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The very first thing I remember of my childhood and growing up days is “believe it or not, being in church - not in the auditorium - in the vestibule with a number of people standing around, I was in my father’s arms and I started to cry at the top of my voice. He tried to quiet me but it didn’t work - I kept screeching so he took me outside, probably took me home - that part I don’t remember - nor where my mother and sister were - they must have been there too.
Anything before that I have no memory of, I know my mother was quite sick from some time after I was born and I was taken to the home of “Aunt” Edi Ellis (no relation) who cared for me until my mother was able to get around again. I have no recollection of Aunt Edie except hearing her name. My mother never had any more children, my sister (Nellie) was about four years old when I was born.
We always had a good home and plenty to eat - my mother was a good cook. Our home was comfortable - warm in winter - except up stairs - no heat up there. We used to have bed warmers in the winter - either a nice big hot rock or a stick of hard wood - these were heated in the oven and wrapped in old towels of course before morning they were cold. I never though of our home as being very large but it must have been - we had five bedrooms on the second floor, also a large closet and hallway at the top of the front stairs. Also had a back stairway.
On the first floor there was a very large kitchen, which we really lived in mostly. With a large dining table and chairs, also a rocking chair - couch & my mother kept her sewing machine there too and of course the cook stove with the big ‘wood box behind it,’ as I grew older it was my job to keep that wood box filled. Which makes me think of my big St. Bernard dog “Dewey” that I loved. I had a harness for him which my father made and shafts on my sled so I could hitch the dog to the sled and we’d make trips all round the house, from the wood shed to the side door and fill the wood box that way. I used to have so much fun with that dog, he would pull me around - one day he ran away with me on the sled. My father and the hired man used to go in the woods in the winter and cut trees for fire wood during the summer months. The dog knew where he was so one day he just took off with me on the sled and he didn’t stop until he got to where my father was - with me still on the sled.
Back to the house - our sitting room (today it would be called the living room) was the whole width of the house, had a large bay window in one end which my mother always had filled with all sorts of house plants, I often think of that window, and how pretty it always looked. The organ was in that room too on which I took music lessons - 50cts for a half hour. In the winter time there was a stove put up in there too, that’s my sister & I used to hang up our stocking X’mas eve and creep down stairs early in the cold to see what Santa had left for us.
Off that room was another smaller room - the parlor where all the best furniture was kept & all the prettiest hooked rugs. Everyone in those days used cotton rugs which were stretched tight and tacked down on all four sides, then the hand hooked rugs were put over it - here & there, my mother always hooked her own rugs.
There also was a long hall way leading from the sitting room to the front door & the front stairway went up from there.
Off from the kitchen there was a rather long narrow room where the sink was - dishes washed etc. off of that was a pantry where the milk & cream, butter churn were kept, there was also a store room where the flour - sugar, molasses, etc. were kept.
From this room there was a short stair way down to a sort of shed, my mother had her wash tubs there, and the oats for the horse & corn and food for the hens, pig.
Off that was a real wood shed where the wood was piled up - then the barn where the carriages were kept - also the sleigh, harnesses, etc. And up over head the hay mow where the winter’s supply of hay was stowed away. The old cat used to hide her kittens up there and my father was the only one she would let go up to see them. She would stand at the top of the ladder and yowl & spit if any one else wanted to go up to see them. Then the last building was the shed where we kept the cows and horse and oxen when we had them to haul out the wood in winter. And last but not least we had a long enclosed sort of corridor which ran from the wood shed back of the hen house and ended up as the toilet or “back house” as it was commonly called. So we didn’t have to go outside as most people did, was great in the winter.
We had a nice yard too, front and back. My mother always had a nice flower garden and we always had a hammock hung between two trees. My sister and I used to get in - one on each end and kick each other until we got mad and one would start to cry and Mama would make us both go in the house.
