value of sales from milk and other dairy products from cows in Broome County totaled almost $21 Million, outstripping its nearest competitor (cattle and calves) by more than six times. Not surprising, the top crop in Broome County is forage (land used for hay, silage, etc.) and corn used for silage (feed), where some 34,000 acres are under cultivation (USDA, 2007 Census of Agriculture). 

Fields along Case Road, Town of Union, NY

The economics of agriculture are too complex for me to digest for this study. It is obvious that many challenges remain for farming, including being able to eke out an adequate living from the land.

Recent years have offered hopeful signs for the long-term survival prospects of farms in the Southern Tier, if farms can adapt quickly enough. Technological advances have made smaller farms more productive; for dairying, this means more milk is now produced from fewer cows. There is ready access to a variety of modes of transportation to get goods to market. Consumers are increasingly interested in buying locally. There is reduced interest in red meat (much of which is produced by competitors in the West and Midwest), and greater interest in purchasing vegetables, grains, and fruits. New specialty markets for such things as organic farm products have opened up as consumers look to “eat healthy.” And more people regard fresh air and open space a basic element of one's quality of life. This all bodes well for the preservation of local farms.

As for my farm on Robinson Hill... well, the cows reappeared this spring, but the fence did not. I scanned the fields for the black and white dots, finally finding them grazing along the far tree line. The field on the corner where the cows used to greet me has been left fallow, at least for this season. I saw the farmer out there on his tractor on my last trip through - perhaps he's harvesting next winter's hay. It was a happy sight.

Resources:

Bills, Nelson, Krys Cail, and Monika Roth. Southern Tier Agriculture: A Regional Economic Resource and a Landscape In Transition. Powerpoint. (2005). URL: http://www.slideshare.net/KrysCail/southern-tier-agriculture-a-regional-resource-and-a-landscape-in-transition accessed June 30, 2011.

A History of American Agriculture - Farmers and the Land.” Growing a Nation: The History of American Agriculture. URL: http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm accessed June 25, 2011. Project funded by USDA CSREES cooperative agreement #2004-38840-01819 and developed cooperatively by: USDA, Utah State University Extension, and LetterPress Software, Inc.

Kay, D., and Bills, N. “What are the plans of owners of idle agricultural land in NYS?” Rural New York Minute. 2007. Cited in the 2007 Town of Union [NY] Comprehensive Plan.

Stanton, B. F. The Changing Landscape of New York State Agriculture in the Twentieth Century. Agricultural Economics Extension Bull. 92-5. Ithaca NY: Department of Agricultural Economics, New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, March 1992.

Tarr, Ralph S. (1864 – 1912), Prof. Phys. Geography at Cornell University. “The Decline of Farming in South-Central New York.” Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 41, No. 5.American Geographical Society, 1909. Courtesy of Googlebooks. URL http://books.google.com/ accessed June 29, 2011.

Tomlin, Elizabeth. “Agriculture IS Economic Development – Central NY Ag Council 2011.”Country Folks, Eastern Ed. Palatine, NY: Lee Publications (April 25, 2011). URL: http://countryfolks.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=350E94585B37465F8B5F8BA068B734F5&nm=Features&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&AudID=90DC82AE125D4E708CD1E3ED9DA80CA2&tier=4&id=81A37F22667540CA9DFDF20302FDE074 accessed June 25, 2011.

Union [NY],Town of. “Goals and Objectives: Agriculture.” Chapter 17. Town of Union Unified Comprehensive Plan. URL: http://www.townofunion.com/

U.S. Department of Agriculture. “County Profile: Broome County, New York. 2007 Census of Agriculture, Volume 1, Geographic Area Series. URL: http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/index.asp accessed June 25, 2011.