Biography

Neil Anthony Shortslef

based on interviews conducted November 14, 2016 and later

written by Susan Parsons

Town of Sterling Historian

On Decoration Day, May 30, 1930, Amanda Walrath Shortslef was not decorating the graves of loved-ones, as many families did in Sterling. She gave birth to Neil Anthony Shortslef on that day. Neil was one of eight children who were named Amenzo, Ward Jr. (Bud), Art, Evelyn, Robert (Bob), Neil, Harold (Chub) and Theresa. Four still survive: Evelyn, Neil, Harold and Theresa. Neil was born on the Green Road in Sterling, where he lived until the age of 23 when he was married.

Brief genealogy:

Neil’s father, Ward Shortslef, was born on April 25, 1891 in the Town of Hannibal on Route 3, just past Sterling Creek. He was a farmer who also worked at the cheese factory in Sterling Center and at Ceratt’s Apple Dryer in Fair Haven. (See below.) He worked for the Town and also helped construct the east pier of Little Sodus Bay. Neil was told that Ward used a team of horses in the construction of that pier. He drew rocks to fill it in. Ward also sold insurance for the American Agricultural Association. Neil points out that in those days people would work when and where they could in order to survive and care for their families. On the farm Ward raised string beans to be sold to Comstock’s canning factory in Red Creek. He also grew cucumbers, apples and peas by the acre. He raised chickens and delivered eggs along with a chicken or two, at times. Neil’s father was also a fiddle player. He died in 1964. His father, Neil’s grandfather, was Amos Shortsleeves (1862-1930). Amos married Margret Watts and they had five children: Ward, James, Hazel, Neal and Margaret.

Neil’s mother, Amanda Walrath Shortslef was also born in the Town of Hannibal on Route 3. She was born April 8, 1897 and died in 1993. She was working at Curtis Canning Company in Sterling (1943) when she contracted blood poisoning and was forced to have her arm amputated just below the elbow. Neil pointed out that his mother could carry a pail of water by tucking in the bail at the elbow. She tried not to let the loss of her arm handicap her in any

1 way. She had an artificial prosthesis, Neil said, but it was so heavy that his mother did not use it. Neil thinks the amputation took place in the 1940’s. Today, antibiotics probably would have treated the infection easily. Penicillin was in use at the time but only for the military.

Neil’s grandfather, Amos Shortslef (Shortsleeves), was a French Canadian. On his mother’s side his grandmother Margret was an immigrant to the United States from Ireland.

Neil and his wife, Hope Marie Cooper Shortslef (born, 1936) have six children: Art, Lynn, Jim, Charles, Kevin and Rachel along with Nancy Anderson, who came to live with them when she was five days old. They have 16 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren. Similarly to Neil, his wife, Hope was born at home in Sterling.

Neil loves music and song: he states “I have music in me.” He plays the mandolin, guitar and bass and has recently begun learning to fiddle. He plays bluegrass music, these days, mostly at churches, but in the past he played at many festivals, such as along the St. Lawrence, Brandon Vermont, Sandy Creek, Central Square, the War Memorial in Syracuse, Fair Grounds, Hannibal field days, Weston, Vermont and Fair Haven State Park. At one time people from all over Central New York came to Fair Haven to listen to the music played at the park. Neil used to play every Saturday night at Regan’s Silver Lake. He did this for seven years. Over the years he got to know many bluegrass musicians, some whom have played at the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville. He explains that Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers started the bluegrass music movement. Only acoustic instruments are used, except for possibly the electric bass. Bluegrass music has a stronger melody and words are enunciated more clearly than in country music, which does use electric instruments. Neil is a tenor and he sings harmony but also will sing the lead. Neil’s father was a fiddler who played and called square dances. His mother had a baby grand piano which Neil first began playing at age four. He quickly progressed from using one finger to playing chords. He was not allowed to touch his father’s fiddle, though. The first stringed instrument he practiced on was a guitar followed by a mandolin. He has an old Gibson mandolin but the mandolin that he plays these days is an Ibenez. It does seem that Neil truly has music in his soul.