One thing I remember - we had a large hogs head (large barrel) out by the side door of the shed where the washing was done, it was usually full of rain water which was used for washing the clothes - the water was soft they said. One day I was out in the back yard with my dog when the old black cow appeared, she didn’t like the dog so she put her head down and took after him - he of course ran to me for protection, so I headed for the back door of the shed which was hooked on the inside, so I tried to crawl in back of the hogs head & the dog tried to get in too, so I started yelling for help & my mother heard me & opened the door. I don’t think the cow would have hurt me but she sure had it in for the dog.
And Monday was always wash day. We had plenty of nice clear cold water in the well, but to get hot water, it had to be heated in pails on the stove in the kitchen & every thing was washed by hand with the help of a scrub board - very hard on the hands, especially in cold weather. Everything was wrung by hand, but eventually we had a wringer which would be fastened to the side of the tub, then the clothes, one piece at a time would be stuck in between the rollers then turn the crank and the clothes would come out fairly dry.
In winter it was pretty rough getting the clothes hung out doors on the lines - some times they would freeze before they were hung up. The long underwear would be frozen so stiff it would stand alone when it was taken in. But we got along, everyone had the same problems.
When I was about 12 years old maybe a little older, my uncle died - my fathers only sister was his send wife, Frances [Frances F. Corning] was her name - we always called her Auntie. His name was Jacob Allen - had a long white beard & I used to sit on his lap and play with it. Used to follow him around all the time - he taught me to whistle. (This was when I was quite young.) Also used to ride around the place with him in the dagon cart. A dagon is just one ox (2 is called a yoke of oxen), but some people just used one with a two-wheeled cart with shafts like a horse & carriage somewhat, and I thought it was great.
Which brings me to the case of the missing under pants. One day I went in the house after being out around all day, my pants were missing, my mother questioned me but couldn’t get any thing out of me, they hunted everywhere, but - no pants. I used to wet my pants quite often when I was young so they decided that I must have taken them off to dry out so it remained a mystery for about a year, when one day Uncle Jacob was raking out under the hedge the next spring when along with odds & ends he raked out the missing pants. I remember a bib my aunt made for me one time and on it she had embroidered “wet or dry?” She also used to make rag dolls for me and weave real hair on their heads. And I still have and use a silver thimble he got for me. He had two grand daughters but never saw them very often, they lived in Bridgeport, Conn., Charlotte and Bessie Munroe.
Anyway after Uncle Jacob died [died 6 December 1903] my aunt was alone and couldn’t afford to keep the place or take care of it so my father bought it and we moved across the street from Yarmouth Co. to Digby Co. - the road was the county line.
This house looked much larger than our old one (which we rented to a family named Crosby). Mrs. Crosby’s mother lived with them - she was the one who always had a mouth full of pins when she sewed. I never could understand why she didn’t choke on them, but they didn’t bother her a bit.
We had five rooms on the first floor and three bedrooms & large open chamber it was called, was large enough for two more rooms but had never been finished. But we did have a pump in the kitchen so we didn’t have to carry water in from the well. I think I always liked the old house better although we had a beautiful front lawn, terraced up and a long walk up the middle & two sets of steps & a large weeping willow tree on one side. I used to spend hours & hours cutting the grass & clipping along the edges of that lawn.
My aunt came over to Lynn, Mass. and spent the winter with a friend then went back home and lived with us - after a year or so she married again, a widower, retired sea Capt. By the name of James Rose, so she had a pretty good life but he died before she did and she went back and stayed with my mother, who was a widow too at that time.
When she married Capt. Rose [James] they lived about three or four miles from Beaver River, a small village called Darlings Lake, and there really was a beautiful lake, with a small island in the middle of it. We often went down there and in the winter took our skates. My sister was a good skater, but she always insisted on skating around that island and I was always so afraid she would go through the ice and no one would know what happened to her, but she always showed up safe & sound. I must have been chicken because I would never venture out so far from shore. She was much more of a dare devil than I was - I was always scared of water. Also I got dumped into the Beaver River Lake one day. There was one part of the lake that never froze - where it joined the salt water and went under a bridge and out to the ocean and we kids always kept away from that part. But one day some of the boys had an ice boat on the Lake and one fellow asked me to go for a ride on it with him so I climbed in and sat down, it was fun and everything was great until he said, “See that hole over there?” and I said, “yes” and he said, “We’re going right into it” and we sure did. He really didn’t mean to go into the hole but got too close. Luckily the water wasn’t too deep, I could stand up & some one pulled me out, but was I wet and cold and mad.
