White Family Website

I - AUBURN

Catherine Burke landed in New York from County Mayo, Ireland, about 1878, at about age 18. Her sisters, Margaret Ward and Jane Leland, met her. How they got the money to go to New York -- I wonder. They had sent her the money for her passage. She was 18. She and another girl were about to go off with a couple of sailors when her sisters stopped them. She lived with the Lelands for a while. Then she went to Minneapolis (a long, long way in those days) to her brother John. She worked as chambermaid in a hotel.

She says -- Our Blessed Mother stopped at the foot of her bed one night and said, "Wake up quick - there's a man in your room." She got up and lighted the light. No man. The next night the same thing happened, and there was a man in her room. She screamed. Everyone came running, and the only one who did not hear her was one man - in his bed. (They decided he was the man.)

She came back to Worcester. Lived with the Lelands again and worked as a maid. She worked for a family - John Legg - who owned a woolen mill. They lived on South Main Street, Worcester, St. Peter's Parish. (The Leggs were not Catholic.) The mission church of St. Peter's was St. Joseph's in Stoneville (Auburn). She was active in that church. (I suppose she met my father there.) When she was getting married, they gave her a party. The priest in charge gave a talk and said, "Katie Burke needed watching." They gave her a watch. Don't know what became of it. Her wedding dress was wine colored, heavy (we used to dress up in it), and she had the same color velvet hat, with ostrich plumes. We played with that also.

My father was a carpenter and he built the house for them, six rooms - three up and three down - and a shed with the outhouse in it eight or ten steps from the back door. There was a wood coal stove in the kitchen - ventilator above it to heat upstairs. The stove had a gauge on the front of the oven with names around it - bread, cake, meat, etc. When the arrow reached the place you wanted, you would put the food in it to bake. We used to start the fire when we came home from school. Tried to melt the butter on the bread in the oven. Not much success. It would take too long to get the oven hot. The stove had a tank on one end for hot water. In the spring there was always a pot of molasses and sulphur with a spoon in it, and we all would have a spoon of it every morning. We also had Scott's cod liver oil emulsion every day in the winter.

There were five homes in our village. Putnam across the street, just opposite. Then Collins and Baker - houses more or less the same. On our side was Barrows. They had one son brother Bill's age. My father and Barrows used to go hunting together. (See drawing in Memory Book.)

My brothers once tied me to a chair - by my braids - so I would not follow them. Mrs. Barrows heard my yelling and rescued me, and treated me to cookies!! They had an asparagus bed and sold it.

In our shed were two barrels. One of cracked corn and the other what we called "shorts" - a mixture of oats, etc. for the hens. The shorts were mixed with hot water in the winter and cold in the summer for the hens. We also had a woodpile in the shed, and various tools.

Mrs. Putnam, across the street, took State children to board. She kept a dirty house, and the children she sent to school were dirty and buggy. Someone reported her, and the investigators came. She is supposed to have said, "Take a look at the kids across the street." She thought my mother had reported her. She did not. They came over to us. Ma had made a big baking pan of gingerbread before she went to work. Some of it was left. The men are supposed to have said, "The floor was clean enough to eat off and plenty to eat there."

One of my Aunts, Ma's sister Mary, married a man named Wright, and gave up the faith when she married him. Never came back. One of her two sons used to visit us. Bill was his name, about my brother Bill's age. Mrs. Putnam used to yell across the street, porch to porch, and one day she said something about the dirty Irish Catholics. His reply, "I'm not a dirty Catholic, and put that in your pipe and smoke it." We kids thought that was the greatest.

When Father Ed's family closed the parents' house (Aunt Anne and Uncle Michael), they sent some furniture out to us. A big, big living room stove, and a bedroom set. (The table in Amagansett in Kip's room is a piece of it.) Also a dresser - Aunt Helen took from Grandma - has big oak leaves (carved of wood) for drawer pulls. I do not know why I cried, but Joe yelled at me, "What are you crying for?"

My cousin Margaret Ward (dead) spent the summers with us. We went barefoot all summer. When I was supposed to do something and did not, I would always say, "Margaret would not help me." Ma used to come home on a 6:30 train. When we heard the whistle, we'd rush to get the fire going and the potatoes on - water stone cold and little or no fire. Never thought of it till we heard the whistle.

Ma worked as a maid in the town for a couple years after my father's death. Then she got a job in the Public Library, Worcester. She could have been librarian if she only had a little more education. The head of the library offered it to her. So she went to Worcester on the trolley car in the morning. Left the house about 6:30 to get the 7:00 trolley at Auburn Center. She came home by train. We lived close to the railroad station - "Stones Crossing" was its name.

The only remembrance I have of my father is his carrying me on his shoulders from the shed to the house. My mother used to send us to play under the cherry tree when he would be coming home from work. He worked in the city and maybe was coming home with his money all spent or drunk

The night he was killed - I woke up and went down stairs to stand beside my mother watching out the window. One window in the dining room looked down the road he would come on.

My Uncle Dan, his brother, came in the morning and told her the news. I hated Uncle Dan because he made Ma cry. I thought he had hit her. I went to Pa's funeral. It was Ash Wednesday and I rode in a hack with some of the Collins' (Connie's sisters). Their father, also Uncle Dan (married to Bridget Burke) drove a hack - a four-seater covered carriage, two front and two back, drawn by one horse, and Uncle Dan sat up front to drive. At the cemetery I saw what I thought was a pack of potato skins. It was a wreath of leaves - the custom then.

