Category Archives: Seasons

Easter Cards for Agnes

Last November I shared some of the birthday cards sent to my grandmother Agnes Hall by her childhood Sunday school teacher. There was some discussion at the time about his motivation in painting and sending Agnes these cards over many years.

But that was the era when post cards, greeting cards, and hand-painted scenes were a form of entertainment both for the person making the object and for the recipient. It was a time when Beatrix Potter was painting the pictures we’re so familiar with today.

Maybe Mr. Hulbert knew that my grandmother would save the cards he made, and that someday they’d influence others in the family to communicate using pen, pencil, paint, and brush.

Here are two of Agnes’ Easter cards. One of them is made like a little book, so I’ll post each page separately. I’m especially fond of the page with the hepatica and the singing bird. My mother and I went each spring onto the mountainside near the reservoir to search for the spring hepatica. They were hard to spot under the brown leaves and twigs, but their purple-blue petals were a joy to find. I now have a sharp-lobed hepatica growing in my garden in Alaska, and it reminds me of those spring searches with my mother.

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1900

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1902, page 1

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1902, page 2

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1902, page 3

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1902, page 4

Easter Card, J. O. Hulbert, 1902, page 5

On Monday: Lydia Jane’s Birthday

Foraging

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My grandmother, Agnes Biggs Hall, could cook anything. She fed people day in and day out using her two stoves in the farmhouse kitchen. She baked bread, pies, and cookies, roasted chickens and beef, fried donuts and bacon, boiled potatoes and sweet corn, churned butter, pasteurized milk, put up pickles and peaches, and saved scraps to feed the pigs, dogs, and cats.

No wonder she loved going out to eat. She had a surprisingly adventurous palate. The first avocado I ever saw was one she was eating at her kitchen table, scooping the flesh from a half of the black-skinned orb and telling me how delicious it was. She probably would have cooked more adventurously had my grandfather’s taste in food not run to the bland side. His favorite supper was something he called “spaghetti soup” – un-drained spaghetti with watery tomato sauce and buttered white bread. So going to a restaurant was often the only way my grandmother got to try new things.

She was an enthusiastic forager. When spring came, she cut dandelion greens, boiled them, and served them with butter and vinegar. Finding edible mushrooms was not a problem for her. She went into the yard, looked for the rings of what I think were probably “Fairy Ring Mushrooms.” Unafraid of being wrong, she cut them efficiently with her sharp knife, gathered them in her apron, and took them inside to cook with onions and butter.

And she loved to go fishing and clamming. Her clam chowder was delicious. She made it with a light milky broth and served it with a little pat of butter and a sprinkling of oyster crackers.

When I got married, she gave me an old cookbook called “The Improved Housewife,” published in 1847 and written by “A Married Lady.”

“The Improved Housewife”

I don’t know if the cookbook came from the farm or was something she brought with her when she married. The recipes (my grandmother always called them “receipts,” just as it’s spelled on the title page of the cookbook) are both practical and brief. Here are a few that might have helped her cook her harvests.

# 444 – Greens

Turnip tops, white mustard, dock, spinach, water-cresses, dandelion, cabbage plants, the roots and tops of beets, all make nice greens. Boil them, adding a little salaeratus and salt to the water. If not fresh and plump, soak them half an hour in salt and water before cooking. When boiled enough, they will sink to the bottom of the pot.

“Dandelion Greens, ” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2015

# 459 – Stewed Mushrooms

Gather such as are grown, but are young enough to have red gills; cut off that part of the stem which grew in the earth, wash them carefully, and take the skin from the top; put them in a stew pan with some salt, stew them till tender, thickening them with a spoonful of butter, mixed with one of brown flour. A little red wine may be added, but the flavor of the mushroom is too delicious to require any thing.

“Mushrooms,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2015

#758 – Clams and Crabs

Cut the hinge of the clam-shell with a thin sharp-pointed knife. Roast, take out, chop fine, season, then replace them in the one half their shell with a paste cover, and bake. Very nice. So are crabs. Serve them hot.

Agnes Biggs Hall digging for clams

And in case you were wondering how to cure your Erysipelas (or maybe your indigestion from eating the clams or crabs) here’s what the “Married Lady” advises.

