Joseph, my father, was the youngest child of Charles H. and Anna Mary (Hallenbach) Ehrhardt. He was baptized Joseph Henry but didn't know that until he needed his baptismal certificate for his wedding to my mother, Lorena Agnes Kehoe, at St. Vincent de Paul's Church. Dad had always used his confirmation name for his middle name.

Dad was born one year after his brother, Charles Paul, a fact my mother found just a bit contradictory when her mother-in-law, Anna, was chiding her daughter-in-law for becoming pregnant for her fourth child only months after the previous child, Susie, was born. In response to Anna's blunt question, "Why are you having all these babies?", Mom responded, "Well, Joe and Charlie are only a year apart." Grosma retorted, "Well, that was a mistake!" Poor Daddy. His children thought that he was a very happy mistake.

As was common in the early years of the 20th century, Joe left school early to work and earn his keep. As a young teen, he coupled and uncoupled cars in the rail yard for the D&H Railroad where his father was an engineer. Joseph soon became a runner for Albany Trust Company, running bank packages between the bank and other businesses in the City. Before long, Dad secured a job at the City and County Savings Bank, rising to the position of a junior officer by the end of the 1920s. One of his first professional plums was his appointment as a junior executor to the estate of George and Theodora Hawley on Madison Avenue in Albany. Since the Hawleys had no beneficiaries, the estate executors were given the opportunity to take items from the house as additional reimbursement for their services. Although the junior executor was lower in rank, Joseph and Lorena, who were furnishing their first home were delighted with an antique gilt mirror, a 5 O'clock tea stand, a Berkie Gay gilded rocking chair, and a number of pieces of crystal and china, treasures that graced their home for many years. He rose to the position of Vice-President and Treasurer of the City and County Bank and was about to be appointed President of the Bank at the time of his death .

Joe and Lorena married on June 3, 1930 and had five daughters, Mary-Patricia born June 8, 1931, Joan Alice, August 22, 1935, Suzanne Marie February 6, 1938, Lorena Eleanor, March 3, 1939, and Virginia Timon Dianne, July 30, 1943. Although he never had his boy, Joe enjoyed playing rough and tumble games with the neighborhood boys. It was not unusual for Lorena to answer the doorbell to find a group of little boys asking. "Can Joe come out to play?"

As a family, we often went to the West Albany train yards or to Fuller Road to count the trains as they went by. Dad liked to drive out to Altamont to show us where his Uncle Jake's farm had been and where he had been taken to the Lutheran Church when he had visited for short respites from the City. Those rides always ended with a trip to Dutcher's Ice Cream for monstrous cones. Happy vacations at Lake Champlain or Lake George and family picnics still create vivid images in my memory. We were in Lake George on my fifth birthday in 1948. In the morning, on July 30, the story goes that I went around to all the cabins in Lincoln Log Colony inviting people to my birthday party. Luckily Dad's friend, Babe McEnany, the owner of the Colony, ran into Dad a bit later to accept the party invitation, something that sent Mom and Dad off to the nearby A&P and liquor store for provisions. One guest gifted me with a piggy bank which I carried around for donations to each person at the party something that caused someone to remark, "Easy telling she's a banker's daughter." That was my last birthday with my Daddy Joe. He died on July 15, 1949.

Although I didn't know him long, Dad's natural goodness and kindness was something that I heard about for many years when running into his old friends or business acquaintances. I was most touched by the elderly woman who 15 years after his death still banked at his bank because she remembered my Dad so fondly.

Joseph A Ehrhardt