Moving

In late January we met a lovely couple who were looking to move to Cooperstown. They had a solid list of what they wanted, and were having trouble finding exactly what they were looking for in a house. When they listed their requirements to my husband Steve, he said, "Gee, that sounds like our house."

"Is your house for sale?"

"Oh, no."

"Well, could we take a look at it anyway?"

So they came to our house one weekend just before the middle of February and we showed them around. They fell in love with our house, just like we fell in love with it when we looked at it almost exactly seven years earlier and asked if we would consider selling it to them. Long story short, we quoted them a price and ...

The closing was on Wednesday April 8 and on Thursday the 9th we left Cooperstown with two rented trucks, our van and a trailer, all packed outrageously full of our earthly possessions, on our way back to Oklahoma.

A good thing about our businesses, mine as an artisan with an Internet store, and Steve's as a carpenter, is that these businesses are so portable. I can make jewelry and Steve can "make sawdust" anywhere that we can set up workspace. We look forward to setting up shop on our acreage in Mustang, Oklahoma.

Over the last seven years we have made so many dear friends in Cooperstown, Otsego County, throughout Central New York, and even across the state, both with my jewelry making and Steve's carpentry. We have both been quite active in the community as well and are sad to leave our many New York friends, but be assured, they do have mail service, phones, computers, and even the Internet in Oklahoma, so there is no reason we can't stay in contact!

If you're on my Holiday Card List or Birthday Card List I will be sending you an Address Change Notice shortly. Otherwise, you can email a request to vicki@eightsusquehanna.com, including your contact information so I can send you the updated address notice, too.

Don't be shy about posting any comments or questions - you can do this by clicking the COMMENTS link following this message.

Thanks for reading!

The Story of Eight Susquehanna

Carpenter Charles Lee Root came to Cooperstown in 1862 to work on a Clark Family property called Fernleigh, located along the banks of the headwaters of the Susquehanna River. He stayed on in Cooperstown and worked on every Clark property until the Lord called him home. His name is inscribed ("C.L. Root") in the cornerstone of the old firehouse on Chestnut Street, which can still be seen, preserved for its historical value, in the vestibule of the newer twentieth century firehouse at the same location. Mr. Root was the carpenter foreman on the Otesaga Hotel in the early 1900's, and built a home for his family with the same excellence in substance, craftsmanship, care and quality at the address of 8 Susquehanna Avenue. The house at 8 Susquehanna was continuously inhabited by Root family descendants until Malcolm Root died at the age of seventy in 2001.

Steve and Vicki Newby were fortunate enough to acquire the house in 2002 and always like to say that the good thing about this house was that they didn't do much to it and the bad thing about this house was that they didn't do much to it. Most of the original hardware was still in use or present on site, as was a great deal of knob and tube/silk-covered electrical wiring - still operative and in use in 2002! Vicki was initially dismayed at the electrician's insistance that all this old wiring be replaced until he explained in terms of safety. ("You're living on Grace that this house hasn't burned right down to the ground with this old wiring!")

The Newbys set about performing tasks of restorative maintenance and renovation to this lovely old home, deeply sensing Mr. Root's spirit and influence in the details.

In the fall of 2005 Vicki needed a pair of earrings to go with an outfit for a special occasion. Remembering she had an old case of beads, earwires, and other such supplies, she located it and made the earrings she needed. While she had the beads out, she adorned a barrette to match and made a bracelet and necklace while she was at it. Her friends complimented her on these unusual items, especially the barrette. Not long after that, some of her coworkers decided to put on a holiday craft sale, with a commission percentage to benefit the Cooperstown Food Bank. Vicki made up a passel of barrettes to take and, to her surprise and delight, sold every one! In an "Aha!" moment, her new hobby became a sideline business.

She decided to create a website for online sales. On the night of March 12, 2006 Vicki was filling out the application for her new website and came across the question, "What is the name of your business?" Hmmm, business needs a name. Vicki brainstormed previous enterprises with which she had been associated and discovered a commonality in that many of them were named after places - Red Brick Studio, True Light Carrot Patch - geographic centers of creativity - and borrowed from her address, 8 Susquehanna, as a name for her new jewelrymaking business, Eight Susquehanna. So it has been, and so it is. EightSusquehanna.