New Years, my mother better known as Pistol Packin' Mama, and me!

Sandy Messere

Blogging for New Years this year left me blank.  The week has been filled with snow shoveling, News stories about guns, trouble, murder, firemen...all too much.  I did manage to get away for Christmas Day and visit my cousin who just lost his father. My Christmas present to my family was a video of all the generations...(5 including my nephew).  

Holidays are just not my happiest time as I have lost almost all my old friends and all my relatives.....the first week of January is also when my mother died. 

Mom died in Madison County even though she lived her life 95 years in Syracuse in Onondaga County.  I had to move her here to a nursing home after taking care of her and dad for a number of years. When my friend Chris inched closer to death and I had to take the job of Madison County Historian to pay for drugs and bills.... mom became a Madison County person.  After her death I didn't know what to write for her obit and suddenly an old song I associated with her came into my head...I laughed and wrote this!

My Mother...

Mom always had a sharp wit, a wit that she had up to the week she died.  She was outspoken and always told you what she thought, whether it was good or bad.  She always had stories of all varieties to tell us kids, stories of picking peas in the summer with her family to make money for school, of her aunt who carried a gun, and others of being chased by mobsters in a wedding party she was part of. 

Domenic Messere

Her stories eventually went on to meeting my father and marrying him, which gave her endless stories of his enlistment in the Army and her travels to see him.  Mom worked at a clothing factory in Syracuse during the war, and never missed an opportunity to tell these tales of travel horror to her co-workers upon her return from the many trips she took to see my father whenever he was stationed stateside or was sent back to the United States to go to school.  She regaled them with stories of days of traveling on trains sitting on her suitcase, of freezing in unheated trains at 30 below zero, of walking miles because she could not get a bus to a camp, and tales of sitting next to convicts in chains.  Once dad had gotten her a room in a hotel and she was bumped from it so dad’s roommate’s wife could stay in it…his roommate’s wife was Deana Durbin, the Hollywood star! For all of her traveling and tales, she gained the nickname “Pistol Packin’ Mama”.

Once Dad put her up in the Sheriff of Brownville, Texas’ house for a while, there she met prisoners that the Sheriff brought home to watch while he was eating, and there she learned first hand of rattlesnakes, banditos and revenuers.  She told tales of riding on the El Capitan Train (then the fastest train crossing the country) to go to California to visit dad, only to see him for one hour as his unit was called out to go to the Pacific. (Dad served on every front of the War but Burma, so he was gone a lot.)

She also told of coming home to a cold apartment at 10 below and her hot water bottle had leaked into her bed.  She didn’t sleep at all that night as it took her forever to flip the mattress over by herself, ma was only 90 pounds then and 4’ 10”.

Mom always dressed well and was a lady, never really having to work after the War and when she died she had her teeth, dark hair and a great complexion which made her look like she was in her late 60’s or 70’s.  Dad always claimed the secret to her youthful look was olive oil on the inside, and Oil of Olay on the outside.

The one thing that is for sure is that mom hated me being known as Back Street Mary. When she saw a newspaper story on my becoming the new Madison County Historian she frowned at me and shook her head and said, “Why do you have that nickname?”  I replied, “What would you expect from a girl whose mother was called “Pistol Packin’ Mama?”  

For once she had no reply......

Here is Willie Nelson to sing it for you..Enjoy..Happy New Year!

A Christmas Message, William Booth, and Christmas Eve

Doris Rhode 

Christmas Eve brings back many memories to us all …and one special one returns every year to me. 

Christmas Eve was the best day of the holiday season for my family as all the relatives gathered together, usually at our house - with food, fun, music and friends running in and out.   It was my favorite day…but this particular year was my first Christmas as a member of the workforce.

My first job was in the card shop in E W Edwards Department Store in Syracuse and Edward’s was the busiest card shop downtown.  I worked with an older woman who had worked in the department for years.  Doris was a wonderful woman who helped people and who was very kindhearted.  She and I learned to ring over the top of each other on the register so that we could help people get through the line faster. 

This one particular night was a cold Christmas Eve, and my bus was to arrive 10 minutes after the closing of the store…and I was ready to roll.  Trouble was you couldn’t cash out or leave until all of the customers were gone.

The store lights blinked as usual denoting the closing of the store, but Doris kept on talking to these 5 bedraggled looking people who kept handing a card back and forth amongst themselves.  This went on and I kept walking up and down waiting to cash out and getting more nervous by the minute that I was going to miss the bus that meant have to wait for the Clover and walk an extra half-mile home.

Finally after what seemed like and eternity Doris rang them out….one 25 cent card…one miserable card had caused me to miss by bus and make me get home very late for the festivities! 

As they left and we started cashing out and I snapped at her about it and she turned on her heal and looked at me…her glance was more serious than I had ever seen….”Are you going home to a nice warm house with family, food and friends?” she snapped.  “Well of course”, I replied.  “Well they don’t have homes…they are homeless…and they bought a card because the man at the hotel behind here is going to let them stay and sit with their friends until midnight…and they are all going to share the card!”  She stopped and pointed up town, “Then they are going to the church for midnight Mass where they can stay for a while…and then if they are lucky…. they will be picked up by a Rescue Mission or Salvation Army Van and be taken somewhere to warm and eat!!!”

I was silenced.  I waited in the freezing cold and wind for the bus and thought about the lesson I had learned, something us well fed lucky people never think about on Christmas Eve…a lesson I have never forgotten to this day. 

When I arrived home and started wrapping a few presents I sat near the tree and cried…I realized I had lost my innocence.

