THE END

Edith Victoria Holt McEvoy died on September 10, 2010, 5 days short of her 98th birthday. She will be missed by all who knew her and long remembered for her wonderful sense of humor and her infectious laugh.

WORKING IN THE LIBRARY

I worked at the Nashua Public Library for many years before I retired. I started out at the library on Library Hill. I think Joe Sakey hired me. I worked with Rachel Sanborn and Florence Shepherd. I loved working on the reference desk. We did not have any computers. We would go to the available reference materials that we had to find answers. There was a guide to magazine articles, newspapers were kept on microfilm and of course we had enclyclopedias. I remember only one question that had me stumped. Someone wanted to know what the initials BVD stood for (as in underwear) and I could not find the answer. I always walked to work at the "old" library and we took our coffee breaks at the diner across the street.

When we moved into the new library we put all the books in order in containers and they were physically moved to the new building where we shelved them. We practiced how we would pack and move the books so they would stay in order. I don't think we were closed for any amount of time while we made the move. In the new library we had much more space. It was much brighter and we had lots of stuffed furniture. We had a large group of homeless people who liked to come into the library to sleep in the soft chairs and use the nice bathrooms. Pages were typically high school students. It was considered a plush job for students. Both Ellen and Jean worked as pages.

SCHOOL DAYS

I never went to kindergarten, I started right in at first grade. I was living on Stevens Street so I went to Harbor School. My father did not want me to go to an "inner city" school. Can you imagine back then there would be an inner city school. A vaguely remember first grade I liked school very much. Sometime between the first and the fourth grade the music teacher told my mother that I could not sing. I simply could not make nice music with my voice. I was a good little student.

When we moved to Chester Street I went to Mt. Pleasant. The principal was an old classmate and friend of my mother which made a little difference in the attention I got. I was frequently called "the little Holt girl". In elementary school they would weigh and measure us and I would always get a blue card that would say I was underweight. Then my mother would have to take me to the doctor who would report that she can not grow two ways at once and right now she is growing tall. The principal lived in Hudson and came to school by horse and buggy. The horse would be tied up in the school yard all day. At that time the school yard was quite rural. On the last day of sixth grade I got to ring the bell for the last time and then they tore the school down and built a new one on the same site.

The next years are mixed up in my mind. I think I was sick quite a lot during those years so I missed a lot of school but I was bright enough so I didn't have to stay back. I had a teacher named Ola Dunlap who was a cousin of my father.

I liked high school, yet again there were teachers that knew my parents. I was a good student but nothing unusual. My favorite class was German. It was a very easy language for me to understand. I also enjoyed physics. I would take an advanced class after school. Partly for the physics and partly for the male teacher who taught it. In my senior year, the members of the senior class all wore purple and white capes for assemblies. I can remember going to football games at the stadium. I think my high school was on Spring Street but a lot of things have slipped my mind so I am not sure. I was a writer for the Tattler Magazine and I also helped write the class will. I can remember some sort of guidance counselor.

Most of the time I was in school, I went home for dinner. School got out at noon and we went back at two. I think towards the end of my education they started providing lunch at school for children who had no other means of getting food. I always walked to school except when I was in high school my father would sometimes let me drive the old Ford car. I would pick up some friends to ride with me. I would pick up the judges daughter and some other friends.

KEEPING COOL IN THE SUMMER

Field's Grove was a swimming spot in Nashua when I was growing up and when my children were young. It was occasionally condemned for swimming but I would go there when it wasn't condemned. My folks would bring us up to Silver Lake which would be a real treat on a hot, hot evening once in awhile. At other times we would go up to Baboosic Lake which was a favorite place. It was a real summer resort type of place where people had cottages and there was a dance hall at one end of the lake. It was quite popular back in those days. For a number of summers we rented a cottage on Baboosic Lake. My parents never went swimming but we kids did.

When it was really hot we would wear whatever we had that was the coolest and we had fans in the house. The fans would be scattered around where we would be. We had an icebox and loved to have the ice man come. We kids would run behind the ice truck and pick up the pieces that would fall off and suck on them. We wouldn't have ice cream at home but would go out in the evening to get some. I think we might have gone up Concord Street somewhere.

I don't think shorts as such had been invented so we wore bloomers which we could pull up above our knees if we got real daring. The bloomers were made out of a wool serge so they were not real cool. We wore midi blouses which looked like sailor's blouses with a wide collar. We wore sneakers on our feet with socks. It really wasn't a very cool outfit.

On several summers I was a camp counselor at Camp Sargeant. It was a day camp with a portion of it overnight. It was real exciting to be a counselor for a tent full of teenage girls. The sleeping arrangement was that the counselor had her bed in the middle of the floor and the girls slept in cots built around the edges. We did a lot of hiking and walking. The counselors had to come up with their own activities. We swam a lot, mornings and afternoons. The girls took lessons and learned the different strokes and how to dive. I remember one year they had horses. I had taken horseback riding before. We had to go into Nashua to pick up the horses and then ride them back at the end of the day. I took my girls to climb Mt. Monadnock. We slept at the foot of the mountain one night and then climbed the mountain in the morning.

Some years we would go to the beach for a week or two. Mostly when my father was leading the National Guard band he would have summer encampment somewhere around Rye so we would go along and have a cottage and see my Dad once in awhile.

