Written by William Robert Lombard

The first house I remember was a little house on Essex St in Andover, Mass. There was a brook close behind the house, with a flat stone slab for a footbridge. My Sisters, who were older than I took me across one day to visit in the house just across the brook. There was a wonderful toy that you put marbles in the top and the rolled down doing wonderful things before they reached the bottom. I of course was too young to touch it but I was entranced watching it and still remember three quarters of a century later.

On the other side of the house was an empty field where my sisters had a playhouse. There was a lawnswing which I am sure belonged to the whole family but by right of occupancy and use, was mine. I played in it hour after hour, pretending I was the motorman on the trolley. If you don't know what a trolley was, your folks can tell you and even show you one in a museum. And if you want to see your great grandfather playing motorman in that swing there is a picture showing me doing just that. I wasn't always that clean and dressed up.

On the other side of the house was a three story apartment building which I remember in connection with the organ grinder's monkey. We heard music playing and out on the sidewalk was a man with a box-like thing that made music when he turned a crank on the side. It was nice music but it was the monkey I remember. He was dressed in a uniform and when people offered money he would take it, saying "thank-you" in monkey language. What I remember best was a lady by a third floor window holding out some money and the monkey climbed up the waterspout and over to the window to get the money.

The only other thing I remember about that house was the pinwheel my father made for me when I was sick. I don't remember any of the feeling sick part. It was an abscess on my throat and I could show you the scar, but I do remember the pinwheel spinning in the breeze just outside my window. Pinwheels are easy to make and I am sure that your parents could make you one. You don't have to be sick to have one.

When I was still only three we moved to another house, this one on Whittier St. Our house was one of a little cluster of houses that formed an island of buildings with open spaces on all sides. There was the town park with the bandstand and a small pond formed in the brook which had a fancy arched bridge over it.

Next to the park right in front of our house was more town land with the high school in the distance. On that piece of land were some big old chestnut trees, the kind with good nuts. Because we lived so near we could get out early and pick up the nuts that had fallen during the night. The kids on the way to school or home would try to knock more nuts down by throwing clubs up into the trees.

On that same piece of land the town used to set off the fireworks display for the fourth of July--so we had the best seat in the house! Off to the east were the elementary schools and a baseball field with a soccer field. In back of our house were fields and on the last side was the brook with Andy Basso's barn between.

I think it was the first day we had moved to our new house, Papa and Mama were busy in the house and my two sisters were taking care of me. Very soon we found an interesting place just back of the barn. A big tree had been cut down and the trunk formed a bridge over a wide muddy part of the brook. Half way across a piece of a limb about three feet long stuck out over the water. My sisters began to do all sorts of things, walking across the log, running across, dancing around and even going out on the side branch.

It all looked good to me, especially the side branch. I got out on that branch without being noticed and then fortunately the brook, throu muddy, wasn't deep and I landed without injury and in full voice. My sisters began screaming too and rushed to the house--"Robert's fallen into the brook!" All four of them rushed to the rescue. From the noise I was making they could tell I was still alive. I have a memory picture of them standing on the high bank before Papa came down and pulled me out.

Even before Mama had me quieted, cleaned and dry she was worrying about how to handle the brook problem in the future. I believe it was Papa who came up with the following law--"Play around the brook if you wish but if you get wet you go to bed until your clothes are dry." As I remember the law worked well and actually times we were bed-bound were very few. Once at least sister Margaret, who was a very active tomboy, missed a jump in the game of "I can jump a wider place than you can" and wet one let to the knee. On the principle "In for a penny in for a buck" she continued jumping and missing with wild abandon until thouroughly soaked, She went to the house and bed knowing that several garments would not take much longer to dry than one long stocking.

Where it went through the park the brook had built up stone banks and was well behaved, but above the bridge we sometimes had what we called "floods." Then the brook overflowed its banks and spread out over the land for a long ways, all over the land for a long ways, all across our land back of the house, right up to the cellar-way and even flooded the cellar. Those floods were exciting times for us. Later when I was a bit older, I even had a boat to go exploring in when we had a flood.