#562 – For the Erysipelas

Take three ounces of sarsaparilla root, two of burdock root, three of the bark of sweet ozier, two of cumfrey root, two of the bark of the root of bittersweet, three of princes pine, two of black alder bark, and two handfuls of low mallow leaves, and put it all in four quarts of pure, soft water; steep half away; strain it; add half a pint of molasses, and four ounces of good figs, and boil the mixture ten or fifteen minutes. Strain it again. When cold add one pint of gin. Take a wineglass three times a day.

On Wednesday: The Barnyard

March Window

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The month that “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” brings with it the first signs of spring. Color creeps back into the landscape, the birdsong can be heard again, and the winds blow away the dark clouds of a long winter.

This is the twelfth and last of my monthly “Windows.” Being able to share these monoprints and the words of my great-grandmother Lydia Jane Hall with all of you readers has been one of my favorite parts of creating this blog. Her words continue to inspire my painting, my writing, and my day-to-day life, and, like her, I welcome the spring that’s coming and the “good old summertime” that isn’t far behind.

“March Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Saturday, March 2, 1912 – “March coming in like a lion. Hope it will soon be lamb like.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, March 31, 1913 – “A beautiful early morning. The high winds of old March are howling now and hope they will cease soon as this is the last day.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, March 10, 1921 – “A nice day after the shower. The grass is beginning to look green where the snow lays. The children are well and happy out in the open. Their colds do not trouble much, only the use of handkerchiefs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, March 4, 1924 – “A beautiful day. A bright sunshine all day. The snow has certainly gone today, or we can see it is letting go. There is enough left yet. The water has been running off the hills all day. The boulevard covered – the streams are full. Soon the traveling will be good. The green grass will take the place of snow. The birds will come back to build their nests among the green leaves and sing their songs, and they will be welcomed by us all.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also: April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February Windows.

On Wednesday: Letters

Wallpaper

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Thirty-three years ago, when we remodeled our Alaska house, I papered the bathroom walls with Laura Ashley wallpaper. I bought the rolls at the Laura Ashley store in San Francisco and carried them home on the plane in a huge green plastic bag. I’m both proud and embarrassed that I still look at this wallpaper on a regular basis – proud that it’s held up pretty well and I still like it, but also embarrassed because it hasn’t held up ALL that well, and it really should be replaced.

The Laura Ashley wallpaper I love, but really should replace.

My grandmother, Agnes Hall, definitely would have picked out and hung new paper by now. She enjoyed redecorating. Housework was not her forte, but she liked change, and moved furniture and repainted and repapered the rooms often.

Except for the whitewashed kitchen, all the downstairs rooms and some of the upstairs ones were busy with the patterns of wallpaper. I don’t know when the first sheet of paper was hung at the farm, but from 1912 to 1914, spring meant it was time to repaint and repaper the walls.

Friday, April 12, 1912 – “Pauline taking off the paper in front chambers. Getting ready for the paperhanger. Hard work scratching it off.” – Lydia Jane hall

Saturday, April 13, 1912 – “Pa scratching off paper in Ellen’s room.” – Lydia Jane Hall

And in the midst of this domestic activity my great-grandmother announced:

Sunday, April 14, 1912 – “The steamer Titanic went down. Many lives lost.” – Lydia Jane Hall

But the decorating at the Hall farm went on as usual.

Wednesday, April 17, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the two chambers upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, April 19, 1912 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, May 7, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the bathroom.” – Lydia Jane Hall

One of the upstairs chambers was the room my mother and father used after their marriage in 1943. The photo is in black and white, but I like to imagine the paper in soft pink and cream, so I added a little of my own color.

Janet Hall Crump and the bedroom wallpaper, 1943

The dining room was repapered at least three times between 1945 and 1968.

Aaron P. Hall, Ellsworth Hall, Ellen Hall Norton, Thanksgiving, around 1950

Thanksgiving, 1960, Charles Crump, Janet Crump, Ellsworth Hall

Dining room wallpaper in 1962

My grandfather, Ellsworth Hall, in addition to his duties as a farmer and a turkey carver, was also the family painter. It makes sense given his patient and methodical way of doing jobs. In another life he might have been an artist, painting pictures of rooms instead of the rooms themselves.

Wednesday, April 16, 1913 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen. Looks nice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Monday, September 22, 1913 – “Ellsworth painted upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, September 30, 1913 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering the bedroom and preparing the other two rooms.” — Lydia Jane Hall

Here is the living room wallpaper in 1942.

