This is part of an ongoing initiative to preserve the remembrances of longtime resident and public historian, Roger Philbrick.
John E. LaSuer March 8, 1905 - March 3, 1991 (This story was recited to me by John E. LaSuer)
John LaSuer was born in 1905 in Lowell, Massachusetts and was a 1924 graduate of the Wentworth Institute in Boston. John and his wife, Caroline, moved to Rye in 1941 and lived at 11 Big Rock Road for a short time before they bought the Jenness Farm at 155 Grove Road. John was a civil engineer at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for 25 years. John served as an original member and past chairman of the Rye Planning Board. John LaSuer sub-divided the Jenness Farm and created the five house lots, west of the barn at 155 Grove Road.
John and Caroline also purchased a field on the southwest side of Washington Road, where 1072 and 1076 now exist. John wanted to raise a crop in that field, but did not know what crop would do well, so he asked his friend and farmer, Theodore (Ted) Ham, “What crop would grow well on that property?” Ted replied, “I’ll think about it tonight and let you know in the morning.”
Ted Ham called John the next day and advised John he thought pumpkins and squash would do well in that field. John hired Ted to plow, harrow, and get the field ready to plant. Ted did what he was asked to, and a few days later the two couples, John and Caroline, Ted and his wife, Hazel, planted the squash and pumpkins.
During the summer the wifes hoed, weeded, and encouraged the growth of the squash and pumpkins. Then, in the middle of September, Ted called John and told John, “you’d better take tomorrow off from the Navy Yard. We are going to get a frost and we need to pick those squash and pumpkins before we get a frost.”
Ted said he would bring the truck and a hay wagon down to the field in the morning. They met at 7:30 the next morning and the two couples picked squash and pumpkins all day. Around 4:00 Ted said to John, “it’s 4:00 and I have to go and milk the cows; I’ll take and put the truck and wagon in the barn for the night.”
Ted Ham’s farm was on Dow Lane, where the “Cider Mill” is Today. The barn was the barn behind the “Cider Mill”, at 1190 Washington Road. Today, the barn is a home. Ted drove the truck and wagon up behind the barn and onto the main floor of the barn. Ted invited John to the house to enjoy a cocktail, and as they walked towards the house on Dow Lane, they heard a cracking sound and then a loud crash. The truck and wagon had fallen into the barn cellar, along with all the pumpkins and squashes.
John LaSuer told me he did not get a pumpkin or a squash after all of that work and effort.
