A little bit about the Thornton’s-- part two

I am not too happy with the job I did on part one. A few years ago I first started writing this blog at my children’s request. The reason they asked me to do it. Is because, they knew little or nothing about my childhood. Other than a few light hearted anecdotes.
The reason I never talked about the subject was that up until about five years ago, I had not come to accept the fact that it was not really, the abomination, that I thought it was.
So in the first Thornton blog, I sort of bragged about my memory. Well in reading the literature I have about the Thornton’s. I could not help but marvel at how much their house in Pa. stacked up, as to how I remember our house in Georgetown.
So at the risk of redundancy, I am going to touch on a few of my childhood memories and how they affected me. And then I will add another article about the Thornton’s to illustrate, what I feel are similarities. And of course leave my memory wide open for second guessing.
My recollection starts, when I was not yet five years old, I am not going to relate all that I recall. Just the gist of the family break up, and what happened to my parents.
Noel and I were removed from the household and placed into an orphanage in Boston Mass. About a year later we placed into the home of Helen Thibedeau in Beverly Mass. as state wards. We were very fortunate to be placed with her; she was my first true love. But the locals did look down their noses at state wards. And I feel as though we were discciriminated. All my time in Beverly, I felt like a party crasher. But this was only with the adults, the church and the schools. As for the kids I grew up with, they accepted me as just another kid. And I have many of them as friends to this day. Although, many are leaving this earth at an alarming pace.
Delice and Adele went straight to a foster home as state wards in Merrimac Mass. And from what I can gather faired quite well.
Harry went straight to a foster home in the cove section of Beverly, Mass and also fared quite well. The family’s name was Tate. And I do believe wanted to adopt him. But Harry being older and much more aware of his Lemp heritage resisted it.
David went to stay with our neighbor the Thompson’s. And from there joined the Air Force at a young age.
As for my Mother and father I can only relate what I have as fragmented hearsay. My mother was a small fragile women who after baring one child after another. Was expected to go right back home and do the tremendously hard work of housekeeper, cook, nurse and the myriad tasks of a mother in a big drafty house with no running hot water or appliances of any kind. I believe she was a victim of postnatal trauma and the trauma of her husband hurting his hands in an electrical accident, and not able to work to support the family. I feel as though she just caved in under the load that was thrust upon her. She ended up spending the rest of her life in the hell hole known as Danvers State Mental Institute. Where she was misdiagnosed and mistreated until her death. In this day and age she would have led a perfectly normal life. As you can see her mother had the same demands on her. But, was of a much more robust physique, and had much more family support. I do not mean to imply that Herman’s siblings, Clara and James and his father Harry would not help. But unlike the Thornton’s, his family did not live near by.
And as we all know, my father, feeling like a complete failure. Selected suicide to get out of a situation that he felt he had no control over.
That’s it in a nut shell, in future blogs I will go back and tell you about each
 of my family individually. But remember, it will be my view.

I chose to add an excerpt from utube to give you some idea of the hellish conditions my mother had to endure at the Danvers State Hospital
I remembering getting up and walking out of the theater during the screening of “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” I to this day do not think people with any mental issues should be made fun of. All though few will admit it. Every family has someone who needs understanding. Not ridicule.
And as, for genes. The Lemp family has more than it share of over achievers.

