The Deaf White Cat that came in from the Cold!

                                                                        Whitie

 I have had so many cats that have wandered in to get a free meal and in many cases help, I can't remember them all.!  One such cat is "Whitie", he is mostly white and is mostly deaf.  He wandered in with blood on him and was starving. Nobody claimed the poor fellow and all he wanted was food and a place to sleep!  It was the dead of winter this past year and I found he would hide on the back porch under the chair,,,it was freezing out there.  

This summer he has turned into a good looking white cat but only wants to eat and be in the house, which is driving my house cats crazy.  What I need is  to find a home for him.  He is fixed now and someone would have a great, friendly, and very gentle cat.  Humorously, Whitie is the opposite of my blind black cat Willie... so I wondered if maybe we should start a "disabled cat ranch" down here!

Please if you can find a home for White you will have no trouble... only a food bill and I can have a happy home again in my kitchen!  The thing that worries me the most is the upcoming winter weather as once again the porch will be freezing cold and an electric heater will be unaffordable with this years  electric rates.

It reminds me of  "The Cat who came to Christmas" by Cleveland Amory.  I am the "Curmudgeon" that seems to always gets stuck feeling sorry for them, mumbles under my breath, and then finds love from them...  Animals unlike people who want everything...new cars, fancy phones, overpriced houses... only want a home and food...and I might add "...they show much love back.

This is the reason we founded our "not for profit.  4 Community Cats Inc".  This is our way of helping to control the animal population in our little area and to put a website out with information on vets, neutering and spaying, and health tips..Please help us help the community and cats like White!

4CommunityCats.Inc.   We have a go Fund Me Page or you can mail check to 4 Community Cats Inc in care of 5823 Brooklyn Street, Eaton, NY.   https://gofund.me/7356f605 

We are a NYS and Federal Not for Profit Charity!

Winston Churchill and his Love of Cats and Me!

Here is the story of my family home, Winston Churchill and a famous cat called Jock!

Winston  Churchill’s mother was Jennie Jerome, a beautiful American who actually has great ties to CNY.  The Jerome Family farms were in CNY and the land that my family built its house on was part of the Jerome Farm…home of Jennie’s grandmother.  

Thoughts of the Jerome farm led me to ponder the fact that for Christmas one year I gave my brother the gold watch dad had given me...he had found the old gold watch in the family garden as a young man...a garden that would later become the family compound of homes.  Repaired and running, I thought it was a great family history piece and a great present.

Churchill was supposed to come to speak at a family reunion in Syracuse once, but had to turn back
because of the presence of U Boats. He did send a telegram to the family group assembled…a piece of history I learned from the Wood-Eaton sisters who visited me years back in Eaton.  They were relatives and were to be at the reunion and remembered the trip well.   The woman had come to Eaton to visit their great grandfather Allen Nelson Wood’s house, the house,,,the house I live in.  Isn’t it strange how life is full of so much serendipity?

Mr. Wood was named for Allen Nelson Wood...Nelson for Lord Nelson a hero his family honored with the name for many generations…and then suddenly my grey cat Rascal jumped in my lap…hint …one of Winston Churchill’s most famous cat’s  (grey) was named Nelson to honor Lord Nelson.

Churchill was a cat lover, actually an animal lover.  Winston and his wife Clementine signed their love letters to each other with little drawn pictures…he a dog (Pug) she his cat...and their daughter the PK or puppy-kitten.

His cat stories are famous and many can still picture him speaking with a drink in one hand and the grey cat next to him. One story I love is... after one of his famous speeches (he had a lisp as well as drank) a woman MP in Parliament said, “Sir, you are drunk!”  His replay was “Madame that may be true, but in the morning I shall be sober whereas you will still be ugly!”

His favorite cat in later life cat was a ginger-marmalade colored cat he called  “Jock”, named after Sir John Coville his secretary who gave it to him.  Churchill loved the color and the cat so much that after giving his home Chartwell to the National Trust… he stated in his will that it should always have a ginger colored cat in residence…and to this day it does…and always named appropriately “Jock”.

Great piece of history don't you think...

