It has been said that your interest in family history begins at the funeral of the last person who could have answered your questions. So it is with me and my interest in Hollis William Slocum. I learned just the other day that Hollis was a cheese maker, and I love cheese. And he’s such a handsome lad in his photos. But there’s no one left who knew him, or even knew of him.
Hollis was born in 1885, the son of Charles and Minerva Slocum, in Bucktooth Run, south of Little Valley and north of Salamanca. He had two older brothers, Lewis and Homer, and a younger sister, Abbie Belinda, my grandmother.
Hollis and Abbie Slocum
In 1922, Hollis moved to Campbell, N.Y., and became a cheese maker at the Campbell Cheese Factory. The next year, he married Ethel Mary Crance.
In 1924, the cheese factory was advertising for another cheese maker; it’s possible that Hollis’ health was making it difficult for him to work. He underwent “a major operation” at the hospital in Bath in November of 1926. He died in the hospital in Bath, N.Y., in August of 1927, “after an illness of several weeks.” He was just 42 years old. When I was a boy, my father told me that Hollis had terrible headaches and it was something to do with his brain that had proved fatal.
Three months after Hollis’ death, his widow married Charles Church Marvin, himself a widower.
Hollis’ gravestone in the Hope Cemetery in Campbell, N.Y., bears the Odd Fellow’s symbol, which stands for Friendship, Love and Truth. It is likely that he was a member of the Kohocton Lodge, No. 498, in Bath.
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Hollis and Abbie Slocum’s photos by Bush & Plain studios, Salamanca, N.Y.
Charles and Minerva Slocum’s photos by John Henry Blessing, Salamanca, N.Y.
Information about Hollis from Ancestry.com and the ever wonderful Fulton Database.