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John the
Spaniard
“John the Spaniard here”; so entered William
Grant in his diary on October 4, 1913.
This is the first known written evidence of John Milan being in
Edwards. His journey in
arriving here can be followed in very general terms.
John’s
early life
John was not one to talk much about his childhood,
but it is known from his death record in Edwards that he was born in
Malaga, Spain, 19 March 1889, a son of
Mr. Milan and his wife, Valverde.
Nothing is known of his siblings.
He told that they were a poor family and had to
struggle to live. In the late
19th century, when John was born, in a country where the
majority of the population was Catholic and the Church ruled the daily
lives of its parishioners without mercy, John had some bad memories that
turned him against his religion. In
those days the Church demanded money for many of the services it should
have provided its people without regard for remuneration.
Since the Milan family had no money to pay for these services,
apparently they were denied some that John could never forgive the Church
for withholding from his family, and he never practiced Catholicism, or
any organized religion, while he lived in Edwards.
Perhaps President Theodore Roosevelt’s United
States Isthmian Canal Commission was John’s salvation.
Roosevelt had appointed men, through his agency, to go to United
States, Europe and the West Indies to find men to work on the proposed
Panama Canal. It is
possible that the agency had the power to pay the ocean passage for young
men they recruited to work on the Panama Canal, with an agreement that it
would be paid back as they worked building the Canal.
This theory could have been how John got the money to leave Spain
since John related about working on the Panama Canal.
He would have been around eighteen years old, just the right age to
look for adventure and try to fulfill a dream of a better way of life.
Since the weather in the Canal area is hot and humid,
one story John related to his buddies in Edwards village was a memory of
this type of climate. As the sun beat down on the tools the men were
using, the metal parts became very hot, so while the crew was having their
lunch break they buried the tools in the dirt in an attempt to cool them
down enough to be able to work with the manual labor equipment in the
afternoon.
John had no skills, but apparently was willing to use
his young strength in common labor. The
unskilled or semiskilled workers were paid in silver coins while the
professional men received gold coins as their pay.
This practice brought about the terms silver workers and gold
workers. Maybe John, the
silver worker, was able to save some of his coins to take his next step
for a better life.
It is isn’t known how long or when John worked on
the canal, the actual work of which began in 1907, but he left that job to
go to Cuba. Did he have
relatives or friends there? No
one knows. Perhaps he just
wanted to be in a country where he could speak the language.
The search for a life that satisfied him brought
young John Milan to the United States and somehow to Newton Falls.
It seems John had worked at Newton Falls in the paper mill, before
he came to Edwards. One of
his recollections was the necessity of having to get out on the dam in the
river at the mill to do some work and how cold the water was.
Nothing more has been discovered about his time in Newton Falls.
John came to Edwards to work in the mines.
The mine was becoming built up at that time and possibly the word
got around that workers were being hired.
He was to board with a family at the mines, but soon after he got
there someone in the family developed scarlet fever.
In those days the house was quarantined when a contagious disease
was in the household and while John was at work one day the doctor came
and quarantined the family’s home.
John was given a tent and for two weeks he had to camp out near the
mines so he wouldn’t be quarantined with the family.
That was quite an introduction to life in Edwards.
John was still working at the mines on Friday, June
26, 1914 when the new “fireproof” mill caught fire.
In later years he told Wayne Fuller that it possibly was a belt on
one of the machines that caused the fire and “if I’d uh pail, I could
uh put him out”. He was
probably right because a newspaper account of the fire states that “it
took some time for the firemen to reach the building by pulling the piece
of apparatus over the road”. They
had only a dozen men at first, and were pulling a hose cart by hand!
One known household with whom he boarded was the Urb
and Mary Kerr family. They
lived in the house between Emery Webb’s and the Post Office, now the
home of John and Shirley Clark. This
bit of information was from the records of Stuart Casanova, a grandson of
Urb and Mary Kerr.
His English must have been rather scanty although he
probably could make himself understood by this time.
He was taught to read and write English by a businessman in the
village, Henry Grant. (This
information also from Stuart Casanova). However, he never lost his Spanish
accent. Quite possibly this
man became his teacher because John opened his own business, an ice cream
parlor, in the building Henry and his father, William Grant had built for
a furniture store - the building that later became known as the Grange
Hall.
Another job John held, recalled by Karl Jones of
Edwards, was working on the new bridge being built across the Oswegatchie
River to the depot and which opened sometime in 1914.
No information has been discovered as to when John
opened his ice cream parlor, but probably it was sometime in 1914 and
before the high school class of 1915 graduated.
This is known because Inez Noble Brown, a member of that class,
recalled that the school had an hour for lunch and she and her friends
were allowed to walk downtown where they would go up the steps to the main
floor of the Grange Hall, home of John’s ice cream parlor, for an ice
cream treat. Another person
of Edwards who remembers going to John’s place of business in that
building when she was a child, is Katheryn Freeman Fuller.
While her family lived on outer Maple Avenue, she could walk to
Main Street for a quart of ice cream and get back home before it melted!
John operated his ice cream business from this
location until 1925 when the owner moved the contents of her general store
into the building. A news
article of April 20, 1925 reads that John Milan’s new building “is
going up at a rapid rate due to the excellent weather of the past few
days”.
John Milan’s Corner
Here, in his new building, John set up his ice cream
parlor on the first floor, had his living quarters on the second floor,
and for the rest of his life, 45 years, dipped ice cream for the public,
never considering retiring.
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The exact date of his opening for business is known
as Saturday evening, June 6, 1925, from an entry in Velma Hall's diary
stating "John Milan opened his ice cream rooms tonight."
The building was only partially completed, but he needed to earn a living
and was probably thinking that he wanted to be sure to get the summer ice
cream business since that is when customers are in the mood for the
cooling refreshment.
The building, on its triangular piece of
property, quite likely would have been termed a “flatiron”
building in any other town, but in Edwards, its being situated on
the turn to New Street and toward the river crossing, became known
by all as “John Milan’s Corner”.
Through the years John continued to operate
his business regardless of Depression, Wars and local competition.
The townspeople were loyal to his store though it was never
updated or freshly painted. Perhaps
it stood for those things that are reliable, never changing and
also bring back memories of childhood.
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John Milan's Corner in 1956. Notice the tree
John was so determined to save by chaining the parts together.
Also with a careful look, one can see a person shoveling the walk.
Possibly it is John himself. |
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