Schenectady Gazette, Wednesday, April 27, 1949, accompanied by photo for his 92nd birthday:
“Wm. Vedder, Nonagenarian, Recalls Civil War Days
William Vedder woke with the birds Monday morning, donned his working togs and, 92nd birthday or not, went out and sowed some oats.
As a century of living came a year closer to him, the man reputed to be Glenville’s oldest resident took the day as he has taken the more than 33,000 others that have passed him . . . in stride.
Standing about five feet, eight inches tall, rake in hand and an eye fixed on his two acres of Sacandaga road famrland, Mr. Vedder said he thinks the way he’s always gone about living can account for his ripe old age.
His formula for long and healthy living is simple: No smoking or drinking and plenty of hard work.
“Show me a 16-year-old boy today,” he said, “who would plow fields for 10 hours a day with a team of horses.”
In addition to raising oats, potatoes and sweet corn on his farm, Mr. Vedder has found time for the past three quarters of a century to dabble in his favorite hobby, raising bees. He has 20 swams of the little stingers now in a bee house he built himself.
His daily routine runs something like this: Getting up with the sun, working throughout the day as hard as any other farmer (during the winter he canes chair), playing dominoes or listening to the radio in the evening with his wife and going to bed about 9 p.m.
Born on a Ridge road farm, the nonagenarian has been active in farming since he finished five years of schooling at the Rabbit Hollow School when he was 16 years old.
About that time, he recalled with no effort at all, he hired himself out as a hand on nearby farms for two years. Then he went to Iowa where he spent the same amount of time at what was to be his life-long occupation.
The above was all part of recalling comparatively recent happenings for the man who can remember life in this territory when the world was little more than past the half-way mark of the last century.
Mr. Vedder’s memory dates back to his mother’s death, which came when he was six years old. Civil War days have also found a place in the farmer’s huge backlog of data.
He said monkey business flourished in little as well as big places during the time when Grant and Lee were feuding. A fellow could buy his way out of service (for $300, to be exact) if he didn’t feel like going south with the Yankees, said the man who still drives his own car.
Mr. Vedder chuckled out his recollection of one well-to-do non-aspirant to army life who paid a friend $1,000 to take his place with the Unioners. The friend obliged and three days later the war of the states was over.
The man who has grown old without letting it bother him was first married in 1890 to Miss Anna Cath, who died 49 years later. The couple lived on Ridge Road until fire completely demolished their farm about 25 years ago.
Mr. Vedder built another house in that section and three years later acquired a two-acre patch of land at RD 2 Sacandaga Road, where he lives now with his second wife, Mrs. Gertrude P. Pulis Vedder, 69, formerly of Roxbury. Mrs. Vedder’s first husband died 10 years ago.
The Glenville farmer has been a member of the Schenectady County Farm Bureau for the past 25 years. He is also a member of the Glenville Methodist Church, which last year cited him as its oldest living communicant.
Mr. Vedder has one daughter by his first marriage, Mrs. B.G. Geerson, who lives in Scotia.”