Quiet Hammondsport, New York, gets motorized.

In 1897, Marjorie Fay was born in Hammondsport NY on the south end of Lake Keuka, one of New Yorks famous finger Lakes. Her father, George,  owned and ran a general grocery store. They lived in a regular 2 story house across the street from the store. It had an iron fence around it, like many houses of the period.

Hammondsport was a typical New England type community. It had a big central square. The Grocery and Fay house was on one corner of the square. A large New England style church was on the opposite side of the square taking up the entire side. Of course the church was on the slightly uphill side of town. From the steeple you could see over the houses and out onto the lake. Life centered around the church, as well it should. This was a "God fearing" community.
Marjorie had a brother named Albert who was around 3 years old when she was born. Even the birth order of first a son to help the father, then a daughter to keep the mother company and take care of them in their old age. Life in Hammondsport moved on as it had for the past century.

Not that there was never any excitement in town. There was a boy who his parents expected him to live in the "Hammondsport way." His parents were so sure of it they named him after the town founder antd the glen at the headwaters of the Lake. So Glenn Hammond Curtiss entered the world in Hammondsport.
Glenn’s father died in 1882, when he was only four years old. Soon after that, he started hanging around the grocery store, hoping for something to take apart and fix.

In 1892, At the age of 14, Glenn was working at Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co in Rochester.
In 1895, he bought his first bicycle and by 1896, he was Champion bike racer in Lower Lakes Region.
In 1898, he got married to his girlhood Hammondsport friend Lena.
By 1901, he was back in Hammondsport, taking over the bicycle part of a General Store, about halfway between the grocery and the church. Here his tinkering began in earnest.

"The Fastest Man Alive," became Glenn's title when he went 136mph on his motorcycle, in 1907.



You can imagine how much noise and excitement this brought to Hammondsport and he hadn't even built an airplane yet.

So what does this have to do with little Marjorie Fay. Well with the changes brought about by new technology, George and his wife Bertha could see that there was not going to be a future for their children in sitting back in a little small town and running a grocery store. Not only did they send Marjories' brother, Albert, to college, but Marjorie as well.

She did not grow up to be a wing walker, but she did live with her husband and children in pre-war Japan for several years. Another story for another day.

Oh, by the way, the little girl, Marjorie Fay was my Grandmother.