The first time I heard the word "Cambridge",
my dad had come back from a trip there. He
had with him a "piece of bark from the white
Birch Tree". It was in my young eyes,
strangely beautiful; like something from a
foreign land.
At night I would lay it on the floor, along
side my bed, and look at it until sleep
overcame my wonder and curiosity. I had that
piece of bark until it literally fell apart.
In those days, for the first time, I herd
strange names, like Hoosick Falls, Dead
Pond, Hedges, and Lauderdale.
Dad told me "there was an Eagle on this
bridge", and for a long time I pictured just
that, a live Eagle on a bridge.
The first time I came to Cambridge was 1947.
We came up by car, maybe a ten hour trip in
those days. I stayed with Jim and Katherine
Martin. My Dad knew them from the Nineteen
Twenties. They were retired farmers. They
had a farm up in Ash Grove back then. Now
they lived in a little white house on Rt.
22, maybe 200 yards towards Cambridge on the
left from Tom Heaneys Innisfail. I met Tom
and Art Walrath and we hunted woodchuck and
explored the hills together. Tom and I
became classmates later, then graduating CCS
in "1956", Art? I still see now and then.
Jim Martin, well in His eighties, wore
rubber boots all the time. It was then I
herd the saying, " you can take the man from
the farm, but you can't take the farm from
the man." I wouldn't be surprised if Jim
Martin wasn't buried in his boots!
In 1948, I won a trip to Norway. Babe Ruth
died that year. My Dad mailed me the
newspaper clipping, and I still have it.
After two weeks in Norway, I came back and
went to Cambridge for the rest of the
summer. I stayed with a lady who lived on
Main Street. Her home was located on the
same side of the street as the movie
theater, maybe three or four house towards
the traffic light. I've forgotten this
ladies name, but remember she was Katherine
Martins older sister. The Martins were good
people.
My dad knew Burnie and Dottie Morache when
they lived on Long Island. By 1949, or there
about, they had a home in Cambridge, and
their property bordered the Maxwell Farm.
My dad made arrangements for me to spend the
summer there. Young Dottie, class of 1954
was away at camp.
My first morning there, I came out the side
kitchen door and saw Victor Maxwell for the
first time. He was on a tractor in a Field.
I remember the field.
I had allergies pretty bad back then and
sneezed at the drop of a hat. There was a
brook that ran from higher ground from the
southwest and came through a well positioned
milk house, then under the lane and through
a corner of Victors cow pen or waiting area.
The cows would drink there.
The water was crystal clear and always cold.
Here every morning and evening, Victor would
drive in his cows to get them ready for
milking.
I shall never forget the fresh clean smell
of this place, mint, watercress; teaming
with little fish I called "Killies" and
frogs.
One morning I was by this brook and Victor
came by on his tractor. He stopped and said,
"So you are the young fellow I've been
hearing about?" "Yes sir" I said "I guess I
am." this was my first meeting with Victor
Maxwell.
Victor was tall, more then thin, with a
slight high pitched voice, and always with a
corn cob pipe between his teeth, wearing an
old straw hat.
I never saw Victor become excited or raise
his voice. Only once, after a severe drought
when it finally rained hard. He was out in
it "high stepping", his arms over his head
clapping and yelling happily, with me not
knowing if he went crazy trying to imitate.
In World War 1, Victor was an "Aviation
Mechanic", exceptionally brilliant, not only
with farming, but with any kind of machine,
cars, tractors, anything that needed repair,
motorized or not.
He told me "from scratch", that he built a
"twin engine airplane", out of two
motorcycle engines and flew it!!
He said "he took off from a field", he
pointed out, "and flew over the farm, then
his neighbors farm, then headed towards
Cambridge a little, then came back and
landed in that same field".
The wings, his design, were similar to those
big booms on cranes you see on construction
sites today.
At first he tested the wings for strength by
standing on them. Then he added more weight
yet and still they wouldn't collapse. He
knew he "had something good", he said, "then
he became excited".
In his 1927 Chrysler he drove to Washington,
DC, with the drawings and had his idea put
into a patent. Then he came home. I'm not
sure of the year this happened, but from the
date of the car and what I remember Victor
saying, it was between 1927 and 1932!
