Memories of Growing up on the Farm
Grace A. Thomas
June 1998
I thought I would attempt to recollect for my children and grandchildren some happy memories of my childhood on the farm. “Ogden Farm” was started by my grandfather, Dennis J. Murphy who had lived in Maine and later in Portsmouth, R.I. The farm which consisted of over 100 acres was on Mitchell’s Lane and Wyatt Rd. in Middletown, R.I. My grandfather built a beautiful farmhouse, a huge cowbarn, and several other buildings during the beginning of the 20thcentury. The house and barn were on a high point in Middletown and could be viewed from far away.
I loved our home. It was a two story Victorian house, had typical Victorian clapboards which were curved and detailed. The house had gables and eves where pesky pigeons roosted. The house was always white with green blinds, a green front door with a window. Also there was a north door near the driveway by which we entered the house. On the south side there was another entrance. There was an enclosed porch with many small, paned windows. In the porch there was a very old tilt-top bench painted a horrible shade of green. It was used to hold boots, high- cuts, and work shoes. Near it was a door entering directly into the kitchen.
There was a semi-finished attic with three or four small bedrooms. It also had a huge, empty water tank and a large storage space.
Around the front of the house there was a large veranda with wooden turned and carved rails and a three foot tall bannister, edging the porch. The porch’s roof made the front room dark. The room, called the parlor, had several unusual features. There was a green and white tiled area under a dark, oak mantle. Another unusual feature was a sliding, wooden paneled pocket door separating it from the living room. As children we loved to put on “Amateur Hour Shows.” We would come from behind the sliding door to perform our acts. 1distinctly remember my brother, Denny, reciting a poem, “Who Shot Cock Robin?” Also I remember my sister, Frances, reciting a poem, “1Had a Little Shadow.” We got our ideas from stories or articles we read in the Book of Knowledge or from a small, dark blue, book of poems which our Mother treasured.
Also our house was unique because it had a formal front stairway with three steps up to a wide landing. On this first landing rested the telephone. When I was in high school I spent many an hour laying on the landing talking on the phone. If you turned and went up five more steps there was a wide landing with a stained glass window that had an area for plants. Next five stairs led to the third landing and three more steps to the second floor. There was also a back stairway which was steep and narrow. As kids we loved to race up one flight of stairs, race down the hall and run down the other stairwell.
At the top of the back stairs was the only bathroom in the house. It contained an old claw-foot bathtub, a radiator, a toilet and a small sink with a medicine cabinet above it. The window faced south and had a wonderful view. You could see the ocean off of Second Beach, the chapel at St. George’s School and the lovely, open fields of Middletown.
The living room had a beautiful bay window facing south. Beneath the window were three cushioned window seats. Magazines and such were tossed in there. There was a chestnut mantle with an inlaid mirror. Under the mantle rested a dark brown leather “early style” reclining chair with wooden arms and a push button. As kids we loved to push the button to make the back recline and bring up the foot rest. We would pretend we were visiting Dr. Dring, the dentist.
Across from the living room was the dining room. There were two windows on the north side. Mother always kept her tea wagon there with her waffle set displayed on top. There was a built- in china closet where mother kept her beloved Haviland china, her green mayonnaise dish and daddy’s green fudge dish. There was a beautiful white glass chandelier over the mahogany dining room table.
The heart of the home was the lovely, old-fashioned kitchen where we spent most of our lives. Before an oil burner was installed it was the warmest spot in a big, old, drafty house. We had a large, black, iron, Century-Crawford stove converted to an oil burner which used kerosene. To light the two burner stove you lifted a round lid off the top of the stove with a special fork like tool which fitted into an indentation. Next you dipped a metal stick into the kerosene tank, lit it on fire and poked it down into the wick. The kerosene tank had to be filled twice a day. The stove had been given to Mother and Daddy as a wedding gift by my Mother’s parents. It had shiny nickel bumper trim. I used to prop my feet on the bumper while I studied my Latin conjugations and vocabulary lists, usually munching on an apple as I studied. Black stove polish was used to keep the stove clean and shiny.
Bill said that he probably married me because he felt so comfortable in our kitchen. His grandmother’s kitchen contained a black-iron stove. Also Bill fell asleep on Daddy’s couch several times when we were dating.
Our kitchen table was square and usually covered with an oil cloth table cloth. The six wooden chairs had oil cloth padded cushions. A mystery-someone, we thought it was one of our cousins, put a fried egg under the cushion. For weeks we couldn’t figure where the odor was coming from.
There was always a comfortable couch in the kitchen. After coming home from Providence Daddy always took a quick nap before going out to the barn to milk. In his older years he spent many hours laying on the couch, listening to a radio, probably his beloved Red Sox. The radio was on top of mother’s Singer sewing machine. During the war mother made us clothes from printed grain bags. Also she made curtains for the house and lovely gingham jumpers for us.
There was an old-fashioned overhead light in the middle of the kitchen ceiling, made to work by a pull chain. There were also pull chain lights in the closet and the back room. In the dark we would walk around with our hands in the air groping for a string to pull. In the summer months, especially in August, fly-catchers, sticky coiled strips were hung from the ceiling. In addition to the pull chain ceiling lights the upstairs and the front halls and the dining room had wall plate switches. To turn the lights on one pushed in the white pearl like button. To turn them off, you pushed in the bottom button.
We loved sitting in the kitchen listening to the radio. We enjoyed” Jack Armstrong”, ‘Little Orphan Annie,” “the Lone Ranger”, “I Love a Mystery” and “the Shadow.” At night Mother and Daddy enjoyed” Fibber Maggie and Molly” and “It Pays to be Ignorant.” I remember laying in bed at night, hearing them laughing heartily, especially Mother. I forgot to tell about the dark closet. It was a small windowless room tucked under the front stairs. It contained hooks for hanging clothes and a black safe tucked way back in the nether regions. There was no light in there. We were threatened with being sent to the dark closet for punishment. It never, never happened.
