Words in Italics are taken directly from the diaries as written by
Jane Sarah Abbott.
The rest is family history, gleaned from the diaries and from the notes of
Jennie Ada Badger Winters Woodbury, her granddaughter.

        At this time, the family lived in Williamstown, having previously lived in Cabot, where Knight was born, then in Barre in a house called "The Ketcham Place" a small farm with a brick house on a hill with a beautiful view of the valley and the Vermont mountains, and then in Barre City, the last move before East Montpelier.

        The first diary we have starts here, in January of 1905. We can clearly see from these diaries that, there was no plumbing in the house, except a hand pump in the kitchen sink. In the winter, the water always froze up and snow had to be brought in and melted in a huge tub on the stove. There was no refrigeration except an "ice box", which was a metal, insulated cupboard with a place to put chunks of ice cut from local ponds. There was no electricity(electricity didn't come until 1939, two years after the death of Charles Albert). There was no television and no radio until in the 1920's. 

        On January 29, 1925, Jennie wrote in her diary, "John went with logs and Ernestto Creamery. We went over to Hayfords a little while. Listened on their radio." 

        The roads were not plowed in the winter, but rolled with huge rollers pulled by horses, and later scraped with a plow-like attachment. They were also rolled or scraped in the spring to keep down the muddy ruts. The town owned the rollers and the people took turns rolling roads, getting paid a small fee from the town often in the form of a tax credit. In winter the sleds were always being repaired. 

       In March of 1909 the family moved to East Montpelier to the "Foster Farm", which belonged to a grandson of Stephen Foster. 

    3-29-1909, "The teams went with the furniture this morning" 

    3-30-1909, "Got up early and got the big team. Started with the remainder of the goods. Clara and I and Ernest drove over, got tipped over and hurt but lived through it. Neal and Will Walker came with the cows." 

        The family rebuilt all of the barns and parts of the house on the Foster Farm. It was their home for the next 28 years. Their many joys and sorrows were centered here. In 1910, Guy was shot and killed in Michigan at 26 years of age. Lizzie Barrett's family notes say he was "accidentally shot while hunting out west".  But Knight said he was shot after a big win in a poker game.  In 1923 the family lost Charles David to a ruptured appendix, having lost their first grandchild, Charles and Ethel's daughter Inez a short time before.  In 1924 Sarah died of stomach cancer. 
 

5-3-1924, "Sadie died before 4 AM. Didn't get there in time. Oh dear."

        They did the same with their pigs, butchering a sow or a hog now and then and using and distributing the meat. Jennie made many notes in her diaries about "killing the old sow" or the "birth of 21 pigs."

        They kept chickens in hen houses, which had to be "mucked out" now and then. They used and sold eggs, killed, plucked (picked), and ate hens and roosters, and took them to market. They made dozens of chicken pies at a time for the church suppers. They had their favorites, the red hen, the speckled hen, etc. In the spring they would buy dozens of chicks to raise. 

        They had two teams of horses at a time,- a big, strong pair for heavy work and a smaller pair to pull the buggy. Some of their names were Tom, Dick, Harry and John, and later Jerry and Bill. Uncle Paul Badger says that the horses usually had very short names so that they could recognize them when spoken to. The horses hauled wood, hay and other items, and pulled the buggy, "carrying" people here and there. In the 20's the family had a car or two and often had a choice of going in the car or the carriage, depending on the roads, whether they were icy or muddy or in good shape for traveling.  In 1926, Jennie wrote "Old Jerry ran round the house and spilled the cream."  And on April 4, 1934, "Old Bill broke a leg working for Mr. Thompson and had to be shot."

        They had a dog named Peggy whom they all loved. All of these animals required vaccinations and treatments now and then, and the family had a veterinarian named Bancroft. Sometimes they took animals to him, and sometimes he came to the farm to treat the animals. 

    4-29-09, "Ernest Bancroft came over to see the horses and fixed their teeth, took off bunch on horses neck."

