|
 |
 |
|
|
FACTS, HEARSAY AND MEMORIES - Page 10 I remember one week when my father returned he came in saying that he was sick. My mother looking at him said, "I guess you are, you have measles." He had enough to give the entire family, except my mother who had every disease in childhood including smallpox. A dressmaker at our sewing machine when my father came in left the room at my mother's diagnosis, but she too had them. My Aunt Lib gave much assistance and also Aunt Mary Gifford during the siege. This must have been the year before Alice and Edward went away as I know they were victims of the measles. They, with Hattie, or Harriet as it became more customary to call her, were really quite ill. Harriet was especially so, and a doctor from New Bedford was called out to consult with Dr. Parris. She had pneumonia which was very serious in those days. My worst trouble was earache. I recall my mother holding me on her lap with my head on a pillow and a big fat raisin heated in my ear. I believe at this time a passenger train ran from Fall River to New Bedford and stopped at the old Watuppa Station or possibly Hemlock. If my father was detained late on Friday he came down there Saturday morning. I remember on bitterly cold morning Alice insisted that she would drive up to the Narrows, as people usually said, instead of Edward. She wanted particularly to get into the edge of Fall River to buy stick pins which no young girl felt adequately dressed without. If you had a variety so much the better. They were pins about two inches or so long with a fancy head. They might be jabbed into a bow at neck or belt. Mother expressed disapproval, but no sufficiently strong to frustrate Alice in her desire for new stick pins. She had her own money as she was enterprising enough to keep her own flock of hens. Mother, as an added protection, had hot soap stones wrapped for her feet and pinned a heavy shawl over her coat. It was a long ride over the frozen roads, rutted from previous mud. The horse, James Henry, was so resolute, Mother always said, and not having much exercise, when he reached the wide sweep of wind at the Narrows broke into high speed, Alice lost her hat and shawl blew over her head. She clung to the reins and James Henry calmed down. I presume Alice got her stick pins. She had to relate enough to account for the loss of her hat, but someone later who knew our horse told Father of the flying shawl and the tenacity with which she held the reins. Her resoluteness was on a par with James Henry's as in later years many refractory boys could testify. In recent years several have said to me, "She was hard, but always fair." I started school in the spring after I was five in November. In those days spring was considered the best time for starting, as a small child could get in two terms of schooling before the bad weather came. The school where we started was on the Adamsville Road on the left had side just below Sodom Road. All the town schools were numbered and this was No. 9. I think I have somewhere the numbers for each school. There were two-roomed building at the Point, farther down than the present one, and one on Main Road in the "Cornell Town" district. The one on lower Drift Road, often spoken as of Tripp's Wharf, and one about where Kirby Road entered Drift Road. There was one on the Cross Road between the old and new road in Acoaxet, and one on Sodom Road. The So. Westport school was just down Horseneck Road. Horseneck School was just above Aiken's Corner. Also on the east side of the river there was one on Pine Hill Road. On Main Road was a school called Kirby's Corner near Charlotte White Road and another at Brownell's Corner. There were two buildings at the Head, the one now in very poor condition called Alumni Hall, and the little Primary School across the river. The Mouse Mill School stood near when the Alice A. Macomber School now stands. There was one on Sanford Road, now Legion Hall, and another at No. Westport. A two room school at Westport Factory was the Union School and supported by both Westport and Dartmouth. As nearly as I can tell my family were connected with the schools in at least one way, and sometimes in two or three, either as Committee, pupil or teacher continuously for seventy years. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
 |
|
 |
Brought to you by www.leesmarket.com Bicentennial
Interviews |