There was a huge cellar below the house. It was reached by going down a narrow flight of stairs from the kitchen. A bulkhead on the south side also gave cellar access. There used to be a huge coal furnace to heat the house. The delivery men who had so much coal dust on their faces and hands, causing us to think they were black, put a chute through a small window to send the coal down into an enclosed bin. As needed, Daddy would shovel coal into the furnace. Mother had an old-fashioned wringer-type washing machine next to two large set tubs. Clothes lines were put down in the cellar to dry clothes.
There was a dark type root cellar where Mother put Mason jars filled with stewed tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato soy, green tomato marmalade, and green beans. Before I started first grade we all picked elderberries down on Indian Avenue. Often I had elderberry sandwiches for my school lunch.
Storm windows, storm doors, and screen equivalents were stored at one end of the cellar. Veranda and lawn furniture as well as skates and sleds were stored there, too.
The big white farm house was set back from Mitchell’s lane by a long gravel driveway. The driveway must have been built up because on each side there was a two to three feet drop off. Once upon a time there must have been a gate enclosing the property. We always talked about going down to the gate which was nothing more than the end of the long path or driveway leading from the house. On the south side of the path were shrubs and lawn and a gray stone wall separating the lovely grassy south lot from the yard. On the north side of the path was an area which changed character, being sometimes a field, and sometimes a garden. Daddy grew many tomato plants and sweet com there.
My Grandfather planted beautiful trees around the property, probably patterned after the Bellevue Ave. Estates. There was a huge linden tree beyond the north door. Another linden tree and my favorite, a weeping beech tree shaped like an umbrella, and. fern beech tree were in front of the house on the south side. Across the driveway were bridal wreath shrubs, spirea shrubs and three large trees: an ash, a fern and another weeping beech. On the way to the pump house and the garage was a horse chestnut tree. In the fall we made parachutes out of old handkerchiefs, strings and chestnuts.
Various apple and pear trees were scattered around. I loved an old apple tree behind the linden tree located along the way to the barn. The apple tree had a long low limb which was my perch for daydreaming by the hour.
Near the south door were lilac trees and a Rose of Sharon tree whose pink blossoms would appear regularly around Denny’s birthday, August 7.
The cow bam was immense. A large hill led to the second level of the barn. Hay was stored up there. Horses pulled hay wagons up the hill and later tractors pulled the wagons up the “brow” as we called it. An open shaft from the hay barn to the lower level let the men pitchfork the hay down to carts on the first floor. In mid-summer the hay barn was piled high with feed for the coming year.
If you entered the barn and the cows were inside, it was always warm and noisy with cows and calves mooing, milking machines running and men talking. The aroma of cows, hay, grain, silage, and manure was not unpleasant.
Holstein, Guernsey or Jersey cows were in their stanchions. Two rows of cows, about 100 of them, faced a center aisle. Tracks ran through the center aisle where grain and hay could be pitched to the cows from small carts. Each cow, numbered by an ear tag, had its own drinking fountain. Each one could push a bar with its nose when it wanted the fountain to fill. A trough behind the cows was for their manure. Twice daily men would shovel manure and take it by carts to the manure shed. In the spring manure spreaders put the dried manure on fields as fertilizer.
The bull was always kept at the far end of the barn. Near the front of the bam on the north side was a section for new born calves and their mothers. A man we three children hated was Mr. Tripp. He was a dour man who had a green pickup truck with big slats. He would take the baby calves away to Brighton to be slaughtered. Once we tried to set a trap for him. We tried to put a clothes line across the path to stop him. It was to no avail. He drove right through it.
There were three silos on the north side of the barn. It was fascinating to watch the men put the stalks of com into the chopper and watch it being blown up to the top of the silo. I can hear the sound of the blower and remember the distinctive smell of the silage. It comes back to me as I write this. Other aromas which immediately bring me back to the farm are the smells of freshly mown hay and privet hedges in bloom. There were privet hedges growing by the horse barn. Many old harnesses and saddles were kept in the horse barn, a memory of the olden days when my grandfather boarded horses for the millionaires on Bellevue Avenue.
There were many other smaller buildings: a shed behind the house which had chickens and which later on provided a gym for Denny, a shed where Daddy raised white turkeys, a com crib, a garage for storing wagons and tractors and a milk shed with big coolers for storing milk.
The farm yard was behind the sheds. After being led in from the fields the cows waited to climb a cement ramp to enter the barn for milking.
Daddy had two work horses. Charlie was white and Prince was a handsome dark brown horse. They pulled the plows and the hay wagons. They went down to the beach to bring back gravel, sand and small shells. On hot days we felt sorry for the horses. They swished their tails and twitched their hides to get rid of flies. They were kept inside a horse barn near the north lot.
We gave names to areas of the farm. The field between the house and Wyatt Rd. was called the South Lot. The field beyond the house going up Mitchell’s Lane was the North Lot. A field that once had a grinding mill was the Mill Lot. Daddy remembered planting a tree with his father in the mill lot. A penny was planted under the tree for good luck. I have carried that tradition on when planting trees. My father once rented a level field at the hill’s bottom for summer baseball, hence it was called the Ball Field. All the lots across Wyatt Rd. were called the Forty Acres.
Our Family
My Father, Dennis J. Murphy was born on August 22, 1897. He was a very strong, humble, gentle man, over six feet two inches in height. He didn’t share his feelings very often. He was loving and kind to us all. I remember as a very young girl sliding off of his lap and at the last minute he’d just catch me. At Second Beach he loved playing going to the barber, flopping his hair forward as he jumped under a wave. His hair would end up slicked back. He loved reading the funnies. He often read them aloud to us. Two or three times a year he made a great production of cooking fudge. While beating the fudge with a rotary egg beater he’d balance first on one foot and then on another. He always cut the fudge randomly, putting it into the green candy dish.
