By C. Kihm Richardson Walking from Strykersville ... - Fulton History

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Memories of Java and Strykersville (continued)
However, this progress had not raised the standard
of living of the imigrants who had little or no
money to start with and were trying to pay for land
as well as raise a family, which was the situation
with my great-grandparents on my mother's side.
My grandmother told also of remembering her
parents cutting, hauling and burning trees to clear
land and then some peddler would come along and
barter with some needles or other small items they
needed in exchange for the ashes. Ashes were
leached with water, the water boiled off to get a
more concentrated lye solution often used in homemade
soap. Meat was not on the daily diet, except
maybe for a little on Sunday. I suspect that they
did not consume a great deal of dairy products
themselves as this was needed to bring in some
cash.
On the other side of the family, things at that
time were different. My great-great grandfather,
Charles Richardson, had paid off some purchase
agreements and gotten title to some of his land but
was paying on some more. The books of the
Farmers Loan and Trust Co. (successor to the
Holland Land Co.) now in possession of the Genesee
Co. Historical Society, show that he made payments
of 7 or 8 dollars every 6 months on a purchase
contract. The records show this was sometimes
in cash and sometimes in cattle. From what I
have heard, life was much easier for him, as it
was for many who had gotten an earlier start and
maybe had some financial help from their families
who settled earlier in New England or some
other parts of the country.
ABOUT MY GRANDMOTHER
To get back to the reason that I think some families
did not live too well, my maternal grandmother
had her teeth out at an early age, early twenties.
Now this wouldn't have been because of too many
sweets, for the large scale refining of sugar hadn't
APRIL 1978
come about by that time, and it wasn't some thing
that would have been purchased anyway. She related
having her teeth pulled in the 1870's with
only a couple of shots of whiskey which the dentist
suggested that she had better take. She told how
she kicked her feet on the chair and after he had
pulled about half the teeth he stopped and went at it
again and pulled the rest. Whether they had nothing
better than alcohol to deaden the pain of pulling teeth
or whether nothing else was used in order to save
money, I do not know. The use of ether had been
discovered in the 1840's for making patients insensitive
during operations and dental work. In
later years Dr. Moore came to Strykersville one
day a week from Holland. In 1931 he was still practicing
in Holland using a foot peddled drill.
As with many young and not very well educated
girls, my grandmother worked in East Aurora doing
housework and cooking and later married Peter
Kihm who was a woodworker, more specifically, a
wagon-maker or wheelwright. At that time (about
1875) many, probably most villages had a place
where wagons and buggies were made but it was
changing fast and they were being made in larger
quantities in cities. It was necessary to change to
something more in vogue, railway passenger cars
for the Pullman Co., for whom he worked prior to
his death in 1889 at an early age, leaving a wife
and six children, one still unborn. He had worked
up to the time he was so ill that the boys had to
draw him to work in their wagon. Had he been
working for such a company in this day and age,
he would have been covered by disability and life
insurance by the company, as well as by Social
Security for the six children, and life would have
been fairly easy. At that time there was no income
from any source except what they could earn doing
the most menial tasks. Things were rough for
about 10 or 15 years until her oldest boy Charles
was able to support her and then later her youngest
son, Peter. With all this struggle to raise her
family alone, she lived to be 103 years old. Her
last years were hard when she lived with my mother
Ida Kihm Richardson, because she could no longer
do anything for I truly think that she liked to work.
When it became necessary to send a message
from Strykersville to Buffalo in 1888 of the death
of Lewis Sloand, there was no simple means even
though the telegraph became a reality by 1848 and
the way to make a telephone had been discovered
by 1875. I have a copy of the telegram delivered
by the Buffalo telegraph office which indicates
that it was sent from the Arcade Western Union
office. Actually it says from Strykersville via
Arcade. I find no reference to any telegraph office
at Strykersville and speculate that the closest
telegraph from up the Perry Hill Road would have
been North Java at the Attica and Arcade railway
station. The railroad had been completed in 1880
and an item in a local newspaper of 1885 makes reference
to a telegraph operator there; he was not
necessarily the first operator. On this subject of
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