Chapter 1 Early Life

Section I - Chapter 1

Early Life

Carrie Jane Fredrick, the second child of Avery Henry Fredrick and Ruth E. Allis Fredrick, was born July 29, 1910, in a farm house in the small community of Kendall Mills, Monroe County, New York State. (http://history.rays-place.com/ny/orle-kendall.htm)

Kendall Mills is not on the map. Located four and a half miles from Lake Ontario on the Monroe-Orleans County line, it used to have two churches, one two-room schoolhouse, two stores, a blacksmith shop, a grist mill, a saw mill, and a hotel. I remember walking to school on the opposite side of the street for fear of drunks staggering in and out of the hotel and laying around on the ground. In my memory, we used one church; a Methodist Protestant. The other, a Free Methodist, stood empty for years and later was sold for a dance hall. The 2-room school accommodated all eight grades in one room. I remember when one store burned and the hotel became a dwelling. Our home and barn were set back from the road with an “in” and “out” driveway and a big garden in between, on a 7-acre plot of land. A large creek flowed through the property on the other side of the road, which was dirt or mud. In the winter, we children slid down the creek bank and out onto the ice on our sleds; we skated, and drew the younger children on their sleds. We fished and played in the water in the summer. Our workable land was about five acres. We raised strawberries, raspberries, and popcorn to sell, and mostly for our use: apples, pears, quinces, grapes, vegetables and lovely melons. We had about 50 bushel of popcorn all picked by hand and husked by hand. What a job!

Our home had four bedrooms, living room, kitchen, back room, woodshed and a little house farther away called the back house. We had no piped in water, but carried water in from a cistern pump and a pump at the well. What we used, we had to carry out and dump. We had no electricity or telephone. We had a wood kitchen stove and a kerosene oil stove to use in summer, and oil lamps; a coal heater in living room with pipe going up through my sister Marion's and my room and it was always cold before morning. Before bedtime, we would heat soap-stones and put them in the bed to make it warm. We had one horse and one cat. The horse, "Billy", helped eat the sweet corn, stalk and all, and carrots.

      My Dad, born December 12, 1884, had always lived there. His father, Henry Fredrick, died when my Dad was twelve, so he had very little schooling because he had to work hard. Dad's father, Henry, born in 1860, came from Germany and got his citizenship papers October 4, 1880. Dad's grandparents, Margaret and George Fredrick, were in Germany.  

When Mother and Dad were married, they lived on the homestead. Dad's mother was Eliza Jane Mowers and lived on a dead end lane, and we used to call on her cross lots.

My mother, Ruth E. Allis, was born in Gaylord, Michigan December 3, 1885, in a log cabin which burned when she was young, but she never forgot it.

Mother's mother was E1ecta Irene Morse Allis, died 1894; her father was Thomas Wells Allis, born October 4, 1849, died February 25, 1911. When Mother was nine years old, her mother died, so she came to West Kendall in New York State to live with her grandmother, Eunice Barton Morse (Potter), born May 2, 1831

Grandma Potter's first husband was Benjamin Bartlet  Morse, born Nov. 23, 1816 was the first white man born in the town of Kendall. He married Eunice Barton Morse in 1846, and died in 1890. Sometime later, she married Grandpa Potter. She was left a widow. Grandma Potter died in 1915 when I was five. I have my mother's family record that goes back to 1613 when William Allis was born. Mary Bronson, widow of John Graves, came to America July 1, 1630 on the third trip of the Mayflower.