I got a promotion while living in Albany after the war up in Canton, area director, to cover 6 counties, covering over 5000 square miles, doing parole work. We lived at 19 Pearl Street and Mary's father died that October, 1954, so her mother Gertrude moved to Canton the same month we moved there, November 12,1954. Cathy was the baby; she would be 12 months old on November 23.

The house was near the Catholic Church and school and near the public school also. We made good friends in Canton, the Reasoners, the Biermeisters, the Stones, the Coseos, the Sauciers (Marie and Ray), and the Dwyers. Coincidentally Marie Saucier's parents had operated a small grocery candy store near Stanley Street in Schenectady so Marie knew the Woods'.
We also were friends with Leo and Helen Kenyon who owned a bakery near us in Canton and we were Godparents for one of their children. We had some other friends as well. The same month November 1954, two sociology professors from St. Lawrence University contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in teaching sociology, criminal justice, and social work at the university immediately. It seems that a sociology professor who babysat for some of the professors' children became quite involved inappropriately with some of the kids. He left town immediately and that was the opportunity that I had to teach at a college level. The only other teaching experience I had was back in the 1940s when I practice taught at Mt. Pleasant High School. We had a very nice, although crowded home in Canton, we inherited several students from the State College at Canton who had been living in the house. The college also furnished desk chairs, etc. The income was very helpful to us and when they left at the end of the year it opened up the upstairs to our own family. We eventually had thirteen of our kids living there. When Anne left Jim was a little over a year old.

At 19 Pearl Street because of our crowded situation, three bedrooms upstairs and one down, Mary and I slept in a couch in the livingroom after starting out in the downstairs bedroom. For a while in the downstairs bedroom we had three young children in a triple bunk plus the newest infant in a crib on one side of the room and two boys on the double decker on the other side. Jim the baby went in the crib and the laundry went into the crib with the baby.

The furniture in the livingroom had wooden arms and the kids would jump off the arms onto us along with the dog. There were pocket doors separating the front living from the living/dining area and Gertrude, Mary's mother slept in the front room. We had a little record player and we played music on it and did exercises together as a family: Bluebird Bluebird in my window; oh Johnny I am tired.

I can remember Joe climbing up on the piano bench and pounding randomly away on the piano with a big smile on his face.

Incidentally I taught at St. Lawrence 10 years practically full time with the approval of the State as long as I was able to keep up my work as parole area director. The money I made from that was helpful to us of course.

When it was very cold one year we tacked blankets up over the window and the front door and when the doctor came in the front door it was like a prohibition speakeasy. Mary doesn't feel sorry for people living in dark farmhouses anymore-- Because in our house things were jumping.

I can remember several times a week when Mary and I would look at television. We were laying on the couch and Mary's mother Gertrude was sitting in an easy chair nearby. We enjoyed watching a program and having schnaps. We only had one drink and we had happy times being together and Mother Bracewell would always fall asleep.