Full Text
1 Elizabeth Adella Frost Hadcock Marie Bauer Frost and Lyle Frost were the proud parents of a baby daughter, born at Rochester General Hospital on August 3, 1926, in a time when many babies were born at home. For a short time baby Elizabeth and her family stayed with Madeline Bauer Woods, Marie’s sister, in Rochester, but soon Elizabeth and her parents came home to Fair Haven. Elizabeth’s first home in Fair Haven was on East Main Street, now the Martin home. Maternal ancestors: Marie Bauer (1899-1963), Elizabeth’s mother, was born in New York State, probably in the Webster area, and moved to Fair Haven as a child. She graduated from Fair Haven High School in 1919 and attended Oswego Normal School. She taught at a one-room schoolhouse in North Wolcott and at Cato School before her marriage. After Elizabeth was born, Marie substitute-taught at the one-room schoolhouse on Humphrey Road, and at Fair Haven School. Marie Bauer’s parents, Charles (1871-1951) and Elizabeth Bauer (1872-1952), lived on Avery Street, next to the O’Brien home on the corner of Victory Street and Avery. Marie had a brother, Carlton and a sister, Madeline Bauer (Woods). Elizabeth’s grandfather, Charles, used to walk from Fair Haven each morning to work on his son Carlton’s farm in North Wolcott, walking home each night. Eventually he got a “little red car” to save on time and shoe leather. ---PAGE BREAK--- 2 Marie Bauer Frost and baby Elizabeth ---PAGE BREAK--- 3 Elizabeth, age 2, with her father, Lyle Paternal ancestors: Lyle Frost, (1898-1996) , Elizabeth’s father, was probably born in the village of Red Creek, in the homestead on the south Corner of State and Main Streets, to Adella and Melford Frost. He had a sister and a brother, Elizabeth and Earl. Elizabeth Frost, Lyle’s sister, later married Frank Stevens (Dale’s father). The Stevens family ran the farm on the corner of Sterling Station and Wright Road, Red Creek, eventually moving back to the same village of Red Creek homestead in their older years. Elizabeth Frost Stevens died at age 97. Lyle’s brother, Earl Frost, owned the farm on Sterling Station Road toward Red Creek, just beyond the Stevens farm. However, Elizabeth’s father, Lyle, did not become a farmer. He spent his career in Fair Haven. Lyle died in 1996 at the age of 98. Elizabeth’s parents, Marie and Lyle, were married at the Sterling Center Methodist Parsonage in 1924. They moved into a house on East Main Street, now the Martin home. Two years later Elizabeth came into their lives. Lyle worked as a bus driver for Fair Haven School, at a time when that school had only one bus. He also worked as a mechanic in Cassius Wilkinson’s garage, located where Fair Haven Gift Shop now sits. When Elizabeth was young, the family moved across the street to the home where the Harmony family later lived. There Lyle built a gas station and cabins, two of which are still standing. Besides running those businesses, he used his tractor to plow a plot at the State Park for World War ll German Prisoners of War. Later he sold his business on Main Street and moved to a new home on Fancher Ave., now the residence of Larry Hadcock, his grandson, and Larry’s wife, Amy. Lyle became a salesman for Hadcock Motors, selling new Chevrolets and used cars. In his spare time, Lyle loved to fish. After retirement he mowed Elizabeth’s lawn for her. ---PAGE BREAK--- 4 Elizabeth on the tractor her father used to plow for prisoners of war. Standing by is her father, Lyle Lyle Frost at the gas station he built. Directly across the street was their previous home ---PAGE BREAK--- 5 Elizabeth’s parents, Lyle and Marie Bauer Frost Elizabeth’s childhood: Elizabeth started first grade at Fair Haven School at age six in 1932, under the tutelage of Iva Wright. Elizabeth liked school very much and did well. ---PAGE BREAK--- 6 Once in a while Elizabeth would accompany her mother when Marie would substitute at one of the schools in the area. At the age of 8 or 9, Elizabeth remembers packing lunches and going to the country school on Humphrey Road. One day when her mother was subbing for Ida Mae Hill’s eighth-grade class at Fair Haven School, Marie heard a shot and came out of the first floor classroom to see Harold Longley running down the hall with his arm dangling and his woodworking teacher following. Harold had brought a gun to school on the bus. Marie was so upset at the scene that the school had to get another substitute for her because she had to go home. Elizabeth, who was on the second floor, heard a commotion but did not hear the shot. She heard her mother describe the scene several times, though. Winters were terrible in those days, Elizabeth remembers. She recalls her and her mother cajoling her father into taking them to Oswego to shop. As her father, Lyle, had feared, they got stuck. Lyle was so concerned that Elizabeth might get hit by the snow plow that he sent her up on a hill out of harm’s way. The plow eventually came through, pulling Lyle’s car out of the snow bank. Elizabeth has a photo of the snow being so deep that she could jump from the second floor of the house into the drift. Heavy snow, Elizabeth on right The same house in summer Elizabeth remembers that they went to Phillips and Silliman’s store for “almost