The Town He Loved so Well

Originally, The Town He Loved So Well was conceived as a work intended only for the author's children so that they might come to know the upstate village of another era during the fifteen-year period from their Papa's first memories of existence until he left for college. Like most children, his little girl and boy asked him - especially at bedtime - to tell them a story from the olden days, and he gladlly comlied, much as his father had done before him. Like most fathers, he wished to convey to his offspring his own roots as he emphasized the best aspects of family heritage and rural life in what their grandmother called God's Country. Especially, he wanted to preserve for his children the memory of their grandmother, who seemed to have found her paradise in this particular spot of earth carved by the great glacier as it moved south with its artistic hand millenniums before. Somewhere during the three-year period of compiling stories from his youth, the purpose became more universally driven by the striking dedication in an earlier history of the town by his former elementary school principal: To all those who have ever called Marcellus Home. The third-person narrative intends to convey a less personal memoir so that other Marcellians might be encouraged to write of the times and, most of all, the individuals whom they have known in this special place.