Yesterday I went for a Covid test. I went down to the lobby and waited for the van to transport me downtown. There was a large fire truck and I watched the firemen packing up their gear and getting ready to depart. I inquired about the presence of the truck and was told that a resident had had “some difficulty”. Not unusual given the age of the residents in a retirement community.

Well later in the day my son phoned to say that the director of this facility had issued the lockdown order – again! An air of gloom prevails this morning.

They are all gone now. Now our generation is approaching or has reached the great unknown. I am researching my contemporaries – trying to find out where each of them is their life journey. In my previous blog I explored the Gugger family. Today I looked up the Moore family who lived on my road (Od Middlesex Road) across the street from the Benton Branch Library. It was a family of numerous daughters. The youngest was Loretta, who was close to my age. She was a year ahead of me in high school. I remember Loretta particularly because she was friendly with Larry Foster who was in her class in Belmont High School, Class of 1953. Sadly Larry was killed in a plane crash on Nantucket Island.

In my research I found that Loretta was now a widow. Her husband of 49 years died in 2015. They married in 1966. She and her husband were accomplished librarians and had lived in Salem Massachusetts for many years. They each had attended Simmons College where they achieved some of their library science credentials. (My mother also attended Simmons when she was in her 50’s and earned her M.A. in Library Science.)

I feel that I grew up in a neighborhood of great diversity – not the diversity of 2020 but rather the diversity of the 1930’s and 1940’s. And it was the backgrounds of my playmates and classmates that interested me. They were all Americans, so far as I knew, with the exception of the 2 exchange students Anne-Lise from Heidelburg Germany and Nicole Gaston from Luxembourg. But either the parents or grandparents of many of our classmates had emigrated from Europe and eventually became U. S. Citizens.

One of my playmates was a little girl named Martha Gugger. Looking her up in the 1940 U.S. Census, I find that her parents were from Switzerland. Digging a little deeper I found that her father emigrated in 1914 just before the First World War. In 1919 he returned to his home in Switzerland and then entered the U.S. again from Montreal. He applied for Citizenship in 1921 and it was granted in 1927.

Her mother emigrated from Switzerland in 1923. The couple married in the late 1920’s and lived in Cambridge on Massachusetts Ave. Their neighbors came from Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Canada, and even elsewhere in Massachusetts. Their son Edward was born in 1931 and their daughter Martha in 1935.

In the 1940 Census the father is listed as a home owner of a house worth $4,500. His annual income was $2,600. His occupation varied in description but he was a graduate of a 4 year university, with a degree in mechanical engineering. He could speak both French and German.

He was born in 1890 and died in 1970 at the age of 80. He and his wife were still living at the address on Pine Street in Belmont. The son is still living, age 90, in Burlington Massachusetts. The daughter Martha married soon after graduating from high school. Her married name was Doyle.

Would you think that someone with dementia would be able to spontaneously identify the voice of Kate Bush? And identify her by her nickname?

I was reading about famous women in the field of physics, and there was no mention of Ann Eckels, who was a friend at Middlebury College “Back in the days”. Not long after graduation there was an item in the news that Ann had made a very significant discovery in the field of Astro-Physics. What was that discovery and what has happened to Ann since then?

She discovered that the earth was not round but rather pear shaped. I think Ann is now 85 and living in Boulder Colorado. She has 2 children William Bailie and Jean Bailie. She married a man named Bailie.

Oh and by the way she is from Laconia New Hampshire – a part of New Hampshire that I know.

Today I was continuing adding to my collection of postcards. I have so many different interests in my collection – it can get expensive. This morning I was looking at postcards of Nantucket. I have so many happy memories of that magical island. Today I looked at postcards for sale of Siasconset. My mother’s golfing friend Grace McCreary had a house in Sconset and my mother and I were house guests several times. Grace’s house in Sconset was very large. It was GRAND. There was a buzzer under the dining room table. This was used to alert the staff. The house had several wings. In the days of grand house parties I’m sure it had many a tale to tell. It was a house from a different era.

My mother’s friend Grace – a golfing friend, a neighbor in Belmont, a church friend.

According to the 1940 U.S. Census Lewis S. McCreary was born about 1874 in Michigan. His daughter Grace was born in 1911. The family lived on Clifton Street in Belmont. They had 2 maids – one named Hana Shea born about 1888 and Mary F. Sullivan born 1905.

Grace was born in 1911 – my mother was born in 1912. Grace’s father was in the plumbing equipment business – he had his own company. Grace’s father was about the same age as my mother’s father. My mother eventually became a librarian. I think Grace had similar interests. They enjoyed playing golf together at Oakley Country Club. They were just good friends and laughed a lot together.

How did Grace have such a grand house in Sconset on Nantucket? I think this was a family house of her grandparents the Spragues.

My mother passed away in October 2000. Grace passed in 2003.

I have been doing these puzzles lately and finding them rather fun. Every day in the in-house publication The Daily Chronicle there is a Word Search. I particularly liked the one for Science Fiction Authors. I wonder if I can entice any Sci-fi fans to try this one..

http://www.WordSearchAddict.com

How do I bridge the 2 year gap in writing Janet’s Thread 2 WordPress has me stuck back in time to July 2018. It doesn’t seem to realize that I’m the same writer only 2 years on. Honestly I can’t go away for a day, much less 2 years, and things change. Adapt – as my sister Nan would say.