lit a candle 5h agoMy mother called me about this, she grew up near Cherry Valley and said everyone around there knew the Yerdon farm. Ninety six years, one state highway, one plant in Canajoharie. There is a kind of dignity in a life lived that plainly that we do not make room for anymore.
Their story
Erwin R. Putnam was a lifelong resident of the Cherry Valley and VanHornesville area of upstate New York, remembered by his family as a dedicated dairy farmer and later a longtime factory worker. He died on October 22, 2026, at his home on State Highway 20 in Cherry Valley, at…
Erwin R. Putnam was a lifelong resident of the Cherry Valley and VanHornesville area of upstate New York, remembered by his family as a dedicated dairy farmer and later a longtime factory worker. He died on October 22, 2026, at his home on State Highway 20 in Cherry Valley, at the age of 96.
Putnam was born on January 14, 1930, in the family home in VanHornesville, New York, the son of Roy N. and Vivian Tice Putnam. He was raised in the hamlet and educated at VanHornesville Central School, a small rural school typical of the farming communities of the Mohawk Valley region in that era.
For many years, Putnam worked as a dairy farmer at the Ray Yerdon Dairy Farm in Cherry Valley, a line of work that defined much of rural life in that part of central New York through the middle of the twentieth century. In his later years he left farm work for a position at the Beechnut plant in Canajoharie, a major regional employer known for baby food and chewing gum production, where he worked until his retirement in 1992.
Putnam was not a public figure in the conventional sense and does not have a Wikipedia entry or a wider public record of achievements, awards, or media coverage. His life, as recorded in his obituary, was one of steady, local work and family ties rather than public prominence. He is remembered by relatives as part of a family long rooted in the VanHornesville and Richfield Springs area.
He was preceded in death by his parents, his brother Albert Putnam, and two nephews, Gary and Joseph Putnam. He is survived by a nephew, Kevin Putnam of Richfield Springs, two nieces, Susan Putnam of Richfield Springs and Amy Young of Schuyler Lake, and several cousins. There is no public record indicating that he married or had children.
News of his death was shared through an obituary notice published by WKTV and the J. Seaton McGrath Funeral Home in Richfield Springs, New York, which handled the funeral arrangements. As he was a private individual rather than a public figure, there has been no wider public reaction or tributes beyond his immediate family and community.
Biography adapted from News reports and the sources cited on this page; death reported by Legacy | Obituary.
That part of the Mohawk Valley raised a lot of men like him.