I can't explain about the boat unless I tell you about the Fourth of July. Our Fourth of July's used to be different and were exciting than what you have now, You wouldn't believe the banging and booming all night long before and all day long. The parades and band concerts and ball games ending up with the town fireworks. And as I told you we lived right by the ball fields and the bandstand and the park exactly across the street from where they set off the town fireworks. Before the time to start them, Papa took the garden hose and soaked the shingles on the roof, just in case a skyrocket or something went the wrong way and landed on our house.

The town fireworks came in big wooden boxes and that is where the boat came from. Papa said he would take care of the empty boxes so he brought them home, took them apart and built a boat, plenty big enough for two or three kids. We used them during floods but there were not enough of them. Part of the brook beside Andy Basso's barn was deep enough for a short trip. We tried to build a dam in the brook where it ran through the park, in fact we had quite a pool backed up, but one of the men who worked in the park made us tear the dam down. I still don't think it was doing any harm.

Sometimes the brook instead of flooding almost dried up in hot summer weather. One Sunday morning in the summer the pond in the park was just a puddle and the brook just a trickle. Papa, who was the minister in the church, started early walking across the Park. We were suprised to see him coming back carrying a tin can and even more suprised to see him go to the well in the side yard and empty something from the can into the wall, He explained that he rescued a fish from one of the pools in the brook and was putting it in the cold clear water of the well where it would be all right. Then he washed his hands and hurried off for church.

It turns out that Papa wasn't always right because a while later our well water which we used for special drinking water because it was so cold and good tasting, stopped tasting good. Papa got someone to help him and bucket by bucket they emptied the well. One of them climbed down into the well using rocks on the side for steps and filled the pail while the other pulled up the full pail by the rope. Finally near the bottom of the well a pailful came up with the fish in it--very dead and very smelly!

Not far from the well was our cherry tree. We used the cherries mostly for pies, They tasted good fresh if they were real ripe, but one could eat too many, especially if followed by cold milk. I said it was our cherry tree but the birds, primarily robins, thought it was theirs and we tried to keep them out and get the ripe cherries ahead of them. It happened that I found myself the some protector of our cherries and when the birds showed up I did my best to drive them away.

One robin especially was especially persistent and with the best of intentions in the world I picked up a convenient stone and let it fly. It did--by the robin--through the trees--and though a big window of the neighbors house that stood just beyond the cherry tree. For a horrified instand I surveyed the damage the stone had wrought and then took off for the back yard where I pretended to be very busy.

A little later Papa showed up, "Robert, did you break the window next door?" With guilt written all over me I said "No." Papa repeated the question and this time I said, "Yes." He did not punish me but I learned from that experience that I was not a good liar and that for me it would be simpler to tell the truth.

Beyond the house was the lower yard and the garden. There were some fruit trees and the henhouse, up on the posts so it would not get flooded. We had some chickens but we didn't make pets of them because they were part of our food supply. We did have some bantams and they were pets. Mama used to enjoy telling people about my reaction to seeing the bantams fly up into the apple tree to spend the night. "OH look, my banties are birds--my banties are birds!" Can you imagine your great grandfather as a cute little curly haired four year old boy? He was

We had a bantam rooster that came to us one Christmas. We used to have a Sunday School party at the church with a decorated tree, Perley Gilbert (I believe it was) as Santa Claus and candy and presents. Santa had a special gift for Papa, who you remember was the minister. It was a good sized cardboard box, which Papa opened and lifted out a bantam rooster. He set him down on the rail on the front of the platform. And there with all the lights and noise and all those people and a strange situation that little bantie rooster, not the least bit disturbed let go with a triumphant, challenging, "cock-a-doodle-do."

Once home he established dominance, easily defeating roosters five times his size. He had no sense of fear and felt responsible for the safety and protection of his part of the world.

The church in Andover, where Papa was minister was a bit unusual in that its basement was a grocery store. I don't know but I suppose the store paid the church rent and the chief effect was that the church was confined to the main floor with its balcony. The boy's Sunday School class of which I was a member, met in one end of the balcony nearest the pulpit , probably trying to isolate us from the rest of the school. It put us in a commanding position in sever ways.