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Sweethearts Neil, with guitar in hand, and Hope; 1940 Pontiac in background

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Childhood:

On the farm Neil’s family owned they milked about 10 cows. The farm had a concrete block ice house; the ice was used to keep the milk cool. The ice may have come from ice cutting at the Creek in Sterling Valley. Neil remembers the conveyor that was used to bring the ice up from the creek to a loading area south of the old mill, at the edge of the Hunter farm. Howard Irwin did much of the ice cutting. Some farmers brought teams with wagons or bobs (often four runners) on wagon beds that were to be filled with ice. Farmers cooled their milk with the ice blocks they stored in their ice houses. Curtis Cooper had a milk route. He picked up the cooled milk in cans and took them to the Hannibal Dairymen’s League, where the laundromat was later located.

In 1936 the family barn burned down. A new one was built using beams from an old barn. After the fire the cows on the Shortslef farm were moved to Marshall Green’s until the new barn was completed. Lots of scrap pieces were left over from the new barn so Neil built a sled out of the scraps among other things he created. One day he took his handmade sled to school. Someone took it!

Bob, Ward and Neil Shortslef

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Neil’s father, Ward Shortslef at the silo before the barn burned in 1936. Note the horizontal lines on the silo. They were wooden planks, steamed and bent to encircle the silo.

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Neil used to help throw wood from the woodshed floor in the winter. The family heated with wood and had a wood cook stove that had to be fueled each day. Eventually the cook stove was converted to kerosene and the family put in an oil furnace. His grandfather had kerosene lights on the walls in his house. No electrical wires went past his home. In the late 1930’s he finally was able to wire his home for electricity.

Neil could recall that as a child, the kids used to put the lanterns from old buggies onto the stone pile and throw stones at them. Today those lanterns are valuable and Neil regrets their attempts to destroy the lighting from another time.

Carriage lamps, courtesy ebay

Remembering that his father, Ward, once worked for Ceratt’s Apple Evaporator in Fair Haven, Neil said he worked nights keeping the furnaces going. The heat would dry the apples. Neil remembers going to visit his father when he worked in Sterling Center at the cheese factory owned by Fay Burghart. Ward would weigh the milk in the milk cans, pour the milk into the vats, and then steam the milk cans to clean them. The covers would be returned to the cans and the cans were pushed back out onto the platform to await pickup by the farmers. The cheese factory made butter and some types of cheese. The milk in the vats was heated to a certain temperature while a “stirrer” used large paddles to stir the milk. It would lump up into curds. As the whey was drawn off, the cheese formed large slabs. The whey was drained to the outside where farmers took it to feed their pigs. The slabs of raw cheese were cut and eventually squeezed and put into cheese presses which would push in, further squeezing the rest of the whey out of the cheese. Once in a while Neil would get a taste of cheese from the factory.

One year for Christmas, Neil got an electric train. He said it was the highlife of his life. In the winter he and other kids in the area would get out the sleds and slide down hills. Neil’s grandfather on his mother’s side had use of a camp on Eight Mile Creek. The family went to

6 stay at the camp for a week every summer. Neil recalls that they had fencing, some barbed wire and that they had a stile to get over. He would walk up some steps, open the stile, walk through, and walk down the steps on the other side. It was beautiful, he said. They fished, and played with a rowboat in the creek. He could see the big carp in the water. The marsh in that area was mowed each year for horse hay.

Ward Shortslef, Neil’s father, had a 1934 Chevrolet, recalled Neil, and later a Woodie wagon of 1936 vintage.

One day when Neil was age 11, he remembers playing cards on the family’s open stair case when at about 4 PM the news came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Neil’s brother Art signed up for the Navy. Neil was working for Joe Andrews when victory in Europe was declared. He has no memory of celebrating the end of World War II.

The farming life of Neil’s family meant that livestock had to be cared for each day. Someone always had to be home to do chores. There were few trips. On the other hand, the family always had the necessities—milk, eggs, meat. During World War II, though, the lack of sugar because of sugar rationing bothered him and the family.

