Today marks Lee’s 143rd birthday.
Lee was a grandson of Benjamin and Polly Taylor Tubbs, and great-grandson of Samuel and Sarah Dorrance Tubbs. Who came to Elkland, PA from CT via Luzerne Co., PA & Elmira, NY. Samuel and Sarah’s first PA home was near Forty Fort, PA; which was named for a fort built by the first 40 families that settled near what is now the Wilkes-Barre area when it was claimed by the colony of Connecticut, setting off the “Pennemite Wars” and was part of the “Wyoming Massacre” (read about them at https://fortyfort.org/about-us/our-history/.
Many of our Seely cousins are descendants of Lee’s 2nd cousin, George Manley Tubbs. And many of our Brown and Hazlett cousins are descendants of of Lee’s 1st cousin, two times removed, Polly Tubbs and David Hammond, Other Hazlett cousins are descendants of his 1st cousin two times removed, Susannah Tubbs and John Ryon, Jr.
I knew Lee because he married my great-aunt, Mary GOODRICH Tubbs. I knew Lee since
was a small child, playing with his by-then-grown children’s cast iron, wheeled toys. (Which would be worth a small fortune now.)
Lee retained the laconic nature and dry with of his New England forebearers. He was a carpenter who built houses “on spec,” i.e. speculating that a buyer would come along. But what fascinated me was his part-time, second job, which filled his time on days that the weather didn’t permit construction — repairing watches and clocks. His workshop was just off their dining room and the workshop’s walls were lined with intriguing clocks, with moving parts that marked the hour — cuckoo clocks and others with moving figures that struck bells. And the assortment made a delightful cacophony of sound on the hour. Fascinating to a young child. And almost as welcome as the large cookies Mary would bake for my arrival.
Her large kitchen was fascinating too, with its fancy coal stove that had a chamber for perpetually hot water and a kitchen sink containing a pump with a long handle when you needed unheated water. I had never seen such a pump indoors. Lee tolerated my barrage of questions well. My father admired Lee’s craftsmanship and was the only person I can recall my father praising — “Lee’s not a carpenter — he’s a cabinet maker who builds houses.”
My favorite story about Lee and Mary involves the summer before they married. They were trying to save up to start a household and saw an ad for a lumber camp that needed a cook and a teamster. So they applied and were hired — Lee as a cook and Mary as a teamster. Quite gender-bending for 1906!