Tag Archives: journals

September Window

September is a bittersweet month. Summer wanes, the sun casts longer shadows, and the foliage seems to look tired as it stores energy for its fall extravaganza. Lydia refers to this time of year as the start of the melancholy days – a time for going inside.

"September Window," Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

“September Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

September 16, 1913 – “A nice cool day. Am sorry to have the melancholy days come, when all shut-ins have to be housed. ‘I love the good old summer time.’ Still getting potatoes. Ellsworth went down to Delevan Ives’ place to a corn roast. The Oyster Club.” – Lydia Jane Hall

September 28, 1914 – “A very nice cool fall day – Edgar’s [her oldest child’s] birthday, very much the same kind of a day – fifty years old – it doesn’t seem possible that so many years have flown by since then. So they go and children & grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to us – all we hope to be useful men and women.” – Lydia Jane Hall

September 26, 1921 – “Nice day. Men busy gathering apples. Agnes took Lydia to school – all had a ride. Mr. Biggs [my great-grandfather] fixing the flowers, tying up the dahlias, helping Ellsworth with the apples. All busy baking, getting meals, etc. Many hands make light work! All well and happy, seemingly.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also – April, May, June, July, August Windows

On Monday – The Muddy River Schoolhouse

Agnes

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

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

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

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

Agnes Maud Biggs Hall

On Wednesday:  The Creamery

July Window

Weather was a major pre-occupation for the Whirlwind Hill farmers. Each year in June and July they looked for sunny dry days to help make good hay. Journal keepers often start entries talking about what kind of day it was. Lydia was no exception. I do it myself when I write in my own diary. It eases me into the recollection of the day and makes each entry part of a bigger cycle of life and living.

"July Window," Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

“July Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Tuesday, July 28, 1914 – “Rainy. Men working around home. Pa went to town in afternoon. Agnes ironing, etc. All done at three o’clock, a busy day for housekeepers, quite a large ironing for us. Am willing to help but think I am more in the way than I can do good, but never mind, they will all get old if they live long enough. It is hard to grow old and feel that your usefulness is gone.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Saturday, July 16, 1921 – “Nice hay day. All very busy. The busiest of all. Agnes took the children to town in morning. Emily [hired girl] busy doing the work, righting the upset rooms, washing dishes – scrubbing the floors, doing chamber work. Agnes doing the baking when home, also helping rake the hay and drive the horses for unloading it at the barn. They got in most of the hay that was cut.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also:  April Window, May Window, June Window

On Friday:  Independence Day

Speckled Beauties

In spring and summer, when my grandfather needed a break from the cows, he went fishing. His mother, Lydia Jane Hall, recorded some of his outings in her journals.

Saturday, May 24, 1913 – “Cloudy and Rainy. Ellsworth, John, and Edgar gone to Paug Pond fishing. Had extremely good luck – caught several large pickerel, the largest weighing over three pounds – enough fish for a dinner for three families. Never brought home so many before.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Wednesday, June 24, 1914 – “Damp foggy morning, very warm until toward evening, then a little cooler…Ellsworth and Agnes spending the day at Paug Pond fishing with John and Mabel. Came home with sunburned faces and few fishes.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Sunday, May 24, 1921 – “A fine day. Ellsworth went early this morning with John Leavenworth to spend the day in the fields by the trout stream…I have been sitting on the walk enjoying the works of nature. Henry, Ellen, Mother Norton, Norton Van Dyne, Jane, and John came to see us. Ellsworth and John home safely with the speckled beauties.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Ellsworth passed his love of fishing to his children. My mother loved to fish, and she was good at it. Her brother, my uncle Francis, must have loved it too.

Monday, May 5, 1924 – Francis has a new fish pole and has caught one fish – thinks he is smart.” Lydia Jane Hall

When my brother and I were young, we dug night-crawlers for bait and sat on the bank of the cow pond or at the edge of the reservoir to watch our red and white bobbers and wait for a bite. I remember hoping I would catch a speckled beauty and not a spiky bullhead. But the speckled beauty I remember best is the one kept in the cow trough near the bullpen.

The bull lived in a stall on the lower level of the barn. His presence dominated the space. I knew bulls were dangerous, and I had been warned to be careful, but I visited him anyway. I liked to look through the slats of the pen and watch the big ring in his nose shake as he snorted and stomped. Then I’d go back outside to visit the fish. Someone – maybe my grandfather or my uncle – kept a trout in the cold spring-fed water of the cow trough. I don’t know why the fish was there, and I’m sure it wasn’t always the same fish, but after the excitement of the bull, it calmed me to put my hand in the cold water and try to touch the fish as it swam around and around in its watery exile.