                     Old Days in Northeast by Ralph Hartley

                                      “Bring up a Child”
Hiram Thornton was five foot four inches tall and weighed a muscular 175 pounds. Mary, his wife, was five feet tall and weighted maybe 140, depending on whether or not she was with child. For 27 years she was either with child or with baby.
Omer was born June 11, 1892. Ethel was born April 11 1895. Other births: Beatrice, Jan. 25, 1900; Lee and Leah, twins, Oct. 29, 1903; Ilah Nov. 14, 1901, Burton, Nov. 3, 1909; Burlan, Nov. 25, 1910; Ruby, Obt. 26, 1906, Ella 1912; Vera, Aug. 10, 1915; Spencer, Jan 20, 1917; Ruth, May 12 1897.
Omer died of blood poison from a foot injury before age 10. Ruby and Ella died in infancy. Ilah, Lee and Spencer survived. Mary was born March 22, 1873, and lived until April 25, 1955, age 82.
In early married life, Hi and Mary may have stayed with Buel at the Archie Evans farm on Wilson Road. But by 1900, with three children they decided it was time to have their own house. So Hi built a house on one acre of land a short distance west from Buel. Buel may have sold or donated the acre of ground.
It was a practical, no frills house, frame with two stories and a small porch in front. There was a small, earthen floor cellar for storing potatoes or apples. An open air well was dug on the east side close by the kitchen entrance. A large storage room was on the north side with a stoop and plank ramp leading to the door.
The downstairs had a living room, a parlor, and a bedroom, a kitchen and the storage room. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, with walls unplastered. Just the bare necessitates.
Only the parlor had a rug. Other floors were bare boards. Made it easier to keep clean. There were no davenports or stuffed chairs. The cooking was done on a wood-fired kitchen range. The living room was heated with a baseburner using anthracite coal.
When necessary, the boys slept three to a bed, as did the girls. Guests might use a cot in the living room. They hired man slept where he could, doubling up with one of the boys, or using a cot.
Not much new clothes were bought. There were lot of hand-me-down dresses, coats, caps, and trousers, etc. from one child to the younger. Even the uncles chipped in with clothing. Mary had a sewing machine, petal type, and it was kept busy with repairs and clothes making.
As for food, it was plentiful if not fancy. Breakfast often had pancakes with maple syrup and sausage or bacon. Occasionally jonny cake or corn meal mush with syrup was eaten.
The noon meal often had a stew of vegetables and meat. This with a big slice of home-made bread plus a side dish of canned fruit and perhaps apple pie kept the kids going til supper.
Fried potatoes, meat and homemade bread could be had for supper. Hi had a big garden and in season there were always fresh tomatoes, corn on cob, peas, beans, etc. aplenty. If Lee was lucky at fishing or hunting there could be fish or rabbit on the menu.
Hi planted apple trees and apples were left on the ground for winter eating. They seldom froze under the Greenfield snows. There were blackberries from nearby pasture and woods, and strawberries, and nuts from the woods. The Thornton family ate well.
Sometimes one of Hi’s customers would give him a quarter of beef on a past
due bill. This would be hung outside on the rear porch and the cold kept it in good shape in winter weather. There always was a hog to butcher, which provided lard, sausage, hams, and such.

Hi kept a flock of 30 chickens which produced eggs and an occasional rooster dinner with biscuit.
Lee found time to play baseball, swim, and similar boyhood activities, in addition to school, helping at the blacksmith shop and hoeing and weeding the garden. He learned to plow at age 10, and to drive a carriage at age 12. He was a mainstay in the family with all those sisters to look out for. Tending the horses, cows, and such added to his labors.
One activity was severely frowned on by Hi. Once he heard Lee use a cussword when things didn’t go right. Hi invited Lee to the stable where he took a horsewhip and “tickled” Lee’s bare legs. Lee was about 12 and he never forgot that “lesson” He is now 87 and for 75 years you can believe he has never used a swear word.