Ma was a total wreck. Fred Leland came out and spent some time with her. They thought she might kill herself and the children. Six of us - Bill 9, and Ray not yet a year!

She had a vision. Our Lord appeared to her in a big bright light and said, "Get up and carry your cross." She told Fred that next morning that he could go. She would be all right. She was.

The town exempted her from taxes. John Legg paid insurance, and painted the house when it needed it. She refused town help. Took Ray in his carriage to work for the town's people. One day the carriage slipped and rolled down a hill. Spilled Ray and all out, but he was OK. The lady she worked for, Miss Hewitt, used to have her spread the clothes on the grass and stand over them with a branch to keep the flies off while they dried.

She washed and scrubbed. One woman would feel the mop to be sure she scrubbed the floor on hands and knees.

One - Luther Stone gave us our milk. We'd go to the barn every afternoon at milking time and fill two milk cans. One day the hired man cursed at us and chased us out. We went right to the house and told on him. Luther fired him.

My brother Bill used to deliver big cans of milk for Luther. One day he told Margaret Ward and me he would spill us in a snowdrift. He did, and in so doing broke some part of the harness. He fixed it and no harm done. But Luther told Ma. When she asked me why I did not tell her, I said, "I forgot." One day Bill drove her to the city. Same horse. Same sleigh. The horse lifted his tail and dropped his "do" right into her lap. In those days there was a horse trough at College (now Fitzgerald) Square, and they stopped there so she could wash her skirt off. How she dried it I do not know.

There was a pond. Small. One day coming home from work she waded in and saved a boy who had fallen through the ice.

When Bill was small, he wandered into a field where a couple bulls were. She went in and got him out. The barbed wire cut her back, and when I bathed her when she was old, the deep scars were there. She had a bent finger. Bill had a knife from the table, and she took it from him, blade toward her and cut the tendons of one finger.

My father's death was on Joe's birthday. He said he would never have another birthday.

After Ma went to work in the library, she would bring home many books (discarded). She read to us every night. Br'er Rabbit was one of our favorites.

She used to stop twice a week at the Worcester Public Market and bring home two turkey bags (the market had big brown bags with a turkey printed on it) full of goodies. One of our cousins, Nellie Collins (my father's family, not Bridget Burke Collins - no relation) worked on the bakery counter in the Market, and she filled the two bags with broken cookies, rolls, old donuts, broken cakes, etc. We would pour the goodies out on the kitchen table to see what we had. Once we had three cream puffs (that I remember). I am sure we had many good bakery things, bread, etc. Some times we had fruit she would put in.

My Aunt Mary Wright came to see us some (horse and buggy). She would bring oranges, and she once gave Ma $10 -- what else I do not know.

The girls who worked in the library used to come out one day in the summer and again in the fall. They would bring lots of food; make it a day's outing and picnic.

The Collins girls (Connie's family) and friends used to take a day holiday in Auburn also. Ma liked to have them out and they all liked to come.

We had a friend, Mary Broderick - Ma's' friend really. When she was between jobs, she used to come and stay with us. She never cleaned the house but she used to bake.

When Bill was 2nd year high, he worked at Leland Gifford after school. Then he quit day school and worked full time at Leland Gifford. Went to night high school and lived with Fred Leland and his wife. When Bill moved to the city, Ray used to take his undershirt to bed with him. He said, "It smelled like Bill."

Before that we used to go into a farmer's field and eat his cabbage. We'd sit on one cabbage and dig the inside out of the next one, then put the top leaves back on. We always had a knife with us.

We picked strawberries for Luther Stone. He paid us 2 cents a basket. We brought sandwiches of bread, butter and sugar, and we would fill the middle with strawberries. My grandparents lived about ten miles away - over the fields, with a little stream. Ray was lost for several hours, and we found him asleep by the stream on the way to Grandma's.

My grandparents (Fitzgerald) had a girl living with them. Whether they formally adopted her, I do not know, but she was our "cousin." Married name was Mary Hanovan. Her daughter, Lula, and I used to go up to Grandma's for overnight. The room we had was off the porch where Grandpa used to sit. We would gab and giggle, and Grandpa used to whack his cane on the floor and tell us to be still and go to sleep. He was an old crab -- but I guess he was not well. When I used to go up by myself for overnight, every morning at the breakfast table I would begin to cry. He'd yell, "Go home." I did!

When one of my grandparents died, Ma took the rest of us to the farm to take care of the other. When they had both died, we stayed on the farm. But she could not manage it. I do not recall how long we stayed there, maybe a year. Then she sold it, and Uncle Dan got his share. At the funeral of one of them, the relatives went into the bog and picked cranberries.

While we lived there, Bill and Dan took Grandpa's old, old dog out to the woods to shoot him. They tied him to a tree and shot two shots into him. They untied him and left him there for dead. He was home ahead of them.

There was a couple, Joe St. Germain and his wife, who lived across the road from the farm house. Joe used to come over to visit us every night before Ma got home from work. His wife used to go into the cellar and steal jars of Ma's canned goods. There was a big stone ledge in the cellar that went right up to the cellar window. She would go in that way. They stole the tools as well.