"Trout in the Cow Trough." Carol Crump Bryner, ipad painting, 2013

“Trout in the Cow Trough.” Carol Crump Bryner, ipad painting, 2013

On Monday:  The Front Door

June Window

June must have been a welcome month for my great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall. By 1921, when she wrote the second quote, she was spending her days in a wheelchair because of rheumatism. But she was also, by that time, surrounded by the busy life of a farmhouse with three young children in it. She patiently sat through her days, watching, trying to help a little, and observing.

"June Window," Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

“June Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Sunday, June 1, 1913 – “A very fine day – everything is lovely outside. The birds are especially fine around us with their sweet notes, which is very nice for those that are at home like myself. Should be lonely without them.”

Thursday, June 2, 1921 – A nice cool day when the sun shines clear and warm. Everything is beautiful, the fields are full of flowers, the roses and peonies are coming. Lydia [my mother’s sister] brings them in to show me. Soon the harvest will be here. How fast we are going on the wings of time!”

See also – April Window, May Window

On Monday:  Rooms and Doors

May Window

From the farmhouse windows Lydia could see the orchards of apple trees and watch the activity on Whirlwind Hill, the road that ran between the house and the barn.

There are two quotes for this May window. In the nine years between 1912 and 1921 her life had changed. In 1913 her youngest child, my grandfather Ellsworth, married my grandmother, Agnes Biggs, and by 1921 they had three children. Lydia’s husband William died in 1920.

"May Window," Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

“May Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Sunday, May 19, 1912 – “Fine morning. Apple blossoms are out and everything looks tender and fresh. Autos are flying by. Boys on wheels. Surrey load of young people, auto trucks with lot of people in all going east for an outing. How changed the times when team after team used to go by with people going to church.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Monday, May 9, 1921 – “Nice day. High winds in afternoon and some warmer. The trees have been loaded with apple blossoms and nearly all gone. Soon time to spray them again. The peonies, the shrub peonies, are out in full bloom. The birds are all here nesting, singing songs. Grass looking fine and heavy. Men busy preparing the ground for planting. The farm never looked more promising to me.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also:  April Window

On Monday:  Two Aarons

Wildflowers

Spring arrives slowly in Alaska. Piles of dirty snow sit on the north side of the house and in the shadowed patches on the south. Near our front porch the white mounds defy the sun, and hopes for an early spring are usually disappointed. This is when my thoughts turn to Whirlwind Hill and wildflowers.

"Front Door with Snow," Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2013

“Front Door with Snow,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2013

My mother, who grew up roaming the fields and hills around the farm, knew her wildflowers and birds. The repeated rhythms of her stories about gathering spring flowers on the mountain come back to me in a list of names – hepatica, spring beauty, adder’s tongues, Dutchman’s breeches, trillium, violets. When she was growing up, she and her brothers and sister picked these wildflowers for May Day baskets.

The old-fashioned ritual of hanging baskets of flowers on doors on May first, “May Day,” knocking, and then running away to hide, appeals to me, but it’s not something that’s going to happen in Alaska. Instead, I hang a blue metal basket of hopeful pussy willows near the front door to remind me that spring will arrive eventually.

While my mother was still alive I continued a tradition started by her older brother Francis. Every spring when the adder’s tongues (also called trout lilies or dogs-tooth violets) bloomed in their usual spot by the spring at the cow pond, Francis picked a bunch and brought them up the lane to the farmhouse for his mother, my Grandma Hall. When my mother could no longer walk to the pond I picked them for her. They’re such lovely and cheerful little flowers, but they do have a slight reptilian quality because of their spotted waxy leaves, tongue-like stamens, and curled back petals. They grow in colonies that, if undisturbed, can last for decades. I find them in the same spots, year after year. They come back, much like I do to Whirlwind Hill, because their roots are there.

"Adder's Tongues," Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2013

“Adder’s Tongues,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2013

From Lydia’s journal, May 5, 1924 – “Nice day. Agnes took Francis to school this morning – he took a large bunch of Adder Tongues he picked down in the meadow to Miss Martin. They are very nice, in full bloom. I think they will make her smile.”

On Monday:  The Kitchen

Wilderness

When I had a tooth pulled a few years ago I fussed and complained about it for days before and for days after. My great-grandfather William Ellsworth Hall didn’t make a very big deal about his adventures at the dentist. Nor did he say much about the start of the Civil War. Here’s what he wrote in his 1861 journal.

Saturday, April 20 – “Went to New Haven. Had 8 teeth out. Spent the night with Aaron.”

Sunday, April 21 – “Went in town to have teeth out. Had 8 out. Walk home. War news.”

