Eugene Gochenor's Memoirs: Pets, Fishing, and Hunting

This excerpt from my father's memoirs concerns his dog Trixie, raising rabbits for profit, and hunting with his father. He talks about visiting Putt's farm in the Allegheny mountains. I remember watching Mrs. Putt candle eggs in a dark room, and walking up the hill in autumn.

Dad

"My pet dog and best buddy was named Trixie. Wherever I went, he went, and he was a hunting dog too. He was part Terrier, and I don’t know what else. When father and I would take him hunting, he would get on the trail of a rabbit or pheasant and would run full speed ‘till he flushed it, or lost it. When he was on the trail of a pheasant we would have to run to keep up with him. Carrying our guns and running through the fields on a warm Autumn day to be near when the bird flushed was hard work. If someone saw us running through the fields and did not see the dog, they probably would have wondered what was going on. That may not have been the best way to hunt, but we had many a dinner, thanks to Trixie!

Gene and Al Gochenour and poor Trixie

"Trixie being mainly a Terrier was an excellent ratter. It was my job to saw up the piles of wood we used to feed our kitchen stove. There was a table saw back by the garage that I used to cut up the boards. One day I was getting down to the bottom of the pile and when I lifted the last board, there were three rats hiding beneath it. Trixie knew they were there, and when I lifted the board, he grabbed each one, snapped it’s neck, and killed them in a flash! He was like greased lightning! Rats were always a problem because there were so many places they could live in the country. There were barns, fields, wood piles, and the town dump was only a mile away.

'We had some old garages behind the house and one day I put some rat poison in one of them. We always kept the doors closed, but one day I went in to get a tool, and did not close the door. When I went to take the tool back, I saw Trixie eating the poison. I called our Vet and asked him what I should do. He told me to make a glass of salt water and make the dog drink it until he vomited.

This photo of Dad always made me sad.

"Well I tried that, but the dog did not want to cooperate. He got more water on him than in him. I got the dog so mad I thought he would bite me, so I decided to take him to the Vet’s. Once there, he gave Trixie a shot of vitamin K. He said the poison stopped the dog’s digestive system from absorbing vitamin K and the shot would take of him. Taking Trixie to the Vet was sure better than getting bit by my buddy. Trixie was never chained or fenced, and one day he ran out onto Military Road and was killed by a car. My good buddy was gone!

"During the early spring, Dad, Lee [his uncle Levant Becker], and I would occasionally drive to Wilson, a town on the shore of Lake Ontario, to spear suckers, a fish that spawns in the creeks at that time of year. We drove there in the evening and when we arrived there it would be dark, and all the creeks would be outlined with the lights from the lanterns of the many people already there. We then would join them with our boots, lanterns, and spears.

"Our spears were like a pitchfork with five tines, each with a barb. We then would walk up the creek carrying our lanterns to light the way, until we found a shallow place where we would wait for the fish to swim through. Usually about ten o’clock the fish would start the run, and we would attempt to spear them as they swam past. When we did manage to spear one, we would toss it onto the bank.

"All three of us had found different places on the creek to spear from, and sometimes we would jab our spears into a deep hole, since that is where they hid during the daytime. When we thought we had caught enough fish we gathered them into a burlap bag, and headed home.

"Dad allowed me to drive one time, but I got tired on the way home and ran the car onto the shoulder after I almost fell asleep and he had to take over. The fish we caught were smoked, pickled, or canned.

"Dad took me, and many times also Lee, hunting pheasant, squirrel, and groundhog during the summer and fall. In those days we never had any problem finding a place to hunt. Farmers were glad to allow us to hunt their land to get rid of the varmints. We hunted pheasants at the fruit belt near Lake Ontario, squirrels at Jedo, a small village located about twenty miles past Lockport, and hunted groundhog at the farms near Akron.

The hill at Putt's Farm 1980s

"Dad also had friends who owned a farm about eighty miles away where we hunted deer. Floyd Putt was the farmer’s name. The farm was located in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains; only part of the over 180 acres was usable, the rest was dense woods. Floyd and his wife had three children, Floyd Junior, Loretta, and Bob. Other children of relatives that had died also occasionally stayed with them.

Putt's chicken coupe in the 1980s. Dad's Horizon.

"Life on the farm was hard and every one had a job to do. Mrs. Putt gathered the eggs from the hundreds of chickens, washed, candled, and graded them. She cooked, washed, and ran the house. Loretta helped her mother. Mr. Putt and the boys ploughed, harvested the crops, milked the cows, and the small children brought in firewood for the cooking stove, and fed the cats and dogs.

