Somehow Christmas just doesn’t seem like Christmas without you and Mother, Honey, Abbie, and dear old Freck and Bill.

 

25 Dec 1944 CH to J

Hotel Philadelphia

Westhampton, N.Y.

Christmas Day 1944

Dear Dad—

Merry Christmas! Wish we could all be there to wish you all that greeting. Maybe some Christmas we can all be together in the old homestead. What fun that would be. Somehow Christmas just doesn’t seem like Christmas without you and Mother, Honey, Abbie, and dear old Freck and Bill. I look back on those days in Cincinnati, what a job you and Mother must have had selecting the things for your children, trying to satisfy each and everyone of us. Then too we had a lot of Fairy God Fathers and Mothers whose Christmas gifts were usually those of untold splendor. I am using today a toolbox and a beautiful set of augur bits, given to Freck and me by Mrs. Smythe or Miss Becky many years ago. Even Freck’s old lathe that “Santa” brought him works in my shop. Somewhere in Southampton a train engine locomotor waits for future use given by Mrs. Reed [Pauline Carson Foster Reed, Mrs. C.L. Reed]. There are other things I don’t remember, but which I still have around.

Today we received a present that has been the trump of the day and the grandest gift imaginable from the swellest person I know. War Bonds for all four of us from My Dad—I can’t begin to thank you . . . I don’t know how, but any way we appreciate them more than words can express.

Today I am lazy and nearly exhausted—for nearly a month my machines have been busy sawing, drilling, etc., making toys. Then week before last I stayed in on my work full time usually from 9 AM to after midnight. In that time I made a barn, a train, a farm wagon model with team, a doll house, and drilled several cradles, in addition to the one that went to Sophie. Each and every item was sold representing about 50 dollars worth of toys. On top of that I made a gun for Chaddie and a rocking horse for Billy. I finished the latter at 11 last night. It is a cute little horse and cuter still when its young master swings into the saddle and rides away. He can really make it go.

Abbie certainly showered Chaddie with presents, we had a box from her and in it was a machine gun, a helmet, and a periscope. He is tickled pink with the helmet as well as the other equipment.

It looks as though we might have a white Christmas. It snowed last Monday and it snowed quite a bit, although there is still quite a bit on the ground it is going fast.  Today has been above freezing and it’s a heavy fog all day and occasional rain.

THANK YOU FOR MY BOND –BILLY

Fran just plopped his majesty in my lap and I thought he better learn to write early—

Friday morning I played Santa at the school party. Charlie is not at all sure it was Santa in fact he had a darn good notion it was me. When he came home I was working in my shop when I came upstairs he looked me over very closely. I had make up on, but washed it all off. My lips however showed signs of having been actual.  He mentioned the fact that I had paint on my face and he was quite positive that I was Santa. We changed the subject so may be he has forgotten.

There has been ice in the bay for a week or so, at last maybe with this thaw we are having I will break up enough to be able to go out and make a couple of dollars. If N.Y. has a meat shortage, which is threatened by the dealers or something, maybe clams should sell at a good price.

I wish you all could have been here today to help eat our 32# turkey. Next year I will have to raise some so that you can have one for Thanksgiving day and Christmas. Maybe a goose for New Years.

Our box went express last Thursday I hope it arrived in time to greet you today. Yours will be here I guess sometime this week as you said it was sent express on Thursday.

Thanks again from the 4 of us for your wonderful gifts.

A Merry Christmas—belated but in time to wish you a very Happy New Year.

Love from us all.

Your son,

Charles

Norwegian Deaconess Home & Hospital | Brooklyn

Cameron McDonald Comstock born August 5, 1936, at Lutheran Norwegian Deaconess Home and Hospital on 4602 Fourth Avenue, in Brooklyn.

 

"she is making a man of Chas"

W.W. Bishop

Clearview Farm

Southampton, N.Y.

March 9, ‘39

Dear Jesse,

My daughter makes a terrible fuss every time I write using single spacing and I suppose other people mind it just as much but don’t dare speak up, so I’ll try to remember to keep the double space on. I have been trying to write to you for a month now—but don’t worry I won’t try to write all I’ve thought in this note. First of all, we wall want to thank you for the grand cheese—we use it on every occasion and still wwe have a good size hunk left—I can’t write a poem but we are enjoying it very much just the same.

