The Life of May Brown Starkey
MAY TAYLOR BROWN STARKEY
RECOLLECTIONS ON GROWING UP AND FAMILY (As told to Dave over the years)
THE BROWN'S
My father-Samuel Hanby Brown was a butcher by trade who made delicious scrapple using a recipe that I had heard was given to him by a German fellow. He also made excellent sausage.
Papa, as we called him, suffered from severe asthma. When he did his own slaughtering, the dust from the hairs on the hides made his asthma much worse, so he had to start buying sides of beef and pork. There were two huge iron pots in the barn behind our house at Talleyville that used a coal fire to cook the parts and ingredients for the scrapple. Mother would put in the com meal while papa stirred with a long handled paddle and taste to see if he had put enough sage in it. As far as I know, the recipe is no longer around.
Papa's parents, Joseph C. and Rebecca Hanby Brown, owned a general supply store in Talleyville that was next door (north) of the Western Grange building and across from our house. Called Brown's Store, it was also Talleyville's first post office. Grandfather Joseph was also a butcher.
Of Joseph's and Rebecca's 7 children, Samuel (papa) was the oldest, born November 20, 1873.
The others were Hattie (Ramsey), Bessie Brown (never married), May (Wilson), Florence (Barber), Pusey (never married), and the youngest, Ethel (Pyle).
I remember Grandfather Brown (Joseph) looked a little bit like one of the Smith Brothers cough drop men pictured on the box.
My Uncle Pusey and Aunt Bess lived in Joseph and Rebecca's house behind the store into their adulthood. They eventually moved to a garage apartment they built at the rear of Aunt Hattie's property at 107 Lore Avenue in Hillcrest.
One of Grandfather Joseph's brothers, my Great Uncle Pusey, was married to Kate. Late in their marriage, Pusey and Kate adopted a lady named Anna Galey who was in her forties when they adopted her. When Kate died, Anna put Pusey in an old age home and lived offhis money.
Joseph also had brother's Camby and Washington.
My father's fust wife wt.Florenc'X;alley of Pennsylvania. They~ 3 boys and 3 girls."trarian was their oldest, born July 3, 1901: Elihu born in 1902, then came Gilbert in 1904XElizabeth 1905*Edith, January 17, 1906 ansJ(amuel on May 13, 1911.
In 1910, at the age of 6;bilbert died of spinal meningitis. Our sister Elizabeth told me he had been hit in the head by a baseball while at recess in the first grade and this caused his illness.
In 1911, at the age of32, Florence died of Bright's Disease, a swelling ofthe kidney.
Samuel was four and a half months old when his mother died.
Papa and Florence owned and had lived in a house at the comer of Silverside Road and Concord Pike in Talleyville. For some reason, they moved with their children to Elam, Pa., across and down from Elam Methodist Church on Old Smith's Bridge Road, and rented out the Talleyville house. Papa bought the house in Elam from his Uncle Washington Brown. Marian had told me that the prior tenants were very dirty. Papa moved back to Talleyville when Florence died.
MOTHER AND PAPA
Papa and my mothe~argaret Flaville Taylor, met at Wilmington's Madison Street farmers market where papa owned and operated a meat store at 507 Madison Street. Our mother brought farm products to market from Horseshoe Farm where she, her parents and brothers had lived since 1910. She came in by horse and carriage, probably with her brother Walter who was 6 years younger than her, or other brothers.
Like papa, mother was the oldest of 7 children. Sh~as born November '\ 1892. The other six were all boys: William T., Bayard L., Walter C., Frederick E., Philip P., and Newell C.
Mother and papa were married in 1913. She was 21, he was 39.
My half brother Samuel, then only 2, lived with his maternal grandparents, "Grandmom" and "Grandpop" Talley until he was older. The first Talley house I remember was a double house at Smith's Bridge Road and the Brandywine Creek. Later they moved to Elam. The house is one of the frame houses located between the north and south bound lanes of route 202 on the south side of Smith's Bridge Road.
In 1914 ElihU, then 12, drowned in the Brandywine Creek down from Garden of Eden Road while ice skating. This was a year after mother and papa were married.
Sam came to live with us at Talleyville when he was around 12 or 13. I was around 6 years old then.
THE TAYLOR'S
My mother's mother Mary Turner Taylor was always called "May", and that was how I got my name. Grandmom May (Mary) was born and lived in Philadelphia before meeting and marrying Grandpop Pusey Philip Taylor, a farmer and Quaker. Grandfather Pusey Taylor was born near Centerville, Del. in 1855. We don't know how they met. I remember grandpop talked like the Quakers do now, using "thee", "thou", "thy" and such instead of "you" and "they". "How are thee?" I remember grandpop as a stern man and he always looked so much older than my grandmother.
In 1903 they went to Chadds Ford Junction where they lived at Strode Farm. I don't know ifhe just worked the farm or owned it.
THE TAYLOR'S IN CHADDS FORD - THE EARLY YEARS
After Strode Farm they rented a house from a Dr. Anderson who was on an extended trip. The house, called Windtryst, was directly next door (South) ofthe Washington's headquarters house at Chadds Ford's Brandywine Battlefield Park.