A little bit about the Thorntons

My memory has always been an enigma to me. I can remember vividly things that happen over seventy years ago. But have a terrible time remembering names when I meet people, or where I left my glasses five minutes ago. If there was some one with the same experiences still around, they would probably say I was full of shit.
But some of the life style that my mother’s family endured, I can relate to as a child living in Georgetown Mass. An outhouse, no central heat,only one sink with a pump handle. The sink drained into a dry well right outside and was always a muddy spot. Just to name a few.
The following excerpts were written by Ralph Hartley a journalist for the “North East Breeze” This was a weekly paper with mostly local color as its format. The stories took place in and around Little Hope, Pennsylvania, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s
Northeast Breeze is a newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA covering local news, sports, business, jobs, and community events.
In December 2008, the Journal Register Company shut down the Northeast Breeze, both in print and online. The Northeast Breeze had been published weekly. Publisher J. Wesley Rowe Jr. cited the struggling economy and an unsuccessful attempt by the company to sell the newspaper as the reasons for the shut down
                       Old Days in North East by Ralph Hartley
A Vacant House
Seventy years have passed since the Thorntons moved from the old house on Wilson Road. It is now vacant, waiting to be demolished. For a time after Hi moved out the house was rented but rent was hard to collect so the dwelling was sold to Burdette Sweet. Burdette in due course sold to the Charles Lewis family, and it has remained in the Lewis hands until the present.
Of the 10 children who grew to maturity, best known was Burton who served Greenfield Township for several decades as supervisor and as road maintenance chief.
Ethel was an elementary teacher for 30 or more years, well liked where ever she taught. Lee, who looked after the family after Hiram died, got work at the General Electric in 1923 and was long time employee until he retired some years ago.
Beatrice married Emory Luke. Burlan moved to Lawrence Park. All did well. He and Mary had to time for frivolities, but they made sure their children were raised in the way they should go. Sundays were spent in church and Sunday School, with no fun and games. Hiram was a teacher in Sunday School.
Reading was permitted on Sunday, and there was a family library consisting of boys’ and girls’ books on religion, certain classics such as Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans, a few Alger books, a large family medical book (which saw a lot of use), history books, essay books, the Century Book of Facts published about 1900, and other books of miscellaneous nature. No book was ever thrown away and over the years an accumulation of several shelves was made.
Hiram served several terms on the Greenfield Board of Education. Next to Vern Raymond he was likely the best known in Greenfield.
The family was not without fun. They had a checkerboard, and played a type of card game called Flinch, and doubtless games of hide-and-seek, etc. For many years there were no musical instruments, but in late years, around 1917, Hi got a gramophone. It was the kind that had a brass hom and cylindrical records. This livened things a good deal.
While the kids did not get to the circus in Erie, there was the annual visit of Chief Rolling Thunder and his medicine show which set up a tent at Little Hope each summer. The Chief wore a headdress of feathers and buckskins. Hs tents were set along French Creek, and you could imagine that there were once again Indians living along French Creek.
Doc Finn kept them under his eye and was present at all their births for which his total bill was $65. He had lived just east on Finn Road. There does not seem to have been much sickness. Lee does not recall his mother ever being sick except in 1918 with the prevalent influenza. All recovered.
Mary had no time to be sick what with cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing, mending, sewing, canning, and supervising her brood. She canned more than 200 cans of fruit, vegetables, jams, jellies, etc.
The Thornton’s never made ice cream, so far as Lee remembers. But Vern Raymond’s store sold It and when they had a nickel they would go to the store on a hot summer day for a “treat”.
And when the home library needed spicier reading, Lee could visit Del Johnson and take home a few books on Buffalo Bill and other heroes. Del had quite a collection of adventure books, among others.
Lee was only 16 when he left Little Hope’s Wilson Road. He had made syrup in Yost’s woods to help the family breakfasts. He says it amounted to over 10 gallons a year, boiled on weekends in late winter.
` He learned to ride horses bareback and did a great many things that boys might like to do today. These 10 children living in an unheated upstairs (sometimes the living room door was left open on cold nights) with minimal luxuries, nevertheless remember the old frame dwelling fondly.
Dave Thornton and Mary Lou are cousins, being descended from Anson Thornton, Lee’s uncle. Amelia Ward and Alice Beeman were his aunts, as was Ada Crabb. Other children of Buel were Emma, John, and Jesse.

Fish tales

All though the service for Jim Karolides was a rueful occasion, it also had its lighter moments. Seeing and talking to many people, that I had not seen in many years was uplifting.