Years latter I found out that Gen. William Booth founder of the Salvation Army and I shared the same birthdate...April 10^th.   To this day I am proud of that fact, and have set out to spread the word on all my Christmas Eves... that there can be no celebration until all people on earth share what they have.  None, until we learn to treat one another as you would your family…with love not hate, with understanding and acceptance.... for really we are the family of man... and we all live together in this little envelope called EARTH!

Going to Grandmas for Christmas!

Once again on the week behore Christmas I find myself lost amid old memories, problems of the present... and the dificulties of living in this (at the very moment) place in history where in seconds news is flashed, reflashed, disected and rehashed within the blink of an eye.  

So.. I decided to try and go back to a much nicer time, a time when life was simple and the holidays were something to look forward to...times to remember in your heart with joy!  Here is a repost from last year...but some things to think about.   I question...are we living in better times???

I painted the above picture for a Christmas card in 1995 and wrote the poem to go with it.  The story came from discussions with the old members of our little community group who shared their remembrances of "Christmas Past".

They are all dead now... but like on old clock I have turned my mind back to that year and leave the poem to you as my Christmas blog and my hope for a quiet and warmer future built on love...not hate....on families....not presents and shopping...and on love for your neighbor!

Going to Grandma’s for Christmas

Going to grandma’s for Christmas,

A very special day.

Through the city, past the suburbs,

Out the country way;

Past the now frozen pond,

Where children skate and sled;

While moms and dads look on.

As we approach the old farm house’

With barns in red and white;

I feel a glow of warmth,

In just picturing the sight,

The front door swinging open;

As waves and cheers abound.

It seems a million years ago,

Last Christmas came around.

The tree in its shining hour;

Standing in the hall,

So it might stretch to its fullest height,

And run from floor to floor.

Grandma’s fresh baked cookies,

Cooling by the stove;

And gingerbread decorated,

With swirls, and dots, and love.

The goose stuffed and waiting;

Cranberries and popcorn strung;

The neighbors gathering at the door,

Singing carols just for fun.

After all the presents,

Are unwrapped and tucked away;

I slip upstairs to Grandma’s room,

To kneel with her and pray.

Then curled up in a feather bed,

So snug and fluffy warm;

I feel at ease with all the world;

And safe from any harm.

No matter how many years come and pass away,

Grandma and the country,

Will be the heart of my Christmas Day!

Dr. Mary E. Walker, clothing reformer - her link to Madison County and the Oneida Community!

Dr. Mary E. Walker is an interesting woman who has been forgotten by many in the history of “Women’s Rights” and Central New York.

She is known perhaps more for her Congressional Medal of Honor (the only one ever awarded to a woman) for serving as a doctor and surgeon during the Civil War and less for her contribution to women’s health and well-being. Born to an unusually free thinking family from Oswego, New York, Walker was encouraged by both her father and mother to enter into fields that in her time were considered men’s alone. 

Her legacy included her lifelong dress reform work that put her in constant rebuke and caused her great friction with the Women’s Movement leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  As a matter of fact she annoyed them so much they practically wrote her out of the “Women’s Rights History Encyclopedia” that they authored with Matilda Gage.   The early advocates of “bloomers style” had eventually stopped wearing them because they felt it drew attention from the “cause”. Mary Walker however continued the practice, especially necessary during her Civil War Service, where she dressed more like a man in uniform. 

Walker was known to wear a bloomer type of costume from its entrance into the reform spotlight when Elizabeth Smith Miller of Madison County introduced it to Amelia Bloomer.....until the day she died.  Her main talking points were that tightfitting corsets and heavy bulky dresses endangered woman’s health, especially when they were working. Her mother was another freethinker who also wore the costume.

To support her stance she endured being spit upon in public, having bricks thrown at her, was followed by male crowds, victimized with rebuffs and even arrested in major cities and towns that did not want her to speak on behalf of woman.

One of her supporters however, leads us right back here to Madison County… On one occasion an Officer Johnson who charged her with appearing in “male costume” and disorderly conduct, arrested her. …The Oneida Community’s periodical “Circular” covered the event since the Oneida Community had long favored reform clothing for its workingwomen.  The “Circular” praised the dress reform movement and called her attire - “sensible and attractive" and said that she should be honored for her “long service as an assistant surgeon during the Civil War.”

She did live long enough to see her costume embraced at the turn of the century for “tennis and bicycling and other athletic endeavors for women”!

I often think about how far we have come with dress reform today! Walker is buried in the Town of Oswego Cemetery just a short distance from where she was born on November 26^th, 1832 and raised.

Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen’s memorial perhaps best fits her:  Dr. Mary’s life should stand out to remind us that when people do not think as we do, do not dress as we do, and do not live as we do, that they are more than a half century ahead of their time, and that we should have for them not ridicule but reverence.”

Here is an interesting little history clip of this famous CNY woman!

 

Epilogue:

Educated as a Doctor in 1850’s at the Syracuse Medical College, she graduated as a medical doctor and eventually married one of her classmates going went into practice with him on Dominick Street in Rome, NY.  Her husband was unfaithful and she sought a divorce from him - another rarity for the times.  In these yearly years women had to prove the unfaithfulness of their husband (which was easy for her) and then have to wait 5 years for the decree – it eventually took 8 years to accomplish.

During the conflict she also acted as a spy for the “Secret Service”.

Walker became a popular speaker and traveled to Europe to lecture on women’s health, clothing reform, women’s rights and more; as a matter of fact she was considered a fabulous public speaker crisscrossing the country stumping for women’s rights and voting reform for much of her life.  In later years she studied court records and was keenly interested in the criminal insanity plea.

A new book by Sharon Harris called Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical is a wonderful read with in-depth information on this woman of indomitable will and courage.