Irish Jerry

Jerry was my Irish Setter when I was a girl living on Chester Street. I saw an ad in a Boston newspaper and I said to my Daddy this looks like a nice doggie and my daddy took me to Boston to buy my Irish Terrier. I guess I thought Jerry was a good Irish name for a dog. We built a brand new dog house for Jerry right next to the garage - my mother did not want him in the house. On the other hand I don't think she wanted me in the house either. Jerry did what came naturally. Strangely enough there was another Irish Terrier down the street every day the two dogs would get together for a little day of play and they would go down to the duck pond and they would manage to corner a duck once in awhile and bring it to my house to either play with it or it would get away. There were no houses behind us so there was a lot of space for the dogs to run around. I had Jerry for several years and when I was going to college in the fall my mother would not take care of him. One of my mother's old school friends who was a teacher by the last name of Campbell lived in Hudson and she took Jerry in to live with her when I went away. I think I probably saw him a couple of times after he went to live with her but he never came back to live with me. My sister had a dog and I had a dog but my brother had an old car (or lots of them).

In thunder, lighning or in rain (and a little bit of snow)

The sun is not shining but it doesn't look too bad I guess. Just waiting for the thunder and lightning to join the rain. I was brought up not to be scared of thunder storms. My mother originally was afraid of thunder storms but she put on a good front for her children so we would not grow up afraid of them. I think it must have been quite a trial for her because she was really afraid of thunder and lightning. On Stevens Street we would go upstairs to the second floor sun porch to watch storms. On Chester Street there was a real sun porch which had windows on three sides where I could sit and watch thunder storms. On Merrimack Street we would sit out on the front porch when it stormed. Sometimes I would sit in the white metal and wicker chair during a thunder storm - I guess I am lucky I never got hit by lightning.

I loved snow storms when I was little, what a foolish thing to do -yuck, yuck, yuck! I can remember going sledding on a traverse, which is an extra long sled which could carry about 6 people and higher off the ground, down long hill. We would also go to the country club grounds to go sledding. Sometimes my father would go with us and my mother would go to the country club but most of the time it would just be kids.

If I had to choose I would prefer snow coming down than rain coming down when I was a kid. I remember our wet mittens drying on the radiator, stinky wet woolly mittens. Wet wool does not smell good after it has been on small dirty children.

FAMILY NAMES

My father's name was Ralph Woodward Holt. His mother's last name was Woodward. My brother's name was Ralph Davis Holt and his mother's last name was Davis. My husband' name was Weston Ernest McEvoy and his father's name was Joseph Weston McEvoy so he was named after his father. I have great grandson named Weston after his great grandfather. My name is Edith Victoria Holt McEvoy and I am named for my grandmother Edith Florence Woodward and my aunt Victoria Davis. My mother's name was Gladys Evlyn Davis but I don't know who she was named for if anyone. I had a cousin Gladys and a daughter Mary Evelyn who are both named for my mother. Jean Elizabeth is named for my sister Ruth Elizabeth and Ellen Victoria is named for me. I have a niece named for me, Edith Louise. I have a daughter with the middle name Victoria, I have a gran daughter named Victoria and I have a great grand daughter who's middle name is Victoria. I have a grand daughter Laura Ellen who is named after her mother Ellen. Then of course there is Andrea Jean named for her aunt Jean. Nobody has used Mary or Evelyn. I don't think anybody has used Florence either. I guess we will have to wait for the next generation to use those names. Mary and I do like to pretend that Zoe's middle name Meredith if for us. We have a least 5 generations of Victorias. I think we just like to keep family names running which I think is nice.

MY MOTHER - GLADYS DAVIS HOLT

My mother is all gone. My mother and I had good times together. We took a French course together. She was pretty darned good - she was very smart. We went to the YWCA classes together. My mother was mostly interested in people's problems and helping new people who came to the country. She would help them with the English language and trying to make them feel at home in this country. She was a real club woman. Clubs that helped bring up children, anything that would help her keep up to date on new ways of doing things.

We did a lot of things together after I got my license to drive. She thought once I had my license I should give her rides and she could go lots a places. I would drive her downtown to stores to go shopping. I would take her any place she wanted to go. Sometimes to visit a friend. Of course I was only available after school. Sometimes I would take her to the hairdresser. My mother got her license after my father died. I did not like to ride with her.

My mother had one sister, Victoria. Victoria was the social butterfly. She was very, very outgoing. I remember that my mother had some serious surgery when I was in my teens. It seems that she was in the hospital for a long time. My dad and I took care of the house and ourselves and had a lot of meals out together.

When I was growing up we had to do chores divided between me and my sister Ruth. Ruth use to boss me around and I would end up doing a lot of the chores. We always did the dishes. I remember having to do the dusting. Such a senseless thing to do as once you finished it you had to do it again. We always made our beds in the morning. These would be all "girl's" chores. My brother would do other chores like stacking wood. Once he stacked the wood in the cellar in the form of a little house that had a little door and everything. He managed to make his chores fun.

My parents would go out in the evening. Every Tuesday my father was out for band reherssal. My mother would go out to church ladies clubs. They would go out to visit friends on Saturday night - the Canfields is one I remember. And sometimes the Canfields would come to our house. They would play cards and have something to eat. As kids we were not invited to be around on visiting night. Sometimes I would sit at the top of the stairs and observe and listen.

My mother did a very good job sewing. She would make my dresses and my sister's dresses. I think she also did sew for herself. I can remember going shopping for dresses down in Lowell with my mother for both of us. She was also a good plain cook, not a fancy cook. As she got older cozy family things weren't her thing. She preferred to go to women's clubs and do more women's types of things. In hard times my mother would work in my father's office. I think she would have been a good business woman. She had a very orderly mind.

Nowadays mothers and wives have the opportunity to be their own selves. Back then she were one or the other, a mother or a business woman.

GOING TO BOSTON

The first time I remember going to Boston was with my father on Saturdays when he went to by music for the band. After he bought the music we would go out to eat. Sometimes we would go to the top of the tall buildings. I remember going to Perones (sp) which was an old time Italian resteraunt. I evidently found something to eat. We would make pretty much the entire day of it seeing the ride down and back took quite a while. My mother would sometimes go to Boston to buy clothes for me. She would also go down to visit her sister in West Newton and they would go into the city.

