Friday, April 4, 2008
Archives
I'm delighted to see the Danvers Herald article posted online today about the Archives: History lives at the Archives. Mr. Trask has been helpful as I've researched background information for some of my columns.
High Water in Spring
Every spring when I see rising water in rivers or ponds I recall childhood memories of our pond. This month's column, "High water in spring brings happy memories," includes a photo of our little house by the pond. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
Here is the text I submitted to the paper:
This old photo has been sitting above my desk for several years. It shows the little house that was my home as a child. The view is across the pond in springtime, when the water was high. Today driving in western Massachusetts, I saw high water beside the road almost touching a little garage and I thought back to the spring times of my childhood when pond water rose into our yard.
I love this photo and the memories it brings of that house, yard, and pond. I lived there 14 years, growing from baby to teenager. I experienced many a wet spring, wading around in rubber boots, catching polliwogs in the pond with my mother, and hauling the pails up to the house. We put our catch into a small glass aquarium and watched each day as the tiny tadpoles grew. They gradually developed legs and turned into tree frogs, at which point we had to catch them again and release them outside.
My sister and I had many opportunities for water play, not only at the edge of the pond, but also along the street and in our cellar. We lived below a hillside spring. My mother waged an on-going battle with water drainage along Nichols Street, trying to divert the small but steady flow away from our house. We often heard our parents talk about our wet cellar – how to drain it, or dry it, or seal it to prevent the entry of more water. Over the years we came to understand the futility of our efforts and the certainty of a wet cellar. When my father applied a waterproof paint to seal the floor, a long thin crack broke the surface and let the water seep in again, often making a faint "singing" sound. The pitch of the water song changed slightly as we stepped near the crack. My father drilled a drain hole in the south wall to let the water flow out towards the pond, but sometimes rising pond water came IN that way! I remember watching my mother do laundry, standing there in her boots in several inches of water as she pulled the wash from the washing machine and fed sheets and towels through the wringer.
In spite of the high water that sometimes invaded our yard and cellar, we loved that pond. We watched muskrats swim across the pond and build themselves a home. We set up a wood duck nest box (constructed from a recycled World War II ammo box, following instructions from the Boston Museum of Science) and watched generations of wood ducks come and go. In winter we skated on the pond; in summer we rowed or paddled in small boats with my father. In August when the loosestrife plants bloomed, my sister and I walked among the hummocks and examined the now-dry pond bottom.
My father took photos of the pond from our house in all seasons; we delighted in showing that series of seasonal slides to visitors. But this photo is not by my father, and it is the opposite view, probably taken from the edge of the hay field behind my grandfather's house next door. On the back of the photo frame is the date May 4, 1941, and the name of the photographer, Bill Goding, Yonkers, N.Y. I recognize May 4 as my grandfather's birthday, and Yonkers as the address of my uncle Edward H. Nichols; I'm guessing that the photographer was a friend of Edward's who traveled up for a birthday visit. This little house by the pond had been built by my grandfather in 1940 as a rental. My parents, married in 1940, started in this house while seeking other housing. What started as a temporary convenience became home for our family until 1957, when we moved across the street into a large new house on the hill, safely beyond the reach of rising pond water.
Here is the text I submitted to the paper:
High Water in Spring
By Sandy Nichols Ward, 4/1/2008
This old photo has been sitting above my desk for several years. It shows the little house that was my home as a child. The view is across the pond in springtime, when the water was high. Today driving in western Massachusetts, I saw high water beside the road almost touching a little garage and I thought back to the spring times of my childhood when pond water rose into our yard.
I love this photo and the memories it brings of that house, yard, and pond. I lived there 14 years, growing from baby to teenager. I experienced many a wet spring, wading around in rubber boots, catching polliwogs in the pond with my mother, and hauling the pails up to the house. We put our catch into a small glass aquarium and watched each day as the tiny tadpoles grew. They gradually developed legs and turned into tree frogs, at which point we had to catch them again and release them outside.