I once heard a college professor say, there are no BAD boys. I suppose he was right but thinking of that class we were not very GOOD boys. Poor teacher, he was such a good man and a nice man, he deserved something better than us. For example, our class location was an ideal launching site for unmanned paper gliders.

Some of the most successful flights circled the upper auditorium at least once and finally ended in the older ladies class on the main floor under the back balcony. We were, it would seem, fairly subtle about the glider flights. We generated considerable interest without initiating any serious disciplinary action.

In Church itself when I was little I slept, when I was older I drew pictures--mostly warlike scenes made up of stick figures. I am afraid I did not listen to the sermons as much as I should. It was not until I was much older and had heard some of the general run of minsiters that I began to realize how very special my father was.

In our family "prayers" we sometimes prayed around. My stock prayer was, "Make me a good boy." I think my parents found it repetitous but much needed and there did not seem to be much danger of my being overly spiritual.

Sundays were different in that we didn't go to pair or organized affairs, but our folks made sure we could have a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Walks were OK and what I remember best was making candy. I didn't make it myself but I messed around while it was cooking--testing to see if it formed a soft ball in water or if it spun a fine hair when dripped off a spoon.

We didn't have electric refrigerators--we had real ice boxes. They had a big space int he top where we, or the iceman, put a chunk of ice that kept things cold. Of course it melted and made a lot of water that had to be taken care of. Before the ice was all melted you had to get some more ice. We had a sign that we put in the window which told the iceman we needed ice, and how much. The sign was square and had numbers like 25, 50, 75, 100, on the four edges so if the iceman saw 50 on the top edge he brought in a 50 pound chunk of cold drippy ice.

He had a rubber and canvas thing he wore to keep his should and back from getting soaked. He had a very sharp ice pick that he carried in a sheath on his belt and if the piece of ice didn't fit in the chest he chipped it off so it would go in.

The ice came in a covered two horse wagon and had canvas hanging down over the back so the ice wouldn't melt so fast. The ice was in huge cakes that the icemen (often there were two) pulled back onto the tailboard and cut up into smaller pieces that they took into the houses. Usually there were little pieces and slivers of ice left lying around and on hot days there were always barefoot kids around to make good use of those delectably cold pieces of ice. The ice men I remember were good natured, although we must have been pests. They may have sometimes chipped a bit extra to make sure we all got some. The ice usually was quite clean because ladies don't want sawdust and dirt in their iceboxes. If some pieces of ice fell on the ground the dirt would rub or wash off.

When I was little all I knew about ice was that the iceman brought it in a wagon. Later I saw ice houses which were huge buildings filled with ice in the winter. Still later I had a chance to watch the ice being cut and put in the ice houses. It was cold and could be dangerous work so we stayed well out of the way. The ice had to be thick and all the snow cleared off. The men and horses had shoes that wouldn't slip. The ice was marked off with long grooves and long strips of ice were cut into cakes or blocks. Then the separate cakes were floated to where a conveyor lifted them out of the water and up to the icehouse where they were slid and pushed inside and piled up layer by layer, where the thick walls and layers of sawdust kept the ice from melting when hot weather came,

When we lived in Haverhill on 14th avenue, we lived about a mile from a pond that had an icehouse so we watched in the winter. In the summertime I sometimes took our cart up by the icehouse when they were loading wagins and trucks with ice. We had to keep out of the way when the big ice cakes came sliding down out of the house and were slid into the wagons. But sometimes a good sized piece of ice from a broken block would fall off the platform and we could put it in the cart wrapped in a burlap bag and bring it home to go in our icebox and save on buying from the iceman.