Please help us get the funds to spay and neuter this years drop offs go to our go fund me page or mail a check to 4 Community Cats inc. a charity 502 3 c.

https://gofund.me/7356f605:

The Timeless Beauty of Fort Klock

The timeless beauty of Fort Klock reminds us of our historic past

I did a talk last week on the Battle of Oriskany and thought about all the wonderful remnants of that. period of out settlement,  That night I thought about the burning of the Mohawk Valley and all the wonderful history day trips we all take to celebrate our 250th year.

A trip to Old Fort Klock near St. Johnsville on Route 5 is a great way to revisit New York States historic “past.” The L shaped stone farmhouse served as a Fort in two different Wars, the French and Indian as well as the American Revolution. Built in 1750 by Johannes Klock one of the many Palatine Germans who populated the area, Fort Klock actually saw one of the last skirmishes of the Revolutionary War on October 19, 1780 at the Battle of Klock’s Field, also referred to as “The Great Raid”.

The Fort and grounds have been restored and new farm buildings erected in the Dutch style so that the Fort Klock Restoration, the group that now runs it, can keep it open yearly from Memorial Day to Columbus Day for visitors to learn of its unique history.

It is written that many famous personages of the time including Chief Joseph Brant, General Clinton, Alexander Hamilton and King Hendrick, were all guest within its walls at one time or another.

Fort Klock, was built on a hill overlooking the Mohawk River and just above the King’s Highway (now the railroad bed). For protection against raiding Indians it contained “loop holes” so that it could be fortified by long rifle from within its walls during raids. It served as protection for other settlers in the area during these times. Its formidable stonewalls that are two feet thick could ward off munitions as well as fire.

The story of the many raids that took place from Canada are featured in the book “The Burning of the Valley” by Gavin K.Watt”, a wonderfully researched book with a story and maps of the famous “Burning of the Harvest at Klock’s Field”. Humorously, the book gives us the view from the British– Canadian raiders side. So few of us realize that many of the Mohawk Valley settlers who remained loyal to the Crown had to flee to Canada, leaving their homes behind and that many of these settlers participated in these burning raids as retribution.

Fort Klock (actually there were more than one) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, being listed as – “A site of exceptional value in commemorating or illustrating the history of the United States.” And as that, it truly is a place worth visiting!

For more information and it calendar of events you can visit the website http://fortklock.com/

Not A Cat Lover.. but ... I Still Think of My Favorite Strays!

There is one thing for sure that I can say about every rural town... there is always a town dog or cat.  The other thing that you can be sure of is that people drop off their stray cats thinking that they will find their way to a barn and become a barn cat.  Both of these scenarios I can personally attest to.

The stray cat issue, though, caused me much money and much pain.  It seemed, as I later found out, that the college nearby offered a psychology course that included behavior training or whatever, so the kids would get a cat and then, when they could not take it home, dump it in one of the villages close by...  these cats would have kittens, and the nightmare would start.  My first cat actually was a Siamese I brought with me when I moved to Eaton; he was very old and died there.  I had Chat for many years.  He was about 20 when he died and traveled with me everywhere. He loved to go in the truck.

The first stray in Eaton was Linky, which was named by my neighbor's son after a video game.  I eventually called him Lincus because of his serious nature.  Link wandered in during a blizzard and was full-grown, the vet thought about 5 years old.  He snuck into the basement where I had the wood stove the first winter in the house.  (This stove had to be moved in the spring because the floods filled the basement with water.) Link kept leaving in the morning and then returning.  I thought perhaps he couldn’t find his way home. 

Linky looked just like a lynx, and when I brought him to the veterinarian he exclaimed, “ a real cat!”  I didn’t quite figure that statement out onto; I read;ized like a wild cat or Lynx... he had double fur!. Linky also was the alpha cat and made all the other cats bow to him.  The younger males would lick his head and ears for him, and then he would put his paw out and they would sit next to him.  I told everybody he was the Godfather and they were all kissing his ring!

One fall I was sitting in the house, and what I thought was Linky was sitting on porch.  I went out to pet him, and he backed away.  I said, “Link, what’s up!”. He didn’t move.  I brought some food out, and he gobbled it down as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. Just then Linky walked up the side porch steps, looked at the other Linky, smelled him and walked away!