I was never afraid of anything when Daddy was around. I remember one night when a mean bull got loose and was roaming around the Rose of Sharon bush. Going out with a pitchfork he talked calmly to the bull until he grabbed the chain attached to the bull’s nose. He yanked it and led the bull to the barn. During the hurricane of ’38, other storms or blizzards, we always felt that Daddy would take care of us.
When he went to work for the Department of Public Utilities in Providence, once or twice a year he’d take us singly to work with him. We waited in the car while he went into the office and later we’d ride around with him while he did his job of checking the trucks of R.I. He always treated us to lunch at one of his favorite restaurants. I remember a dessert called “Mary Jane” that he ordered for me.
In the summer he loved to go out for ice cream cones. We were so bad! Once in a while we not only went to the Newport Creamery but also to Westall’s or HarIow’s for a second cone. Often we’d go to Washington Street Pier and view the harbor. ]
Every morning he ate two fried eggs, bacon and toast. Saturday noon he enjoyed fried steak and onions. Saturday nights we had home made baked beans. In the spring Daddy enjoyed a “mess” of fresh dandelions. In the summer he loved fried tomatoes with warm milk on them.
When I was in high school going to movies and games with my friends Daddy was most often the father to pick us up, even though he had to get up at five in the morning to milk. He always listened to the eleven o’clock news at night and then went to bed. He was very generous, letting us take the car at night once we had our licenses.
We used to kid Daddy about his ‘drum belly.’ He knew we were doing it in fun and with love. I thought he looked like FDR.
I regret that my children did not know Papa Murphy as a vibrant man. They remember him as being debilitated by emphysema, spending most of his time on the couch in the kitchen or in the green leather chair in the living room. He had been a heavy cigarette smoker who switched to cigars in the fifties.
My Mother, Grace Agnes Quinn, was born on November 16, 1902. She moved from Baltic, CT to Newport, R.I. in 1918. Mother loved the house and farm very much. When we were little my Grandmother, Nana Murphy, let the property fall apart, not paying her bills or the worker, Joe, his wages. That upset Mother very much. In the 1940’smy parents bought out the heirs: my Grandmother, Aunt Agnes, and Uncle Joseph’s children. They received a twenty thousand dollar mortgage from the Federal Land Bank of Springfield, Ma. Daddy obtained it from the Farmer’s Production Bureau. Daddy was around 50 years of age and that was a very big mortgage. Daddy worked very hard and paid off that mortgage. Mother kept the financial books, the records for the egg money, the milk checks, the grain bills, etc., all of which were kept in the bottom drawer of the electric stove. Mother contributed her share to the farm, using money that Pa Quinn left her. She bought the field chopper, the piano and used her inheritance to fix up the house.
Mother loved and treasured things around her –loving the trees on the farm, the views from the various windows, her Haviland China, Irish linen table cloths and her silverware. I remember her humming while she polished her silverware for holidays, setting the dining room table with her gold rimmed depression glasses and goblets, her china and her pewter candlesticks.
Daddy and Mother loved politics and current affairs. Neither of them graduated from high school but they kept up by reading the papers: the Newport Daily News, the Providence Journal and Mother’s beloved Boston Globe. During the War Mother read and clipped out articles by Ernie Pyle, a very good war correspondent. Years later when Bill and I were in Hawaii we visited the Punch Bowl where many veterans were buried. We made a special visit to Ernie Pyle’s grave. Mother had a world map pasted on the wall above the kitchen couch. We kept up with the war battles that way.
My parents were devoted Democrats. I remember going to at least two Democratic victory parades in Middletown and ringing cowbells out the rolled down windows. My Father in the 1930’swas the first Democrat elected to the town council. Daddy attended public speaking classes given by Mike Walsh.
Mother helped out when she could with the farmwork. She often washed the milk pails in the cellar set tubs. Once, to Agnes horror, she let Daddy put an incubator in the kitchen for the baby chicks. In the summer before the days of the tractor Mother would steer an old truck around the hay lot while the men pitch-forked the loose hay and in the later years tossed bales unto the truck. Mother was not the world’s greatest driver and it was a bumpy ride. I remember Frances and I sitting in the cab of the truck with Mother, sweating like mad, hay hanging over the windows while we were singing novena hymns. Also I remember sitting on the north steps polishing the tops of tomatoes to be taken to Turtelot’s Produce Market in Providence.
Mother loved the birds, walking through the fields looking for four leaf clovers. Denny would pick bouquets of wild flowers for Mother. Once he transplanted purple violets from the brook on Wyatt Road, carrying them home in his red wagon. Yellow wild flowers, not dandelions or buttercups grew by the horse barn. Pink clover blossoms and daisies grew everywhere. On Memorial Day we always visited St. Columba’s Cemetery, a beautiful spot. Daddy mowed the plots and we placed oriental poppies, lilacs, and iris picked in our yard on the graves.
Mother was an excellent cook. Frances and I never could keep up with her when she was beating egg whites. We all loved to eat. Every day when we came home from school there were home made goodies–chocolate spice cupcakes, hermits, congo bars or cookies. Before Easter Mother made hot cross buns, cinnamon buns, Swedish tea rings and honey twist. At Christmas Mother always made her six fruit cakes. Mother’s apple pies, blueberry pies and squash pies cannot be duplicated. I still use her pie crust recipe made with lard. She loved to make quahog chowder. The man at Tallman’s Fish Market always gave her the business because she used salt pork for flavoring in her chowder, even on Fridays. I still make Mother’s potato salad.