Slantwise from across the park from our house on Whittier st lived Paul Pomeroy. He was red headed and a bit younger than I and were were fast friends from the day I moved into the neighborhood. Usually because of my greater age and size, I ran things. But let Paul lose his temper and size and age meant nothing and I took to the woods until things cooled off, which never took very long. We usually played around my house becuase there was more to do there. A big part of that was that Papa made things and did things that were fun. I remember one day when he had made a special high speed rubber band driven paddle wheel boat that either Paul or Gordon Cutts (another friend) said "Gee Bob, I wish I had a Dad like yours." We usually got along quite well together. Once at least we behaved in a very intelligent manner. Paul and I, walking through the park, spied a piece of money lying on the path. Instead of fighting over it and shouting "I saw it first" we agreed to share it equally. It was a quarter. In those days a quarter was allot of money and particularly to five year old boys. You wouldn't believe how much candy one could buy with twenty-five cents. We did another smart thing. We didn't spend it all at once. We made it last almost two weeks. And I don't think we told our parents. Each day we would go to the store with penny candy and spend a few cents. There was allot of choice, often several good sized pieces for a penny.

I think it was my friend Paul who was the last kid I threw a rock at. It was a bad and dangerous thing to do but sometimes we'd start by throwing words at each other and end up by hurling stones. This happened one day with Paul and me. He was hiding behind one of the big chestnut trees just across the street from my house. He stuck his head out just in time to be hit by the sharp edged rock that I had thrown. He might have been badly hurt. As it was there was allot of blood and I was more scared than Paul was. It could have been his eye or temple and I faithfully promised my parents NO MORE ROCKS AT PEOPLE.

Not long after this I had a chance to remember my promise. Another kid, not Paul started an argument that went to the rock throwing stage. There was a strong temptation as the rocks whistled by to send some of them back but I didn't.

I headed for my house but before I was out of range, a rock glanced off the top of my head. I used to have hair on top of my head but still it was cut short ("as short as you can get it and still leave enough to comb" were the barbers instructions.) Anyhow the stone cut quite a respectable gash that was bleeding freely when I burst into my house saying "Mama! I didn't throw any stones at him!!" Mama applied first aid and praised me and gave me some refreshments to keep up my strength.

When Papa came home he listened to the story, looked at my wound and praised me all over again. I don't remember about my sisters, but I suppose they were impressed by my brave and virtuous behaviour.

There is one story about me that I have to tell because it is true. I don't want to tell it because it will make you think that your grandfather wasn't very smart! Anyhow, here is what happened. I was four years or maybe four and a half. Mama called me and said, "Lets make a pumpkin pie. You can help by getting a pumpkin from upstairs." I had to go up two flights of stairs, the big flight straight up from the front door in the fron hall and then a second flight into the attic.

I picked out the biggest pumpkin I could find and taking it by the stem took it a stair at a time down the attic stairs. It was a tiresome job so I stopped to rest at the top of the flight of stairs, thinking there must be a simpler way of getting me and the pumpkin down. Then came the brilliant idea! I put the pumpkin on its side at the top of the stairs, then sat on it, put one foot on the stem and pushed off with the other. I can't believe I did any such thing--but I certainly did. what do you think happened? We got down the stairs quickly enough. The pumpkin beat me and didn't have a bump or a scratch. We made allot of noise but I made most of that. Mama rushed out and found that both I and the pumpkin were all right. I think she was worried that any child of hers would try to ride a pumpkin down a long flight of stairs.

The best part of our summers was August when Papa had his month's vacation and we went to Maine. He and Mama had bought a piece of land in South Freeport and built a cottage there. It was most definitely the most wonderful place in the world.

To get to Maine we usually started early, when it was still dark. Of course we didn't have a car. We took a trolley first to South Lawrence. There we got the train to Portland Maine. I loved seeing the big engine come in hauling the cars. It was frightening too--so big, so powerful, the hiss of steam, the huff, huff, huff of the exhause like a huge animal breathing.

All controlled by the engineer sitting up in his cab. As soon as were were aboard the train Papa would find two and if possible three empty seats together. Then the baggage, and there was always a bunch of it, was put in the racks. We would turn the front seat over and ones who didn't mind riding backwards would sit there. We usually had plenty to do just riding and looking.

Mama had put up a lunch so we didn't buy anything from the man who came through the car from time to time; except maybe a chocolate bar that you would break up into little squares and make it go a long ways. We would go get water in little containers that came out of the holder flat but opened into a wobbly cup or go to the bathroom where you could hear the ties and roadbed rushing by below the seat.

