Theodore Michael Orinick 1925-2009

This week I'm back on my mother's family.  The 9th surviving child of Matthew & Anna Orinick was my uncle Ted.  Born in 1925, he was only 10 years old when his father died and 14 when he mother died.  His brothers were 8 and 10 years older than he and not a major influence in his teenage years, so I don't think he had a lot of male guidance.  Sometime in the late 1940's he joined the Army and served in Korea.   When he returned he married a local South Canaan girl, Shirley Seeley.  This was around the time his brother Bill's marriage was breaking up, so it was natural for Ted & Shirley to take over the family farm.   They ran the farm until around 1970 and most of my childhood memories of them are centered there.  They had 3 sons there.  The first died at birth, but the other two were close to my age and we became like siblings growing up.  I looked forward to spending my weekends with these "cousin/brothers" and they spend time some summers at our house in New Jersey.
The farm was primarily a dairy farm.  The house is still there, but the barns are long gone. The house sits on a hill with the barn and an equipment shed at the bottom of the hill and across the dirt road.   Ted & Shirley would get up before dawn each morning to go down to the barn and milk the cows.  Their 2 boys went down to work too.  After the morning milking was done, they would let the cows out into the fields to graze during the day.   In the evening the cows would wander back toward the gate and we would go let them back into the barn.   I was always facinated by the fact that each cow knew it's own stanchion and would go right to the correct place.  
When I visited on weekends, I would wake up with the sun, get dressed, and head down the hill to join them. In the evening I would join them again to help. Part of this was because my cousins were there and I was looking for something to do.  When I was very young,  they may have milked by hand, but milk machines and a holding tank were installed early on. I have a vague memory of uncle Ted showing off he brand new equipment.  I was always curious about the cows and helped where I could.   I tried a few times to attach the milking machines, but wasn't very good at it.  I was always afraid of the cows kicking me.  Mostly I remember feeding the cows hay, silage, and a reddish mixture that was supposed to be a bovine dietary supplement.   I think they only got this in the winter when they couldn't go out of the barn.
In addition to caring for the cows, working the farm involved clearing the fields and planting hay and corn for winter feed.   This was very hard work and the only return was what they could earn from the sale of the milk.   They also raised pigs, a few chickens, and the occasional pheasant. They lived almost entirely off the land.   There was a large vegetable garden behind the house and the family diet was supplemented by the occasional hunting expedition for deer, rabbit, and pheasant.  There were also a few ponds in the area where the owning neighbors would allow us to fish.   In the spring we all went out into the woods to pick blueberries,  which were made into jellies or frozen for future use in cakes and pies.   In the fall we would pick apples from several trees on the farm.  Ted would take bushels of apples to the local Cider Mill and come home with a barrel or 2 of apple cider.  This started as benign, but after sitting in the barrels in the cellar over the winter, this became a potent brew for spring enjoyment.

They also had a wonderful love and respect for nature.  This 1975 photo shows them with a pair of fawns they "fostered" when the mother deer had been killed.  They raised these babies until they were old enough to fend for themselves, then released them.
Around 1980 Ted & Shirley decided they had enough of the farm life.  A nearby tavern was up for sale and they decided they would but it.   This was a complicated transaction because my grandfather's will stated that the farm could not be sold as long as any of his daughter's remained single.  They were always to have a home there.  Three of Ted's sisters were still single and Mary still lived on the farm, caring for the house and the boys.   The solution was to split the farm in half.   Ted & Shirley built a second house on their half and turned a marshy area between the two houses into a pond.  They stocked it with fish so they had their own fishing hole.
Owning a tavern proved to be hard work as well and Shirley's health was becoming an issue.  Around 1985 they sold the tavern and moved to Hiddennite, North Carolina.  This location was chosen because a doctor who Shirley was seeing either lived there or had just moved there.   The cost of living in North Carolina was low enough so they were able to live there comfortably with the money from the sale of the tavern and their half of the farm.  They lived there until Shirley died in 2005.
After Shirley died, Ted sold the house in Hiddenite and returned to Pennsylvania.   At first he lived with his son, but that didn't work out.  They found him an apartment and, eventually, a place in a nursing home.  I have heard that he was involved with a younger woman during his final years and spent what money he had liberally on her.   I hope he enjoyed these final years.  Uncle Ted passed away last year, on Spet 27, 2009.
Ted was a gruff man and a hard drinker, but he had a boyish quality to him.  Some young children were afraid of him  but I don't think I ever was.  I saw him as someone whose bark was worse than his bite and always admired how hard he worked and how he cared for the farm animals.   As with most of the members of my family, I am glad to have known him.