Living in the Old House 1936–1939
“Come on girls, let’s go upstairs and red some more of Black Beauty,” this is my mother speaking — cheerfully enough, as this was the most important request asked of her after she moved in with her folks’ family when I was two and a half. I reaped the benefits of it. Imagine being read to every night of your life from age two and a half until age six!
I never heard much negative feedback of this three generational living experiment we performed during the latter years of the Depression. The men folks liked peace and quiet after supper after a hard day’s work for Dad, Uncle Cliff and Grandpa. Donnie (the youngest) was 12 or so and probably listened to the radio or read the paper with the men. My father had his own Ham Radio room in an unused corner of the “Back Way” as we called it. Thinking about it, it was unused and probably also unheated! But Dad was a quiet, stoic Yankee like his mother, Lena and most likely made the best of it.
But for me — this forced quietude probably had a profound influence on me for the rest of my life! Three, four, and five are strong formative years, and since the Portland School System at that time did not include a kindergarten, this helped take its place. I developed a good imagination — with vivid mental pictures of such stories as “Heidi,” “The Five Little Peppers,” and all of the Bobbsey Twin books and many fairy tales. Mother read us any appropriate book she could get her hands on. I’ve never seen a Heidi movie that equalled the splendor of the colors and pathos of my imagination — the fiery rose and red upon the Swiss Alps at sunset, Grandfather and Heidi devouring that bread and melted cheese or that real shocker to me — the fact that Peter’s grandmother had never eaten white bread!
I was given a gift that so far outweighed the material. I wouldn’t give up this experience for all the Barbie dolls or American Girl dolls in the world. It instilled in me a love of books, reading and the power of the imagination. Just recently it dawned on me that Books on Cassette are my adult substitute for this fantastic childhood experience. This, coupled with Grandpa’s old textbooks for beginning reading (vintage 1880s) with words and old-fashioned illustrations — plus large print poetry cards of R. L. Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” constituted my early formal education. But, do you know, it worked!
Okay — three generational living probably fostered my early education, what else was positive about the experience — I’d have to say that “Canning” with a capital “C” was next. The two women — Mom and Grandma — went about this job with a vengeance! Grandpa and I planted, weeded and tended the kitchen garden and orchards and starting in August my female role models tackled the produce — canning those hundreds of quarts and pints that lined the dirt-bottomed cellar wall shelves. They had a real pressure cooker — of which I was afraid as I’d seen jars of applesauce or corn explode and the boiling hot food hit the ceiling as the lid was removed. They were an industrious team — -probably even more formidable together than if each had been alone. Being our role models, I think the three of us sisters just always assumed that this is the way all women worked and never gave it a thought not to work hard as teenagers and women. Since then I have found out that this wasn’t the norm. Sally and I played pretend canning in the abandoned chicken coop and were overheard to be saying, “these damned jars won’t seal.”
Maybe since the family knew that this arrangement was short-term — a couple of years at the most, they estimated, that this living together didn’t cause much of a a problem. I gather that the women liked it — four hands are easier than two — whether it be canning, baking, washing or ironing. I have a feeling that my mother was more amenable then and easier to live with — and even if she wasn’t, Grandma’s quiet unobtrusive ways would compliment Mother’s aggressive temperament. I remember liking sitting down for supper with a tableful of family in that big kitchen with the open brick fireplace with the swinging iron crane that forever reminded us that our ancestors had once cooked our meals over a fire in that fireplace!
“Honk, honk, honk, honk.” That’s my father sitting in the family Model T Ford (or was it Model “A”? I keep getting the two mixed up), sending a message to my mother in Morse Code to “hurry up.” It’s Sunday afternoon and having eaten a traditional Sunday chicken or roast dinner it’s time to go out for a ride. Mother had at least three children to get ready and was most likely pregnant with #4 or 5, but nevertheless, this was her job. Grandma’s probably combing someone’s hair and at last getting on our way, giving the grand folks a break from ham radio and kids. Most of our Sunday drive ended up in Dad’s old hometown thirty miles to the east of Portland in the town of Franklin to the “farm.”
“Why, here’s Hun, Dot and the kids,” Aunt Harriet (Harry) would say in her New England Yankee nasal twang. Dad, I think was concerned about her, as a young girl of 21when her mother (Grandmother Lena) died suddenly in January 1936 — she was left with the responsibility of three younger brothers, a niece and a nephew.
“Come on in and let’s hear all the news!”
