My Tuesdays are meatless
My Wednesdays are wheatless
I am getting more eatless each day.
My house is heatless
My bed is sheetless
They’ve all been sent to the Y.M.C.A..
The bar rooms are treatless
My coffee is sweetless,
Each day I get poorer and wiser
My stockings are feetless
My trousers are seatless
Oh how I do hate the Kaiser.
Quite a poem, is it not?
Well let’s hope that there will soon be an end to this awful war.
—Your friend, Ruth Colville.
The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917.
Mort and Jennie Austin’s son Mortimer McKinley (Mac) enlisted. By 1917 Mort and Jennie must have been resettled at Mountain Grove. Their family at home included: Raymond, 16, Bill, 14, Elizabeth, 6, Art, 4, and Bob, 2. Aida and/or Lon lived in the old Austin homestead which they rented from Dr. Alonzo E. Austin.
Ruth Colville, daughter of Charles and Lottie Bradley Colville, was a friend of McKinley and wrote several letters to Mac while he was in the service.
Ruth was the granddaughter of Isaac and Joanna Brown Bradley. Five of the seven Bradley children ran boarding houses in the Town of Highland: Abel and Viola Bradley Hazen; Charles and Mary Frances Bradley Myers; Atwell Bradley; and Erwin and Norah Bradley Avery. Ruth’s parents ran Woodland Cottages.
Woodland Cottage, Barryville
Fine new modern house, handsomely decorated; open fireplace; large airy rooms; nicely situated; pine groves near house; stable accommodations; $8 and $10. C.M. Colville, Barryville.—Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 23, 1905.
