Snippets from the Late Leo Tucker’s Memories
By Leo F. Tucker
The year after we moved to Sheridan [1923], the Main Road was paved from the corner east toward Silver Creek. The following winter we had quite a bad ice storm and the boys were able to ice skate to school [District #6] two days on the pavement. It was not dangerous because there was very little or no automobile traffic. During the winter there were a number of bobsleighs on the roads as there was generally snow on the ground from late October until late March. Usually the bobs were hauling wood, hay or feed. The boys spent a good lot of their free time on their sleds hitching rides behind the bobs for a ways up or down the road and then catching another bob going in the opposite direction.
At that time there had not been as many wooded areas cleared. The trees provided protection against strong winds and the lake froze over smoothly for a couple of miles out. We used to go ice skating off the end of Center Road. After skating, we went to the Light House and Frank Kraft, the owner, would make us an oyster stew. Ray Tuttle, who lived along the Lake Road, told me that when they were kids going to District #2 school, the boys used to go skating during noon hour on the lake. They would skate out to meet other skaters from Canada, return to home shore, and get home at the regular time from school so their parents did not always know of their trip on the ice.
Over the years the climate in the Sheridan area has changed a lot. At one time the snow was so deep that kids could walk on the drifts along Center Road and touch the telephone wires. It took the county plow almost all day to clear the road between Route 20 and Route 5. Of course, heavy snow removal equipment was not available at that time. As I remember, I think it was in February of 1934 that the temperature did not get above zero, even at noon with the sun shining.
