AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES5

This is the final installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's thirteen handwritten pages of memories of her and my
Dad's childhood growing up in Oxford County, Maine during
the Depression years. This one shows ..well..a bit of a rebel
strain in them both. Man, if I'd known about this when I was
growing up, I'd have never let Dad live it down!


Up until now I've transcribed everything as written but for
this blog post I've edited two words(the reason should be
self explanatory when you see them) and the left out the
first and middle name of Dad's grade school teacher. My
transcribed copy in my records is unedited.


Our social life was rather sparce. We always looked forward to
the Young Peoples Meetings. It was a group that got together
once a week at a different home each time. We had a short
prayer meeting, played games and had refreshments. Our
minister, Rev. John G. Mantor picked us up and brought us
home each time.

Bud was in the Boy Scouts for several years. Rev. Mantor was
the Scout Master. Bud learned to swim really well during that
time.


Fun at School--


Our grade school was only 2 rooms and all twelve grades were
taught by two teachers. The state changed the requirements
for high school graduates when Bud was in the eighth grade so
he was off to Gould Academy in the fall. Hazel had quit school
during the fall of her junior year but thought it would be great to
go to boarding school so she enrolled as a junior. Guess it wasn’t
that great for her because she quit GA in December and never
went back.


Bud gave folks at Gould a hard time. He wasn’t in to rules and
regulations and did some fancy bending of the rules. He was
caught smoking and was punished. He went into the pool hall
and was suspended for two weeks. Did another stint at home
but I don’t remember what for. After all that-in his junior year-
he came down with the mumps and was sent home again. When
he applied in the fall he was turned down so he didn’t graduate.
-The next year he joined the Army Air Force. During my senior
year I roomed in the headmaster’s home. During the whole 4
years he had never once mentioned Bud to me. It did my heart
good when he asked me one day- that last Spring- what had
happened to my brother. I was so proud I got real brave, for me,
and said, “Oh, he is attending Iowa State Teacher’s College". I
didn‘t bother to mention that the Air Force sent him there to
train for some sort of radio communication.


Back to Grade School


Basically we had some very nice teachers. Only remember one
that none of us liked and of course she was the one who stayed
for three years. Her name was * * Ritchie. One time the boys in
Bud’s class (there were 5 of them) each had to sing a solo -same
song- but each one had to stand in front of the room and sing-
The song went-

In the prison cell I sit
Thinking Mother dear of you-

When it was Bud’s turn he sang- (he was in the 6th or 7th grade)

In the prison cell I sit
With my britches all be sh*t

Miss Ritchie grabbed him -threw him down in his seat and
grabbing him by the ears- slam, slam, slam, his head kept
hitting the desk. Guess she was unhappy with him!


Another time- (I’m in 3rd or 4th grade) I was given an English
paper to write. I was to copy it from a book on the desk behind
me. I kept writing and not looking at the book. She finally
asked what I was doing. I told her doing my lesson. When she
came to look at it I crumpled the paper-ran down front and put
the paper in the bottom of the waste basket. She dumped
everything oh her desk and smoothed out my paper. It said
(about 5 times)

Miss Ritchie is an old b*tchie.


Bud worked several places during the summers-
He worked at road construction when the road below the dam
that went across the river was built.

He worked in the woods with Pop- cutting logs for lumber at
the mill and cutting, loading, and hauling pulp to be pushed into
the river to go to the Berlin paper mills.

There was farming to do for a neighbor so we would have use
of his pasture and hay for our cows.

Also worked at the saw mill.

Guess that is all I remember for now. Sorry this is so messy.

Love to you,
Aunt Dot.

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES4

This is the fourth installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's memories of her and my father Bud growing up in Oxford
County, Maine in the 1920's and `30's.

I knew Dad had shot himself in the foot in his early teens but he
never gave us the real story of how it happened. I do recall seeing
a small round scar on his foot when he happened to be barefoot.



Bud loved to fly fish. We would go down to the river where there
was a great fishing spot at the foot of the old sluice that used to
be used to shoot logs over the dam and down the river. This was
about a mile down river from the dam. The water ran so swift
that it made a roaring noise not unlike the ocean waves coming
onto a rocky shoreline. We really enjoyed those trout.



