Manor Ink November 2019

20 | NOV. 2019 | MANOR INK FEATURES
DAYS PAST
A postcard from
Mears’ collection
shows upper
Main Street in
Livingston Manor
as it appeared
a centuray ago.
The view is from
the present day
fire house looking
toward the
center of town.
Photo courtesy of
John Mears
Manorite who lived
history now collects it
100 CLUB
PROFILE
Forty binders hold hamlet’s story
By Hunter Krause | Manor Ink
John Mears pours himself a cup of
Bourbon and walks into the living
room. “Oh god, let’s make this
quick,” he jokes, and sits down.
John was born in a farmhouse in
Meridale in 1929, but soon moved to
a three-bedroom house in Livingston
Manor with his parents and six siblings.
When John was a young boy, he
loved to go outside into the crowded
streets of our once factory town.
“In the morning, you open the door
and walked out, and nobody thought
anything of it,” John said of those
days. “You played around the house,
around the neighborhood.
Nobody ever gave you a hard
time or gave you any trouble.
It was safe and every neighbor
looked out for you.”
John sledded, played softball, hideand-seek
and kick-the-can all day.
He would often go to the hamlet’s
old creamery and watch the making
of cheese. The workers even became
so acquainted with young John that
he would be allowed to help stir the
‘You played around the house,
around the neighborhood.
Nobody ever gave you a hard
time or gave you any trouble.’
John Mears
Livingston Manor nonagenarian
This interview is one in a series
called the “100 Club Profiles,”
published by Manor Ink. They
feature senior residents of Livingston
Manor reminiscing about life
as it used to be in the hamlet. To
see other interviews, please visit
manorink.org.
ingredients.
When John turned 14 in 1943, he
got his first job. The first supermarket
in the county had opened here,
and he recalled that his boss’s name
was Harry Edward. After working
at the supermarket, John got a few
more jobs before starting work at the
Catskill State Fish Hatchery in De-
Bruce during its construction. But he
only worked at the hatchery for about
a year before he was drafted into the
Korean War.
He was first stationed in Cape Cod
and served as an instructor. He was
then transferred to Fort Drum and
left the service one day before he had
the opportunity to become a sergeant.
During the war, John also volunteered
for the Civil Defense corps. He
would sit in a tower for six hours a
day, listening for enemy planes flying
over homeland territory. He had to
know what every plane sounded like,
and had to phone in each one that
he heard, regardless of whether they
were friend or foe. He says luckily he
never heard an enemy plane.
HISTORY BUFF Ninety-year-old Manor
resident John Mears is an avid auction goer,
bidding on photos and documents from the
hamlet’s past. At right, John at work in the
DeBruce fish hatchery in 1953. Hunter Krause
photo, above; photo courtesy of John Mears, right
After his service, John returned
to his job at the hatchery and stayed
there until retirement, for a total of
35 years. He met his wife Fay in 1948,
and they married four years later,
having four children. During this
time, John loved to take and develop
photos.
He is also an avid collector of any
paper document involving local history.
Over the years John has amassed a
collection of thousands of local photos
and postcards, all stored in 40 packed
binders. He is now 90 years old and
enjoys buying and selling anything he
can get his hands on at auctions.
Most of all, John loves collecting
postcards, photographs and documents,
and he thinks that participating
in auctions and collecting local history
are wonderful hobbies. John will
have been married to Fay for 67 years
next month, and still drives his white
pickup truck everyday.