Entry #551264, added on 11-24-07 @ 8:06 am EST
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| The Bay Road Legacy Chapter 9 Meet The Family | Entry #551264 |
The BAY ROAD LEGACY
Chapter Nine
Meet The Family
In the weeks ahead, mother did write it all down and she did keep a diary of the events. There were in her thoughts and in her notes, an apparent frequency and regularity to all of our occurrences. One that would not make any sense to us for months yet to come.
Within the hour, our company had departed and we were alone at home on Bay Road. Mother went up for her long soak in the tub, and we went on about enjoying the rest of the morning. We were not expecting any more guests for the next several days. It was the 1st of July, and the fourth of July holiday was on a Wednesday that year, and my father’s older brother Cy, and his wife Catherine would be coming to spend the long weekend with us. They would drive up on Wednesday, and return home on Sunday. As with all of Fathers family, we had met these people on only a few occasions, and did not remember them all that well. They each remembered us from the earliest days of our childhood.
We had met Cy and Catherine once or twice after Fathers return, and before moving to Bay Rd. Cy was not as much fun, or as easy to like as Uncle Jimmy. Catherine was to us a very strange and unknown person. Mother was not excited about their upcoming visit. I had to wonder just why Father had invited this particular couple at all, except to see the house and area in which we now lived. Well they weren’t coming until Wednesday and we still had all of Sunday, and Monday and Tuesday to enjoy our new home and life in general.
Shortly after lunch time, a new car arrived in our driveway. Father walked out to greet the couple that had driven out to our house, over the back road that ran along the north side of the property. He greeted the people, and quickly brought them to the front of the house to meet his family. The man was the other new employee at fathers office, and he and his wife, like us had just moved to town and had not met other people in the area. Father had invited them to drop in at any time, as they were actually neighbors, although they really lived almost a mile away. Like us they had rented a house, and were just getting adjusted to it. This couple, were about the same age as mother and father, and were introduced as George and Helen Fitzgerald. Mother was quite pleased to meet this couple as they appeared to be very normal and very pleasant. They had moved up to New York from Massachusetts, like we had. They were welcomed into our new house, and given the tour.
A great deal of time was spent getting acquainted with these people, and as the afternoon went by, it was obvious that mother had made a new friend. Mother and Helen remained at the house, while father and George went for a tour of the barns. It did not take Helen very long to approach the subject of Ghosts. She told mother that she and George had looked at the Bay Road house several weeks before father had, but that she had not been comfortable at the idea of living in such a big old place. She said that when she and George had toured the house before, she had a definite uneasiness with the small bedroom upstairs. Mother just smiled, and began to tell Helen, with a great deal of comfort in the telling; that her premonitions were correct, and that room was indeed not only strange and uncomfortable, but actually was haunted.
The new friendship with the Fitzgerald’s was off to a bare bones start. Mother spoke with ease about the experiences of the past weeks and Helen sat mesmerized with the stories. As Father and George returned from their tour, Helen announced to her husband, that we had ghosts, and she had been right about her feelings all along. George looked to father, half expecting a denial of the news of ghosts, but Father said that it was true. Apparently there were one or two ghosts in residence with us, but, he said “they are really no problem. They only acted up a few times a week and we could live with that.”
How strange it must have seemed to this couple. Here we were, new in town, and living in this huge old house, and already adapted or resigned to living with ghosts. The couple stayed for supper, and into the evening. It was clear that this couple would become regular visitors, and they extended an invitation for us to visit their house. Helen, in a somewhat reassuring manner, announced that they did not have ghosts in their house, but, it was not without some surprises and a past of its own. “I am not going to tell you about it all now,” she said, but when you come to visit you will see for yourself what we have.”
The following morning, my brother and I were called to do a days work on the farm. Mother was at the house with Greg and the dog, both now tied to the playpen just outside the kitchen door. Helen arrived unexpectedly during the morning, to invite mother to go shopping with her. Well mother loved an excuse to go shopping, and so she and Greg were off for a few hours, to explore new shopping territory together. The day was warm and clear, and our work for the day would be to once again cut and harvest hay. Life and its’ many facets was beginning to feel very normal. By mid afternoon just as we were finishing up, we spotted mother and Helen returning. Mother had stopped by to see Helens’ house, and was very excited at telling us what a cute place her new friend had. The house she described was colonial, set back on a dirt road, with a large amount of land and woods behind it. There were, she said, several paths into the woods from the rear of the house, and that later that evening, she wanted us all to go over with her to see something really surprising, that Helen had showed her, down one of the paths. She would not tell us what was there. Helen confirmed that that evening would be a good time to visit her house, and she left for home, also not telling us what to expect. My father and sister returned from work, and were told that after supper we would all be going for a visit.
