Marjorie Eloise Howe Lobdell

What a life! It seems almost like several lives in one, with so many changes and such diverse accomplishments. I hope that here we can share a few memories and moments that construct an outline of Marj’s life, and that where there are gaps others will fill in what they know and remember. Kind of a family project. To get started, here are a few memories from Betty, pieced together with facts from the database as best I can. If you would like to add your memories or correct the details, please send your comments to David via the news page and he can put them in order for us.

Marj was born on the 31st of December, 1903, in Lansingburg (now Troy), New York, the oldest of six surviving children of Lee and Cora Howe.

She went to college (Syracuse University) right after high school and began teaching. On December 25, 1926, she married Charles Ambrose Lobdell in Westmoreland, New York. After marrying, she quit teaching and lived on the farm in Wadhams, New York.

Life on the Farm

Betty remembers that she and Bert and Bill often spent summers at the farm. Marj would load all the kids into the car and take them down to the river to swim. (What river? I asked. The river that ran through the horse pasture. Oh.) One year Marj’s younger kids had measles and were quarantined. Betty, Bert, and Bill had to sleep out in the yard. See The Hay Wagon Shot and others in the Lobdell Photo Album.

There were no conveniences on the farm, Betty says, recalling that a side of beef hung in the woodshed. She remembers doing dishes, that big heavy ironstone china Marj hated, which would now be a treasure, of course.

Going to the farm from Baldwinsville was an eight or nine hour trip in those days. Betty remembers arriving at the farm at midnight one Christmas eve, with Lee, Cora, Betty, and the boys. Marj wasn’t expecting them, so they all stood in the yard singing Christmas carols to wake up the household.

Life in Baldwinsville

In 1953, the time of Cora’s letters, Marj had left Charlie and the farm and was staying with Lee and Cora at 22 Grove St. Nan, Noni, Billie, and Pat were with her. Noni was in nursing school, and Marj was renewing her teaching certificate and working part-time. It was a full and active household, and "Marj manages it all," Cora said. Billie was now a teenager, and Pat was about 11. See Cora’s letters for more about this period.

Van Etten

In the late 1950s, the family moved to Van Etten. (Marj’s first teaching job?) (As this wasn’t too far from Breeseport, where the Whites were living, we got to see them more often, and Sally remembers some of those days.) Billie and Pat finished high school here, and Noni got married in Van Etten.

Bath

In the 1960s, Marj moved to Bath and bought a trailer. She continued teaching until about 1972. Billie and Joe got married at the Episcopal Church in Bath.

Personal Memories

When I was 8 years old and had surgery and was in the hospital for what seemed like weeks, Aunt Marj gave me a little stuffed squirrel. He was gray with a white tummy and pink ears and had a music mechanism inside that played Rock-a-Bye Baby. He was my absolutely favorite toy, and I used to fall asleep with my ear pressed up against his middle. Soon I knew every note as well as every extra little whirr and click of the mechanism by heart, and was used to the song starting out fast then getting slower and slower...

The amazing thing is that I still have the squirrel, probably the only artifact left of my childhood, and that he still works! He’s a little worn, like the Velveteen rabbit, but he still has his eyes and his pink ears and most of his fur... I guess when you give a gift, especially to a child, you never know what kind of effect it might have. Whether it will be forgotten the next day or treasured for the next 42 years... ;-)

In the summer of 1965, Marj took me on a trip to California to visit Bert and Lois. This was a great summer and a major highlight of my high school years (if not, LIFE! She adds later). We left Bath riding with Gray McCasland in the front seat of a big rig he was driving. Gray took us the first leg, to Wisconsin where the McCaslands lived, and a visit with them. Then they took us to Chicago for the next leg, on the Zephyr all the way across the country to Los Angeles. Riding on the train, spending time in the observation car and seeing all that scenery was impressive. Bert and Lois met us at the station and took us to their home in Pacific Palisades, where I saw palm trees for the first time ever. It was a summer of firsts, with visits to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, Yosemite National Park, the redwoods, more sights and places and memories jammed in than I can number.

-- Sally White

I had only met Marj three or four times... all at family reunions. What impressed me most about her is she always knew who I was, and was always curious about what I was doing, my interests, etc. She was such a nice lady, and also very intelligent and sharp.

-- David Howe (son of Lee Howe III)