This is the Memory Book of Mary Alethea Warren Shaw   

Oliver Cromwell Wait ..................Grandfather
Statira Clapp Bartlet Wait............Grandmother
Jere Calvin Warren........................Father
Mary Wait Warren........................Mother
Lucia Crisola Warren...................Sister
Statira Erel Warren.......................Sister
Caroline Frame Warren Pickard.........................Sister
Aura Angelica Blossom Warren.........................Sister
Winifred Clara Cecile Warren Compton..........Sister
Theodore Earlimond Calvin Warren.................Brother
Mary Alethea Warren Shaw.......Myself

When we were young we were called Lulu, Stira, Alta, Winnie, and Teddy.    Caroline was never given a nickname.   Aura passed on before second birthday.

The blank book in which Alethea wrote this memoir book had a strap and lock on it that Alethea had removed.   This [blank] book was among the effects of the Wesson Family, Christian Scientists who had been members of Second Church of Christian Science, Rochester, N.Y.   They had all passed on, and church members took pictures, books and ornaments as they wished.

Alethea Warren Shaw ' s Reminiscences of Early Days.   

My Mother:

I remember when I was very young I used to look at my mother in her wine colored robe and think she was the most beautiful person in the world.    She had beautifully shaped hands, which she used in conjunction with speech.   Her hair was naturally curly -- her eyes were deep set, and quickly showed her mood.   The brown eyes lighted with animation, shone with love and tenderness.                                                      

My Father:

Our Father was six ft. 2 inches tall, had dark brown eyes, fine features, a dark moustache.   He loved music and had bought an Estey organ before marriage.    Tried to learn to play the flute, but was unable to do so.   I was told his lips were too thick to play such an instrument. I remember he was a bit self-conscious with us girls, and remember how proud and happy he was when Theodore was born after 6 girls! He never had an opportunity to get much schooling, as he had to leave school at eleven to keep house for an invalid mother, and his younger sister and two little twin brothers.

The Hearth Circle:

My earliest memories are of sitting in the old red high chair, playing with some tiny blind baby mice, which were found in the corn crib.   Finally, one of the grown ups said that they thought it was time to take the mice.   And my alert ears heard that they were going to be given to the cats -- that broke my heart and I howled.

Another early memory was of sitting in the same high chair at the table in the kitchen with the family.   The hired man love to tease me, and someone, perhaps my father said, " Pretty soon Caroline will need the high chair, then what will you do? "   I replied, " Cadine don ' t care -- she ets me oose it. "   Of course, the family has often told me of this, as I wouldn ' t otherwise remember how I said it, but I do remember the occasion.   I had a precious milk mug with part of the alphabet on one side and a thrush on the other.

I have often heard my folk tell of how my sister Lucia when she was very small begged for the moon.   She was told that they couldn ' t get it for her.   But she insisted " Daddy get it for Oo-woo. " When she was somewhat older, she had a bantam, which lost part of its tail in some way.   Lucia found a feather and brought it to Grandmother Wait and asked her to " throw it on " to her bedraggled bantam. When Caroline was a very small girl, she was visiting Aunt Lucia Fairbanks.   Auntie was going to drive to St. Albans to do some Christmas shopping.   Caroline had a penny and gave it to Aunt and asked her to buy gifts for " Lulu, Stira, & Alta " .Aunt Lucia bought toys printed on cloth and had " Aunt Emm " sew them up and stuff them.   Lucia had a kitten, Statira a puppy, while my share was a little Negro child with finger in his mouth and a big pink hat printed against his printed blue dress, the hat being held in his left hand.   I loved this piccaninny dearly   and named him " Robert " .   Grandpa ' s hired boy nearly broke my heart by throwing my Robert high in the air several times, though of course it couldn ' t possibly hurt a stuffed cloth doll. Aunt Lucia got for Caroline a yellow-haired cloth doll, and " Aunt Emm " made a lovely yellow dress for it painstakingly feather stitched, and with a real button and buttonhole!

While we still lived with Grandfather and Grandmother Wait, Great uncle Charlie Loomis came from California where he had been visiting his daughter Cora.   He brought pampas plumes, seashells, oranges, and wonderful stories of California ' s charm.    From that time on, California was a fairyland to me, and my dream was to visit it.   Uncle Charlie gave each of us a bag of popcorn, an orange, and a pink candy pig for Christmas.    We treasured the tiny pigs and tried to save them by putting them down in the cellar.   Alas, they dissolved into a damp sugar pool.