One day we were smashing bottles, and one big sharp piece of glass cut into Ray's ankle - big cut and blood. We ran over to Mrs. St. Germain and she came over to see. "I'll get the tobacco." She ran back and brought over a handful of tobacco and put it into the hole. We tied a rag on it, and in a few weeks he was as good as new! (No tetanus shots!)

We had a pear tree back of the farm house, and it had big delicious pears on it. Lots of apples (an orchard) and also a pig pen - how many pigs I do not know. We frequently had a bucket of garbage on the stove cooking for the pigs.

One day Fred Leland was visiting us at the farm (with others). He found an apple bitten into and thrown away. He made us all match it to our teeth, and he made me eat it. It was not mine either.

The man who bought the farm was an Armenian. The day they were going to sign for it, he came out early and swept the living room. He had a glass of water and would take a swallow in his mouth and spray it out on the rug to keep the dust down. Sanitary!

We moved back to Stones Crossing. One day Bill and Dan and maybe Joe were playing near a pond. One fell in and the others tried to rescue him. All were foundering when Luther Stone came along und got them out. Again, he met Ma and asked if the children had any ill effects. She did not know what he was talking about. When she asked why they did not tell her - same old story - they forgot.

We used to pick buckets of blueberries. Sold them for 25 cents. Crowds of city folks came out to Stones Crossing in the berry season to pick.

There was a pond close by - Pondville Pond. The woolen mills were on it. We used to swim every day in the summer. For a bathing suit I wore my underpants and an old dress. I could swim across the pond and back on a board. Imagine!

There were blood suckers in the pond also, and if one of them got stuck on your skin, it was awful to get it off.

There was a family named Kelly who lived up the hill from us in one of the mill houses. They had boys and a girl who worked in the mill. We went up there frequently in the morning and ate the eggs and bacon they did not have time to eat. They also had gobs of gum stuck on the under sides of the plates. We used to chew that also.

In the summer we would take a stick and dig up some of the tar on the road and chew that. Some of the No-cal drinks today taste that same way.

I had a friend, Laura Comstock. She and I were scavengers. We would find bits of pretty china and glass and made a little house under the lilac tree using the bits for decoration.

Ma had a corner piece of furniture (a what-not), probably eight or ten shelves, with all kinds of little knick-knacks. I hated it. I had to dust it every Saturday. (Wish I had it now. I do not know what became of it.)

Bill had to go to the Post Office for a package and had to sign his name. It was so long, he could not get it on one line, and he complained about it.

It was the custom to train a young colt by tying him to the shafts of the wagon. One day coming home from school, I passed such a sight, and the colt gave me a kick and sent me down a little hill. The man driving the wagon said, "Did you hurt yourself?"

Dan had lumps in his throat, under his chin. Dr. Charlie Fitzgerald (Fr. Ed's brother) operated on him at home. Brought a nurse out with him. Laid Dan on the dining room table. To his death Dan had a scar 6-8 inches long on the side of his neck. Dr. Charlie came out every day for weeks to treat Dan. He practiced later in New York City and always sent us great Christmas presents. Wind-up toys, etc. He died in New York. Buried in Worcester. I was about 12 when I first met Fr. Ed. (More of this later.)

When on the farm we had a "husking bee." The Collins and Leland young folks and their friends, maybe twenty or so, came to the farm. I expect by trolley. How they got home I do not know. By foot maybe. They brought food, cake, and sandwiches, etc. and cider. After the corn husking, a fiddler played and they danced in the barn. If a guy found a red ear when husking, he could kiss the girl of his choice.

We also had "hay rides." A wagon with two settees on the sides and maybe sat sixteen. Hay on the floor. Two horses to draw it. We would go to one of the farm houses - by arrangement - and have hot chocolate and cookies, which we brought with us.

We walked to Mass (3 miles) and they would lock the Church when Mass began. If we were late, we sat on the steps until Mass was over. One Sunday Ma put a big blue ribbon on my hair and no hat. The kids at Sunday school made fun of me!

I visited Aunt Mary Wright in the summer. They had a summer place in one of the Brookfields on a lake. Aunt Mary had a grandchild about my age. We were together at the lake. Swim all morning. (I had a bathing suit then.) Aunt Mary made us dress for lunch every day. That's the way she was. Have lost all track of them. Joe saw one of the boys, Andrew, one day standing in the rain waiting for a bus, hands in his pockets and an umbrella hooked onto the button of his coat. Connie Collins tried to get Aunt Mary to die a Catholic, but she said no. Her husband had been dead many years.

I had cousins on my father's side, Ryans. I visited them also at times. Dr. Ryan used to let me drive his horse on the way to his office. I would ride a couple blocks and walk back. The horse always stumbled as soon as I took the reins. His sister was a dressmaker and to keep me amused, she had me take a big pin and push all the pins out of the cracks on the floor. She had a couple women working for her. They had a maid who made muffins in little loaf pans. I was always in the kitchen looking for a "little loaf." They had berries in the yard, perhaps raspberries. I used to pick them for lunch. We had cream of wheat for breakfast one day, and the Doctor asked me if I knew what that was. I had had it before, so I knew.

