Passings

Last week was a doubly sad time for Skaneateles.

The Big News that was revealed on Wednesday was that WelchAllyn, the family-run business that established Skaneateles as a wonderful place to raise children, retire, enjoy the beauty of the land and not just be a destination for a week in the summer...WelchAllyn had been sold.  Its headquarters would be moved to Chicago.  The thirteen hundred jobs in the area....well, no word on those as yet.

As the week went by we learned that the Allyn family agonized over the decision as well they should.  They were such a huge part - are such a huge part - of Skaneateles.  They put their belief that a small town could stay a small town and be productive on the global market on the line.  Not just productive, but competitive. I always enjoyed living in Seattle but seeing WelchAllyn products, made just a few miles away from where I grew up. Not knowing then that I would ever live in Skaneateles, that Alex would graduate from the high school, that I would be so intimately tied to the company through real estate relocation.

I doubt that the company will leave the area in the way that Carrier (where my father worked until he retired) did.  I don't see the new plant on State Street Road falling into disrepair like the factories in Dewitt.  (I refuse to look at Skaneateles Falls and the WA Jordan Road plant across from the Red Rooster.  Not yet.)  I also don't see the jobs leaving the area...we are growing here.  Think Tessy Plastics.

I see change though....I see Skaneateles more and more becoming a wealthy town, a recreational rather than residential town.  Homes becoming B&Bs, fewer kids in school (already there!), retirees rather than new parents.  But that's not all bad...just different.

The second sadness came from the passing of Jack Tracy.  By way of introduction he was the patriarch of a family in construction....Lake Country Construction.  He was also the seller of the lake lot I have represented on Firelane 21B plus the house and 50 acres in Niles.  His company, coincidentally, built the WelchAllyn Lodge.

He was a tough old bird, and I mean that affectionately.   When I heard he was sick - he told me actually - I discounted it.  He had come back from worse.  I never thought I'd be sitting in the Presbyterian Church marveling at those lovely stained glass windows on a late spring morning, listening to his eulogies.  I really didn't.

He was a gentleman of the first degree.  He loved his wife of 59 years, Midge, and treated her with a courtly gentleness that I see rarely these days!  He was only 20 when they married....think of that. They were always together.  I can honestly say I have never seen Midge without him.

I still hear his voice.  Kind of a laugh, then a "I really want that lot sold, Meg."  I would argue for a reduction in price.  He'd laugh again.  Say "Well, no...no..."   I would sigh, say something like "Okay..." and give in another time.  Why?  I am not sure, except maybe to stay a part of his world.  Ego, most likely.  I wanted to sell it to show him.

My favorite lines are apt here, for the passing of both Skaneateles icons:

I listened motionless and still,
And as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
           
             
Poem:  William Wordsworth
Photo:  Alicia