Don’t know if all this is too interesting, perhaps my recollections of some of our neighbors would be more so.
When we live in our first home, which burned later, don’t know if the same family was living there at that time or not. Anyway our next door neighbor was quite close, just a fence between us when we moved into the other house he was across the street from us. Anyway he was not a good neighbor never had a word to say to anyone, not a pleasant word anyway, except to my uncle Jacob, he used to talk to him now and then.
He was a retired sea captain as were several of the men in Beaver River at that time. His wife was a semi-invalid; I never did know what her trouble was. They had 3 sons, two of them retired sea Capts. Too, the other was a Baptist missionary in India, and six daughters. Clara, the oldest, was a hunchback, but that didn’t stop her. She was rather short and married a small man, Hubert Cossar, he worked for my father [David William Corning] a good part of the time. They had two children, Bertha and Ralph. Mr. Cossar couldn’t’ pronounce his L’s. If he wanted to say “black and cloudy” it came out brack and crowdy. Anyway they got along very well; the rest of her family more or less ignored her unless they wanted her to help them in some way. One of her sisters, Alice, used to take her boyfriend and spend a good many evenings there. He used to go around with his mouth open and one night he walked out in the kitchen and right down a trap door that was open. Mr. Cossar used to tell my father how stupid he was, said he used to catch flies in his mouth.
The second girl was Sarah (Sadie). In the course of her life I think she had 5 husbands. First was a young sea captain [Byron Depew married in 1895] lost at sea, then another one died, one she divorced, one I don’t know what happened to, last I knew she had married a fisherman name Frost. Then there was Elizabeth (Libby) she married Harry Bain who was raised in Beaver River, then came to Boston and learned to be a carpenter. They had a big wedding and I was flower girl - the other one was her niece Bertha, she was a vision in pink and I was in blue, even had blue stockings and my shoes were covered with blue something - think my aunt fixed them up. And the bride gave us a scolding because we didn’t drop enough rose petals or whatever it was. We were too busy watching other things, I guess. Alice was next, she married the fly catcher. Leila was next, she was engaged to a struggling young Baptist minister still in school but she shook him for a young Dr. who rented an office in their home. The house was built by a Dr. and there was an extra side room and entrance which he used, so that’s what was let to the young Dr. He was engaged to be married when he came there but it wasn’t long before Leila got him. So they married and spent their lives in Port Maitland where your grandfather grew up. The youngest girl was Lalia - she was four years older than my sister who was four years older than me so to me she was quite grown up. She took piano lessons and I used to stand in the street and listen when she played. When she was older she was organist in the church.
I remember one Sunday at that time - we had a church service every Sunday, but it wasn’t at the same time every Sunday. The minister had three churches one in Port Maitland - that’s where the parsonage was - one in Beaver River and one in Cedar Lake, a community that was about 2 or 3 miles in away from the ocean, very nice quiet place. So the minister preached in there every Sunday afternoon and one morning he would preach in Port Maitland and Beaver River in the evening, 7 p. m. - the next week it would be the other way round. One Sunday my parents forgot when the service was to be so they sent me over to ask Lalia who was organist at that time. Well I was all dressed in my best and set on going to church, I went over and asked & she said the service would be in the evening, so what did I do? I went home and told my parents that the service was in the morning and we all got ready and started for church, then we met a man who asked us where we were going, then told us it was to be an evening service, so back home we went. I don’t remember the outcome, where I was punished or not.