Sugaring season was eagerly looked forward to.   The sap was gathered, boiled for hours in a huge kettle until just right to drizzle onto a pan of clean snow.   A little syrup would be given to each of us girls, and we would stir & stir until we had maple sugar of fine grain, each trying to beat the others to this candy patty to take home.

One Christmas stands out in my memory.   That year the celebration was held at Aunt Lucia Fairbanks in East Georgia, Vermont   We had buffalo robes and blankets and lighted lanterns to keep us warm on the three-mile ride.   Aunt Lucia,   Cousin Ida, and Uncle Ira would all rush out onto their big porch and call, " Merry Christmas " as we drove into the yard each year that we celebrated there.   The doors to the big parlor were closed, and we were not allowed to open them.   After dinner the doors were thrown open and wonder of wonder, there was a huge Christmas tree trimmed with strings of popcorn,   cranberries, and pink tarleton stockings of candy.   But best of all was a little church and walk under the tree.   Mother had paid a precious dollar (it took a man a whole day to earn a dollar!) and bought a box of stone building blocks.   Father had built the church and laid out the walk.   Grandfather later made a great number of wooden blocks of the same shapes, and we spent many a happy hour building houses, churches, and barns, fences, and walks.

I am not sure, but I think it was this same Christmas that I was given a doll cradle, which grandfather Wait had made for my doll.   It was an old doll given a new head.   Under the pink pillow, I found a spool of thread and a large needle to be all my own!   It didn ' t take much to make a child happy in those days. We lived at Grandfather ' s place until I was seven years old, and a wonderful place it was for play, with two barns and a large hen house, a big corn crib (which made a delightful play house when empty of corn), an apple orchard, a tool house, a carpenter shop, a woodshed with rooms over each, a covered passageway from shop and woodshed to the kitchen.   Over the passageway was a flat roof which provided a way to go from windows in the carpenter shop chamber to the bedroom window in the house; there was also a window in the woodshed chamber (storage room over the woodshed) to the same bedroom window.

There were roofs to climb, trees to climb, and " hideaways " among the bushes lining the road past the farm.    A brook across the road ran to the ruins of an old mill not used for many a year, and beyond was a neighbor ' s meadow where bobolinks loved to sway on the long grasses and pour their hearts out in song.   Still farther were woods where we children gathered wild flowers before the cattle were turned out to pasture.   In the spring the air was filled with the plaintive calls of baby lambs, and the answering baas of the mothers.

Some strange people lived in our neighborhood.   There was an Irish woman who came over on a slow cattle boat.   She had a baby who was sick on the journey, and " old " Mrs. Ziggins walked the deck with it.   She rolled like a sailor all the rest of her life as she walked along the country roads.   She could neither read or write, but a granddaughter became a schoolteacher, and married a man who owned a store and left her in comfortable circumstances.   The baby which was brought over from Ireland was drowned in a small Vermont pond.   His mother used to tell how her boy came clear across the Big Pond to be drowned in a mud puddle.   ( " drooned in a mood poodle " ).   Near our schoolhouse lived a family of Duffys.   Mr. Duffy could neither read or write, but did well with his blacksmith shop.   He had five girls, four of whom became schoolteachers. Mr. Duffy said he would give five dollars to any man who would marry one of his daughters.   He also had a son, John, who married a schoolteacher, and followed his fathers ' trade.

When I was a very, very little girl, great-grandfather Millard, (fathers ' grandfather on his mothers ' side) lived with us in Georgia, Vermont. for a time.   My only recollection is of an old man who used to lean on his cane and watch me run.    He gave me a cane to play horseback riding on, and he gave me a basket made by Indians. Grandfather Wait collected canes and he took a fancy to mine and appropriated it.   I have a faint recollection that he offered me one of his as a substitute.

  We used to collect eggs in my basket -- the cover got lost but I still have the basket. (1967). Once, when we girls went to Grandfather ' s cow barn loft to hunt hidden nests, one of us ran her arm away deep into the hay, and quickly drew it out having felt soft fur instead of hard eggs.   On investigation, we found four kittens.   Each girl chose one.   Mine was all over grey.