One time Joe and I were visiting Aunt Mary for a few days. She went to the store and while she was gone, I had a nose bleed. Not having a handkerchief, I used one of her small towels for a handkerchief. When she came home I held up the bloodstained towel and burst into tears. I nearly gave her a heart attack. She did not mind a bit that I had used her towel. I guess she was relieved that I had not cut myself.

By this time Ma had two of us in high school in the city and worked there herself, so sold in Auburn and bought Walcott Street.

My grandmother had a colored framed picture in her "parlor." It looked like fire and smoke. She told us it was a picture of hell. When I was old enough to read the title - it was "Niagara Falls by Moonlight."

While on the farm, Ma once strained a big bowl of tomato juice for ketchup. We kids playing tipped it over on to the floor while she was at work. Must have been at least ten quarts. We could not salvage any of it. Just mopped and mopped the floor till we had it up. I do not remember whether she scolded us, but I suppose she must have.

Ma used to buy what she called "edge bone" - I think it is what the butcher calls the H bone, part of the leg. It would hang in the attic in Auburn, frozen stiff. We would take a small hatchet and hack off pieces. When the meat was finished, she would take the big saw and saw the bone in half for stew - a big kettle.

We had a big copper bottom wash boiler. It fitted across the top two burners of the stove. Every Monday morning it was brought up, three/fourths filled with soap and water, and the clothes put in till full. We had a stick - a "clothes stick" like the cut-off handle of a broom, rounded at each end. That was used to stir the clothes as they boiled in the wash boiler. Two wooden tubs (later were of tin) were put on a sort of table in the kitchen. One had a scrubbing board, corrugated tin, on which the clothes were scrubbed (later the scrubbing board was made of glass). The second tub had the rinsing water in it with a lump of blueing melted in it. The clothes were hung outside, freezing into forms in the winter, long underwear stiff, then brought into the house and dried around the stove. A clothes line usually hung around the kitchen. Some folks dried their wash in the attic in the cold weather. In the summer, some of the clothes were spread on the grass to "bleach." One place Ma worked, the woman made her stand over the clothes with a branch to chase the flies off.

We had neighbors, and the father worked on the railroad. The house they lived in belonged to the railroad. A big family of children. In the winter the water froze up the cracks in the kitchen floor. I often saw it - pieces of ice on the floor. Somehow they lived. We wore long black stockings to school. When there was a hole in the stocking, we put shoe polish on the skin so the hole would not show. Ma used to make six loaves of bread and a pan of biscuits a couple times a week. She had three big roasting pans. Three loaves in each of two, and the biscuits in the third. When we bought bread, it was three loaves for a quarter. Some one was visiting us and he gave me a quarter. We went to the store and got three loaves of bread for it.

We had a bath every Saturday night. One of the wash tubs was brought up from the cellar, and placed on the kitchen floor. I had a bath first - the girl - and the boys followed, adding a bucket of hot water occasionally. When we moved to the city, we had a regular bathroom with a tub!!

Ma used her fingers to cream butter and sugar for cake (also smoothed lard and flour with fingers for pie crust). One day I remarked that I would not eat any of that cake. And she would not give me any when it was done!

Ed was supposed to be "frail" as a child. He would sit in a chair and say, "Ma, I feel a draft." And Ma would go get a shawl to put around him. After Bill, he was her pet.

One day we had friends for supper and we were warned not to ask for seconds. While the guests were there Ed said, "See Ma, I did not ask for seconds."

Coming home from school we went through the Luther Stone cow pasture. The boys used to hang on the cows' tails and ride. One day Joe got up on the back of the cow and was thrown off. He said, "See me jump off!"

II - WOLCOTT STREET

I was thirteen when we moved to Worcester. Had appendicitis also that year. Was in the hospital three weeks.

Dan and I used to walk to high school down the tracks and through St. John's cemetery. I went home by trolley. Our hours were different for getting out. Used student tickets on the trolley - two for 5 cents. Sometimes I'd get a transfer and for 10 cents spend the rest of the afternoon at the movies, then use the transfer.

One day the kids (Ed, Ray and Joe) wanted to go to Poli's (vaudeville theatre), and Ma said to Bill, "Take them to the Nickelodeon and make them think it's Poli's." The Nickelodeon was a movie house for 5cents.

I used to clean the house every Saturday and make five pies. We had a china closet with drawers underneath (all built in) and the middle drawer was the pie drawer - one in each corner and one sitting in the middle. Some times on Sunday when I would have a boyfriend in, there would be no pie left!

For excitement we used to have couples in and make fudge, molasses taffy, and pop corn balls. Gather around the piano and sing. Not all at the same time -- the "taffy pull" was usually in the winter.

I used to lay out my breakfast at night for next morning and put a note on it, "This is my breakfast - don't eat it" for the guys who came in later. One night Ma wrote under it, "Eat it if you want to, Ray." I have the note in the book.

There was a boy my age who lived across the street. We used to sit on the front steps, my brothers also, till 9:00. At the stroke of 9:00, his Mother would open the door and call, and we'd all go in and he'd go home.

He would take me to Crystal Park to skate. He would leave me with a couple guys there to skate and at 9:00 he would find me and we'd go home. Again, through St. John's Cemetery and down the railroad tracks home.