Some thing else I did that upset my mother greatly, Lalia had a nice large doll carriage. She wasn’t playing with dolls then but the carriage was kept in their front hallway, it was a large hall with a big stairway going up and I had often seen that carriage just sitting there, so one day I went in and took it out, put my doll in it and was walking it up and down the road when my mother saw me. I don’t remember how I got it out, but I do remember having to take it back and my mother explaining. She was very upset. What a kid I must have been.
Lalia married a fellow named Eddie Peters, he used to sell smoked fish and every one teased her about it. The father of all these girls was named Benjamin Gullison (Capt.). I supposed he, as a Capt. Was so used to giving orders he expected everyone to agree with him and do as he said, consequently he had very few friends. The only person he ever had anything to do with was my Uncle Jacob, used to talk to him now and then. He always went to church, carried a cane & in winter wore a big fur coat, some thing that no one else ever could afford. Always sat up front so every one would see him I guess. He also had a big white horse named “Jumbo,” and a brother who had a small farm - named was Burpee [real name John Burpee Gullison son of Samuel]. Don’t remember his wife’s name but they had an adopted daughter named Emma - a red head with a temper, married a fellow named John Bethune who was so slow moving - never seemed to know what to do next unless Emma told him, but she always said John was foxy! They had two daughters, Joyce and Verona.
Speaking of Capt. Benjamin - I remember something my sister and I did one Halloween night. We had a huge pumpkin (home grown) all hollowed out with a horrible face on it, but we didn’t know what to do with it, my sister said lets go over and scare Capt. Gullison, at first I said, “no, we better not” but we went over any way, no one was around, the house was dark my sister said “I bet he’s in the kitchen” so we crept around to the side of the house and looked in the kitchen window and sure enough there he was sound asleep - glasses up on his head, feet in the oven, dead to the world in his rocking chair. We stuck the pumpkin up to the window but nothing happened so Nellie (sister) said scratch on the window make a noise. So I scratched on the window and he sure came to life - took one look at the window and made for the front door. We ran - my sister got over the fence with the pumpkin but I didn’t quite make it and was straddling the fence so I just sat there. Boy was he mad. He swore he’d shoot us if he’d had his gun, in fact he said he’d put a bullet in our ass, then he just went in and slammed the door. But he never knew who it was because he told Uncle Jacob a few days later how two boys nearly frightened him to death with a Jack O’ Lantern.
Well, so much for Capt. G. Our neighbors on the other side (not very close, the houses were far apart) were Mr. & Mrs. Horatio Perry, they had two sons - George and Arthur, both of whom were grown up and gone before I was very big. I remember seeing them, the older one George, settled in Montreal, a sea capt. I think the younger one lived around Boston somewhere, and Horatio worked in or near Boston, as did quite a few of the men whose families lived in Beaver River, they would usually be home a few weeks during the winter, so the women had to run things mostly alone.
Mrs. Horatio’s name was Iola “Lole,” she was usually called, maiden name Sanders. She had a mind of her own and let people know how she felt about any and everything. She wouldn’t go to church services or have any thing to do with the church because the two churches united. There was at one time 2 Baptist churches in B. R. one Free Baptist and a regular Baptist. I’m sure I never knew what the difference was between the two but the time came when the people couldn’t afford to keep two churches going - they really couldn’t keep one, so the people decided to unite and all go to the same church, and I guess because the regular Baptist was the largest & had a bell and also a basement for Sunday school etc., it was decided that would be the one and the other was eventually torn down. But Iola Perry was so mad about the whole thing, I don’t think she ever went in the church. She had a small house and just a yard - no extra land, but she did have a horse & carriage. Whenever she wanted to go any where she’d just hitch up the nag and go. Took me for a ride once I remember, to see a friend of hers back in the country. The lady gave me a dish of fresh strawberries and cream. And as they had no pasture or open field she always let the horse roam any where he liked, he was harmless and no one thought anything about him being loose all the time - he used to eat the grass that grew on the road sides and even on the side walks such as they were, but one day he got out as far as Capt. G’s place and was busy eating grass around his hedge when he came home, at the same time “Lole” came looking for her horse, so all the neighbors were entertained listening to them - he was doing most of the yelling, he told her if she was a man he’d kick her - you know what - she just stood there laughing at him, which didn’t help matters. She could be so aggravating at times.
