The Westford Wardsman, August 17, 1918
Center. The Spaulding Light Cavalry association held its annual reunion with business meeting, sports, entertainment and luncheon on Thursday afternoon of this week, a more extended account of which will be given next week.
The single service of the day for the vacation month was held Sunday evening at the Congregational church. J. W. Rafter was in charge of the meeting which was well attended and well sustained.
Miss Dora Hawkes, of Melrose, is spending vacation days with her aunt, Mrs. A. W. Hartford.
The Pitkin family, who have been living in the Hamlin house, facing the common, have moved from the village going to the Charles Whitney house at Banister’s corner.
Rev. and Mrs. David Wallace and Miss Pauline Wallace were in town on Tuesday, calling on friends and former parishioners.
Master Harold Wright is out again after an attack of tonsillitis.
Mrs. L. W. Wheeler is entertaining her aunt, Mrs. Emily W. Paine, of Providence, and her cousin, Mrs. Merle H Rhodes, of Boston.
Mrs. Mervin Steele has gone to Canada to visit relatives.
Mr. and Mrs. Perry Shupe are at their farm in South Merrimack, N.H.
Mrs. Joseph Moran is spending two weeks with relatives in Providence.
Mrs. Wilson, of Lowell, and her attractive little son Richard, who have been boarding for a number of weeks with Mrs. Walker, have returned home.
Mrs. Fred A. Hildreth, of Malden, is a guest of the H. V. Hildreths.
Miss Eva F. Pyne is enjoying a vacation visit in Warren, N.H.
Postmaster J. Herbert Fletcher and Dr. C. A. Blaney have been enjoying their ten-days’ auto and fishing trip in Maine. They are expected home this week-end. John G. Fletcher came home Wednesday after several weeks spent at a boys’ camp in the Lake Winnipesaukee [sic] country.
The Westford company, M. S. G., held their regular drill on Tuesday evening. In accordance with instructions from the regimental commander this company will go to Camp Gardiner, Framingham, August 22, for a tour of duty lasting through August 25. Each member received a printed list of instructions and outfit to carry. Alfred W. Hartford has been appointed mess sergeant, and Privates Johnson and Harrington as cooks. All members of the company will report at the town hall on Thursday morning, August 22, at 7:30 o’clock, and will be transported from there to Framingham by automobile.
About Town. The funeral of Mrs. Mary W. Byam was held last week Wednesday from the home of her son, Otis Byam, Lowell. The services were conducted by Rev. E. A. Robinson, of Chelmsford. Miss Etta B. Thompson and Edward E. Adams sang “Beautiful isle of somewhere” and “The homeland.” The bearers were her four sons, Otis, Herbert W., Ralph W. and James E. Byam. Burial was in Hart Pond cemetery, South Chelmsford. She will be better remembered by some of the older residents as Miss Mary M. Capen, born in Shirley. Her girlhood days were passed in Westford, where she attended Westford academy in 1840, when John Kebler was preceptor [1839-1841], and Miss Lucy Eliot Abbot, of Hampton Falls, N.H., was preceptress [1842-1844]. [They married each other.]
At a recent meeting of the finance committee, H. V. Hildreth was chosen chairman and W. R. Taylor as secretary.
The farmhouse recently vacated by Charles H. Whitney is now occupied by the Pitkin family recently of Westford Center.
The largest shipment of sweet corn to Boston is from the Swanson farm on Francis hill. This corn was planted extremely early and was above the June frost zone which hit within a few rods of the tomato zone of Robert Prescott lower down the hill. The writer made a personal inspection at that time for frost freaks. The foot of the hill was protected by a fog belt; above this belt a strip was frost swept until the altitude was too much of a climb for the frost.
120,000 bushels of beans are left over from the 1917 crop and the government is teasing us to turn into the role of consumer and market them. With the government wisely enforcing a curtailment of the use of bread-stuffs, it is evident that these beans were held in violation of the law of supply and demand, and the writer has no sympathy except for the consumer who would have been glad to have partaken more freely at prices proportionate to the crop, which must have been large enough to have sold at lower rates, or no 120,000 bushels would have been left over. Much that is on the market is panic prices and not scarcity prices. It is extremely highly contagious and we all ought to be put under quarantine.
Amos Polley, on the Prairie farm, is preparing land for sowing winter wheat in the interests of home-grown bread. Wheat raising in Massachusetts seems to be coming into its own again. In 1917 there were 700 acres raised in this state; in 1918, according to government crop reports, there are 2000 acres of wheat and every county and nearly every town were represented.
