BOSTON WATER WORKS...

My father was a civil engineer.

So was my grandfather and three more up the line – it runs in the blood, it seems.

John Allen Gould III, my great-grandfather, was born in Newton Upper Falls (MA) in 1852. When he was just married, he “took employment” (as they used to say) with the Boston Water District; he became an expert in the engineering of distribution systems – eventually consulted all through the New England states.

One of his first jobs was the Sudbury River Conduit, an aqueduct system that delivered water from the outlying Sudbury River to the water mains of Boston.

It was a big deal, and the Boston Water Works hired a photographer to record the development of the conduit system – a series of one hundred stereopticon cards, numbered and dated; each head engineer received a set of them.

The top photo, workmen are finishing centering the large arch over the Charles River. They built the framework first – all by hand, of course, without power tools or machinery. There are a few men on the top; the design of the support work is beautiful to me, and the wavering reflection of the trusses in the Charles River below is amazing. Photo taken September 13, 1876.

After the wooden structure was complete, the masons moved in, and applied the stonework. Here they’re nearly half-way through their part of the job – they’ve filled in some spaces between arches, and the first layer has been applied over the top. This was taken a month later – November 13, 1876.

In this last shot of the Charles River Bridge, workmen are laying the foundation for the conduit itself – the pipeline that would carry the water into Boston.

          The final part of the job, of course, was to burn out the woodwork from beneath the stonework, leaving clear passage for traffic through the arches. This shot was taken from the Newton side, looking west.

The whole project took a number of years, of course, and John Allen Gould went on to design distribution systems for the Brookline Gas Light Company; he also worked for the Boston Gas Light Company, where he became a director.

          He died in Newton Upper Falls on May 18, 1919.

DOUBLE DOORS...

I looked at that Sepia Saturday shot for a long time; I stored it on my desktop and sat down at my desk every now and then just to have a look at it.

          I noticed things: Pin striped suits, chessboards, chess pieces, tablecloths, chairs with scrolled backs, library tables, horrible flowery wallpaper, music stands – even men with receding hairlines – but nothing came to me.

          Nothing…

…until today, when I looked at the photo one more time.

And there they were, right before my eyes: double doors!

Double doors – or French doors – are two adjacent doors that share the same larger frame. Here in New England, old public buildings such as churches, meeting houses and businesses often had double doors; the doors had matching hardware, and both knobs were on the inside edges.

          Sometimes, there was a knob only on one side – the other door released from the inside; I’ve seen one set of doors with a knob on one side and a lock on the other.

These white double doors are from the old Union Church in Harpswell Center, built in 1841 by local ship carpenters. It fell into disrepair in the mid-20^th century; the Harpswell Garden Club restored the building in 1952 and continues to maintain it by charging reasonable fees for weddings and other events – it’s best to be married in the warmer months, for the old place has absolutely no heating (I can tell you this from experience). It does have the old maghogany pulpit and pine pews and floors; it has a working organ, too.

          But it’s “wicked cold,” as we say in Maine.

It was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1989.

The green, single-paned set is from the Merriconeag Grange Hall, just down the road from the Union Church in Harpswell.

The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry is a fraternal organization formed in the mid-1800s, right after the American Civil War.

It’s got secret rituals, like most fraternal groups; in the early years it was devoted to educational events (latest practices in farming, cooperative seed purchase, etc.) and, perhaps more importantly, social events for farming families – suppers and programs and dances that eased the isolation and tedium of farm life in the 19^th century.

          Merriconeag Grange still meets, twice monthly – one of the few Granges still thriving in the area.

Some say that the doors of a building frame the measure of its hospitality; if that’s true – and I tend to believe it is – then these old double doors, with their balance and symmetry, welcome you inside with warmth and a sense of grace.

ANNIE SAGAN'S PIE CRUST...

This battered Boston Cooking School Cook Book, published in 1942, was the only cookbook I remember seeing in my grandmother’s kitchen; it was the only cookbook that Annie Sagan ever used.

          My mother used to talk about other cooks my grandparents hired in their Eliot Street house:

There was Mary, who cooked and cleaned during the 1920s with such fervor that she exhausted everybody in the house! Mary won my grandparents’ devotion when she rescued my mother, who had gone down the street to attend a wake (she was about seven years old) because she heard there was a “boddy” there and she’d never seen one…

“At least she left a note,” Mary said to my grandmother!