Neil’s mother was a strict Catholic, having come from an Irish family. Neil attended the Catholic Church on the Chappel Road, though he went through his First Communion and Confirmation at the Minetto Catholic Church. Later he joined the Sterling Valley Church. He says he feels blessed. God has given him many skills and joys.

The family did their shopping in Oswego or Sterling Center. They bought things from Mr. Ralph Miller (later Geer’s), or Ed Vincent (later Whitney’s.) Malcott’s store also sold groceries and gas. George Jackson was the barber. When Neil and his siblings were young their mother cut their hair but when the boys got fussy they went to George. He recalled, “George would say ‘cut your ear off’ and tap his ear saying ‘slap it back on before it bleeds.’”

As a child, Neil liked “True Comics” and had them sent to him through the mail. The family listened to Syracuse ball games, the Grand Ol’ Opry on the radio and country music on WOLF from noon to one PM. He went to a few band concerts at Fair Haven but more at Hannibal. His mother, brother Bob, and Neil pooled their money together and bought a damaged guitar for $12 from Jr. Green (Marshall Green, Junior, brother of Ormie). Some plastic wood fixed up that guitar. His favorite singer as a child was Roy Acuff and his favorite song was “Great Speckled Bird” which he still croons. He did not have a record player but at camp there was a wind-up Victrola along with some records the kids could play.

Neil said the family never went to a restaurant to eat but some of the families went to each other’s’ homes for celebrations, such as Thanksgiving. They did not go to the movies. They did

7 not have a television. When he got married and rented Bill Farden’s tenant house, he got his first television.

As a child, the family occasionally went to Fair Haven State Park. His most salient memory was buying the 5 cent caramel Sugar Daddy which was supposed to last all day. (Today, they can be found on line for $1.29 a piece.)

As a child, his friends were Rob, Stanley and Harry Morrell, Jim Hall Sr., and Duane Kyle.

From left: Chub Shortslef, Stanley Morrell, Jim Hall, Sr., Neil and Wayne Cowley. Photo was taken in the field by the Hunter farm.

Neil was hospitalized at age 16 so did not get his driver’s license until he was 19, after he came out of the sanatorium. He bought his first car from Billy Williams. He paid about $100 for a 1940 Pontiac.

School Years:

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Neil began first grade at the Sterling Valley School. Myrtle Guinup was his teacher. After Myrtle left he had Emily Cox. He took his lunch to school, which usually consisted of sandwiches. He would have peanut butter and jelly, or greens and mayonnaise and once in a great while, meat on a sandwich. He drank only water. There were no coolers to keep milk cold. During recess he played tag, touch-the-last, and softball. When he began to write he used a fountain pen that had a bladder to be filled with ink. He also used brown wooden pencils that had the little rubber erasers on the ends. He recalled having to travel to the Sterling Center two room school to take final tests such as Regents.

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Neil at age 10 or so.

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Neil at about age 12 or 13

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Hope Cooper at age 8 or 9. Years later she would become Mrs. Neil Shortslef

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Neil as a freshman at Hannibal High School

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He began grade 9 at Hannibal where he loved playing baseball. After his brother left Hannibal School, Neil was poised to take over his brother’s position as starting pitcher when something happened that changed his life. His brother Art Shortslef, a navy man, had come home safely from World War Two but later he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and eventually died from it. Members of the family had to be tested. The test showed that Neil had been exposed to the disease so he was taken out of school during his junior year and sent to Hermann Biggs Memorial Hospital in Ithaca where he spent the next 14 months. Not only did he miss baseball as well as his life in general, he was bored there. Eventually the doctor let him walk around on his ward only and work one hour per day in the greenhouse. He met some wonderful people. He studied and did his 11th and 12th grade work but the Hannibal school did not accept the credit and he did not force the issue. His baseball career was over as well. He said that with God’s help he has been fortunate anyway, and has always had work. Neil noted that when the hospital began using the new antibiotics such as streptomycin to treat tuberculosis, most patients recovered and the hospital soon closed.

