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March 08, 2001 - Keeping hometown history aliveSuffolk Times • March 8, 2001 Kee ins hometown histo alive A 1926 photo of the Skunk Lane farm where both Mabel Richmond and Barbara grew up, showing Barbara's father with his cows and Ford truck. 1 HIS WILL BE THE LAST OF THE series on the past we have enjoyed sharing with you. Among the many people we heard from, Barbara got letters from two of her parents' secre- taries. Ruth Myers lives in Mattituck now but lived right alongside the East Cutchogue School when she Focus was a student there. Lilian Kent ON THE Nine, originally PAST from New Suffolk and now in by Paul Florida, was with and Barbara the Silleck Stoutenburgh Agency when it made the move from the little build- ing into the bigger Honeymoon Cottage. She brought to mind some folks lots of you will remember: "Raymond Tuthill, who was manager of the North Fork Bank, and Edie Guy and Rose DePetris, who were tellers at that time." She mentioned also that Eleanor Zaneski worked at the liquor store that Jack Levin ran on the other side of the little office. One day a small envelope arrived from Brooks, Maine. It said "Tuthill" on the return address. Barbara said, "That's got to be Bobby Tuthill, who I went to East Cutchogue School with back in the '30s and '40s. He lived on the corner of the Main Road and Bridge Lane. In those days we would sort of pick up everyone on the way to school and he and Dick MacNish would join us as we passed by. The Tuthills had a big horse chestnut tree in the front yard with its beautiful huge blossoms, and then the nuts to follow. We would always have to pick up a few of those beautiful, shiny, brown nuts and carry them to school in our pockets." Barbara continues, "When we were young our parents taught us not to take rides from strangers. `Be careful if someone stops and offers you some candy,' etc., they would say. I can remember walkinp- home from school not see it here. Oh well, that's life (excuse the pun). If anyone is inter- ested in getting a look at the photo, along with the article on Alistair Cooke, who summers on Nassau Point, it will be available at the Cutchogue library (see Bev Christianson). Most of us in the area remember the incident because not many things with someone when a car pulled up alongside the of us. They probably me wanted to ask direc- ber tions but I was near the Bobby Tuthill's house { {H at the time and I was an ready to head for it in a sto hurry if I suspected of something funny!" thr Along with his letter min Bobby included a copy & of a 1952 article from 1,3 Life magazine that Sec showed Alistair Cooke min reading the newspaper land on the front porch of tells Mabel Richmond's wor store. Bob said, "I was f P home on leave from the B Navy and somebody Rob took the picture for Ro Alistair Cooke. In the Life picture are Wilson Life Tuthill, Adam Doroski, Ma Adam Zaveski, me and Alistair Cooke. A lot of memories of Richmond's Store, carrying the mail, solving all the world's problems around the stove." The letter was signed from "An Old East Cutchoguer." Thanks, Bob, for the photo and letter. We tried to get hold of a copy of the Life magazine, and Bev Christianson at the: Cutchogue library worked all the angles she could to find the Aug. 25, 1952, issue. It could be found on the Internet, but the prices seemed a little high. One night we received a call from Chris Palmer in Phoenix, Ariz., saying yes, he and his wife were in the business of sellin! old Life magazines and yes, they had the one we wanted for $15.80. Great, we thought! But wait a minute. Suffolk Times editor Jeff Miller figured he'd better check first and unfortunately, Life wanted such an exorbitant price to publish the 1952 photo that you will that happened way out here on East End. Though Barbara tells that during the war she remem- s getting a call from her mother in office of the village saying, urry up! She's coming through!" d she and her sister ran to Mabel's re as Kate Smith, in the back seat a big, fancy, black car, drove ough on her way to christen a esweeper at the Greenport Basin Construction Co., where 1,200 to 00 people worked during the and World War. They launched a esweeper every 30 days and a. ing craft every two days. Barbara me she can remember her dad ked there and made her a heart- ed pendant out of a scrap piece lexiglas they used in the yard. ack to the Life magazine article, Richmond, Mabel's grandson, eves that Mabel was written up b at one time and that is what the t used to paint the picture of b 11 that was shown in this column. Rob said, "Gramma Mabel always hated that picture!" Rob told Barbar< that Mabel had lived in the same farmhouse that Barbara did. They talked of how they both remembered Great Gramma Sade, Mabel's mother who used to sit in the south window of what's now the Down Home Store in her rocking chair. It is so important to pass on the family and community information foi future generations. Wouldn't it be great if local history was taught in our schools. The Cutchogue library and historical society are gathering oral histories and Hallockville Museum has also done that. But we should fol- low what Troy Gustayson of The Suffolk Times did years ago when he spent time with his grandmother in Florida with a video camera. Take a tape recorder or video camera and sit with those in your family who have been around a while and ask ques- tions and let them tell you about what it was like when "they were kids." Walk around their home and soon you'll begin to find things you never knew before. Pull out the old family photograph albums and let them share some of their lives with you. I know in our family, since the kids were small, whenever Barbara would say, "Oh, that reminds me" or "I remember," they would sit back and say, "Here comes some more history!" IN Barbara and Paul Stoutenburgh in the '50s beside their Model A.