The Elliott Clan
Gam's Diaries
Supplementary notes
§ Researched and compiled December 2001 & January 2002 by R. Bruce Elliott with much valuable help from the Exeter Historical Society. §
What's here...
A note, a plea and thanks
When I found Mother's diary and began digitizing it, I thought it would be good to supplement it with some other things by or about her, and make a collection that would be of interest to many in the family. I don't have a lot to begin with but hope that the collection will soon grow as others respond to this.
Please send me whatever you can so that it can be added and make the collection ever more valuable. As I accumulate more material, I'll digitize it and add it to this website. E-mail is always much preferred, otherwise send postal mail. If you have a lot of material and can digitize it yourself, that would be very helpful; please call me to discuss the process.
Thank you all for your help with this wonderful project – this labor of love – to help us remember Mother & Gam and know more about her early years.
Bruce Elliott
Outside resources
If you want to know more about the town Mother grew up in and the school she attended, there are two excellent books available from the Exeter Historical Society:
Exeter New Hampshire 1888-1988, by Nancy C. Merrill together with the History Committee of the Exeter Historical Society, published 1988 by Peter E. Randall, Portsmouth, NH, 568 pages. The Society sells it for $30 ($40 for the deluxe leather-bound version). Mother is cited on page 121 for supervising a playground when first established in 1917. You can have Nancy Merrill autograph your book just by asking.
On Ever Robinson, a 114-page history of Robinson Female Seminary, written and published by the Robinson Seminary History Committee, 1988. The Society sells it for $10.
The Society is open 2:00-4:30 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Phone number 603-778-2335. Postal address: 47 Front St, P.O. Box 924, Exeter, NH 03833. Email: Info@ExeterHistory.org. Barbara Rimkunas, curator.
You also might find it interesting to visit one or more of these websites:
The website for the Scenes along the EH&A Street Railway includes a lot of description and history of the area, together with many pictures taken at that time of things mentioned in Mother's diary: PEA, RFS, the trolley car that she rode to Hampton Beach, the waiting-station (depot) where she got the car in Exeter, and more.
The Historical Graphics website has a number of pictures taken in Exeter and nearby towns in Mother's era, including PEA, RFS, and a 1908 trolley on Ocean Ave in Hampton.
Biographical notes
For basic biographical facts about Mother, see Introductory notes. Below are additional notes based on research in Exeter and elsewhere. If you have additions or corrections, please send them along. There are sections here on:
Town of Exeter
Town of Exeter
Exeter was unusual among the first New Hampshire towns in having been established because of religious rather than commercial motivations. The town's founder, John Wheelwright, was an exile from Puritan Massachusetts. Wheelwright was tried and convicted of sedition in 1637.
Wheelwright and a number of followers chose the falls of the Squamscott River, where tidewater meets fresh, as the site of a new home beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Wheelwright established a church soon after he and his followers arrived at the Squamscott. This remained Exeter's only church for more than a century.
Portsmouth was New Hampshire's first capital, but in 1774 Royal Governor John Wentworth dissolved the provincial assembly or house of representatives, which met in Portsmouth, in an attempt to prevent the election of delegates to a continental congress. Thereafter, a series of provincial congresses began to meet in the Exeter town house, which effectively became the seat of New Hampshire's government; the Fourth Provincial Congress ordered the provincial records to be confiscated from royal officials and brought to Exeter for safety in July 1775. New Hampshire's first constitution was adopted in the Exeter town house on January 5, 1776, and here in 1788 the first of New Hampshire's conventions was held for ratification of the United States Constitution.
At the junction of Water St, Front St and Court St – at Court Square – is the bandstand, marking the heart of the downtown area that Mother mentions so often in her diary. The Tyler home is a bit over ¾ of a mile SSW of the bandstand.
The original wooden bandstand was built in 1895, but removed in 1902 because it had deteriorated so. In 1916 an ornate and much more solid one was built, with a granite foundation and eight marble columns supporting a marble architrave, and it still stands at the town center at the end of 2001. As there was no bandstand between 1902 and 1916, Mothers 8th to 22nd years, it likely was of no importance to her in growing up, but it does mark her much-visited "down town."
The Exeter Street Railway began operating in 1897, running electrically-powered trolley cars between Exeter and Hampton Beach – 12 miles for 15¢. Company offices were in Exeter but the power station and carhouse were in Hampton, a more central location for the line. For its main station in Exeter, it used the Boston & Maine RR depot at the northern end of Lincoln St. That station today houses a small variety store. The B&M ran from Boston to Portland. The run was abandoned many years ago but was re-established in December 2001 as the Downeaster (operated by Amtrak), using a newly-constructed, nearby open loading platform rather than the old station. The Downeaster makes three stops in New Hampshire: Dover, Durham and Exeter.