After no word from Washington for weeks,
Victor called the Patent office by phone. He
was told, "The only patent for this
invention was in the name of Henry Ford, not
a Victor Maxwell."
This story Victor told me himself and I
remember it vividly!!
Victor once again drove to Washington to
argue his case, no easy task at the time, as
roads weren't as they are today. He was
asked "do you have money to fight this?"
Victor said "No". Then he was told "then go
home and invent something simple, like a
pin". Victor went home distraught.
Victor and his brother, at the time, ran the
Coila Garage. If a Ford product came in for
repair, Victor said "he refused to work on
it". His brother had to "because if He did,
it wouldn't work".
Victors cows were all Brown Swiss. They gave
him two cans of milk every day and sometimes
up to four.
Victor had a "sixth sense" of which I'll
mention later. He managed to squeeze every
once of production from his 175 acres, as
they could produce. He also had a grove of
Catalpa trees that for generations back were
used for fence posts on the farm. Victor
said, that " some of his Catalpa corner
posts were over a hundred years old".
The farm he inherited from his dad, his dad
from his, and so on and so on. The house
being built in 1776.
Victors wife, Violet, and Mrs Brown, Violets
mother, lived in a separate part of the
house; Victor and I in the other part. They
had no children.
I'll bring us back a little on how I came to
live with the Maxwell's.
After my so called "indoctrination" in 1949
with farming, then coming back in 1951-1952,
I was with my mom and dad on Staten Island
in the winter months.
I attended a Christian Brothers High School
my freshman year, St. Peters, and didn't
like it much; to put it mildly.
My dad and mom were having domestic problems
at the time and with my constant asking,
after talking to Victor and Violet, and then
probably the stress my parents were under,
they decided to let me come to Cambridge and
live with the Maxwell's. And so it was
agreed for room and board. In 1953 I started
my sophomore year at CCS. "I was in my
Glory!!!"
The Maxwell house, as mentioned, built in
1776 had four entrance doors. One on the
West end; and that was never used. The main
door in front brought you in
the section where Violet and Mrs. Brown
lived. The side door out back let you in the
kitchen area.
There was a large "hearth" there; from the
olden days. This was blocked off, but still
had the old "iron arm" that was used to hold
cooking pots, etc., over the fire from years
ago. It was still blackened from generations
of use.
From the kitchen you went into the living
and dining rooms. We all ate our meals there
together. In there was the largest wood
stove that I have ever seen. There was
another door on the East side that brought
you into this same dining area where the
enormous stove stood. Almost right behind
the East door, on the right, was a smaller
door that opened to a spiral stair case,
well worn from almost three hundred years of
use.
The passage way was small and narrow, low
headroom, no railing, so that you needed
your hands for guidance as you ascended or
descended and with a slight stoop. This
stair case, spiraled to the left and up to a
loft. Vic and I slept here; warm in the
winter , because of the stove below, cool in
summer.
That one full year I was there, depending on
weather, I can still see Victor before that
stove, Pipe in mouth, stoking the fire or
adding wood. At night he would go down the
spiral stair, in the dark, and then I would
hear the metallic squeak that the big stove
door made as it was opened. Then the muffled
sound of wood as Victor stoked the fire or
added more wood; the sounds coming up
through the floor as I lay in bed, are still
with me to this day. They gave me then, and
give me now as I remember, a feeling of
contentment, warmth, relaxation and
belonging. I loved it there!
That sixth sense I mentioned? Sometime
during a thunder storm, Victor would get out
of bed and dress. I would ask him "where are
you going?" and he would answer "there's a
cow out in such and such pasture".
This happened on quiet nights occasionally
also. "How could he possibly know?" My
hearing was much better, yet I didn't hear a
thing!
Victor always grew about a quarter acre of
"popcorn". He also had the neatest garden I
ever saw either then or since. This work he
did all by himself, with the the little help
a twelve year old, at the beginning could
contribute.
He had two very large work horses, "Dan and
Jen". They were "left over from the old way,
semi-retired" Vic would say.
Victor used Dan and Jen to cultivate the
"popcorn" and garden, "to keep them in
shape", he said.