We hurried through supper, and drove the short distance to our new friend’s home. It was a very pretty house, set back in the woods just a short distance in from the road. Helen and George were waiting for us and met us as we pulled into the driveway. There was still an hour or more of daylight, and we would have plenty of time to walk down the pathway, to see Helens mysterious object. Well, off we went, with our guide pointing out the many, many blueberry bushes along the pathway. “Yes,” she said without being asked, “you guys can come over and pick berries anytime you want.” A few hundred yards down the path, and we arrived at a large clearing in the woods. There before us was the mystery object. A huge cross, standing as much as thirty feet high and obviously a very many years old. Our first thoughts were to pictures of crosses, being burned by the infamous Klan, but not this cross. It was too well made to have been used for that type of activity. The cross had been built with ten to twelve inch thick beams carefully joined and secured. It was not a hastily built object of hatred as with the Klan, but appeared to have been hand crafted with deliberate forethought.
This cross had been the center point of some religion or group of believers, from some place back in time in the history of the house and property now occupied by our friends. Helen had asked the realtor about the cross, but he could shed no light on it. Helen had not met too many local people, and so the cross would remain to her and George a mystery all by itself, for some time to come. Helen explained to us how she and her husband had moved into the house several weeks earlier, not having walked any of the paths, and how on the first Sunday in their new home, they felt drawn to walk that path, and how they first discovered the cross, standing there before us in the now early evening light.
Their discovery was on a bright and beautiful morning, that reminded them of the days of their youth when they would walk to church together. Why, to them, discovering this cross on Sunday morning was almost like going into church. The cross commanded an awe and reverence, usually associated with such things. Helen said, that standing there in the clearing on that morning, she felt the presence of people all around her. She said that it felt like she had walked into a church meeting or gathering, after the service had started, and she could feel the eyes of others looking at her as she moved quietly to one side of the clearing. She went on to say that she had been back to the site many times and each time she discovered something new about it. Small things, but important things that you would not notice on a single visit.
There was indeed some mystery at the home of our new friends, and we, like them, wanted to know more about it. Helen and George suggested that we could all come back over on Sunday morning and take a good look around and offered to point out the things that she had found. This sounded to us like a lot of fun, but, we would be having company again on this Sunday. That was okay with her, we could all come over. We walked back down the path to the house, and stayed for a short visit. When we returned home that evening, we all took guesses as to just what the cross had been set up in that vacant clearing for. Who had erected such a large symbol of faith? How old was it, and was it built there or moved there from some other location? What other mysteries were in the woods just outside of the home of our new friends? Were there other crosses in the area or was Helens’ the only one? Before bed time, we knew that Sunday was a long way off, and all of our questions would have to wait for most of the week before we could find answers.
Tuesday was a normal day, and very much the kind of day that summer should be. Wednesday, was the holiday, and we knew that more guests would be arriving. Mother and Father spent the morning, cleaning out the large china closets in the dining room, and repainting the interior of them. My sister and Greg were off for a walk, and my brother and I were off to hike in the woods, in the general direction of Helen and Georges place. We had guessed that if we walked deep enough into the woods we would eventually come out at their property. We were very much surprised to find an old unused path that led us in the direction that we had planned to explore. There was little indication that the path had been used for many years.
As we walked silently into the woods, we were startled to see, a beautiful deer and her fawn, just off to one side of the path. We stood and watched as the two animals foraged in a small clearing along the path way. Suddenly they sensed our presence and they bolted off to other parts off the woods. Over the course of the summer we would see the animals several times. We continued on our walk, and came across an old partially overgrown cellar hole, or a place where a building had once been. We spent some time looking through the remains of what might have been there, hoping to find some clue as to what it might have been. There was no trace or hint given of its’ origin. We continued on and came to a point where several paths came together, and we made a choice based on our instincts to stay with what we felt was the most direct way to our target. We had to wonder what lay down the other paths, and we made a mental note to revisit the place another day.