Amos Polley and other kinsfolks made an auto tour Sunday to Concord, Lexington and other surrounding towns. He reports a large acreage of uncut hay and backward crops as compared with the Stony Brook valley.
Miss Hazel Fletcher has gone to Mackinac Island Lake, Mich., which is a beautiful and exclusive summer resort. She will be the guest of her friends, Misses Marion Thayer and Mary Latham, at their summer homes.
Little Dorris [sic] Carkin, aged eight years, of Tyngsboro, was fatally injured by an automobile at Woods’ corner, just out from Tyngsboro. Carl Peterson, the driver of the car, said that the little girl came running out from the bushes beside the road and he could not stop the car in time to avert the accident. She was taken to the Lowell General hospital, where she died. She was the daughter of Mrs. Eva Carkin, widow of James R. Carkin, who formerly lived here in Westford on Oak hill.
The passing of Mrs. Sara [sic; see below] R. Hildreth makes the fourth woman in Westford to have passed on in recent years after reaching the century mark. The other three were Mrs. [Elijah, Jr.] Hildreth [nee Isabella Caldwell (1783-1884)], grandmother of Miss Ella Hildreth; Mrs. [James] Garvin [nee Abigail Kimball (1795-1900)] and Mrs. [Patrick] O’Toole [nee Catherine McMahon (1799-1902)].
Mr. and Mrs. [Gaston E.] LaBouteley are receiving congratulations on the birth of a little daughter [Dorothy Eunice LaBouteley] at Miss Garratt’s hospital in Lowell [Aug. 9, 1918].
Seth Banister, in service in England, has sent by mail some valuables to the Banisters and Barnes on the Lowell and Providence roads.
Death. Mrs. Sarah R. Hildreth passed away last week Friday at the home of her daughter, Miss Martha M. Hildreth, aged 100 years, 6 months, 20 days. It is an unusual distinction which was hers to have rounded out more than a century and have maintained her faculties up to the end. Last winter she celebrated her 100th birthday and was the center of much attention.
On January 21, 1818, Mrs. Hildreth was born in the north part of the town in a house which her father built. That part of the town was called Tenney’s corner, in honor of her father. Her parents were Samuel Tenney, of Littleton, and Rebecca (Clark) Tenney, of Concord. She attended the old district school, known as No. 8. On January 3, 1841, she was married to a schoolmate and neighbor, James Hildreth. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Leonard Luce. She went to live after her marriage at the well-known Hildreth place at the head waters of long-Sought-for pond. Here most of her life was spent—in a place of natural beauty. On this farm were the immense boulders which have attracted so much attention in later years. Seven children were born at this homestead, four of whom are living—Samuel Tenney Hildreth, of Dracut; Mrs. Emma A. Chandler, Frank H. and Martha M. Hildreth, all of this town.
The deceased was well known here, having spent her long life in this, her native town. She was a woman of sterling qualities, having those good rugged characteristics which we are pleased to consider as the makings of a real New Englander, and with all her seriousness she had a pleasing sense of humor, and even until the last this was apparent. She had a genuine love of people and was friendly and cordial, fond of a “chat” with her friends. She loved to recall the pleasant incidents connected with her long and useful life. With bright color in her cheeks and a luster in her eyes she would converse with her friends. She took an interest in the war and related how in her youthful days it was Napoleon who was the centre of attention. Mrs. Hildreth was able to sew and knit and enjoyed it.
The funeral service was held from her late home on Tuesday afternoon at two o’clock, conducted by Rev. Louis H. Buckshorn and Rev. Howard A. Lincoln. Mrs. Nettie A. Roberts, of Lowell, sang several beautiful selections. The burial was at Hillside cemetery, in the Hildreth lot. The committal service was read by Rev. L. H. Buckshorn and Mrs. Roberts sang. There were beautiful flowers from friends. The bearers were J. Willard Fletcher, Francis W. Banister, Horace Gould and Hammett D. Wright.
Townsend
Wedding. The wedding Miss Frieda Patricia Hallisey, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John T. Hallisey of this town, and Sergt. Eugene J. Schmitt of Camp Devens, son of Mr. and Mrs. L. Schmitt of Brooklyn, N.Y., occurred Sunday at ten a.m. in St. John’s Catholic church, Townsend…. Her father gave her away and her sister, Agnes Hallisey, acted as Bridesmaid and Mrs. William Stewart was matron of honor. Corporal Gardner was best man and little Miss Phyllis Wilson carried the silk service flag….