I would drive myself into Boston to pick up my sister at Massachusetts General Hospital. I knew my way to and from Boston pretty well but even back then it was no treat.

I always liked to go to Boston. I would drive down to a parking garage and take the subway around. I would usually do a little shopping and tour around different places. I liked shopping at Jordan Marsh. Sometimes I would go down to the waterfront and sometimes I would go to a museum. I liked going to the different historic sites. I got quite accustomed to Boston. I liked Boston Garden. Once Weston and I toured all around Boston Garden. Once some guy had a bottle of liquer which was forbidden in Boston Garden and it was tossed aside and Weston picked it up.

On a very few occassions I took the train to Boston. One I bought Mary a little carpet sweeper and she swept up and down the train car all the way home.

When I worked for the library I took classes at Simmons College. I went down once a week. Sometimes I would take a bus down. Between classes I would go to the Arboretum to eat my lunch.

Weston and I spent our honeymoon in Boston. I think we stayed at the Parker House.

I remeber going to Boston with Jean and Mary to see the play Three Tall Women and it was wonderful.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY

Tomorrow is Mary's birthday. She was the apple of her father's eye (as were the others of course). As far as I now she was a good baby. Of course I left her under the tree in her carriage, of course because it was healthy for her and it kept her out of the way. On the way to the hospital a police officer threw a snowball at our car, just imagine. Mary was born at 7:01 in the morning which upset the nurses shift plans. Dr. Fairfield was on vacation so Dr. Flagg delivered her. I am sure her sisters liked her. I don't remember who took care of the other girls but Ellen was 7 so she could have taken care of Jean just fine. There must have been something delightful about Mary, I think she was a very happy baby. Mary was baptized on children's Sunday. I don't remember having big birthday parties but we always celebrated birthdays. I think Mary was a rather easy child.

Mary was good for a refrigerator. Before Mary was born I told Weston I would not bring home a new baby without a refrigerator in the house (we had an icebox at the time). So Weston hitchhiked to New York because I had seen an ad in the paper that Macy's had refrigerators for sale. He purchased the refrigerator, hitchhiked back to Nashua and borrowed a truck to go pick up the refrigerator.

DANCING WITHOUT THE STARS

There were usually dances that had something to do with the school. Not usually in a public dancing place. There would be live music from a band or orchestra and we would get dressed in the best we had. I showed about enough interest in it to get by, I may have just made believe that I didn't like to dance but it may have been that I just didn't get invited. Because I was smart in math and stuff the boys hated me.

Most of the dances would be waltzes or fox trots. Sometimes it would be the charleston for the daring young people (the fast bunch). There was a fast bunch even back then. They probably had punch and cookies but I don't really remember. There may also have been church dances but not for the Methodists. You notice how all the Methodists grew up so pure and holy!

My father's orchestra played for dances in different halls where special groups would hire them. I don't think he ever organized the dance but was hired to play for them. I believe my mother loved to go to the dances (it got her out of the house).

I took dancing lessons with my brother. He had a girlfriend who liked to dance so he had to learn. The dancing lessons were held right here in Nashua and the dance instructor was a man. I sorta liked the dancing lessons but I guess I really just suffered through them to be like the rest of the girls. My sister did not take dance class she just sort of knew how.

When I was in college they also had dances but I don't think I ever went to any. I don't remember Weston ever dancing.

MY BROTHER RALPH

My brother Ralph was 6 years older than I was. He was the best big brother. He was a good babysitter because he taught me to drive a car and to shoot a gun (just a rifle).He liked to do mechanical and experimental types of things. He never had any interest in hunting but he did like practicing with the rifle (not really a lethal weapon depending on how it is used and aimed). At a time when radios were just beginning to come in he was building them. He had the big bedroom upstairs on Chester Street which was actually the enire L to the house and it had a huge closet in it and then outside his door there was another huge storage closet. He must have had 5 million Scientific American magazines and any other scientific or making things types of magazines. He had a lot of friends who would come over and they would go upstairs to his room to build things. I think my parents were very free about letting him have friends over and to do things.

Ralph wanted to go to the military academy. He got a recommendation from a senator but he did not pass the necessary examination. He went to a military prep school (something on the Hudson) and then went to UNH. He and Ruth were in college at the same time.

I remeber that he always had an automobile and even had a job chauferring Mrs. Barnett. He would take her anywhere she wanted. She was a Christian Scientist and he would drive her down to Boston to church. He would do that on Sunday so he had an excuse not to go to church. He was in a way required to be at my mother's beck and call to drive her around. Ralph taught me to drive and a bicycle. To teach me to ride a bicycle he took me to the top of a hill and put me on a bike and pushed me down the hill. I rode a bicycle very well after that.

Sometimes we thought that my father was pretty tough on Ralph. And he would bawl him out if he didn't do what he was supposed to.

FAMILY VACATIONS

I remember going camping with my family (the famous trip). The family included my dog name Chummy. Chummy had to ride on the running board closed in with an expandable bar and be tied into one of the seats. I think we went somewhere in Mont Vernon. We stopped at a farm house and asked permission to camp in their field and they said yes. We had a good size temt but I did not sleep in it. I slept stretched out on the rear seat of the car all by myself. We did not have sleeping bags so we just brought blankets. I was very comfortable. My mother camped with us, I don't understand how she did it. They probably had a mattress of some sort to sleep on. I think we had permission to use the farm house toilet. We must have started a little fire to cook over. I wore what we would call a gym outfit - big wool serge pants like bloomers. I don't understand how my mother stood camping, she was brought up in a rather dignified family. My mother was ahead of her time in women's clothing so she would have been wearing something sensible although not pants.

