Hi. I'm Barbara (Thurston) Petty and I'm one of those who drop in regularly to check up on the latest news of Lockport at the Lockport website. I'm a former Lockportian. I'd love to see people share their recollections of Lockport living. It would be interesting to hear from those who left Lockport like I did, and also those who live there yet. To start the ball rolling, I'd like to share some of my own memories of life as it once was in Lockport. Since our family left Lockport when I was twelve years old and and left the State at age eighteen, my memories of Lockport are slightly faded and are those of my childhood, yet many are fairly vivid and portray a Lockport as I perceived it about fifty years ago.
I was born in the winter of 1943 in Lockport City Hospital. My earliest memories revolve around life in our turn-of-the-century-built two-story home at 12 Vine Street where I lived from the age of about three years to the age of twelve. This home housed my parents, Chet and Winnie Thurston, my two older sisters, Beverly and Shirley, and me, and our little brother Doug. At some point in the early 50's Grandma Wright, my mother's mother, an Indiana-born lady (born 1871) by then a widow, came to live with us too. When my sister Shirley married her soldier husband, Austin Willis of Shawnee AFB, from Arkansas, he joined us to round out an already rather bulging household. Austin and Shirley stayed with us on Vine Street until they were established enough to move out on their own. About the time that Austin arrived, my oldest sister, Bev, married Tony Nunnari and moved away.
The Vine Street house was kept toasty warm by a coal furnace in the "cellar," which Dad had to feed coal a couple of times a day. The coal was deposited in the coal bin adjacent to the furnace. There was one large register in the dining room area which I loved standing over to get thawed out after outside play on wintry days. There was an air exchange in the kitchen to an upstairs bedroom through which I'd eavesdrop on kitchen conversations after I'd been sent to bed. Our family were "kitchen sitters" as opposed to my husband's southern family who enjoy retiring from the table to a sitting room. I attribute our kitchen sitting to ancient habits. My family for the most part derived from New Englanders. The habit in New England was for the family to gather around the hearth and the hearth served a dual purpose, one being meal preparation the other more obvious one being to warm the house.
My Grandmother Wright lived with us (b.
1871). She's inWe attended First Presbyterian Church in City of Lockport, and later sometimes the Presbyterian Church in Wrights Corners NY. Rev. Stephen Palmer was minister of First Presbyterian, and Dr. Gee was assistant minister. I attended Church School at First Presbyterian, and Sunday School, and also sang in the childrens' choir.
Mrs. Madriska was the church organist, and taught me privately on the piano. Unfortunately I was not a good student, had not asked to take lessons, and still can't play after about 5 years of lessons between Mrs. Madriska and the stern, dignified, and artistically temperamental Miss Hamilton. I think it had something to do with the piano gene having skipped me... and the fact that I wouldn't practice. But between Mrs. Madriska, and Mrs. Beccue, my high school music appreciation teacher/choral director, I did manage a fondness at least of listening to classical music for which I'm very thankful.
When my little brother, the first and only boy after three girls, came along in 1946, he stole my thunder as the baby of the family making me a "middle child", so I took to wandering the extended neighborhood and visiting with folks who I'd find sitting on their porches. To say it wasn't easy for my mother to keep me at home then is an understatement. Mother tried tying me up, putting a rope harness affair on me, which I easily wriggled out of. She even went so far as to tie a rope around my neck once, only to embarrass herself when my neck became very red from rope burn.
People I came into contact with on my jaunts were quite friendly, perhaps because it was unusual to see a three and a half to four year old wandering the streets all alone. Yet my impression was that Lockport folks were very friendly in those days. It wasn't so risky then for a small child to wander as I did. Besides, Mother couldn't chase after me with a newborn baby son at home. I subsequently ended up being quite a tomboy.
My brother, to my chagrin, eventually ended up tagging along with me most of the time. We used to sometimes visit with a Mrs. Williams, an older woman, who lived in a second story apartment in a house on the corner of East Avenue and Vine. She was a very pleasant woman. She had a hand puppet which was a monkey, and she used to sing "Roll Out The Barrel" to us using the monkey to accompany her which danced with delight to the tune. Her television used to be on quite often during our visits, and I recall filmed scenes from the Korean War (mentioning the "Reds") playing out during our visits, which, unfortunately for our hostess, indicate we must have called on her around lunch time when the news was on. Yet she always welcomed us graciously into her home and never ever turned us away. I recall hearing Truman's voice in those days (which I liked a lot) and the name Dean Atcheson spoken a lot (whose name I loved to hear said).