On some of the stretches Papa used to demonstrate that we were travelling a respectable sixty miles an hour by timing from one milestone to the next using the second hand of his watch. "Wow, we'd say, a mile a minute" and it passed the miles away.

At Portland we left the train dragging our baggage (poor Papa and Mama.) Then it was a short trolley ride to Monument Square, followed by a longer one to Yarmouth and finally a short one to South Freeport. This last one was usually in an open car where the seats ran crosswise. I loved riding the trolley but poor Sister Margaret used to get carsick and had to ride near the back and watched by Papa in case she needed to leave some lunch by the track side.

Once out of the last trolley, and lugging our luggage, we hurried along the main road and then turned off at Harraseeket Park and finally Earlie Inn. Just at the top of the hill, Papa would put down his burden of luggage and I supposed everything else. Then he would fill his lungs and give out a tremendous Viking yell!

I suppose that sometimes it was raining when we got to Earlie Inn, but as I remember the sun was always shining brightly, and a pleasant breeze smelling of salt air would greet us. The cottage had a special smell too, when we got the door open, but it was not an unpleasant one. Probably because the cottage was airy and had a bunch of windows.

Downstairs the piazza went all across the front, along one end and along the other end except where the kitchen was. All the rest of the downstairs was the big living room with the fireplace. Upstairs on one end was the "girls" room with one big window. On the other end was the boy's room, (later to become the "boys room" when my brother was born.) Papa and Mama had the front room in between, which had a dormer with two windows

There wasn't any bathroom or running water, but we didn't mind. For water we went down and across the gully and dipped the water from the spring under the bank on the other side. It was cold and good tasting wather and in those days we didn't worry much about pollution. By the time I was big enough to lug much water, we had running water.

For toilet facilities we had the "Little house under the hill." It had three accomodations, one considerably smaller than the others. The whole operation was hygenic with strict rules about the use of dry ashes or dry earth. There were proposals, not always successful, for announcing that the facility was being used. Signs and flags sometimes worked, At one time, along with the other rules, was one--"To avoid embarrassment, let your presence be known by singing or whistling."

All the paths were clay and fine when dry, but when wet they were treacherous beyond belief. To visit the "Little house" on a dark and rainy night carrying a lamp and in a hurry was to invite disaster. Papa did put up a railing and sanded the path which helped. Even later he put a plank walkway using planing from the old "Ripple" (remind you to tell you about the "Ripple" sometime) but even then there was some danger because the oaken planks that had been so long submerged in water and mud has a slipperiness all their own when the rain had washed off the sand.

Quite a few years later we had indoor bathrooms and things were easier, but not near as interesting. Speaking of interesting, I must tell you about Dr. Witter before I forget. He was a very close and dear friend of the family (my brother's middle name came from him.) He had been a missionary and was a very smart well educated man-but according to my parents a bit absent minded.

One instance was after we had running water and inside bathrooms, to save on water the faucets were spring shut themself off kind, just let go the handle and the water stopped. One day Dr Witter who was visiting wen into the upstairs bathrooom for his morning ablutions. Suddenly water was leaking through the bathroom floor down into the living room and Dr Witter was yelling "It won't shut off, Help! it won't shut off!"

Papa rushed up to find Dr. Witter twisting the handle with all his might and of course holding the faucet wide open so the small basin was overflowing onto the floor.

Another time that I don't remember either but Mama used to tell about was at the table one day. She had made homemade salad dressing which is quite thin and runny. It was in an ordinary drinking glass and not far from Dr Witter. To their dismay he reached out, took the glass and began to drink it. Mama cried out in dismay.

"Dr Witter, Dr Witter, that's not to drink!" He kept on sipping the salad dressing saying with complete innocence "Very good buttermilk, Mrs Lombard, very good buttermilk indeed."

The first summer or two at Earlie Inn our dining room was the corner of the covered piazza next to the kitchen. This was fine most of the time but could be cold and wet at times and after a time that part of the prch was closed in by big windows.

