Growing up in Batavia in the 1950s, you could say my family was middle class. We had a house (or an apartment for two years from '55 to' 57), a car (usually a Pontiac), food to eat, and clothes to wear.
We weren't rich by any means, but we were comfortable. I'm sure my parents worried about money, but my younger brother Dan (later joined by even younger brother Jim in 1958) and I probably didn't give it much thought.
My dad, James senior, was a salesman for Robfogel Paper Supply, based in Rochester. His main clients were restaurants or any business that used napkins, cups, etc. His job involved a lot of driving around Western New York to call on his customers. When he got home at night, he would spend time writing up his “orders” and then calling them in by phone. Summer was more lucrative than winter, as is usually the case with some food services.
My mom, Anna Newhouse Reilly, was a stay-at-home mom when we kids were younger. As we got a little older, she took on a couple of part-time jobs, such as working in the cafeteria at our school, St. Mary's and being a part-time bookkeeper in the evening at The Steak House Restaurant on West Main Street Road. She stayed at home again when Jim was born, but as we all got older, she developed a nice career as an office manager for the North American Automobile Association (a Canadian-based competitor of AAA), then McAlpine Barton Clothiers, and finally for the Dipson Theatre Corporation.
Like most other families, when summer came, we went on vacations. However, due to not having a lot of excess money to spend, ours were limited to going on what my dad might call “on the cheap.” There were no planes or ships involved (unless you count the Staten Island Ferry), and our accommodations were modest at best.
Santa, Salt Water, and Saints
The first trip I recall (barely) was when I was about five years old. We took a driving tour through New England and up into Quebec in Canada. I don't think my brother Dan went, as he would have been about two. Possibly my Aunts Kate and Peg babysat him. It was probably 1952. I remember very little about the car ride, but there were no Thruways back then, so it must have been slow going. I think I recall my mom telling the story that I was carsick for a lot of the trip, which must have been great fun for her and Dad. Dramamine for motion sickness was invented in 1949 (too late for World War II seagoers, unfortunately), so we probably stopped at the drugstore.
Being so young, the only three real memories I have of that whole trip were visiting Santa's Workshop in the Adirondacks near Lake Placid, driving through the fishing port of Gloucester, Mass., and smelling the sea air and fish and visiting the Basilica of Sainte-Anne de Beaupre in Quebec.
My Santa's workshop memories have been enhanced by some old 8mm film of the visit that my parents had and that I had converted to DVD. I'm not sure whether that was the only event my parents filmed or the rest just got lost. I got to sit on “Santa's” lap, stood by the “North Pole” with my mom, sat in a sleigh, and petted some sheep. I don't know why Santa had sheep. Maybe to get wool for his suit?
My mom was a newly converted Catholic, so St. Anne's was a must-stop for her. The site is world renowned for the miracles people claim happen to them as they visit. I do remember a large quantity of crutches, canes and braces on display, left by people who attested that they had been cured of their ailments. I wonder if there was an empty Dramamine box left on the pile.
The Great Cascade
A short excursion was when we took the obligatory day trip to Niagara Falls, probably in 1953. This included a ride on the Maid of The Mist boat, which at that time was still powered by steam engines. You got a rain slicker to wear, and it took you within a couple of hundred yards of the Falls. In 1949, Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, preceded us on the trip, and Marilyn Monroe went on the boat the year before us in 1952 while filming the movie “Niagara.” In 1995, I took my kids on it, and several years ago, my favorite music group, The Tedeschi Trucks Band, played Artpark nearby and had a day off, so some of them went on it too.
Gasping and Gherkins
A nearby vacation that we took pre-Jim Jr. was renting a cottage for two weeks on Keuka Lake, one of the beautiful Finger Lakes. Our cottage was right down by the water and pretty private as far as not having other close neighbors on either side. For one of the weeks, my dad continued to work during the day as businesses near there were on his sales route. We did a lot of swimming, catching frogs, and generally being outdoors. Since we are very fair-skinned of Scandinavian and Irish heritage, my mom had to be very careful about us getting sunburned, though.
As usual, I tend to remember the odd or bad things that happened back then rather than the better things. There was a culvert by our cottage at the bottom of a hill. Its purpose was to carry run-off rainwater into the lake in the event of heavy rain. Across this conduit, someone had placed a large log. Naturally, my brother Dan dared me to walk across it. You can't refuse a dare from your little brother, so on the log, I went. About halfway across I slipped and somehow fell sideways so that when I landed the log went right into my abdomen. I had seen many football players on TV get “the wind knocked out of them,” but never had any idea what it felt like. I literally couldn't breathe. Dan hollered at the top of his voice for Mom, and she came running like she was trying out for the Olympics. She extricated me from the log and, through her calming voice and some massaging, got my breath back again. She got me into the cottage, and that was the end of my adventures that day. My stomach and rib area were pretty sore for a couple of days, and for the rest of our time there, I stuck to using a little bridge while staying far away from that log.
A humorous thing I recall is sneaking some little gherkin pickles out of the jar just before bed. I must have fallen asleep with one in my mouth because I woke up in the morning with one all shriveled up inside my cheek. I guess you could say I found myself in a pickle. Or, more accurately, I found a pickle in myself. I don't know if I ever told mom about that one.