"Early in the fall we would go there to post his property with “No hunting” signs. When we posted, we would walk his line fence and remove fallen trees from it and repair it where it had been damaged. Whenever we went there we would stay in his garage which was beneath his chicken house. Above were hundreds of chickens and we could always hear them scratching and clucking.

Gene and Levant Becker at Putt's Farm in the Allegheny Mountains

"There was a wood stove in the garage that he always kept burning, so it was always warm when we went there. Sometimes when we would arrive late at night and everyone was asleep, we would go into the garage and also go to sleep. Mr. Putt kept horse blankets in the garage and we would spread them on the workbench, the floor, and in the bed of his pickup truck. It was a surprise to him when he woke up early in the morning and found us there. They all got a big laugh when he would drive the truck I was sleeping in the bed of, out into the driveway, and make me run back into the garage through the snow.

"Pheasant existed by the tens of thousands during the ‘30s and ‘40s in western New York. We had a garden in back of our house, and it was always visited by pheasants.

"Mr. Thiel lived in an upstairs apartment with his family in the Military Road house. [Ed. note: the old farm house was divided into three apartments]. One day he asked father to borrow his .22 rifle, so father lent it to him. Mr. Thiel would sit at his upstairs window with the gun and shoot an occasional pheasant when one came into the garden. There was no hunting allowed in the area, but we were in the country, and no one paid much attention. When he shot one, he would walk to the garden, pick it up, put it under his coat, and return to the house. One pheasant for dinner! Many people did this in our area, so it was quite common.

"One day Dale Thiel, his brother Maynard, and I were at their apartment, and when we walked to the back bedroom, there sat the gun. Maynard picked up the gun, and pulled the trigger. Luckily it was aimed at the wall, because when it went off, the bullet went right under the window. No one was home, so we were the only ones who knew what had happened.

"For some strange reason, occasionally pheasant roosters would gather in open areas by the hundreds. One day I went over to the golf course early in the morning, and a very large area of the course was covered with strutting birds. There were no hens. I have no idea why they gathered like that, but it was an awesome sight to see. That was a sight I only saw twice during my life.

"The area with the most pheasants was the fruit belt by Lake Ontario. The birds were everywhere. Father and I went hunting during the fall of 1945, a few months after the Second World War ended. I could not hunt, because I was only 15 years old, but father allowed me to tag along. Many soldiers had returned home, and on that day, the roads surrounding the fields were lined with cars filled with hunters. Hunting was allowed after 8:00 A. M., then hunters entered the fields, all at once. The air was filled with flying pheasants, and you did not need a dog to flush them. Only the roosters were legal to shoot, but it was easy to shoot them as they flew over. That morning it sounded like a battlefield! The bird limit was six roosters per hunter, and no one had trouble getting their limit. Even though the hunters only used shotguns, it was a wonder no one got shot that day!

"I once went deer hunting with my uncle Levant Becker and my brother-in-law Clyde Guenther at Blue Mountain in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. One day we were hunting about five miles back in the mountains and I fell into a stream that I was attempting to cross. There was a sheet of clear ice on the rock I stepped on and I slipped and fell. It was quite a shock when I fell into the ice cold water, but I kept my gun from being damaged. Since it was too far to walk back to our camp, we started a fire so I could dry my clothes. Luckily I had two pair of pants on, so I first dried one pair, then the other, while everyone else hunted. Not a fun way to spend the day.

"That evening Clyde told us of a hunter that got lost the year before. The hunter’s name was Jim, and he got lost late in the day. Luckily they found him before nightfall, because in some directions, it is fifty miles to the nearest road.

"Well, the next day we went far back in the mountains, and we separated to hunt. I sat down to watch for deer, and soon I heard a noise, and got up to investigate. I heard a deer run off, and followed the noise for a while, then found I was lost. I did not have the slightest idea where I was, or how to get back to camp. So I panicked and hollered, and when I got no answer, I started running through the woods. Soon I decided I had better stop, and think about this. I remembered the story about the lost hunter, and I was scared. After sitting a while, I decided the best way back to camp was to find a stream, and follow it back to Blue Lake where our camp was. I and found a stream, and fought my way over boulders, and through dense brush, and eventually came to a road that led to our camp. I did not tell the others what had happened to me. I did not get a deer that year, but I had an exciting time.

"During the war many things were rationed, so we had a Victory Garden. There were many pheasants around, and sometimes Dad would shoot one for dinner.

Gene, his dog, and a Rabbit

"I raised rabbits. At one time I had about one hundred and fifty of them. They were New Zealand Whites and they looked like albinos because they had red eyes.

