Second Story

New Ipswich Historical Society

Raising the roof (Wapack Lodge)

After

Uncle Walter

HELMI “SYLVIA” STARK

Born September 11, 1912

Sylvia was the oldest of the girls and the first to leave home to go to work. She wore her hair long while the other three girls had uneven Dutch cuts. I remember one day she was preparing a bed in the closetbecause we had had an argument on who slept where in the two beds upstairs in the girl’s room. Before she had completed the bed, a family from Littleton came after her for maid work and she did not have to sleep in the airless closet after all. She was closer to Mother, probably because Mother’s first daughter had died at sea from pneumonia on her maiden trip from Finland. Mother had left a son, Oscar, in Finland when her first husband died and she sailed to America. Sylvia was also closer to our brother Walter, and was invited, at least on one occasion, to go night fishing with him and they returned with some lovely trout which Mother cooked for us. How we envied her for being allowed to go out at night. We were ordered to bed almost as soon as the sun went down. Sylvia was great for telling ghost stories after we were all in bed and our imagination would run wild. For some reason, we felt uneasy of the unknown at the farm and although I personally never saw or heard anything, Lydia and Mother claimed they did, such as footsteps with chains and figures of a man. It was not hard to get in a scary mood with Sylvia’s stories.

Reminisces  from Hilma Stark (b. 1917) who grew up in New Ipswich. She was sister to the late Elmer Stark who lived at the family place on Fox Farm Road (uncle of Sharon Anderson Rosenfelder). (probably recorded in the late 1970’s)

James Roger diary entry

21st June 1912

Fair and warm; cloudy at times; with slight showers; wind west to southwest. David with Lonie at Greenville painting; home at 3:30. I put in some wood in forenoon and went to Greenville for 3 trunks for Myron & Ralph Taylor. Got letters from John Cummings. Hamish and school agency at Syracuse about Miss Hortle (?), now Mrs. Wolfe. Meeting of Men’s Club in vestry tonight. Paper by Mr. Lord on Parliamentary Law. Discussion after.

From Drovers to Trail Blazers

The Story of the  Creation of the Wapack Trail

Presenter Larry Anderson

Saturday, June 24, 2023 - 1:30 p.m. 

New Ipswich  Congregational Church 

(156 Main Street)