I remember another family trip to the mountains. We went to the Basin where my father fell in. He got all wet and had to take off his clothes down to his Union Suit, long arms and long legs, to get his clothes dried out. This was also an overnight trip where we camped. There is a picture of him somewhere standing in his Union Suit. If we find it we will post it later.

We would go to the beach in the summer when my father was in summer camp for the National Guard. We would stay at the Villa Mer. I think my sister Ruthie found a boyfriend one year while we were there. My Auntie Vic could not go because she was "allergic". We would see my father sometimes because part of his duty was to lead band concerts and we would go to them. I think my father liked the times when he would go off to camp without us.

After awhile my brother could not go with us because he got a job for Mrs. Barnett as her chauffeur during the summer. He would live upstairs over the garage so he could be on call for her whenever she wanted to go someplace.

EASTER

We always got new somethings for Easter. It was traditional to get new hats. Naturally you couldn't go to church without a hat in those days. I think there were always Easter eggs, sometimes just candy ones. I don't think we overdid the day. We would always go to church on Easter. I remember going to Easter sunrise services but I don't remember if they were at the church or if maybe it was a citywide thing. My mother would make a ham dinner if my daddy didn't take us out for dinner. Of course I would rather go out to eat, I didn't like my mother frazzled on a holiday. I remember having an Easter basket. I always made Easter baskets for my girls. I don't think we went into the fantasy of Easter bunnies when I was little. On Easter morning my mother was too occupied getting her family into their new outfits for church. Ralph had a habit of demanding his sisters bring him breakfast in bed on any holiday.

MY BABIES

Ellen is going to be 7o years old in August - "not Ellen, I'm only 65". She started out being the most wonderful baby in the world! She is also the baby who wasn't supposed to live. The doctors thought I had lost the baby but no! I don't seem to remember any horrid nights up. She was born with an extra thumb, it was horrifying to some people but I said that hand will be never covered up, I said no, no, no. Was that the right thing to do? She was my beautiful baby. I had an old fashioned wicker carriage for Ellen. It was very nice. I named Ellen, Ellen because I liked the name and Victoria is my middle name Weston and I mutually agreed on names.

Jean was a gorgeous baby. People would stop us on the street when I had her out in the carriage and they would goo and gah over her. Jean was a regular decent baby. As a little girl she was very social. She would ride her tricycle up to the end of Norton Street to visit people. She was vivacious and smiley and happy. Jean Elizabeth is named after my sister Ruth Elizabeth.

I would take Mary out in her carriage and put her under a tree and leave her there just about all day long. She got a lot of fresh air. After Mary was born I went down cellar and threw my maternity dress in the furnace - I believe the dress was green and I wasn't going to need it any more. I also used to tie Mary to the clothesline when we lived on Merrimack Street. I stayed in the hospital longer than the doctors thought I needed to with Mary. So I stayed and had to make my own bed and other stuff. Mary Evelyn (it was supposed to be just Evlyn) is named for my mother Gladys Evelyn.

I started baby books for all my babies but I don't think I kept them up very well.

Hoosick Falls, New York

After Weston and I got married we moved to Hoosick Falls, New York. We lived on a very nice farm while we worked (I may have fed a few chickens) on the farms. This guy who owned the farm, he was a rich guy, raised very fancy chickens for breeding stock. They were shipped everywhere. The farmer had a very nice home near us, we lived in a small cottage home. It was a lovely little house, I could have made more of it. I babysat for the little son of the farmer. There were cows, a few. Weston milked the cows and we got the milk. We also got to eat the eggs from the fancy chickens (if they were cracked or not perfect). I liked it there and we lived there just about a year. We did not have a car. The boss had a big Packard he would lend to us. We got there by train from Boston. Weston and I went to the Methodist Church in Hoosick Falls. I went to the church women's club. The house had most of it's furniture but we did buy a few things. I made curtains. In the spring and summer there were flowers and I believe we grew some vegetables. I know we went home for the holidays and my mother came out once. When we came home Weston worked in Antrim, New Hampshire at a woodworking factory.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II

I graduated from college in 1934. The Great Depression started around 1929 and lasted until the late 30's or early 40's. The college cafeteria sold bargain price meals for the struggling students. After I graduated I got a job with the WPA, which was a blessing, doing what I already knew what to do - measuring houses. There were about 15 of indigent (which means very little money) architects.

I do not remember any terrible hard ships during that time. We did not eat fancy foods but we never really did anyways. It didn't seem to affect me personally.

During World War II I remember rationing. We had ration coupons for gasoline and food. Jean was quite a help when she was born because we got more ration stamps. Because I was pregnant with Jean we petitioned and got a letter from Dr. Fairfield so Weston would not have to go into the service. I think we gathered up every excuse we could not to go to the war. I remember that we had to keep the curtains drawn at night so no light would shine through. The streets would be so quiet and dark. You could just see the darkness settle in and no noise. The dark houses at night were awful. There would be someone who would go around to check the neighborhoods to make sure there were no lights showing. There was even a song I remember about when the lights go on again. I don't know how long that lasted but it seemed forever to us at the time. Women would get together to do mending and sewing for soldier boys. I remember listening to the news on the radio and I think we were kept pretty well informed. Weston was working four jobs at the time just to get enough bucks to keep us going.

When the war ended I remember great celebrations. You could at last leave your curtains up in your house. The end of the war brought back the freedom of moving about. I don't remember much about President Roosevelt. I guess I along with most everybody was too busy bringing up kids and trying to keep them amused to pay too much attention to other things. On the radio we would listen to different shows. We also read magazines and newspapers. I can't think of anybody in my family who was in the service. My brother did not go in the service. He worked on the Manhattan Project I think at the time. It was so secret my mother nearly went crazy. He could not tell anyone what he was doing and my mother just hounded him to know what was going on. Some people did whatever they could to stay out and other people were so patriotic they would do anything they could to get in.