Three or four times in the summer Mother would make homemade vanilla Ice cream. Because the dairy did not do a butterfat count on Sundays Mother would take cream from the top of the forty quart milk can. After 8:30 am Mass Daddy would buy a large block of ice which would sit on the front bumper of the car for the ride home. While Mother cooked the custard for the ice cream Daddy would chip the ice on a blanket under the north linden tree. When the custard cooled the cream would be added and it would go into the center of the churner. Ice and rock salt would be packed around it all. We all took turns cranking the churner. When you couldn’t churn it any longer, more ice and salt were packed around the container. The entire container was covered with a blanket and put in the shade until later in the afternoon. Often mother made a delicious butterscotch sauce. Sometimes she put freshly sliced peaches into the vanilla ice cream. In later years when the raspberry bushes were blooming we’d put stewed raspberries on the ice cream.
Mother clipped articles from the Boston Globe. One series called “Susan be Smooth” was for Frances and me to use when we grew up. We would be beautiful, wise and sophisticated if we followed such advice. Mother clipped recipes from the Globe, pasting them in a green recipe book. She particularly liked recipes sent by “fireman’s wife,”
Mother encouraged us to do well in school. She listened to our spelling lists, hearing my Latin conjugations, and vocabulary lists. She was the motivator for scholarship. She wanted us to go to college and to be proud of ourselves. Mother was very proud when the three of us won college scholarships.
The three of us knew that out parents loved us deeply, putting us first in their lives. According to them we were beautiful, handsome, brilliant and the best children in the world!
My Grandfather Murphy died of Bright’s disease in his early fifties. His family had emigrated from Berre Island in Castletown, Ireland in 1845. He only owned his new home for twelve years. My Father was only fifteen when his father died. My Grandmother, Julia O’Neill, originally from Fall River, controlled the money and the estate. Nana spent the money she was left ($50,000) on trips around the country. Often she spent a month in Canada, staying at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, staying in Banff and Lake Louise. She visited Yellowstone National Park, spent time at the Brown Palace in Denver. Later in life she let the property run down and never paid her bills.
When Daddy and Mother were married in 1929 Nana moved upstairs, having the front bedroom and a huge living room which was probably originally the master bedroom with a kitchen which was made from a smaller room.
Nana Murphy was always nice to us children caring for us when Mother went to the hospital to deliver five more children after the three of us. Because of the Rh factor, unknown at that time, all the children died in spite of and because of transfusions from my Father. Nana’s presence at home was very helpful during the above medical crises and also when my Mother had her hysterectomy.
Nana never complained about her self imposed reversal of fortune. She was a very proud lady, napped every afternoon and changed her dress before dinner. Every Saturday she’d listen to the opera, listened to the romances of Helen Trent and to Our Gal Sunday every day. Her reading for the most part was mysteries. She advised me to wash my face with upward strokes to prevent wrinkles. I guess I didn’t listen! Before she was married she made hats in Fall River. Each season she bought or fashioned for herself a new hat. Nana Murphy was a very large and heavy woman with a stately presence. People commented about how they watched her corning to Mass at St. Joseph’s Church in Newport.
As little children we loved it when Nana’s sister, Aunt Maggie Harrington, carne to visit. Aunt Maggie would sit out on the veranda with us telling delightful stories. One day Denny threatened to run away to Dot Peckham’s. Aunt Maggie started to cry as he ran down the path.
Daddy’s sister, Agnes Williams, lived in Newport. Her husband, Jack had a drinking problem. Agnes’s way of coping with the problem was by traveling to the farm and spending every Saturday night with her Mother, sleeping on the couch in Nana’s living room. She would return to her home on Bedlow Ave. on Sunday evenings
Agnes took us out for picnics at the White’s summer home at Middletown Station. She drove us to Boston to visit Aunt Maggie, stopping to picnic at Blue Hills along the way. During the war years Agnes had a victory garden in the forty acres. She also had a lovely flower garden at her home. Frances and I now enjoy purple iris plants that carne from her garden.
My Mother’s father, Patrick Quinn, born in County Leitrim, Ireland, carne to Boston, becoming very successful mason-contractor. He first worked on the Watertown Arsenal while attending night school in Boston. Eventually he settled in Rhode Island, building a lovely home on Roseneath Ave. He built beautiful, flat, stone walls. He helped to build the St. George Chapel, worked on the Stuart Duncan estates and for the wealthy Whetmore sisters. He worked on the seawall around the cliff walk. Pa Quinn took us for rides around Newport on the Jitney Bus, a big treat for us country kids.
Nana Quinn, nee Hannah Welsh, from Baltic, Ct. made us tea, and served us pasteurized milk, a rare treat for us raw milk drinkers. She spread butter and sugar on her delicious home-made bread. Every morning on the phone she’d order thing from Eddie’s Market and every afternoon she’d rock upstairs.
Mother had three sisters: The oldest, Sister Mary of the Order of Sisters of Mercy died when I was seven, next, Gertrude, who was a year and a day older than my mother, and the youngest, Rosella, who was five years younger than my mother. Gertrude and her husband, Jack Keirans, lived in Stafford Springs, Ct. They had four children: Jackie, Barbara who was a year older than I, Jane who was three days younger than Frances, and Bob who was several years younger than Jane. Gertrude got lovely wool from the mills in Stafford and had beautiful coats made for us. Gertrude loved to send Mother pretty sets of dishes. Jack was a kind soft-spoken man in charge of the railroad station in Stafford Springs. He died of cancer when the girls were in high school. We loved our cousins and every few months Jack would come down or we would drive up there. In the Summer we met half way at Frog Rock for picnics. Sometimes we would stay at Gertrude’s for a few days. For us it was fun to swim at Sweetheart Lake and walk down the big, steep hills to the center of Stafford Springs. Our cousins often came to spend time with us in the Summer and we always had fun together.
Aunt Rosella married late in life, in her forties. Al Smith, her husband, was a bit of a recluse. Rosella was fun and a kind of “Auntie Mame”–a great talker and very generous to us all. She always came bearing gifts, from ice cream, chocolate meringue pies, lemon sherbet cakes from Frashe’s Bakery or other goodies. She often treated us to the movies. We were used to cars smelling of smoke but her car always had a new car smell which made us car sick. She lived on Roseneath Ave. in the old homestead. She had lovely gardens and kept the home very much like her parents kept it.