My mother took me out of public high school in my second year and sent me to Sacred Heart Academy. That was in St. Anne's parish, across the street from where Aunt Bridget Collins lived. I went to her every day for lunch. Anna (Trainer) lived at home and helped her mother. (She was not married them.) I gave Anna $1 every Thursday (paid for my lunch!!).

I found out afterward that a couple of the girls in the public high school had gotten pregnant, and I am sure that is why Ma took me out and sent me to a Catholic school.

Margaret Ward and I were at a basketball game one night when I had an awful pain. She took me home and it was appendicitis.

With Joe and Ed and Ray going to St. John's High School and me at Normal and Ma going to work every day, she rented Walcott Street and we moved to the first floor in the Ward's house. Could all walk and save car fare. Then Aunt Mag sold the house and we had to get out We moved to 20 Providence Street, closer to up-town. We had six rooms and a bath, one flight up, for $20 a month! It was a big flat -- three bedrooms, big kitchen, dining room, living room and bath. The boys had the back bedroom, Ed and Joe. Bill and Ray had the middle bedroom. The back room in the winter sometimes had snow blown in on the bed -- we always slept with the window open!

One time I made orange marmalade there and it burned. Scorched so badly we could not use it!

We moved back to Walcott Street. The banana man used to come every Saturday. For 25 cents we got a whole bunch of bananas (10 to 20 bananas).

The soap man came once a week. We would save all our fat, put it in a tin. He would take the fat and fill the tin with soft soap - exchange.

A man (sort of a relative, Gussie Goggins) came a couple times a month with horse radish he made himself, a big wooden bucket. We'd buy 10 cents worth. One day a guy told Ray it was ice cream. He took a big spoon of it and nearly choked!

One of the Lelands, Johnny (Alice Leland's father), a bum sort of, used to come by to Ma, "Got 30 or 40 cents, Kate?" and she would give it to him. One morning he came in and she had gone to work. I got out of bed and ran downstairs, hair flying looking like a witch, and I said, "Johnny Leland, get out and don't ever come back." He never did, while I was home.

One night Henry Ward was with us. The door to the hall upstairs and the cellar door were side by side. Henry said, "Come on guys, this is my last match." He opened the door and fell into the cellar. We laughed and laughed, thought it a joke. Fortunately, he was not hurt.

Later we had gas put in and no need to clean lamps any more. Even later we had electric lights. They put the wires right through the gas pipes. We still had the coal stove for years.

Bobby Cairns used to come out from Holy Cross and start the fire for me some days. (More on him later.) Much later we got a gas stove.

Fred Leland had a Cadillac, one of the first motor cars. Uncle Henry Leland was the Cadillac builder in Detroit. The first car Fred had was entered by the back up a couple steps. Every Sunday morning we would polish the brass lamps and fixtures on it, and go for a ride. People would say, "Get a horse." We wore long tan coats (dusters) and veils over our hats. The car was all open. We had a flat every time we went out. Fred would take the tire off, put a patch on the hole, pump it up by hand, and we would be off again. Bill Leland, Uncle Henry's nephew, had a shop near us where he made crank shafts. He invented a machine which made the shaft in one movement. My brother Bill worked there while in high school and later.

When I went to dances, three times or so each week, Ma went with me. I would insist on staying for the last dance, and we always missed the last trolley home. We would walk. She would do the dishes we had left in the sink, and be up again to get the 7:00 trolley to go to work.

III - SCHOOL

The school room - called District #1 - was one room - 25 to 30 pupils - one teacher - seven grades. Lucia M. Field was our teacher. When Ray was little before school age, she let me bring him to school with me. He sat with me. The seats were double and the desk was double, with a partition in the center so each seat had its own space - for books, etc. Ray would color, cut out, look at books, and really stay put very well. When he was a real student, I told him if he did not know something to knock with his foot on the foot bar, and I would tell him. One day I did not hear him knock till I heard the teacher call out to him. He said, "My sister told me to do it and she would help me."

We had the job of janitors for the school. I suppose it paid us a dollar or so. In the winter we would be late starting the fire, of course. The stove was in the front of the room, and the stove pipe went back to the back of the room, where the chimney was. The thermometer hung back there. When we would see Miss Field coming, we would quick get the thermometer and hold it over the stove till it went way up. By the time Miss Field got in, it was hanging back where it belonged. She would complain it was cold. We thought we were fooling her.

We got our water from a house across the road. A couple boys would go to the well twice a day and fill the water bucket. A long handled dipper hung beside it and when we wanted a drink, we used the dipper - everyone. I think we probably poured what we did not drink back into the pail again. There was a towel hanging there also. If hands needed washing, wet them with the water from the dipper, and dry on the towel. One morning the boys went to the well for the water, but alas, the man who owned it had jumped in and drowned himself the night before. We had to get our water a few houses away.

One family who had several children in the school, owned a stable and they sure did smell. On a rainy day I did not have a coat going home for lunch, so Miss Field insisted I take a coat of one of the Cronin girls. It smelled to high heaven and as it had stopped raining, I took it off and folded it up and put it under a special tree, to bring back when I came back. After lunch I could not find it. It was not under that special tree. Miss Field asked me where the coat was and I said (same old story) that I forgot it. She made me stand on a chair, and she used a birch branch on my legs. She gave it to me! She said that was for telling a lie. The kids had been playing down there and found it.

We had a celebration every Memorial Day. Little plays, etc. I recited the same poem for years. I do not recall what it was.