We moved soon after to a small farm one-half mile from Grandfather ' s, and I took my kitten with me.   I don ' t remember what happened to the others.   Mine was a nice quiet cat and very handsome.   I named the cat " Mattie " after a part Indian girl who lived nearby.   But before long it developed that my cat had been misnamed so I changed the name to " Matthew " .   Matthew and I used to share the couch on many a day while I read and Matt slept.   Soon he was gone and never came back.   I used to walk and walk through the cow pasture calling " kitty, kitty! " , sure that I heard him but alas I was following cat birds.   I have never been particularly fond of any cat since. We children had been very fond of the mother of the four kittens, and she was very homesick for us after we moved.    She would greet us when we stopped by after school and follow us a long distance toward our home.   We were heartbroken when Grandfather put an end to her life; and I still can ' t see why he did it, unless she went about crying constantly for us.

We moved away from Grandfathers ' home when I was about seven.   We bought a small farm called " The Merrick Place " about a half-mile from Grandfather ' s. When I asked for my doll cradle as were picking up the last of our belongings, my Grandmother informed me that she thought I was getting too old for dolls, and had given it to my young cousin Mildred Shattuck.   I was terribly hurt, and mourned my cradle.   I feel it is a great mistake to give away anything which belongs to a child unless the child consents.   Certainly no grandmother has that right.   Years later I managed to get it back when my own daughter was old enough for dolls.   Ida (Mildred ' s mother) informed me that Mildred had never cared for it & it was stored in the attic.   What a lot of enjoyment I missed by not having it.   I loved dolls.    Grandfather Waits ' great-great-great grandchild, Alethea Jean Penn, now owns it. (1967)

I had always wanted a doll carriage so very much. Finally, when I was about eleven, I was very, very sick with a fever, and as I was recovering, Mother bought me a doll carriage.   It cost a whole dollar, and father had to work a whole day in Great Uncle Oscars ' factory to earn one dollar!   Alas, I was far too tall for the carriage -- had to lean over to wheel it; so my little sister Winifred had the benefit of it, and grew up thinking it was hers.

Great Uncle Oscar Wait, Grandfathers ' brother, invented a sort of heat saver.   I ' ve forgotten what he called it ¼ (Wait Radiator).   It was to take the place of a length of stovepipe and was supposed to catch some of the heat which goes up the chimney.   It had a lot of sheet metal   tubes running through it.   Father worked for Uncle Oscar, helping to make these in St. Albans, Vermont at a dollar a day!   He bought a bicycle so as to be able to come home for lunch.   Some of my happiest times came from riding his bicycle on the ball grounds near our home.   Mother ' s aunt by marriage, who came to visit us, berated mother for letting me ride a man ' s bicycle on the highway " showing off my legs " .   I ' ve forgotten whether mother forbade me doing so any more, or whether I stopped because aunt ' s criticism had taken away my joy.   I was very sensitive.   It was one of my greatest dreams to own a bicycle, but, of course, we could not afford such luxuries.   Years before, a man came to visit at Grandfathers, riding a shiny bicycle, gave Caroline and me rides on it, and asked us if we wanted bicycles.   Of course we did!   He asked what colors; Caroline chose red, I chose blue.   He promised us each a bicycle of our chosen color.   Of course he never sent us bicycles and had no intention of doing so.   We had been taught to believe what grown-ups told us and never forgot.   It is very wrong, as Great Grandfather Edmund Wait wrote, to promise children something and fail them.   If it can ' t be avoided, a careful explanation should be given to the child.

When we moved from our Grandparents ' home to a small farm about one-half mile distant, there was a deep well, at which the water was hauled up by a chain.   Papa went down in it to clean it.   He found several old coins (including a 3-cent piece).   The former owner of the home (Merrick) came to call and asked for the coins.   Papa gave them to him, little realizing how much he could have later sold them for.

Of course, there was no furnace.   To avoid setting up a stove in the parlor, Papa cut a hole in the partition between living-dining room and the parlor and ran the stovepipe directly from the stove through the hole and up the other side of the wall to the chimney.   An old neighbor, named Dunton, called on us and later spread the story " Jed Warren has a stove which he can use without any chimney!   I saw it with my own eyes! "

When I was about three years old, Lucia got a very beautiful jointed doll with a bisque head and glass eyes.    I begged and begged to hold it-- " Lulu " didn ' t want to let me, but mother persuaded her to.   I sat in a small rocking chair in the upper hallway -- I was so happy and rocked and rocked until the rocker, doll, and I got too near the stairway and down we all went.   Lulu never had a chance to play with it -- the head was broken and the cords let loose so that there was nothing left but body with dangling arms and legs.   They promised a new head, but it was never bought -- there were no doll doctors, and I imagine the folks never knew how to get the right sort of head anyhow.    I always felt so badly about that.

