Ancestors

Walter & Ruth Spalding, my daddy's parents lived in York Haven, a small town along the Susquehanna river. We would take the bus to visit them on weekends and stay over Friday night and sometimes into Sunday. I always enjoyed visiting them. Often other relatives would stop by when they knew we were visiting and we would gather around the table for a big family meal. Grandma Spalding was an amazing cook and seamstress.  I treasure the recipes that are in my collection from her. One of the greatest compliments I ever got was when I had invited some cousins to dinner and they remarked they would have sworn my grandma was in the kitchen. When grandma went to live at Quincy Home she kept busy with her handiwork. She created beautiful embroidery and crochet pieces.

Grandpa, dad and I would go for walks to the river and sometimes along the train tracks. There was a fresh spring along the tracks, not far from the house, that was so refreshing on hot summer days. Other times we spent time on the island skipping rocks in the river or we would watch the fishermen who cast off from the walkways around the power plant. We also took time to count the cars on the passing trains. Many times "Bumps" went with us on these adventures. He was deaf and a friend of the family. Daddy learned sign language from him.

At night I would lay in the dark in the back bedroom and listen to the sounds of the trains passing. I would drift off to sleep making up stories about where those trains were off to and what treasures they carried. The people who lived across from them had chickens and ducks and you would hear them at times during the night along with the peepers, crickets, locusts and the big old owl who lived in the old barn out back.