During the Great Depression the young mother took whatever job she could find, which included farm work. Her board was included with the job, therefore her young daughter went to live with her grandmother. The little girl’s uncle was just five years older than her, therefore she played with his toys, such as a homemade gun made from wood and a piece of innertube. She also remembers playing with stilts as a child. She loved learning from her grandmother who would point out various plants as they picked greens in the spring and blueberries in the summer.

“One winter my grandmother had a horse. She hitched it to a cutter and took my uncle and me for a ride. The horse got anxious and hurried back and tipped the sleigh over when turning to go into the barn,” says the 92-year old. “I’ll always remember that.”

When her grandmother ran out of potatoes, she would dig into the mounds of dirt where they grew in search of the largest ones.

The woman then covered the smaller ones with dirt to giving them a chance to mature. The young girl was able to live with her mother again after the woman found a job with Corning Glass Works. They moved to Corning after a serious flood washed out many roads in 1937. Pauline then attended Corning Academy and completed her last three years of school at Northside High School, graduating in 1943 when she was 16 years old but not until after she was uprooted once again.

Pictured at is 92-year-old Pauline Baltzer. Submitted photo

Her family moved to Cleveland a few months before graduation after her step-father, a telegrapher, bid on a job there. The high school student finished out her senior year while living with her aunt and uncle in Corning. She started her first job as a messenger in the treasurer’s office of Erie Railroad shortly after she joined her parents in the Ohio city. One of her responsibilities was getting mail from the mailroom and delivering it to the appropriate offices.

After she moved back to the Steuben/Schuyler County area, she acquired a job as an office clerk with Ingersoll-Rand in Painted Post, keeping that job for 10 years. She was a stay-at-home mom for eight or nine years after the youngest of five sons was born. When she returned to the workforce, she took a job with Shepard Niles, Inc. as a cost accounting office clerk.

“When I went to work at Shepard Niles I had been out of work for several years and had a hard time getting into it and wondered what am I doing here,” she confesses. “Then one day I thought, ‘this is where you belong.'”

She retired after 16 years with the company.

“I love figures. If I had gone to college, I would have been a math teacher because I loved algebra and geometry,” she says. “After working, I could have used accounting.”

Pictured is Baltzer as a young toddler. Submitted photo

She likes to do the puzzles in the newspaper, including sudoku and reads historical novels and mysteries.

“I always wanted to play golf but never got the chance. When I was working, I liked to bowl. On my one night of fame I bowled a 256. Even the men were watching. The next game I bowled 106.”

She used to make her own clothing and patched her boys’ clothes. “Especially the knees,” she said.

Her four oldest sons were Boy Scouts and one of her grandsons became an Eagle Scout and is still involved in scouting. Her son, Tim O’ Malley, tells about a terrifying incident that could have had a very bad outcome.

“During the winter of 1957, I rode my sled down my grandparents’ driveway and into the traffic of Route 226,” he says.

The collision spun the boy around, flipped him face-up and snagged his coat on the undercarriage of the sedan. After he was pulled out, he was carried inside to the kitchen table where it was discovered he had suffered a cut under his chin, a fat lip and a bruised right hip. His sled had become a pile of splintered wood and twisted metal and he cried when he saw it.

“Though it’s been 62 years, I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when she came home from work that night. It was an expression that I’ve never seen before, nor since. (It was) that grateful and peaceful countenance which only comes when a mother realizes that her child could have been lost to a terrible accident, but had survived it instead,” he says. “I recall it so vividly. Mom soon bought me a new Flexible Flyer, but I never again rode it down that driveway.”

It now seems funny that at the time of the accident, the little boy’s oldest brother ran into the kitchen and told his grandmother “Tim’s sled got run over by a car.” When the woman asked with concern in her voice, “Well, where was Tim” her grandson answered, “He was on it.”

He tells another winter story, this one taking place on Christmas Day 1962.

“When my brothers and I awoke to relatively few presents under the tree, we were glum as mom explained that money was tight that year and she couldn’t afford more,” he recalls. “After going to church, we returned home to discover that our grandparents had dropped off two new bicycles, a Bob-O-Link bobsled and Astro-Phones. Hurray! Christmas had come after all.”

He, also recalls a day in the early 1960s when he was about seven years old and he and his brothers had been naughty all day long and knew they may receive spankings for their behavior.

“When my turn came, I asked ‘Mom, why are you spanking me.’ She replied, ‘So that you will be good.'”

His mother was stunned when her son responded with, “Maybe you should spank me some more.” He doesn’t recall ever being spanked after that day.

Baltzer’s other sons are William, Barry, Terence and David. Barry passed away in 1995 and Terence in 2008. She has four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren and has written the family history in order to pass it down to her offspring.

The nonagenarian has lived at Hultquist Place in Jamestown for one year.

“Living here, I see a lot of people with health problems. I’m so grateful for my good health. I like to say it is from good genes.”