Bud never left me out when his friends came to play ball. I could
neither catch a ball nor throw it where I wanted it to go. As for
batting, I always swung at the ball but never hit it. Never-the-
less I was never left out of his games and his friends knew better
than to make anything other than encouraging comments.



"The 22 rifle that Bud had was one he bought from a friend-Pop
paid half on it and said that half was mine. We were never
allowed to take the gun out except to target shoot at the corner
of the house. We had set some traps on the mountain behind
the house and wanted to take the 22 when we went to tend to
them. We were told NO! So I went in a back room and stood the
gun out the window. When we left we sort of passed that way
and took it along. When we got to the first trap there was a
skunk in it, Bud loaded the rifle and shot it, then he loaded it
again and stood the barrel on the toe of his sneaker to wait and
see if he needed a second shot. I told him he shouldn’t hold it
that way & he said it was OK because the safety was on. A few
minutes later some chips flew up and hit me and he had shot
himself in thru the foot. He said we needed to hurry home.
The ground was rough and I was winded and lagged behind.
I told him to hurry on as I knew the way. He wouldn’t leave me
behind so I just had to hurry faster. When we got home I ran to
the nearest neighbor to phone for Pop to come home. He got
the gunshot dressed and the doctor came every day and pushed
a swab with iodine on it all the way throu his foot. Bet that felt
good."

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES3

This is the third in a series of posts that are word for word
transcriptions of 13 hand written pages given to me by my
Dad's sister Dorothy. They are her memories of their childhood
growing up in the Depression era in Oxford County, Maine.


This section deals mostly with Pop...my grandfather Floyd E.
West, Sr. and what jobs he worked at.







"Pop was always afraid of the water-afraid of drowning or of
some of us lost to it.

He had a tiny hut at Beaver Brook- across the lake from where
we were living. He tended traps there all winter crossing the
lake on snowshoes and carrying a pick-pole. When ice started
breaking up in the spring it was pretty scary watching him
leave with his heavy pack sack strapped to his back. He would
step onto a large chunk of ice and shove with his pick-pole until
he got to another chunk big enough to hold him-then step onto
it-or push the chunk out of the way and stay on the one he was
floating on. I always wondered if and when he would come back.
He was gone several days and I used to be afraid the ice would
be all gone when he was ready to return.



When Flossie was born Mother went to Bethel and stayed for
two weeks. She had made new dresses for Hazel and me and I
can still rember those dresses hanging up high on the wall. They
were orange with white daisies with bright blue centers.



While Mother was gone Pop took us out to the dam every day.
Bud & Hazel were allowed to go to the house to play with
cousins Lee and Leita but since Aunt Mabel had a girl (Ruth),
younger than me, he thought she shouldn’t have to watch two
little ones. He always took me to the longshop where he was
building a motorboat for Clarence. I took my naps in the boat
he was working on. The finished boat was named the Kiko.
The last time I saw the Kiko was about 1959/60. It was no
longer the beauty it had been.



Pop had a 9 passenger green buick, convertible, touring car.
The only time I remember riding in it was when we went to
Bethel to get mother. in the late 1930’s Pop cut that car in half
and made a farm tractor out of it. The jitter-bug was all the
rage at that time. There wasn’t money for tractors and many
people were converting old cars to use in the fields. The back
tires were big truck tires.


Among other jobs -Pop was a guide for the fishermen who
came from the big city’s and didn’t know where to catch
anything. Most of the men in town were guides. Besides
knowing where to fish - the guides did the cooking and
entertaining of these guests. Story telling was a great asset.
These men could string out some pretty outlandish yarns.


We moved into the Will Hart place when Flossie was a year
old- 1931. There was a big old barn in the field close by. The
owner had a fishing lodge where he floated his 2 cows to
every summer. In winter we kept the cows in his barn- so had
milk & butter from June to Labor Day. Bud & I loved to climb
in the loft and pitch hay onto the barn floor then jump down
into it."

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES2

This is the second segment of my transcription of the 13 page
handwritten memories of my Aunt Dot on her and my Dad's
childhood.



"Pop" is my grandfather Floyd Earl West Sr. and "Mother"
is my grandmother Cora Berthella Barker. Hazel was my
Dad's older sister, and Flossie the youungest. "Uncle
Clarence" and "Aunt Mable" were my grand uncle Clarence
West and his wife. Uncle Clarence was the caretaker for over
fifty years at the Aziscoos Dam.


