NY Homesteading Group Meeting

Yesterday our NY Homesteading group, "Basics," met in Harpursville, NY, at Gramma's Country Cafe, for a luncheon and get together. We do this every so often. This is not a formal meeting or anything of the kind. Just a time to meet in person and touch base with each other. Our administrator, "boxwoods," was not present, as he has taken to fleeing the cold winter of NY, for the south in these recent years.

Our group includes homesteaders of various degrees and experience. Most of the them raise livestock for food and/or fiber, some do both. The talk around the table centered on such subjects as bees, eggs, fiber, goats and sheep, as well as other topics. Our group is made up of people who live in our area of NY state, and are living this life of "modern homesteading."

If we need to ask someone how to do something or where to get something, someone will usually have an answer. Sometimes you will get many different answers. We sell, barter, trade and give things to each other. As well as offer help in a variety of other ways. Friends with a common interest, we often cheer each other on, cry on their shoulders, laugh at ourselves, or each other, and value each other's knowledge.

It is pretty easy to start a group of homesteaders in your area. Our group is limited to NY, and to PA residents just over the border. We have a forum to talk together on and usually go there daily. This group started in 2007 and is still going strong. We keep it private so nobody can come on unless they are a member. That way our conversations are not broadcast all over the internet. Kind of like it that way.

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

On My Mother's Birthday - Remembering Her

My beautiful mother in 1942

Hazel Dorothy Neer Dran

Today, December 16th is my mother's birthday. I always think of her birthday coming as soon as December first comes. Before she became sick in the seventies, she was always a very independent woman. Her and my father made a life for themselves that was centered around their home and family. We were never rich, but we always had food, clothing and a home. My brother, Mickey and I had many happy memories of growing up in our family.

Mom chasing after Mickey 1951!

When I was three, they sold their house and gave away all their belongings except what they could fit in our car, and we headed out to California. Along the way we stopped at the Rocky Mountains. We stayed out there for about three months and my mother hated it. So they just packed us back up and we headed back to NY. My grandmother welcomed us home and we stayed with her until they could find another house.

Our house on Route 7, Harpursville, NY 

I always remember the day they came home and said they bought a house. Mom said to get ready because  my new next door neighbor is waiting to meet me! Kim Wright who lived next door, was there to meet me when we got to our new house. We became the best of friends. My parents had a bought a big two story, 12 room house about 8 miles from my grandmother's and one mile from the town of Harpursville, NY. I loved living in this house. Near all my relatives. I especially liked spending nights at my grandmother's house, which I did quite often.

Some of our friends and cousins at my party

Our neighborhood was full of children our ages. We had a lot of friends there and it was a good place to live. There was a creek behind our houses where we swam all summer. Our house had a big piece of land right next to our house, so it wasn't like we had houses on top of each other. We also owned the land across the road from our house. There was a good hill there for sleigh riding in the winter.

My father building our gas station

Soon after we moved there, my father started building a gas station. It was right on Route 7, and at that time, that was a very busy highway. Many years after we moved from there, they built 88 which is a very busy route for over the road trucks and travelers. But at that time, in 1956, Route 7 was an ideal place for a gas station.

Dran's Atlantic, Harpursville, NY 1955-62

My parents worked together on running our gas station. It was a local hang out for teenage boys who learned how to fix their cars since my father welcomed them and didn't mind helping them. I think he liked it.  My mother was active in the local PTA and did all types of volunteer jobs at Harpursville School. In fact, when they gave shots in the gym every year, she worked there to help. But every year, they'd have to notify her that her daughter was in the nurse's office because she fainted in line waiting for her shot! She always told that story years later.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole