A 1912 whirlwind romance in three acts. Part One: The Bride.
To tell the story of how Dotty Claffee, the Clinton Avenue girl I introduced a couple of weeks ago, came to raise her four daughters in my Pine Hills house, we have to go out to Nassau village, by way...
View ArticleA 1912 whirlwind romance, Part Two: The Groom.
Want to read Part One of this tale? It’s here. Dr. George Stickles was born in 1859 in Nassau village, Rensselaer County. The son of a farmer, he grew up to become a gymnast. Yes, that’s right. Hold on...
View ArticleA 1912 Whirlwind Romance, Part Three: Fast cars and smooth moves
Earlier: Part One: The Bride and Part Two: The Groom. And so it was that 32-year-old Marguerite Claffee and Dr. George Stickles, 52 and six weeks a widower, ended up at the same Kinderhook Lake camp...
View ArticleWelcome home, Mrs. Stickles: My house’s third owners
Marguerite and George Stickles, having met and married in rapid succession, moved out to George’s hometown of Nassau and got to know each other. They had four children, all girls, in the next eight...
View ArticleA death in the family: George and Marguerite’s final chapter
To read more about George and Marguerite Stickles, see the posts here. Some time after they bought the West Lawrence Street house in 1921, George Stickles started to worry about a small growth on his...
View ArticleThe ‘flappers in my attic’ grow up
Joan, Georgea, Sylvia, and Cornelia – the little girls who had grown up hiding out from Mom above my attic ceiling, drawing pictures of flappers, copying down song lyrics, and sneaking cigarettes and...
View ArticleAlcohol reshapes a family
The day I brought a light into my attic and discovered the flapper sketch between the rafters, I found something else, too. At first it looked like just a smear of white, a smudge of crayon. Another...
View ArticleA ‘History of Here’ open house.
I’m holding an open house to celebrate my home’s 100th birthday, and you’re all invited. I’ve been working on this project for more than two years now, tracing the history of my house and the...
View ArticleA journey of hope: Alcoholism treatment in Albany
In the decade after Sylvia Stickles’ death, her sisters Joan and Georgea, and Joan’s husband, Fred, fought and won their battles with alcohol. They could have returned to private life, caring for their...
View ArticleTwo sisters, lighting a path to recovery
In 1987, a halfway house for alcoholic women opened in the former St. Adalbert’s convent in Schenectady. It was the second such facility in the Capital Region, and one of only a handful in all of New...
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