everything.” She also remembers going to Fred Hayward’s store for ice cream cones. At about age six her mother let her walk down to Hayward’s (which was down the block on the same side of the street as the location of her house) to buy an ice cream cone. Her aunt Florence Schumaker Butler (her mother’s cousin) happened ---PAGE BREAK--- 7 to drive by. She said wouldn’t you like to go to play with my daughter Carolyn? Elizabeth wanted to go out to Onionville Road to play but she said she would have to tell her mother. Mrs. Butler said she would tell her husband, Lester, where Elizabeth was going, and have Lester tell Marie, Elizabeth’s mother. However, Lester forgot to tell her. Marie went frantically to Hayward’s. Yes, she had been there and had gotten ice cream. Yes, they had seen her walking back toward home. Marie came home to call the police when Lester remembered to tell her where Elizabeth was. This problem never happened again! Elizabeth’s sixth birthday party; from left to right: Bruce Partridge, Charles Wilkinson, Roberta Turner, Robert West, Donald Rasbeck, Elizabeth, Carolyn Butler, Patty West While in eighth grade, Elizabeth and Margaret Cooper took tap dance lessons in Cato with Miss Murphy. Her parents would take the girls back and forth. The suit she used for recitals came in handy—she and Roberta Turner would do ballroom dancing performances on stage for school assemblies, with Elizabeth using that suit to dance the part of the male while Roberta wore a new dress, dancing the female part. Elizabeth also took music lessons. When she was a young child a piano teacher came to Elizabeth’s home to teach her but Elizabeth does not remember the teacher’s name. At age 12, Elizabeth began accordion lessons with Mae Wallace. She took piano lessons from Mae beginning at age 15 or 16. All these experiences encouraged Elizabeth’s life-long love of music. As a child, Elizabeth enjoyed going to the summer band concerts; later she took her children to them. ---PAGE BREAK--- 8 Elizabeth can remember one time at about age 10 walking to the State Park “the back way.” There was no back road into the park then so she went through the woods. While at the park, she would sometimes go to the concession stand on the hill to buy a Sugar Daddy; it was a great buy since it would last a long time. She remembers Elmer McIntyre’s stand on Lake Street Extension. At a later time she remembers seeing the German Prisoners of War cleaning up the State Park. Mostly, Elizabeth played in the school yard and at home; no spot other than the school yard had playground equipment. She loved to play softball. In eighth grade at age 13, Elizabeth became the pitcher for the high school team. The next year, unfortunately for Elizabeth, the school cancelled the team. Elizabeth, preparing to pitch for Fair Haven High School’s softball team Just about every weekend Elizabeth and her friends, including Margaret Cooper, Roberta Turner, and Mildred Dowd, went to the movies in Wolcott. Roberta’s father and Elizabeth’s father would alternate driving, one dropping off the girls and the other picking them up. After the movies the girls would go to Fosters or to the Soda Grill. The girls liked John Wayne westerns, and musicals. They cried at the end of The Great Man’s Lady, starring Barbara and Joel McCrea, because the character died. ---PAGE BREAK--- 9 Elizabeth remembers going with her mother to Philathea class both before and after Elizabeth was married. The church group had devotions and dessert. She recalls that once when it was her mother Marie’s turn to serve, Irene Parsons and Marguerite Stanton helped her serve. When Elizabeth was in eighth grade she began going with Donald Hadcock. She said she always knew “he was the man for me.” Halloween was generally a wild night in Fair Haven. The first bandstand was not permanent so the kids often moved it onto Main Street. They often brought bales hay and outdoor toilets onto the street as well. They would move cars from Hadcock’s garage onto the street. Because they perceived the postmaster as a grouch, they would always take the steps away from the post office. Elizabeth recalled the family being on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls and hearing on the car radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. She was 15 at the time. Elizabeth as a teenager, by the cabins her father built In high school, Elizabeth had teachers such as Flossie Baldwin for Latin and English, Bertha Stevens for Social Studies and health and Ruth Clark (Humphrey) for homemaking. In 1944, the following students graduated from Fair Haven High School: Elizabeth Frost, Beverly Fowler, Marjorie Scoville, Maxine McFarland (Goodsell) Ruth McIntyre (valedictorian), Jack VanLiere (salutatorian), Margaret Cooper (Ward), Theresa Helbock and Rachel Sheldon. They had gone on a senior trip to New York City where they visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Woodlawn Cemetery and the Empire State Building. Elizabeth wrote the senior class song, sung to the tune of Pretty Baby and played an accordion solo for class night ceremonies, just before graduation. ---PAGE BREAK--- 10 Elizabeth Frost Elizabeth went to college for two years at Syracuse University, majoring in music and