So we’d go into this extremely old farmhouse, even older than the one in which we lived and have a visit. They were even harder hit by the Depression than we were in many ways. If we didn’t visit at the farm we’d stop by at Aunt Ruth and Uncle Earl Hill’s house and we kids would have time to play with our main source of outside playmates — cousins Raymond and Marjorie. Once in a while we’d stop by Cousin Faith Gager’s house near the Farm to see Auntie Ella and Faith. A story exists that Cousin Faith, upon hearing that Dad had yet another daughter when Carolyn was born, was known to have said, “Tell Hun to change his seasons” — since we three girls were born in May and June. He did and likewise the gender changed with three boys born subsequently in late September and December. I can remember when we stopped at a gas station to fill up — one owner remarked after looking in the back seat — “Does my soul good to see such a good Catholic family!” We got a laugh at that.
If you’re wondering whatever happened to our Religious Education during this nomadic period of our lives, Dad had that pretty well in hand. Being raised under the tight supervision of his Grandma Hattie Huntington Robinson, a strong believer in organized religion, Dad saw to it that we got down to the local Congregational Church to Sunday School. I remember Mrs. Holt, our teacher used to pass out small folded papers with illustrations of a Bible story, then she played a small organ with foot pedals in the Sunday School room while we sang and then passed out a small wicker basket for an offering. At the beginning of the session there was a general assembly of the whole Sunday School, and not being used to such large groups of people, it looked like about a hundred to me.
One morning we were late and as we walked into this assembly one of the students Jidge Hetrick yelled, “Here come the three musketeers!” I was about mortified as all eyes turned to us at the top of the landing of the stairs. After that wild horses couldn’t get me to Sunday School and I was largely unchurched until college when I reached the “love” cycle of my lifelong love/hate relationship with the Church.
Another positive happening n our lives — in 1936, I believe, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was built on adjoining land just South of us on the crest of our hill! Good news back in those days as both Grandpa and Dad got jobs as foremen for $35 per week! At last we were rich! We had the stability in our lives of a steady income! All Dad and Grandpa had to do was boss around some hillbilly boys from the South, building road, bridges, fireholes, etc., in the State Forest which adjoined our property to the East! Oh, joy! Everyone was so happy. In subsequent years, Cam Buck and later known as the Conn State Maintenance Depot hasn’t brought us so much happiness — first as a migrant camp for the tobacco farmers and then as a probable dumping ground in the 60s and 70s for who knows what — causing this area of town to be a “hot spot” for cancer victims — including most of my family — who have mainly died of a variety of malignancies, suggesting environmental causes. Cousin George Hale points to the blowing up of a chemical plant down by the river in the late 50s as a supplemental source of carcinogens.
The CCC Camp brought many pluses! The most important was electricity! The house was wired for lighting and some electrical appliances. Also, the telephone was brought in — although I think that was already in with some of the neighbors. MOVIES were brought down from the Camp for us to see — outside on the lawn at night and Don tells me inside also in the winter.
So all in all these were good years for us. But it must have been getting a little crowded. I remember when my brother with the “big feet” (Clifford) was brought home from the hospital December 1937 and slept in a bassinet on the dining room table.
Anyway, when the BIG, and I really mean BIG Hurricane of 1938 came, Dad seized the opportunity and harvested some large oaks that blew down in the forest, readying them for the larger girders and beams of his house. A piece of land was purchased from the neighbors, the Olsons, just next door to the Kelsey property. Will Olson, whose father had moved out to the old stocking farm, really liked Dad and gave him a bargain price of $25.00 for this piece of pasture land. I remember the day we went up there and looked it over. I remember it so very well — there were outcroppings of granite rocks with moss and lichens growing on and around them. The Pepperidge tree was there even then and Will Olson said that this would be a nice place for the children to play. We must have bought a couple of acres and then later Dad bought another strip for a garden — for $1.00. It’s too bad he didn’t buy the next building lot too — but that’s for a future story.
I remember when the cellar hole was dug and the wooden forms for the foundation were built, the cement poured, and I even remember the big screws embedded in the concrete to which the girders were attached! Oh, I forgot the well — and the water dowser — with the apple stick that went down when he was over a good vein of water.
I remember the Swedish carpenter, Mr. Walstead, who build our house — a really well-built one with high ceilings and dormer windows which Dad ripped out and built to his own specifications. The fireplace and chimney were done with extra care as Dad wanted that to be real nice — it had variegated bricks with a “heatolater” built in under a mantle which was a replica of a “Greek Key” design from a mantel in the Lower Place. I remember almost every detail of this house as it was being built. But do you know what — when we moved in — in September of 1939 — Cally especially, and I weren’t happy there — in a brand new house and wanted to go “home” to Grandma’s.