Charlie Crump in the farmhouse living room, 1942

And here it is in 1949.

Living room in 1949 – Carol Crump, Great-grandpa Biggs, Tuck Norton, John Norton

I wonder how the wallpaper patterns were chosen. Did someone come to the house with a book of samples? Were they ordered from a store? However it was done, it must have been fun to have fresh walls every year or so.

Tuesday, June 9, 1914 – “A nice day. Two weeks ironing. All day work, with that the paperhanger called up. Coming tomorrow to paper the bathroom. The paper to be taken off which took until bedtime, and part of the next morning. Everything all stirred up.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, June 25, 1914 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The parlor was always such a cozy room, and I love the paper on the walls in this photo of the Capable Cooks Club meeting in 1932. Later on it was replaced by a covering with wide stripes, which never seemed quite so pleasing.

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 - Lydia Hall on far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 – Lydia Hall to far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right.

I wonder why paper instead of paint? Maybe it made the rooms seem warmer. Certainly it made them more colorful. Perhaps it was just the times. The downstairs bedroom, where my grandmother slept for as long as I knew her, was a lovely room with a door leading into the backyard and flowery paper on the walls. My brother told me that when the house burned in January 1971, my Grandma’s Hall’s bedroom remained intact- the wallpaper untouched by the flames. I have no photos of that bedroom, but here’s my grandmother standing near the door to her room around 1962. I wish the door had been left open so that I could have one last glimpse of the bedroom walls.

Grandma Hall standing in the living room near her bedroom door, around 1962

On Monday: A Few Old Books

Measles

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Measles and other infectious diseases of childhood have been much in the news recently. Modern day children are mostly free from the epidemics that sometimes threatened the lives of my ancestors. My own children had chicken pox, an illness my grandchildren won’t have to deal with.

Polio was rampant in the mid-1950s, and I remember my mother’s relief when she drove us to Dr. Salinger’s office in New Haven to get our first dose of the polio vaccine. Summertime was the most dangerous season during this epidemic. I wasn’t allowed to swim in the community pool, go to the zoo when we took the train through Chicago on our way to Montana, or be in any large gatherings of children. And to put the fear of God in me about these situations, my mother took me to a trailer on the outskirts of a local circus to I could see for myself a girl in an iron lung.

Pneumonia, diphtheria, typhus, scarlet fever, and measles threatened lives in the generations before mine. The loss of a child to these diseases was common, and no generation before mine was spared. Many of my great-grandmother’s journal entries report the sicknesses of her family and her neighbors. And in 1924 the measles came to visit the Hall farm.

Friday, April 11, 1924 – “This is a fine day. Francis not feeling well – is staying home from school. He has some fever – seems to be ailing. His mother is dosing him with calomel and physic. He thinks he may be having the measles coming on, as they are in the school.”

Thursday, April 17, 1924 – “Francis is broken out with the measles. Dr. is coming out to quarantine us. Suppose we have a siege of it now, for a month or two. Hope we will come out all right.”

Tuesday, April 22, 1924 – “Frances is well again of the measles. We are expecting Lydia and Janet next.”

Thursday, April 24, 1924 – “A nice day. The children are home from school. Lydia and Janet are coming down with measles.”

Tuesday, April 29, 1924 – Pleasant day. Lydia and Janet are still in bed with the measles. Gradually getting better.”

Saturday, May 3, 1924 – A nice day. The children are better. The measles are letting go. All dressed and downstairs but Lydia. She is downstairs but not dressed, lying on the lounge. Think she will be all right in a day or two. They have surely had the measles this time. They have troubled Lydia the most. The mother has taken good care of them. Feels tired from going up and down stairs.” -– Lydia Jane Hall

The mother – my grandmother Agnes Hall – certainly would have been tired after nearly a month nursing the sick children in their upstairs beds. Up she went carrying trays of food, glasses of milk and water, and bottles of nasty-tasting medicine. Back down she came with the empty trays, dirty linens, and full chamber pots. There were three sets of stairs in the house and she probably used them many times each day – not an easy task for a large woman with a bad hip. But she was a good nurse and a devoted mother, and in the end, as my great-grandmother hoped, it “came out all right.”

