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We went to May Memorial Church (Unitarian) where my parents had been married by the Rev. Samuel R. Calthrop, a distinguished cleric of the day who was not only a man of the cloth but also writer and astronomer who had a small observatory at his home called "Primrose Hill" way out on South Saline Street. I attended Sunday School from an early age. My impression is that my father, who was born, a Methodist, was not too faithful a church-goer. We had a pew down near the front but I didn’t attend church very often and can't recall much about it until after my father died. Somewhere along the line, Dr. Calthrop died, an old, white-bearded man, and was succeeded by the Rev. John H. Applebee, an Englishman like Dr. Calthrop. I have two memorable impressions of the church, however: We kids used to explore around the church occasionally when we could get loose from supervision and one spot that absolutely fascinated us was the organ loft at the back of the church, particularly the mysterious depths of darkness as one peered back among the rows of big pipes. The other place was the huge, low—ceilinged basement under the church auditorium, stretching away into unknown recesses of darkness and mystery; it was like being down in a coal mine, I can say from later experience. But I can remember only generalities about Sunday School -- the general session with the hymn singing and the instruction from the superintendent followed by dispersal to odd corners here and there where the individual classes met and were taught the Bible and so on. I was very faithful (I suppose I had little to say about this) but it apparently wasn't too memorable an experience. I think my mother made me more religious than Sunday School.

During my childhood, I participated in two important social events from the standpoint of Syracuse society. First, I was a ribbon boy at the wedding of my cousin, Katherine Grouse, to Dwight James Baum, who was to become one of the most celebrated residential architects in the country, finally settling in Riverdale, a suburb of New York City. For this service at the wedding, I was presented with a pair of gold cuff links which I still have and use. The other event was serving also as ribbon boy I think, at the wedding of my distant cousin, Mildred Tefft, to Frederick Barker who, at the time, was employed by Dupont as a chemical engineer, having {graduated from MIT, but who later deserted engineering to enter banking in Syracuse and eventually became president of the First Trust & Deposit Co. The Teffts lived a couple of blocks from us on Highland Avenue and were very close to my parents. They also had a son, Kenneth, whom I lost track of. All I can recall about him was that he went to Bowdoin College in Maine and used to cut grass in Oakwood Cemetery in the summer vacations to help pay college expenses. The father, Cousin Edward, rose to be cashier of the same bank that his son—in-law finally headed. Her husband had died but we saw Cousin Mildred briefly in Syracuse in the summer of 1965 at Cousin Gertrude Barker Grimm's at Cazenovia and she was as cute and attractive as ever although near 70 I suppose.