Did You Ever Hear of Ellery Green?

Grampie Ellery H. Watson was a noble and good man who worked hard and faithfully all of his life. He is pictured here taking a break from the job with Hazen Kneeland (Uncle Leonard's brother) just behind him and with Grampie Jim Williams in profile.

My grandfather took a lot of pride in what he did. I can remember riding along the road with him and having him point out a house here or there saying, "I drilled that well back in 19__. We went ___ feet deep on that one and got ___ gallons per minute. That was a great well, but it took ____ days to drill it." How he kept all those statistics in his mind along with the name of the man of the house absolutely amazed me.

Besides the well drilling, he did farming with work horses, kept a few cattle, chickens, pigs, and was quite self sufficient. He and our grandmother bought flour by the barrel and molasses by the keg. Speaking of molasses, it was always fascinating to watch him frequently finish his meal with bread and molasses. I can remember the thick piece of homemade bread on his plate dotted with hand churned butter that wasn't quite soft enough to spread. Then, he would reach for his molasses jar -- glass with a metal top-- that had a thumb tab on it to tip the cover open and allow the molasses to be poured out the spout. The first of the stream of molasses would be in the center of the bread and he would move the jar in a circular motion so that the molasses made a spiral pattern on the bread. He ended at the very edge of the bread without dripping the molasses over the sides. I can still see him making that awesome meal-topper and would like to see him do it again! Oh, the things that spark a child's interest.

He was just as meticulous about caring for his equipment and tools or darning his socks as he was at pouring his molasses. And that brings me to the topic of Ellery Green. As a way of protecting his tools from anyone who would like to make off with one, he put a dot of green somewhere on each tool. This is the same green of his barn, his trucks, his "chuck wagon" and most anything else he would want to paint (though I think Gram must have insisted on a white house). So over time we began to call that shade Ellery Green!

 In July of 2010, Cliff and some others organized a family reunion for the Cains, Nasons, Watsons. What fun we had. One of the high points was that Grampie Ellery and Grammie Muriel were represented at the reunion by my Mom and my cousin Jamey Watson. Jamey (James, Jim) has always reminded us more of Grampie than any of the others. So he showed up in Grampie Ellery garb: an authentic felt "drill hat" (that still had some of Gramp's white hairs around the inner band the last time I looked), the denim bib "work overalls", a green button down work shirt, work boots, and a red bandana handkerchief such as Grampie always carried on the job (sometimes he carried a blue one or a green one). So we took pictures and here they are in their roles as Muriel and Ellery. Wow, we miss them!

Grampie always wanted to "die with my boots on". He almost did! He worked until just a few weeks before he died. He was getting tired and weak and went to the hospital to be checked out. As I remember, he only lived about three weeks after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Heaven is his home, though, and we look forward to a BETTER reunion some day.