Aunt Hattie

The old adage, “little pitchers have big ears” definitely applied to me. On Sunday afternoons, when Hall relatives gathered at the farm, and my brother and cousins played outside, I often preferred to sit in the big sunny living room with the “old folks.” These women – my aunts, great aunts, mother, grandmother, and older cousins – drank tea, ate cake and cookies, and talked and talked. Sunday was their day of rest and their day to catch up.

The roster of Hall family women included my mother’s much-older cousins Gertrude, Alice, and Melissa, the wives (Olga, Tilly, and Elsie) of her male cousins, my aunts Barbara, Glenna, Caroline, and Betty, and great aunts Hattie, Ellen, Ethel, Olive and Isabelle. Hattie and Ellen, born nine years apart, were doting older sisters to my grandfather Ellsworth. Both sisters married late. They were a great comfort and help to my great grandmother Lydia as she aged, and she referred to them as “my good girls.”

Hattie Hall Cannon (back), and Ellen Hall Norton (front), 1904

Hattie Hall Cannon (back), and Ellen Hall Norton (front), 1904

Hattie Cornelia Hall died when I was just ten years old. She was eighty-five. Hattie was her real name – not her nickname. On Thanksgiving she decorated the farmhouse with ferns and fall leaves and played hymns at the piano. On Sunday mornings she climbed the dizzying steps to the steeple of the First Congregational Church in Wallingford to ring the chimes. She held me on her lap when I was a baby and hugged me hard when we visited. Short and stout and white-haired and widowed, Hattie was always just there, and I never thought much about her.

But in her youth she was a delicate and social girl, and in this photo taken on an outing with a group of friends, she sits primly on a rock wearing a dark-colored many-buttoned dress, tight shiny boots, and a hat.

Hattie Hall at an outing, left front, about 1886

Hattie Hall at an outing, left front, about 1886

In her younger days she favored flamboyant hats and stylish dresses. The name “Hattie” seemed just right for her.

Hattie Hall (in middle) with friends, around 1890

Hattie Hall (in middle) with friends, around 1890

 

Hattie in a new hat, around 1892

Hattie in a new hat, around 1892

In the early 1890’s she met and married John Cannon. Their only child William was born in 1894.

Hattie and William Cannon, 1894

Hattie and William Cannon, 1894

In this photo of three-year-old William he shows off his mother’s love of fashion.

William Cannon, around 1897

William Cannon, around 1897

But in 1918, when he was just twenty-four years old, William died after a sudden illness – possibly diphtheria or the Spanish flu.  For all of his too-few years, he was the light of Hattie’s life.

I remember Aunt Hattie as a cheerful and loving woman. I hope she found joy in her large family of nieces and nephews and their children, and that I was kind to her and hugged her hard enough.

Aunt Hattie and Carol, Christmas, 1946

Aunt Hattie and Carol, Christmas, 1946

On Wednesday:  Aunt Ellen

8 thoughts on “Aunt Hattie

  1. Margaret Norton Campion

    This is just wonderful. As always, thank you, Carol. I must have JUST missed Aunt Hattie if you were 10 when she died. I certainly remember her name, but not her, and this fills in so much. Her “good girls.” Yes.

    Reply
    1. Carol Post author

      Thanks, Margy. Yes, you would have just missed her. When I was young, she was living just down the street from your house in an apartment in a large house on South Main Street.

      Reply
  2. Karen Dederick Kowalski

    I just love the old photos and that you are able to identify the subjects. The wicker chair in one photo must have been a beautiful piece of furniture. I still have some photos with unidentified family members and will have to pass them around to other cousins to see if anyone can come up with names, but we are thinning out in numbers.

    Reply
    1. Carol Post author

      I am lucky that my grandmother Agnes thought to write on the backs of many of these old photos. I’m very grateful to her for that. There are still photos of people who will, I suppose, always remain a mystery.

      Reply
  3. Margaret Norton Campion

    Do you know who the other folks are in the “outing” photo when Hattie is quite young (in the outfit with lots of buttons up the front)?

    Reply
    1. Carol Post author

      It’s possible that the man sitting behind her holding the stick is her older brother Edgar, and that the man in the mustache is possibly her brother Wilbur. I’m more certain of Edgar, but no one else is familiar to me.

      Reply
  4. Katy gilmore

    In spite of that fabulous hat in earlier photo, I was so sorry to read about William. In modern times we take our children’s healthy lives so for granted. A sweet chapter this is in the whirlwind hill story.

    Reply

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