Across East Avenue from Mrs. Williams lived my first grade teacher, Miss O'Brien. Next door to Mrs. Williams, on Vine Street, lived my second grade teacher, Miss Wetmore. Miss Spalding, the school principal, lived further down East Avenue, nearer downtown and beyond the Herzogs' and Pickles' homes. Across Vine Street from Mrs. Williams, was the small neighborhood grocery store, Charles Christie proprietor, where we kids would go for special treats like candy, and on sweltering summer days popcicles or good ol' fudgecicles. The store sold produce, canned goods, and had a meat market where you could ask the butcher to do special cuts of meat for you, or cut you a precise amount. I was sometimes given a note and money from my mother to give to the grocer, who would fill our small order, which I'd dutifully carry home to Mother. The folks at that store undoubtedly knew all the folks in the neighborhood. What stories they could probably tell! There were probably small single-owner stores in all neighborhoods then. Maybe there still are in spite of the large chains of this era? 7-11s and their ilk were as yet unheard of.
This picture was taken at my cousin Don's wedding
in Rochester. They say that by the age of 7 a child is the person they're going to be.
That's me in theMy Aunt Hazel, Mother's sister, and Uncle Tom Wilson lived around the corner from us, two blocks away, in a large, grand, regal looking, two-story house on the corner of East Avenue and Pound Street. It was a veritable mansion in my estimation.
I recall when an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Gaull, on Vine Street died her body was put on display in a casket in her living room. That was done sometimes in those days instead of employing a funeral home. I paid my respects. At the time I loved going to funerals - don't ask why. Maybe it was the heavenly scent of flowers in those days before the scent was bred out of them for the sake of appearance? Or perhaps just plain old morbid curiosity? Mrs. Gaull had grape vines growing in her back yard which came in handy during evening neighborhood hide and go seek games but she never ran us off. That made her a good sport in my book.
When we got very sick and confined to our beds, "Doc" Fitzgerald (as my Dad called him) used to come to the house with his little black satchel filled with a supply of pills or shot serums to help us get better. Later "Old" preceded his name, though my father was probably older than he was. "Old Doc Fitzgerald" made housecalls, as I understand it, for most of his life, and long after that practice generally ceased to exist.
Our telephone number at 12 Vine Street was 4122-J and people could call us by asking the operator for the number. All you did when you wanted to make a call was pick up the phone and a friendly operator would come online to assist you in connecting your call.
Though not really an exclusively Lockport thing, we got a television set when I was about 8 years old. I don't know if it was one of the first or not, but it didn't have a round screen like some did in those days, so I'd imagine our family had held off until the square screens came out. It was an Admiral table model. How little did I realize the historical significance that the advent of TV would have on our lives. For one thing, it ended some of the kitchen sitting and conversation that a family might otherwise enjoy. And today each family member might even have their own personal TV and watch separate programs alone. There wasn't a lot of programing to watch yet, and certainly no Cable channels and all programs were in black and white. I recall my grandmother sitting very close to the screen (she was almost blind by then, having one glass eye) as she watched the 15 minute soap operas each day.
Prior to getting the TV I used to sometimes sit nestled in the curves, where the speakers were, of our old RCA console radio and listened to my favorite shows like Roy Rogers. Some nights we gathered as a family around the RCA and were treated to shows like the Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen Show, or Jack Benney, or Burns and Allen, or other old greats. I can also recall listening to the delightful Baby Snooks, starring Fanny Brice (later played by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl), and The Great Gildersleeve. For suspense we listened to shows like The Shadow or The Squeaking Door. On Saturday mornings it was Smiling Ed McDonald with Midnight the cat and Froggie with his magic twanger. There were daytime soaps on the radio too, like Ma Perkins or Stella Dallas.