Mother’s brother, Eddie, lived in Fall River. He and Lillian had three children: Teddy, Ruth and Barbara. They were all very nice but quite a bit younger than us and we did not see them very often.
Joe Gracie was a big part of our farm lives. He had worked for daddy’s father before my father was born. A wonderful Portuguese man, Joe helped other people from the Azores come and settle in R. I. They would land in New Bedford. Joe remembered when the house where Daddy was born was moved to its final place, having been moved from the Farm. Daddy, around three or four, remembered standing in the living room of his big new home watching his old house being moved across the south lot unto Wyatt Rd, ending up on Mitchell’s Lane. The old house became Joe’s. In 1996 when I went to see John Silvia about a problem of drainage unto my lot, John and Josephine gave me a tour of the house. John jacked up the house recently, adding bedrooms upstairs. I was very moved to think of my father’s family living in the house many years ago. It must have been incredible for Nana Murphy, her husband, Agnes, Uncle Joseph, my Father to go from almost a cabin to a castle. I felt badly when I realized that my Grandfather lived only for twelve years on the beautiful farm and estate which he left. Joe Gracie was a wonderful worker. He always walked from his house and he cared for us very much. He particularly loved Frances, calling her” Little Sweetheart.” He called Denny “Boss”. He called me “Miss Big Bottom.” After being a small preemie, four pounds, eleven ounces and delicate, around age eight I started gaining weight and have battled it ever since.
There were three large troughs in the barn yard where the cows drank. I remember trying to walk around the rim, falling in, getting dunked and Joe getting mad at me, bringing me up to the house.
When my parents bought the farm, in order to settle the debt that Nana owed Joe, he and his wife were given the house and a few acres of land.
Joe Sousa was another workman. He walked up from Wapping Rd. every day. The two Joe’s would always converse in Portuguese.
Joe Gracie had a stroke shortly after Denny went to go to Cornell in 1951. Daddy had to sell the cows because he could not take care of them alone. He leased the farm to Allan Harlow.
The Hurricane of 1938
For some reason I was home from school that September day. Denny was also home, probably because he hadn’t started first grade. Around two p.m. Mother sent us out to play. We came back inside, complaining that the driveway gravel was blowing so hard it was stinging our legs. Soon afterwards, Frances returned from school. Nana and Agnes returned from a ride around the Ocean Drive where they had been viewing the heavy, churning surf. Because of the strong winds they had difficulty closing the front door. Towards dark, Daddy came home having driven across the Stone Bridge in Island Park. The wind and rain intensified fiercely. When Daddy came in from milking the cows we lost power. Daddy carted several mattresses from upstairs down to the dining room because windows on the south side of both floors blew in. The glass piazza off of the parlor blew off of the house’s front. Also the veranda located on the northeast side was whisked away! Trees were blown down, parts of the roof, and several smaller buildings blew down .All night long we could hear the havoc taking place outside but could not see what was happening. Weather predictions in those days weren’t very accurate. No one knew till the next day that a tidal wave as well as a hurricane had struck Narragansett Bay and the New England coast. If Daddy had crossed the Stone Bridge a half hour later or if Nana and Agnes had driven around the Drive an hour or so later –all would have drowned. The devastation was terrible! Hundreds of people were killed. The Stone Bridge was destroyed. Most of the homes on Island Park were leveled. Power was disrupted for weeks. For this reason I have always respected the force and power of nature. I have never desired to live by the ocean. Many hurricanes have hit Middletown since 1938. None have equaled the 1938 event and there has not been another tidal wave since then.
Blizzards
Years ago Mother planned a Valentine’s Day party for us. Della Sherman and other children were invited. However a huge blizzard canceled it. I remember several blizzards on the farm. The wind would howl, the snow and ice would coat the north side windows. We couldn’t see from the windows how much snow had fallen. No matter how ferocious the weather Daddy had to get to the barn to milk the cows, both in the morning and the evening. I remember the sighs of relief we’d all expel when we heard Daddy stamping his boots in the glass porch.
Because we used kerosene to heat the big black stove, there was always heat in the kitchen. There was a kerosene gas pump north of the house. During cold and stormy times we would close the doors from the kitchen to the back stairs, to the closet, and to the dining room as we tried to stay warm and snug. When we went to bed we’d run upstairs, use the bathroom and jump into our chilled beds.
Power would be out for several days. That meant no water, no lights and no heat. Mother trained us to prepare by filling the bathtub with water in order to flush the toilet. We’d fill pots, pans, dishpans for cooking and drinking. Water had to store in the barn for the cattle. The men always had to worry about pipes freezing both in the barn and the house.
I remember the men using horses and wagons loaded with forty quart milk cans. They’d go through the fields down to the bottom of Wyatt Rd., where the milk companies would receive the milk. There was a particularly severe blizzard during which we watched, from the upstairs hall windows and from Nana’s living room windows, as Army plows with huge headlights worked their way slowly up Mitchell’s Lane and Wyatt Rd. It was very exciting to have the roads cleared so that we could finally get out.
The day after a blizzard, like that after a hurricane, was usually brilliantly sunny and beautiful. The snow would still be blowing and drifting and the day would end with a spectacular sunset. Looking down the hills, seeing them filled with snow with the blue ocean in the distance provided a gorgeous, memorable vista.
Mother would wrap old flannel remnants around our boot tops to keep the snow out. Bundled up with leggings, scarves, mittens, and many layers we would go out and jump into the snow drifts. Often we’d jump off the stone walls and then would play fox and geese. Sometimes we would make snow ice cream by adding vanilla to a bowl of fresh snow.
The Wind
Because our home was high on a hill with many bare fields we had wonderful, wind exposure. Bill could not get over how I was aware of wind direction, how sensitive I am to wind shifts of direction. He said that the wind for the entire country started in Middletown.
