Tag Archives: John Losee

Fred

15 Tuesday Nov 2011

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My grampa Losee was an avid hunter and caught deer, water fowl and various varmints around Red Hook and along the Hudson River. For many years he and his friends would go up to Maine and spend a week or so hunting in the woods, often having a meal of venison while they were there, having a good time in each other’s company. These men would even bring their wives along. This was before cable TV and the internet when people’s attention spans weren’t narrowed to 60 seconds or less and they could actually spend time in a cabin in the woods with their spouses and not lose their minds with perceived boredom!

Meet Fred.

John Losee and the deer that became Fred, 1936

Fred is a taxidermy deer that John Losee hunted in 1936 and has been passed down in the family. Of interest to those who mount their kills is the December 16th, 1936 receipt for the work, seen below. The cost was only $19.00. Most full heads like Fred start at about $300.00, an increase of 1,478% over 76 years!

Fred’s Taxidermy Receipt

On the left is Fred in the 1940’s in black and white with some friends and below he’s hanging in our office in Millerton in 2011. For Christmas we let him wear a santa hat. Many customers have wondered about him. Some who hunt marvel at the low price on the receipt framed next to him. Small children often point him out and some have made us all giggle by trying to look on the opposite wall for the rest of him!

Grampa Losee took his son hunting on a few occasions but I do not know if Johnny knew how to prepare the kill after he shot it. My own brother does not know how to hunt, as he does not need to supply venison to his family and does not live in our area anymore to enjoy the sport of it. This is also true for many other young Dutchess County residents. How many young men (Grampa Losee was 29 when he bagged Fred) still hunt on a regular basis, let alone serve what they hunted to their families? Not many.

“Elmore + Clint + Two Bucks”

11 Friday Nov 2011

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November Series

“Elmore + Clint + Two Bucks” November 15th, 1942 by John Losee

Elmore is our cousin Elmore Fraleigh 1909 – 1995 who lived at and worked Rose Hill Farm in Red Hook, NY. I do not know who Clint is, but he’s probably a local as well. Data from Grampa’s slide diary indicate that the picture is local, but not exactly where these gentlemen are. Grampa and his friends were avid hunters, fowlers and fishermen even before the war and hunted both for sport and for food.

Next post, I think I’ll introduce you to Fred.

John Losee color slide collection

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

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Left: John Losee’s slide diaries.

I am the custodian of my grampa John Losee’s color slide collection, which numbers over 7,600 individual slides. One of the most unique subjects details his years as an apple grower in Red Hook, NY in the 1930s and 40s. Although family snap-shots do make up a great many of the images in the collection, he was just as likely to photograph an insect or rock or landscape that struck his scientific sensibilities. It didn’t surprise me, as I indexed the images, to put any given shot from a family vacation into the categories “archaeology” or “geology” – not many families can claim such excitement!

I spent the last couple years indexing all of his slides and categorizing them as well so I might make interesting slide shows of them. It wouldn’t have been such an easy task but for grampa Losee being so well organized. Some might say “obsessive/compulsive” or “anal-retentive” but I think he was just an engineer who ended up having to be an apple farmer and later a teacher who loved to take pictures. He kept a tiny notebook with him anytime he brought his cameras with him and jotted down the date, the number of the shot, the subject matter and the camera settings and filters used to capture the image. At the top of most pages he also noted when he sent the rolls to Kodak and when he got them back.

Right: This hand-made storage box had only a few hand-bound glass slides when I got it, most of them were commercial paper slides.

When I began work on the slides in May of 2009, they (and my granfather Hermans’ slides) had been in the attic of my garage freezing in winter and baking in summer for the better part of a decade. Many were in carousels (all of the Hermans’ slides were in 40 of them!) but most were stored either in the little yellow Kodak boxes they came in, in special plastic or metal slide storage boxes or in DIY boxes grampa made himself, like the one seen above.

 Left: My 21st century archival storage system for the slides with Grampa Losee’s markings.

I decided that if I wanted to print them, scan them, share them, I would have to organize them. I labored over whether I would destroy a part of the collection if I moved them from their original locations were grampa intended them to be. This was solved by marking their original location in my database. I also felt he would really, really like the sharp, uber-organized way I would be able to pull any image I wanted quickly and easily by putting them all in one place and making the database for them. He had already given them catalog numbers, himself, so organizing them in this way was easy. The new system is working like a charm! I have a photo of grampa Losee sitting in front of a slide-projector screen hanging on my wall in my work room that looks down at me while I work on them. I think he’d approve.

John Losee 1907 – 1983

“Sunset – Llewellyn”

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

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I’m still working on a series of posts about urban renewal in Poughkeepsie, so in the mean time, here is a first post in a series of images taken locally in November.

