In 1888, my grandmother, Agnes Maud Biggs, came to America from England with her parents, Joseph Biggs and Maud Pawsey Biggs. She was six months old. A photo of her taken before they sailed shows an eager and well-dressed little baby perched on a fur rug.
Agnes Maud Biggs, six months old
The Biggs family settled in Glastonbury, Connecticut along with other Pawsey relatives. My great-grandfather got work in a woolen mill. On the back of a photograph of the mill building my grandmother wrote, “This is the factory where Joseph Biggs spent all his working days in America.”
Agnes was always a good student. In one of her report cards from 1900 she ranked first in her class. She went to nursing school in New Haven, Connecticut and graduated with honors. Her specialty was maternity, and I’m fairly certain she met my grandfather when she was nurse to one of his newborn nephews. When Ellsworth Hall and Agnes Biggs married in December 1913, she gave up her nursing career and her life in Glastonbury, and went to live at the farm on Whirlwind Hill.
Agnes Biggs, (right) in the maternity ward, New Haven Hospital, 1910
According to my great-grandmother’s journals, Agnes was up to the challenge of living in a large house with her in-laws. She entered into marriage, not only to my grandfather, but also to his aging parents, a large house, and a busy farm. During her courtship she was referred to in the journals as Miss Biggs. “Miss Biggs has gone back to her home in Glastonbury. We like her more and more each time she visits.”
Agnes and Ellsworth had three children by 1918. Nine years later, when she was forty years old, my grandmother gave birth to twin boys in the downstairs bedroom of the farmhouse. My mother, who was nine at the time, described the event like this. “I didn’t even know she was going to have a baby. And suddenly there were two little babies, and my mother hadn’t made a peep.”
Agnes with the twins, Luther and Aaron, 1927
How tired my grandmother must have been all the time. She rarely had a minute to herself. She was responsible for keeping the whole show together. She was the nurse, the mother, the grandmother, the daughter, the bookkeeper, the chauffeur, the cook, the veterinarian, the letter writer, the stockbroker, and the babysitter. And she was the go-to person in any emergency.
She treated sick cows, put gentian violet on their wounds, gave my uncle emergency shots when he got stung by bees, rocked new-born grandbabies, herded cows, and lifted my two year old brother up by his heels one day to dislodge a wayward cough drop from his throat. When something went wrong, we called Grandma Hall, and she answered on the big black telephone in the dining room. She embraced new technology, and would, I’m sure, have bought herself an ipad if they’d been invented during her lifetime.
That my grandmother was smart I have no doubt. She was the adult I went to for help with math homework. She called a zero a “cipher.” She kept the farm records, did the driving, and the planning of the meals and activities for her children. When she became a grandmother she often took care of as many as seven grandchildren at one time.
It’s nearly impossible to describe my grandmother Agnes in a few paragraphs. Families are often strengthened by the addition of outsiders, and my grandmother brought new life to the two-hundred-year-old farm. Along with her dark brown eyes, her magnificent hair, and her sturdy body, she brought a desire to educate her children and grandchildren and send them out into the world. My grandmother and I were close. I loved her with a fierce attachment, and I miss her every day.
Agnes Maud Biggs Hall
On Wednesday: The Creamery
What an amazing woman. Thank you.
Always nice to hear from you Carol.
What a wonderful tribute to a remarkable woman! What a full, eventful, challenging and rewarding life she had. How lucky for the family, and for you, that your grandfather found her. She brought so many talents to Whirlwind Hill and had the strength and courage to use them all.
She certainly had a very full life. And my grandfather was very smart to find her.
How interesting that both Ellen, my grandmother, and Ellsworth married English immigrants who sailed to the US as children. I wonder if Ellen and Henry kidded Ellsworth that he seemed to be following his sister’s path or just congratulated him on his wise choice. That both Ellen and Agnes had their last children when they were both in their early forty’s is also intriguing.
I guess I hadn’t realized that Henry had come over from England just like Agnes. And she was definitely a wise choice for my grandmother, just as Henry seemed perfect for Ellen. I have just been reading letters that Agnes sent to my mother when she was in college in Boston. In them she writes about Henry and his illness. Must have been around 1936/7. Everyone on the farm thought so highly of Ellen’s choice also.
A beautiful tribute to your grandmother.
Thank you Karen!
What a lovely post honoring your grandmother, an amazing and lovable woman!
Thanks, Katy. Yes, she was pretty amazing.
I love this tribute to your grandmother (Aunt Agnes to my brother, sister and me). She was a remarkable woman and such a loving person to us when we visited the farm. Also, I loved the photos, especially the one of the nurses! She was a beautiful young woman – no wonder Ellsworth chose her!
Thanks so much Linda. From what I have read in my great-grandmother’s journals, it sounds as though my grandfather Ellsworth met Agnes through your grandparents Wilbur and Edyth. She may have gone there to be a nurse to one of their boys. It would have been around 1912. Anyway, she was full of life, and a great catch.
You were so lucky to be so close to your grandmother when you were growing up. And how wonderful to document her life through all the incredible photographs, letters and journals that were saved through the years. Of course, the addition of your drawings and paintings allows us see her through your eyes. I can see why you miss this amazing woman and how much you are like her in so many ways!
Yes I was very lucky. Thanks Carol. So nice to hear from you. Hope you’re having a really good summer.
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