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FACTS, HEARSAY AND MEMORIES - Page 8 My father taught winter school a few winters, and was then following his father in town affairs and became Town Clerk about 1876. I do not know the exact date when he became engaged in the undertaking business, buying from Charles Brownell who was also postmaster at Central Village and village storekeeper. With this business transaction my father bought from Charles Brownell also the carriage maker's shop, for the sign read Wheelwright, now home of Alton Wood, and also the blacksmith shop which stood where his garage now stands. I believe that the Undertaker's shop now occupied by Arnold Spooner was built by my father. Joseph Bowman, father of Luther Bowman, rented the blacksmith shop for many years. Lysander Howland, father of George Howland was the carriage maker. He also did work relative to the undertaking business. In those days the living and trimming of caskets was done by the individual undertaker, and my mother often went to the shop and assisted in such work. I know that one of Lysander's duties was to wash and dust the hearse. When my father sold out the business in 1892 there were new pieces of fine white cashmere and other supplies. I recall that my mother dyed some of the material a beautiful blue which combined with a plaid made one of my prettiest dresses in which I felt much dressed up. This feeling was in no way lessened by one of my older sisters says, "Have on your casket lining dress, today, have you?" In recent years when reading of the early life of the English professor and novelist, Mary Ellen Chase, I was surprised to find that she wrote of a similar experience when she in childhood was happy to receive boxes of precisely the same materials sent by an uncle engaged in a like business as my father. The business necessitated our possession of only black horses for many years, Jim and Fan have been referred to many times. Fan was considered a beautiful horse, but of rather too light a build for the hearse. I do not remember her but old Charles Luthan a sorrel stayed in our possession as long as he lived and was kept for family driving, and at an advanced age I recall showed a good bit of spirit and would not want to have stood patiently by for my slow moving of today in getting into a vehicle. Another of the byproducts of the business was used only by me. They were large, well bound catalogues of caskets, handles, name plates, pillows and such articles. When making a childish scrapbook I cut out numerous of these caskets and with no feeling that they were unsuitable they are pasted besides suspenders and men's long underwear cut from some catalogue. It was simply using the material at hand. I recall one casket that was small and white and from the bottom hung a small object which looked like an angel. This I thought beautiful and when showing the book I explained that it would be for a baby. The colored pictures then to be found were few and far between. I recall one of a grocer dressed in blue, pushing a flour barrel, and another of a curly haired child standing on a chair winding a tall clock. By way of ornamentation in form of color, small colored striped penny candy bags were cut so that a page might have two pink or four purple stripes around the edge. There were no tubes of paste, but it was made of flour and water for me by my busy mother, and all these choice prints were pasted in an outdated copy of Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts. The cutting and pasting must have occupied a child of four for many hours. I sometimes wonder what modern child psychologists would think of it. During the period while my father was engaged in the undertaking business he was filling various town offices besides being Town Clerk. He was a member of the School Committee for several years. One of the upstairs north bedrooms went by the name of "the committee room" until long after I was grown up, and it would slip out even in later life. This did not mean that it was used for committee meetings, but all school supplies were kept there. I recall a hand bell which remained and a few old readers plus two copies of Bradbury Eaton's arithmetics, one primary, and one advanced. Apparently school registers were not sent to the State Department as they were later. A large wooden box filled with them and seemingly useless afforded us much pleasure on rainy days. We became familiar with names of children from over town. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21
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