Mrs. Adams of Shrub Oak 85 Tomorrow

Mrs. Adams of Shrub Oak 85 Tomorrow

"Yorktown History Scrapbook" Binder, Volume 5 - People

Compiled by the staff of the John C. Hart Memorial Library

This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John C. Hart Memorial Library. Rights status is not evaluated.

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1950s

Mrs. Minnie Adams of Shrub Oak, who will be 85 years old tomorrow (May 29th), has her own formula for gracious living. "I always get my housework out of the way early in the day; she said recently, "then I'm free to do whatever comes the rest of the day." Indeed, her busy life has always called for a definite routine.
Born Minnie Archer, she was one and two sons, of Isaac Archer of five children, three daughter and Margaret Dever who once owned the corner of Shrub Oak between Union Avenue and Crompond Street. Isaac Archer was one of three brothers, all masons, who came over from Brewster about 100 years ago. Mrs. Adams's mother, who was born in northern Ireland of Scotch-Irish parents, came to America on a sailing vessel at the age of sixteen.
Minnie was married to Walter Adams, of the Tinker Hill Adams family, in 1901, and for 48 years lived on a 42-acre farm on Crompond Street where her husband raised cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, and garden produce which he sold in Peekskill markets. Some of the farm has since become a part of the Taconic Parkway.
Mrs. Adams had been a seamstress in her youth, and for twenty-seven years was dressmaker to the stylish elite of the village. She had no children of her own, but raised two foster children for an intimate friend, Robert Munkelt, of Groton Con., and his sister Helen, now Mrs. Edwin Daniels, of Westfield Mass., who still visit her several time a year. She maintains a lively correspondence with old friends, and is a constant reader. A member of the Shrub Oak Methodist Church since the age of fifteen, she has served it as treasurer for sixteen years, and as a Sunday School teacher. She is still an active member of WSCS.
Then years ago, when the Adams farm was sold, they moved to a neat little cottage on the Jefferson Valley Road in Shrub Oak. Her husband passed away three years ago at the age of 84.
Mrs. Adams's hair, once a vivid auburn, is now snow white but still thick and wavey. Of her former classmates, only four are still in this area Mrs. Annie Odell, Mrs. Genevieve Martens, Mrs. Susan Odell, of Shrub Oak, and Mrs. Charles James, now a resident of Interlaken, New York, who still spends he Summers in Shrub Oak with Mrs. Adams. She has four nephews, six nieces, two grand-nephews and a grand-niece.
Mrs. Adams attended school in the little one-room school house located next to the Methodist Church in Shrub Oak. Her earliest recollection of school, she says was of the occasion of the first wedding, in 1875, in the then new church, when Mr. and Mrs. Richard Horne, of Mohegan, grandparent of the present Richard Horne, were wed.
"I was just six years old," she recalls, "and it was the first wedding I had every seen. The entire school, all 30 of us, were permitted to watch it." The church was of special interest to the little girl, as her father and his brothers had contributed much of their time to the construction of the building.
Adams -- At Shrub Oak, N.Y., Sept. 27, 1951, Walter A., in his 84th year, husband of Minnie Archer Adams. Funeral services will be held from his late residence, Shrub Oak, N.Y., on Sunday, Sept. 30, at 2:30 P.M. with Rev. Dorland R. Russett, pastor of the Shrub Oak Methodist Church, officiating. Interment at Shrub Oak Cemetery. Mr. Adams is survived by his wife, Minnie Archer Adams; one sister, Mrs. Ella Milteer of Quitman, Georgia; and two nephews. Arrangements by E. O. Curry Funeral Home.

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