By 1870, his family had moved slightly uptown to East 28th Street in to a building with the Trees as their neighbors. These might have been his grandparents, Robert and Eliza Tree. His neighbors were of both German or English descent and worked as coachmen, photographers, painters, machinists, moulders or along with his father in the piano making business.
In June 1872 there was a fire in the building where Oliver’s father worked, destroying his piano string business. James was only insured for two thirds of the $1,500 value he claimed was destroyed in the fire.
Something drastic must have happened to the family, because in 1880 Oliver and his father James have sought work in Milo, New York, a community of farmers, laborers or servants. Fourteen year old Oliver and his father are lodging near one another, but in separate houses along the banks of Seneca Lake in Milo, NY. Oliver is listed as a hired man in the industry of laborer. His father is listed as a servant. Oliver is living with Ruben Thayer’s family while James is living in a house worthy of depiction in the 1876 Atlas of New York Counties, the Isaac Hewitt house.
In the 1889 New York City Directory we find Oliver and Horace living with their father at 2256 Second Avenue. Oliver is already listed as a letter carrier at this time. We can’t know when Oliver got the job with the Post Office, nor can we know how he came to be in Troy, New York.
Oliver’s marriage to Nellie Jane Kirkpatrick is announced in the Lansingburgh Times on September 8th, 1894 . There is no way to know how they met, but we can perhaps imagine that Oliver delivered mail to their home or perhaps they attended the same church. Nellie Jane is seven years younger than Oliver. They were married at her parent’s home by Reverend George Fairlee from the Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Oliver and Nellie Janes’ first child, Charles Herbert Lee, is born in July 1896 in New York City, not Troy, NY. Perhaps the young couple went to New York City to have the baby and introduce Nellie Jane to Oliver’s family.
By 1900, Oliver has two sons, Charles and Horace. He is working as a letter carrier for the post office and renting an apartment in his father-in-law’s home at 246 2nd Avenue in Troy.
Perhaps because his family is growing, Oliver moves his family out of his father-in-law’s home in 1901, moving to 125 6th Avenue. Three years later in 1904 his third child, Olive, is born. With the family still growing, by 1910, he has moved again, down the street to 93 6th Avenue where Margaret is born in 1911.
Nellie Jane’s parents die within a day of one another in January 1912.
By 1915, Oliver is still living at 93 6th Avenue, but his oldest son has started college at Syracuse University. Herbert attending college is a source of pride for the Lee family, as he is the first in the Lee family to ‘attend’ college. Herb’s period as a college student ends, however, as he serves in World War I in France as an ambulance driver. Not being a veteran himself, Oliver was probably very proud of his eldest son.
In 1920, Oliver continues to reside at 93 6th Avenue with his wife and three younger children. Horace, or Harry, is working as a salesman for a drug company.
In 1925, Oliver and Nellie have moved back with their three younger children to Nellie’s parent’s former house at 246 2nd Avenue.
At age 62 in 1930, Oliver continues to work with the post office coming home to his stenographer daughters and wife who keeps house. The family owns the house at this point, valued at $4,000. One can imagine Oliver returning home at the end of a day delivering mail and listening to the radio as his wife and older daughter fuss over him and his younger daughter commutes home from her job in Albany. This same scene may recur in 1935 as the four Lees remain in the same house and everyone working in the same professions.
According to the 1940 census, Oliver is retired, presumably with a pension from the Federal Government after his service in the Post Office, as he indicates that he received money from a source other than wages. Olive continues to live with her parents, working as a secretary in a collar factory for $1,500/year.
In 1947, Olive is living with her parents at the same address.
At some point between 1947 and 1953, the three Lees move from Troy, New York to Yonkers, New York. The three of them live together at 1428 Midland Avenue, Bronxville, New York.
In Bronxville, New York, at the Lawrence Hospital, Oliver dies of Uremia and complications from hypertensive cardio vascular renal disease. Olive, his older daughter, reports Oliver’s death on January 13, 1953. This must have been a very difficult time for the Lee family for just a few months before Herb’s wife and Oliver’s daughter in law, Florence Maher had passed. Oliver was 86 when he died.
Oliver is taken back to downtown Troy, New York to be buried in the Kirkpatrick family plot in Oakwood Cemetery. He joined his wife’s family in Plot 242 in Section D-3.
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