"We had rabbit for many a Sunday dinner. Dad also sold some of the meat to his coworkers. After the rabbits were butchered, the skins were put on to a board to dry. After they dried, and we had accumulated quite a few, they were removed from the boards, bundled, and shipped to a place in Pennsylvania. They paid me twenty five cents each for them.

Gene with rabbit cages 

The garages. Rabbit coupe was a far end on right.

Mary Gochenour with rabbit

"The rabbit coupe was next to the garage in the back yard, and in it were many cages that lined the walls. They were fed hay, rabbit pellets, and water. The hay came from John Kuhn’s barn and the pellets from a feed store.

"I was never there when Dad mated the rabbits, but thirty days later we would have bunnies. Dad planned the litters so that it would happen during the spring because the coupe was too small to cage them all. He built large screened cages with no bottoms so we could put groups of small ones together, and move them around the front yard. This got a lot of attention from passing cars, and helped us sell some of them.

Alice and Gene Gochenour at the Rabbit Coupe

"West of our house and beyond the railroad tracks was a huge empty field. John and I had once cut hay there. It was about a half mile square in size. It lay between Ensminger Road and Sheridan Drive, and between the railroad tracks and the golf course.

"At the beginning of the Second World War, the government built houses for about twelve hundred families there to provide workers for the factories involved in the war industry. Occasionally, while they were being built, Dad and I would hook up John’s hay-wagon to the tractor and go there to load up with scrap wood to burn in our kitchen stove. Huge piles of wood lay there, and if no one took it the workers would just burn it. I never saw any watchmen at the project as it was being built, and when the workers ended their workday, they left their tools where they stopped. The houses were in different stages of completion and were open, and in the evening we kids would run through them and play hide-and-seek.

"On Kenmore Avenue near Sheridan Drive was a huge railroad siding. Boxcars were parked there when the wood, lining their inside walls, had to be replaced. The wood lay in piles and Father and I would fill his box trailer and haul it home. Once home, it became my job to saw it into small pieces and stack it in the cellar. We had a table saw in the yard that I used to saw it.

"A friend of mine, John Molnar, lived with his family at a farm that was next to the railroad siding. His father had a contract with the railroad company to empty the leftover grain from the boxcars when they were stripped. Originally they used most of the grain for their animals, but later when John ran the farm and no longer had animals, he would sell it to other farmers. John had a machine that could separate the various grains found in the cars.

"Many people had vegetable and flower gardens and I saw in a magazine that I could earn the prize of a B-B gun by selling packets of seeds. So early in the winter one year, I sent in and soon received the seeds. I then visited our neighbors, and before long, I sold them all. I sent in the money, then one winter day when I came home from school, mother gave me a box that the mailman had dropped off. I was very excited, and when I opened the box, I saw my bright new B-B gun.

"I became a very good shot, I could hit a fly from about twenty feet away. When I got older, I bought other guns, but earning that B-B gun was a big event in my life. The photo [below] is of Father and I as we are about to go target shooting. The gun I am holding is Dad’s .22 rifle."

Al and Gene Gochenour

FDR's "Office Wife"-- and the Many Loves of Eleanor

President Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor were a formidible leadership team but early in Franklin's career their relationship had become a marriage of convience. Each found imtimacy in relationships and friendships outside their marriage. Missy LeHand, FDR's personal secretary was at his side 24-7, swimming with him at Warm Springs and acting as a chief of staff. Eleanor's friendship, and perhaps love affair, with newswoman Lorena Hickock helped transform her into the First Lady of the World.

The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Partnership that Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith is the first biography of President Roosevelt's constant companion for twenty years in the office and out, the first female 'chief of staff' who could be found with her boss at night only wearing her nightgown.

With only a high school education Missy was hired as a personal secretary before FDR contracted polio. She rose with her boss to become his 'gatekeeper' and an influential and respected advisor in the White House.

Missy dedicated her life to her boss, She accompanied FDR as he pursued therapy, going on cruises and at Warm Springs (a place Eleanor disliked). Missy served as his hostess while Eleanor was following her own interests. Missy was given rooms in the governor's mansion and the White House and was intimate with Eleanor and the Roosevelt family.

Hobnobbing with the powerful and high society, including Joe Kennedy, Missy could pull off glamour and had flirtations and love affairs. Popular magazines ran articles about her. Her love letters to Bill Bullitt offer us glimpses of the woman.

Smith's biography covers FDR's life and career showing how Missy played her part. Much of this information I had already learned from other books about FDR, but this book offers deeper information on Missy's career, her health issues and death, her family, the articles and comments written about her by others, and especially her love letters where we finally hear Missy's voice.

