THE CARPENTERS MOTHER KNEW
by June Estelle Cash
Mother did not know that the reputation of the mill was such that her father resolved not to see his daughter "have to work" in the mill.
Mother did know that her parents laid such store in her that they took great pains to make sure she knew how to be "good."
Teaching her how to read and write, her mother spent much time instructing her. When she was growing up, the family often went to visit the Carpenters in Cheshire, MA and also to York Beach, Maine for clamming on the beach. Her mother's parents had the York beach place as a "getaway" for everyone. I am not sure if it was the only place they had, but I do know that when they first started out it was in Eastham, on Cape Cod itself. York Beach Maine is on the coast, and is close to Massachusetts.
Bampy [Bahm-py] and Mamie [Mam - mie]
loved to play croquet, and "loved" each other
as best friends.
York Beach Maine
The cove that their home was on was in a row
with about ten other relatives and friends who
all knew each other. These homes today are still in York Beach, and known as the Rundlett cottages.
Here is my mother with her then two sisters
Althea in back, and Esther by her side. Notice the porch as a distinctive point to remember. I visited this home in 1987 and sat on the porch overlooking the harbor there, and my feelings were so overwhelming. God has been a part of my life ever since I asked Jesus to wash my sins away and make me clean. Christ has led me in my life from a lost sinner who needed a Savior, to a woman who knew and understood the Lord Jesus Christ to be her very source of strength in her life. When my mother was little, people went to Church but it was not something Mother's family did much of. Bampy and Mamie however did attend church. She knew their faith was strong. She longed for that faith.
When the little sisters came on the scene, Mother was expected to help care for the little ones. The oldest, was expected to do that. People had a funny attitude to a redhead, though. They automatically assumed that a redhead would be a "problem" . . .
She took it in her stride, and just decided, that if Bampy was a redhead, and her Mother was a redhead, then she too could be as good as they were. She decided that she would be her "self" as best as she could be, not anyone else, just her own self. She would make her impact on this world of hers.
As I reflect on my mother, I saw in her the strength of a woman who knew her mind, and would follow through on things if she believed them strongly enough about them. Forrest and Lillias were the very same way. They were strong minded people and knew what they wanted. They knew how they wanted it, and how to do it. They taught Vida May to do the same. The individuality of their lives spun an intricate web of hopes and dreams into Vida May's life. She wanted to live and learn and to be and to do. Her mother Lillias May (Brewer) before she married Forrest had been a teacher in a Primary School, having gone to college. Forrest - although well self-educated - had only gone to 5th grade in school due to the fact that his father - Vida's grandfather - was a farmer. As the only son that was left at home, he had to help on the farm. He taught himself much with that 5th grade education , about electricity, about all the inventions that were being created, and he read extensively. He was an electrician with the Mill, and taught Mother how to keep the books. When she got to be 11, he told her that most people have the oldest son to do the books. He had no sons, so he told her "I want to have you do my books" So she learned the extra-ordinary task of doing book-keeping, accounts payable, received, and spent, as well as recording his stamp collection.
When relatives gathered, or if someone was left to babysit the girls when they were younger, Mother did not like it if a man relative made passes at her. She would report them to her parents. And that made her a target as a "troublemaker." You are imagining things, dear, they would say. The opinion of the relatives was that she's "a redhead" and that seemed to settle it. Somehow it did not make sense to Vida. She saw her Mother keep her distance from other men. She saw how devoted her Mother was to Forrest.
And she wanted to keep herself for the right person.
So now here was Forest teaching her the books. I believe that my mother's father saw that she would do well in keeping the books. He saw that she needed to have a reason to not work in the Mills as he saw the working conditions of women in that day and age were not good. She quickly learned, and did it well. He was hopeful that she might have a better future than just a mill worker Quite often the women ended up being married to men who had no education and did not do well at all.
This had been the Carpenter Farm where my mother's father grew up. This is a photo I took in 1987 when I visited the home and stood outside. There are no woods left now. The trees are all gone - a few left for shade, but the house is there in a wide swath of land. I have the diaries of my great grandmother and great grandfather who did all that farming in the Berkshires.
My grandfather found a job closer to the area where he grew up, and there he stayed. He did not move out of Adams Massachusetts until he left to go to California many years later
Here was the home that Forrest and Lillias lived in on Creamery Avenue in Adams MA. In later years, there was a big Dairy built and so they discontinued delivering milk, just took it to the Creamery.
In Shelburne Falls, New England was briskly entering into the 30's. The depression was still upon most of the country, but in the New England town, Vida May's family was doing well. The girls were quite unhappy with the idea that they "had to keep up appearances" and felt that there was more to life than that.
AS I LOOK BACK AT MOTHER'S LIFE, I SEE HOW GOD PREPARED FOR ME TO HAVE A "BEST FRIEND" FOR ME IN MY MOTHER, AND THAT GOD WOULD ALSO GIVE ME THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, MY DEAR HUSBAND WM. HENRY CASH, JR. BEFORE ALL THAT HAPPENED HOWEVER, GOD HAD TO PREPARE MY CIRCUMSTANCES.
This was my grandmother as a young woman. I believe this is in York Beach, Maine, and may have been even on the day she got married. 1914.
THESE CLOUDS SPEAK TO ME
OF THE DEVOTION OF MY GRANDPARENTS TO EACH OTHER
IT WAS A LOVE GIVEN BY GOD FOR THEM
I SAW THAT LOVE EXPRESSED EVEN THOUGH
IT WAS NOT "DONE" TO CARESS OR SHOW AFFECTION
IN PUBLIC. I FELT THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER.
FURTHERMORE, I KNEW THAT THEY LOVED MY MOTHER
AND THAT THEY LOVED ME. NEVER EVER DID I HEAR
CRITICISM OF HER, OR OF ME, OR OF MY FATHER. NEVER
A WORD OF CHIDING. NEVER A WORD OF ANTAGONISM.
AS A LITTLE FIVE YEAR OLD
I KNEW MY MOTHER LOVED ME.
I KNEW MY GRAND PARENTS LOVED EACH OTHER.
SOMEHOW, I BELIEVED
GOD WOULD SHOW ME WHO HE WAS,
AND THAT SOMEDAY, I WOULD FIND A SPECIAL MANWHO WOULD BE MY FRIEND TOO.
MY NEXT BLOG WILL BE ABOUTHOW MY MOTHER AND FATHER MET
AND HOW I CAME INTO THIS FAMILY.
1932 was the year they met.
.....just like the clouds here we see clouds today and JESUS IS COMING IN THE CLOUDS TO TAKE US HOME TO BE WITH HIM.