To see these two very big, powerful,
beautiful animals in action, fully
harnessed, was a thrill of a life time for a
wide-eyed youngster like me. They were well
trained and disciplined and Victor loved
them; you could see that!
Vic had an older Allis Charmers. It had
"hand brakes". I'm not sure of the year but
it ran like a top.
Sitting on his lap he would let me steer, on
occasion, but that was all.
I remember one time he was coming down a
hill with a full load of hay behind,
steering with his knees, and pulling back on
those two hand brakes for all their worth! I
can still see the galvanized expression on
his face.
My job was on the wagon, sneezing in
cadence, trying to keep my balance as the
hay came up and off the loader and spearing
it with a three prong fork; one to the left,
one to the right, then one in the middle to
keep it in place, until I was as high as the
clouds. Then Vic would head for the barn.
Here he backed in the wagon of hay;
disconnected the tractor, and then connected
his 1927 Chrysler to a hemp bull line that
was under the wagon to a "snatch" block-tied
to a support beam, then up to another block
at the ceiling, then to a rail where there
was a large hay hook that hung on wheels
that ran on the rail.
Here the line terminated as Victor used the
Chrysler he said "to keep it in shape". The
hay hook was lowered and Vic plunged it into
the hay on the wagon. He got in the Chrysler
and drove forward, lifting the large bundle
of hay up to me in the loft.
A small hand line was pulled and the hay was
released where I wanted it; then I would
stack it as told, me sneezing like crazy,
Victor laughing.
We would stop every now and then for water
at the milk house... Then back to work.
At noon we stopped for lunch. Violet always
had a nice lunch waiting, potatoes, meat,
vegetables, milk, lemonade and then dessert;
homemade pie or cake... then back to work!
When Victor baled his hay, farmers I
mentioned in another story, came to help. I
loved working with them as they were always
kidding me, laughing and telling stories.
They smelled of tobacco, sweat and farm. I
took that all in, never forgetting.
One story Vic told me I remember well. He
was pretty young. A relative brought home a
pistol he used in the Civil War. Vic took it
and loaded it up and got ready to shoot. He
pulled back the hammer and squeezed the
trigger , and "Boom", it blew up!!
Vic said "he thinks he loaded it with
smokeless powder that was on the farm,
thinking it was black powder".
These old guns from that era were designed
for "Black Powder" only! Vic said "he was
very lucky he didn't blow his hand off or
worse"
I'm not sure what really happened between
Victor and Violet, but I know Victor started
paying Violet for my keep! My dad came into
the picture as I remember and said "Violet
asked him for money also"!
My dad said "No" that my helping out seemed
enough for my board.
In the meantime, I found out at school that
the Walshe's were looking for a "young hand"
full time.
My dad came and together we went to see Mr.
Walsh, the father of Jack and Billy,
mentioned in another story.
It was agreed they would pay me twenty-five
dollars and room and board in the summer,
and five dollars a week in the winter.
I was at my wits end on how to tell Victor.
My dad saying, "You are old enough to stand
on this alone"... I was sixteen!
I didn't sleep well, and had all kinds of
apprehension; the first time I wasn't happy
in Cambridge!
One day soon after, I was standing on the
back of the tractor, Vic driving, and I told
him. He stopped the tractor, turned to me,
his eyes full of tears and said "Alex, I had
intended to work you in and me out on this
farm"!
I grew to love Victor Maxwell like my own
father and I'm sure he loved me like the son
he never had.
This was the first time anything like that
was mentioned. I left soon after.
I often think, "IF" there was a way for me
to stay that time, "IF" maybe Vic, Violet,
my dad had gotten together, what may have
transpired??
"Only the good Lord knows in His infinite
wisdom"
To this day, I cannot rationalize, but only
leave that young time in my life to "Him".
This way my conscience was, and is, clear.
Though way back in a far corner of my mind,
I still wonder!
Oh by the way, my time with Victor and my
two years on the Walsh farm ... I was
completely cured of my allergies!!
In Cambridge, at the Veterans Park, the
center monument under "Honorable Mention to
Veterans in World War 1", is the name
"Maxwell, Victor, J "
Go see it ... Victor was, and is, well worth
it.
Alex DeVito, class of "1956 "