Transcription
Hometown Boy Comes Back But Not To Stay
A man's hometown can change so much in 28 years that upon returning for a visit he might well get lost in it and do as Charles Whitbeck did, end up by the railroad across the town from Liberty street, where he really wanted to go. But when he turned back and saw the courthouse - "I really knew where I was," he laughs.
His nephew is Elwood Whitbeck at 534 Liberty street, who has a wife Phyllis and two daughters, April Ann and Robin, that Charles Whitbeck had never seen. He was born in 1875 in Penn Yan, son of Seneca and Soloma Whitbeck, and he married a Pennsylvania girl in Florida 37 years ago: "She's 74 and acts like a girl of 30," declares Mr. Whitbeck, who is pretty spry himself.
Mr. Whitbeck was a millworker when he last worked in Penn Yan, he was born, in fact, just above Milo Mills, and the Fox, Shutt and Seneca Mills that he knew so well are gone. He worked at the Andrew's paper mills, which of course is still operating as Milo Mills, and with the Taylor Chemical mills and Birkett mills made up the only three now on the outlet.
"There's been a great amount of building around town," says Mr. Whitbeck. "Especially of garages-there were hardly even any cards when I left here-and now its garages everywhere, but its that way the length of the land, not just in Penn Yan."
He drove up with a friend from Florida and is enjoying his nephew's family and old friends with whom he used to work, such as George Carroll, who used to fire at Milo Mills; the Andrews brothers, Charles, Clarence, and Edwin; Clinton Purdy and Ed Chapman.
He first went down to Florida with his father and mother 42 years ago, for the sake of the latter's health, returned to Penn Yan several times but fell under the spell of the Florida sun and now owns his own home and six and a half acres in Gulfport, Fla. He had a dairy business there for 23 years, selling out about 10 years ago.
One of the most recent changes is the discontinuance of the Penn Yan-Dresden train service: When Mr. Whitbeck worked at the mills, you could travel the distance for "five cents a town" - counting such stops as Millo Mills as a town.
This energetic 78-year old gentleman likes Penn Yan and expects to be here for about a month, but then he'll hie back to his wife, his nutmeg trees with their purple blooms and his orange trees under the bright warm southern sun.Transcriber
MCLanguage
English