The northeast wind brought blizzards in the winter, northeasters in the spring. In the fall it brought heavy rains or hurricanes. Winds from the northwest usually brought clear, intensely blue skies which were often very energizing. In August a switch of the wind to the northwest was often a trigger for an asthma attack for Denny or a hay-fever episode for Mother. In the summer, days would start out lovely and clear. Often around 1:30 a south wind would start to roll in. Often Mother had her clothes out on the clothes line. They could be completely dry but if they weren’t brought in before the wind shifted they’d be drenched by the fog and would have to stay on the line all night.
When there was a strong north wind it could be almost impossible to open the north door. We were always afraid that the storm doors would break if we failed to hold on to them.
Living on the farm we were closely affected by weather. Fog and rain would prevent hay from being cut, dried and baled. Too much wind would damage the com, too much dampness could cause potato or tomato blight. Heavy wind could blow snow onto already cleared driveways. Daddy’s livelihood could be deeply affected by adverse weather.
The War
December 7, 1941 was a Sunday. I remember hearing the news on the kitchen radio. It was late afternoon. Frances started to cry. We all huddled around the radio. The next morning was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation .Something rare occurred. We were never early for Mass, but that morning we were. Before six a.m. Mass we were driving around Newport trying to kill time. On RI. Ave. we saw many Asiatics in white work outfits hurrying to their work on various estates. It was so weird. They were Philippines who we imagined were the Japanese invading Newport.
During the war Newport was a very busy, strategic city. The torpedo station on Goat Island had 24 hour shifts. Boot camp for the sailors was on the Navy Base with Newport being the main east coast destroyer location. In case Newport was attacked all school children were to be evacuated. We all wore evacuation tags around our necks. M number was 134. We had air raid drills in school. Our task was to duck under our desks. In school we had stamp books which were used to save for war bonds. Because of fear of air raid attacks, we would have nightly blackouts. We’d use darkened window shades which had to be pulled every night. Volunteer air raid wardens would report people whose homes showed light illumination. Pails of sand were on each floor to be used in case of bombs or fires .Headlights on cars had black covers over the bulbs so the lights would be half dimmed and shine down to the highway. Every evening many search lights would scan the skies looking for enemy aircraft. Access to parts of the Ocean Drive and coast line was restricted. Because of the war effort copper pennies were no longer made and were replaced by tin. Red, blue, and yellow tokens were given out. Each family had ration books. Stamps were given for meat, butter, sugar and gas. Margarine which was like white lard came in sticks which we colored with orange powder. There were many young sailors walking around Newport and Middletown. Joe Souza’s daughters became real “Victory Girls”. Army convoys went up and down Wyatt Rd. on the way to Sachuest Point for target practice. I remember a day after a blizzard when we were at our street comer and a convoy came up Mitchell’s Lane to go left and down the Wyatt Rd. hill. Mother waved frantically to them. The sailors thought she was just being overly patriotic. They waved and whistled. Half way down the hill they realized that the area was all covered with snow drifts and impossible to traverse. The whole convoy had to back up. When V-J Day came we all went into Washington Square where we celebrated the war’s end with thousands of people.
The Paper Route
Denny started a paper route. However, because of his asthma, and because of his helping out with farm chores, Frances and I took over the job. Mr. Sullivan came to the house every so often to collect our money. Once he wanted to do an article for the Providence Journal on Frances and I being paper girls. We did not want the publicity and we refused.
I believe I delivered papers in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. We delivered the Providence Journal, the Fall River Herald and the Newport Daily News. The cost for each paper was twenty-five cents a week.
After coming home from school, having a snack, and changing into dungarees we would take the big, white sailcloth paper bag, put it on the bike handlebars, and ride up to Paquin’s Gas Station to pick up the papers. The route was over five miles long. I headed down Bramen’s Lane from East Main Rd., putting papers in mailboxes. Turning right unto Wapping Rd, next up the hill, sometimes pushing the bike to Riverview Ave., then down the hill to Green End Ave, beyond Frank Sylvia’s house, then back up the hill to Third Beach Rd. and up Mitchell’s Lane to home again was our route. Sometimes Frances would cover half the route coming down Mitchell’s Lane from the East Main Rd.
Actually I loved doing the ride. It was nice to be outside for almost two hours, to ride along the pretty country roads and day dream as I pedaled along. Some of the customers were very nice. I remember a young Navy couple who rented a home on Green End Ave. One Saturday afternoon when I knocked on the door to collect the money the Lieutenant’s wife yelled that I had to stay in the garage because she was so mad at me.
The husband peeked sheepishly out of the garage. They had been fighting and she thought it was he knocking. He gave me a large tip.
Some people would pay to the penny. Others gave us tips and often gave Christmas presents. In very bad weather Mother would drive us around.
When I was in high school Frances took over the route. I would have to help to get supper if Mother was driving around. It seemed I was forever washing batches of spinach three times and putting pork chops and potatoes into the oven to bake while listening to country music.
Chores and Jobs
Frances and I were expected to help Mother around the house as Denny was expected to help with farm chores. Frances and I did the supper dishes. I hated to wash so I usually dried them. Saturday mornings we vacuumed the house, dusted down the front and back stairs. Every few months we washed the kitchen linoleum floor. As we grew older we often paste waxed the linoleum, polishing it with flannel rags. The kitchen floor’s shiny finish made us proud. Once a year we helped Mother wash the paint in the kitchen. I still have her magic potion for washing paint: one gallon of water, one cup ammonia, one half cup vinegar and one fourth cup baking soda. It does a great job of cleaning and it does not streak.
I have a dim memory of helping to clean the glass piazza, having done so before the hurricane of ’38 which blew it away. Nana had an old Victrola and many records. We would spin the records by hand. The music sounded tinny. That porch was filled with old Collier’s magazines and National Geographies tied in bundles. The porch was dusty and dry, causing us to sneeze profusely.