Last week I had a chance to ride to Baltimore with Oyie (Wiltshire) and spent a day with Helen—she has been having some sinus trouble but is better now—heading south and a bit west made me think of last Spring and wish that I was repeating my visit but guess I’ll have to stick here for the present. Chas brought his family down for the weekend and he tells me that you will be coming east in March and will plan to take time to come out here—we’ll be counting on it and just let me know where you want me to meet you and I’ll be there at the specified time. We did enjoy Cameron so much—he is a little monkey and lots of fun. I tell you there are few girls like Justine—she is making a man of Chas (I always said he’d grow to be a good one some day but she is speeding the process).

Potatoes are almost gone from our farm and we are expecting the new seed in next week and if we get a few dry days we will be plowing: are you going to be sending any messages over the radio to the “Farmers on Eastern LI” at plowing time this year?

Rented the other house finally—very nice people and guess I’ll have to be satisfied with $35 a month—it is better than having the house stand empty and will help pay some of the expense of the properties that Mother and Dad left me; so far they have been mostly expense—there is lots of real value in the things but they don’t pay any dividends now; just finished paying Harri Micah this week, $865—came rather hard out of potatoes at $.72 per bu.

I wish you were a smoker—just discovered a tobacco that is cured with Vermont maple syrup and Jamaica rum—I haven’t used a pipe for years but this is so good that I’m back it hard as ever.

My row boat is already in the water and in commission and I know just where the clam rakes are—all we need now is a little heat in the water and we can go right on where we left off last Summer. I burned off all the paint this year from the boat and have adorned her with a new coat of light gray and green—she’s a bird. The other day I went up to Scallop Pond and tried my luck with boots but only dug out four clams—I never could do anything till I get in nearly to my neck.

Just to make you sore I’ll tell you that “Did” Beeman brought us a good mess of fat long clams today and tonight we are going to have fried crisp with crumbs in deep fat—yum yum.

Must get back to work now and be sure not to let anything interfere with the plants to get out here next time you come east.

Love,

Bill

"where the bays and the ocean are easily available"

Clearview Farm

Southampton, N.Y.

W.W. Bishop

Jan. 25, ‘39

Dear Jess:

It seems ages since I heard from you or anything about you but having followed you around in Cin. I know that you are one busy man and have little time to do the things you like to do yourself. We are having real Winter and no mistake—plenty of snow and all the ponds are frozen—it rained Sunday and last night so that the ponds are clear—this AM the temp. was bout 35 but the wind has been rising steadily and the temp dropping steadily all day till it seems almost like a hurricane and the temp is 24—feels like the side of the house was not there. Guess we’ll have to have a good fire in the potato house tonight. Pot. market is slow and priced dropped to $1.40 per cwt and acts like it would stay there although the crop reports would indicate a higher price. We have taken one load out of the cellar with Jimmy’s conveyor-works swell and Levi and I can do what otherwise would take 4 men. Jim seems more and more interested in his work at Cornell and is now planning to get a job on a big farm in Penn for the Summer—I have advised him that there were lots of things that a Dad could not teach a son and have encouraged his trying for a job away from home—hope it materializes.

Alma is not taking the Winter term course at the school for Social Work and I miss the trips to NY and the other attending excitements. Haven’t seen Chas or family since before Xmas but have had a couple of letters from C.—Alma is getting is auto license in Riverhead today and we expect him out Sunday to get it—think he works all day every Sat. now—hope he brings Justine and Cameron too.

We are having quite a time helping Bob decide between Cornell, St. Lawrence and Middlebury for next year—guess we’ll have to take a trip into Vermont and over to the St. Lawrence valley next Spring, stopping by at Ithaca and let that decide if we don’t get it settled before.

Wish you would send me a tenant for the other house—aren’t there some of your people who would like to get out of the heat in Cin. this Summer that might be interested in a comfortable house that is situated where the bays and the ocean are easily available?

Wish I was going to be with you again this Spring but thank God I have no excuse like last year for getting away from home—it is wonderful to feel alive and not afraid all the time once more.

Write when you can and if you are to be in NY let me know and perhaps I can get in; and if you can spare an extra day, say so, and I’ll be glad to bring you out here.

Love,

Bill

April 11, 1939: CHH to JH

Dear Dad:

Your Easter Cards with enclosures arrived as did your birthday card also. Our Thanks, and appreciation from all of us to you for the bit of Happy Easter that you sent. Acknowledgement of the receipt of your letters is late as there have been numerous things to do since and before Easter. However this letter will tell you that all has been received safely as well as a package addressed to his Royal Nibs the Master Jr. from the H. & S. Pogue Company. I did not open it but forwarded it to Winsted where Cameron and Justine are spending most of this week.