My sister and I had many opportunities for water play, not only at the edge of the pond, but also along the street and in our cellar. We lived below a hillside spring. My mother waged an on-going battle with water drainage along Nichols Street, trying to divert the small but steady flow away from our house. We often heard our parents talk about our wet cellar – how to drain it, or dry it, or seal it to prevent the entry of more water. Over the years we came to understand the futility of our efforts and the certainty of a wet cellar. When my father applied a waterproof paint to seal the floor, a long thin crack broke the surface and let the water seep in again, often making a faint "singing" sound. The pitch of the water song changed slightly as we stepped near the crack. My father drilled a drain hole in the south wall to let the water flow out towards the pond, but sometimes rising pond water came IN that way! I remember watching my mother do laundry, standing there in her boots in several inches of water as she pulled the wash from the washing machine and fed sheets and towels through the wringer.
In spite of the high water that sometimes invaded our yard and cellar, we loved that pond. We watched muskrats swim across the pond and build themselves a home. We set up a wood duck nest box (constructed from a recycled World War II ammo box, following instructions from the Boston Museum of Science) and watched generations of wood ducks come and go. In winter we skated on the pond; in summer we rowed or paddled in small boats with my father. In August when the loosestrife plants bloomed, my sister and I walked among the hummocks and examined the now-dry pond bottom.
My father took photos of the pond from our house in all seasons; we delighted in showing that series of seasonal slides to visitors. But this photo is not by my father, and it is the opposite view, probably taken from the edge of the hay field behind my grandfather's house next door. On the back of the photo frame is the date May 4, 1941, and the name of the photographer, Bill Goding, Yonkers, N.Y. I recognize May 4 as my grandfather's birthday, and Yonkers as the address of my uncle Edward H. Nichols; I'm guessing that the photographer was a friend of Edward's who traveled up for a birthday visit. This little house by the pond had been built by my grandfather in 1940 as a rental. My parents, married in 1940, started in this house while seeking other housing. What started as a temporary convenience became home for our family until 1957, when we moved across the street into a large new house on the hill, safely beyond the reach of rising pond water.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Making Maple Syrup
'Tis the season of warming days and cold nights, when the sap in the maple trees flows up and down. I have fond memories of my mother making maple syrup for our family. As a child I took this for granted, just a routine activity that any family with access to maples trees would do. Later, when I heard that a Danvers Girl Scout troop was coming to watch Mrs. Nichols make maple syrup, I realized that this was a special skill from the past. Please read this month's column, published today under the headline "Making Maple Syrup."
Here is the text I submitted to the Danvers Herald:
Every spring my mother made maple syrup. I helped hang the coffee cans, blue Crisco cans, and other saved cans onto the collection spouts on the sugar maple trees. My father had drilled holes for the taps, and put a metal spout in each. We used the big maple trees that grew along both sides of the old carriage road, or 'back avenue', of the former Locust Lawn estate. My parents said we couldn't tap the young trees, only the older ones that had sap to spare.
The sap was a disappointment at first. I thought it would be sweeter. It tasted mostly like water, just slightly sweet. Better than the sap were the icicles sometimes found hanging from maple tree branches. I liked to hold the sap icicle ('sapcicle') in my mitten and suck on it. Of course, best of all would be the maple syrup, but that came later, after much more work.
First we had to gather the sap. My sister and I helped to empty the cans of sap into a larger pail. We carefully picked out twigs and moths that had fallen into the cans, which lacked covers. (Years later I helped in a sugaring operation in Vermont, and saw the metal coverings that slid over real sap buckets, but at home in Danvers we were simply using available cans and pails -- not special equipment.)
My parents used old bricks to build an outdoor fireplace within the foundation of the former mansion overlooking Locust Lawn. The mansion had been torn down in 1944. Huge granite cornerstones and sections of foundation walls remained, providing shelter from the wind. A stairway of granite steps led from the ground level down into the east end of the foundation. That's where we brought the pails of sap. My mother set a large rectangular metal pan on top of the brick fire pit. She poured sap into the shallow pan and waited for it to heat to boiling.