I was glad to see a book about Missy.  I have read quite a few books on FDR, including James Tobin's The Man He Became , A First Class Temperament by Geoffrey Ward, and Doris Kearns Goodwin's marvelous No Ordinary Time, I sped read through much of the early parts of the book.

I received a free ebook from First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Gatekeeper
Kathryn Smith
Touchstone
Publication Sept. 6, 2016
$28 hard cover
ISBN:9781501114960

Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn shows us the personal life and independent career of Eleanor Roosevelt, and explores her friendships with women and men who enriched her life and whom she deeply loved. Lorena Hickcok (Hick) was an AP journalist covering the White House when Eleanor met her. Sharing a train car while campaigning started a relationship that helped Eleanor become a capable leader and broke Lorena's heart.

Discovering her husband's love affair with her personal secretary moved Eleanor to offer a divorce; Franklin's mother said it would ruin his political career. Eleanor never forgave Franklin and their marriage was never again emotionally or physically intimate.

Eleanor became involved with a series of friendships that offered her the love and companionship she needed. The deep love expressed in her letters to Lorena Hickcock, as well as to male friends Joe Lash and her doctor David Gurewitsch, show her deep capacity to love. If any of these relationships included sexual intimacy is uncertain and unknowable but Eleanor's letters to Hick express longing for physical contact and expressions of love.

Eleanor had a history of close relationships to women from her time away at school when she idolized a teacher, to her close friendships with lesbian couples. Eleanor also may have had problems with intimacy and closeness. Her involvement in causes and political work and role as First Lady meant Hick hardly ever had Eleanor all to herself. They took trips together, vacationed together, and spent special holidays together. But it was never enough for Hick.

Eleanor had a great heart and felt deeply, and fought courageously, for the underdog, the powerless, the marginal; she championed equality for all. This book also shows how Hick's reporting and WPA work brought to attention the grinding poverty and dangerous workplaces, the starvation and health crisis across the country during the Depression. Hick was also a competent leader for Democratic Women.

This book shows how these strong women, so disimilar in background and class, impacted FDR's policies and improved the lives of Americans.

I recieved a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady
Susan Quinn
$30 hardcover
Publication Date: Sept 16, 2016
ISBN: 9781594205408

Quilt Projects Update

I finished my Edgar Allan Poe quilt, complete with a feather pen and his manuscript of Annabell Lee. I made this as the second in my series of poet quilts featuring love poems. 

As I did on William Shakespeare, I hand drew the quilt pattern and made the sections as separate quilts using fusible applique, machine, embroidery and quilting. The purple curtain is pleated and partially loose.

Next I want to do Emily Dickenson! 

 I have all the Bee-autiful Quilt blocks completed and I ordered some fabric for setting it together.

The bunny needs a pom pom tail still.

The bicycle block has been hugely popular. I found bicycle fabric at Hawthrone Threads that had to be in this quilt:

Also from Hawthorne is this honeycomb fabric:

The scale is larger on this honeycomb fabric also from Hawthrone Threads but it will be a great backing fabric.

I am still hand quilting my Austen Album quilt from Barbara Brackman and working on the 1857 Album from Sentimental Stiches. This will take all winter!

I am thrilled to have received a sweet box of review books from Schiffer Publishing!

Sue Reich's World War II Quilts, Don Beld's American Heroes Quilts, and Anne Hermes' Patchwork Pillows.

PLUS Mary Kerr's newest book Twisted and her previous book A Quilted Memory, which already has been inspired to tear into my stash of vintage textiles.

I have also been sorting and organizing my embroidery floss, for some crazy reason, which is taking much longer than I had ever expected!

Opening Doors: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

When I open a book and see a quote from T. S. Eliot's Burnt Norton from his Four Quartets I am predisposed to like what comes after. Dark Matters by Blake Crouch begins with this quote:

"What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened."

I sped through Dark Matters in a few sittings. I had read the beginning on Read it Forward and liked it enough to request it for my Blogging for Books choice. I was not disappointed. I do enjoy a book that is a nice plot-driven read.

Jason is a happily married man with a son and a nice job. He could have been remarkable--so could his wife--but they 'settled' for good enough and a happy family life, no regrets.

"You could have won that prize," Damiela says.
"You could have owned this city's art scene."
"But we did this." She gestures at the high-ceilinged expanse of our brownstone..."And we did that," she says, pointing to Charlie..."

Then Jason is kidnapped and shunted into an alternate reality where he achieved great things while some other man got his wife and kid. All Jason wants is to get back home to the reality he loved.

The science behind Jason's dilemna is 'dark matter', the theoritical mystery thought to hold the universe together, and the concept that every possible occurance exists simultaneously, although we are aware only of the reality we exist in. Jason must open the doors into alternate realities until he finds the one he knows as 'real'; then he must displace the interloper who has become Jason, as well as the other Jasons who have been created by his visitations into other realities during his quest.