There was another Perry family who lived on our street (road) too, a brother to Horatio, named Jesse. He also wasn’t home much so his wife ran things and she was just the one who could do it. Her names was May or Mary, everyone called her May Jess. She was a former school teacher, red hair and such a talker, but she was nice and took a great interest in the young people, the girls mostly. She played the piano, by ear. Could play almost anything after hearing it once. She always helped when the church had an Easter or X’mas concert - things like that. We kids always went to her home to practice the songs etc. We all liked her, she was always in a rush and looked as if her clothes were ready to come loose at any minute, but they never did. She had four children of her own, two boys and a pair of twin girls. One of them came over to Cambridge to train for a nurse and got pneumonia and died. And there was a third Perry brother, his name was Ainsley, called himself Capt. Don’t really know if he ever was a Capt. or not. His wife’s name was Maude, my Sunday school teacher for years. They had one son Stuart whom I disliked very much. He was always picking on kids who were younger and teasing the girls. Also chased me with a snake one day when we were going home from school. The snake was dead, but I didn’t know that and I ran until I fell down and he stood over me with that snake until some of the kids made him stop and told me it was dead. I can still remember how scared I was.
Getting back to Iola Perry, she had a married sister living not too far from her and their parents lived near too. This sister’s name was Harriet or Hattie (she was called) married to James Holmes (who also worked over here [United States] had three children, James (Jimmy), Iola, Marguerite, who was my age. We always went to school together. Youngest was Winnifred. Hattie never seemed or looked very happy, she looked as though doomsday was just around the corner. I think her marriage was not a happy one. She told my mother once that when she was married and came to Boston to live, the first night after they got here, her husband left her alone in their apartment (or whatever) and went upstairs to a party, so I guess they didn’t get off to a very good start.
The parents of these two also had 3 other children, a son Rex, he was grown up and gone long before my time. And there was a pair of twin girls, Pink & Pet they were called. I never knew what Pet’s real name was. She was grown up and married, lived over here in Medford. But I remember Pink, her real name was Villa. As I look back, I remember seeing her walk by the house now and then, very tall and thin, blond and she must have been pretty when she was young. When I first knew who she was, she must have been between 30-40 years old. When she was young, she had a boyfriend, so the story goes. He was a farm boy, lived in Cedar Lake with his parents, name was Dan Wetmore. She was the only girl he ever cared about and when he was older he asked her to marry him, but she said “No.” So I guess he kept on hoping she would change her mind, but she didn’t, so eventually he left the farm and came over to the States. I don’t know what he did, but apparently he did very well, used to go home to see his parents and of course saw Pink and still hoped she would change her mind and marry him, but she always said “No.”
But one summer she came over to Medford to visit her twin sister, he knew she was there, went to see her and again asked her to marry him. Surprise, this time she said “Yes.” So the wedding was planned to be at her sisters, the day came, everything was ready, the guests were there, the minister was there, and of course the bridegroom. The sister wondered why she didn’t appear and went upstairs to see what was keeping her and found that Pink had gone. She had slipped out, gotten into Boston someway and taken the boat to Yarmouth, N. S. and home.
So, of course, everyone figured that was the end of that romance. But there was a little more; a few years later, when she again came over to visit again, he found out she was there so went to see her and once again asked her to marry him, and once again, she said, “Yes.” So everything was again planned as before, but this time it was the groom who didn’t show up. People said he went West, as far as I know he never came back. She went back to Beaver River and I guess lived the rest of her life there. A real honest to goodness old maid. Just what I had always thought an old maid looked like. Probably that’s what she had always wanted to be.