We went to a picnic by the Congregational Church and each child was given a picture. It was the Good Shepherd with a lamb on His shoulder. When we got home Ma tore them up and threw them in the fire. Anything not Roman Catholic was no good. A girl in our school died, and the Catholic children could go to the house but not to the church.

When I first learned to read, I can remember well how happy I was when I recognized a word. It was "the." I went all over every page in the reader looking for "the."

The 8th and 9th grades were at Auburn Center in the town hall. One room, one teacher, Grace Henderson. Maybe 20 - 30 students. Came from all over town, not by bus but by two feet, or horse buggy.

Grace Henderson taught us how to push the cuticle back when drying the hands! We gave a play. I do not remember what, but I was the lead. I wore a blue velvet coat and a white fur muff and matching hat. I was so proud of it. (Borrowed from somewhere.) Mrs. Baker had done my hair and she had combed the curls the wrong way, but the hat hid them. I was valedictorian at graduation and I talked on "The struggle between France and England for the possession of America." Wow!

We had to take exams for the high school in Worcester. When the card came telling me I had passed, I thought I would fool Ma and when we met her at the train, I told her I had failed. Really was cruel as I think of it now. But I soon told her the truth.

IV - FATHER ED

I met Fr. Ed at Dr. Charlie's funeral. I was about twelve. He asked my mother to let me go to Clinton to see him sometime. Often Margaret Ward and I used to visit his parents, Aunt Anne and Uncle Michael. They gave us bags of candy and money. One day they gave me $10. We used to stop at Aunt Bridget's on the way home. I had the money under my garter on my stocking. Connie took us to the lake, and we had all kinds of rides in the park - great time. I felt for my $10 every little while. And it was still there. A lot of money in those days. My mother bought me, among other things, a new dress, very fancy, light blue with its own petticoat, also light blue.

Margaret and I went to Clinton to visit Fr. Ed. He was curate at St. John's. We went many times together, by trolley. Then I began to go alone. I never stayed over night while he was at St. John's. Then a new parish was made, Our Lady of the Rosary, and he became pastor. His first parish house was two made-over apartments in one of the mill houses. I stayed there many times. After the Rectory was built, he made a convent for the sisters out of his quarters and two more apartments. Presentation Sisters. There were two blood sisters, Berchmans and Columbine who had been born in Ireland. They were very fond of me. One time they dressed me as a nun. Fr. Ed and I always went in to them for a visit when I was out. They gave us cookies and a drink. His always was a beaten egg, all frothy in milk. I had milk. Sister Berchmans did the rose paintings I have and also the Sacred Heart in Amagansett.

When I would be in Clinton, Fr. Ed had me meet some of the folks. McLaughlins - several girls. He gave me money when we would go to the park. They would never let me spend it. When I gave it back to him, he insisted that I never let them pay.

He would have a little dinner for the workers - 6 or 8 or 10 - and he would have me "pour." It was there I learned "cream? sugar?" etc. I got an etiquette book and studied about table manners, napkins, silver, etc.

Some weekends he would have his sister Mary and Minnie Kieley with us and play cards.

Frequently a priest or two from nearby parishes would come in Saturday night. We would play cards. At 9 o'clock he would say, "Time for bed, Lottie," and off I would go.

He gave me everything I ever wanted. One day I said, "I wish I had a diamond ring." He reached into his drawer and took out a pair of cufflinks that had been Dr. Charlie's, with a diamond in each. He had them made into a twin diamond ring, which was lost with my engagement and wedding rings in Great Neck.

I used to get high marks in school, especially in civics, current events and news reports. He would read me the important things in the Sunday paper and discuss current events. I used to go out there at least two weekends a month.

He sent Ma money every month while I was in school, and he gave me money for everything that came up in school. I had only to write him and say this or that was coming up. He bought me clothes when I needed them or wanted extra. Everyone said he was spoiling me, but I do not think he did. I got much of my faith from him and his example. He is the first person who ever said he loved me. I did not think it possible that anyone could really love me. He expected the best from me and I tried to live up to that.

We used to take a couple trips to Boston every summer - Nantasket Beach - Plymouth - go by boat from Boston, have dinner, then home. One day going to Nantasket, I thought I was going to be sea sick. He had bought pears and gave me one. It cured me. Once in Plymouth I had blueberry pie for dessert. The waiter said, "a la mode?" Fr. Ed said, "Certainly." I did not know what I was getting. But it sure was good.

We used to go to the United States Hotel for dinner (noon) in Boston. We always sat at the same table - the waiter (a big black) knew him, and always made a fuss over us. The menu was yea-a-a long. Fr. Ed said I could have whatever I wanted. I was bewildered so he did the ordering.

One day I wore a new dress the Smith girls (sort of relatives who were dressmakers) had made for me. The skirt was so narrow and tight that I could hardly walk in it and keep up to Fr. Ed's steps. He was forever buying pieces of material, and the Smith girls would make my dresses.

He followed my school work always. One of the professors (science, I believe) - I even forgot his name. He and Fr. Ed had gone to high school, etc., together. I let him know who I was. He was always very good in marking my papers. One paper I did not turn in. I asked him if he had found my paper. He said, "Yes," and gave me an A on it. Some dope!!