"My understanding of identity has been shattered--I am one facet of an infinitely facted being called Jason Dessen who has made every possible choice and lived every life imaginable. I can't help thinking that we're more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity."

I appreiate that Jason's love for his wife and son motivate him to endure suffering and death threats to return to them. It is ordinary life that is held beyond value, and which the various Jasons struggle to gain. It's almost like a Greek Myth, the hero's journey to come home.

A Dark Matter movie is already in the works, and it will be awesome.

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - Burnt Norton

Dark Matter
Blake Crouch
Crown $26.99 hard cover
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0

Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King

As a girl I scoured the public library for art books. My love of the Impressionists, especially Monet, came early. I requested Ross King's new book on Claude Monet as soon as I saw it on NetGalley. 

Although I was very familiar with Monet's paintings, especially those in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I knew very little about his life.

King focuses on Monet's later years as he struggled to realize his Grande Decoration during WWI while dealing with failing eyesight. The trials of the artistic life, how genius copes with human limitations, and the horrendous impact of WWI on France is vividly portrayed.

Nympheas, Japanese Bridge,
1918-1926, Claude Monet, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Although it took me a few chapters to get into the book I became swept up in Monet's story. I recall complaining, "I can't stop now, Monet's undergoing eye surgery!" 

Claude Monet Water Garden in Giverny, photo Ariane Cauderlier

The book begins in April, 1914 with Monet's dear friend Prime Minister Clemenceau coming to Giverny, the rustic hamlet where Monet built an 'earthly paradise'--the gardens now famously preserved in his paintings.  

L'Agapanthe, Monet 1920-22

The concept of Monet's Grande Decoration was born after the death of his son Jean in 1914. His water lily pond would be recreated through a series of massive paintings to be displayed in an oval room. He spent years obsessed with capturing ephemeral beauty. Monet promised Clemenceau he would give the water lily paintings to France. 

"Many people think I paint easily, but it is not an easy things to be an artist. I often suffer tortures when I paint. it is a great joy and a great suffering." Claude Monet

Cataracts and blindness plagued Monet and compromised his belief in himself. He knew what he wanted to achieve but felt his limitations. 

Monet was a passionate man who would rave at life's limitations. He was his own worse critic, destroying canvases that he considered failures. He stalled handing over the paintings. As long as he had his great work he had a reason to live. The delay strained his friendship with Clemenceau. 

At his death in 1926 the paintings were put on display in the Orangerie at Tuileries. Go on a virtual visit to here.

Monet the man and the artist was brought to life in King's book and I have a better appreciation of the impact of WWI on France.  

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Mad Enchantment
Ross King
Bloomsbury
Publication Date: Sept 6, 2016
$30 hard cover
ISBN:9781632860125

Memories of Eugene Gochenour: Scouting, School, and Accidents

Today I am sharing selections from my father's memoirs about growing up in the 1940s in Tonawanda, NY. These stories are about accidents, Boy Scouts, and school days at Philip Sheridan Elementary School and Kenmore High School.

Accident Prone 

Ray Grace and Gene Gochenour
Boy Scout Troop 146

"I was a very hyper kid so I was always getting cuts and bruises, unlike my sisters who never got hurt.


"One winter day my father and I went to a Boy Scout camp at Holland, New York, about forty miles away. It was called Camp Ta-wi-e, probably an Indian name. When we arrived there we met the rest of the troop in the parking lot and unloaded our clothes and equipment. There was snow on the ground and we had to hike about a quarter of a mile to get to our campsite. The troop consisted of about twenty scouts, with Stan Grace and my father as leaders. We were all excited when we arrived at our campsite, and set about preparing for our weekend stay.

"I had a new hatchet I was waiting to use, so I started to chop wood so we could get a campfire going. I was not chopping for very long when the hatchet glanced off of a log and struck my foot. Well it was sharp all right, because it went through my overshoe, my shoe, my sock, and into my foot. My foot was bleeding quite bad and I could not walk on it, so they all took turns hauling me back to the car. No one noticed how deep the snow was on the way in, but they sure did on the way out!

"Somehow Dad found a doctor at East Aurora, a town not far from the camp. The cut on my left foot was near my big toe, and it took three stitches to close it. That was the shortest camping trip we ever had! Dad never hollered at me when I got hurt."

Troop 146 at Summer Camp

Troop 146 at Summer Camp. Gene is at the end of the middle row on the right.