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Left to right, Neil, unknown woman, Larry ? at greenhouse in Biggs Sanatorium

While Neil was hospitalized he became of draft age so he registered. Later he had a physical which he passed. Because he was married by this time he was classified as 2A. Neil was not called into the military.

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Biggs Memorial Hospital-Sanatorium

Left to right, Neil, Amanda, (Neil’s mother) and Bob Shortslef at Biggs

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Working life:

At age 10, Neil began work by weeding on the muck. They weeded carrots and onions on their hands and knees. This made his knees sore he said. It was hard, monotonous, dirty work. He worked for John Upcraft then. The muck, located near the Andrews Road, was owned by Morris Irwin, John Hickey, Lawrence Irwin and John Upcraft. (Later, Neil, along with Glen Pritchard, built the home next to the Little Red Schoolhouse Historical Society in Sterling Center. It was built for John Upcraft’s son, Milton.) At age 11 he started driving the tractor to put in hay and to do odd jobs. He also worked in the woods drawing out logs for Bill (Dutch) DeMass and his brother Pete DeMass.

By age 14 he began working for John Andrews on the farm. He put the corn cultivator on the old John Deere by himself because John was not able to. He also used the tractor and cultivator on the corn fields, cultivating corn. He cultivated beans as well. He also helped binding wheat and driving the tractor and wagon with hay loads. He shocked wheat every summer for four years. He forked beans in the fall for Ellery Marsh and for Leonard Hall, John Andrews, and John Gray. At this time the Voughts owned the stone house on the south side of 104A at the top of the hill in Sterling Valley, but they did not use their land. Bert Parsons used the fields. At the bottom of the hill, across from the falls was the Dairymen’s League. The office still stands and today is owned by Buddy Fox. The office was later used as the clubhouse for the Sterling Rod and Gun Club. Neil well remembers that skeet shooting was a favorite pastime there.

After coming home from the sanatorium, Neil went to work as a farm hand for Maurice Williams and his son, Billy Williams. He also worked for Charles Cooper, Hope’s father.

Working at the State Park in Fair Haven was Neil’s first “regular” job. He drove a 1937 Ford dump truck cleaning the roadsides, installing steps and guiding the air hammer driving steel through solid rock. The State was attempting to save the bluff from erosion by the method of using steel piping. Today, instead of being washed away, trees and grass are growing on that part of the bluff, postponing the inevitable erosion. This was in 1950 or 51, when he earned $1.28 per hour.

From his job at the Park, Neil went to work for the Marathon Paper Company on Mitchell Street in Oswego. They made various paper products such as ice cream containers, document holder papers, frozen vegetable boxes and bacon folders. The company bought out LaTulip Cup Company and made paper cups afterward. They made various sizes of rolled paper, some almost like cardboard, for use as caps for ice cream cups, and other items. Neil became a

17 warehouse man there. The men who did this job loaded boxcars and trucks. They sometimes had to take paper rolls off the paper machine. The rolls could weight up to two tons. Neil worked filling in if other workers got sick or otherwise had to leave the job. He therefore got to know many of the workers there. He helped teach a Sicilian worker English words. Later the Sicilian got a job at Alcan. He was able to communicate partly because of Neil’s teaching. Unfortunately, the union decided to go on strike because the company refused to place a janitor at the scene where paper cups were inspected. The company then decided to leave Oswego and move to Chambersburg, PA. Neil was asked to move and to go to work as a foreman at the Chambersburg plant but he refused. Before the company closed, he got to know Michael Canale (of Canale’s Restaurant, Oswego), who had bought the Oswego plant. Michael would drive to the plant and park his Cadillac among all the Fords in the lot. Michael was a noted checkers player in Oswego, but Neil beat him two out of three games. Michael did not know that Neil had learned to play from a champion when he was hospitalized at the Sanatorium in Ithaca.