Fr. Ed's housekeeper, Margaret McCaffrey, took two weeks off in the summer, and I kept house for him. Every morning I burned the toast. Not a pop-up toaster in those days. What else we had I forgot. One day I decided to wash (she had a washing machine). He did not like it and when he came in from Mass, he called one of the parishioners to finish it. He would not let me do it.

The one time I ever saw him cross -- I was getting a trolley home just after his Mass. He came in and the new housekeeper had not given me breakfast. He scolded her and warned her not to do it again. She was Annie King. She went to Worcester with him. We had a discussion over her once in Worcester - his sister Mary and Minnie Kieley. He ended the discussion. "Mary does not like Anne. Minnie does not like Anne. Lottie does not like Anne. But I like Anne."

Once I had done something - I do not know what - but Ma did not like it, and she went out to Fr. Ed's with me to report on me. After she had left for home, he said, "Why didn't you tell me?" I said, "I did not want you to scold me." He put his arms around me and said, "Have I ever scolded you?" He never had - everything I did was tops with him! He really loved me.

Aunt Anne and Uncle Michael had a trumpet vine on their porch in Worcester. (Uncle Michael was a blacksmith.) Fr. Ed took a piece of it and planted it on the grounds in Clinton.

When he had appendicitis and was in St. Vincent's Hospital, one of his Assistants called me and said afterwards I was the only one who took it calmly. I went to St. Vincent's every day after school, right at meal time and ate his meal for him. I do not recall what he ate, but I had all the goodies.

When I had been in a trolley accident and had broken ribs, he sent me a beautiful pink azalea. It froze in my bedroom - dead!

He took me to many Holy Cross football and baseball games. I would meet him at the gate and we would have supper afterward at the Bancroft Hotel and go out to Clinton on the trolley. I would come home next day. Pop always insisted he used to see me with Fr. Ed at the games. He was a big man - straight as an arrow. Handsome. Rarely wore an overcoat, and when he did his parishioners used to know he was "going to New York."

He married Pop and me and came to Flushing many times to visit. Baptized all the children. He stayed at the Sanford Hotel in Main Street, Flushing, area and would walk to Broadway to us. He came to Great Neck after he was ill. Stayed with us while he made trips to the hospital.

The first of his illness - he and Msgr. Owens had been in Florida. His second finger on his right hand had a painful swelling. The doctors took it off. He could still say Mass because he had the first finger and thumb. Then they took lumps out of his groin. He stopped in Great Neck on his way to a hospital in Miami where he felt he might recover. I dressed the incisions every day. He came back from Miami not really better. Msgr. Owens cracked, "They are whittling you away, Ed." The doctors did not want him to know he had cancer. Warned us not to tell him.

One day while I was there, he was reading about a Monsignor in Boston who had died and some of his family were contesting his will. He insisted the priest had been ill a long time and must have known he was dying and should have made a real will. I felt I should tell him, in spite of the doctors' instructions. He was looking over his mail and found the reservation blank for the Colgate - Holy Cross football game. He used to have all of us there every year for that - Mary and Minnie, Joe and Mabel, and one other friend, then gave a dinner at the rectory afterwards. That was my chance. When he put the blank one side, I told him he would not be needing that. He was not surprised and asked how long. "Six weeks or six months." I began to cry and he put his arms around me and said, "The only one who had the courage to tell me." He called in his curate, Fr. Dillon, and told him to go to his doctor and get the whole story. He made a date with his confessor to come to him from Holy Cross. He called his lawyer and made a date with him. He had been in and out of bed for about a month. Could not say Mass. I sat with him nights, and Minnie Kieley sat days. The last week we had to have a nurse. Pop and Grandma Fitz took care of you all while I was in Worcester, about six weeks.

By this time he was spending more time in bed. Could not eat. Drank grapefruit juice mixed with grape juice. He had me go through his desk and throw away all his papers. He gave his watch to Joe. Sent his clothes to the monastery in Spencer. He gave the bankbooks he had for us to us. Joe and Mabel, Ed and Helen, and me. I took the money out and sent it to Pop. $2,000 in cash! What a dope. But he got it OK. Fr. Ed had that amount for each of us.

Uncle Ed brought Grandma Fitz up for the weekend after Memorial Day. They had hardly gotten back to New York when he died. They came back and Pop brought you all up to Walcott Street. You did not go to the funeral. Some one sat with you, but I do not know who. Grandma rode with Ed and Helen, and Minnie Kieley and her sister rode with us.

I used to be so proud walking with him. Straight as he was. From him I learned to keep my shoulders back! I barely reached his shoulders.

One day when we went to Boston, he had to go to a hospital to see Monsignor Owens, so we planned for me to meet him at a hotel where we visited frequently. I believe it was the Louraine. I sat in the lobby for hours and he never came. I went out and back to South Station. He had given me the return ticket, so when it came to be about 4 - 5, I decided to take the train we usually took home. At the platform I met him. He said he had gone back to the hotel and could not find me. The next day he came out to Walcott Street with a big basket of fruit. That was one summer that I was up there with you children. He died in 1937, but he is beside me every day.

One day Ma took Ed and Ray out with me to see him. He gave them each an old Spanish rifle. Ray said when he had the three wishes in the Church, he had wished for that.