“Front Staircase,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2015

On Wednesday: Wallpaper

Outbuildings #5 – The Woodshed

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Most of the real work on the farm happened in the barn, in the fields, and in the house. Some of the outbuildings were so specific in purpose that they were often hastily erected and as quickly abandoned when seasons or activities changed. Others had longer lives and a bigger presence. They were spread out around the property in an almost haphazard way. A few of them I remember from childhood, but others I know only from photos.

The Woodshed

The woodshed in the backyard of the farmhouse adjoined the old barn. Both buildings were torn down sometime in the early 1950’s I have vague memories of them, the most vivid one involving my grandmother hanging clothes on the line strung from the house to the side of the barn.

“Washing,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2014

My great-grandmother Lydia recorded the origins of this woodshed. I have no idea what they did before that for wood storage. Maybe it was put into the barn, or more likely just kept in a pile close at hand. They needed large stores of wood for the two stoves in the house. Before the arrival of the tractor in 1921, the cutting, splitting, and sawing of sufficient wood was a year round on-going chore. The tractor and the woodshed were great helps for my grandfather and his workers.

Saturday, December 17, 1921 – “Cloudy most of the day. Men busy getting large stones from the ravine to lay the foundation for a shed for the wood pile.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Monday, December 19, 1921 – “Nice day. Men busy placing the stones for the woodshed.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, December 29, 1921 – “Snowing this morning, cloudy most of the day. At night the wind blew very hard, grew cold, and before morning it was down below zero. Two men worked all day in the shed and didn’t finish. Walter went home. We have quite a large shed.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Saturday, January 5, 1924 – “Clouds and sunshiny. A light snow fell during the night. The wind came up at night and much colder at bedtime. Men busy getting wood ready to saw for the two stoves – with their many chores, keeps them busy.” – Lydia Jane Hall

“The Woodshed,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 2015

On Monday: Measles

Tractors

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I miss the putt-putt sound of a tractor. There aren’t any real working farms left on Whirlwind Hill. Some land is still farmed, and a few cows pastured, but I seldom hear the farmer’s useful machines going up and down the hill pulling their loads. What a nuisance it used to be when I was in a hurry to get someplace only to find myself stuck behind Mr. Cella’s tractor and manure spreader. There was often no way to get around until he took pity on me, pulled to the side and slowly waved me by. But still, I loved that sound and the slow pace of life it implied.

What tractors lack in speed and beauty, they make up for in strength and simplicity, and in the beginning of the twentieth century they became indispensable farm equipment.

The first tractor came to the farm in 1921. Prior to that, horses and oxen did the work. In this grainy photo from around 1914, my grandfather’s hired man, Andrew Rossi, drives a team of oxen down the lane.

Andres Rossi driving an oxcart, around 1914

In 1921 my grandfather Ellsworth took a step into the modern world. He bought a McCormick-Deering Farmall tractor.

Saturday, November 26, 1921 – “Cloudy, cold, and stormy. Ellsworth been to Peterland watching a man trying a tractor which he wants to sell.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, November 29, 1921 – “Ellsworth has decided to have the tractor and will soon work at Peterland pulling out trees.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, December 1, 1921 – “Nice day after the storm. Men have gone to Peterland pulling out trees. Ellsworth says it does good work. Hope it will be of great use to him.

Tuesday, December 13, 1921 – “Nice day. Chores done. Men fixing the machine to saw, everything ready. Have commenced sawing. The wood all sawed into one large pile in time to do the chores. A great help.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Here is the original tractor being used in 1939 at the backyard woodpile to saw the wood into usable pieces. This tractor didn’t have regular tires and was used mainly for pulling and for running machines.

Cutting wood from the woodpile with the Farmall tractor, 1939

It sat out in the field behind the house for many years, and my brother, who adores tractors, had his photo taken sitting on its front end.

Kirt Crump on the Farmall tractor, 1952

The farm had its own gas pump to keep the tractors going.

The old gas pump on the farm in 1972.

My grandfather always used Farmall tractors, whose distinctive red color may have influenced the purchase of my brother’s favorite toy.

Carol, Kirt, and Blossom the dog, 1953

Later on, when my father bought our land on Whirlwind Hill, he bought a John Deere tractor. He used it to rake hay, haul brush, plow the driveway in winter, drag the horses to their final resting places in the back fields, and give rides to his grandchildren and nieces and nephews.