And then there was Cyrus Durkee (he was a butcher) and his son Charlie. They never sold their beef & pork etc. around Beaver River which I think was just as well because in those days sanitary conditions were not good - no refrigeration of any kind & I think his place wasn’t as clean as it should have been. Anyway, he always took his beef, etc. to Yarmouth - the nearest town, and sold it to a man named Allen, who had a pretty good business going.
Cyrus was a great one for attending the weekly prayer services every Wednesday night. One winter he and wife came over to Boston to visit, expected to stay nearly all winter, but cut the visit short and went home. At that time the minister always held meetings every night for about three months. So one night soon after the meetings started, Cyrus appeared. He got up and told about what pleasant times he & his wife were enjoying in Boston but the Lord kept telling him he should go home, so he was home and he knew the Lord wanted him at home to attend the meetings and tell everyone how much the good Lord had done for him. My father happened to walk home with him that night and Cyrus said he was having such a good time in Boston he wanted to stay longer, but Charlie (son) was having a little trouble with Mr. Allen, so he thought he better come home and get things straightened out.
After those revival meetings were over, came the Baptism, down in the cold river at the shore, and everyone who got dunked ended up with a nice cold. My Sister was Baptized I remember and a boy whose name was also Corning. When they joined the church, the minister said he was so glad to welcome Brother and Sister coming into the church fellowship.
Charlie Durkee married a woman named May Pyne - her father had a small fishing boat, called himself Capt. Pyne. They finally moved to Beaver River from up the coast nearer Digby, some small fishing village. He had a son Ed who used to get drunk & naturally wasn’t considered a very nice person. Also had a daughter named Annie who always lived with her sister May Durkee and did all the hard work, we always felt sorry for her. But every winter her sister would have a birthday party for her, sent out invitations which said “you presents are requested” etc. always the same. Which brings to mind another Annie, Wetmore was her last name. Was my sister’s age [Nellie was born 2 September 1886]. Her father was an epileptic, I’m not quite sure of the spelling, but he had fits as they were called, think he died in one, was found lying in a field somewhere. But I’m getting ahead of myself, he was alive when all this happened.
There was a small hill just beyond the school and at the bottom of the hill was a large rock shaped something like an armchair, after lunch all the girls used to run down the hill to see who could reach the rock first, then go back up and run down again. Sounds sort of silly now, but we thought it was fun. One day when Annie was running she had a pain in her side and couldn’t run anymore so the teacher let her go home and that was the last time she ran or did anything for years. The Dr. never knew what was wrong with her, gave her pills and medicine, etc., but she went to bed and stayed for weeks.
After a time she got up once in awhile and would sit in a rocking chair by the window. It went on like that for years. The Dr. didn’t know what was wrong & of course there was no hospital at that time. One summer, he had her living in a tent in the backyard, thought she might have T. B. but she just continued the same. My sister and some other girls used to go to visit her but gradually they gave up and Nellie was the only one who went. I used to go sometimes, but I didn’t like to because they laughed at me, I didn’t talk very plain when I was little. Her father died and her mother waited on her continually until I guess she just wore herself out and she died. So Annie was in a fix. She had a sister living near but she had a large family, lived on a farm and couldn’t do much for her. Also had a married sister living around Boston, she went home when the mother died but couldn’t stay there to do for Annie so Annie had to get up and stir her stumps, which I think she could have done years before. Anyway her sister got her up out of bed, got her some clothes and brought her home with her. My sister heard from her once, she was alright, had learned to be a milliner & was making hats, actually working and supporting herself. And her poor mother just wore herself out going for her all those years.