Two years later, another street railway company began operating between Hampton village and Seabrook, and later to Amesbury. Soon the two companies were merged and became the Exeter, Hampton & Amesbury Street Railway – the EH&A.
The Exeter River flows generally eastward from its source towards Exeter. When about a mile and a half south of the town center, it turns north and picks up the Little River that goes by Mother's home. In the center of town, very close to the bandstand, the fresh- water river goes over two dams and becomes the brackish Squamscott River. The latter flows into Great Bay which in turn dumps into the Piscataqua River and on into the Atlantic Ocean via Portsmouth.
Before the dawning of the 20th century, the Squamscott's broad tidal basin below the lower falls must have been a good deal wider than it is today because Exeter was a port city then, with schooners bringing coal and much else, and taking sawn lumber and manufactured goods to market. Later, steam-powered vessels took over but that too has disappeared.
The tidal basin proved to be a good site for building ships as large as 500 tons; as many as 22 vessels are said to have been built there in a single season. Locally-built vessels and others arriving from elsewhere in the British Empire made Exeter a busy port during the 18th and 19th centuries, giving rise to fortunes like that of merchant John Phillips, founder of PEA. River traffic continued to convey bulk cargoes, especially coal, to Exeter until the 1930s.
There was far more in Exeter than PEA and ship building and commerce. It was a printing center and busy manufacturing town. By 1795 the two waterfalls in the heart of town powered four grist mills, four sawmills, two mills for pressing linseed oil from flax seed, and a fulling mill for cleaning woolen cloth. There was a snuff mill, an iron slitting mill, a gunpowder factory, a carding mill, paper mills, chocolate mills, tanneries making saddles and harnesses, shoe factories, hat making, brick and pottery making, cotton cloth production, nail making, carriage building, and sailcloth making. There were silversmiths and makers of clocks and surveyor's instruments.
To find out more about the town where Mother grew up, see the comprehensive histories and websites listed in Outside resources.
The Family HomeWhen Mother was born, the family home in Exeter was on Court St, on the outskirts of town. Houses were not numbered in Exeter until 1950; phone directories in the early 1900s indicated that the Rolla A. Tyler house was on Court St beyond the bridge and right after Bell Ave. That bridge was, and still is, over the Little River, which is indeed very little, and was a bit over a half mile from the bandstand in the center of downtown. The 1920 phone directory says it was the last house on Court St. Now there are, unsurprisingly, many more houses beyond Mother's.
Today the house is numbered 111 Court St. It's about a hundred yards or so south of the Little River, on the west side of Court St (NH-108), between a skateboard park and a small business. It's a rather large house (well, after all, there were some 14 people in it when Gam was there), with several additions tacked onto the back, and is set back from the street perhaps a hundred feet or so. On my latest visit, February 21, 2019, I found the house is apparently divided into four apartments. It was newly painted and looked to be in excellent condition. This is where Mother grew up and wrote her diaries while in high school.
The house was originally on the other (north) side of Little River, some forty rods (220 feet) closer to downtown. It was moved on Saturday, February 4, 1888, some 6½ years before Mother was born. See House moving for newspaper items describing the move. Such moves were quite common at that time. We don't know for sure why the Tylers had the house moved, but perhaps it was to have it on a bigger lot so they could add on to it and also build a shed or other additional structure, plus have some land for a bit of farming. The diary proves they had at least one horse and one cow at 111 Court St and did some haying there.
As the diary notes, Mother did a lot of skating. Living just a few yards from the Little River, she most likely did most of her skating on it and the Exeter River into which it emptied less than half a mile from home. At that point, the latter flowed north into the town center, a little over half a mile from the juncture. In winter Mother sometimes skated uptown and sometimes up river, even as far as the Rapids, a 12-mile hike.
Spring Street Primary School
In Mother's time, there were several public schools in Exeter that took boys and girls up through the fourth grade, usually with a teacher having students of all four grades in one classroom at the same time. Students were apparently moved among the schools frequently for one reason or another. The one she and Ruth attended, at least in the beginning, was Spring Street Primary School (SSS). It had three terms: Fall, Winter and Spring (or 1st, 2nd and 3rd). The number of weeks per term were, respectively, 14, 11 and 11. The town's October 1903 Enumeration of Children shows that Mother was then in Grove Street School, which at least was much closer to her home than was SSS.
Mother's first year at SSS was in 1899-1900 and her teacher was Alice Colcord Weeks. The annual report that Miss Weeks made at the end of that school year shows that she had 47 seats for pupils and had 48 pupils in the Fall term, but 47 in the other two. The average daily student absence that year was 2.98 (much higher in the Winter term, much lower in the Spring), so maybe there was at least one absence every day and no one ever had to stand up. A bit over half of the children were boys. Miss Weeks' salary was $40 per month.