That afternoon my friend and I sat in the back yard on the deck, and the other Linky sat under foot.  She sat, drank her beer and said,  “Linky is pretty quiet today.”  I said, “That’s not Linky.”  She said, “Of course it’s Linky!”  I said, “No, it’s not Linky!”  She finally agreed when the real Linky walked by.  The other cats sniffed him and never raised their back or their paws, so all we could figure was that this cat was a twin of Linky’s.   When he died a few weeks later I assumed he had come back to the place where they were born to die!  It was certainly the strangest cat thing I had ever witnessed.

When Linky died on New Years Day at over 20 years old, I wrote an obituary about him for the Mid-York Weekly since most people in town knew him because he went out every morning and every night and made his rounds around the town, even until the week of his death. Descended probably from the original domesticated cats of the area!

The cat all of the adults and children loved was Curly.  Curly came to the house in terrible shape the week of Chanukah. I was making a Chanukah Bush for a young friend, who was studying this for a school project, when this sick cat appeared.  He was obviously wormy and starved and looked terrible.  I fed him and tried to clean him up, but no one would take him.  He had something caught in his throat like a bone, and it caused him not to be able to eat much.  Eventually by sheer feeding him small meals and by the bone or object moving, he recovered, and within a year he was the most beautiful black and white cat anyone had ever seen.  The same people whom I had tried to give him to came by one by one, and they all wanted to adopt this wonderful clean cat.  I laughed as I told each one of them that they couldn’t have him, that I was keeping him, and that he was the cat they hadn’t wanted.

The children of town could put him in paper bags and chase with him, and the little girls could dress him with hats and put him on a wagon.  And to really get him going, all you had to do was yell with a bit of a raised voice, “C-u-r-r-l-ee-y.”  Curly died an old and well-loved cat.  Even my friend Pauline a dog lover would sit and pet him; she said he reminded her of an old farm cat they had had as children. Curly was the kind of mellow cat that could just sit in one place and smile that all knowing smile at you, like a Cheshire Cat.

I miss them both... But I can no longer afford the strain this has put on me, I live on my Social Security check and try and end this crazy situation. I with some friends started the not-for-profit Charity 4 Community Cats Inc. to make it happen.  So many strays ands hungry cold cats showed up this year all along the street.  I started a go fund me page to try and get them fixed and solve a good part of the forever problems...if you can ...please donate...

 https://gofund.me/7356f605 or a check to 4 Community Cats Inc. 5823 Brooklyn

Street, Eaton, NY 13334

This a Special Plea for Cats like Willie

This week has been tough for me with the hot weather and the mess I have been cleaning up after the flood!  The smelly mess from the runoff behind my house has caused me much unneeded work and stress...just getting rid of the smelly runoff mud from back yard items like rugs and chairs has taken a toll on me.  I lost my bridge to the backyard and it finally dried off enough for me to build a replacement!  The cats that I shelter and feed have done alright...thank God!

Our cat group is hoping by putting up a GoFundMe Page that we will be able to eliminate new problems that have shown up in the form of young cats that have been left in town and who need to be fixed.. if not they will provide the area with more!  Neutering and spaying has cost so much that many just have given up trying to find help and have just dumped some off!  Kittens are fun to play with but they become cats too soon who will be bring you kittens.  Male cats need to be fixed to prevent kittens as well as female cats many males are lost when they rake off to find females. Roaming males have accounted for many of the local broods.

I have a cat I have named Willie Williams..who I found curled up in a ball in the middle of the intersection down here in the winter.  HIs eyes and his nose were covered in hardened mucus and he was starved.  I picked him and brought him to a cage on my porch fed him and gave him some medicine...today Willie is blind for the most part because of this neglect, but he is getting around nicely and loves to sit on my desk while I am working.  He actually has become my favorite...I say the Willie Williams is my only "Welch" cat!

I paid for trip to the cheapest vet in the area...who is way too busy and had Willie neutered...it still cost me money that I have very little of since my Christmas Eve house fire, the two tree tragedy of last fall and this flood! 