Gene Gohenour on the left, Ray Grace on right, 

Gene Gochenour holding turtle. Harry Summerville, Louie Grace,
unknown, Keith Rhodes, Roger Schneckenberger, unknonw, Ray Grace.

Swim race at camp

1940s, Troop 146 in parade.

Alger Gochenour was part of the Sheridan Parkside Men's Club sponsoring Troop 146

Alger Gochenour listed as part of the Sheridan Park Men's Blub for Troop 146

"As a youngster, I went to the Philip Sheridan Elementary School. It was about a half mile away and I walked through the fields to and from there. It had five classrooms and a fenced playground. Once when I was in the lavatory I started running to get to class and a kid tripped me. My head hit the wall and when I put my hand to my head, because it hurt, I found my hands were covered with blood. It must have been quite a sight when I came screaming out in the hall with blood running down my face, and bloody hands from holding my head. The kid who tripped me was probably scared for what he had done. Someone from the school took me to the doctor, and he put in three stitches, after calling my parents.

The "old" Philip Sheridan Elementary School

"Keith Rhodes was a friend who lived two houses away. One winter day we decided to go over to the hill by the railroad track and do some skiing. On my first trip down the hill, I fell at the bottom. When I fell, my knee struck a clinker, a large rough stone that had fallen from a train. It cut a hole in my pants, and when I looked into that hole, I saw blood. The wound hurt bad, and I started hollering. This probably scared the “H” out of Keith, but he helped me up the hill. We had a sled with us, and I sat on it, and Keith hauled me to John Kuhn’s house, a couple of blocks away. So here we come, me hollering, and holding my bloody knee, and Keith pounding on their rear door to get their attention. Lucille and Alma came to the door, and looked shocked, but then wrapped a towel around my knee. One of them went to Keith’s house next door, and brought back Keith’s uncle Jim Turk, who was visiting there. My parents were not home, so he took me to the De Graff Hospital in North Tonawanda, about five miles away. When I arrived they put me into a room, but they could not do anything until they got my parents’ permission. My Uncle Abbey came to stay with me till my parents came. Then the doctor fixed me up with twelve stitches. Eighteen stitches, and still counting!

"It was my job to cut the lawn, usually once a week, and one day I decided to adjust the lawnmower blades because it was not cutting right. I had watched Dad do it, and thought I could. To check to see if the blades are set right, you take a piece of newspaper, set it between the blade and the cutter, and rotate it. If it cuts the paper clean, it is good, if not, then you turn the adjustments until it is set right. Well I rotated them all right, except the palm of my hand, by the wrist, was also between the blades. So I cut my hand, and off to the doctor we went to get two more stitches.

"We kids were not supposed to go into the [Sheridan Park] creek at the golf course but sometimes the temptation was too great and we would sneak in to look for golf balls. An old man, who we called the Geezer, patrolled the course, and would holler at us, and kick us off when he caught us. We were terrified of him. Well, we were finding a lot of balls that day in the creek, and everything was fine until I stepped on a piece of glass, and cut my foot. I think it was a broken bottle. So I had to ride home on my bike with my bleeding foot. It was about a mile to our house and when we got there I showed it to my mother. She probably thought “Good Lord here we go again!” So off to the doctor we go again for three more stitches. Now were up to twenty three stitches!

"At least I never broke any bones as a child. Even after I grew up, I occasionally needed to get stitched up. While working at the station one day I was loading up the pickup truck with used batteries to take to the scrap yard to sell. The truck was parked in the front driveway, and when I bent over to set a battery down, it slipped, and I dropped it. When it fell into the bed of the truck, battery acid squirted straight up into my left eye. I was terrified, and jumped off the truck, and ran for the station. It was winter, and when I got to the front door, I skidded on the ice, and when I put out my hand to stop, it went through the front door window, and I cut my arm. But then I opened the door and ran to the lavatory to wash out my eye. I wasn’t worried about my arm, just my eye. Flushing
out my eye quickly saved my eye from serious damage.

"Bad things always seemed to happen to my left eye. When I was in school, I took up a course of Machine Shop. When working on a grinding machine I got a tiny piece of steel in my left eye. Then working at the garage, at various times, I had brake fluid, anti-freeze, motor oil, and dust in my eyes. Luckily, the eyes have survived all the abuse!


School Days

"The year was 1935 and the first school I attended was the Philip Sheridan Elementary School. It was located on Elmwood and School Streets near Sheridan Drive. That was about a half mile from our home on Military Road. I remember crying when mother left me after enrolling me for the kindergarten. I was not happy, but I soon became distracted by all the toys and the sandbox they had there to play in.

