Building the Lodge (part 4)
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
Water
Of course the women came, and in order to have water to wash with we had to use an old basin; we didn't even have a sink drain so the water had to be thrown out. We had just cleated in the big front door with just a board across it to hold it in place when the woman grabbed a hold of the door--and out came the door. I had to run and grab it to keep it from falling. The rest of that summer I worked on that house. We got the windows in in good shape and Herbert Barrett and 2 other men came over to lay the flooring--that's before we got any partitions in. It was easier to lay the whole flooring right straight thru--hard pine flooring. Then we had to go work on partitions. About that time Alice wanted to come up and stay with me a while. We just more or less visited. In that well there were some old boots, an old felt hat and some charred timbers,
Apparently the house that had been there had burned down--22 feet deep. It was quite some stunt to get a ladder down in there to work on, but Frank did it and we pulled the stuff up out of the way. Then we washed the walls down and, you know, it was pretty nice water. Slimline pump (I don't remember just where that came from); Frank brought that over; it had been stored in the barn at the farm. He set that up at the sink and piped that into the well so we had water we could pump up to use for rest of the summer. I know one day when Frank was working overhead in the dining room getting strip furring on ready to put on ceiling wallboard Alice was setting up a table for us to eat our dinner and down came a piece of board whang right onto the table and broke a plate. Oh, we had to have a few little experiences like that. It would have been too smooth otherwise.
Photo Archives
Perhaps this is the well that Marion describes
James Roger diary entry - Pullets 15
5th January 1913
Good winter day, sunny, wind west. Mr. Lord preached from the text “And I if be lifted up, etc.” Communion after. Mr. Wheeler not present and I did the whole of it alone. No S.S. except the children. Their collection was 7 cents. Evening service topic—Gideon choosing his men to fight the Midianites*. 17 present. David fixed up a broken window at Prestons’. Eaves trough blown down and broke it. Pullets 15.
[*from Wikipedia April 8, 2023: “The Midianites were an early Arabic nomadic tribe largely known for their wandering lifestyle and the havoc they wreaked on other tribes, especially the Israelites. Though the Midianites were descendants of the Israelite patriarch Abraham, they were never considered part of God's covenanted people like the Israelites.”]
Again, Marion approach to life and its challenges is admirable if not amazing. I am surprised by the similarities in our experiences. The old Stillman Gibson cellar hole had a 22 ft deep well next to the old stone foundation. It had been filled in with trash (since the place was on a remote dirt road with no neighbors it was attractive as a dump site) and debris (from a fire) as was the cellar hole. After clearing the cellar hole we tackled the well. I was 12 and weighed 100 lbs, my father was 6ft 2in, thus I was the one lowered into the well to fill a bucket which he pulled up. We made down 22 ft and the water looked good but upon testing it had a high E coli count. We then used that well as a 'dry well' for the kitchen gray water. We dug 3 more 22 ft wells, 2 of which produced good water, one for the garden, the other for the house. The last one was 300 ft from the house which meant a long 4 ft deep trench had to be dug by pick and shovel! The septic system was also done all by hand. This is why for the past 43 years I have owned a backhoe.