Another girl I remember as a young girl, name was Elsie Piper, she lived about 2 miles in away from the ocean, guess it was really the beginning of Cedar Lake. She had a nice home with her three aunts, her mother’s sisters. Her mother and father had both died - she had a brother grown up and lived in New York, name was Revel Piper, maybe he supported her I don’t know, but I remember she always had a little more than the rest of us, so perhaps he did. Her oldest aunt did have some money, she was a widow, one aunt was Bessie Durkee and the youngest Lena. They had a very pretty place. Their father had run a saw mill and it was still there on a small river & a bridge over the river. The house set back from the road and they always had big trees and all kinds of flowers very picturesque. I don’t know where Elsie went to school when she was small, maybe her aunts taught her at home, but when she was older she had a bicycle and rode it out as far as our house, leave it on our porch and walk to school with me and the other girls. How I envied her that bicycle, and wished I could have one, but I never did - they cost too much. But I lived without one. That’s about all I know about her, think she became a school teacher & later got married. But I never forgot that bicycle and how I always hope that some day I would have one. But I never got one.
Our nearest neighbors on the other side of us had the same name, “Corning.” I never saw the man, he was another sea Capt. And he died at sea before my time, his name was Capt. Theophilie [sic] Corning. But the family lived there, apparently had plenty to live on. These old Capts. sure made money in those days.
The wife’s name was Mary [Raymond, daughter of Reuben], I don’t have much recollection of her - she always seemed to stay at home, but there were five children, 3 girls and 2 boys. The oldest girl was Teresa (Tessie) everyone called her. She was very pretty and had a nice singing voice but very seldom would sing in public because her face was pock marked. She had smallpox in China when she was very young, going around the world in those big sailing ships. But she married George Crosby who everyone said was a crook, always had plenty of money, spent a lot of time in New York also had squinty eyes and red curly hair. Also had the first automobile in Beaver River. They had a daughter Doris who looked like her father and a son Theo who looked very much like his mother. Tessie later divorced George and married a fellow named Arthur Perry, who had been in love with her for a long time. They went out to British Columbia to live and several years later she drowned while swimming in a lake [Actually, Tessie drowned 24 July 1927 while swimming in English Bay, Vancouver, British Columbia]. The second girl was Blanche - she also could sing but not as well as her sister. She married a man who grew up down there last name was Beveridge, I can’t think of his first name. They later lived in Brooklyn, N. Y.
Raymond was the oldest boy, large & stout but smart. I remember he was the only pupil in the 12th grade in school. He did well but I don’t know where he lived later on nor what he did. Harry was the younger boy; he became an engineer on ships that sailed out of New York. He married a Beaver River girl and in exactly 9 mos. They had a baby. He couldn’t figure how that ever happened. Anyway every time he came home she became pregnant, don’t know how many children they had. The last I heard of her she was in a mental institution of some kind. Her name was Pearl Westcott, very prim, an old maid if you ever saw one.
And then there was Dot, her name was Dorothea Theodosia, but everyone called her Dot. She wasn’t quite bright but nearsighted, squinty eyes, in later years she had glasses, but not when she was young, was also plump and ding-toed, waddled like a duck. She had a cow, a few hens and a pony & carriage. When she was 16 she very suddenly had a baby which created a great upheaval in Beaver River. She said the father was a boy named Roy O’Brien whose folks had the one and only general store. The boy swore he had never had anything to do with her and he finally left home and came over to Boston and never went back as far as I know. He became a house painter, married and had a family. But of course there was a big feud between the Cornings & the O’Briens. They were all members in good standing of the Baptist church but from then on if a Corning (that one family) came into the church the O’Briens would get up and walk out - it worked both ways, went on for years.
That baby was a girl and was kept in the house until she was about 7 years old. No one ever saw her as far as I know, if anyone went to the house the baby was shut up somewhere before the door was opened. But the time came when they couldn’t keep her shut up any longer, so she was let out in the yard. She was really wild, couldn’t talk, just made queer sounds and would throw anything she could find if anyone went near her. But that’s when anyone who saw her knew who her father was, she was the image of her Aunt Tesse’s husband George Crosby - red curly hair, squinty eyes, looked more like him than his daughter did. So that cleared the O’Brien boy, but it didn’t make things any better between the two families. But the poor child didn’t live too long, when she was 8 she and her mother both were very sick with scarlet fever and the child died, but Dot survived. I also remember that during that sickness, my father was the only neighbor who went near them to help. He went twice a day, milked the cow and did all he could to help. Poor Dot was so grateful.
