Years ago my sister Ruth and I were enjoying an expedition to Lynn Beach and the rocks at adjoining Nahant. We had our dog Duchess with us. We were having a wonderful time clambering over the rocks when suddenly Duchess disappeared. She had accidentally fallen down a crevice similar to the one pictured above. She was wedged far below where the wedge narrowed sufficiently to stop her fall. We were so alarmed!! And scared!! Duchess looked up at us – such pleading in her eyes. We felt so helpless as to how to rescue her. Call the fire department? This was long before the days of mobile phones. But we didn’t have too long to wait – a very helpful member of the public managed to get down to the area near the bottom of the crevice and he somehow helped Duchess get free and she returned to us unscarred by her adventure. We were so happy and relieved!!

Today is November 26. In The Daily Chronicle (the in-house newspaper at Ida Culver Home Broadview – the retirement community where we have “retired”) – I read that on November 26, 1778 Captain James Cook became the first European to visit Maui. Needless to say, many Europeans, North Americans, and other people from all over the world have visited Maui. And some have settled there – my mother is one of the people who moved to Maui from New England in the 1960’s. In her 50’s, she was responding to a job advertisement for a librarian – a librarian to work primarily in the bookmobile of the library in Wailuku, Maui. She went in 1966, liked the job and the island and decided she wanted to stay permanently. She had a house built on Pio Drive and lived there for more than 30 years. She is buried there in the Garden of Remembrance at the Church of the God Shepherd.

My friend Liz Fahey, with her life before her

She married soon after attending Regis College, had 7 children and lived to age 84,

She was a neighborhood friend in Belmont Massachusetts

I have been tracing the origins of some of my childhood neighbors. I use ancestry.com, U.S. census records for 1940 and earlier, naturalization records, and other publicly available documents.

Following are examples of my findings:

A good friend of mine in high school had a grandmother living with the family. The grandmother did not speak English. She only spoke and understood Greek.

The parents of another classmate immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920’s. They recorded on their immigration form that they spoke Yiddish.

My near neighbors spoke German.

Another neighbor listed in the 1940 Census that she had been born in Sweden.

Another neighbor identified the German speaking part of Switzerland as her homeland.

Italy was identified as the home country by a number of people.

And Ireland was also identified by quite a number of people.

England was also favored by some.

This image of some of my school friends was taken from the 1953 Yearbook.

My friends look so young!

The girls are still living. The boys have passed.