It was regretted that the seventy-five soldiers from Sergt. Schmitt’s company from Camp Devens could not arrive at the hour appointed for the wedding, also that Lieut. Heunchburger was delayed on account of auto trouble. All, however, were present at the reception to extend congratulations and best wishes to the bridal couple. In the afternoon the happy couple left by auto to take a train for Brooklyn, N.Y., where friends awaited them and a reception given in their honor by Sergeant Schmitt’s parents and brother….
They were the recipients of many useful wedding gifts, among them being fifty dollars in gold and twenty dollars in bills from the 1st Co., Q.M.C., of Camp Devens. There were also pretty and dainty gifts for the bride from her school girl friends….
Sergt. Schmitt had a furlough of fifteen days and they plan to spend part of their honeymoon in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the remaining days in Townsend. It is of interest to know that on the quartermaster’s service flag carried at the wedding a star was placed for the bridegroom, Sergt. Schmitt, and another for his brother, Sergt. Harold Schmitt, who is in service overseas and who expressed the wish that he might be represented at the wedding by the star, beside his brother’s.
Groton
More Books Needed. The public library has received a request from the American Library association headquarters in Washington for more books from this community for the men overseas. The appeal from Washington states that new novels and good western stories (whether new or old) are most needed. Books by Zane Grey, Rex Beach, Jack London, Ralph Connor, Owen Wister and O. Henry are very popular.
The public library announces that it will receive and forward all suitable books that are turned in. It urges the friends of the soldiers and sailors, many of whom have already responded most generously, to give more books. The books go on the decks of transports, in cargo vessels and in naval vessels. Those that go on the decks of transports are open so that the men may have reading matter for use on the voyage. All these books are gathered together again, however, replaced in the cases and delivered to the proper officials in France.
Littleton
Auto Accident. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hibbard converted their home into a temporary hospital on Wednesday night when a Cadillac Sixteen, No. 61,308, carrying five soldiers and their chauffeur to Camp Devens, hit a telephone pole near the Congregational church, turned, shot through the fence, landing right side up in the L. A. Hager meadow, several feet below the road. Although the brakes were applied such was the momentum that the car pushed ahead some thirty or forty feet.
Lieut. Gerard, one of the new French instructors at the camp, sustained a gash in his head over the right eye, requiring six stitches. Sergt. Shea, from the base hospital, was cut over the bridge of his nose. The other soldiers were more or less shaken up, but not seriously injured. The chauffeur, Walter L. Shaw, of Boston, escaped with a few scratches.
Dr. J. D. Christie promptly responded to a call for service and gave all necessary treatment. An ambulance from the camp carried the injured to the cantonment and the crippled car was later removed to the road and driven home. The top of the auto was torn from the body, the windshield was smashed, and a mudguard was bent, but the engine was in running order. The owner, Carl Maxwell, lives at 16 Frawley street, Roxbury.
Ayer
News Items. A new species of insect pest is gradually destroying the elm trees about town, as well as other shade trees. As a result of the work of the unknown destroyer many limbs are bare, the leaves of the trees upon which it works being strewn about the streets. Unless something is done many of the beautiful trees will be destroyed.
A large number of slackers were brought to camp from various parts of the country on Thursday night. They alighted at the depot and were taken to the camp in government automobile trucks. These evaders of military duty all lived in the section which sends its men to Camp Devens, but had left for other and distant places in order to get away from the draft regulations. That distance means little if anything to the government when it goes after a man is shown by the fact that one of the men rounded up, although living in this section of the country, was caught in faraway Oklahoma, to which place he had evidently fled to avoid military service.
The presidential proclamation requires all men who have become twenty-one years of age since June 5, 1918, and on or before August 24, 1918, to register. This registration will be held at the rooms of the exemption board at the town hall, Ayer, on Saturday, August 24, from nine in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon.
W.C.C.S. Notes. H. E. Robbins, executive secretary of the War Camp Community Service, has been appointed commissioner for smileage books. Books may be had at the Soldiers’ club, West street, at one dollar and five dollars. A smileage book to an enlisted man means happy evenings. There are forty-two Liberty theatres now operating and four more soon to open.
A trip through an army cantonment shows to the civilians how little he knows of army life, of war and its stern realities. It is a strange impression one feels on entering a playhouse built by the government, inside the camp, and dedicated to the entertainment of the men in the service. Never before in the history of the world has such a thing been done by any government. Its value and worth have been proved beyond all question. Imagine an immense theatre 180×120 feet. Not an extra board, nor an extra seat, nor an extra cent of cost, yet adequate for all needs.
It is not the theater the man from the city is accustomed to, but it is a revelation to the man from the small towns. Such a theatre, holding 3000 people, would take the entire population of many a town from which men in camp have come. At a cost of half a million, theatres have been built in forty-two camps.