Strange to say, she later married an Englishman - no one seemed to know him - he just appeared, but the marriage didn’t last long - they went back in the country to live and in about three weeks she came walking home and I supposed spent the rest of her life there. Never knew what happened to the English man.
The next house on the other side of the street was occupied by a Mrs. Ella Leevis and her younger son Frank - he was very cute when he was small, had blue eyes and long blond curls. He’s the one whose mother, when there was a thunder storm, used to rush him into the house, stand him in a corner and pile pillows around him. He grew up to be a large young man, tall, used to stride along with his head down, never seemed to notice anything, but he always knew what was going on. He always wore a sweater that seemed to roll up around his neck and he always had that collar in his mouth head down apparently deep in thought. He also was a great reader, my sister used to give him the Saturday Evening Posts after we finished with them and he did enjoy them, never read the stories, just the articles. We got them from a cousin, a young man Allen Berteaux, my mother’s brother’s youngest son, his father died when he was a baby and left quite a family so my Aunt Rye and her husband took him and raised & educated him - didn’t adopt him. He was the one who had the Posts and when he was through with them he always sent them down to Nellie (my sister) and were passed onto the Lewis family.
Mrs. Lewis was really not very attractive - big and was always snuffing and clearing her throat, she used to come to our house once in awhile, we always knew when she was near, would hear her clearing her throat. I think my mother was really the only person she talked to. Everyone wondered about her and her husband, he was a sea Capt. Never home much, usually it was during the winter when he was home at all, and every time he came home, she would take the boy and go off teaching school somewhere. I don’t know how she managed it, but that’s what she did. And of course everyone wondered why, he was well liked at home. Very friendly and jolly. But one day it came out - she told my mother all about. I supposed because she knew my mother was not a gossip.
One afternoon she was alone when a woman came to the door asking for the Capt. He was out so she invited the woman in and she told Mrs. Lewis that the Capt. had lived with her for a long time, they had a son etc. and she offered Mrs. Lewis a thousand dollars cash if she would let him go back to France with her. I don’t know how she got to Beaver River from France, supposed she came to Yarmouth by boat and then there was transportation to Port Maitland and hired someone to drive her up to Beaver River. Anyhow, Mrs. Lewis refused and the lady left alone. So the Capt. and the Mrs. had it out when he got home. He wanted her to take him back, didn’t want to go back to the French lady. So Ella (Mrs. Lewis) made a deal, if he would write to her and send money for she [sic] and her son, for one year she would consider taking him back. So he agreed and for several months he did write and did send her money, then suddenly it all stopped. She was sure he had gone back to the French lady until one day she happened to see in the shipping news that the vessel he was Capt. of had been lost at sea with all hands. So I guess that ended that. She and her son later came over and lived near Boston - he was a house painter, died suddenly of a heart attack.
Across from the Lewis home was the local post office run by Mrs. Doty. Addie Doty was the post mistress and her husband Philip was the blacksmith, deaf as a post. She was a French woman who had taught herself to talk English and also how to write and she really was a nice writer. His shop was across the street and every day when his lunch was ready she would go to the front door and yell Pheleep at the top of her voice. I remember a little dog she had - trained him so that if he was out in the rain or got dirty he would lie on his back so she could clean him up. She finally got a horse too, before that she always walked about 4 miles or more to church every Sunday morning, walked to Salmon River where there was a beautiful Catholic Church. She would start out quite early and spend the whole day visiting friends. Then she got a horse and carriage, but she never had anything to do with horses and Sunday was the only time that she used him and after staying in the barn for a week he’d get a little wild so she would ask me to take him out and sometimes if my mother wanted to got to Yarmouth, which was a days trip, she would ask us to take her horse because he needed exercise and were glad to because he didn’t mind the street cars and our horse, “Bob” was afraid of them. When we drove him to Yarmouth we always used the back streets to avoid the cars.
The End.