My grandfather my grandmother's first husband Wilber Flemming died at 34 of carbon monoxide poisoning. He worked on cars and the ventilation at that time was not an issue in auto repair. My mother was eight years old at the time. I believe with his death her family lost their house and everything else. My grandmother was bitter at his family for not helping them. Grandma Helen went to work in the pocket book factories in Newburgh as a piece worker. So much a purse. I can remember her often driving needles through her figures on the machines. When I was a child of five or six we would meet for lunch outside the factory. We would go next door to Washington Headquarters and sit on the benches and have a bagged lunch.

She went out with and married Harry Sperry on New Years Day when my two Uncles Ernest and Robert came home from the war. He was a very simple, loving, and kind man. I never heard him ever swear or say a bad thing about anyone. I have never come across anyone near Harry in kindness and love. Including me. He also said very little.

When Christmas came every year every one got all kinds of things but Harry would get a pack of Liberty Chewing Tobacco. He would always be happy and grateful. I knew that someday I too would be Harry at Christmas and this was a sign of being a great man.  He had big muscles in his arms from being brought up on a farm. I would hang from his arms all the time and ask him to make a muscle. He worked for Crowley Milk Company and my Uncle Bob told me he unloaded entire railroad cars of coal to run the furnaces. His father was a traveling minister in the west and he had a brother that was killed in the Chicago Riots who was just walking down the street. DM 12/1/07



Photo Grandma Helen and Harry