My great grandfather was definitely of the generation that never threw anything away. As a small child I would explore his house and find all sorts of strange things. It wasn’t anything scary, just mysterious to me.

When I knew him, he was living in a big old house on the corner of Floyd Street and Springs highway. I didn’t know his name was Floyd, it was Gramp. Today I wonder if the street was named for him. He did operate a taxi service, with a horse and buggy. He could be found on “Floyd’s street” , maybe.

He lived in the kitchen of that house; his wife Lucy having passed when I was two years old. His bed sat in the corner, an old coal stove provided the heat, as well as used for cooking. The rest of the house was dark, dusty and mysterious. It is those parts I would explore.

In one room stood a large wooden loom. This loom was the property of James Terry, the town weaver, and father to Lucy. It was used to make rag rugs. The various tools needed to operate it were there on the wall, shuttles he called them and combs. It sat there dust covered, with material still wrapped around giant spools.

In the parlor, was grandma Lucy’s bed where she had lain suffering from cancer. It was there she had passed away and the bed and the things on her nightstand left, untouched and undisturbed. I have her Bible that was on that nightstand.

In the front room, as Gramp called it, I found a genuine buffalo robe! Gramp said he used it while driving his taxi in the winter months along with a rectangular box with tin sides and top that you placed a heated stone in. That was to keep your feet warm.

There was a variety of spinning wheels and odd looking contraptions used in making thread. There were tools for making shoes, James’s father, my 3rd great grandfather had been a shoemaker and they were his things. A black doctor’s bag sat covered with dust on a small table.

James took that with him as he nursed sick men, it contained his knitting needles and some yarn. James had learned a bit of nursing while serving in the civil war as the majority of his time was in the hospital, not from battle wounds, but from disease. Later in life he had a nervous breakdown, I suspect it was what we would call PTSD today.

Gramp had all sorts of things, cigar boxes full of buttons. Never throw any garment out without first saving the buttons. He had large balls of string, saved from packages. Never know when you will need a piece of string. He had glass eggs, you put them under a laying hen when she stops laying, it helps them in some fashion.

In the basement of that house was a boat! My father and his close friend had started building that boat, but both were called off to war, ww2. It remained down there and as far as I know, is there still. There was the coal bin, a chute that led to the outside allowed coal to be loaded. The basement was a bit spooky and so I seldom lingered down there.

Today I have a number of his things and treasure them all. Memories are attached to them that only I appreciate, it’s almost as though it is a responsibility. Gramp even had a genuine Indian that would stop and visit with him. Pocahontas Pharoah was her name.

She was a princess of the Montauketts! I knew her as Miss Pokey. She was the cleaning lady at the phone exchange on Newtown Lane. Some say she was the last pure bred Montauckett but she never said that. She was just one of a series of characters that would stop and visit gramp. There was long Johns and Mr. Charlie.

Never really thought about any of that as a kid. I grew up around windmills, whales, the buffalo wallow, and a forgotten village. My great grandfather told me tales of “ancient” times and Indians. He would peel an apple with his pocketknife and cover those slices with sugar. He chewed on cigars, seldom lighting them.

He lived right across the street from my grandmother, my mother’s mother. He raised my father. Grandma told tales about him and grampa Floyd. Family stories and anecdotes, not always complimentary. The house still stands to this day. It was built by James Terry in 1894. A good solid home. His daughter Lucy married Floyd in the parlor of that home in May of 1898. The stories it could tell.

Gramp. Floyd Parker Lester (1878-1968) As I remember him looking. With one of his mysterious contraptions.