Charlie Crump on the John Deere

Charlie Crump and Paul Bryner on the John Deere, 1975

It’s not easy to drive a tractor, but young farm boys usually know how to drive one long before getting behind the wheel of a car. My grandfather preferred driving the Farmall to driving the car, and left all the auto duties to my grandmother.

We still have some tractors on Whirlwind Hill. They’re useful in all seasons, and little boys love to look at them and wish they were sitting high up on the seat and putt-putting slowly down the lane.

Carol and Henry with the new tractor, 2008

Outbuildings #5 – The Woodshed

February Window

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The New England landscape in February is short on color. It still has an “Ethan Frome-ish” feeling about it. But it’s a short month, and there are days that brighten its passage. Red appears on February 14^th when valentines, roses, and chocolates celebrate the day. My mother always made a cherry pie to celebrate George Washington’s February 22 birthday. We ate our slices after the evening meal garnished with big blobs of homemade whipped cream. I’m sorry the Presidential birthdays were merged into one work-friendly holiday. It seemed right and fun to celebrate George and Abe on their own special days, and then to start looking forward to spring.

“February Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Sunday, February 11, 1912 – “Four degrees below zero in morning. Zero at nine o’clock. Severe winter weather. All at home from church.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Sunday, February 22, 1914 – Morning clear. Cold, near zero in afternoon, cloudy. South winds and very chilly. Looks like storming. The traveling very badly drifted. Snow blowing in, filling up the paths.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, February 22, 1924 – “A very nice morning for Washington’s Birthday. The ground covered with snow. Quite a snow and crusty good sleighing and sliding. Hard for autos. Moonlight evening. Good time for sleigh rides. Several horse sleds have been out but no ox teams. How the times have changed since the days of Washington. Very progressive. Ellsworth and Agnes have been spending the evening listening to the President’s speech through Radio.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also: April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, and January Windows.

On Monday: Tractors

Pigs in the Kitchen

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In the winter of 1968 my grandmother Agnes sent me a letter from the farm. She knew about the menagerie of animals Alex and I had at our house in Menlo Park, California – ducks, chickens, roosters, and cats. So at the end of her letter she warned us not to go so far as to get pigs.

“Don’t you and Alex get any ideas even though I know from experience that baby pigs make great pets. Dr. Flaherty the veterinarian brought me one once. – Grandma”

1968 Christmas Card – Alex and Carol with some of the livestock.

People say that pigs are intelligent, and writers have immortalized ones with human characteristics – the sweet and radiant Wilbur in “Charlotte’s Web,” the three pig brothers and their nemesis the Big Bad Wolf, the politically symbolic animals in Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the pig in the nursery rhyme, “Tom, Tom the piper’s son, stole a pig and away he run,” (said to be not actually a pig but some kind of meat pie).

One of my favorite literary porcine images comes from Gertrude Stein in her book, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” Writing in the voice of her longtime companion Alice, she says:

“Gertrude Stein had always liked little pigs and she always said that in her old age she expected to wander up and down the hills of Assisi with a little black pig.”

“A Little Black Pig,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil, 2013

I don’t know if there were little black pigs on the farm, but in the days before supermarkets and cars and refrigeration, animals provided more than entertainment for the Hall family. My great-grandmother Lydia writes in her journals about the birth to death cycle of the farm pigs.

Thursday, February 12, 1914 – “Cold. Thermometer 8 ½ degrees below zero. Down to zero nearly all day. Pigs eleven in all came during the afternoon and evening. All were brought into the kitchen by the stove. All lively and doing well.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Saturday, March 21, 1914 – “Someone stole one of the little pigs last night, so it seems that thieves are about us.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Sunday, August 30, 1914 – “Ellsworth brought in a sick pig – died in the night – he thinks from eating sweet corn.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Wednesday, December 9 – 1914 – “Ellsworth and Andrew butchered two pigs in morning. I took the fat off the intestines. Agnes helped me. One pig weighed three hundred – the other two hundred.” – Lydia Jane Hall

People and their animals lived in close contact on the farms of the early twentieth century, and I suppose it didn’t pay to be sentimental about the future of a pig. But my mother never could stand the butchering and hid under her bed covers until it was over. My cousin Skip told me that even when he was growing up my grandparents sometimes kept pigs in the back pantry, the room you passed through on your way from the back yard to the kitchen. In this photo of my mother and her brother and sister, you can see behind them the door to the back pantry.