We drove up Friday afternoon late arriving there at 8:45. It was a nice change for all of us. I benefited by the two day vacation that I had and I know that the two other members of the family will get a lot of good out of their prolonged stay. I envy them for at this point I could do very nicely with a week’s vacation at least. However that is not my lot. I sometimes regret that I didn’t become a school teacher of some kind. I think I would have made a good one and with it three months vacation in the summer and several weeks at other times.

Saturday Mother Comstock had a little celebration in honor of my birthday. She thought it was on the 8^th, but at that what we had to eat was just as good then as it would have been on the sixth. The Baileys came in for diner and the main course was Turkey with all the fixings. A grand treat it was, I only wish that you all could have been at the table too.

Saturday while in Winsted I went to see Dr. Royce about a tooth that has bothered me this winter. Apparently there is an abscess on the root and he advises having the molar extracted. Do you suppose that Dr. McMillan would be able to recommend a Dentist here that would not charge too much and who would know what it was all about. Dr. Royce did not think best to do it at Winsted because the tooth would need treatment and stated that a dentist more familiar with extraction could probably do a better job. Perhaps you have a suggestion.

A young lady here in the office asked me the other day if I knew of any good book that would depict the beginning and rise of Presbyterianism. In other words a history of the Relegation, how it started and by whom. Also the various splits that it has had. I told her that I did not know off hand and that I would ask you, as you would know the best book of that kind that is published. Give the name and author.

I was glad to hear that Freck was improving a little. I hope that the improvement is continuous.

Thanks again for all that you have done for us, both now and in the past.

Our Love to you all,

Your devoted Son,

Charles

552 Riverside Drive, N.Y.C

"In fine style"

October 1937

Dear Justine,

It was a week ago today we had our big trip to your city and called on you. It was so nice to see you again and I hope our call didn’t delay you too late for your dinner engagement.

Charles Halsey, Jr | Riverside Drive, NYC | 1937

We didn’t see the show Winifred wanted to finally for when we reached the theatre district again we found only high priced seats left and the boys decided they were too expensive for us. We walked along Broadway and did some “window shopping” and finally came home on the 9 PM train so reached home at midnight instead of 4 AM. That suited me all right for I was tired enough to call it a day without doing any more.

The Sunday excursions from here are $2 for the round trip so I’d like to go again some Sunday and visit the Planetarium. I haven’t seen Radio City either so there is a lot for me to do down there yet. However, we crowded in plenty last Wednesday I think, but we had a good time anyway.

I was glad to meet your husband and he seemed very nice. Am glad you are so happy and now I can picture you both in your home when I think of you.

Hope you will come and see us whenever you can. You know there is a spare room so I can keep you overnight whenever you care to come.

Wonder if you are going to Winsted for Easter? If so, give my love to Aunt Laura.

I wish we could go to Torrington, but we can’t so I’ll have to be content and wait until later.

I expect you are busy caring for the 14 months old baby and I’m wondering if the mother has decided to go to Siberia and leave the baby with you? You will be tied down in fine style if that happens.

Come up when you can.

Lovingly,

Alice

October 5, 1939, cont.

Letter: Charles Halsey to Justine Comstock Halsey (14 pages total)

Thursday night
October 5, 1939
CHH : 552 Riverside Dr, NYC
JCH: 435 Riverside Street, Reno
Page 12

This vacation you’re on is the best for all concerned that it true, but darling not a permanent separation; not that. If you want a month–right. But tell me in three weeks that you will be back. You’ll make us both so happy and when you return I will make you doubly happy.

I almost feel that [this] has been brewing and finally culminated and acted upon in order to open my eyes and to make me realize more fully my duties as a husband and a father. I hope that is it, I still love you. I’ll hang on if you will—

Will you take another chance[?] I can promise you you won’t regret it.

Yours,
C.

Unfortunately for you and fortunately for me you took his keys from your bureau which are of no value to you and which are the keys to the garage in Southampton. Dad had to use my * to break the lock and put a new one in its place. You have the keys. You need not send them but bring them with you when you return on the October 19th or 20th. I’ll have the spotted calf killed. They are attached to a small metal ring. Yours are on a string and are larger.

In deep thought and concentration,
from this we have strayed far a field
and thus our trouble
To see thee more clearly—
Love the more dearly.
Follow thee more nearly.
--Richard of Winchester

Apart from thee all gain is loss
All lack or vainly done
The solemn shadow of the cross
Is better than the sun.
Amen

To such belongeth the kingdom of heaven. Matt 19:14

Quote—the little boy of eight had transgressed one of the major roles of the household code. Straightforwardly he confessed it, and held out his hand for punishment. After three sharp blows from the razor strap, the father was washing the boys hand in soap suds and warm water. “That’s the way we do it, isn’t it”? ventured the little fellow, chocking back his sobs.” That’s the way: wash it off and begin again.” So let us begin again together in a deeper relationship. Are you willing—I am—not you.

“Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love: Therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee:” end quote.

“he called him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye turn, and become as little children ye shall not enter in the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever there for shall humble himself as this little child, the same in the great in the kingdom of heaven. And who so shall receive one such child in my name recureth me.” Matt 18: 2-5

We have received our child, darling, but we have not received God—Let’s try over again with God helping us. It can be done, I know it can. Will you try, please for our sakes. Don’t give up yet you can’t. You must give us a chance, one more chance, to make a comeback.

Love,
Charles

Writing you has been like talking, it has helped—thank you.

2:15 AM Still sleepless **
Sleep came at 2:30 or 2:45 AM and at 5 o’clock Cameron cried out something but it woke me up he was crying and I heard Sheff leaving it is now 6:30. Oh! Darling Please tell me where you are you must I beseech you. If you won’t tell me and I have to endure one more week of this I will be a nervous wreck. I have tried to face it bravely, but it is slowly getting me. Can’t you see darling that you are the only one. You you you. May God bring you safely back to us again. You and you alone can mend my broken and distraught heart. Won’t you try---

"It must have weighed heavily on her"

Mt. Vernon-Lisbon Sun
Family, 'Net results in successful sibling search for longtime Mt. Vernon resident
by Dave Morris
December 10, 2008

It has all the elements of a good mystery: a boy whose mother left when he was young, a trunk of photos and letters stored in an attic and a meeting with a relative the boy never knew he had.

That boy grew up to be Charles Halsey, longtime Mount Vernon High School science teacher and volleyball official.

Now retired, but still active in the Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service, Halsey knew there was a hole in his past, but he never knew the details.

The search
After using the genealogy website www.ancestry.com that involved input from daughters Anne Helgeson of Chicago and Gail Bertram of Oshkosh, Wis., as well as Halsey’s wife, Linda, a half-sister, Laura Lynch of Cape Cod, Mass., was located.

But the story is not as simple as that.

What Halsey learned about his past was this: His father, Charles Henry Halsey, worked on a farm in Southampton and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. His mother, whose maiden name was Justine Comstock, left his father and him and their New York home in October 1939, when Halsey was 3.

“Dad (came home and) found me playing on the living room floor,” Halsey said. “A woman who we think was a nanny was there. My mother was gone. It was the last time I saw her.”

His mother went to Reno and obtained a divorce in November 1939 so she could marry a man named Myron Smith, who was an old college friend.

“Smith didn’t want anyone to know she’d been married and had a child,” Halsey said, noting that the man felt it would hurt his career as a sales manager with a company known as General Radio.

“My father never told me of this,” Halsey said. “I knew my mother’s name from my birth certificate.”

His father was remarried to a woman named Frances Raynor, who Halsey always believed to be his birth mother. When he was 6 or 7, he was told by a friend’s mother that that was not the case, but he had few other details.

Sixty-plus years later, on July 13, 2008 – the Monday after Mount Vernon Heritage Days – turned out to be a turning point in the search. Linda suggested that the online search should include Myron Smith’s name. When his name was entered in the search, up popped information on his and Justine Comstock’s dates of birth and death.

It was a match.

The information had been submitted to the website years earlier by a woman named Laura Lynch. The Halseys’ daughter Anne e-mailed Laura, and it became clear that there was indeed a connection. Soon, the e-mails were flying between Cape Cod-based Laura Lynch, 66, and Charles Halsey, 72, in Mount Vernon. Laura is the daughter of Halsey’s mother and Myron Smith. Another daughter, Bonnie, died about 10 years ago.

To say that Halsey was surprised to find a living relative might be understating it.

“I had no inkling – zip, zero,” he said.

It apparently wasn’t as big of a surprise to Laura as it was to Halsey. She had seen her mother occasionally going through a trunk in the attic reading letters and looking at photos. After her mother’s death, Laura and her sister opened the trunk to find pictures of a little boy, a boy’s outfit, letters from the elder Halsey and a bank book with young Halsey’s name and her mother’s on it. When the daughters asked their father if their mother had been married before, he would only answer “maybe.”

It also turned out that it was during the year of Justine Comstock’s death – 1971 – that Halsey’s father briefly mentioned her to him.