THE FLU OF 1918

I remember the flu of 1918. It was a family affair. My Grammy Davis had to come in to help us out. You would think I would remember every detail but I don't. I guess I will have to do some memory work. It killed a lot of people but it didn't kill me. I think my dad wasn't able to come home because we were all quarantined. I remember it as just being a horrible time. I remember that someone cam and put something on the door to quarantine us just like they did for scarlet fever. That's about all I can put together. Maybe someday more will come to me.

LIFE ON STEVENS STREET

The Leonard boys threw rocks at me from across the street. They all turned out to be lawyers. That was growing up on Stevens Street. I was little when I moved to Stevens Street. My mother always told me that I was put down on a chair and someone loaded the chair onto the moving truck. My father built the house on Stevens Street and I loved it. It had an up stairs piazza which looked out over the cemetery. I had my play yard in the back of the house and I could sit on the slide to watch the funerals. I thought it was fun. The house had a pergola in the back. My brother and sister slept on the upstairs porch in the summer time put I didn't, I wasn't invited. The street cars went by the house. At first it was a dirt road. Me and Kenny Lugi went down to the end of the street and lit the field on fire. I don't remember getting punished unless that was the day when I could put in the closet under the stairs. I remember finding a piece of chalk in there and writing all over the walls. We really had nice neighbors except for the one who was crazy. We all got the warning not to bother her as she wouldn't understand. She might throw things at us. There were 4 or 5 boys in the Leonard family until they finally had a girl named Margaret but she was always called sister by everyone. One day my sister Ruth and my brother Ralph went up on the roof and peed on the roof which ran off onto workmen. My mother would send me to bed at seven o'clock when it was bright light. I could hear the voices of children laughing and the adults talking and walking up and down the street. My brother and sister would not have to go to bed as early as I did. No wonder I don't like to go to bed now. To hear the feet, the laughter of grownups and the sound of older children still playing made me not want to sleep. My father once brought me a little wheelbarrow or cart which I used up and down the street to pick horse buns. I don't remember what I did with them after I picked them up. A lot of horses used to go by at that time as cars were just starting to spring into view. We always had a car of one kind or another. My mother and I walked down town a lot. It often got too far for me. All the houses along the way had stone walls that I would walk on. By the year 1918 my mother would point out every house that had a gold star in the window. There were lots of stores downtown. Their were several clothing stores. I think there were grocery stores in the area and of course my mother would use the telephone to call her order in and it would be delivered. Kennedy's was the butter and cheese store but I don't remember when that opened. As the years went by we would stop in a soda shop on the main street. We had a woman, Phoebe, who came into the house to do the housework and the laundry. She was built like a truck, I liked Phoebe. She had worked for the army during the war. My mother had help from early on, she was considered not very strong. I think my daddy took very good care of her. My mother and father would visit with friends on Stevens Street, maybe the Maynards. One of the families had boisterous boys in it. It was a good neighborhood to grow up in. Not many girls lived on Stevens Street until Lucille LaPoint moved in. Her father was a businessman. Mr Lyon lived in one of the big houses, he was not a bad man but my mother didn't want her girls associating with him. The Rabys lived on the street and they were a very substantial family, they were banking people. I went to the Harbor School on Lake Street which then became the Crowley School. We moved from Stevens Street because my father did not want his children going to the inner city schools. That was when my father built the house on Chester Street and we went to Mt. Pleasant Street School. The children from Crown Hill went to school where we would have gone before moving. Many of them did not speak English and they had a whole class which was taught in their language - French or Polish. People think that it is new to have to teach kids in different languages but it isn't. We went to Main Street Methodist and would usually walk. We would all go to Sunday school and then to church. After awhile it seemed to me that we always went out to eat after church. One place was the Ideal Restaurant. It was my mother's treat not to have to make dinner. And on Sunday we often went on what to me were gruesome Sunday afternoon rides - I wold get sick to my stomach. We could not play any games or have physical type activity on a Sunday. We could cut pictures of people from the Sears Catalogue and make paper dolls or we could read but we could not play games where there would be a forfeit at the end. So actually going for a ride was better even if I did get sick. My brother would have to chop wood for the furnace in the cellar. I moved from Stevens Street when I was about 11 years old, I remember I had had my tenth birthday Stevens Street.

CHESTER STREET, TRAINS AND HOBOS

I remember when I lived on Chester Street hobos would get off the trains down towards the river and would come up through the woods to ask for food. We always knew that they would come to our door and my mother would always give them something to eat. I don't know how long a period this encompassed but for quite a while. There were no other streets between us and the railroad tracks so they would get to our street first. My mother would usually give them a sandwich or just bread. They were always polite. As children my mother would tell us not to really talk with them and they never bothered us and we were never scared of them. If my mother was out for the afternoon she would tell us not to answer the door. We never called them bums, they were just guys who were hard up and starving. Jobs were hard to find and we were in a great spot for them to find us. I don't remember ever seeing them in town so they must have just gotten off the trains, come up to the houses and then gone back to the trains. It was a funny time. Those darned railroads would be going down to Boston. We had the Union Station down off Canal Street and there was another station somewhere south of that. I also remember a station somewhere around my father's office on Vine Street. I would sometimes take the train from Union Station to Boston but it was not a habit. I liked riding the train. We don't have any trains or train stations anymore. I think it is kinda sad that they are all gone. That was the time.

