Florence Stella Cates was born on 15. May. 1921 at Daysville, Oswego County, New York. She was the daughter of
George Frederick Cates and
Vesta Lucretia Smart. Florence Stella Cates married
Clarence Fred Litts, son of
Frederick Edward Litts and
Edna Vanderbilt, on 15. May. 1938 at Richland Twp., Oswego County, New York. In 1957 we sold off the chickens and I took a temporary job in Syracuse at a washing machine factory. The Federal Government thought we needed interstate highways for the trucking industry which had taken over the duties of transporting goods across the country. A north-south highway was built through Pulaski, Federal Route 81, connecting Canada to Pennsylvania. That summer I joined the Carpenters Union in Oswego and went to work for the Peter Kewitt Company, working on the highway bridges, it was a lot closer to home. I worked all summer until it got to cold and the work stopped for the winter. I went back to the washing machines until spring, but carpentry paid more money and it was better than farming too. The following spring I went back to work on the highway and finished up Route 81 to Cortland. Then I went to work building concrete forms at AlCan, the new aluminum plant in Oswego. In 1961 we sold off the farm for a smaller house, we were still in the country and still within five miles from where I was born. Construction was my life then, better money and with the hours I was working there was no time for farm work. I could now afford a few luxuries, a new truck and a new 16' fiberglass boat. I was working full time, but without those cows, I had plenty of time to go fishing. I sent away for a correspondence school study, part of it included how to read blue prints. I moved from job to job as construction only lasts as long as there is work. From Alcan Aluminum Co. I went on a road project on Route 81 around Cortland and in 1963 Schoeller Papers, a German based company decided Pulaski looked like a good place to build, plenty of spring water to produce the speciality papers they make and convenience of being near the highway, and for me, a job real close to home. When that job was done, there was the new high school in Pulaski then back to Alcan. It was there that I moved up, my foreman had a heart attack and died and I was selected to take his position, the home study course on blue print reading paid off. I was very successful running my crew. In the 1970's Oswego was preparing to start a nuclear power generating
plant, the first of the plants called Fitzpatrick, I also worked on Nine Mile 1 and Nine Mile 2. I got the call to manage a crew at the start of Fitzpatrick. After a few years they fired five general foremen. The project manager had just dismissed one of the men and was walking by, I called him over and ribbed him a bit, asking him why he didn't hire me in the first place and save all the trouble he was in. Fifteen minutes later he came back and said if I wanted the job it was mine. Starting the next morning I was in charge of over half the project, 11 crews and 130 workers. In 1982 the job was winding down and Alcan was about to build three new remelt furnaces and asked if I would be interested in a job. I accepted the position and was a one man manager so to speak. I had to do the hiring, payroll, engineering, submit bids and run purchasing. They asked me to stay on permanently, but I took another offer as a project manager and was
earning more money than I had all my life. I was soon to turn 65 and had to make a decision, work or retire. The company said they had three more years of
work, but I decided to retire, with the option to work a few weeks during the summer months. I had myself in a good position with retirement funding and I
thought it was time to see some other benefits of life. I bought a 35' fifth wheel camper and a new desil truck and Florence and I spent the winters in Florida
and the summers at home in New York. My brother Bob lived in a mobile home park in St. Petersburg and we spent every winter in the site next to his. Bob
and I fished a lot and occasionally we worked together painting mobile homes. Florence and I celebrated 58 years of marriage, she came through .... Florence Stella Cates died on 28. Nov. 1996 at Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, at age 75.