Monday, May 6 – “Got my teeth. Came home.”

He may have complained about his teeth to his wife, but didn’t share his feelings in his journal. Sometimes it bothers me that the past reaches me in this consciously or unconsciously edited way. William was a busy man and penned only a few words each day. But he wrote what he thought were the essentials, and it’s fun for me to have these glimpses into his life.

Journal of William Ellsworth Hall, 1861

Journal of William Ellsworth Hall, 1861

The women and men who built the Hall farm were probably even tougher than my great-grandfather. The first settlers carved the town of Wallingford out of land “purchased” from Quinnipiac Indians Mantowese and Sawseunck in 1638. In his “History of Wallingford Connecticut” Charles Davis describes the purchase.

“Lastly, the said Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, &c., accepting from Mantowese this free gift of his land as above do by way of thankful retribution give unto him eleven coats made of trucking cloth, and one coat for himself of English cloth, made up after the English manner.”

At the time of this treaty the Quinnipiacs in the area numbered about two hundred and fifty. By 1774, a mere four were left in Wallingford.

The original 1670 town plan for Wallingford shows the six-acre house lots (forty-two in all) mapped out on the “Long High Way” – the street that would eventually become Main Street. To the east of these lots, in the direction of the Hall farm, the planner wrote two words – “East” and “Wilderness.”

Charles Davis describes the challenges for the first settlers.

“Making a new settlement was quite a formidable undertaking…Wolves, in thousands, infested the new settlements. They killed the cattle, they stole and carried off the sheep, and did what they could by their unearthly howlings at night, to add to the horrors that thickened on the skirts of the wilderness. The moose, the deer and the bear roamed at will through the unbroken wilderness.”

Whether or not it was right for my ancestors to become owners of land that had belonged to Indians and animals that “roamed at will,” is a thornier issue than I can cover in this blog, but it does give me pause to remember that the land I think of as mine and ours was not always so.

When I visit Wallingford and take walks around the block that makes up Whirlwind Hill, I pass a lonely wooded area. It used to be the site of the Scard farm, but in just the few years since the house was taken down, the woods have reclaimed their place. I think about John the Immigrant’s three sons who were among the thirty-eight original settlers of Wallingford. How intrepid they must have been to clear the land one tree at a time to build their homes and their lives and their community. Farming was, and still is, an incessant battle against the forces of nature, and they worked daily to be good caretakers of their land.

In these woods I can almost feel the ancient presence of people and animals that walked and roamed among the trees before any of our family arrived. Someday these familiar acres may be wilderness again, and the thought humbles me as I continue on my way to the top of Whirlwind Hill.

"Wallingford Woods, Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2012

“Wallingford Woods, Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2012

On Friday: Seeing the Big Picture

 

OBoy!

A few weeks after my first birthday my mother wrote in her diary – “Carol awake at 7:00. Had good day. Walks quite a bit saying “OBoy, OBoy.”

Carol in 1946Carol in 1946

Sixty-seven years later I say “OBoy” again because I’m excited about starting this blog. For the past year I’ve immersed myself in the history, documents, and memories of my family’s farm on Whirlwind Hill in Wallingford, Connecticut. I’ve thought, written, and made art about this place, and I’m ready to share the results with a wider audience.

I never thought I’d have a blog. And yet, here I am, venturing into a technology far removed from the people and times that are my subject. My Hall ancestors kept journals, wrote letters, sent postcards, made wills, signed deeds, and posed in their best clothes for portraits.

Lydia Jane Hart HallLydia Jane Hart Hall

They felt a need to record their lives, and I’m grateful that they did. I like to think they would welcome this modern way of passing along history. My great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hart Hall, whose journals are a rich source of information about farm life, was often housebound and lonely in the last years of her life. A community of writers and readers would have pleased her.

Our own lives revolve around the stories we have in our heads. Some are told by others, and some we tell to ourselves. There is reality, and there is memory, and often the two are so entwined they’re hard to separate.

The Tree, Carol Crump Bryner, pencilMy family had a farm on a hill in Wallingford, Connecticut. My mind is full of what I’ve heard about my ancestors and their life there. In my physical world the detritus of their existence has taken on even more meaning now that my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are gone.

I’ve started writing some of the memories and history down so that my children won’t have to say the sentence William Zinsser claims is one of the saddest he knows – “I wish I had asked my mother about that.”

Please join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and occasional Fridays, here “On Whirlwind Hill.”  I’m launching this blog in April – a time of spring and beginnings. I plan to bring it to an end in April 2015, but who knows – that could change.  I welcome comments, stories, corrections, and the company of family and friends.

On Wednesday:  A Piece of the Past