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    Growing up on the Farm: A Sharon Mountain Story
    Growing up on the Farm: A Sharon Mountain Story
    Growing up on the Farm: A Sharon Mountain Story
    Ebook217 pages2 hours

    Growing up on the Farm: A Sharon Mountain Story

    By Richard L. Carley

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    About this ebook

    Richard Carleys earliest memories of Sharon Mountain were of Albert Metz, whose philanthropic ideas gave many young people from all over the world, their musical start. The book describes the building of Fiddlestyx, Mr. Metzs summer music school complete with stage, practice cabins, and farm to provide the guests with food.

    His next memories were of Bob Metz, Mr. Metzs nephew, a role model for a young boy growing up on a farm who provided him with a positive attitude, comfort, care, and devotion following a tragic accident.

    Other powerful memories were of his father, a former farmer on Sharon Mountain and a First Selectman of the Town of Sharon, and of his grandfather, a builder, carpenter, and cabinet maker in Sharon.

    Throughout the book there are stories about things few people know about. Who ever heard of a cowpound on Sharon Mountain, or knew about the reason for the Town Poor Farm? Who knew the town of Sharon had a 3rd District one room school house located on Sharon Mountain? Who has ever heard of swimming pools for pigs?

    The author writes about simple things of the time such as the three different types of haymaking that dont exist today; about raising calves, working with horses for plowing fields, bringing milk to the milk stands, feeding twenty-two cats at once and about raising a bull calf for a short while before realizing it was a heifer calf, who went on to become the best milker in the herd.

    Funny things happened in those seventeen years; such things as a black snake he wrapped in a typewriter and a dead woodchuck he hid under the front seat of a friends old pickup truck, a full fledged manure fight he had with his brother, and the throwing of the baby sitters shoes out in the snow.

    The memories are fun, joyful and historical. This is an account of personal relationships and their effect on the history of the area.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateOct 28, 2011
    ISBN9781463419639
    Growing up on the Farm: A Sharon Mountain Story
    Author

    Richard L. Carley

    Richard L. Carley wrote this book for his children and grandchildren so they would know about his life while growing up on Sharon Mountain in Sharon, Connecticut. It portrays his fondest memories as well as the many things that have changed on Sharon Mountain over the past 70 years. The author came to Sharon (his father’s hometown) in 1942 when he was five years old. Almost immediately he began a 17-year journey he would never forget. This is the period he writes about. Much of his account is the history of the farms on Sharon Mountain as they were in the 1940s and 1950s. The author dissects each farm family on where and how they lived, where they came from, and the love and working relationship they had with each other. He also shows all the farm homes as they exist today. “Dick Carley’s grandfather, John Carley, built many of the farm houses and barns on Sharon Mountain, and Dick grew up in one of them. He recounts in exquisite detail, what that life was like, how the dairy farmers moved from horse power to tractors and why federal mandates put so many of them out of business. In Growing Up On the Farm, A Sharon Mountain Story, Dick has recaptured a valuable skein of Sharon History, that would otherwise have been lost. The town owes him a vote of thanks.” Priscilla L. Buckley Former Senior Editor of the National Review "Dick Carley’s tale of growing up in Sharon, Connecticut tells us a lot about the American spirit. By the age of ten he had twice been given his last rites by a Catholic priest, survived the whooping cough and lost part of a leg in a farm accident. Yet, Dick never turned bitter and managed to keep his sense of boyhood wonder about a place where neighbors were generous and horses still pulled farm equipment through the fields. His account is a valuable addition to the history of Sharon, a classic New England town made all the better by people like Dick." Brian Ross Chief Investigative Correspondent ABC News

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      Book preview

      Growing up on the Farm - Richard L. Carley

      © 2011 by Richard L. Carley. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      First published by AuthorHouse 09/12/2011

      ISBN: 978-1-4634-1962-2 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4634-1958-5 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4634-1963-9 (ebk)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2011910065