Her subjects that year included reading, spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, geography, drawing, vocal music and language.
Miss Weeks' "Role of Perfect Attendance" included Marion and Ruth Tyler for the Fall term, 1899, but not for the other two terms. Mother was five years old for all but the first month or so of this school year. She was in 1st grade, there was no kindergarten.
The name of the school comes from the name of the street it was located on, just as was the case with other primary schools in Exeter. Spring St is a short street between Front St and Water St, a bit west of the bandstand. The town exchanged the school property with PEA for another piece of land in 1911, and PEA soon razed the building. That spot is just behind the First Baptist Church, built in 1865 and still standing at the corner of Front and Spring streets; the church is next door to the Exeter Historical Society, which was the town library until 1988.
Robinson Female Seminary
In The Seminarian (By the Girls - Of the Girls - For the Girls) issued at the time of Mother's graduation it shows that M. L. Tyler was president of her senior class, and one of the Classical Quotations in it is by M.L.T.: "I am monarch of all I survey."
Among the Class Gifts is this one: "There is one member of our class, who has such a weak voice, that we girls cannot help pitying her. Sometimes I have found her weeping because of this serious infirmity. For you, Marion, I have this megaphone and I think that you will find it of service."
The statistics of the Class of 1912 have some interesting entries on Marion Tyler. For instance, it says her marked characteristic was conspicuousness and her disposition was jolly. Also her present occupation was "managing others," but her future occupation was "being managed."
As the Civil War ended in 1865, William Robinson made a very generous gift to the town of Exeter "for the purpose of founding a Female School." Robinson was born and raised in Exeter and attended PEA, and he plainly wanted the town to have a fine school for girls that would be on a par with PEA.
At a special town meeting in 1865, the town accepted the gift of about $200,000 (subsequent interest brought it to a quarter of a million), specified that the school be named Robinson Female Seminary, and established the organization and policies to govern it.
The first classes were held in April, 1867, in a temporary location. The cornerstone of the school was laid the next year, the building was completed and dedicated in September, 1869, and classes began in it immediately. "Rising three stories tall on its granite base, with a picturesque cupola above the slate-covered roof, its red brick trimmed with granite, and the imposing front entrance with its steep flight of granite steps fulfilled the dream of architectural elegance."
RFS was built to accommodate 250 girls enrolled in 5th through 12th grades, but by 1882 there were already 275 students. "In 1899 it was necessary to convert the cloakroom to the left of the entrance to a classroom. The ‘six water closets' of the original plan were inadequate and inconveniently located in the basement. Both lighting and heating proved to be insufficient." Electric lights were installed in 1924.
Along with capacity problems, the school also soon began to have financial difficulties. In 1915 and 1916, the two lowest grades were returned to the public school system and RFS petitioned the town for financial help. In 1955, RFS and the all-boy High School were abolished and merged into a co-ed Exeter High School.
For a while, the Seminary building was used by the Town for offices and other things, but no attempt was made to repair or maintain the deteriorating building and no future use was seriously considered. It was boarded up in the Fall of 1961 and on October 5 burned to the ground. By the end of December, the rubble had been cleaned up, the cellar hole filled and the area graded over. The following year the large bronze tablet from the front of the building, reading "Robinson Female Seminary," was mounted on a granite slab that was erected on the site of the Seminary's front steps. At the end of 2001, the bronze and granite marker was behind the Lincoln St Elementary School in a playground area, and not in good condition.
To find out more about RFS, the best source is On Ever Robinson, a 114-page history of Robinson Female Seminary, written and published by the Robinson Seminary History Committee, 1988. The Exeter Historical Society sells it for $10. It's comprehensive and very well done, with lots of photos.
Sargent College, Boston University
Having graduated from RFS in the spring of 1912, Mother entered college that fall. The school was Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, a part of Boston University. It was a three-year program so, after freshman year, students became juniors and then seniors, never to be a sophomore. Mother majored in physical education and graduated in 1915.
She was in the glee club at Sargent's. In the year book of her senior year, this was written beside her picture:
Most generous and kind in every way,
Taking the best that comes each day.In the year book of her junior year, there were entries for Mother in various categories. For "Would you believe that...," it said Marion Tyler cut clubs for the movies. (She was expert at twirling Indian clubs. Could she have made them too?)
For "Worst fault:" Hustling
For "Greatest joy:" Peanuts
For "In 1925:" Married (I hope)
Mother in later years
See Old photos of generations 1 & 2 for two portrait photos of Gam and Pop-Pop's family, one in 1927 at Edgewood Arsenal, MD, and another one in 1945 when they lived in Washington, DC. Pop-Pop was a Regular Army career officer, and so were all three of his sons. During WWII, when Gam lived in Franklin, NH, she proudly displayed four gold stars in the front window of her house.
