Moving Again-1954

Not sure who helped us move from the farm but we ended up on Vickerman Hill outside of Mohawk. The little area was called Getman's Corners. It was an old little house. It was pretty run down. I remember an old pot-belly stove in the middle of the little living room. It was our only heat source. The upstairs was horrendous! There were holes in the floor and we had to be very careful where we walked. There was an old dirt crawl space and some guy brought his dog and we babysat it. That is where it stayed. How weird. It should have been outdoors.
I'm not sure who owned that house. There were neighbors across the road that we talked to. I remember the older girl was very nice. They had a picnic table for their kitchen table. I thought that was neat. There were two houses over there. One belonged to the Wollaber family and the other one was a relative of theirs. They had a son named Philip. He was a real strange kid and used to try and scare us kids if we were outside playing. We were up in back on the hill one day picking berries and he came along and told us we'd better run very fast because there was a bear on the other side of the bushes. I never ran so hard in my life! I made it all the way without falling too. Philip used to shoot his Beebe gun at us all the time too.
Down a little road, that was across the street, lived a woman with the last name of Bala. She was related to the Wollabers somehow. Well, one day we had all gone with our Aunt Ruth to do some shopping. When we returned home, someone had stolen all kinds of things from our house. Even the curtains! We saw those curtains on the Bala's windows after that. All my mother's best dresses were taken and what hurt me the most is my little red polka-dotted change purse was taken. I cried and cried over that. My Aunt Ruth had given it to me and it was full of pennies. I had put it in the sewing machine drawer. My mother was so mad over that and when she saw her curtains in that woman's windows, she wanted to go confront her but I don't think she ever did. We were poor enough and then to have that happen. What a shame. And we were only there for four weeks!!!
Somehow my mother must have talked to Donald Ferguson or Aunt Ruthy did because he and his wife Gladys let my mother rent their upstairs apartment on Montgomery Street in Ilion. My mother and all six of us! Don came with a pick up truck and moved us. Aunt Ruth helped also. I think she had a station wagon at that time.
My mother and Don Ferguson grew up together and his sister, Shirley, was one of my mother's best friends. I imagine that is how we ended up there. Don and Gladys had a few kids of their own. I loved living there! It was the best time of my childhood really.