Janet, Francis, and Lydia Hall, 1921

The pigs of my own childhood were kept far from the house. Grandma Hall gave us baskets of stale bread to feed them. We pushed the crusts one piece at a time through the slats of the pen. I loved the sounds they made as they ate our offerings, and can’t forget their unique smell, but I wish I could have seen those other little pigs on a long ago winter night staying warm and cozy next to the big black kitchen stove.

“Pigs in the Kitchen,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen, 2015

On Wednesday: Outbuildings #4 – The Chicken Coop

Getting in the Ice

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“Ice,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2015

In June 1967 I moved to California for graduate school. Among the many things I learned about the west coast was that no one there called that thing in our kitchen an icebox. It was a refrigerator. In California-speak a pocketbook became a purse, dungarees became jeans, and sneakers became tennis shoes.

There’s a reason we called it an icebox. The one I remember was a big wooden box with a zinc lining, a heavy door, and a compartment for a block of ice. In this photo from our Thanksgiving supper in 1948, the icebox is right behind my head in the farmhouse kitchen.

The icebox, 1948

I remember ice blocks being carried into the kitchen hanging from large metal tongs and then squeezed into their icebox compartment. At that time my grandparents were, I assume, buying it commercially, but until at least sometime in the 1930’s my grandfather cut his own ice and stored it in the icehouse.

January was the month for getting in the ice. My grandfather waited until the pond ice was thick enough before spending the several days it took to harvest it.

Monday, January 8, 1912 – “Pleasant morning – washing done. Ellsworth preparing to get ice. Went up to Wilbur’s to get his ice plow. Towards evening commenced to snow.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The ice plow – probably pulled by a horse and guided by the farmer – cut grooves into the ice, first one direction and then another until the gridded ice could be sawed into blocks.

Wednesday, January 10, 1912 – “Clear and cold. Commenced getting ice, which is nice and thick. None so thick in a long time. Mr. Cella and son helping them get ice. Busy all day. Nice sliding on the hills.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The blocks were piled onto sleds and pulled back to the farm by horse teams.

Monday, January 19, 1914 – “A dark cloudy day. Looks much like a storm. Our washing not done. Men cutting ice. Got in three loads in afternoon. Ice twelve inches thick. Hard for the old blacks [the farm horses] to pull it up onto the road.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Ellsworth Hall with Little Doll and Old Doll, 1913

Wednesday, January 21, 1914 – “The men finished getting ice. The ice house is full of nice ice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

I wish I knew where the icehouse stood. It may have been the building next to the creamery. The ice would have been packed in sawdust to keep it frozen, and used all year.

Saturday, January 26, 1924 – “Much colder. Children at home going out and coming in with their cheeks like red roses. Agnes took Lydia to take her music lesson this morning. After dinner helped Edith clean kitchen and dining room and bake cookies. Men cleaning out the ice house getting ready for the ice, which they are expecting soon.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Lydia writes about two of the ponds used for ice cutting.

Tuesday, January 11, 1921 – “Ellsworth is cutting ice. Brought in six loads of ice from Mr. Leete’s pond. Mr. Leete and Charles Argonnis helping him.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, February 8, 1924 – “The men are getting ice from our little pond down in the meadow. Mr. Ives is working with them. They are putting it in his icehouse. Ours is filled. They put it in – nine loads today.” – Lydia Jane Hall

One of the problems of the old-fashioned icebox was that the blocks of ice often had dirt and plant matter in them that made a mess as they melted. But the winter ice for me was all about skating and sledding, and I loved being able to peer down through the ice to see the frozen detritus. We skated on the little cow pond next to the lane until the late 1950’s when my Uncle Francis built a larger pond just up the hill from the smaller one. It was there that my cousins played hockey and I had a skating party where a friend fell and knocked out his front teeth. I’m sure my grandfather would have wanted some of that splendid ice for his icehouse, but these days I’m not sure if he would ever find ice that was twelve inches thick.

Skating on the big pond. The farm on the hill belonged at the time to the Farnam family

Skating on the big pond. The farm on the hill belonged at the time to the Farnham family.

On Monday: Have you Counted your Handkerchiefs lately?

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner

Category Archives: Seasons

Easter Cards for Agnes

Foraging

March Window

Wallpaper

Measles

Outbuildings #5 – The Woodshed

Tractors

February Window

Pigs in the Kitchen

Getting in the Ice