Fr. Ed never had a car. When he wanted to go where the trolley would not take him, he hired a car. Monsignor Owens had a car. Sometimes I would go to Clinton and meet them, and Msgr. Owens would drive to Northampton to Fr. Ed's sister, Mary (O'Donnell). He always brought a picnic lunch, with soup in a thermos. Fr. Ed said, "This soup is excellent." So I drank it also. I thought it was awful, gone bad. I learned afterward (years later) it had sherry in it.

The summers I was in Worcester with you children, I used to go to Fr. Ed two or three nights a week, after supper and the little ones were in bed. In cool weather he would have a fire in the fireplace, and we would sit in front of it. I loved it. Several of the rooms in St. John's had fireplaces in them - an old house, but with central heating then. I think his study was the only one using a fireplace.

Annie King, his housekeeper, really hated me. One day a friend came to see Fr. Ed and she said (very nastily), "He's upstairs with his sweetheart." Fortunately the lady knew him and me, so she took it for what it was worth.

Before I was married, he took me to Boston and we bought close to $500 worth of linens - sheets, pillow cases, towels, table clothes, napkins, etc. My trousseau. He had said we could spend that amount.

During the depression years, I had only to mention to him that we had a bill (taxes, new furnace, etc.) and he would send a check. Pop used to say how wonderful it was the checks always came just when we needed them. I never told Pop I had written Fr. Ed, but he probably guessed it.

All the years I was away Fr. Ed sent me a few lines every day. On every one of his trips he brought something for each of us - Helen, Mabel and me. He always gave me first choice. When Fr. George died, he divided his treasures among us (silver, china, etc.). He was forever sending me gifts which had been given to him. He sent five pounds of peanut butter and a 5-pound box of candy frequently, when you were small.

So many material things he gave me, but most of all he gave me great love and faith so strong, and asked nothing in return.

In 1918 after the war began, I was out in Clinton after the New Year. He had just gotten a list of Holy Cross graduates in service and their addresses. He suggested I write to some of my old friends. I did just that, to three of them. Pop was the one I really wanted to hear from, and I did. I have all of his letters from then.

I would sometimes have a boy friend come to Clinton for dinner on Sunday, and we would go home together. Fr. Ed liked that. We had one boy for the weekend from Camp Devens (close to Clinton). Our Sunday dinner was always at 5:00. No lunch, for breakfast was late, after 11:30 Mass. No 12:00 and no afternoon Mass ever.

V - RAW

Bobby Cairns was a class mate of my brother Bill at night high school. They both worked days. Bill at Leland Gifford and Bobby at his father's public laundry. Bobby spent a great deal of time with us. When at Holy Cross, he frequently went to Walcott Street and made the fire in the kitchen stove. He took me out a lot. He went on to Holy Cross. Bill went to Massachusetts State College at Amhurst for one year only. Bobby became a Maryknoll priest and was stationed at Sancian Island - where St. Francis Xavier had worked and been martyred. When the rebels (I suppose Japs) came there, the Americans wanted Bobby to flee with them. He stayed with his little parish. The natives used bamboo baskets to tie their pigs in to take to market. And the Japs tied him in a pig basket and threw him into the ocean. R.I.P. That is one of the reasons I pray to St. Francis Xavier.

Bobby was great to try to earn a few dollars. He sold advertising on desk blotters, with the Holy Cross schedule in the center. He also ran dances. One of them - on Patriots' Day, April 19 - their senior year. I had met Joe Dineen through Bobby and I was his date for that dance. Pop danced with me a couple times. (He could not dance worth a cent.) Came graduation day and I attended. Joe Dineen asked me there if I would be Pop's date for the prom - that night. Joe's sister was his date. I was delighted. It was the IN thing to go to a Holy Cross senior prom. I hurried home and fixed a dress to wear. I sent my brother Ray back to the store where I had gotten a hat for the graduation, and returned the hat. (Many people did that - sometimes even a dress after one wearing.)

After the prom Pop took me home and wanted to see me the next night. I have no idea why I had to send him a note the next day (by Ray) to his hotel telling him he could call!

He left for New York the next day. I had one letter from him at 1914 Christmas time. I did not hear from him again till February 1918 when he answered the letter I had sent to the address I had gotten from the Holy Cross service record. His letters from that time tell the story.

VI - CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN

Peggy Coyle at Elliott Road - "The last one out is a rocking egg."

Clayton Morey at Buelle Lane. Fran had made apple jelly. I told her how good it was. He said, "If you stay, my mother will show you how to make it."

Sharlie always had a crowd of children in her car. One day they were at Elliott Road and Pop came out to me in the kitchen and said, "Is that one of ours?" It was not.

In the car one day (Sharlie driving) it began to rain. I said, "I hope Grandpa takes the clothes off the line." Dennis said, "He does not look like that kind of a guy."

Dennis walked up to Grandma Fitz one day and said, "Are you sick?" She asked him why and he said, "Well you're not working, just sitting."

Then there was the day Dennis and Phil painted the back fence. There was paint everywhere - cellar, front porch, telephone, and on the fence.

Bob Friedman always had Christmas Eve with us. One of the times we had two doll carriages, and were getting the tree, etc. ready. One of the girls, I think Kip, made a remark about the "dirty refugees" pawing the carriages over. The Jewish refugees were coming in by the droves. Forgetting that Bob Friedman was also Jewish! He passed it by.