Tending the fire in that outdoor stove was a big part of the operation. We had to gather lots of wood. "Go get the dead wood -- the grey, not the green, so it won't get too smoky," she'd say to neighborhood children who came to watch and help. There was always some smoke, of course, and it often blew right into our faces as we stood watching the hot sap. The trick was to move to the other side of the pan, away from the smoke and steam. Shifts in air currents frequently changed where the smoke rose, so we'd move back and forth, trying to protect our eyes from the sting of too much smoke. I don't think we children stayed there very long. The job of stirring the sap while it boiled down to syrup was really my mother's job. She had the patience for it, and knew just how long to keep the process going. It took hours! The hot liquid had to get to a certain consistency. To test, she would lift the stirring spoon above the pan and watch how drops formed and moved along the edge of that spoon. The slower the drops, the thicker the liquid, and the closer it was to real maple syrup.
I remember fondly the sweet smells of boiling sap and wood smoke, and of course the sweet taste of the syrup we ate on our waffles and pancakes. My father even liked to pour maple syrup on vanilla ice cream! We never used store-bought cane-based syrup; it didn't taste right. Some of my parents' friends in New Hampshire and Vermont also made maple syrup and gave us beautifully packaged cans, so we always had a bountiful supply. Delicious!
Here is the text I submitted to the Danvers Herald:
Making Our Own Maple Syrup
By Sandy Nichols Ward
Every spring my mother made maple syrup. I helped hang the coffee cans, blue Crisco cans, and other saved cans onto the collection spouts on the sugar maple trees. My father had drilled holes for the taps, and put a metal spout in each. We used the big maple trees that grew along both sides of the old carriage road, or 'back avenue', of the former Locust Lawn estate. My parents said we couldn't tap the young trees, only the older ones that had sap to spare.
The sap was a disappointment at first. I thought it would be sweeter. It tasted mostly like water, just slightly sweet. Better than the sap were the icicles sometimes found hanging from maple tree branches. I liked to hold the sap icicle ('sapcicle') in my mitten and suck on it. Of course, best of all would be the maple syrup, but that came later, after much more work.
First we had to gather the sap. My sister and I helped to empty the cans of sap into a larger pail. We carefully picked out twigs and moths that had fallen into the cans, which lacked covers. (Years later I helped in a sugaring operation in Vermont, and saw the metal coverings that slid over real sap buckets, but at home in Danvers we were simply using available cans and pails -- not special equipment.)
My parents used old bricks to build an outdoor fireplace within the foundation of the former mansion overlooking Locust Lawn. The mansion had been torn down in 1944. Huge granite cornerstones and sections of foundation walls remained, providing shelter from the wind. A stairway of granite steps led from the ground level down into the east end of the foundation. That's where we brought the pails of sap. My mother set a large rectangular metal pan on top of the brick fire pit. She poured sap into the shallow pan and waited for it to heat to boiling.
Tending the fire in that outdoor stove was a big part of the operation. We had to gather lots of wood. "Go get the dead wood -- the grey, not the green, so it won't get too smoky," she'd say to neighborhood children who came to watch and help. There was always some smoke, of course, and it often blew right into our faces as we stood watching the hot sap. The trick was to move to the other side of the pan, away from the smoke and steam. Shifts in air currents frequently changed where the smoke rose, so we'd move back and forth, trying to protect our eyes from the sting of too much smoke. I don't think we children stayed there very long. The job of stirring the sap while it boiled down to syrup was really my mother's job. She had the patience for it, and knew just how long to keep the process going. It took hours! The hot liquid had to get to a certain consistency. To test, she would lift the stirring spoon above the pan and watch how drops formed and moved along the edge of that spoon. The slower the drops, the thicker the liquid, and the closer it was to real maple syrup.
I remember fondly the sweet smells of boiling sap and wood smoke, and of course the sweet taste of the syrup we ate on our waffles and pancakes. My father even liked to pour maple syrup on vanilla ice cream! We never used store-bought cane-based syrup; it didn't taste right. Some of my parents' friends in New Hampshire and Vermont also made maple syrup and gave us beautifully packaged cans, so we always had a bountiful supply. Delicious!
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