Chester Street was just being developed when I was growing up. My father built several of the nice houses on the street. He built the Shelton's house and the MacIdowly's. Several of the city's doctors lived up there. He also built the Clough's house - they were sorta family. They were a nice family except for Uncle Lowell who was a perfectly nice man but a drunk. All part of the Holt clan. Then they built the little brick mill houses up farther on the street. We used to scoff at them. They are really lovely little houses. There was another street somewhere with little brick mill houses. What we really didn't like about the houses on Chester Street was that they build 7 houses on six lots. In the first house lived a friend of mine who I also babysat for Betty Gautier. Her father was a manager in the mills. They were not exactly poor.

what I remember about voting - not much

I would have been 21 in 1933. My first presidential election was in 1936 and Franklin Roosevelt won. I don't remember much about voting but I know I always did. I remember registering to vote. We had to go to city hall. I remember we had to pay a poll tax in order to vote. My parents always voted my mother always voted and was very strong about women, and everyone voting. She must have voted in one of the first elections after women had the right to vote.

Now we are off to play bingo and eat the mint chocolate chip cookies we made earlier.

Weston and UNH

Some of my girlfriends had found Weston for another girl. She was a beautiful musician and had brittle bones. I think she was from up around Freedom, NH. When it didn't work out between them they introduced him to me. He was working in a sorority where he cleaned, and goodness knows what else he did, but they liked him. We would walk around the swimming pool and went to movies. Durham had a nice theatre that was fairly new. We went to the movies a lot, they probably cost 15 cents. We must have gotten something to eat because I can't imagine going anywhere without getting a little bite to eat. He was as poor as a bug in a rug. He had three well educated aunts, two teachers and a nurse, and they saw to it that he got his college education because his parents didn't have any money. Weston brought me home to meet his family one weekend. We took the train. We also walked from Durham to Dover, we walked along the railroad. I remember once hitchhiking all by myself from Dover to Durham. I remember Weston's father picking me up once and letting me drive his car back to Henniker.

Weston was still at UNH when I was over working for the WPA. I had my own room with bathroom and laundry over the telephone company, no kitchen-perfect for me. My mother was very glad to have me out of the house. The first thing my dad gave me for my room was a radio. The WPA didn't overpay but it was money and I was glad to have it. I ate most of my meals in the college commons for 35 cents. A Dover restaurant also had 35 cent meals. We must have had a student ID to show to get the cheap meals.

I had a variety of University jobs. The telephone company rings a bell, clever huh! Dorinda got good jobs. She worked for the head of the department but you had to watch out for him, he liked the gals a little too much.

Weston and I once climbed the water tower together. We had to climb up a ladder on the outside of it. I don't remember it bothering me. Weston and I went to church at the community church in Durham. On Sundays they would have a catholic mass. One of my friends, Elsie, and I would dress the altar for the catholics. There would be a protestant service after. The minister from the church, Fred Bushmeyer came to Nashua to marry me and Weston. My father met Weston in Durham and decided he seemed like a nice fellow.

In the summer Weston would work in the woods. I would go home in the summer. One summer I had a job in a tea room over in Hudson, it didn't work out very well. My mother must have known the owner. I would also work for my father in the summer. I remember working on the Whiting Block in Nashua with him. We had to go up into the attic and measure the whole area. Jobs were scarce so you would take anything you could get. My dad didn't have much work to do either. Restoring store fronts was one of his specialty and he made good money doing that when there was no new contruction going on.

Good old Durham, I liked it there.

A visit from Victoria and the kids.

Weston, Barrett and Victoria came to visit today. Bringing ice cream stuffed cupcakes and a new spring outfit for Peter.