These theatres are conducted without profit by the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, which is the government organization for directing the work of the War Camp Community Service, Y.M.C.A., K. of C., Y. W. C. A., the American Library association, the Jewish Welfare board. Of all these activities War Camp Community Service only has been created by the government; all the other activities have been invited to help in the work of providing for the soldier in his leisure time.
In the Liberty theatre the actor works for greatly reduced wages, and the motion pictures are rented at a low price. The Liberty theatre is well serving its purpose in relieving the mental strain of routine training and thus the more quickly making an efficient soldier.
Now to accomplish the purpose of these Liberty theatres, to support them, to get men into them, the smileage book was introduced. These books contain a number of coupons worth five cents each in exchange for admission tickets to the picture show or big production. The admission charges run from five to fifty cents, or from one to ten smileage coupons.
The smileage book is one war activity in which the purchaser can designate the man to directly receive the benefit. The best thing of the smileage book is what it buys.
On Saturday, August 17, twelve writers, representing the leading magazines of the country, will study the work of the War Camp Community Service in Ayer. An article from each writer will soon be published.
It is requested that enlisted men who can sing second bass join the Monday evening chorus singing at the Soldiers’ club, West street. The chorus is making excellent progress and the ensemble, that most vital necessity of chorus singing, is becoming better and better. The bass must have volume if it is to carry, and with more second basses to add the needed tonal balance fast progress will undoubtedly be made by the chorus.
Through the War Camp Community Service, John E. Thayer, of South Lancaster, invites the officers and men of Camp Devens to visit his bird museum. Mr. Thayer’s collection of mounted birds is large and unique. The museum is on the main street in South Lancaster. It is open on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, 8 to 12 in the morning, 1 to 4:30 in the afternoon.
New Lot of Draftees. The following is a list of registrants to be called for military service between August 26 and 30, and the camps to which they will be assigned:
Camp Devens …
Camp Jackson, Columbia, S.C. – … Chester E. Blaisdell, Raymond V. Charlton, Westford; …
These go to Camp Upton, Yaphank, L.I., for limited service – … Henry G. E. Couture, Harold Cuttell, Westford; …
To the Editor. The suffrage coffee house, West Main street, has now been running long enough to demonstrate its usefulness and is patronized by soldiers and others in steadily and rapidly increasing numbers.
The house supplies well cooked and well served meals at cost. It furnishes a comfortable lounging and smoking room for soldiers, a quiet reading and writing room, and hot baths at twenty-five cents each. Books, magazines and games are supplied. There are a piano and Victrola, and a general atmosphere of informality and comfort pervades the house. Special suppers for the entertainment of parties of soldiers are becoming popular.
The large double wooden house on the main street between the cantonment and the town which was purchased has been remodeled and equipped at an expense of about $6900 to fit the requirements of the soldiers. A resident hostess, a resident manager and an excellent cook with necessary assistants have been secured, many of whom are the wives of soldiers stationed at the cantonment, and, judging by the words of praise and the large patronage of the soldiers, it appears that the Suffrage coffee house has now made the place for itself in Ayer which we hoped for when the project was started. The military health and sanitary inspectors give our house a rating of ninety-five percent, the highest in town. The recreation room and comfort stations for the women relatives and friends of the soldiers have supplied a very pressing need in Ayer and have apparently been greatly appreciated. The house is run on the basis of an eight-hour day for employees, and along democratic lines.
Contributions for the enterprise have been most generous and spread over a large number of individuals and Suffrage leagues, including many in New Hampshire and Maine. They have been handled by a committee of women who have given a great deal of time and effort and have tried in every case to get the best results at the least possible expense.
Various visiting hostesses give their weekends at the coffee house when the number of visitors is very large, and members of the regular committee go to Ayer sufficiently often to keep in touch with conditions there.
The house is now almost self-supporting, that is, it practically pays its own running expenses, although nothing of course is counted for rent, a very large item for desirable locations in Ayer at this time, nothing for interest on the money put into it, or for the many helpers who volunteer their time in various capacities.
Because the house has become so popular, it is necessary from time to time to install improvements at considerable expense, but, as this is not a money-making venture, the committee does not feel that these should be paid for from the receipts of the coffee house.
Besides the comfort and convenience which the coffee house furnishes to the soldiers, the committee wishes to emphasize the great service it renders to their mothers, wives and sweethearts.
The committee greatly appreciates the support which the suffragists and the public have given this enterprise, and believes that they will be glad to hear that it is so successful.
For the Committee,
Teresa A. Crowley, Treas.