- Lorenzo Freeman Bingham was a kind, hardworking man who helped neighbors despite working long hours without a union in the late 19th century. - He was a talented tenor singer and enjoyed singing and reading to his children, even when tired from work. - He took pride in repairing his family's shoes and teasing his wife, though he did not regularly attend church due to smoking his pipe and work commitments. - As a young man, he would trade homegrown goods for musical entertainment at all-night church dances attended by people of all ages. - Bingham had a charitable spirit and enjoyed reminiscing about his childhood and connecting with others through shared family histories.

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LORENZO FREEMAN BINGHAM. • • • as told by his daughter, Blanche
~ father was a very kind man.
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H~ always could find time to help a neighbor. After working from
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ten to fourteen hours a day. There was no union at that time and there was street cars and horses
and carriages. So most of the time th~ could ride as far as the street car went and then walk.
MY father was a lovely tenor singer. When we children were little he would sing, orread to us and
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and one or the other of us would keep him busy getting drinks of water. It didn't matter how tired
the poor dear was he would wait on us and I know that we wasn't so thirsty as we enjoyed him to wait
on us. He always fixed our shoes by half soling them. When we had company mother was getting din-
ner he would tell t.he.i what a good dumpling he c orLd make. He liked to tease my mother. She would
tell him after company was gone that she would like to see and taste his du~plings. He would just
laugh, put the smallest child o~ his knee and sing funny songs to them. He loved the church but
never went very often but always upheld the principles of the church. I think on account of his
smoking his pipe that Lept him from going to church; and maybe his work. Most of the time he
worked as a laborer. He cut and put up ice for the summer. That was the only way at that time to have ice in the summer. MY father
said that when he was a young man that there wasn't money for everything so they would all take something they had grown such as squash,
or apples or potatoes or onions to pay the ones that furnished the music to dance by. The dances were always church dances and they
would dance all night or until 4 O'clock in the- morning every one turned out--old and young--they would bring their babies, put them
to bed in the windows and in corners on chairs. Single ones came on horses with a sack of whatever he had and the families came in
wagons and buggies wrapped up in quilts and hot rocks and straw. MY father said next morning Grandpa would call them to get up to do
chores and he 'AQuld say he was so sleepy and grandpa would say, "those that dance had to pay the fiddler", for his to get up.
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Father was a man of love for every one and he had charity.
to anyone he'd ask them who their parents were.
It's a shame that he hadn't worked on geneology for as soon as he talked
He would laugh and tell them he knew them ve-.."Y
well and then he would have a long
talk about some of the fun things they had done. He always enjoyed living over his childhood days.