After walking for about an hour we finally came to the edge of a large clearing, a field with a small hill in the center. As we neared the center, we looked ahead from the top of the hill, and could see just beyond the tree line, the top of the old wooden cross. We had found our way from our house, through the woods to our neighbors. We had also found several more things that would warrant some investigation at a later date. For now, we had run out of time. We were expected back at the house for lunch, and to await the arrival of our Uncle Cy and his wife. We knew it would take about an hour to return home if we did not get sidetracked again. The woods were a very quiet and peaceful place to be. The silence was broken only by the sound of birds, or an occasional small critter scurrying along the ground. As we emerged from the woods, back to the place from which we had started, we could see the roof line of the farm and the tall cupola on top of the horse barn. The whole scene, and the time in the woods and its’ pathways, could all have been typical of a single day one hundred years in the past. I felt personally bonded to this place, while my brother was still anxious to return to the life of the city from which we had come.
We hurried toward the house, and made it just in time for lunch. During lunch, as we sat around the kitchen table, Father suggested that when Cy and his wife arrived, that we should not all start up by mentioning our ghosts to them. Cy, by Fathers description, was a very devoted church going man, and he would certainly not be a believer in ghosts or things that he could not explain. Father wanted whatever happened or would happen, to come naturally, and without any early warnings. He was I think, looking for a totally innocent and unbiased opinion from his oldest brother of just what we might be experiencing in our new home. He also said that if we were to mention ghosts, we would probably scare poor Aunt Catherine into leaving at once. Catherine, he thought would have far less patience than Cy in dealing with the unknown. It was now apparent to me, just why Father had invited his brother and wife to visit. Certainly it was not to do wiring and plumbing and to afford protection as was the case with Uncle Jimmy. It was not to have friends who we could all share our feelings with, as had been the case with Louie and Alice. This visit was planned to test the waters of true spiritual presence in our home, from a man of uncompromising truth and faith. It would have to unwrap itself in a completely open manner without any preconceived notions of the unnatural. Cy would be indeed a sounding board, a test case to measure the events of Bay Road.
We did not have to wait very long for the arrival of our newest guests. Shortly after lunch was over, we spotted Cys’ old Plymouth coming out Bay Road. Cy lived and worked in the old part of Cambridge, and had little need for an automobile. He could walk to work, and seldom did he drive anywhere to shop. He kept his twelve year old Plymouth registered, just to use for trips to the beach in the summer and for an occasional Sunday drive. The trip by car to upstate New York was perhaps the longest drive that Cy had ever done. Father said he felt bad for Cys’ wife, having to ride with Cy, as Cy never drove over thirty five miles per hour, even when the speed limit allowed.
This trip would take them twice as long as it would for anyone else to make. The first thing that Cy said, after pulling into the driveway was that they had made “good time” on the way up, and that he thought it would have taken a lot longer, especially after they left Massachusetts, and entered Vermont. He was expecting real country roads in Vermont. Father greeted them first and congratulated them on having made it at all, in just one day. Before they had even arrived, they had decided to stay with us only until Saturday, not Sunday as we had thought. I am sure that Cy, being fathers’ oldest brother, felt that this visit was in some way an obligation, to help out and to support his younger brother’s efforts at reconciliation with his family. Cy and his wife both had a great deal of respect and love for my mother, and both realized how much she had been through being married to my father. Mother welcomed them both and promptly led them into our new home.
Their first impression of the house was much as expected. Big, about as big as a house can get, and not be a hotel. Catherine was quite impressed with the new furniture, and said several times how much she wished that Cy would let her get some new stuff. Their house in Cambridge was just about small enough to fit easily into our new living room and dining room. Catherine said she would love to move out of the city into a big old house somewhere, and have a chance to start all over, with new furniture and drapes and all. Together now, both of our guests were taken for the tour of the house. The tour of the house was done in the now almost routine format, and with each room entered, Catherine again remarked on how lucky we were to have so much space. No mention was made of unusual or unnatural occurrences in the house.
At the end of the hallway on the second floor, the small room was still locked, and had not been opened for several days. They of course inquired as to what was in that room. Mother commented that there was nothing in the room, and that we were just using it as storage space for now. They wanted to see it, and so the door was opened. As the door opened, Mother looked at Father, and he at her, in disbelief of what they both noticed, but what had been unnoticed by our guests. Both windows in the room were standing half way open and a delightful breeze was gently blowing through the room. The room was warm and welcoming, and its’ appearance betrayed any evidence of prior events and occurrences that we had become so accustomed to. “Oh Dot, said Catherine, “this is a lovely room. You should use it as a sewing room or an upstairs den”. She sat in the rocking chair and again commented that she would definitely have a sewing room, just for her stuff, if it were in her house. “That is a good idea,” said mother, gently closing the windows and leading our guests out of the room. “I will have to think about that.” I am sure that mothers’ thoughts at that moment were not about a sewing room. There can be reasons for windows to close seemingly by themselves, but now we had two that had opened, in a locked room, with no apparent help. I think a sewing room would wait. We returned to the kitchen, and began a visit with our new Uncle and Aunt. They of course knew us from early childhood, but we had not gotten to know them at all during Fathers’ absence, from our lives.