I'd heard the story about the geese from Dad when I was a kid
but I never knew the story of how he came to be called Bud nor
that he had been called "Pudge" in high school.



And I am quite certain he'd never have told us about setting the
bed on fire!



"My brother, Floyd Earl West, Jr. was probably never called by
his sir name. Hazel was taught to call him brother and it came
out budda- hence the nickname Bud. In high school at Gould
Academy, he was known as Pudge and when his class mates
ask about him to this day- -he is still Pudge!


Bud always took good care of me---



When we lived on the lake shore Hazel was in grade school and
had walk out to the dam to get on the bus. Mother often went
to meet the bus and walk Hazel home. If she got to talking with
Aunt Mable it was sometimes awhile before they returned. Bud
was left in charge and most of the time we would be taking a
nap when she left. One time we got to playing with a box of
matches on Pop’s bed and set it on fire. When mother got home
the wall and bed were pretty well in flames. Bud and I were in
the doorway. He was buttoning my coat.(We were in the
neighborhood of being 3 & 5 years old as Flossie hadn’t been
born yet.) She got water from the lake and put the fire out. We
had a constant reminder as there was a large wood clock on a
shelf above the bed and one end of the clock was charred.



We always had lots of snow and loved to pile it up and make
tunnels and snow houses. One winter Hazel, Bud, & I made a
snow cave and Bud crawled inside and was cleaning it out
when the whole thing caved in on him. We were frantic trying
to uncover him. Yelled for Mother and she came down the hill
and dug him out. Was I scared!!



One of our favorite things to do was to battle with Uncle
Clarence’s geese. That goose and gander came up the lake
every day and always got out of the water at our place. We
were told to stay up the steps where they couldn’t reach us but
we just knew we could get the best of them. We made plans to
stand back to back-one of us had a broom and the other a
clothes stick to beat these geese back to the lake. They went
back all right-each carrying a screaming kid by the seat of our
pants. Mother always rescued us before they got in the water.
Our back “cheeks” had an awful lot of big black spots but we
were already planning how we would get the upper hand and
win tomorrow. "

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES

This the first in a series of posts which are my transcriptions
of 13 handwritten pages. They were written by my Aunt Dot
 (Dorothy West Bargar) and given to me yesterday when we attended
my nephew Paul's wedding.

Some explanations of the names mentioned: Phillip was
Phllip Jonathan West, Dot's grandfather and my great
grandfather. Hazel was her older sister and Flossie(Florence)
the youngest.

"Dingle" is a new term to me and sounds like a shed.


"Our family lived on Back Street in Upton from about 1830 to
1927. I have a picture of Bud and Hazel, taken Aug., 1926 that
was given me by Pop’s cousin Louie West (his dad was great
uncle Paul -Philip’s brother). This was the first I heard that I
ever lived in Upton. My birthday was in April of that year.


From conversations, I think I remember we probably moved
to Magalloway for a short time, then to Wilsons Mills. Phillip
stayed in Magalloway.


The first place I remember living was in a little square cabin on
the shore of Azichoos lake back a trail from the dam house.
There was a wagon trail past an old stone quarry and a foot
path along the lake shore. The quarry was home of the bear
that we always looked out for. The cabin was partitioned off in
one corner-a room big enough for a white iron double bed and a
built in double bed with a bunk (half size) up under the eaves.
There was a path between the beds wide enough for a dresser.
The remainder of the cabin was one L shaped room (except the
L was upside down & backwards) (end p.1)


The back door opened to a covered walk that led to a dingle
where we kept outdoor tools and dry wood for the fire. The
space from the door to the dingle was about the width of a
standard sidewalk. I have always remembered the dingle
because that is where the bag of toys that Santa brought was
kept. I only remember one Christmas that we received presents
and must have been when I was three because Flossie was not
yet in the family.


Don’t remember what Hazel& Mother got. Pop got a necktie,
Bud got pocket knife. (he would have been 5 years old) and I got
a pull toy -it was a green platform with red wheels & a red pull
string and had a white celluloid lamb on the platform. We also
got a tiddle wink game, which at my age was a great failure at,
but liked it anyway. That was probably 1929.


In years later we always decorated the house and had fun
making our decorations from newspapers and magazines. For
many years we had carefully saved the few fold out paper
Christmas bells and a few pieces of red & green rope that had
come with the family before any time that I recall."(end p 2)