When my Arkansas born brother-in-law was introduced into the family, he managed to find some country and western music on that radio. It was my first introduction to that genre of music. I recall Teresa Brewer's and Patsy Cline's songs, but they had probably crossed the charts into pop by the time I heard them. Later in life I'd enjoy listening to a new singer named Elvis singing Love Me Tender on it. The mellow musical melodies of the satin voiced Vaughn Monroe serenaded me during my lunch break from school, and his voice still sings in my memory as if it was only yesterday. It always sounded to me like he had a bubble in his throat. When his show went off, I knew it was time to hie myself for that trek back to Washington Hunt Elementary School for the afternoon session. His show may have been on TV instead of the radio - my memories are a little vague about that detail now. That old RCA had a great sound. Wish I had it now. I don't know what finally became of it but it still worked fine when I left home at age eighteen.
I have fond memories of those days before TV, but was very fickle when TV came out. It never occurred to me that the advent of TV would change radio forever and it wasn't until later that I rued the change. I used to rush home from play to see Kate Smith in the afternoons. The Hunt commercials (ketchup and tomato paste etc), even in black and white, made my mouth water as dinner was being prepared in our kitchen while Kate sang along. I don't know exactly what it was that Kate Smith had. Having a decidely matronly figure, she was no raving beauty, but she had an inward beauty and a great voice, and I sure loved her show. I also adored watching Buster Crabb as Flash Gordon (I had thrown over Roy Rogers for Buster as my new hearthrob). And of course, every Tuesday night was the Texaco Star Theater- "Uncle Miltie" Berle's show. He was the king of TV then. I think the name of another show was Lights Out, which came on Monday nights. There was a man, dressed in black, sitting over a candle in the dark who greeted you and set up the show. His name might have been Frank Gallop. I don't recall many of the plots of that show, but his face as he sat over that candle with the light flickering and accenting the boney contours as he talked in a deep baritone voice to the audience are indelibly etched in my memory.
I took tap dancing lessons for a while at Mrs. Rooney's on Juniper Street. She had a mirror lined studio in her home.
There were no Barbie dolls in those days, and I didn't play with baby dolls, so I used to play with paper dolls. A friend of mine, Carol Emhart, had an older sister who had a set of paper dolls based on the movie Gone With The Wind. They were the piece de resistance! We were allowed to play with them, but had to be ever so careful of them and make sure they weren't gone with the wind. We played with them on her front porch on Juniper Street carefully setting stones on the piles of clothes so they wouldn't blow away.
My brother and I attended Washington Hunt Elementary school. Miss Spalding was principal then. She was an energetic petite matron who dressed very strikingly and wore spiked high heels, lots of makeup, and perfume which permeated the classroom upon her visits. She had beautiful white teeth and bright yellow blonde hair which I recall she pulled neatly up onto the top of her head in curled ringlets. She was probably in her late forties at least, or perhaps even in her fifties. I've never been a good judge of age. Instead of saying "Good Bye" as she left the classroom, Miss Spalding always said "Cheerio."
There was a school safety patrol, made up of appointed students, at each intersection around the school and one captain elected by the fellow students. They sported police-like belts across their chests, and helped young ones get across the streets safely and suffered no monkey business from the older ones.
As we entered the school each morning there was march music blaring in the halls, and appointed hall monitors (fellow students) greeted us at the top of the steps, all of which assisted us in entering the school in an orderly fashion to the boisterous musical strains of John Phillip Sousa. It probably also assisted us in getting the sleep out of our heads.
We began each schoolday with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag uniting side by side, as partners, God and country. I don't think that harmed any of us. At some point we had to learn a new phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance. The words "under God" were inserted after "one nation." At Christmas we always sang carols and hymns and put on a Christmas program for our parents.
When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, TVs were brought in and entire classes sat in the halls so we could observe that historic event.
In those days we'd also have to practice what we'd do if there was an atomic bomb attack. We would "duck and cover" getting ourselves either under our desks or go out into the halls and sit down along the walls covering our faces in our laps with our hands over our heads. I felt perfectly confident that I'd be alright if I was at school when the bomb came, but it rather worried me that Mom and Dad hadn't built us a bomb shelter when they became a fad.
Occasionally someone would barf and the janitor would come and clean it up while we left the room. Poor good ol' janitor. We used to make Sunshine Rings for those who were sick and absent for a length of time. Sunshine Rings were a circle made of brightly colored construction paper with a paper doily glued over it and salutations written around the edge to the sick one from us well kids and a bouquet of lollypops stuffed through a hole in the center of it. These were not given out lightly but only after a child had been out sick a certain amount of time. I was never sick long enough to receive a Sunshine Ring.