      Printed in the United States of America

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      The Beginning

      Chapter 2

      Albert Metz

      Chapter 3

      The Birth of Fiddlestyx

      Chapter 4

      The Summer of `42

      Chapter 5

      Water Holes

      Chapter 6

      Building the Barn Complex

      Chapter 7

      The Animals

      Chapter 8

      The Practice Cabins

      Chapter 9

      Vegetable Garden

      Chapter 10

      Early Equipment

      Chapter 11

      The Smiths

      Chapter 12

      Bob Metz

      Chapter 13

      The Sharon Mountain Community

      Chapter 14

      Going to School

      Chapter 15

      Babysitters

      Chapter 16

      Whooping Cough

      Chapter 17

      Trying to Save

      Chapter 18

      Getting the Milk to the Market

      Chapter 19

      Albert Zutter

      Chapter 20

      Planting and Harvesting Corn

      Chapter 21

      Making Hay

      Chapter 22

      The Accident

      Chapter 23

      Back on the Farm

      Chapter 24

      Transition of Haymaking

      Chapter 25

      The Sawyers

      Chapter 26

      Yankee Stadium

      Chapter 27

      Raising Calves

      Chapter 28

      School Daze

      Chapter 29

      Lighter Moments

      Chapter 30

      Hunting

      Chapter 31

      The Storm

      Chapter 32

      The Devil Made me Do it

      Chapter 33

      Working with Dad

      Chapter 34

      Damn the Feds

      Epilogue

      This book is dedicated to:

      Bob Metz whose love and devotion to children of all ages, spilled over to an eight year old boy growing up on Sharon Mountain. To this day he remains one of my closest friends.

      Richard A. Carley, my father and mentor who guided me through life for 65 years with all the love a father could give. He was and is, my Guardian Angel.

      Special Thanks

      To my three children, Richard, Theresa and Patrick for their encouragement to write this book for the last twenty years.

      To John Belter and Bob Metz for helping me find the perfect pictures.

      To Megan and Christina Kenny, my granddaughters, who converted my hen-scratching handwriting to typewritten words so that I could read what I wrote.

      To Priscilla Buckley whose inspiration and help made this book a reality.

      To Brian Ross for his wonderfully kind words.

      To Darren Winston for his knowledge of the book business, his advice on how to ready the book for publishing, and his polishing touch. He was my Guiding Light.

      To Peter Richman who unselfishly gave his time and professionalism to make this a better book.

      To Jonathan Doster for letting me use his photography and photographic expertise.

      To Patrick Carley, my son, whose photographic skills and computer expertise took some very old pictures and made them publishable. Pat also used his artistic talent to design and put together the beautiful jacket that encompasses this book.

      To Mary Anne Carley, my wife, for her patience and computer skills. The amount of time she exerted to get this book ready for the publisher was phenomenal. Also, I thank her for her words of encouragement throughout the process.

      And to the many behind the scene people I may have forgotten to mention who helped with the creation of this book.

      Foreword

      What made my life unique was the love the farm gave me and the love I had for the farm. Following is a collection of memories portraying my life growing up on a farm in Sharon, Connecticut.

      Chapter 1

       The Beginning

      In the spring of 1934, my father, Richard A. Carley, a senior at Sharon High School, got word that he was accepted at Catholic University in Washington D.C. Not only was he thrilled, but his parents, John and Henrietta Carley, were equally happy because they wanted Dad to go to a Catholic College.

      001_a_reigun.jpg

      Dad is on the right in his basketball cheerleading uniform.

      At college Dad was a B student. He worked hard to get those marks because he wanted to please his parents. In sports he excelled as a light middleweight boxer. With no prior training he learned fast in his first, and only, year in college. He won three of his four bouts. He was also a cheerleader for the basketball team.

      Also while at college he met my mother. They fell in love, and at the end of Dad’s first year in college, he left to take a job. He started out as a carpenter for a building construction company. Based on his past experience of working for his father, John Carley, Dad rose from a carpenter to a supervisor in a short period of time. He was in charge of ten new homes being built at the same time, all in various stages of construction. Incidentally, Dad helped my grandfather build Camp Easton, which today is the Silver Lake Shores Conference Center in Sharon, Connecticut as well as the Music Mountain complex in Falls Village, Connecticut.