"Since the school was not too far from our house, I had to walk to and from there. Sometimes I would take a shortcut and walk through the fields. On the way I would pick and eat strawberries when they were in season, or I'd kick up a pheasant, or see a muskrat, or other animal, so I liked doing that.

"I think the school had five classrooms. It had an auditorium with a stage and a large fenced playground. One day during recess, while playing at the playground, I found a chain with a metal pendant on it. I threw it into the air a few times to see how high it would go. But then I threw it and it went over the fence and landed in the deep grass in the field. So it was gone. I later decided it was a religious medal I had thrown there. So much for trial and error!

"This was the school where the kid tripped me in the lavatory and my head hit the wall. When I came screaming out of the lavatory with bloody hands holding my head, it must have been quite a sight to see! That episode cost me three stitches.

"One of our teachers decided we should all get harmonicas and learn to play them. Well the day came when we all had them, and at the teachers instructions we started to play the designated song. I did not know how to make music with it so I just blew into it and faked it. I think many of the other kids did the same, because the song was a disaster. After a few sessions like that the teacher gave up trying, and that was the end of our harmonica lessons. My harmonica was a Honer, and I did eventually did teach myself to play a little.

"Not long after I left and went on to the Washington Middle School, the little Philip Sheridan School was closed, and a new, large, and modern school was built two blocks north of it on Coventry Road during 1947. My first real job was working as a waterboy for the John W. Cowper Construction Company that built the new school. Years later my daughter Nancy went to that Philip Sheridan School.

"The next school I attended was the Washington Middle School. It was located on Old Delaware Road in the city of Kenmore, about five miles from our home. The kids in the area where I lived were bussed to and from that school. At the Philip Sheridan School I was the fastest runner, but not when I got to the Washington School. That school had many more students and I was no longer top dog at running.

"Behind the school was a ball field, and one day while playing baseball there, a ball was hit over the fence, and I climbed over it to get it. When I climbed back over it my hand snagged the sharp wire at the top and I was momentarily hanging from it. When I got it loose and dropped to the ground it was bleeding quite bad. The school nurse put a bandage on it, but I don’t remember if I had a tetanus shot.

"The school was located near the center of the town and there were many stores nearby. One of my favorite things to do on the lunch hour was to go to Galagher’s Bakery and get what was called a fruit doughnut. At that time they cost five cents, and I loved them.

"The Second World War was going on when I went to that school, and kids would take money to school to buy war saving stamps. The stamps pasted in a booklet and when it was filled, exchanged it for a war bond. The bonds were in $25, $50, $100, and larger dollar denominatons. The money was used by the U. S. government to help pay for the war effort.

"Then came Kenmore Junior High School. It was located on Old Delaware Road, about a few blocks north of the Washington School. During the Second World War there were scrap drives to collect metal to be used for the war effort. Everyone was patriotic and wanted to do their part to help. We would scrounge around home to see what we could find, and haul it to school on the school bus. When we arrived at school, we threw it on a huge pile at the rear of the school building. It grew to be a small mountain. The bus dropped us off and picked us up at the back of the school, and when the scrap metal pile was removed, we would play handball at that wall while we waited for the bus to take us home. During the winter we would sit in the hallway and play Pinochle until the bus came for us.

"I worked at the teacher’s cafeteria for a while. When I worked there I got free lunch meals, eating what the teachers ate, and the food was better than at the student cafeteria.

"The school had a print shop and the teachers name was Walter Faxlanger. I went to that class for a semester and enjoyed it. We learned how to set type, how to run the printing press, and did some bookbinding. Walter would sometimes give us a lecture on the evils of smoking and how much money it would cost to smoke for a year. Years later when I operated the service station that my father built, Walter had also gone into the same business, and he was the head of the Gasoline Retailers Association of Buffalo. He talked me into joining, and I served on the board of directors for a few years.

"The next school I went to was the Kenmore Senior High School. It was also located on old Delaware Road, about 8 blocks north of the junior high school. It was a very beautiful school with three floors, very wide hallways, and a locker for each student. There was an Olympic size swimming pool, and a large gymnasium that had a huge doorwall that could divide the gym in half so the girls were out sight from the boys when in use. The auditorium was like a movie theater with a huge stage, floor to ceiling curtains, carpeted aisles, and upholstered seats. There was a typing room where each student had a typewriter, and at the chemistry class each student had a stool and a granite work table with a Bunsen burner, water faucet, test tubes, beakers, etc.

