View From My Kitchen Window: woodstock

Thursday, October 6, 2022

Remembering Winne Davis Fallon on her 100th Birthday - Recollections in Her Own Words

My mom, Winnie Davis Fallon had somewhat of a nomadic life in her early years. Her mother, Ruth Bickner Davis, though divorced, led people to believe she was a widow with two young daughters. After living in Kingston for a few years, Ruth found work at a boarding house in Westkill, NY. ( c 1933) Winnie writes “ mom got a jo with these people who had a very nice house. I remember looking at pictures that were daguerreotypes. Flo and I walked to school. I remember looking at a totally rundown house along the way with the most beautiful yellow roses growing alongside. When we first went up to Westkill I remember riding thru “ the notch”. This was a long dirt road. One lane only. If you met another vehicle one had to back up to a passing place.

Ruth and her daughters were only in Westkill for one summer season. Winnie notes ” Then we moved to Kleines on MacDaniel Rd in Woodstock NY. ( c 1934) I can honestly say I had more fun as a kid living there. There were lots of kids. Evelyn and Marion were Flo and my age and the Reynolds kids were there for a time. Their father worked in the butcher shop in Woodstock. Their mom was a MacDaniel. “ She goes on the recall “ Uncle Charlie was the one we giggled at the most. Whose uncle I don’t know. He had his own room downstairs with an outside entrance. Anyway, he’d sunbathe nude out back behind the lilac bushes. The same place we dumped the slop buckets to kill the poison ivy.

“ She continues, “ “mom, Flo and I lived in the cabin across the road from the Kleine’s house. It was just a cabin, no inside walls. There was a common area for the whole unit. ( one room). No running water, no toilet, no heat. We heated by the woodstove in the kitchen. John the Norwegian handyman used to start the fire for mom. One day he got the fire going and closed the oven door. We left it open for more heat. When we came home from school and mom from working at the main house, we opened the oven door for warmth and there was our cat. Baked.

C 1941 After high school graduation, Winnie Davis went to Troy NY to live with family friends Gladys and Howard. Within a few months she returned to Woodstock, and as she writes, “ I came home and worked at the Irvington for a while. Saturday nights were square dance nights. The bar was in the far corner and the whole outside walls of the room were tables. I made thirty to forty dollars on a Saturday night. Very good for those times. I saved up a hundred bucks and took off for California, footlocker and all. My trip across country was by bus. I paid $ 75.00 for my fare and had $ 15.00 left when I got there. Each large terminal had showers, so you could clean up. Thru the south west Native Americans would board the bus out in the boonies to get to town. They had no access to showers. Once in L.A, I stayed with a couple from Woodstock who had a small baby. I couldn’t get a job because I wasn’t yet twenty-one. So, I called my dad and told him I was in L.A. and he came and got me. Dad helped me with my driving and I got my licensee in November 1941. Mom and Flo followed me out. Mom and I went to L.A. to look for work. The first place we stayed in was in the Hollywood area. One evening we took a walk downtown to the Hollywood and Vine area. We were flat broke and went in to one of the radio stations. We got in to see a show. I got chosen to participate and won twenty-five silver dollars. We went out of there crying with joy. While in L.A., “ my mom got a job working for Sally Rand. ( Ruth had known her from her Woodstock Playhouse days) She was doing house keeping for her mother. Flo and I went along. The house was in Glendora California. One night Sally came home and she was going out on the road the next day, leaving at 5 am. Did I want to go along with the show? They’d teach me to dance along the way. God, was I scared. I went, and the first stop was Las Vegas. I drove her four-door tan Lincoln Continental convertible. What a car. So wonderful to drive. C 1942

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

The Woodstock Cemetery- It NEEDS your HELP

When you have a genealogy hobby like I do, you spend an inordinate amount of time in cemeteries. I have poked around hundreds of headstones from Cutler Maine to Savannah Georgia. My hubby and I spent a number of hours in Roscommon Ireland searching for my relatives burial sites. We finally found “THE” Fallon cemetery one blustery afternoon, in stony Dysart, high up on a hill surrounding what the locals referred to as the Fallon Church. Most recently, we had an escorted tour thru the cemetery in Resuttao, Sicily. When I searched for this location on google maps, what I was looking at I referred to as condominiums. Yes, you guessed it, an acre or two of above ground crypts, decorated with photos and colorful flowers and offerings to the memories and souls of the deceased.

I’ve had the pleasure of traipsing all over the Woodstock cemetery on Rock City road, visiting gravesites of local people I’ve known or read about. I have family buried in one of the newer sections, dating back to 1967. My hubby has family buried in one of the older sections dating back to the early 1900’s. We’ve purchased our own burial site half way down the lane lined with grand old Maple trees. We have taken up the responsibility for tending to the headstones of our loved ones, making sure the stones are clear of grass and debris. Other families do the same for the final resting places of their loved ones.

On January 6th 2018 at 10am, at the Woodstock Town Hall, there will be a reorganizational meeting of the board of trustees of the Woodstock Cemetery. As you will see in the article By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE from December 2017, the board members at that time “relinquished control” (Kemble, 2017) of the day to day operations of the cemetery. The meeting on January 6th is, as I understand it, designed to appoint volunteers to the new board of trustees. The Woodstock Cemetery financial troubles are not new, as noted in the George Pattison articles of 2008 and 2009.

I consider the Woodstock cemetery on Rock City road a hidden treasure in our town for the following reasons:

1. By far, one of the best views of Meads and Overlook in the center of town.

2. Even with the poor condition of the roads, still a lovely place to walk at least a mile without the hassles of traffic.

3. Resting place for many of Woodstock’s original settlers and their families

4. Resting place for many famous artists and musicians of the 20th and 21st century.

If you are at all interested in the upkeep of this little hidden treasure in Woodstock, please consider stopping by on Saturday and listen to the proposals. If it seems like a good fit, by all means, join on!