        Life was hard, but family was everything. The family spent time together in the evenings, around the wood stove, talking or listening to the radio. And on Sundays one always had company or went somewhere else to visit. There were Badgers and Abbotts all over central Vermont to socialize with. Jennie often wrote about trips to visit her sister Lizzie Barrett and her husband, Orrill, or her brother Walter Abbott and his wife, Flora, as well as Charles Albert's family. "Father", Wells Badger, was around for a long time, lived to be 96 and Charles' brothers, Edgar with wife Flora, and Adna with wife Lola were frequent visitors.  Charles Franklin and his wife Mabel Griswold came now and then too, although they lived in Morrisville with their 13 children. 

        Even with all the visitors, Jennie was sometimes bored with the farm, and thought herself "stupid"or "dull". On Dec. 30, 1934 on the last page of one of her five-year diaries, she wrote,"No wit or wisdom in this book for five years, just nice to look at." Indeed, Jennie was not a dull person. She was the heart of her family. Life seems to have revolved around her. She was active in church activities, grange, dairy and maple sugar growers associations, and was quite active in women's suffrage and one of the first women to vote in town meetings in the State of Vermont. She cherished her family, and kept the family "record", writing down every birth, marriage and death in the Abbott and Badger families. She supported her husband in all of his activities and so adored him that she felt lost and abandoned when he died. 

        There was always something to do with all the farm work, - trips to the saw mill, the gristmill in Plainfield, the creamery, to Hardwick to buy a pig, to Danville to fetch a bull for breeding, or taking the radio battery to be charged ,etc. There was also church on Sundays, Grange meetings on Tues. or Wed. evenings and monthly Pomona Grange meetings in various surrounding towns, meetings of the Vermont Dairyman's Association, The Vermont Farm Bureau, The Jersey Meeting, the Vermont Maple Grower's Association, etc., trips to the Creamery in Cabot, etc. 

        Always there was the feeding of animals and the cleaning of animal sheds and pens. The farm functioned around cycles of life. The plants and animals were "organically" grown before the term was popular. No pesticides were used. Chickens were let loose to roam through any area that had an invasion of bugs, and the bugs were no more. Animal waste was used for fertilizer. 

        The family made use of the trains in those days, sometimes going to Cabot by train, or to Boston or Fitchburg. Trains arrived at the Depot in Williamstownor Montpelier, bringing goods from everywhere, a table sent by Knight, peaches sent by Guy to his mother, or cows sent up to the Bailey Farm.

    May 16, 1927 "All hands met Knight's stock at Montpelier Junction and drove them up to the farm."

        In the fall there was of course harvesting, bringing in all of the corn, cutting up a lot for silage with the threshing machine, threshing oats, making succotash, canning various items, digging potatoes in October. 

       And then there were always auctions, where one could bid on hundreds of items, and fairs, the Tunbridge fair, the Essex Fair and Eastern States being some of the favorites. The Grange always had booths, and Jennie often entered her produce. One year she was most delighted because she entered a pair of wooden candlesticks made by her son, Knight, and they won first prize. Knight years later wrote to his daughter Jennie about how proud he had been to present those candlesticks to his mother.  (I recently learned that they are still in the family at the Vermont home of  Paul Badger). He made those and a wooden fruit bowl from the same piece of wood, which he obtained from the CAB farm in East Montpelier. 

        In the fall the apples grown on the farm were harvested and many were taken to the cider mill. Cider was brought home to boil. It was served hot, sometimes mulled with spices, and later served cold after boiling. 

        Winters were very hard, with the water frozen up most of the time, fires warmed the house so wood had to be brought in constantly. Cutting trees, sawing wood, splitting and stacking wood were an everyday part of life. Up on those Vermont hills there was a lot of snow and wind. Jane frequently entered "... it blew a hurricane" in her diaries. 

        Many people were sick with the "grip"or a "cough" in the winters. Charles and Jennie had their share of medical problems. They both had shingles a time or two. Jennie complained of "neuralgia" in her head, and a "bad arm".  In 1934 Charles had an enlarged Prostate. 

