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<div style='"text-align: center;'"><u>'''Sketches For My Grandchildren'''</u></div><div style='"text-align: center;'">''by [[Anna Mabel Roberts Loizeaux|Anna M. Loizeaux]]''</div><div style='"text-align: center;'">''"''Still Haven," [[New York|New York City]]</div><div style='"text-align: center;'">1915</div>
==My Father and Paternal Grandfather==
It must have been an American, who, when asked about his ancestors, replied, "I don't know anything about my aunt's sisters, or whether she had any." I cannot claim to be much wiser about my ancestry than he was. A desire to know about it did not waken within me, until those who could have satisfied the desire, in Old Testament language, "slept with their fathers". In order that you, my grandchildren, may not be, in this matter, devoid of knowledge as myself, I am going to tell you, in a crude way, the little that I know.
My father's name was Leander Roberts. He was the son of William and Mercy Roberts, and was born among the hills of Otsego Co., [[New York|N.Y.]], at the western end of the Catskill Mountains, June 1st, 1817. He had three brothers older than himself, Alfred, John and William, and one sister younger, named Mercy, after their mother. For the sister, who outlived him several years, father felt a tender affection. Father's mother died when he was eight years old, and he was sent to live int he family of "Uncle John Hamlin"; whether he was really an uncle, I do not know. I think an aunt came to keep house for the father and older boys, and to take care of little Mercy. After some years, the father married again, and had several sons and one daughter; while the children of his first wife also married.
I remember of seeing my grandfather Roberts only once, when I was quite a little girl. Nor did my father often speak of him: for having been separated from him since his eighth year, the relationship did not seem very real. On the occasion to which I refer, father, mother, brother and I had gone chestnutting on Crum-Horn Hill. It was a long way from our house on South Hill, through a very pleasant country. After gathering a large bag of nuts, chestnuts and black walnuts, and eating our luncheon on a mossy bank under a big tree, father drove home another way, that we might stop a little at grandpa Roberts' house.
Grandpa seemed to me a very old man and in poor health. He was seated at a low bench, pegging away at the sole of a shoe he was mending, and often stopped to cough. Not very long after, I heard my parents say, "Grandpa Roberts is gone." So you see the words "Grandpa Roberts" and "Grandma Roberts" were never familiar to me, until my own children called my parents thus; and since "my own children" are your fathers and mothers, it follows that their grandparents were your great-grandparents.
==Childhood of Leander Roberts==
==Apprenticeship==
In the village of Westford, [[New York|N.Y.]], lived Mr. Peter Platner. He was one of the leading men of the town, and had a large carriage factory. To him, when of proper age, Leander was bound as an apprentice. I do not know for how many years, but probably five. I think he must have lived in family of Mr. Platner, for I never heard of any other arrangement. He was kindly dealt with, and as long as he lived, spoke affectionately of Uncle and Aunt Platner. There were three children in the family: Henry, Mary and a little girl called, familiarly, Frank; I cannot now recall her real name.
There lived just outside of the village, on a small farm, Mr. Artemas Howe, with his wife and two children, Orsemus and Fanny. Mrs. Howe was a half-sister to Mrs. Platner; so there was much friendly intercourse between the two families. It is not strange that the apprentice boy, separated from his own brothers and sister, soon became friends with the shy little girl; nor is it at all surprising that when Leander had served his apprenticeship, and became a valued workman in the shop, at the age of twenty-one, and the gentle Fanny, now seventeen, and a school-teacher, that their friendship ripened into something more, and they were married. My father sometimes felt a mischievous desire to tell tales of that period, but my mother's embarrassed, "Hush, Leander, that's enough" usually quieted him. How I would like, now, to know all he might have told.
I never saw a more quiet and self-effacing person than my mother. Only those who knew her well appreciated her as she deserved. Kind and unassuming, she never gave offense. A plain spoken woman, visiting at our house, after my marriage, said to me, "Mrs. Loizeaux, you will never be a lady like your mother." I was neither hurt, nor disposed to quarrel with what I felt was true.
The above statement recalls to mind this same woman, Mrs. Taylor, a big woman, loud and rough-spoken, but with a heart of genuine kindness. She ruled her husband, I have no doubt; but loved him meanwhile. She had no children and so had time, and disposition, to help others. One day, when we were living in Vinton, [[Iowa]], she came to spend the day. I had five children, no servant, and I tried to do my own sewing. Mrs. Taylor took out of her bag the flannel lining of an old overcoat, and a worsted skirt of her own. Her tongue and the sewing machine ran a lively race all day; but when she went home, Daniel had a warm flannel blouse and bloomers, and a little dress was ready for me to finish off. All honor to Mrs. Taylor's memory!
==Early Married Life==
I remember a very few things that belonged to that first housekeeping. I wish I might have now some of the dark blue plates, with their wonderful pictures, that fascinated me as a child, and held their charm until I was a big girl. Then there were knives with bone handles, fastened on by steel rivets. The forks had two slender tines, that father declared were "just the handiest things in the world to pick a chicken's neck with." I remember the operation. One tine was inserted in the passage of the cord, held firmly, and joint after joint dislocated, and removed. How I wished <u>I</u> could do it!
The old clock that stood so many years on the mantle of the sewing-room at 1215 Putnam Avenue was perhaps their proudest possession. It is now in Aunt Elizabeth's garret, waiting to have its case "done over" and its honest old face made more attractive. I am sure I feel sorry for it. I fancy I hear it saying to itself: "How dull it is after ticking away for nearly seventy years, to stand here idle, with only the memories of past years to comfort me! And I don't see why, indeed! I've heard my mistress say while winding me up at night: 'Good old clock; you the the best timekeeper in the house.' I was never lonesome before in my life. So many babies were held up to my face, with eyes big with wonder, while I was made to strike over and over again. I wonder, will I ever hear children's voices again? And I remember the distress of my old mistress, after my master died, because she had lost my key, and she feared she would never hear my voice again. She could not sleep that night, but wept bitterly, and said softly, 'Dear Old Clock!" All the above is true, and I sigh with the old clock as I think of it.
After a few years the little family moved to Schenevus, a pretty, stirring little town at the foot of South Mountain, and my father had a carriage shop of his own. But, after not very long, my father, having a boy and girl of his own, concluded that the town was not the best place in which to "bring them up." Thereupon he bought a small farm on South Hill. Not until it because the fashion to go to the mountains for a vacation, was the grand old hill dignified by the name of "mountain".
==South Hill Farm==