Mama was a good cook and Papa of necessity a good foodshopper although I am sure he enjoyed the challenge of making a little money go a long way. I always remember an abundance of good food, At Freeport fish or clams were available in our front yard depending on the tide. Papa did the serious clamming. If our Millett relatives were visiting that meant huge quantities of clams and watching them eat, one could understand the shell heaps that abound along our shores-if the Indians ate like the Milletts.

For fish that meant in the early years, flouders that came in over the flats. There were reaching out from what we called the stone wharf, quite a few pilings left to which we could tie our boat. Each year there were fewer and fewer of these pilings left as the winters ice wrenched them out of the mud in which they stood.

Tied up to one of the remaining ones we were near enough the cottage to share back and forth with the folks on the porch. Beside the clams and fish, berries played a considerable part in our food supply. In Augus these were mostly blueberries and raspberries. As a small boy I was a dead loss on raspberries, a little better with the blueberries because they usually grew in pleasanter places. Just boughten fruite I remember only bananas, which Papa usually bought in large quantities; once I remember a whole bunch hanging on the portch. I don't know how Papa transported it home.

We had boats, from clumsy square ended Sylph old McGintey, a sailing skiff, Kittiwake, a good sized skiff that Papa built on the Reed model that I knew as a teenager and young man. We found out that it was easy for boats to go adrift and I remember again and again hunts for lost boats. Almost always we found them fairly soon because we were on a body of water enclosed except for narrow passeges where Wolf's Neck almost meets Staples Point.

But there weremiles of shoreline and a stray rowboat might be almost anywhere depending on wind and tide. Chickadee-dee had a special mooring out from shore a bit to take advantage of the first and last water of the tide. Her mooring was a pole anchored in the mud with a collar that went up and down with the tide. The mooring pole and mast of the sail boat were favorite perches of the Kingfisher who always seemed to have fair results in fishing.

As I said we always seemed to have plenty of good food. We used to have company quite often and I am sure, thinking back, that these guests made sure they were not a burden. At one time at least there was a Ginger Jar into which folks put money. It does not seem possible, but I am sure that Mama told me that a $3 contribution was plenty for a person for a week- hard to believe but the clams and fish and berries were for the taking. I suppose there were vegetables available costing little or nothing.

If I needed money for the penny candy counter, I could earn some by killing flies. We did not have hordes of them but there were enough to be a nuisance. The standard rate was ten flies one penny. It was quite a production- it took me some doing to get twenty then there was the long barefoot trudge to the store, the careful picking our candy then the trip back with perhaps some candy I left over to enjoy back at the cottage. The whole process flies to finished candy could extend over several hours.

I am sure that Earlie Inn and Maine was not all play and sunshine. It must have rained and we must have been sick and I must have been naughty and punished. But I don't seem to remember that part. We had a good time. Papa and Mama had a way of making things special and fun to do. We had F "prayers" each day but I don't remember which was quite appropriate looking out over the bay "Yonder is the sea, great and wide." For the verse "the sun knoweth his going down." We were alled to used the Fisk tire ad of the kid with the candle and in his pajamas with the title TIME TO RETURE be cut. There were not many big trees but allot of smallish ones. For several years there was a goal of "one stump a day." I took no part in the work but do remember the chopping and digging and heaving and exclamations of satisfaction as one more stump came out.

You may have heard the expression "raise the roof." One summer Papa actually did that, raised the roof or part of it anyway in the girls room on the side toward the water he sawed through the roof a big rectangle, then lifted the lower end up so that what had been part of the slanting roof was the flat roof of the new dormer. He put a window in front and closed in the sides. With this change the room was bigger and lighter. Later Papa lifted the roof in the boys room.

William Robert Lombard

I only visited Earlie Inn when I was a young child but I remember it, Gramp was right it was a wonderful place.

I also had the opportunity to live in Andover very near where Gramp grew up and I walked many of the pathways he must've walked. On a couple of Sundays I even visited the old church where Gramp sailed paper airplanes off the balcony........I even met someone who remembered the Lombards of Andover. This website is a labor of love in his memory.

William James Lombard