taking singing and piano lessons. She would walk several blocks, alone at night, to attend church choir rehearsals, and sang in that church choir on Sundays. Elizabeth says that “things are different now.” Donald Hadcock, concerned that he might be drafted into the army, signed up for the Army Air Corps where he trained and eventually became a co-pilot. He was stationed in Tennessee when his parents, Majorie and Marvin Hadcock , along with Elizabeth went to visit him there. He shipped out to California in order to go overseas but the war ended; he was soon able to return home. Elizabeth said that he was so thrilled to be home that he borrowed a plane and “buzzed” Fair Haven and the bay area. ---PAGE BREAK--- 11 Don Hadcock and Elizabeth Frost ---PAGE BREAK--- 12 Wedding Day, 1946 Elizabeth Frost and Donald Hadcock were married in 1946 at the Fair Haven Church, attended by Margaret Cooper and Roberta Turner, along with a friend from college, Eileen Lewis. Don’s groomsmen were Don Rasbeck, Leon Simmons, and Keith Hadcock. The reception was held in the basement of the church, catered by Vivian Gardner, proprietor of Mrs. Gardner’s Restaurant. The newlyweds moved into a home on the East side of Lake Street, the fourth house from the corner of Main Street. Elizabeth gave birth to two sons, Larry in 1947 and Lenny in 1953. After some time, she and Don had Harvey Ware, Glen Ware and Herbert Baggs build a new house on Main Street, between Eldridge Avenue and North Victory Street. Elizabeth’s son “Lenny” and his wife, Joyce, live there now. ---PAGE BREAK--- 13 Advertisement from Hadcock Motors, where Don worked One night in 1955, when Lenny was a baby, Elizabeth’s mother called her to say she was packing up some things because there was a bad fire close by on Main Street and her front window was becoming really hot. Her parents soon arrived at Don and Elizabeth’s home. Elizabeth had her mother watch her boys so she could go downtown and see the fire. It was a horrible sight to see, as she watched the block burn from across the street where Central Park now sits. She can recall that Harold Wallace, who ran the Red & White Store on the east side of the building and lived upstairs with his family, came down the stairs with all four of his children on his shoulders. He saved all four at one time. Elizabeth stood on the other side of the street watching for a long time. “Everyone got out, thank goodness” Elizabeth remarked. ---PAGE BREAK--- 14 The old block, sometimes known as the Robinson & Phillips Block, in earlier times ---PAGE BREAK--- 15 After the fire, which occurred on March 18, 1955 ---PAGE BREAK--- 16 When Lenny started kindergarten at Fair Haven Elementary School, Elizabeth began working there as a playground monitor for a couple of hours per day. She began helping Mrs. Gilmer with the kindergarten class. She became an aide at the school, working there until the school closed down in 1978. She went to Red Creek to work in the elementary school until she retired in 1991. She began playing organ at church at about 1970. She also played at weddings. She did secretarial and bookkeeping work in her husband’s family garage, Hadcock Motors. Her husband spent his career there. One day when Elizabeth returned home from school, Joyce, her daughter-in-law, told her that Don was not feeling well. Elizabeth urged him to see a doctor, who sent him to the hospital for a check-up. The physicians there sent him home. Soon he was feeling poorly again. This time Larry, his son, took him directly to the hospital. He had a heart attack there. Elizabeth had loved to square dance. Don was getting so exhausted from it he said to her he did not think he would be able to square dance any more. Elizabeth said it was ok; they would do some quiet things. Unfortunately, Don died at the hospital, in 1984. Elizabeth, upon retirement from Red Creek Central School Elizabeth belongs to the Silver Swingers, the seniors group, where she goes on trips, and to covered dish dinners. In 1994, because of a crowded bus, a recent widow, Bob Lenhard, sat with her. Soon they began seeing each other. They went on more trips with the senior citizens, to Florida, to Arizona, Tennessee, Branson, Dollywood, and New Mexico. Later Bob became ill and began living in a nursing home in Colorado. He passed away in 2012. ---PAGE BREAK--- 17 Elizabeth and Bob, upon her retirement as Presbyterian Church Organist Elizabeth was involved with annual Alumni Banquets for Fair Haven High School, from her graduation in 1944, until the last one, held in 1999, when the group disbanded. She was an officer and often supplied musical selections for the group. It meant a great deal to her to see old friends and other alumni who had graced the halls of the old school. Cover page, last Fair Haven High School Alumni Banquet program ---PAGE BREAK--- 18 Last program, Fair Haven High School Alumni Banquet, 1999 Besides her two sons and wives, Elizabeth has two grandchildren, Mandy and David, and two great- grandchildren, Abby and Alex. She eventually had retired as organist at the Fair Haven Presbyterian Church but is working again! At age 86, she plays the organ for services at the Sterling Methodist Church. She says she loves playing will play as long as she can.