Mother loved to rake the yard in the Spring and the Fall. I do not remember doing much yard work but I do remember painting eight- inch, stones white. They were used to line the driveway. Also I remember Frances and I having fun walking along the stone walls. Frances was much more adventurous than 1. I was very timid about everything.
As we got older we started to baby sit. Frequently we baby sat for Marion and Charlie Sherman caring for Chick, Arthur, and Bruce. Frances and I baby sat together for company. We loved it when Bruce was a baby. We’d wake him up so we could play with him. Years later I tutored Bruce privately, giving him remedial reading lessons. Marion Sherman became a good friend. She gave Mother and me Toni permanents. When I went to my first prom, the ROTC Ball, Marion came down to see me all dressed up. Barbara Champlin and I doubled dated and stayed overnight at Rosella’s home. We also baby sat for Gertrude and Howard Peabody. They lived in a small cottage on Charlie Sherman’s property .Howard became the chief of police in Middletown,
When I was in high school I started working summers at Mrs. Peabody’s refreshment stand on Third Beach. I would ride my bike there and start work at 11:00a.m. Sometimes Mrs. Peabody would want me to wash her house dishes. I didn’t like doing so because they were fish eaters. Mr. Peabody was a fisherman, and the home always smelled offish… It was a fun job serving hot dogs, sandwiches, ice creams cones, candy, and sodas. I worked there for three or four summers. Saturdays and Sundays were very busy with long lines of customers waiting for service. Frances joined me after I had been there for a year or two. Often Mother would pick us up at five or six on weekends. Having only one car we’d have to wait for Daddy to come home. In later years Mrs. Peabody often said that we were her best workers. My geometry teacher, Mr. Chase, kept his sailboat at Third Beach. He offered to take me and some friends over to Sakonnet Point. Mary Nunes wanted to go too, rubbing poison ivy on her skin, hoping for an excuse to not baby sit, thereby being free to take a sailing trip. However she overdid it and ended up too ill to travel. Instead Barbara Keirans came along. It was beautiful to see the shore lines of Third Beach, Sachuest Point and Indian Ave from a boat. Mr. Chase had packed a lunch for us, consisting of cheese sandwiches thickly spread with margarine. We almost gagged trying to eat them.
School Days
I attended first and second grade at Howland School which was at the end of Mitchell’s Lane. Miss Helen Crocker was my teacher. For a few weeks Mother walked me to school and was there to return me home. Anita Trimble, Edna Smith and the Schwartz twins, William and Charles were in my class first grade through Rogers High School. After the first few weeks I walked the mile to school by myself. Often I walked home with Elsie Rego who lived up the lane and was both older and ahead of me in school. I don’t know why, but I was afraid of her. In those days I was very quiet and shy. Mother would say, I was “afraid of my own shadow.” The third and fourth grades, I took the school bus to Wyatt School, a one room school house with an out house, having both a girl’s and boy’s section. Agnes and Daddy had gone to Wyatt School as well, many years before. One day Miss Martins sent me walking home in the middle of the day to tell Mother that I had failed a vision test and I needed glasses. Fifth grade was back at Howland School with Miss Luth and then to Berkely Peckham School for sixth, seventh and eighth grades where I had my beloved Barbara Marshall as my sixth grade teacher. I still remember the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns she explained to us. Often she walked up to ice skate with us at VanBuren’s Pond. She was a very beautiful woman. In seventh grade she showed us pictures of a Navy captain she kept in her desk drawer. She became engaged to another man, but that did not last, and she ended up finally engaged to the Navy captain. I attended her wedding at St. Mary’s Church- a wedding in the Catholic Church which her prejudiced father did not attend in spite of her being his only child. Before the wedding, with dismay, we watched her father drive up Mitchell’s Lane on his way to work. When I graduated from eighth grade, Barbara Champlin, Bebe Peckham, Anita Trimble and I were invited to Miss Lowe’s beautiful home on Ayrault Street in Newport for lunch. She was my eighth grade English teacher. While we were sitting on her porch Bebe opened her lipstick to show us how by pulling a string it would come up for use. She pulled the string, up popped the lipstick, all the way to Miss Lowe’s ceiling, leaving a big red mark. We were mortified.
Easter vacation of eighth grade, Bebe Peckham and I rode our old fashioned pedal bicycles from Middletown to Little Compton. That was a long ride! It took us all day to ride that far. We stayed overnight at her aunt’s home. Her aunt took us to the movies at an Army Base in Westport. We were surrounded by soldiers. We felt very grown up. Of course as usual, my Father drove over to pick us up two evenings later.
Recreation and Vacations
Milking routines made it impossible to take yearly vacations. Daddy probably used a week off to do the haying and another week for com harvesting. Every year Daddy had V-J Day as a holiday. He would drive Mother, Frances and me to Boston to shop for back to school clothes. He would park near the Statler Hotel after dropping us off near Schrafft’s on West S1.. Daddy would enjoy the newspapers and a cigar, sitting in the Statler lobby. Fortified with rum frosted Danish, coffee, and Mother’s admonitions (“Hold on to your pocket books, girls.”), we headed to Filene’s Basement, getting there as the doors opened. Mother outlasted both of us. We always had one or two stylish outfits for school.
I do remember an October family vacation. We went to Laconia, N.H., staying in an area called Swedish Villages –pretty, red-styled Swiss chalets on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. It was very cold. On Daddy’s vacation he had to get up early, go outside and get wood for lighting a fire. Frances came down with a sore throat. Daddy tied socks around her neck. We went to see a movie called “Wild Geese Flying.” When older we went on a Canadian vacation to Montreal and Quebec. We returned home through upper New York State. Daddy was disappointed with the absence of ice cream in Canada. He did not like the French food. He loved to take showers in the motels, not having such in our own home. We remember buying “Black Cat” cigarettes in Canada.