The truth is the whole area has been besieged by kittens and drop off young cats just go on line and read some of the stories on NEXT DOOR or Facebook. So my plea... if you can donate even $5 dollars to our not for profit "4 Community Cats Inc." I will be so grateful and so will your neighbors when they don't find a bunch of kittens near their house or in their back yard and have to decide to try and do something! 

Below is a link to out Go Fund Me page or you can write a check to 4 Community Cats Inc. c/o 5823 Brooklyn Street Eaton, NY

 https://gofund.me/7356f605

Please Help Your Community this Summer

This year has been unbelievable here in our area.  Winter's on and off which caused a number of building collapses has expanded to the fires that have consumed a number of our locally historic building such as the The Old Union School on Brooklyn Street, the home of John Rockwell on Eaton Road, and the former Cramphin House on Landon Road.

Spring bought us some of the worst flooding in 25 years or more, and now the heat!  I have been struggling to Get everything together for my house, the museum, and now our poor unfortunate animals.  As usual the cat population has grown because many strays have been dumped by college kids leaving and many are not fixed and are producing many  offspring.  The food situation including mice, birds and other creatures is down because of the winter, spring flooding, summer heat, and chemicals in the water and so this situation plays on and on until we can gain control of the cat population.

Our website 4CommunityCats.org can give you information on health, cat stories, Vet information, and more so visit it...enjoy the stories that I have written and help our small not for profit group raise some funds to neuter & spay them.  Last year with donations and our Cat Gift Shop we raised money for this purpose, but now we have depleted this fund and need to fill this account in. We will be posting a Go Fund Me Page for this purpose.  Please share the information. 

Until you have picked up a starving to death animal that was somebodies pet "throw away" or an innocent kitten and have it die in your hand, you cannot believe the pain that is felt.

In this heat put out dishes of water, keep your cats or dogs or whatever in a place they are shaded from the heat, feed them if you can, but don't ignore a situation that can be changed and helped for the future! If you get an animal have it neutered or spayed...help your community get control of this heart wrenching situation.  Write to our Representatives to ask for local help with funds to neuter or spay. Adopt a pet in trouble...you will be blessed for caring! 

You can use https://gofund.me/84bc4e59 or send a check to 4CommunityCats Inc at

c/o M E Messere 5823 Brooklyn Street, Eaton NY 13334

both ways are a 5013C CHARITY DONATION!

Happy Fourth Everyone!

 Eaton 4th of July Field Days in a Bustling Town

The best remembered and photographed times in Eaton were the “field days” held yearly to celebrate the Fourth of July.  This community, born out of Revolutionary blood felt it a duty to put on big yearly celebration. 

The big day usually started with cannon volley, which in later years is remembered as Patty Miles “firing” his anvil.  This was done by filling the hole in the bottom of the anvil with black powder and setting it off.  Any late sleepers would be awakened if their children had not already forced them out of bed in their excitement to get downtown.

Horse racing was part of the day and baseball games were played in different fields around town, big rivals for Eaton’s team was the Bouckville Bucks.  Food was available everywhere from the churches where the ladies aid put on a dinner, to the food stands on Main Street (front street) and the hotels, some brought their own lunches, but everybody ate.

The "Town" filled with music with people listening, especially when the Eaton Military Band played. In the evening there was always a dance that was well attended at the opera house in town, and the Rebekah Lodge usually served coffee to the attendees, with the dance continuing until midnight.

By the 1920’s, the world was at war; the steam engine plant was closing, water power had given away to electricity, woolen mills were closed, the Chenango Canal had ceased to be a transportation route and was only used to fill the Erie Canal, the “Great Depression” was on and the march to the city for work began.
 

No more does the anvil fire, and only once every three years is there a parade in Eaton and “History Day” is now on Memorial Day,  (instead of Field Day on the Fourth of July). In Eaton, however the memories live on in this rural community, remembered most of all for its once glorious past replete with famous Eatonites, famous inventions and stories of the wars. Eaton like so many of its rural counterparts has gone to Sleep!