After his job ended at the Marathon Paper Company, Neil’s brother Chub, who worked for Joe Fabio in Solvay got him a job there doing carpentry. Neil recalled that his first job there was hanging a 200 lb. fire door between two apartments. He also built his own home on Old State Road, with the help of his brother, Chub, in 1958. Neil found that he loved carpentry work and being a carpenter was what he wanted to do for a living. After his job with Fabio, he and Glen Pritchard, an electrician, became partners in the building and remodeling businesses. At this time the structures in the City of Oswego were being changed from 60 to 120 amp electrical services. This required new, heavier wiring, along with new service panels. Neil and Glen worked rewiring various places in Oswego, while house building and remodeling. The homes of Billy Sabin and the Upcraft’s in Sterling Center were their first two houses. Neil said that building homes is “the hottest and coldest job there is,” requiring outside work in the winter and attic work in the summer, for example. The partnership lasted about 10 years. Glen went on to create Bardan Homes and Neil struck out on his own. He built Bill Joyce’s home on Sterling Valley Road then. He also helped build an octagon house, with all its angles. He also loved building stairs. He says that creating stairs, which can be a challenge for many, is just “common sense.” Being 1/16” off on each step generally means being almost an inch off by the top step, which is a tripping hazard. He stated that when he was young he was bashful but being a carpenter makes one almost “move in” with people. In that way he overcame his shyness.

In 1962, Neil was forced to retire because of bad knees, though he did some work after. He had two knee replacements, one in January, 1995 and the other about ten years later. He has also had rotator cuff surgery (“the worst of all,” he says), heart by-pass surgery, a stent and most recently a pacemaker. After retirement from carpentry work, Neil went to work as a wing man

18 plowing snow for the Town of Sterling. He began working for Jim Sherman, and then Norm Grant and finally Paul Kelly, He would get up at 3 AM and be at the snowplow and ready to plow by 4 AM. Neil worked on the plow for 17 years, finally “retiring” from that job in about 2009.

Activities:

Neil and Leonard Marsh created a ski hill on the Laxton Road in Sterling. Neil went to Cato to study the ski rope system they had on Route 34 at the edge of town. Then he made the rope ski lift for use on the Laxton Road ski hill using hubs from old Nash Ramblers for pulleys and a coil wire from an old Mercury automobile. A man from Victory said it could not be done, which became a challenge to Neil. The Mercury was parked, raised up and anchored. The coil wire was cut off and a longer wire was used to make a circuit into a board about four feet long and 18 inches off the ground. The car’s engine would be used as a source of power, turning the pulleys and the rope. Skiers would grab the rope and be taken up the hill. If someone was to get caught or a coat was caught, the circuit on the board would trip and the car engine would quit instantly. Neil pointed out that a car cannot run without the spark from the coil wire. Dennis Ouellette got the rope for the lift from the Snow Ridge Ski area.

Area residents used this hill, creating some wonderfully memorable experiences. They had graduated trails for beginners which ended where the rope was located. They could ski to the end and then grab the rope to be pulled back up the hill. The big hill had a ski jump near the bottom that was made of snow. Neil learned to love skiing, partly from that hill. He mentioned that he went twice to Park City Utah, to ski on the “big” slopes in the Rockies with his friends Dennis and June Ouellette. Because he developed arthritis in the knees, he had to “retire” from skiing at age 49.

As previously stated, Neil has been busy “making music” for most of his life. These days he can be found playing his mandolin at churches, bringing pleasure to the listeners.

Neil became a cabinet maker, furniture maker and toy maker. He has made entertainment centers, a corner cabinet, book cases, table, stands, cabinets, rocking chairs, desks and a china cabinet, etc. He has used post construction, for example, on the entertainment center. He is also a toy maker, still creating wonderful items out of wood, such as a stage coach, a roadster, a crane, an eight-wheeled tractor, little John Deere tractors and little trucks.

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Neil gluing panels in his workshop

He has created a 1982-84 Oshkosh truck on the order of one owned by the Town of Sterling. He creates sketches and uses a scale of 1/8 inch equals 1 foot. He is also practicing on the fiddle and is about to learn the Bob Ross method of doing oil paintings. He believes that he should keep his mind and body at work while enjoying God’s creation.

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Neil Shortslef’s handmade scale model Oshkosh truck with a working plow

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