And there was Kathleen, who was there through the 1930s and whistled all the time; drove my grandfather nuts, my mother said, but he let it slide because she made the best pudding he ever had, and a good pudding was worth a few tunes.

And then there was Annie Sagan, who arrived when my mother was away at college and stayed until the late 1950s, when my grandmother died and the house was closed up and, eventually, sold, marking the end of an era, the end of a way of life.

I remember Annie Sagan.

I remember visiting my grandparents – the long drive down from Maine, the crunch of gravel under the tires in their driveway, the hugs from my grandparents on the front porch. And I remember tearing down the hallway, past the sitting room, then the dining room and around the corner into the kitchen to hug Mrs. Sagan, who smelled like flour and hot bread!

And, best of all, she had a wen, a big one, right on her face near her nose! I was absolutely fascinated by it—it had a hair growing out of it, for goodness sake!—and she tolerated my examination of it with great patience. She wore flowered dresses, an apron (always an apron!), and sturdy, sensible shoes. She cooked and cleaned for my grandparents, did the laundry, helped my grandmother in the gardens.

She used to run the carpet sweeper (remember those?) every day; would let me sit on the top of it, wrap my legs around the pile and hang on for dear life as she worked over the rugs -- boy, what I ride that was!

I sat on the steps down to the laundry room and listened to her tell stories of her childhood -- she used big bars of yellow soap and a scrub board for stubborn dirt and stains, then ran it all through the electric washing machine.

I was allowed to turn the crank for the wringer…

Those days are long gone, but I still have Mrs. Sagan’s cookbook, her rolling pin and her pie crust recipe, written in her own hand and glued to a larger piece of paper my mother kept for years.

“Mrs. Sagan made the best pie crust on the planet,” everybody said; it’s still the truth today, but my brother finishes a very close Second Place!

MY GRANDFATHER, ALL DRESSED UP...

It’s a Ward Flexible Album; a 7x5 black leather book with “steel gray leaves,” made from Ward’s “puro” paper, and is “guaranteed not to discolor the photographs.”

         

It belonged to my grandfather, Gardner Sabin Gould (1886), and it’s full of wonderful old family photos, some taken at the family summer home in East Boothbay, Maine: Gould kids on sailboats, on the public dock in East Boothbay, lined up on the back steps of the summer house, paddling around in the icy waters of Linekin Bay.

          There are shots of picnics on the rocks, pine woods in the evening, two of the older boys in a small rowboat, the two youngest—Margaret and Howard—sitting on a boulder near the house, proudly displaying their new shoes!

And then there’s this damaged shot – sunstruck, ripped at the edges – of my grandfather, walking barefoot along the pathway beside the seawall...

...wearing a dress!

I wasn’t quite sure I was seeing it correctly, so I rummaged around in a desk drawer for my magnifying glass and took a good solid peek.

          It’s a dress, all right.

          Plain as day.

          It’s below knee level, but not as long as I thought it might be for the turn of the century; it’s belted – it’s actually quite classy, but not so classy on him...my best guess is that it belonged to his cousin Jessie; she had quite a sense of humor and might very well have dared him to wear it.

Jessie’s or not, here he is, striding right along, skirts swinging—my grandfather, in 1900s drag!

WALT KELLY and POGO

Cartoons; funny papers, Sunday funnies!

          It doesn’t matter what you call those panels of humor, but we all remember reading them. For me, it was flat out on the floor on Sunday mornings with the four-page color comic section: Dick Tracy, Blondie, Mark Trail (who must be 105 years old by now) and...

...Walt Kelly’s Pogo!

         

Syndicated in 1949, when I was only three years old, the Pogo strip was a social,, political—even international sensation. He was a possum who lived in Okefenoke swamp with a crowd of totally ridiculous animals.

          When I was small, my father, armed with a six-pack and a box of charcoals and pastels, drew the Pogo characters on my bedroom wall. The biggest was Albert the Alligator, and the others trailed along the wall beside my bed!

          By the time I was ten, I knew most of the characters, including an owl, a turtle and a trio of scruffy-looking bats named Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. I remember making the connection to Frank Sinatra’s version of that wonderful song!