      002_a_reigun.jpg

      After a year and a half of courtship, Dad married my mother, Rose Marie Howard in the summer of 1936. Mom’s parents were Henry Lee Howard (who died in 1934) and Rosemary (Hillary) Howard who lived in a large house on top of a hill in Hyattsville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

      Dad and Mom holding the author at the age of one or so on Grandma Howard’s front porch in Hyattsville, Maryland in 1938.

      In early 1937, I came into the picture. According to my parents, I was born three months premature, weighed three pounds and had no hair or fingernails. They even had a priest come in and give me Last Rites because they didn’t expect me to live through the first night. This was an auspicious beginning to say the least.

      Dad, me, my little brother Mike, and our dog Mickey at our house below Grandma Howard’s house in Hyattsville, Maryland.

      1.jpg

      Mom and Dad rented a small house at the foot of the hill adjacent to Grandma Howard’s property in Maryland. We lived there for five years and I have a few real and a few vague memories of my time there. I barely remember my brother Michael being born when I was about two and a half years old. But when Mike was older, I do remember playing with him in the sandbox. I had a toy steam shovel, he had a truck, and every day we both had a blast playing in the sandbox.

      Our house was located at the end of the road and behind us was a large field over grown with brush. There was a path through the brush and up a hill to Grandma’s house. When you got to the top, and stepped onto the lawn, you saw a big three-story house. It was awesome. The front of the house had an enormous porch overlooking Route 1 at the bottom of the hill and it also had four large pillars which were two stories high. Behind the house there was the driveway and a three-car garage. Behind the garage was a large school complex surrounded by a page wire fence with two strands of barbed wire on top. I remember spending a lot of time staring through that fence, watching the kids play, and wishing that I could be with them.

      Grandma’s house was also huge inside. Each room was enormous and had ceilings 12 feet high. The staircase was extremely wide, with a landing. It had a semi-formal door at the back of the house with a walkway leading to the driveway. At the end of the walkway there were two bushes and a light post.

      It was at this spot that I had a bad encounter with a catbird. One day, I was out back playing in the driveway when Grandma called me in for lunch. I started up the walkway and was attacked by the catbird. It went for my head and it pecked at it very hard. After much screaming and flailing about with my hands, the catbird finally left. It tore the skin on my head and I was bleeding. Grandma, hearing me scream, came rushing out just as the bird left. She took me inside, cleaned me up, and patched the wound.

      One of my fondest memories of that time was of Dad and Mom taking Mike and me to an airport, twice a month, to watch the air shows. They were held at two different airports on Sunday afternoons. Bi-planes did rolls and various stunts in the sky. Every show ended with a stunt person standing on the top wing, with a rope to hold onto, while the plane was taking off and flying around the airport. It was spectacular.

      Sometime in January, 1942, Dad got word from his father that a job awaited in Sharon as a farm manager for a large estate. After much discussion, Dad and Mom decided that it was a good opportunity and that they should go for it. For the trip, Dad bought a brand new 1942 four-door Chevy sedan. He paid $649 dollars for that car. So in March, 1942, they packed up the car and headed for Sharon. This was a happy trip as it was fulfilling one of my father’s dreams.

      Chapter 2

      Albert Metz

      Albert Frederick Metz, Sharon, 1948.

      On October 18, 1893, August and Eleanor Metz welcomed the arrival of their new son Albert Frederick Metz born in Brooklyn, New York. The young Mr. Metz attended local schools and finished his formal education at the City College of New York.

      On August 1, 1920, Mr. Metz married Marion Christfield. From this marriage they had one daughter, Betty Ann. Betty Ann went on to become a college professor.

      After college, Mr. Metz started work at the Okonite Cable Company in the business office. He moved up to treasurer, then vice president, then president. In the late 1940s he became the CEO of Okonite Cable.

      In his very early years he developed a great love for music. This was mainly because his father was a composer and a musician. Mr. Metz loved string music and played the violin very well. They built an addition onto their home in Rutherford, New Jersey so he would have the space to play

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