Halsey has few memories of his earliest days, but one in particular had stuck with him: It was a long car trip in a Willys to a big white house with a turret. Laura, too, had memories of that home, which was their mother’s parents’ (their grandparents) home in Winsted, Conn.

The meeting
After many e-mails and phone calls, Laura Lynch arrived on Sept. 12 at the airport in Cedar Rapids. Charles and Linda were there holding a sign that simply read “Laura.” They spotted each other from a distance, and before they could even say hello, Laura shot a photo of Halsey with the sign. After a big hug, they spent a few days getting to know each other. On hand were the Halseys’ daughters and their families. The visit happened to coincide with a memorial service for Halsey’s aunt, Abigail Fithian Halsey Van Allen (widow of James Van Allen), so Laura met many of Halsey’s relatives.

“We had a remarkably wonderful time. She brought lots and lots of letters and pictures that were in the trunk,” Halsey said. Laura also confirmed that a photo given to him by his aunt was indeed his mother.

While here, the Halseys took Laura on a tour of flood-ravaged parts of Cedar Rapids. This was of particular interest to Laura, since she and her husband travel in their RV to disaster-stricken areas of the nation as FEMA employees.

The Halseys also showed her around the Mount Vernon area, but the time was mostly spent getting to know each other.

“We really had a good time,” Linda said.

“It was just a wonderful experience,” Halsey added. “It answered a lot of questions I’d always had. I’d always wondered what my birth mother was like. It closes one chapter of my life and opens a brand new one.”

Halsey understands why his mother made the choices she did.

“I hold no animosities whatsoever. Justine did whatever she felt she needed to do,” he said. “It must have weighed heavily on her – I hope it didn’t hurt her in any way.”

The future
The Halseys continue to communicate by e-mail and phone with Laura, who currently is with her husband in Texas doing FEMA work.

Plans are brewing to attempt to meet again in March and to perhaps get the two families together this summer.

“It’s been a rather remarkable, interesting and fun experience,” Halsey said.

October 5, 1939

Letter: Charles Halsey to Justine Comstock Halsey (14 pages total)

Thursday night
October 5, 1939
CHH : 552 Riverside Dr, NYC
JCH: 435 Riverside Street, Reno
Page 10, last paragraph:

P.S. God Bless you darling and don’t do anything you will be sorry for later. Come back to us when you are rested and then decide the next step after we have tried to make another go of it. Read the clipping enclosed. It might have happened to ours once. But if could be worse now if his mommie doesn’t come back. He knows, and he doesn’t forget easily. I wish our little baby* could talk. I’ll bet he could reveal a lot. Don’t you think so. How is Florida weather--or perhaps you wouldn’t know. Maybe it is Colorado or Georgia or it might be right here in New York. I have had that feeling all week. But one never knows, does one. I hope I will soon tho dearest for the suspense is driving me batty. I feel shaky all over—do at least that for me and then on the 19th come back and we will be waiting. I pull[ed] the wish bone on that. The [other] one [is] too green to break, [from] Friday of last week. The other one I have saved for us both to pull when you come back.

May God guide you and keep you and bring you home to Cameron and me in a short time. The days will be eternities but well worth surviving just to see you and know you are here again. No one else will take your place for a long long time and Margaret is no exception.

Cameron says “I love my mommie. Mommie come home pretty soon.” Charles says, “I love you Justine my darling wife. Please return to two children that need a mother like you our hearts are open and so is our door.” May God grant you safe return.

Still your adoring and bewildered, but still loving husband,
Charlie

P.S.S. I kiss your lips and hand madam, take one from Cam too. xxxxx

P.S.S.S. I will reread your farewell note: I wish I could believe you darling “This is for the best of all of us. Believe me.” It will be the best for all of us if I you come back to us mommie. You love Cameron so very much—I know you do—Prove that you do dear one, try returning. We want you. I’ll take care of him, but I can not do it all. It takes both of us together – I”ll fight for him and do all in my power, but I will also fight for fury on ‘came(?) you can and have to do that which I can’t. It takes two to bring them into the world. It takes two to raise them and you are the only one who can rightfully do that at my side. Mrs. Van Dorn still thinks you’re home* [and will be] mighty surprised. Incidentally I have mail here for you—where do I send it? Please tell me--I’ll be grateful to you if you will—

It will get easier, but easiest when you have come back.

I have some good pictures to show you if you will return—one enclosed to make you think you will miss him if you can’t watch him grow—Came home honey. God will help you to come back to us. Just give him a chance.

Charlie