My Uncle Cy, and his wife Catherine, were very quiet and reserved people. They were not big on conversations, and had not lived exciting lives. To make the trip up to New York was indeed a big event in their lives, and as they talked of it, it was apparent that they had been preparing for several days before actually driving up. Just to be safe, Cy had new tires put on his car, and had taken it in for service. The car, although it was twelve years old, had only been driven about twenty thousand miles. It was apparent that this couple, lived in a very frugal manner, and seldom invested in extravagance of any type. I knew that Cy was a blue collar worker, and had managed to earn just enough to buy the old house in Cambridge, and to raise three children. Catherine made a point of saying that even though the house was small, the children would one day be grown and move out, and then they would have more room. Like us, she was surprised at just how big our new house was. She chided father about his extravagance at picking such a large house, and was more than surprised to learn he had done it on his own without any input from mother. Obviously, Cy would not have dared to make such a move without his wife’s approval, or permission. Cy made it clear, that knowing his brother so well; he would not have expected anything less than the biggest house in town. The discussion turned to fathers’ new job, and then to mothers driving lessons. Soon, it was time to take the outside tour of the property.
It was getting late in the afternoon as we all began the grand tour of the barns and shops. As we entered the horse barns, Cy was fascinated to see the name boards placed carefully above several of the stalls. “Now that was a real horse” he said pointing to one such board. “That horse won just about every race it was ever in.” As it turned out, Cy was known to slip out of the house on rare occasions and frequent the Suffolk Downs race track just north of Boston. Horse racing, was a sport that he enjoyed, and he was not against spending a dollar or two now and then to prove the point. We visited each of the barns, including the dairy barn. We pointed out some of the machines that Louie had identified and showed them where he had cleared a work space and made the harness for Greg. We stopped briefly in front of the old silo, to let our guest look in. The only comment that they made was that it did need some repair work. They apparently felt nothing unusual about any of what they had seen at the farm house or the barns. It all seemed to be everything that an old farm property should be. Big spacious, and needing a lot of work. At the end of the tour, almost as a compliment, Cy said to my father, “Ben, it’s quite a place that you’ve got here. I hope it all works out for you and Dot and the kids.” I think Cy had his doubts!
It was now late in the day on the Fourth of July holiday, and our latest guests had arrived, been given the tour, and now suppertime was at hand. The fourth of July means fireworks, and a quick check of the local newspaper announced several displays planned for that evening. The choice was made to drive up to the lake, where a display was planned for about nine PM. This would give us plenty of time to find a good hamburger or hot dog place, and to walk around and see a little more of nearby Lake George. We all crowded into the car and were off to the Lake. Our guest found the scenery outstanding, and we stopped every few miles to empty out of the car for the required picture taking sessions, and to stretch our legs. It was very crowded with all of us in one car, but if we had elected to have Uncle Cy drive his car and follow us, then we would possibly not have arrived at the lake in time for the fireworks. He did drive very slowly.
Drive a few miles, stretch the legs, smile and say cheese, and climb back in the car for another fifteen minute ride. Well, we did eventually arrive at the lake, along with hundreds of other people, and we did after a long while find parking space. We walked along the main street, and looked into several souvenir shops, and at several other small businesses. I recall Uncle Cy making one or two small purchases. After the shops we made our way to an outdoor hamburger stand, and were completely satisfied by the offerings. We walked to the beach area at the south end of the lake, and found a good place to watch the fireworks show. As we spread out along the wall at the end of the beach, Cy mentioned that he had received a phone call from Uncle Jimmy after Jimmy had visited with us. Had Jimmy given him any hint of unusual activities, ghosts?
Well Father questioned Cy as to what Jimmy had to say about the old house. Cy responded by saying that Jimmy had not said very much about the house at all, just that it was nice and real big. He did however tell him of a nearby ice cream shop that if he had a chance to go there, he should order a banana split, because there was a waitress that made a really good one. Cy offered to treat when we had time to go out again, maybe a little later in the week. If Jimmy had mentioned ghosts, Cy was not revealing it. We would just have to wait and see.
