Concord Oral History Program
Interviewed by Renee Garrelick
We bought our strawberries, asparagus, milk and eggs from the family next door or across the street. The milk wasn't homogenized or pasteurized, it was warm from the recent milking, and we put it into our own milk cans. Eggs came right out of the nest. Somehow we were healthy even though the milk wasn't pasteurized.
The life was very simple, uncomplicated, and stable. There was a sense of security there by the permanence of people and values. Our neighborhood was called Hubbardville named for the Hubbards, who had lived on Sudbury Road where Whittemore Street is now. There weren't many houses in Hubbardville before 1925. There were only five houses on Sudbury Road between Grant Street and what is now Route 2. The long stretch between Grant Street and the first house was known as "The Willows", which was considered very scary. If you happened to be out after dark, you ran your fastest past that section, imagining all sorts of horrible dragons hiding behind the willow trees. I think that is why Ralph Hemenway always whistled all the way home every night, to make believe he wasn't really afraid.
We found when we were kids from the title of our old house that most of the land on Fairhaven Road was owned by Potters and Wheelers. Of course, Potter Street is named for the Potters.
My grandfather, Timothy Goulding, bought a house, barn, and three acres of land at the corner of Sudbury Road and Fairhaven Road in 1869 for $1100. And the next year, my father was born in that house. My mother came there as a bride and lived there until she died in 1966 at age 89. All of us were born there, too.
Mother was a nurse who used to assist Dr. Titcomb when he delivered babies at home. She also etherized the patients when he was taking out their appendix on a scrubbed kitchen table.
We had our own Fairhaven Hill. We didn't realize it then but we were fortunate that the Henry Thompsons and the Charles Francis Adams family allowed us free reign of their woods which covered a hugh area. I don't believe we ever did any damage to the environment in those days, we didn't even pick the lady slippers that we admired. We did pick blueberries when they ripened, walked to Fairhaven Bay, climbed Thompson's Cliff, cut our annual Christmas tree, and we walked to the Cove at Walden Pond to swim where it is now forbidden. Best of all we coasted and tobogganed down Adams's two hills to the river below that was usually frozen along the edges. Mr. Adams even loaned us skiis and toboggans but we all had our own Flexible Flyer sleds. It helped to be friends of the Adams's caretaker's daughter too.
The Fairhaven Hill and woods were extremely important to us in our youth. We spent lots of time there sometimes just walking around and stopping for a drink from the cold spring.
I remember Kathryn Adams riding past our house in her pony cart. Then later we were excited to watch her wedding party when she married Harry Morgan of New York City, J. Pierpont Morgan's son. What a thrill!
We always seemed to know what to do. We organized our own lives as there were no little league or things like that. After the winter snow melted, we played marbles, jump rope, hopscotch, and jack stone. We had neighborhood baseball games, boys and girls playing together in the open fields. No discrimination against girls in those days. When it began to get dark, we played ally ally over, hide and seek, and other games until we were called home and fell exhausted into bed. Mother had a policeman's whistle to summon us and no alibis were accepted. Everybody could hear that from afar.
In strawberry season we all picked strawberries for the local neighborhood farmers at 24 a box. I never liked doing it but the whole gang was there so I went along. I was one of the slowest pickers and got the lowest pay. It was a great honor to be promoted to bunching asparagus in the shed with the older women. I could sit down there.
All the boys started cutting asparagus at 5:30 in the morning before school and had lots of fun. My brother also went trapping before school for muskrat and skunk. He had a few altercations with skunks for which we all suffered.
After school was closed for the summer, we did the usual things but our big treat was to ride the train to Boston, then take the boat to Nantasket Beach, swim there and eat the lunch we brought, ride all the attractions in the amusement park, and come home by boat and train the same day. That was our very big excitement in those days.
Mother took us quite often to Boston on the train. We spent quite a bit of time there. The stores in Concord were rather limited in scope. We always walked up to Jordans from North Station and back. We usually ate at one of the Gintner restaurants. We as children thought they were very swanky. My favorite food was chicken croquettes with cream sauce. The automat was a great favorite too. You put in a nickel and out popped something delicious.
In Concord we rode the streetcars a lot. We went to Lexington Park regularly and up to Maynard. My father always took us to Boston to the Barnum & Bailey circus. It was always in a tent. Of course, we always went to the smaller version at the cattle show here in Concord. I will never forget the first time I saw the snake charmer in the snakepit sideshow. I had nightmares for several nights, and I never went back to see her again.
My mother and father were great baseball enthusiasts and took us to all the games in the surrounding towns. Concord had a great team and was in a league. We whipped up the same kind of enthusiasm then as we do now for the Red Sox.
In the fall, we walked to the Peter Bulkeley school which then only had eight rooms. The school was about a mile away from our house. We walked each way and came home for lunch except on stormy days when we ate our lunch in the dark basement of the building. The barges were only for those that lived in the far reaches such as Nine Acre Corner.
We had a principal, Miss Helen Legate, at the Peter Bulkeley who was a firm disciplinarian. She used to rap hands periodically on the boys who misbehaved. She was hired when my class was leaving the eighth grade, and all of us girls got into a big huddle and gave a big cheer just like one for a football hero. I don't think the boys joined in on that one; they remembered the rapped hands.
I particularly remember Armistice Day in 1918. We all went out on Emerson playground and celebrated it with utter abandon. I used to go with my father when he was raising money selling liberty bonds. But most of us were too young to be affected by the war.
We went to the old high school which is now torn down where the parking lot for the library is on Stow Street. We had a series of excellent teachers all through school. All maiden ladies who dedicated their lives to teaching us until they retired. It was against the law to hire married teachers until I was out of high school.
We always wore long underwear in the winter down to the wrists and ankles. Most of the houses had coal or wood stoves. We would jump out of bed in a freezing cold room, race down to one of the fires downstairs, get dressed, eat quickly and go outside in the cold to school or play. We were living before furnaces, telephones, automobiles, or electricity were in general use.
One of my fondest memories is when my father gathered our hay from our field once a year to put in the haymow to feed the horse. We all helped pitch the hay onto the hay wagon and then we were lifted up on top to ride down to Belknap Street where the horse was kept. That was one of the highlights of my summer vacation.
Billy Cross had a dry goods store where the Mary Curtis Shop is now. He was also the town clerk and conducted his town clerk duties from his store. If you asked him for something he didn't have on hand, he would say "they don't make it any more." Marriage licenses and birth certificates were dispensed between sales of dry goods over the counter.
We went to the silent movies every Saturday afternoon or evening depending on our age. There was always a serial such as Perils of Pauline and then the regular movie. There was always a piano player there at the Veteran's Building to entertain us before and after the movie.
Peddlers came with everything imaginable in their heavy carts. They walked miles going from town to town selling ginghams, calico, pins, and much more. The gypsies came annually and frightened everyone. We were told they would try to steal us when we were children. Some mothers hid their children under the bed when they were around. They really just wanted to make money telling fortunes and selling baskets. The tramps came all the time and stayed at the back steps for my grandmother and mother. They loved the homemade bread especially.
I had two sets of friends, one in the neighborhood and one in school. Strangely enough my school friends have all moved away but the neighborhood friends have stayed nearby. The neighborhood and my neighborhood friends have meant a great deal to me over the years. They were a fine base from which to build a life. Life was completely unsophisticated but satisfying.