Wooden dolls with lead joints were manufactured in Springfield, Vermont, and one year (perhaps when I was a baby) Uncle Oscar and Aunt Julie brought a wooden doll to " Lulu " & " Stira " .   Stira was so young that sometimes she was allowed to sleep between Papa and Mother.   Pa hated dolls -- Statira insisted on having the doll with her, and many an unpleasant whack did our father get from the lead feet and hands.   I can just barely remember seeing one of these dolls.   I wonder who disposed of them?   They are now a collector ' s item.   (1967).

When I was around three, I had a little cot under the sloping roof of our parents ' bedroom.   I used to love to go to bed, and hang around the stairs asking, " Isn ' t it most time to go to bed? " .   I remember the happy feeling I had as I snuggled down and said my original prayer, " God ' s the Father, takes care of us. "   Somewhat later, I was moved from my cot to sleep with " Lulu " (as we called Lucia) in a bedroom quite removed from our parent ' s room.   Maybe it would have been better had it been nearer.   Lulu told me stories, sometimes scary ones about big bears until I sometimes hid my head under the bedclothes.   She always was the heroine, the one who rescued me, or the rest of the family.    When she was around nine or ten years old, her stories became quite different -- she began telling love stories.   She would be marrying Lennie Boyden or Frank Gokey.   I have a vague remembrance that once she and her groom stood on a large stump to be married!   I was bored by these stories and would doze off, only to be awakened by a dig from her elbow: " Alta, you aren ' t listening " .   Lulu loved to play that she was the mother and I was her little girl.   I was not quite happy about this play -- I wasn ' t sure I wanted to be anyone ' s little girl, even in play, except my own mother ' s.

When I was about six years old, our little sister passed on.   She was a premature child, and never very strong.   My mother asked me to stay with her a little while, and try to amuse her, while she went to get grandmother from down stairs.   I didn ' t like to stay with her, I remember.   The other children were playing out in the barn -- I wanted to join them.   Aura kept making peculiar noises.   Mother came back with Grandmother and Aura breathed her last.   That was my first experience with death.   From that time on I was always fearful that my mother would die.    Until I was a decidedly grown-up girl (maybe 16), I used to hope that if anything happened to my mother, I would go too.   After little Aura died, I saw Papa crying in the barn -- the only time I ever saw a man cry -- it frightened me no end.   I kept following poor mother around as though glued to her skirts, asking, " Why do you cry?   What are you crying for? " and mother would smile at me through her tears.

One of my earliest recollections was of an entertainment at District No. 4 School in West Georgia, Vermont.    Some man traveled from school to school with the wonderful invention: Edison ' s ' phonograph!   I remember I heard someone I thought was coming down the road saying the Lord ' s Prayer.   But it was explained that the voice came out of the big horn, which was beyond my comprehension.   My faint memory is that the man asked if someone would come up and say something, and he would play it back.   As I remember my mother recited a verse of poetry, or perhaps something from Psalms.

It was the custom for the schoolteachers to have an entertainment at the end of each term.   The pupils gave " pieces " as we called them -- recitations.   One year when I was about eight, mother composed a poem for me to speak Decoration Day.   It began, " What have small girls to do with war or Decoration Day? "   But that was not my first public speaking.   When I was preschool age -- they stood me on a desk and I bowed and said, " Come, Birdy, come and live with me; and you shall be happy, light and free. "

When I was still in the high chair stage, mother had some pretty new, very thin water glasses.   I wanted to drink from one as the rest were doing.   I heard someone say they were certainly very thin --" you could almost bite a piece out " , or something of that kind; so I wondered if I could bite a piece out, and I did -- a nice semi-circle out of the edge!   One day mother found me in her bedroom standing in a chair, eating leaves from her pink flowered oxalis, which was hanging in her dormer window.   She explained that mother would not have any flowers if I ate her plants, so I never did it anymore.    But, I still remember the sharp sour taste like sorrel, but how did I know it was good to eat, I wonder!

Next