The fireworks show went off as scheduled and after all the oohs and ahhs were done, we all piled back into the car for a long cramped ride home. The hour was late, and Father and Joan had to work the next day, so bedtime was at hand. All went well for the first days visit, and in time the house grew still and with Dusty settled into his place in the hall, we slept. Tomorrow was Thursday and we new we would be up early.
With the first light of day, we found that my uncle and aunt were already up. They were sitting out on the front porch, and were engaged in a recitation of the morning Rosary. This was part of there faith, at the start of each day. We did not approach them until it appeared that they had finished their prayers. By seven AM everyone was in the kitchen for breakfast, with Father and my sister ready to leave for work. Mother surprised us by announcing that with Cy and Catherine leaving earlier than expected, she had called her new friend Helen and asked if we could bring our guests to see the cross in the back of her house. My brother and I offered to lead on a long walk through the woods, on the path that we had found that would lead us to the area. We guessed that even walking we would make better time than if Cy drove. Well that was it then. A walk in the woods and a visit to Helens was the first order of business for Thursday morning.
Like a parade of Pilgrims we set out on our walk in the woods. My brother and I led as Mother with Greg and Dusty following close behind her, and Cy and Catherine bringing up the rear. It appeared that Cy not only drove slowly, he walked slowly as well. As we entered the woods, we were again observant of all the beauty that surrounded us, and we stopped often to look at a plant, an old rock, an unusual bush, small animals, and to take a moment to guess when the last persons had walked this path. We noticed a fork in the path that I don’t think my brother and I had noticed before. One day we would have to explore it!
Today, our goal was to reach the opening in the woods where the towering cross was located, and to study the area in which it had been erected. We were on a mission of discovery. In about an hours time, we could see the clearing ahead of us, and I noticed that Cy’’ pace was picking up a little. As we neared the cross, we spotted Helen, sitting to one side of the clearing. She had allowed time for us to get through the woods, and left her house to walk out and greet us there. Mother introduced our guests, and Helen, brought forth a cooler of soft drinks that she had prepared for us. It was her turn now to unveil some of the discoveries that she had made.
She led us to a point about fifty feet from the base of the cross. Beside a small rock that she had placed there, she pointed out a circle about 6 inches in diameter, in which nothing was growing. With her hand she pushed aside the soil that was on the top, revealing the visible circles of an old wood post. She then moved ten feet further, around the clearing, and revealed another rock and circle in the ground. See she said, pointing to a dozen or more such rocks, that she had placed on the ground. There is a ring of old posts, now all rotted away, but I think they were poles to support some type of canopy over the whole area. Cy, hit the nail on the head, by declaring them to be tent posts. The cross, appeared to have been in the center of a large tent, supported by tall six inch tent posts that formed a circle all around it. Cy, thinking out loud, declared that this was probably the site of an old revival tent, or some other such activity.
With a lot more scratching in the dirt, we found all of the posts that had encircled the area. We were also able to make out the location of spots where old benches had been located in a circle around the cross. We were able to determine that the huge cross had been erected just slightly behind the mid point of the circle, and as expected we were able to locate the exact center of the circle. At dead center as expected we found the remains of a twelve inch center post, and it soon was apparent that this had indeed been the location of a great religious revival tent many years before.
Helen told us that she had suspected this and had done some research at a local library, and that several similar sights had been located at other areas in and around upstate New York. She was pleased that we had come to her “Church in The Woods” and again reminded us that on Sunday mornings she felt both, at ease visiting the spot, and also felt that she was not alone when she was there. Mother said that she would like very much to visit again, on Sunday morning, if Father had no more company planned for the weekend.
Uncle Cy and Catherine on feeling the awesome splendor of this antique place of worship, asked Helen if it would be alright with her if they could say a prayer for all those folks who had been there before, and surprisingly, mother interrupted to ask that it include all those who may still be there. In her own way, mother was letting us in on another of her suspicions.
We spent another half hour investigating the “Church in the Woods” and then made our way back to our house. We walked again through the woods on paths that were now becoming familiar to us, paths that had not felt a footstep or heard a voice in many, many years. We again saw the beautiful Doe and her fawn and simply passed by without disturbing her. Squirrels scolded us from the treetops as we passed, and an occasional critter would dart across the path ahead of us. It was another beautiful Thursday afternoon when we returned to the house.
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© Copyright 2007 Peter Yule (UN: peteryule at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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