On Arbor Day one year, our class celebrated by planting a tree beside the school driveway. I wonder if it is still living? It would be a pretty good sized tree by now. I shall never forget that event, and I have a great respect yet for trees. Every child should plant a tree.
I attended Washington Hunt through the sixth grade. No one seemed to have any trouble learning to read in those days. We were taught phonetically using books about Dick and Jane and their little sister Sally. And no one seemed to have to take medication for being hyperative or had any trouble keeping still in their seats. But perhaps my memory is faulty on that account?
I remember with great fondness certain times of the year in Lockport. One of my favorite times was Memorial Day when Lockport had a grand parade which began downtown, followed down Main Street until it became East Avenue, and continued on out East Avenue to Cold Springs Cemetery where Lockport's soldiers, buried there, were given a salute with guns in a solemn ceremony. Bands from around the county and soldiers from surrounding military bases, and I'm sure veterans, and Scout troops also took part in the parade. I still have very strong patriotic feelings which probably stem in part from the old Memorial Day celebrations. Since my early years took in the period just after World War II, there was probably a very patriotic feeling blanketing the entire country then. That too may have contributed to my psychic leanings toward strong patriotic feelings.
Both parents eventually worked for and retired from Harrison Radiator Division of General Motors. My brother-in-law, Austin, also worked there when he left the military, and my brother eventually worked there too and now he has also recently retired. I guess it's no longer Harrisons but Delphi-Harrison. If I hadn't left the area I might have ended up working there too. It was probably Lockport's largest employer.
Harrison used to put on a large picnic for its employees in the summer in the park at Olcott Beach on the shore of Lake Ontario and swarms of families attended. There were 50 yard dashes and other contests where you could win prizes, and you could ride the rides at the amusement park free as I recall. That was great fun.
When my one and only bicycle (bought second-hand and painted mint green with a paint brush) became an extension of my body, I can recall riding down Emmet Belknap hill using no hands. That was always good for a thrill. I would have fainted if I had ever caught my own son doing such a thing!
A time I wasn't very fond of was when Lockport had a starling problem. I realize that something probably had to be done, but I wasn't very appreciative on the evenings when hunters would converge on the streets with rifles to shoot down those birds. I hated the loud booming sounds of the guns and the accompanying terrified screeching of the birds. People would stand on their porches watching as guns were shot off and those dastardly black birds pelted the streets. The next day there were dead birds everywhere as we kids walked to school. Funny, they were mostly the black ones too. No robins or such. I don't recall who cleaned them up but they were soon gone. Out of damnable curiosity, some friends and I pulled one apart. Its stomach was full of bloody worms... what else?
Vine Street was originally a brick street. Later it was paved over, and great for roller skating, but I missed the old brick street look.
Chet Thurston, pictured in an impressive picture taken in the projection
room of The Lockport Palace Theater. The sharp contrast seems to highlight the
glamor of the movie industry, even in the projection booth. Mr. Thurston appears as
if he should have been in front of the Hollywood cameras, not just showing the pictures!My father worked for quite some time, when I was small, for the old Rialto Theater as a projectionist. It cost 5 cents then to see a movie, but since Dad worked there, I got in free. Theater candy and popcorn was cheap in those days too and I nickled my father to death for it, but he usually obliged me. I liked visiting the projection booth. Movies in those days came on large reels and Dad would sometimes have to splice movies together. Especially if the film broke. There was a small opening in the booth where Dad could stand and watch the movie too. I was also able to get into the Palace Theater free since they were probably both owned by the same company and Dad worked there for a while too before he went to the Rialto. The tall, dignified Mr. LeValee was the head usher at the Palace, and I considered him a buddy, but in a most respectful way. I saw many of the great old movies and musicals and they helped form my impression of the world. My father used to complain as I was growing up that I'd seen too many movies.
One of my favorite haunts, simply because I was forbidden to go there, was the land surrounding the old cotton batting company adjacent to Vine Street, kitty- corner across the street from the UAW-CIO property in the next block up from our house. I was warned in no uncertain terms that that was the one place I was not to go. Having an essentially rebellious and freedom-loving nature, it was naturally there that I loved to sneak off to as often as I liked. There was a creek there which led to a large grated viaduct under the street which I suspected probably led to those legendary caves under the streets of Lockport as yet unseen and unmissed by these old eyes. We kids had enough sense, or respect for the unknown, not to venture into the viaduct too far. In fact, I don't recall ever being on the inside of the grating looking out. I wasn't the only one to frequent this spot. I'd sometimes have chance meetings with school chums there. There was also a pond in front of the batting plant that housed millions of pollywogs which were fun to inspect at certain times of the year. There were certainly enough to produce quite a large frog population! It now occurs to me that there may have been better places to have been barred from going, but it never occurred to me to look beyond the cotton batting property since it was the only one that had been specifically mentioned as forbidden to me!
