I find myself looking for it each day—the post from Rick Shay, sharing another small window into the life of Isaac C. Purdy. What first captured my curiosity wasn’t just the history… it was the idea of it. A man keeping a diary. Line by line. Day after day. In a world where most moments now pass unrecorded, there is something quietly remarkable about that. And as a lover of words—a dreamer at heart—I find myself closing my eyes, slipping into those pages, imagining his day-to-day life around Keuka. As if you were standing along Bluff Point in the late 1800s…watching from a distant.
Morning wouldn’t rush in.
It would arrive gently—light stretching across the lake, mist lifting slowly, the kind of quiet that feels almost sacred. And somewhere along those vineyard rows, I imagine Isaac already at work.
Boots worn. Hands steady. Movements practiced.
I don’t think he wasted time easing into the day.
I follow him—just behind, just enough to observe. It’s a new year. Cold enough that breath lingers in the air. And there, beside him, is his son Fred. Together, they begin pruning the Catawba vines.
New Year’s Day.
Not marked by celebration… but by beginning.
Clip by clip. Vine by vine.
And I begin to understand—this is how time is kept here. Not by calendars on a wall, but by the work of the land and the turning of seasons.
Spring doesn’t arrive all at once.
It unfolds.
I watch as the soil softens, as green begins to push through what once seemed still. The vineyard stretches toward the lake, and there’s a quiet sense of promise in the air.
This isn’t just routine work.
This is legacy.
Isaac was among the first in this region to sell grapes commercially in the late 1850s—long before Keuka became what we know it to be today. What I’m witnessing in these quiet, ordinary moments… is the beginning of something much bigger.
He would later write in 1909 that homes, barns, and fruit houses were built with the money earned from grapes.
Standing here… I can almost see it happening.
By late summer and early fall, the pace shifts.
The stillness gives way to movement.
Hands moving quickly through the rows. Baskets filling. The scent of ripe grapes hanging heavy in the warm air. Catawba. Delaware. Isabella. Names that feel rooted as deeply as the vines themselves.
Crates are packed carefully—destined for places far beyond this quiet stretch of lake. Even as far as Baltimore. Baltimore, it must have felt so far from this crooked lake back then.
And suddenly, Keuka doesn’t feel small at all.
It feels connected. Expansive.
Alive in a way that reaches beyond what the eye can see.
But what lingers with me most isn’t the harvest… or even the history.
It’s the noticing.
Because at the end of the day, I imagine Isaac sitting down—perhaps near a window, perhaps by lamplight—pen in hand.
And he writes.
Not for recognition.
Not for an audience.
Not for social media clicks.
Just… because the day mattered.
Sixteen of his journals, now preserved at Cornell University, hold those moments—weather patterns, vineyard work, the quiet rhythm of life along Keuka.
Things we might overlook.
Things he chose to remember.
As I step back from this imagined day, the lake returns to stillness.
The vines stand quietly.
And yet… it all feels different somehow.
Because his story lingers here.
In the land.
In the rhythm.
In the understanding that even the simplest days—pruning vines, watching the weather roll in, trips into town, sending grapes out into the world—can shape something lasting.
And maybe that’s why I keep looking for those posts each day.
Because in those small snippets, I’m reminded…
To slow down.
o notice.
To hold onto the moments that might otherwise slip away.
Because a life doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be meaningful.
It simply has to be lived…
…and perhaps, like Isaac’s—
written down.
A Side Note from Rick Shay:
Isaac C. Purdy—our Isaac—was born in 1837. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of preserving 14–15 of his journals, each offering a window into life as it once unfolded around Keuka. It’s my intention that, in time, these journals will find a permanent home with the Yates County Historical Society, where they can continue to tell their story for generations to come.
And one more note… the name “Isaac” runs deep in the Purdy family—so you’ll find it more than once among the branches of that tree. Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone had his genealogy and we could see entire family tree!
🌿 A Keuka Roots Reflection
Thank you, Rick Shay, for faithfully sharing the quiet, steady rhythm of life as written by Isaac C. Purdy. In those daily snippets, something simple becomes something lasting.
It’s a gentle reminder to me that the deepest roots around Keuka are not always found in the grand stories we tell… but in the day-to-day hum of life lived without fanfare.
In early mornings that arrive without announcement.
In hands that go to work because the land calls them to.
In seasons marked not by headlines, but by growth, harvest, and rest.
There is something quietly powerful about a man who wrote down his days—not for recognition, but simply because they were lived. And now, all these years later, those ordinary moments have become extraordinary in their own way.
They remind us that life here has always been built on rhythm… on showing up… on tending what’s been entrusted to us.
And maybe that’s where the real story of Keuka has always been.
Not just in the history we celebrate—
but in the lives that were faithfully lived, one day at a time.
Stay Rooted. Stay Keuka. 🌿
