http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm

11 January 2014

COOGAN story

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appearing in "?" [Syracuse, NY], c.1931:

FARM DREAM COMES TRUE FOR WORKER, 69 - 45 YEARS ON ONE JOB

"When a man gets to be my age - I am 69 - he ought to have sense 
enough to quit work and take things easy for the rest of his days. 
Instead of insisting on working at his job until the day of his 
death", philosophized Charles Coogan of Kirkville, New York today. 
Mr. Coogan, who moved to Kirkville Saturday from the former home at 
702 W. Belden Avenue, Syracuse, just completed 45 years as an 
employee of the National Biscuit Company without missing a day at 
work, except to attend funerals. The corporation was when he first 
went to work there, the Young & Larrabee Bakery. Charles Coogan 
always had an ideal for his old age back in his head, and now it's 
realized. That ideal was a small farm where he could dig in the 
dirt, be out in the open and have a few chickens, where he wouldn't 
have to work no more than he felt like and could sit in the 
sunshine with a pipe on the back stoop and ruminate upon the past 
and future. He bought the farmhouse and its eight and a half acres 
and a few days afterward he hung up his overalls at the biscuit 
company, where he had charge of freight elevators for the past nine 
years, packed his household effects in a moving van, and 
accompanied by Mrs. Coogan, set out for his paradise of dreams. He 
found the farm a bit lonesome at first and was somewhat lonesome 
today for the hustle and bustle of Syracuse streets, but it won't 
be long, he expects, before he will forget to be lonesome. So far 
his livestock consists of the following: One Airedale dog called 
Buddy, one guinea pig, a dozen chickens and two canaries, and there 
is his bicycle, which really isn't livestock. This bicycle is the 
fifth which Charles Coogan has owned since boyhood and he has 
covered hundreds of miles of Syracuse pavements upon it. During his 
entire 45 years of work at the biscuit company he journeyed to and 
from his daily chores upon a bicycle. "A bike, he said, suits me 
perfectly when it comes to going places. I sued to live in 
Liverpool and rode one to work every day, winter and summer. In 
fact, I can ride it backwards, and in my younger days I won a few 
prizes in bicycle races they used to have here. A good thing about 
it is that you get on and ride whenever your are ready and you 
don't have to wait for the trolley or train. It does not use any 
gasoline, like an automobile, and you don't have to feed it like a 
horse. It suits me just right, and the first clear day we get I'm 
going to take a trip down to Kirkville and look the place over. 
It's about two and a half miles from here. He surveyed his eight 
and a half broad acres and said: "I don't think I'll work all of 
it, but I'll plant some potatoes and some other vegetables, and 
just keep as busy as I want to and enjoy myself:. When Mr. Coogan 
went to work for the bakery company he drove a wagon and delivered 
baked dough products, then he had charge of the shipping room for a 
while and later took over operation of the freight elevators. "Hard 
work never did anybody any harm", he added, "but when, as I said, 
when a man gets to be my age he ought to sort of take things easy 
and concentrate on enjoying himself."

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=41140542

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