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.