“The Adventurous Marian Frances Winnek”
By James Van Bever, WHS Volunteer and Researcher
Marian Winnek’s first car was a 1927 Model A Ford. It was the first year the Model A was produced, and Marian had the salesman give her a lesson on how to drive the auto on an air strip outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the next few years Miss Winnek would drive this vehicle to Alaska, Death Valley and back home to the East Coast. These trips typified the many adventures that Marian Winnek would have throughout her long and colorful life.
Marian Frances Winnek was born in Belmont, Massachusetts on October 3, 1883. She was the daughter of Ansel and Nellie Hale Winnek and the great granddaughter of J.V. Fletcher. Her father left the family when Marian was at a young age. She received her early education at the prestigious Miss Brown’s School on Marlboro Street in Boston. After graduating from Miss Brown School, Marian took the college exams and was accepted at Vassar College.
However, Miss Winnek’s time at Vassar was short as she came down with asthma and spent six weeks in the college infirmary before leaving school and returning home to recuperate. Still determined to attend college, Marian retook her college exams and entered nearby Radcliffe College where she received an A.B. degree, cum laude and later a M.A. degree. During this time she worked as a volunteer social worker in Boston.
In the early 1920’s, Marian headed to La Jolla, California to teach English and drama at the Bishop’s School for Girls. “I was the rottenest teacher,” she recalled, but the parents and administrators were in awe of her Radcliffe education and her New England accent. Miss Winnek recalled that one parent wanted her to teach his daughter to speak in a New England accent. “That can’t be acquired,” she told him. “That must be learned in one’s family.”
After just one year of teaching in California, Marian joined her friend Connie and rented a home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Intrigued by an artist colony and the culture of the American southwest, she would later purchase an adobe house that included a horse named Badger. Miss Winnek would often ride Badger into the mountains with Connie on extended camping trips. On one occasion, Marian and Connie wandered into a small Colorado town at 11 at night with a saloon as the only establishment that was open. Nevertheless, the two women were able to get the town inn keeper to let them in for the night. Marian would stay in New Mexico for 13 years.
It was in Santa Fe that Marian penned her novel Juniper Hill. Juniper Hill was a fictitious name for the Cold Spring Farm in Westford built by her grandfather Jonathan Varnum Fletcher and centers around Marian’s extended Fletcher family. Every character in the novel is based on a real life character except her mother. “I made her up out of whole cloth”!, said Marian. Miss Winnek would spend summers at the farm with her cousins as a youth.
In 1935, Marian returned to Belmont, Massachusetts, to care for her ailing mother Nellie who was diabetic. Miss Winnek recalled that she slept behind a screen in her mother’s parlor. To her regret, Marian remembered the last day of Nellie’s life. Her mother had requested rice pudding for supper, but there was not an adequate recipe in the house and the pudding could not be made. Sadly, while reading in bed, Nellie’s nurse came in and told Marian that her mother had died. Marian’s mother’s ashes were buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
On September 20, 1938, a Lowell newspaper reported that Marian Winnek had purchased the three story Abbot house on 24 Main Street from James Kimball, who was the grandson of Rev. Leonard Luce. Marian had always admired the home, but the house was under repair when she purchased it. Old wiring was being upgraded, window panes were being replaced in the old windows, but much of the interior design remained the same.
However, the day after Marian purchased the Abbot house, Massachusetts and the Northeast was hit by the Hurricane of ’38. But the “Hurricane of ‘38” could not stop the adventurous Miss Winnek from driving to Westford from Belmont to review her new property. She drove through fields, orchards and fallen trees before finally reaching Westford. When she finally arrived at Westford Common, a man with a lantern informed Marian that a large tree had fallen on the front of her home. Massive repairs were required before Marian could move into her new home. She decided to move to the Adirondacks while her house was being repaired.
Marian’s adventures did not stop with the “Hurricane of ’38”. The following July she went to England and later visited other European countries. While in Europe, England had declared war on Germany which made getting back to the United States difficult for Miss Winnek. After a treacherous trip across the Atlantic Ocean on the ship Samaria, she arrived back in New York City in October 1939. Afterward, Marian would describe “the eerie feeling of coming into a darkened New York harbor at night.”
By the end of 1939, Miss Winnek would take up full time residents in Westford and except for trips and a few short absences would remain in town for the rest of her life. During these years she became involved in town and community affairs. In 1939, Marian was elected to the Westford Taxpayers Association and in later years she was elected to the Westford’s Board of Library Trustees.
But her return to Westford did not deter the adventurous spirit of Miss Winnek. She swam up to the age of eighty six and had a reputation of swimming alone in Burge’s or Long-Sought-For pond and then driving home with her bathing suit tied to her car antenna. She would change in the back seat of her car. Marian once went swimming in the month of April. “Oh, you don’t feel anything after the initial shock,” she said, “it’s too numbing.” She would sometimes swim into late November.
Despite all her adventures and travels, Marian Winnek is best remembered in Westford for the contributions she made to the town. She was taught by her grandpa Fletcher and her great uncles that wealthy people should help their community. Marian’s gifts to the town included the first children’s room, at the J.V. Fletcher Library as well as the land for the first parking area at the J.V. Fletcher Library. Later, she would donate 30.39 acres of land to the town of Westford. The only condition of her gift was that it was to be used as a bird sanctuary.
Marian Frances Winnek died in Ayer on February 17, 1977 at the age of ninety-three. Not surprisingly, one of the last gifts she ever made to the J.V. Fletcher Library was the book “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.
Sources:
“New Children’s Room at Library,” Lowell Sun, March 10, 1963, p. 34.
“Marion Winnek,” Lowell Sun, February 19, 1977, p. 12.
Downey, Jean G., “Marian Frances Winnek” 1883-1977.
Kennedy, June W., “Westford Recollections of Day Gone By” pgs. 487-506