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at Rochester Junction |
| Rochester Junction, N.Y. was an important place in the 1890’s. It was a hub for trains of the Lehigh Valley Railroad that transported coal needed to fuel the state’s booming economy. Day and night, long, heavy freight trains roared through, whistles blowing, steam and soot spewing. There were many tracks running along both sides of the depot, where passengers were arriving on or waiting for trains. Thirteen miles from the city of Rochester, it was a place to board a train for a trip across the state, east to New York or west to Buffalo. | ) |
| Around 1896, William Terry and his wife, Jennie, built a hotel across the road from the depot, with food and refreshments for the passengers and a room or two for guests. [It was said that, to acquire a liquor license in those days, at least one room for overnight boarders was required. And so, the “Terry Hotel” was born.] Then, in 1912, Delia Burke, my great aunt, and her husband, James, bought the Terry Hotel. |
) | I have happy memories of visiting Rochester Junction and staying with Aunt Dele. It was in the late 1930’s and there were no longer paying guests or travelers being sold food or drink. While the most glorious days of the Lehigh Valley were fading, the steam trains still rolled by in all their noisy grandeur. It was the house, the former Terry Hotel, that so charmed and impressed me that my memory still holds glimpses of that long-ago time. |
| I remember the house as being rather elegant in an old-fashioned sort of way. The front parlor was full of overstuffed furniture in dark colors - a place where a child would speak softly and tread lightly. I was allowed to put records on the Victrola, wind it up and listen to songs, such as my favorite, “The Whistler and His Dog.” |
| When the whole family was there, we ate at a large round wooden table in the dining room. Aunt Dele was a marvelous cook and I can still taste her custard pie. She could whip up a pie in minutes, working in the huge (it seemed) old-fashioned kitchen across the back of the house. |
| Above the steep stairs were the bedrooms. During our visits, we would sleep in a large room and a porch above the parlor. On a dresser in one of the unused bedrooms, there was a beautiful wooden jar filled with dried rose petals. Sometimes I would slip into that room, carefully remove the lid and inhale the fragrance of summer roses. |
| But my true love, and the reason I begged to stay with Aunt Dele, was outside of the house. The back yard was gloriously neglected, but it was where I was allowed to explore, to play, to investigate and to roam, alone and free, anywhere within the confines of the tracks on either side of the property. |
| In many ways my great aunt’s house reflected her personality - if I had to use one word to describe her, it would be “proper.” Aunt Dele was dignified, serious, undemonstrative, reserved and always proper. Years later, I began to realize that my aunt was an exceptional person. I learned that she had been an orphan and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother died at her birth and her father died the following year. She had a 4th grade education, but somehow became very well-educated. |
| She was active in politics and met Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., when FDR was president. She was a nurse, midwife, counselor and advisor to the farm people in the area. She was also a successful business woman and was liked and respected by all. |
| But for me, as a small child, she was just my Aunt Dele, who lived in that wonderful house between the tracks. |
Elaine Sauberan Gregoire - April, 2008 Postnote: Delia O’Connell’s first husband, James Burke, was a signal repairman on the Lehigh and became the first postmaster at Rochester Junction - the post office being located in the Terry Hotel. He died in 1928 and Delia subsequently married veteran locomotive engineer, George “Daddy” Bissell. They resided in Rochester Junction until 1946, when they moved in with Delia’s family in Tonawanda, where Daddy Bissell died in 1951. Delia (Burke) Bissell went to live with her sister in Buffalo, where she passed away in 1966 at the age of 87. Delia and James Burke are interred in the community cemetery at Barker, N.Y. |
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