“Sunset – Llewellyn” November 22nd 1942 by John Losee

Llewellyn’s was further down the lane from our cousin’s farm, Fraleigh’s Rose Hill Farm (still in operation!) in Red Hook, NY

“Tire Shortage”

07 Monday Nov 2011

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As you probably know, during WWII many things were collected and recycled for the war effort like metal and rubber. Grampa Losee cleverly titled this “Tire Shortage” but it was most likely the truth to the image. Not only are these gentlemen changing a flat, they are probably worried about how many times they’ve patched the same tire over and over. This was probably taken along Rt. 9 in Red Hook, NY.

“Tire-Shortage” 4/12/42

I finally remembered the other day where I had put grampa Losee’s civil defender arm band, too late now for the “Buried Liz” post about civil defense, but not far from the subject of this post. The location was a lot safer and more obvious than I had given myself credit for!

 

Picking Kings

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Apple Farming, Color Slides

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My Grampa Losee ran an apple orchard he inherited when his father (a country doctor by trade) died. Having previously been an engineer working at Bell Labs, grampa went about the science of raising apples very seriously. I own more color slides example of damage to apples than anyone has a right to. There will be quite a few more posts about this subject in the future, rest assured!

“Picking Kings” (Kings are apples, not people) October 4th, 1939

Being an avid photographer, Grampa Losee gave talks on the subject of apple farming complete with his own slideshows. I have a booklet for one these shows, titled “Apple Valley 1939-1951” listing all the slides used and one page of notes – he must have given this presentation without script.

“Inspector Amos” October 7th, 1939

The inside cover notes perhaps when and where he gave the talk: “Wappingers Falls Historical Society, 10/24/72 Stanford Grange @ Pine Plains School – Oliver Orton, Oct 1973 Friends of the Library – Starr Institute, 5/1/74 St. George’s School – Mrs. McMannis, 2/26/75 Rhinebeck Garden Club”

Page one is a list of points he must have used as his introduction to the show:
“Low C. Apple in Apples. Engineer Apple Grower. Half a farm – all in apples. No understanding of the “ecosystem”. Pictures mostly random interludes in the life of a fruit grower. Independent life. Only one task mistress – Dame Nature put Simon Legree to shame! Pictures span 12 years in the evolution of the apple industry.”

“McIntosh Culls” September 6th, 1939 (with Amos the dog driving the truck)

“Snowbanks Along US 9”

31 Monday Oct 2011

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In case you were under a rock for the last couple days, we had a massive, early snowstorm on Saturday. It looked a little like this, only with downed trees left and right, and not-as-cool cars.

Snowbanks Along US 9 02/22/1940, Red Hook, NY by John Losee

This is probably close to the apple orchard, north of town around Rockefeller Lane. Note that the road appears to have three lanes with white, dashed lines separating them. I asked someone once how those old cars got around in the snow and was advised that they were so heavy that they did pretty well, even with those skinny tires.

“Buried Liz”

28 Friday Oct 2011

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For you on this snowy October morning in Dutchess County, here is my grandfather’s car!

“Buried Liz” 02/09/1945 by John Losee

In front of the Losee (Thomas) house, in Upper Red Hook. The car has two points of interest sticking out of the snow: 1) the searchlight on the right side and 2) the Civil Defense logo on the left. During WWII, grandpa was a local civil defender. I’m not sure exactly what his responsibilities were, but I image he patrolled during air raid drills or something similar. This reminds me of a WWII-era Bugs Bunny cartoon where someone in the distance shouts “put out that light!!” Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk (I. Friz Freleng, 1943) But I can’t imaging Grampa yelling about anything!

I don’t know who the gentleman is, but my Gramm, Clara Losee (in the red kerchief) is standing just between the columns and gutter on the porch.

“Pullets & Doodlebug”

27 Thursday Oct 2011

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 “Pullets & Doodlebug” 9/12/1943 Red Hook, NY by John Losee

From 1931 until the late 40’s/early 50’s my grandfather owned and operated an apple orchard on the west side of Rt. 9 just south of Rockefeller Lane in Red Hook, NY. It was a tough business that he was forced to take on after his father died. Previous to that he was a scientist working for Bell Labs in the city. I have other shots of the Doodlebug and should see if I can identify the make, but this one is my favorite. I also love how he recovered a seat with an old flannel shirt.

During WWII, tractors were not mass produced as they are now. Instead, farmers took components from cars, trucks, and any other machinery available to build and repair their tractors so they could continue their farming. They called their invention “the doodlebug.”

They used their doodlebugs to plow, hay fields, haul logs, and pull out stumps. To do all this, the doodlebug needed good ground clearance for use in any conditions, going under trees, and climbing most any terrain. For protection they had a hood, cowl radiator, a small seat, some had a small truck bed, and most had a hitching point to tow with.

– Dundee Creek Doodlebugs

The shack in the background may be a chicken coop, but may also be his residence, which was a re-purposed chicken coop! When he married in 1944, my grandmother moved in there with him and they had their first two children with them until moving to Rock City in the early 50’s. My grandmother really, really loved my grandfather!