Capers On The Cape
The following year, we went to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with two other families, the mothers of whom were long-time friends of my mother. My Uncle Walt, my mom's younger brother, had married a woman who grew up in a family of fishermen in Provincetown, on the northern tip of “The Cape.” This only increased my mother's love for that area, which she had developed on trips there when she was younger.
Our Cape Cod vacation was not elegant, though. The three families rented a large apartment above a garage in the rear of someone's house. This space was shared by six adults and probably an equal amount of children. I suppose the Kennedys could have found some space for us at their compound, but they were busy running or getting ready to run the country. We did go to Sunday Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis, which the Kennedys often attended, but I don't think we spotted one of them.
We went to the beach almost every day, and my mom must have spent so much time protecting Dan and me from sunburn that she forgot about my dad. He got a really bad roasting, which kept him in pain for several days. I think he and the other two dads went out on an ocean fishing charter one day, but we kids didn't brave the seas. Of course, one day was devoted to the obligatory trip to Provincetown, but my only recollection of that visit was picking up a huge lobster out of a tank of salt water.
It wouldn't be me without one bad memory, and mine is of going to a park and getting spun around on one of those mini merry-go-rounds, which resulted in projectile vomiting. Are you picking up a pattern here? My whole life, I have been averse to anything that spins. When I was little, I couldn't even go on a regular merry-go-round without getting sick. How embarrassing is that?
Amusement parks were and still are not fun for me. Crystal Beach in Canada, Boulder Amusement Park, Roseland in Canandaigua – we went to all of them, but I was pretty limited as to what I could do. Bummer, as we said in the '60s. How bad is this? I would get queasy on the swings!
The Boardwalk and the Big Apple
My mom loved the ocean, so the next summer, we went to New Jersey. Not Cape May, which is a big beach vacation spot, but a small borough called Manasquan, which is just south of Asbury Park. I guess we were a little poorer than I thought because, once again, we stayed in an apartment over a garage, this time just our family of four. We were right across the street from the boardwalk and the ocean, though, so that was nice. We had to swim carefully because the New Jersey coast is notorious for its undertow. Right around the corner was a miniature golf course, and brother Dan and I went there at least once a day.
Most likely, one of the reasons my parents chose that vacation location was my maternal grandmother was living nearby in Spring Lake, New Jersey. After my grandfather died in 1952 at age 61, she got remarried to a widower she had known along with his late wife when living in Brooklyn as a young woman. He was a tugboat captain in New York Harbor and was not home much, so she took a job in Spring Lake as a live-in maid. One of the days, my dad went on another ocean fishing charter, and mom and we kids went to Gramma's house and then took a train to New York City.
The part of the train ride I remember is going by the Brooklyn Navy Yard and seeing all the big ships. I also recall going on the Staten Island Ferry, so we must have gotten off and back on the train for that. Once we got to downtown New York City, we were hungry, so we went to an automat for lunch. A popular one was called Horn and Hardart. They were like a vending machine restaurant. If you have ever read the children's book “The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,“ which I used to read with my class as a teacher, one of them is featured. The food was behind a small door. You inserted your money and took out your serving. The rise of fast food places like McDonald's killed automats off, but apparently, they are making a small comeback.
We also went to the top of the Empire State Building, which at that time was the world”s tallest building. I had probably only ever been in an elevator a couple of times in my young life (maybe St. Jerome's Hospital or C. L. Carr's Department Store ), but certainly not one that went up 102 floors. I have always been afraid of heights, so I'm pretty sure when we went out on the observation deck, I looked outward while keeping my back firmly against the rear wall. I know I did the same thing in the '70s when we went to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago (it was cloudy, and you couldn't see anything anyway) and the '90s when I ascended to the zenith of the CN Tower in Toronto. They have a see-through panel as the floor that you can stand on and look down, but there was no way I was doing that.
In the late 1950s, my dad left his job at the paper goods company and became a salesman for an oil refinery corporation based in Texas. His clients were now big equipment and construction businesses, and to put it bluntly, he didn't do very well. As a result, we didn't even have the finances to go on small vacations for a while, and I think that was what led my mom to go back to work. I guess Godfrey's Pond was our “vacation” spot for a while.
Later, in the 1970s, my parents and my youngest brother Jim took some vacations, such as visiting Nova Scotia. In the '80s, Mom and Dad enjoyed going to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and even spent Thanksgiving there once.
In the late 80s, Mom joined an elder traveling group and went to the Grand Canyon and even China. Just her luck, the trip was during the Beijing uprising, and she was there during the Tiananmen incident between students and soldiers. Unfortunately, her trip was cut short due to the danger.
So, were our 1950s vacations on a minor scale? Yes, but when you look back on it, we had fun and were certainly better off than some others who didn't get to go anywhere. Like everything else, it's all a matter of perspective. By the way, I have never been to Disney World, and my kids didn't get taken there either. Nothing against “The Magic Kingdom.” People love it. We were more the "rent a cottage in the Adirondacks" people. Whatever floats your boat – literally.