At Windtryst my grandparents boarded Howard Pyles art students - N. C Wyeth, Stanley Arthurs and others. My mother and brothers were used by the artists as models. In one painting by N. C.
Wyeth, mother was portrayed as an indian maid. The original painting was given by N. C.
Wyeth to his neighbors Mary Wallace Baldwin (a school friend of mothers). Uncle Walter was portrayed in the Wyeth illustrated, Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island as "Jim Hawkins Leaves Home". In the same book, mother is "The Inn Keepers Daughter" standing in the doorway.
The Windtryst house burned down some years after they moved (burned on 9/11/14), but the original barn remains and is now an estate called Windtryst Barn .
My mother's school teacher was Chris Sanderson a local historian who taught at Chadds Ford School between 1906-1909. In later years, 1933 to 1966, he had a Sunday afternoon radio program on several local stations (WDEL was one). He and his mother rented the stone house at Chadds Ford that is now called Washington's headquarters next to Windtryst. Chris also played the fiddle. At one of the "Old Fiddlers Day" at Lenape Park that Chris was involved with, Leonard and I took Leonard's father, H. Scott Starkey. He played his fiddle and got a $1 bill. He never spent it.
In 1910 Grandfather Pusey and Mary bought 200 acre Horseshoe Bend Farm from the Dupont's and farmed it until he retired and his sons took over. Located 2 miles south of Chadds Ford, it is opposite Point Lookout on the Brandywine Creek. The attic floor in the main house was made of cement so, as Chris Sanderson told us one time, if indians shot at the house with bow and fire arrow it would not easily catch fire. The house also had 2 or 3 cellars. In addition to the main house there was a yellow frame cottage on the property at the end of a then dirt lane off Rt 100.
My mother's brother Walter died in 1916 of Typhoid Fever at the age of 18. Mother had been married three years at this time.
Grandpop Pusey became ill with diabetes around 1917 so when he retired, he and grandmom moved into the small yellow cottage with sons Philip and Newell. Sons William and Fred stayed in the main house where they continued farming and started their families.
As a little girl I remember the meadows at Horseshoe were always full of Virginia Blue Bells, a wild but beautiful flower. We used to ride on the Brandywine in a birch bark canoe that Howard Seal had. Also, large geese ran loose around Horseshoe that chased and tried to bite us. I was really afraid of them.
There was a grocery store in Chadds Ford named Gallagher's at Rt 100 & Rt 1. It had a wooden floor and carried a lot of the supplies grandmom used. I think the store building is still there near the art museum. Also on Rt 1 was a store called Connors, which was located where new buildings and office spaces are now. It was on the right going toward Chadds Ford on Route 1.
TALLEYVILLE - THE EARLY YEARS
Dorothy was born April 7, 1915, and I was born January 12, 1917, both in the house mentioned earlier at the comer of Concord Pike and Silverside Roads in Talleyville. Concord Pike was then a two lane "turtle back" (high in the middle and curved down at the sides) road with very little traffic.
There were 3 bedrooms in our Talleyville house. In one bedroom we had two double beds where all 5 of us girls slept. As the youngest, I often slept in the middle of one of the beds. I used to suck my thumb and twirl Elizabeth's hair when I slept. She used to get mad at me - then I'd stop.
Samuel, when he came to live with us, had a room to himself and mother and father had the third room. They had a brass bed and a lot of pretty furniture. The house was painted a cream color and was a Victorian design.
The house was heated by a pipeless heater located in the basement leading to a round register in the floor in the living room.
Sitting on rockers on the open front porch, we would count the cars that went by and tried to name the make of each. It was just in our location around Talleyville, that we called the side of the road where the dirt and gravel was the "summer road". I guess because it's where the horses would ride after Concord Pike was paved. Our mailman, Mr. Bell, had written us one time saying that it was only in the Talleyville area that people called the shoulder the summer road.
For many years we used kerosene lamps. One hung in the dining room with a couple more in the living room, one of which we used when we did the dishes in the kitchen after dinner.
RESTING PLACES
Papa's parents and siblings are all buried at Grace P. E. Cemetery, Talleyville (Leonard and I were married there).
I think papa's grandparents are buried in Lower Brandywine Church Cemetery - on hill at parking lot under a Boxwood tree (Eva and Ray were married there).
Many of the Hanby's and Talley's (Florence's family) are buried at Bethel M. E. Church (1873) on Foulk Road just inside the Delaware State line.
The Taylor plot is at Brandywine Baptist Church Cemetery (at Brandywine Battlefield National Park -Rt 1 Chadds Ford).
Also some uncles are at a Birmingham, Pa. cemetery between Rt 100 and 202 Concord Pike down the road from the 202 drive-in movie.
Papa, our mother, Florence, Elihu, Gilbert, Leonard, Chris, Dolly and Jim and many other family are at Elam U.M. Church Cemetery in Elam, Pa. It is located on Smith's Bridge Road just east of I Rt. 202