At some point, my parents bought an LP, “Songs of the Pogo,” which contained twenty-odd completely zany songs written by Kelly and his crew. Inside the jacket was a sheet of lyrics (good thing, for we never would have figured out some of them by listening):

         

Like this:

The Keen and the Quing were quirling at quoits,

          In the meadow behind the mere.

          Tho’ mainly the meadow was middled with mow

          And heretical hitherto here.

          The Prince and the Princess were plaiting the plates

          And prating quite primly the peer,

          And that’s why the Duchess stuck ducks on the Duke

          For no one was over to seer.

Or this one, delivered by a sexy babe with a smoky voice:

          Oh, I may be your cup of tea,

          But baby, don’t you “Sugar” me!

          Don’t stir me boy, nor try to spoon,

          Don’t “sugar” me, ‘cause us is throon!

Last winter, while poking around on the internet, I stumbled upon a CD of Walt Kelly’s re-issued “Songs of the Pogo.” I bought it, gave it to my brother for Christmas.

          He opened it, grinned, slipped it into his CD player...

          ...fifty year later, he and I knew nearly ALL the words!

Note: These Pogo shots are of an original Walt Kelly panel that belonged to my aunt; it was signed and framed, and it shows the pencil work beneath the inking. There’s Albert and the three bats...

NOT HORSES, BUT HARNESS!

Writing historical fiction presents its problems, for sure. Details of everyday life can be sticklers – clothes, dishes, cookware, toys, books, lamps, furniture, tools, farm equipment – and it’s hard to put yourself back there, hard to change your perspective from 2015 to 1915 or earlier.

          I’ve got some tricks, though: I have a large collection of photographs, old magazines and newspapers, scrap books and letters.

          And I’ve got several  old mail order catalogues (Sears, Charles Williams Stores, Montgomery Ward and others) that I’ve picked up at flea markets and used book stores.

          All of that stuff makes it easier; not easy, mind you – but easier.

 Consider horse harness.

          It’s far more complicated than you might think: one- or two-horse buggy and driving harness (general “about town” use – the family car, so to speak); truck and farm (working) harness.

          And that’s just for starters: there’s gentleman’s driving harness, folded buggy harness, runabout harness; surrey or single-strap, double breast collar, and express harness.

And team harness – oh, goodness, the team harness! The Victor, the Springfield, the Empire and Richmond, Oakdale and Baltimore Team Harnesses; there are cup-shaped blinds with round winker stays, double nose bands, plain and stage pattern heel chains and double-stitched spreader straps; clipped cockeyes, folded back bands, single-strap martingales, center bar buckles and snaps; three-ring hip straps, lock-stitched lines, red hames with brass ball tops...

          ...it’s poetry to me.

I get lost in it all, get caught up in the rhythm and rhyme of it. I am pulled back to a way of life that soothes me, calms me – a world that measures time in sunrises and sets, in family breakfasts, dinners and suppers, in changes of seasons...a slower, quieter pace, a simpler state of mind.

To see what others have found, harness up and trot on over to www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

EASTER HORROR...

I’m drawn to postcard shows like a moth to a flame; I’m unable to resist them.

          I’ll spend hours sitting in a nasty folding chair; hours flipping through stacks of cards, looking for the early ones – early 1900s, that is. They’re easy to spot by the handwriting and the one-cent postage.

          I’m looking for the messages, mostly; but sometimes I flip them over, and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised.

          Or amused.

          Or baffled.

This one got me on all three counts.

This card was mailed in South Portland, Maine in April of 1911; addressed to a Miss Ruth Chaplin, who lived in the nearby town of Bridgton. Ruth was born on Christmas Day, 1905, to Eugene and Mary Frances Chaplin.

          So she was six years old when somebody sent her this card.

          “Easter Greetings,” it proclaims.

At first glance, first quick glance, I thought it was cute: the old standards – Easter chicks, a pretty butterfly, etc.

          A perfect card for a six-year old.

         

But when I looked closer, I was horrified!

          One little chicken, flat on its back in the pathway, stumpy wing flapping on the ground and little feet sticking upright, looks positively deceased.

          The other seems to be running for its life, legs extended like a sprinter at a track meet; beak open, eyes intent...

          ...while above them both, a menacing butterfly swoops down for the final kill!

Happy Easter to all!