        Many items throughout the year were brought to market in Montpelier, including meat, eggs, chickens and roosters, maple syrup, etc. Some of each item was also brought to the Heaton Hospital to help feed the patients. 

        And there was always the washing and the sewing. Jennie made her own dresses and many of the family's clothes, although they bought some things in Montpelier. Occasionally the ladies met for a "quilt tying". 

       When Charles and Jennie's children grew up, they stayed near home or visited often. When John married Louise in 1918, they moved in with Charles and Jennie until all four of their children were born. Jennie loved having the kids around. She made a lot of notes about little Carroll, a favorite of hers. 

    4-16-27, "Carroll fell off the end of bridge and broke little bone just above ankle. John took Carroll to Hospital for x-ray and cast. Brought him home again."

       Susie taught school when she was eighteen, and later married Ed Peake and lived in Williamstown. They came over often with their sons and their daughter, Dorothy. 

        Clara married Ray Tillotson and lived in Middlesex, along the river with their two boys, Norman and Kent. Later they moved to Moretown, where they had a large egg farm. 

        In 1926, Knight was living in Norwood, but bought the Bailey Farmin East Montpelier. Jennie wrote on Oct. 20, "Knight and Flora went to Montpelier to make out papers on the Bailey place. So Knight has a farm." He wanted to have a place to move up to later with his family. His father and brothers and friends helped him fix up the place, stock it with cattle, fix all the fences, etc. His brother John lived on it and took care of it, raising his family there. Ray Abbott also lived there a while to help run it. 

        There were many family trips from Norwood up to East Montpelier, and many of the family would go down to Mass to visit Knight and family. Jennie wrote about the many trips to Knight's and their excursions in to Boston to the Theater, or to Nantasket Beachon the ocean. For as difficult as it was to travel, the Badgers were a traveling lot. Jennie writes about a wonderful trip to Farmdale, Ohio with Knight and Flora with some of the children, when they went to see the Hutchins family. They saw Niagara Falls, had a picnic at Lake Erie and drove home through the Adirondacks. 

        Many friends from Vermontand some of the family went to work for Knight on the Gay Farm, including his brother Ernest, his nephew John Peake, and his nephew Philip Badger, son of Edgar. 

        Over the years many cows traveled fromNorwood to the Bailey Farm in East Montpelier and the Tom and Priscilla Badger Lyman Farm in Barre, and back again, as the young calves were brought up to feed in the Vermontpastures in the spring, and when they were old enough, Knight selected the best milkers to bring back to the Gay Farm Dairy. The Lyman farm burned down in the 1950's. Priscilla Badger Lyman was the daughter of Knight Badger. 

        On July 6, 1935, the first of several disasters happened to the Badger Family. Jennie wrote: 

    "Today we lost home and all by fire, started about 2 o'clock and the work of years all gone in less than 2 hrs. Dad and I went up to John's and the rest of the family at the neighbors. Such good neighbors and friends we found there."

        On March 3, 1936, Jennie wrote in her family ledger, 

    "Flora H. Badger, died, leaving her husband Knight and 8 children to mourn for her."

        On July 12 of 1936, Clara and Ray's son, Kent Tillotson drowned while swimming.  In August, the Abbott Picnic was held at the Bailey Farm, where Jennie and Charles hosted along with John and Louise.And in October the family "moved back to the old house. It rained all day and made such a mess."

        Charles Albert Badger had suffered much over the years with his improperly healed hernia, his injured knee, prostate trouble, and bronchitis, probably due to granite dust and farm dust. In December of 1936, Charles had been very sick with the flu. On January 1, 1937, Jennie wrote

    "On this day at 3 PM my dear husband left me to finish the journey alone. Seems as tho I can't."

        And on January 3, "Albert laid to rest. No more troubles for him, but for me. Too heavy. Thank God for my children."

        Jennie "settled up things, sold stock and finally farm to O. Lambert and wife, giving possession March l, 1937. Moved furniture to one room at Sue's" . She lived at the Peake's for a while, and then lived with one after another of her children. She died at the home of her son Ernest in Williamstown.