Which brings me to a conversation I had with Jay Karolides. His slant on our conversation was that as I enter my dotage, I am losing it. And my view is that he should consider politics, as he is certainly good at revisionary history.
One beautiful summer day, I took Jay fishing to one of my favorite spots. A tiny body of water known as Round pond, which drains into Chebaco Lake   bordering on Hamilton, and Manchester, Mass. The expectation was for three or four good hours of fishing before it got dark. Jay was only in grammar school at the time. But he was good at casting. He had spent many hours practicing his casting into the river at Calvin Putnam's lumber yard before it was turned into yuppieville. So before I could even get the oars out of the water, he made what is arguably one of the worst casts of all time. The lure went about twenty feet up and landed about six inches away from the boat. As luck would have there was a huge bass lurking right there. Jay’s rod immediately bowed in half and the battle was on. It appeared as if the fish was going to win the battle as Jay was sprawled over the gunnels, and appeared as though he was trying to get a drink of water. I grabbed him by his belt loops and yanked him back into the boat. He then proceeded to boat the monster, and was hooked on bass fishing for life. Now I was psyched and started casting like crazy in hopes of catching one just as big. But the next thing out of Jay’s mouth was, I don’t feel good uncle Herm, I want to go home. I pretended that I did not hear him. But after about fifteen minutes I gave in and took him home. The reason being of course was that he could not wait to show his family and friends the big fish he had caught. So somewhere in a Karolides scrapbook there is a picture of a beaming Jay and his fish. I believe it also lurks in the achieves at the Salem News.
That’s my story and I am sticking to it. For Jay’s heroic version you will have to talk to him!
In my last blog I spoke of a practical joker and his El Producto box of rabbit droppings. Well to continue the saga of this particular, practical joker. I, Carl Eaton and he were surf fishing for striped bass on Plum Island. After fishing all night, I fell asleep on the sun warmed sand. The next thing I know, Carl is vigorously shaking me awake. He is hollering, look at your rod. My rod is bowed over and vibrating, looking like it was going to be yanked right out of the rod stake. Still half a sleep I run over and grab my rod, pull back on it violently to set the hook. Expecting to feel the surge of a big bass, all I feel is dead weight. Carl is beside me jumping up and down, hollering is it a big one? I reply there is something there, but it does not feel too lively. As I pull in a completely scaled and gutted striper, I see a cigar chomping joker about fifty yards down the beach, holding a line that he had tied to mine. So delighted with himself it’s a wonder he did not piss his pants.

What a Maroon

When I was in high school, I was envious of the in-crowd. They seemed to be so well versed as to what was going on. So when ever I happened to wander to close to their atmosphere and got the look! I felt inferior and went slinking away. You know the look, all the different snob factions have their own particular look. I like to call it the holier than thou look. But it really is just another form of ignorance and bullying. Now that I am a big boy, I am proud to consider my self to be politically incorrect. And I long for the old days, when the news hour was actually about the news. It's hard to believe that the hordes of talking heads could have gone to high school. Let alone be in a clique. But their arrogance and ignorance would make them prime canidates to be in one. Can you believe? someone had the audacity to say "that team showed a chink in its armor" I guess that on cold days I better not say "there's a nip in the air" Or I will certainly be getting the look.
I have no qualms about giving people or nationalites a nickname. When I was a kid back in the forties and fifties almost every one, and all nationalites had a nickname. And it seems to me that we all got along just fine. Back then the do-gooders quietly did their thing. Unlike today ,it's just a lot of noisy nonsense.
Remembering how I felt about things when I was younger brings to mind an experience I had when I tried to fit into a different kind of faction.
I tried hunting when I was young. I loved wandering around the woods with my shotgun. But there was other parts of the experience , I did not care for. So I became know as the the world's worst shooter by my companions. So, on a beautiful late autumn day, with big fluffy snow flakes falling, one of my hunting companions kicked a Jupiter bush and a snowshoe hare came streaking out. As luck would have it, he ran right past me. So to continue my charade, I took a careful aim and fired two feet to his right. That's when the hare commited suicide by deciding to veer sharply to his right. Every one yelled great shot. Except for the person who had kicked the hare out of the brush. He just stared at me with a quizzical look on his face. The previous Christmas, the same person had gift wrapped a cigar box, that had rabbit droppings in it. There was a note saying "well he was here" This of course being a referance to my poor shooting reputation. The next time I saw this person. he squinted at me through the smoke from his Pall Mall and said. I suppose when you qualified on the firing range at Fort Dix. the targets kept jumping to the right. So as it turns out, he knew all along that I was pretending to be something I wasn't.


So as Bugs Bunny would say "what a moroon"


My nickname by the way was Pug!