Mother took us to the Barnum &Bailey Circus in Fall River. We went to the Ice Capades in Providence. Daddy enjoyed sports. He took us to Cardines Field in Newport to watch league baseball. I remember a player named Pepper Martin, an especially good player. We enjoyed seeing the black-bearded, House of David baseball players. He took us to basketball games in Providence. He particularly enjoyed the basketball prowess of Ernie Cavalry.
My parents enjoyed a yearly banquet in Providence. They would get very dressed up for the event which was sponsored by the Farmers Production Bureau. Yearly Daddy would subscribe to the Hoards Dairymen and other agricultural magazines.
Our Religion
Our religion was very important to us. There was nothing phony about my parents’ faith. Every night they knelt down by their beds to say their prayers. We went to Mass on all Sundays and holy days–rain or shine. Daddy would hurry in from milking the cows, eat, get changed, and we were off to St. Joseph’s Church in Newport for Mass. Daddy would let us off on Broadway and then park the car on West Broadway. After Mass we always stopped at Peterson’s newsstand for the Providence Journal and penny candy. Memories of past candy events unfold–when we were very little and Daddy worked for the Department of Agriculture we would run down the path to meet his car to get candy: squirrel nuts, bolsters, nonpareils, etc…
Eating meat on Fridays was not allowed. It was very hard on the Friday after Thanksgiving to see the huge roast turkey on the closet shelf and being unable to take a bite. During the summer, Mother, Frances and I would go to the Novena of the Miraculous Medal. It was at 7:30 on Monday evenings. We loved the ceremony and the singing, especially Immaculate Mary, Mary Conceived Without Sin, and Tantum Ergo. I still love the Memorare. Over the years I would light candles in front of the Blessed Mother for special intentions.
Mother asked Sister Mary Charles to have a special hymn performed at my First Communion. I believed she got the hymn from my Aunt Sister Mary or Aunt Gertrude. Mother always gave a big two pound box of candy to the nun who prepared us for First Communion, buying from Maud at Jackson’s Candy Store on Thames St. I carried on her tradition with our children’s First Communion teachers.
During Lent for many years around eight o’clock the five of us would kneel down in the kitchen and say the Rosary. It was a nice custom. We also visited the manger in St. Joseph’s basement at Christmas. I especially remember a very rainy Sunday when the family had been to 9:00 am Mass at St. Mary’s. It was so important to Denny to go to Mass that he walked home a distance of seven miles in the rain. My parents were going in a different direction after Mass, in order to catch the Jamestown Ferry. They were going to visit me at my college in New Haven.
Visitors
I’m trying to recollect who came to the house over the years. Miss Sloan, the Middletown Red Cross visiting nurse, came for many years to give allergy injections to Denny for his asthma. There was the “grain man.” “Mr.Beacon”? or maybe the grain company was “Beacon.” He was a dapper dresser and both my parents enjoyed his visits very much. When Denny’s new bicycle, The Fleetwood Flyer, came the “grain man” helped Daddy assemble it on the south door steps.
Paul and Kay Sheehan would visit a few times a year. Paul was Daddy’s best man. As bachelors they had gone to New York, Canada and Maine. The Leonard’s, our neighbors, would come visiting The Leonard girls had a rough deal with their brothers’ drinking. Other Leonard relatives (Mary and Arthur) would also visit. In their better days Esther and Ellen had woopie cushions for fun in their house. Another visitor who came two or three times a year was Alice DeLangie. Daddy’s cousin. She was a short woman who always wore very high heels and held us spellbound. Alice talked and talked, very interesting, clacking her teeth together every so often. She knew every bit of news about every relative and every resident of Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth.
In later years when Denny attended De La Salle Academy; Mother became involved with other parents. Dick and Ann Boyle would come bringing quarts of ice cream. They were very fun people. He was a University of Michigan graduate and Mrs. Boyle had been a nurse. She always had a platform or a cause. Once it was the Newport gypsies. She loved to listen to Sully on the radio. Denny had a friend, Carl Stahl; whose mother often visited. When visitors came the whole family would sit around and listen.
The Three of Us
I have been writing about my childhood in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I graduated from high school in 1948, Frances in 1950 and Denny in 1951. We all got along very well with some fights as all children do. I was responsible for pushing Frances off of a chair in Nana’s living room. She broke her collar bone. Denny and Freddie Fieldhouse got into a fist fight. I dashed in to protect Denny, ending up with a black eye. When I was in sixth grade at Berkeley Peckham School, Frances classmates came running to tell me she was in tears. Her favorite teacher, Miss Johnson, was leaving and Frances needed consoling.
I was two years ahead of Frances in school. Frances and Denny were separated by only one year. As they grew older they had more friends and events in common. They went to parties at Frances Wyatt’s and played Spin the Bottle while in junior high. I went off to college while Denny was just beginning his sophomore year at De LaSalle and I did not see much of him playing football.
People ask if I remember living during the Depression. It is not a significant memory because we were not terribly affected by it. In the late 30’s my father lost his job as a result of the Democrats having lost control of Rhode Island. In the 1940’she was hired by the State as an inspector for the Department of Public Utilities; a job he held into the 1960’s when he retired.
As always in our lives if times were rough financially my parents would accept their] situation and sell a few cows for money to pay their bills. We lived within our means. Daddy owned only one good suit at a time. Mother wore the same red winter coat and her black stove pipe hat for years. When we went off to college in the 1950’smy parents rented the upstairs where Nana had lived. They received good money from the Navy couples who rented there. One Navy lieutenant, Bob Walters, who went on to become an admiral, visited many years later. Bob and his wife, Dianne, told my Mother how much they loved the two years they lived on the farm.
Looking back at it all, Frances, Denny and I enjoyed a very happy childhood. As we now know we were very fortunate children. We never had much money but we had a priceless, loving, stable, fun-filled home.