An article written about Edith on the occassion of her 75th college graduation

Edith Holt, First Technology “Girl” at UNH
Why would a young woman decide, in 1930, to become the first girl to attend the Institute of Technology at UNH, and major in Architecture? Perhaps it wasn’t really too surprising.
For starters, Edith came from a line of feisty women. Her grandmother Jennie Olsen emigrated from Oslo, Norway, finding her way to North Dakota, where she married and then moved back to New Hampshire. When Edith was growing up in Nashua, NH, her mother was an active suffragist, very involved in women’s issues and desiring to make it less difficult for women to get along in the world. She would have liked more education for herself. Her father was willing to send her to college, but typically of the time, she got married instead. She probably would have preferred to be a young man, as bringing up children was not her main interest and she was happy when they were “up and out.”
There were three children, Ralph, Ruth, and Edith. Ralph studied engineering at UNH in the late ‘20s. Ruth wanted to be a nurse, but her parents insisted that she at least attend college for two years. She did this, then changed to and completed a nursing program. And Edith followed in her brother’s footsteps.
Her brother Ralph was significant in many ways. He was interested from an early age in science and technology, with a bedroom that resembled a museum. Edith was his devoted follower. Family stories include him teaching her to ride his bicycle by having her balance on the crossbar (because her feet wouldn’t reach the pedals otherwise) and sending her down a hill. He also taught her to drive a car at an early age. His influence continued when she reached UNH when a faculty member determined that she was Ralph’s sister. “I hope you’re not like your brother” was his comment. Apparently, Ralph had felt that the University’s role was to provide him with laboratories and other facilities so he and some friends could pursue their own interests.
Other influences on Edith included her grandfather and father, who were involved in building design and construction. (They designed one of the fraternity houses at UNH, but I don’t know which one.) Edith attended the Institute of Technology largely to please her father, she says today. There were few obstacles. Of course, she was initially on the list for ROTC—all the engineering “boys” were on that list. To make up for those credits, she had to take physical education courses, like archery and horseback riding. At one time, for a reason lost to memory, her doctor advised her to “take it easy.” The University interpreted this by requiring her to rest in a room at the top of T Hall, despite the fact that she had to climb many flights of stairs to get there.
Academically, Edith had a lead on the boys in English courses. To this day, she says “Engineering men can’t do English—and aren’t interested in it.” Math and surveying presented no particular problems, but chemistry was a challenge. And Edith remembers spending “about 12 hours a day” in the drafting room. She was considered responsible and “not wild,” so the housemother let her stay out after hours to continue her drafting work. “I was good at it, but I was slow,” she recalls.
She had a “nice bunch of girl friends” who hung out together. She recalls that they were not “girly-girls” and “they were all smart.” She will not say that she herself was, and is, very smart, but clearly that was and is true. The boys in her classes “didn’t go out of their way to be helpful. They resented me, didn’t want girls on their territory.” Edith says that she pretty much ignored them and went about her business. She did have one date with a classmate, a “fixed-up” date. When signing in at the dorm after the date, she had to ask the boy his name!
As the newspaper article reports, she won a prize at graduation for “most academic improvement.” Edith doesn’t recall exactly what this was for, but does remember that the prize, five dollars, “was a little disappointing.”
After graduation, Edith worked for her father for a time. This was during the Depression, of course. Architecture drafting Professor Huddleston (no relation to the current UNH President) got WPA work for some of his recent graduates, measuring several Colonial-era houses in the Portsmouth area. One that was to be disassembled and moved to Massachusetts was measured in very great detail. You will find this project at http://www.library.unh.edu/special/index.php/wpa-buildings/drawings and http://www.library.unh.edu/special/index.php/wpa-buildings/descriptions. Searching these documents, you will find references to Edith V. Holt and to Dorinda Hinckley, who was one of the gang of girls and followed Edith in the School of Technology.
[A recent reference to one of these houses is at http://www.seacoastnh.com/arts/please121501.html. Recent history of the house is found at http://www.paulwentworthhouse.org/index.html. Edith was interviewed during this project, in 2003 or 2004; I have a videotape of that interview, but it is not available on-line, so far as I can tell. It includes some of her memories of the measurement project.]
Otherwise, Edith never used her education in engineering and architecture. She raised three daughters, and when they were well launched in school she took a job at the Nashua Public Library
Now, in her late 90s, Edith doesn’t feel that gender should be a factor in one’s career choice, and simply says “Maybe I was thinking ahead of my time” and “Now you’re good because you’re good, not because you are a girl or a boy.” Asked how education will be different for her five great-grandchildren, she says that it “depends on what kind of mind they have.” She believes they can and should explore whatever they want. Instead of having to take a specific number of credits, they should be able to stray away and do other things, take a trip abroad. “Use the world to meet their needs, instead of conforming to the supposed needs of the world.”

A visit from Sylvia and Edie

Today Sylvia and Edie came to visit. I enjoyed it very much and want them to come back soon. When we have some warm weather we will go get something somewhere which is to their liking. I remember Edie as a baby, I think they were living on Taylor Road but I may be wrong. She must have been a pretty baby, I don't know how she could help it. She a beautiful woman now. I think Sylvia was the baby who cried a lot. I remember her being very blond. She is a very attractive woman. The girls don't look too much alike. Edith was named after me and her Great Grammy Edith.

Grandpa Davis

I remember Grandpa Davis. He smoked a pipe or a cigar and always had a spitoon beside him. Grandpa Davis was born in Massachusetts and moved up Maine to live with his grandparents after his parents died. He travelled out to the Dakotas (he was a travelling man) where he met my Grandmother. She had come from Norway to live her brothers. They got married in the Dakotas and they had my Autie Vic there and then moved to Nashua where my mother was born. He worked for Avery's Furniture Store first as a tin whacker and eventually as part owner. My cousin Doris and I were allowed to play in the store window where we would make believe we were manequins.

Grandpa Davis was just plain nice - not cutesey nice. He had a bad stutter when he spoke so you had to be a very careful listener. No body every made fun of him and he was a good business man. When he was sitting down in his chair he smoked his cigar or his pipe. It is amazing that my grandma allowed that in her house. He and my grandmother loved to go for rides on Sunday. My father would drive and I would go along. He loved to go the the beach and have a shore dinner - everything fishy. Chowder and a lot of fried food. I would eat a slice of sword fish. I didn't like the bones in haddock and other fish. He would have us drive him to the beach, we would go up to York, there was a special place he liked to go and he treated everyone with a good dinner. He liked to go to the ocean, I always think of him as an old man so I don't know if he liked to sit on the beach or swim.

Granpa Davis was just average height and Grandma Davis was short. He was a thin man with long thin fingers. They lived down in the South end and I remember one Christmas we celebrated Christmas Eve at their house and it was close to the church. They lived in a very nice apartment house and had a very nice Victrola. Grammy Davis loved music. She was very active in the church. My sister was a real buddy to my Grammy Davis. I didn't get in on a lot of stuff because I was too young. Grammy Davis use to take the kids to Canobie Lake and to Hampton Beach but I couldn't go because if I rode on trolly cars I would throw up and nobody wanted me with them. I was no addition to the playful gang. I could hardly ride in a regular car as we would have to stop a half dozen times to throw up. Once I could drive I never got sick in a car again.

I think of Grandpa Davis travelling a lot by himself. He always liked to go places. Once in awhile he would take Grandma Davis to church somewhere around Boston, Cambridge I believe, because there was not Lutheran church in New Hampshire. Grandma Davis would often pick up a Norwegian newspaper - she had the cutest accent. I don't know if she ever had any contact with her brothers or other family after she moved to Nashua. Weston and I went out to Wolcott, North Dakota once and hunted up some people who knew of the family.

Edith and Mary share a laugh on Valentine's Day

Today we went to a birthday party for Zoe who is 4 years old today. They came to visit me and we had cake and ice cream. And they were so good .

