Worth a thousand words

 I posted a small collection of photographs yesterday concerning my great grandfather Floyd Parker Lester. These photographs were taken by a professional for a newspaper article. I don't know for certain what newspaper or publication it was. The pictures themselves are a small format and were developed together on a single sheet and later cut apart. I guess that was common practice back then or it is an industry thing. Whatever the case may be, I find those pictures fascinating. Too small to display in a frame I had intended to one day enlarge them. That day hasn't come yet, most likely it never will. 

 Knowing the how and why of the situation that precipitated the taking of those pictures they do invoke a few emotions. The first emotion is anger. The articles in the pictures, objects from great grandfather Floyds' home, had all belonged to the family. His father-in-law, James Buckley Terry, veteran of the civil war and the town weaver, had used a good number of those things. I recognize one as a spinning wheel. The other objects I don't know what their purpose was, just that they involved working thread into cloth. One is a loom used for weaving rag rugs, I have a model of that machine and a photograph of great grandmother Lucy demonstrating its' use. But I'm getting off track. 

 Floyd and Lucy had three daughters. Sarah, the oldest married Roy Watson and eventually moved to California. Jessie, the middle child married N Filmore Miller. Clara the youngest married my grandfather, Elwood Reichart. Clara passed away shortly after giving birth to my father. Sarah and Jessie stood at the bedside of great grandmother Lucy as she passed with cancer. They promised her, on her deathbed, that great grandfather Floyd could live in that house until the day he died. That didn't happen and that is where the anger comes in. The way I heard it, great grandfather Floyd was forced out of that house. His name was not on the title or mortage for reasons known only to the family. Forced to leave and find a new place to live he died just a years later. He died an angry and disappointed man. I knew that, on some level, even as a kid. 

 I also feel a sense of pride that all those things were preserved. He donated them all to Clinton Academy, a museum in East Hampton. They promised to attach his name to the displays. As to whether any of that ever happened, I can't say. I have never seen any of that as I left town many years ago and have never gone to visit that museum. I know that he also donated many old hand tools, farm equipment and the everyday things of life from the latter part of the 19th century. Like most folks in that time, nothing was ever thrown away. I particularly remember a very large jar, possibly a pickle jar, filled to the rim with buttons. Gramp said, you never throw out a shirt or anything else with the buttons still on them! He cut them off, placed them in that jar and cut the clothing up to use for rags. Hundreds of them, dating back sixty years or more. 

 Then I feel a bit of sadness, knowing all of that. The reason behind the pictures. It may appear that here is a man reveling in his antiques. You can see him smiling, touching those objects almost like he is caressing them. The truth is he was saying goodbye to them. Things, just things you say. But they are things he had lived with his whole life, things his wife, his daughters, and those before them had cherished. Now he was being forced to give them up, to surrender them to strangers. It wasn't his idea, it was forced upon him by the court. A court brought to bear by his own daughter. 

 He had been hobbled many years ago, hobbled by his father-in-law. You see great grandfather Floyd P Lester had lost his mother when he was an infant. He was sent to live and be raised by his aunt Catherine. As an adult he started the Maidstone Taxi service. With a carriage and two horses he went into debt. One horse died and the automobile began making its' appearance. The times were changing. He lost his business, he lost his home, and he was bankrupt. His father-in-law gave the family home to his daughter Lucy with a stipulation. Floyd was never to have ownership or any power in the disposition of that home. 

 After the death of Lucy, the home passed, in equal shares to the remaining daughters. Only two remained in 1955 when Lucy passed. Sarah, the oldest had moved to California and I don't know the details, but transferred her share of the home to Jessie. Floyd had no legal ground upon which to stand. It was Jessie that had him removed from that home. I don't know her reasons, her motivation, but that she was responsible is what I do know. 

 All of that is in those photographs when you know the story. A thousand words? Yes, pictures do hold a thousand words, and more. This is an explanation, as best I can, of those pictures. It's not a thousand words but it could easily be expanded to that. Perhaps I will write it all down one day. Names and faces along with their stories as best as I know them to be. I have caught flak about writing such in the past but no matter, I think I should anyway.