Some places I liked to go in Lockport while growing up were Gascoyne's Dairy, The Castle (ice cream parlor), Rich's Ice Cream, Wagner's (for Beef on Weck) and a great sub shop not too far out of town, somewhere east, which I can't recall the name of now, nor exact location, but they made their own baked bread rolls for the subs. Mmm mmm... Margie's in town wasn't bad either. It's been very difficult finding submarine sandwiches to ever come close to those I used to eat in Lockport. And no where in my travels have I ever found anything to compare to a Beef on Weck. The bread is the trick I suppose, and you don't find that just anywhere. There was also a great pizza place run by real Italians which had pizza you would now die for (in this world of Dominos and Pizza Hut takeout). There was a farm on Chestnut Ridge Rd where you could go get an ice cream cone and watch the cows being mechanically milked in an hygenic glass-lined hallway while you relished your double dip. On the way home from Olcott, as a special treat, we would stop by Bye's Poporn Stand for a bag of homemade popcorn or carmel corn with or without nuts. And of course, who could forget that famous institution Reid's Hamburgers and Hotdogs with their marvelous authentic thick shakes and white hots? Lockport area had its share of Drive-In theaters in the fifties which were great for dating and "necking" with your boyfriend.
Williams Brothers was the major downtown department store on Main Street and Aunt Hazel worked there. There was a Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck downtown too, and Flora Hatch had a nice ladies' clothing store.
When Grandma Wright died in 1955, we sold the Vine Street house to a family named Gentile and moved to the Wheeler Road in Wrights Corners where my parents built a new three bedroom ranch style house. Though only about four miles from Lockport, it was a world away. Having previewed Emmet Belknap Junior High School I was somewhat relieved that I wouldn't have to go there. It was sooo big after Washington Hunt! But I missed out from graduating with long time friends at LSHS by virtue of the move.
My 7th grade year was spent attending an old two-story schoolhouse in Wrights Corners which was soon torn down. I don't know how long that schoolhouse had been there, but it had probably seen many generations of students in its time. You could almost feel the energy of the of small spirits of the past still lingering there, but by the time I went it had become a hulking skeleton of its former days. It might have been a better thing to save it as a historical building than to tear it down? When I went, both 7th and 8th grades were taught in the same room by one teacher, Mr. Duemmer. I was one girl amongst a class of boys, so was thankful that the 8th graders, among whom were several girls, shared the same room. Both grades only took up half the large second story where our classes were held. I suppose you'd say now that it was an "open classroom" environment. That school was on property which later housed a grocery store and still later Tops Grocery.
Once I started going to Newfane Central School in the eighth grade, I would frequent Stierleys Drug Store in town of Newfane. It was the hang-out for the local high school kids and those of us who would ditch taking the school bus home for public transportation so we could linger an extra hour or two and socialize with our school friends who lived in town. At Stierleys' soda fountain you could get cherry or chocolate cokes and hot fudge, or melted marshmallow over chocolate ice cream, sundaes. Maybe Stierleys is still the hangout?
Pajama parties were the rage during my teens and several of us cliques were combined at times to have good sized parties. Sometimes we girls used to sit in a circle and try to prophesy each others' futures. The futures which were cast were most tactful (hey we were friends!) and were good for our egos. Sometimes boys got wind of our parties and tried to crash them, but that was mostly squelched. They never made it inside the house. The boys did once catch us when on a lark we went skinny dipping in Lake Ontario at an outdoor sleepout party in Olcott area. But it was dark so they didn't see much from the hill where they stood issuing cat calls in the dark. We were so innocent in those days. Our parents were very tolerant and some of us (me especially) ended up feeling very sleep deprived the next day after a pajama party.
