by Roxy Triebel
treebz65@hotmail.com

These stories are from Grandma's book, "Tangled Roots and Twisted Branches".

In the story below, "Jerry" is Jeremiah David Van Kleeck (1876 - 1956), half brother of my grandmother's Dad, Abram Van Kleeck (1871 - 1954).  "John" is most likely John Van Kleeck (died 1937), son of Jacob Van Kleeck (born 1828).  According to my grandmother's information, John operated a livery stable in Shokan and later in Ellenville.

True, in my searching, I found no tales of horse thieves in our clan, but horse traders - that's another story!  My Dad had a brother and a cousin, both 'dyed-in-the-horsehair traders', and they knew every known, and some unknown, tricks of the trade.  Usually, I guess, they steered clear of each other in dealings, but once, for some reason, they made contact.

It seems John had a horse - how he ever got stuck with it, I don't know - but it had about everything wrong with it that it could have and still navigate.  John, at that time, operated a livery stable, and went to work on this horse with some of his tricks, among them was the one of feeding a horse a small amount of arsenic daily.  It made the horse look and act really good.  Along came Jerry (Jeremiah David Van Kleeck).  He was in the market for a horse, and after a considerable amount of dickering and dealing, a trade was made, and Jerry took his prize home.  It was only a matter of a few days that he found out what a 'prize horse' he really had.  Then he started to work with some of his tricks on that horse - one, was to dye its hair another color, and he also fed it the arsenic treatment.  When he had that horse looking and acting really grand, he hitched it up to a buggy and casually drove it to town and past the livery stable.  Later, he stopped at the stable and John looked the nag over and admired it - didn't recognize it, and Jerry didn't tell him.  John decided he would like to have the horse, so began to dicker.  Jerry made out that he thought a lot of his horse and didn't really want to part with it, but finally they made a deal.  John got his 'prize', and Jerry made quite a bit on the deal.  I don't know just what did happen when John found out how he had been 'took', but I heard that those two never did any horse trading with each other after that.  John, in later years, went into the auto business, and from some of the tales, he was a slick a car trader as he was a horse trader.

Miscellaneous Anecdotes

How do you FEEL?  There was Uncle Grant (Ulysses Grant Oakley) - if he was a bit under the weather - he would complain that he felt 'common', but if he really was feeling badly, the expression was 'buggardsley common'.

I never remember hearing my Dad swear.  The closest to it, was if he had a cantankerous horse to shoe, or a piece of hot iron went where it was not directed, he would say "Donder and Blitzen".

One day a friend of Grandma's came from across town to call on her.  Grandma (Elnora (Kerr) Barringer) asked her "Did you come afoot?"  The lady replied "Oh no, I walked."  Grandma used to tell me if I went over YONDER below the pond, I would find the biggest violets.  When we went picking strawberries, it was always down the railroad tracks a "ferr piece" would be the best picking.  I was always afraid to cross even the smallest wood tressel across a drain under the tracks, but my fears went away if I could just hang on the end of one of her apron ties.

My Dad told about one Halloween - his Dad (David Van Kleeck) had a wagon load of logs all ready to go to the mill early the next day.  It stood by the barn.  After Grandpa went to bed, my Dad and several cousins and neighbors unloaded the wagon, took it up to the barn roof and carried the logs up there, and reloaded the wagon.  Next morning early, it wasn't nearly the fun bringing it down, with only half the help.

This information may be used by libraries, genealogical societies, and for personal use.  Commercial use of this information is strictly prohibited without prior permission of the owners.  If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information.