Apparently we did not celebrate birthdays to the point that I would remember. We had very few birthday parties. I remember maybe one or two when I was older and my sister could take over. We did get birthday presents, you know the kinds of things you would ask for. I remember getting clothes, something special, dressy kind of clothes. I think we were overly reserved about birthdays. When I was little I would buy my grandma a dust cap, the kind of pretty caps that she would wear when she did her housecleaning. And she would always give us homemade pajamas or nighties. She would also make nice food. She always had a room full of cloth which was open to us to use to make doll clothes and stuff. I remeber giving my mother a framed picture when I was a little bit older which she loved and hung on the wall. I would usually give my father neckties and later on a new shirt.

I do remember celebrating Christmas. My parents behind the bedroom doors would be wrapping packages and we would be trying to peak around the door. We celebrated Christmas quite well. My big brother hung his stocking up but my sister and I would have to bring it up to him in bed because he was too lazy to get up. He had the big back room and he would sit there like a king while I would bring his eggnog up to him. Santa Clause would bring us socks - he was very pactical. In my brother's case he would bring magazines, Scientific America. We would also get toys, my favorite was the thing that ran like a truck on a track, you could fill it with sand because it's mechanism would tow it up the hill and dump it. It was wonderful. Christmas was fine. We got up early, early, early in the morning. Once my brother built and shot off a bomb in the back yard on Christmas. Very often my father and I would go to midnight service. My mother was probably too damned tired from cooking or closeted in her bedroom wrapping packages. My dad was always right there preparing the holiday meals and he was damned good at it. That's where he really helped out my mom. I think by the time I arrived my mother wanted to do her thing and get out of the house. She belonged to a lot of clubs and liked to take courses which is probably why I spent so much time with my father. I remember how on Saturdays my mother would be home doing the heavy housework and I would be in Boston with my father.

Driving

My brother Ralph taught me to drive a car when I was 14. I was a nice tall girl. When I went to get my driver's license I drove myself to the examiner's house. He asked me where my father was, he was building the Montgomery Ward building on Main Street so we drove to Main Street and that was my driving test. I drove around our neighborhood alone. My dad was a builder and was building houses on Chester Street and his workmen told him that they saw me drving around. I decided to teach my next door neighbor Ethel to drive. I thought if I could drive she could drive. Of course she was nearly blind from birth but was very capable of taking care of herself. As far as I remember she did ok and she drove all around the north end. Remember the streets were not all there, of course neither was I! I liked to watch my brother fix the car. The first car I drove was an Erskine. When I was a teenager my father would send me up to Manchester to pick up lumber. I would drive his pickup truck. I had more fun than my sister. She had all the boyfriends but I had all the fun! My sister and my mother never drove until later in their lives. Sometimes I would drive down to Boston with my father. I would have to go through Lexington and Arlington as there was no real highway. In fact I drove it alone to pick up my sister at Massachusetts General Hospital when she had a day off. When I was a senior I sometimes got to drive the car to high school. When I was graduating from college my father told me he was going to give me something round and shiney and I was sure it was going to be a new car. He actually gave me a diamond ring. I would rather have had a car.

On growing up tall

I was 5' 10" when I was in junior high school. The boys, the poor little runts, didn't like me towering over them. My father was always bugging me to stand up straight. My sister was such a cute little runt. My father built me a jungle gym in the back yard with rings and bars and it made my sister angry because I liked to hand upside down when she was entertaining her boyfriends. Girl's pants hadn't been invented yet so I would be wearing a dress. I had a nice tall brother who was 6' 3". They were always putting their hands on my back and telling me to stand up straight. Buying clothes was a pain in the rump and we usually had to go to Lowell to buy clothes. I had an aunt who did some pretty good sewing for me. Shoes were hard to buy. They didn't make women's shoes my size. We had to go to different towns and stores to buy shoes, probably to some circus store. But I survived. I didn't get many dates you understand because none of they guys were as tall as I was. Once in a while my sister would lend me one of hers but I didn't really much care about it. For my prom my brother scheduled a bunch of his friends to dance with me so I wouldn't stand around alone. My mother was tall for the time, probably around 5' 8". It never seemed to bother her. When I got to college it seemed that heights leveled out. In fact all the classes I took did not have a girl in them as there was not a girl in the science department. They came a short while later. It never really bothered me. I didn't mind being tall. No particular benefits but it didn't really bother me. My sister Ruthie was very short, very cute and very smart. Once when Ruthie lent me a boyfriend he told me I wasn't really as romantic as my sister.

cooking and sewing

I did like to sew and I did like to do a certain amount of baking - not too long or too complicated. I made clothes for the children. The hardest thing I ever made was a snowsuit for Jean, it was a hell of a job. It was made of heavy wool, it was all lined and it was so hard to stitch through. I did not have an electric sewing machine at that time.

I had to make a dress for my Jr. High graduation and my auntie Vic had to come up to help me finish it. It ws made of a satiny fabric and had great big ruffles around it and it was hard work. It was a class project and I got a little behind (not that I had a little behind) but I finished it in time for graduation.

I liked to make cakes because you could be pretty sure of a good result. We made cakes from scratch of course and I made real confectioners sugar frosting. I could also make good pies. I found pie crust generally very easy to make to come out right. I must say I think I cooked quite well. I also made molasses cookies that were quite wonderful. I did fairly good with the cooking business.

STORM MEMORIES

I was living with my mother in an apartment in the early thirties. I was working at Memorial Hospital doing clerical work at the front registration desk. There was a hard storm, a hurricane, and I couldn't go home from the hospital which left my mother alone and I had her car. I had to sleep in a nurses room which was not to my great delight. There were several of us who had to sleep over. I didn't much care for sleeping in the hospital. I had to continue working on the front desk during the night. The secretary they had on the desk was a good one but a hell of one. She made us girls work too late. She had to send home as many people as she could but had to keep some of us around to keep the hospital open.