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Note: The following was taken from e mails rec'd from Jerry Bloss in 2000:
It isn't very often you meet a woman who is both beautiful and smart. You're being introduced in this writing to one who was just that. She was also potentially an astute businessperson. She was very forward and outspoken whenever it became necessary. She was also a great cook and during the years of WWII she always had plenty of food for us and sometimes didn't hesitate to give some to others. She and ABW had one child of their own and took into their hearts two other boys during the depression years and became their mother when few people had enough of anything for their own families. ABW was sometimes laid off from the post office so FEW decided to make some money by raising dogs and selling the pups. It was a nice pastime because both Mom and Dad loved animals. She raised champion chows. Even entered them in American Kennel Club shows. Won prizes too. Of course when she sold the offspring she was able to use the ARC registry papers and display the many blue ribbons to potential buyers. It sure made it possible to boost the prices. She was gentle and extraordinarily kindhearted and whenever trouble showed its ugly head the family came first. There seemed to be no limit to any sacrifices she would make for this family. It always came ahead of everything else. Their first child was William Bradford Washburn who throughout the book is referred to as WBW or Bill. He was born on the 3rd of September 1911 in that wonderful city of Schenectady, New York. He died fifty-seven years later. Bill possessed all the characteristics of Mom and Dad. The only part of him I disliked intensely was his constant cigar smoking. He too, was ambitious, artistic, strong, intelligent and always thought generously of others. FEW found and adopted Robert Greisel who was a few years younger than Bill. He became Robert G. Washburn and shall be referred to as RGW or Bob. During every one of the following years while they were growing up Bill watched over him like a loving shepherd. Bob was physically strong and highly intellectual but slightly smaller than Bill. Every time Bob was offered any kind of a threat from the other kids in the neighborhood Bill was right there like a white knight. Not that Bob couldn't take care of himself. He certainly did exactly that many times. But he was shy and a very reserved person. He didn't like fighting. On the other hand when it was necessary he would put his life on the line to defend others. During the war years he won a Bronze Star medal for outstanding bravery during a battle on a Pacific island. As you turn every page you will become a closer part of this remarkable family. You will learn that the Washburns were not only prolific but when the offspring grew they have all given something of value to the world.
Mom was, indeed a very stalwart, strong, determined and single-minded lady. She was also kind, loving and ever so warmhearted. It's unfortunate that I didn't realize this until many years after I'd left home.
Let's wander back to about 1937 or so. Here we see a ten-year-old boy harboring a most sheepish expression carrying a large bouquet of lilacs. Before the age of enlightenment little boys could not be seen carrying flowers. This act created a height of humiliation. His face felt as red as the lilacs were lavender. Where were these to be delivered? Oh! No. Not to Mount Pleasant High. Worse yet...to the teacher of your Uncle Bob's class. Of course, that little boy was me. For a while, to the other kids on my block, I became the neighborhood sissy. It gets worse. Back in those times the baker, the milkman, the trash collector and the junk man were all transported by equus caballusa (strong horses). Almost always these caballusa would make a deposit of some material in front of our house or nearby that would be most efficacious in making a garden grow. Guess whose job it was to physically follow those horses with a shovel and a stick. I can guarantee that we had one of the best gardens in the area and a most shame faced kid. Then there was the time Mom defended me as I was being attacked by a neighborhood girl. It happened at the end of a day at McKinley Junior High School. Nowadays they're called middle schools. Eddie, a friend of mine, and I were horsing around when we passed a group of girls who were standing in a circle each holding a load of books in their arms. Eddie shoved me into that group knocking them all down. I didn't know how to be a gentleman and say, "I'm sorry", so he and I both took off at high speed. Now, it just happened that one of those girls had to pass my house to get to hers. Alice was not just any old girl. She had a wild temper and was as feisty as a wasp. If you gave her reason to belt you one, it stung.
Just before Alice passed in front of my house Mom had given me two flats (18 ea.) of eggs to be taken to a neighbor. As I left our house, along came Alice. I saw a white hot fire in her eyes. I'd just reached the sidewalk when she came up to me, calmly laid down her books and proceeded to tear me up with fists flying. She was beginning to beat the living you know what out of me while I was totally concentrating on protecting that hen fruit in my arms when a storm cloud appeared at our front door and descended with sparks emanating from red eyes. They engaged in verbal fisticuffs. Mom and a 14 year old fire ball. Alice finally turned and walked away while still steaming. It turned out, following a detailed explanation from me, that Mom wasn't defending me. She was defending those helpless and expensive eggs. I was so mad at Eddie for starting the whole thing that I tried to beat him up that afternoon. Failed again. He thrashed me. This was another of life's lessons I guess.
Down at the camp on the Mohawk River each evening Dad would go out to our Model "T", or it may have been the Buick, and came back in with its battery. He must have had a condenser because he would hook it up to the short wave radio he built. What caressed our ears was music from Cuba or broadcasts from the BBC fading in and out with a background of a gentle hiss. As little as I was, I was enamored by the chimes of Big Ben. Before the beginning of WW 2 we heard "This is H. V. Caltenbourn coming to you from the White House". More dramatically, when England was being destroyed, we heard "I am Edward R. Murrow and this is London calling". He would give highly illustrative descriptions of those raging fires. His reports were always accompanied by the terrible
harmonious wailing of London's air raid sirens and bombs that were exploding all around him.
It had to have been around 1944 when Mom decided to invest in a country farmhouse for the purpose of renting rooms to tourists. Tourist homes and motels were the rage around this time. She found the Cregear place just outside of town (Schenectady, NY) and fell in love with it. I don't remember who the seller was. I think it may have been a bank foreclosure. Definitely she had not been made aware of the defects. There were five or six bedrooms and there were bathrooms. It had a covered porch that ran around two sides of it. The house had an indoor kitchen plus an outbuilding kitchen along with a carriage house, a horse barn and a very large regular barn. It was set on about six acres of land and it was set back from the highway about a hundred feet. Many large trees occupied the front lawn making the whole property very attractive. Dad made a sign saying "TOURISTS WELCOME". No one showed up and fortunately so because everything was wrong with that monstrous house. The plumbing became lost, the electricity went the way of the wind, and taxes were discovered to be astronomical and unpaid for a long time back. Roof repair was desperately needed. Let me take a moment to tell you about this house. On the second floor there was a strange arrangement of rooms...four rooms in a row. No hallway. That's right, you had to go right through each of three rooms in order to reach the fourth which was the one to which I had been assigned. I scrambled into bed on that first night. When I looked up I saw a huge hole in the ceiling; covered, of course. The next morning I inquired about it. Mom and Dad looked at each other and with sincere reluctance told me that the previous owner had been working up there and took a fatal fall through it. Every following night I would lay there and I knew that his ghost was going to fall through and land right on top of me.
As I said, everything was wrong with this place. During those years, $6,000.00 was an awful lot of money. Somehow we got back into the Main Ave. house, and for the first time ever, I saw Mom and Dad standing in the kitchen facing each other. The money invested in this country property was lost and Mom, being the driving force behind it, was devastated. She leaned forward and putting her arms around Dad, cried up a storm. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I lost it all. Will you ever forgive me"? And, of course, he did.
Jerry Bloss, 2000
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