Though I recall the tensions of being a teen, there was no drug problem in those days. It was unheard of then. The worst thing kids mainly did was smoke cigarettes and there was some drinking. And cigarettes were snuck behind parents' backs. At that time there was never any thought given to how bad that habit was for you. You just did it, making you feel more grown up. Cigarettes were a great theater prop in the movies that Hollywood churned out, and some of the biggest advertisers on TV were cigarette companies. It is my one regret that I succumbed to peer pressure and became a smoker. But I'm very lucky to have grown up in that drug free era.
Stierleys sold a few paperback books, and one of the most sought after books on their shelves was Peyton Place by Grace Metallious. It was a bit scandalous. Someone nabbed a copy for me but my taste ran more to Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence which had just been published after being banned for many years. Peyton Place was probably more in tune with our era.
One of the big events of my senior year was getting out of school to see Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy speak to Lockportians on the Big Bridge. He was late arriving by 45 minutes, but when he finally made it I was impressed by him. His non-Eisenhower youthful appearance was very appealing, and I liked his talent for oratory, along with that charming Boston accent, and the amazing way he could rattle off statistics from memory to us. The crowd didn't look very big. Lockport, I believe, was a predominantly Republican town, but it was reported there were about 2,000 people in attendance. The crowd seemed smaller to me and to be made up of mostly young people, like myself, who probably just wanted to get out of school to go. Too bad we couldn't vote. I was planning to vote for him in his next run, but he was assassinated before I could. Then I was going to vote for his brother Robert, but he was assassinated too. I would never vote for their brother Ted, but heck, I'm really a Republican anyway!
I graduated from Newfane Central School in June of 1961, and like my sister Shirley, married a Southern soldier that August (David Smith, aka "Smitty", from North Carolina - we later divorced). I left with him immediately for the South. I would never return to live in the Lockport area for the rest of my life. I visited Wrights Corners almost every year for a while until my parents left in '72. My mother now lives in Florida, as do also my sister Shirley and brother Doug. Bev is in Ohio. Now that my brother has left the area I doubt I'll even have the opportunity to return for a visit.
I haven't done much that might be termed spectacular in my lifetime but I never intended to. My goal was always just to be a housewife and mother. That I accomplished. I worked for about 15 years as a telephone company service representative until my son was born. I quit to be at home with him while he was growing up. Today I work part-time as a telephone customer service representative for a large retail catalog company.
I visit the Lockport website rather often out of curiosity and to maintain of sense of linkage to my native home. The Lockport news of today is not always very cheery and sometimes downright sad to me. I suppose the era I lived in Lockport it was a different place than it is today. I do have some good memories of growing up in Lockport and Lockport is part of my psyche.
I'm researching my family history now and as I said earlier I have found that I have predominantly New England roots spanning back to the seventeenth century and the Massachusetts Bay and Dorchester Company settlements with a possible Mayflower connection (no surprise to anyone but me I suppose - I guess I used to think we just hatched in Lockport one day). There is also perhaps a sprinkling of Lockport Irish tossed in. On my mother's side I gain some Scotch-Irish, as well as a real surprise - some old Virginian families - from her own mother's ancestry! This was an astounding revelation to one having been born and raised a Lockport NY Yank. I'll have to add here that I wish I had paid more attention in my history classes. I believe that even at that late date, I mean by that, the era I grew up in in Lockport, there was yet a distinct conservative Puritan influence in my breeding, or maybe it was just the fact that I grew up in the fifties? This influence was especially brought home to me as I've come to know the ways and attitudes of the South. Don't get me wrong, I positively love the South and feel quite at home here! But having been raised in Lockport as a small child did me no harm, and I think the opportunity gave me something precious in the form of some good memories, and a strong set of values to carry with me for the rest of my life, coupled with the ability to compare and enjoy the differences between the two regions. I must differ however, with former Lockportian Joyce Carol Oates who claimed that we who grew up in Lockport have Canal water coursing through our veins. The Canal, with its locks, was just there, that's all, and the town grew up around it. It was in Lockport where I received the gift of life and, I think, a good start on it. It is my sincere hope that my stories above have not offended anyone. It's just my own story of growing up in Lockport. I'd welcome reading others' views too.
I have deposited some of my genealogical research at the Niagara Historical and Niagara Genealogical Societies and I'd welcome hearing from any "cousins" or shirt tail relatives.
Barbara (Thurston) Petty
b.petty@comcast.net
(Living a bit southwest of the Capitol of the Confederacy)