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Bill and Grace Butts came to live on our place at Florissante when I was a little boy. They lived in the "cottage" a six room house, coal and hot air heat. Sadly they never had children of their own. They were like favorite Aunt and Uncle to me. All the men in my family had died so Bill treated me like a son, taught me how to use tools, how to fell tree, saw logs, drive a team of horses, drive the old truck/car. Once when I was about three we went on a long walk with the family and I got tired. I said "Please carry me Bill". He said "Why you are getting to be a big boy, you wouldn't want to be called a sissy." We went on for awhile and finally I said softly "Carry me Bill, I'm a sissy" and he swept me up in his strong arms and off we went.
Water came from a reservoir about a mile away up in the woods to the East. It came thru iron pipes down to all the buildings and to Florissante into a six foot cube reservoir lined with lead in the attic. That gave the house gravity flow and flush toilets. Every summer we had to go up, Bill would knock out the wooden bung in the pipe under the dam, drain the reservoir and we all would help to flush out all the leaves and sediment and get down to the clay that lined the pool. Some doing! And I would scamper down picking up all the little trout that got washed out. That was an activity that really needs to rest in peace!
When I was little we had an old fashion ice box and an ice house full of sawdust that insulated the big chunks all summer long. Bill Butts would saw them out of the trout pond in the winter, the team would haul them up on the sleigh and over to the ice house. Neat place to play in August.
Grace always had sugar cookies for the boy. I spent a lot of time with them. Bill worked for Ralph Marmon as a lumberjack getting paid piece work for trees felled and logs cut up with the old two man saw. Then the chainsaw came in and the first year the piecework was the same and the lumberjacks cleaned up. The next year, naturally, everything changed.
During World War II Bill commuted with others to Rome working for Revere Copper & Brass, making good money. They bought a nice house in Port Leyden. I was in touch with them until they passed away. They are buried in the Merriam/Lyon plot in Wildwood Cemetery but still live on in my heart.
I also remember Sally Argy who lived up near the Catholic church. We dated a little and I must have been awful as she became a nun. Then there was Rhone's Restaurant, Mr Sheldon in the Post Office-a distant cousin. Cain's Market where I would sell bullheads caught on 3 rods below the paper mill. When I had 75 bullheads home after dark my Mom made me dress them all before going in to the ice box for delivery the next day. Hard for a kid to make a fortune that way.
Mom cooked on a hugh wood stove in the kitchen. In summer she used a two burner kerosene stove.
I remember Jack Teal and his truck in the 1930's. I as a little guy - he seemed to be as big and rugged as a tree. Mary was always warm and took the trouble to talk to this young one.
I remember Doyle Hardware, Cannon's dry goods - well the list goes on and on.
Happy Days to you, Merriam Trube
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