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Re Harriet keeping her figure despite multiple pregnancies and many decades: no cars, no junk food, no preservatives, no cell phones, no consumer society, no kids and patents frazzled by multiple arranged activities, no TikTok, no TV. But lots of civility, social engagement, locavore eating, fresh air, opportunities to learn, faith, and walking.

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Parents, not patents!

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Amazing, after 52 years of marriage and children. The Balchs were very involved in what happened in NI in the 1800s. We come across their name frequently in the NIHS postings. On cider making, I used to make thousands of gallons per day when I worked for the cider mill in Greenville. I worked from 4 AM to 4 PM for $1/hr for the first 8 hrs then $1.25 for the last 4 hrs. I won't go into the details of commercial cider production except to say the apples came in trailer trucks and were usually the drops that fell to the ground in orchards. It involved 2 men to a press loading, the sauce and unloading the pulp which stuck to the nylon blankets. Leo Nelson, a very strong Finn who could bench press over 300 lbs, was my partner. Keeping up with him was not easy.

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Correction: I earned $1.50/hr in my overtime. We started at 4AM so that the bottlers would have something to bottle at 7AM.

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Per, History of New Ipswich; Harriet Elizabeth Stiles of Wilton N.H. was born in 1839. She married Moses M. Balch in 1856. They had 1 son an 3 daughters. One son was Albro Balch who was the father of Hazel Balch, known to many of us as Hazel Moore who was a distinguished resident of New Ipswich for many years until she died in 1998 at the age of 93.

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Bill Stiles, a friend of mine, was one of her descendants. Thanks for that footnote.

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