Gene Gochenour, Sophmore year at Kenmore HS

Gene Gochenour, Freshman at Kenmore HS

Mary Gochenour yearbook photo, Kenmore HS

Mary Gochenour, yearbook photo Kenmore HS

"The machine shop metal brake, and individual benches with vises. The wood shop was equally equipped with everything including a workbench for each student. There was an electrical shop, and a home economics room with stoves and ovens where students made cakes and meals. At the wood shop I made a darning egg, a baseball bat, and a small table that I had designed. At the metal shop I made a hammer with a screw driver inside the handle. I also made a V block, a device used in metal working to hold objects as they were machined. Each project involved using all the machinery at the shop to build.

"The swimming pool had bleachers where people could sit and watch swim meets and swim shows put on by the students. Behind the school was a football field and running track and bleachers for many people when there were football games or track meets. I think the school was as modern as any in the country.

"My grades were never outstanding except for Earth Science and the shop courses. I rode the school bus to and from school until the last year when I drove the motorcycle.

"Archie Henderson and Joe McAuliff were two of my school buddies. They were in many of my classes and they were both bigger than I. One day when they were picking on me in fun, a teacher saw us, and gave them a scolding for ganging up on me, not knowing they were not serious. After he left we all got a big laugh out of that! Those two big bullies picking on poor little me! Joe and Archie lived at the housing project, and we played baseball and basketball together, and Archie sold me my first car.

"Every year the school would put on a sport competition day. We would all gather out by the football field where we would compete in various events. The events were running, long jump, ball throwing, etc. I entered the basketball throw and won one year. Maybe nobody wanted to compete in such a dumb event!

"At the time when I graduated in New York State two certificates could be earned. One was a High School certificate, the other was from the State of New York. The reason this happened is that at the end of the year when the students were given their final exams, one of them was a test for the state that was comprehensive, covering all of the students’ past education. The high school test covered only the past year. Each year we would spend some time studying past Regent tests to prepare for the next. Earning the State certificate was more important than the school one.

"My graduation class had 466 students. When I graduated I had a major in shop, and also had taken the classes for college entrance. Little did I know that many of the courses would be helpful even though I decided not to go to college. I took business courses that came in handy when we opened the station. And the chemistry and shop courses were invaluable when I went to work at Chrysler. I never took any classes to be an auto mechanic, I learned them on the job, and from reading repair manuals."

Gene Gochenour's Senior Photo, 1948

The Unseen World by Liz Moore

As I read the last paragraphs my breath caught in a sob, something between tears and amazement, surprise and the regret of ending. A visceral and wholly unexpected reaction. I had come to inhabit this world and know the Sibelius family, experienced Ada's journey, and now it was over and wrapped up in an ending I had not expected, told by a narrator who knows the Sibelius family as ancestors to be remembered and respected.

The Unseen World is a deeply layered and satisfying novel, a coming-of-age story involving the search for the father, a quest for identity, and a revelation of American society's penchant to fearfully target those who are perceived as different.

Dr. David Sibelius and his daughter Ada have an unusual relationship. David is Ada's entire world: mother, father, and teacher; the employees of his lab at Boston Institute of Technology is their extended family.

David's work is in artificial intelligence and his passion is cryptology. Ada participates in his work by talking to ELIXIR, a 'chatbot' program designed to learn human language through conversation. She pours out her daily life to ELIXIR.

One day David gives her a floppy disk with a cryptographic puzzle to solve in her spare time.

Ada adores her father but at age 12 is curious about the lives of  'normal' families and school children. She spys on the family of David's coworker Diana Liston and her beautiful older son William, while younger son Greg in turn watches Ada.

When Ada turns 13 she learns that her father has Alzheimer's syndrome. She endeavors to manage their life and hide his lapses but within a year his condition becomes obvious. Ada is required to attend public school, and when David is placed in a home she moves in with Liston.

As Liston deals with legal issues pertaining to David's care, his estate, and guardenship of Ada, it is discovered that David Sibelius is not who he said he was. Ada becomes obsessed with finding out her father's true identity and solving the cryptographic puzzle which may hold answers.

But discovering David's real identity still leaves the mystery of 'why'. Years pass until Gregory Liston returns with an insight that may solve the puzzle.

Moore captures adolescent society pitch-perfect, Ada's inner world and her apprisal of teenage machinations are spot on, moving and evocative. Ada is a sympathetic and beautifully drawn character.

The writing is wonderful. With subtle inference the reader is allowed to make connections that are later revealed in full. The backstory is told through jumps in time between the 1980s and 2009 with a few chapters dating to David's early life.

The book is rich with multiple themes: identity, the development of artificial intelligence, societal alienation, the father-daughter relationship, and societal prejudices and pograms against people who are different.

I loved reading this novel.

I received an ARC through Shelf Awareness in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Unseen World
W. W. Norton
$26.95 hard cover
ISBN: 978-0-393-24168-6