MORE PATROL: We heard from Roscoe Brown of Bradford who dropped
us a line in response to Bob Byerly’s account of his trip as a
safety patrol to Detroit instead of Washington, D.C.
Roscoe Brown writes, “[Bob’s note] brought back memories of a
similar trip I made with two classmates in 1940. I made the trip
with Daryl Osborne and Tom Marsh. We were recipients of vocational
awards from Bradford High School.
“Mr. Soyster, machine shop teacher, and vocational director Dr.
Edward Estebrooke accompanied us. After making the cruise from
Buffalo to Detroit, we visited the Ford Museum and other points of
interest. We made the return trip to Bradford with a car we had
taken on the ship.”
SACRED GROUND: Our local cemeteries are rightly revered as the
final resting places for our loved ones, but they also provide a
rich historical and architectural rendering of our past.
We put an abbreviated version of this in “Another Era” several
days ago but thought it enough of a curio to print it in its
entirety from the front page of the June 23, 1906, Era. It reminds
us of the efforts it took to go out in style in an age when horses
were the “heavy equipment” of their day:
“The largest monument that has ever been shipped to this city is
now being placed in Oak Hill Cemetery on the lot of Mrs. W.R.
Weaver, to the memory of her husband. It is of Barre, Vt., granite
and consists of two pieces. The die weighs about 30,000 pounds and
took nine of the best teams of Bisett Bros. to haul it to the
cemetery. When the steepest hills were reached, they could not move
it and required the use of block and tackle to get it in place. The
work was completed at Olean from the works of Foley Bros. Co.
monumental dealers.”
Two days later, this news item appeared in the Era: “Oak Hill
Cemetery will be beautified upon the erection of a mausoleum for
A.F. Moore and family to be erected by Hodges & Hastings of
this city.
“The mausoleum will contain 12 catacombs, which will be
constructed in the rear, and a vestibule, all to be finished in
marble. The doors and windows will be of bronze. The exterior to be
of best Barre, Vt., granite, the granite alone weighing 100,000
pounds or 80 tons.”
TODAY’S QUOTE: “I’m not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth,
particularly when 6 billion others have much poorer hands than I do
in life,” Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, who began last week
distributing most of his $44 billion fortune to charity.