In WWI, she was married in Washington, DC. and knew the life of an Army wife for the next 32 years. She and Pop-Pop soon moved to Edgewood Arsenal, MD, home of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). Three sons were born there or in Washington: Jack, Perry and Jim. Then the family went to Cambridge, MA, as the Army sent Pop-Pop to Harvard Graduate School of Business there for two years. Another son was born there (Bruce), in the nearby town of Brookline, in a hospital where Gam's sister Ruth worked as a registered nurse.
After New England, it was back to Edgewood, the home base of Pop-Pop's branch, the CWS. Here their second son (Perry) died of complications of a tonsillectomy, and their only daughter (Anne) was born. Next was two years in the Philippine Islands, three years at Fort Riley, KS, and once more back to Edgewood.
In September 1938, just before New England was devastated by the famous hurricane, they sailed from New York City for a three-year stay in Brazil's Cidade Maravilhosa – Rio de Janeiro. She learned Portuguese quite well and wowed many a Brazilian dignitary with Brazilian stories and jokes told in the native language. She practiced what she preached: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. While she was in Rio, her oldest son, Jack, was in the U.S. preparing for or attending West Point, the U.S. Military Academy. Her second oldest, Jim, left Rio in 1940 to attend Dartmouth College.
While Pop-Pop stayed in Rio alone for a bit longer, Gam returned to the States in the summer of 1941 with her two youngest children, so that she could be closer to Jack at West Point, Jim at Dartmouth and Bruce at Bowdoin. With the outbreak of WWII, Pop-Pop was ordered to England and soon participated in the invasion of Africa.
Jack graduated from West Point and went to Europe in 1944. His two brothers, Jim and Bruce, left their colleges before finishing, enlisted in the Army, got commissions via officer candidate school and went overseas to do their part in the war (Jim to the Pacific, Bruce to Europe). All three stayed in the Army after the war and became career officers like their father.
Meanwhile, Gam lived first in Arlington, MA, and then in Franklin, NH. The end of the war found her and Pop-Pop on an island off the Pacific coast of Panama, where Pop-Pop was in command of the CWS testing facilities there. Their last assignment was in Washington, DC, where Pop-Pop had a high-placed position (Deputy Chief of the Chemical Corps) on the Army general staff until his retirement in 1949.
Gam and Pop-Pop then settled in a nice little house on the outskirts of Baltimore. There were many good years there, especially the visits by their kids who were soon accompanied by their adored grandchildren. In 1965 Gam and Pop-Pop moved to her beloved New Hampshire and built a comfortable home in Laconia. Within a year she became ill, and died there October 19.
Mother – Gam – Maya – Marion Tyler Elliott – is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, along with her husband Red – Dad – Pop-Pop – Lowell Allison Elliott – and their son Perry Edward Elliott who died at such a young age. Two other sons, Jack and Jim, died at much riper ages and are buried at Arlington but in separate plots from theor parents.
A Love Poem
Note: When Gam's husband died, this poem was found in his desk, written in her handwriting.
Not many girls are as lucky as I
To have for a husband a wonderful Guy,
And I love him and love him and then some more,
More so now than days of yore,
More today than yesterday,
More tomorrow than today.
And that's the way it'll always be
From now to eternity.To my precious Red
Maya
Gam's Recipes
Gam – Mother – was a natural at cooking, she loved doing it and was very good at it. Nothing fancy, just great home-cooked food and goodies. She was a devotee of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (first published when she was two years old, and still popular over 100 years later) but, like most good cooks, often modified recipes she got from cookbooks or friends, and also invented her own. She kept her recipes on hand-written or hand-typed 3x5 cards that she kept in a little file box and passed on down to her children and grandchildren. The recipes here (click on one to see details) were given to me by several of Mother's granddaughters and include some special favorites. Other favorites are missing. Do you have any of them?
Crab Imperial
1 green pepper, finely diced
2 pimentos, finely diced
1 tblsp English mustard
1 tblsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise
3 lbs lump crab meat
Mayonnaise for toppingMix pepper and pimento. Add mustard, salt, pepper, eggs and mayonnaise, and mix well.
Add crab meat and mix in well with fingers so lumps are not broken.
Put in a baking dish, crockery preferred, heaping lightly.
Top with a light coating of mayonnaise. Sprinkle with paprika.
Bake at 350º for 15 minutes.Variation: Divide into 8 crab shells or casseroles, heaping it in lightly.
Top with light coating of mayonnaise and sprinkle with paprika.
The traditional Baltimore garnish is creamy cole slaw, with tomato slices, crisp lettuce and french fried potatoes.
Baked Indian Pudding
[Note: This recipe, dated 1916, is from Gam's mother.]
Put a quart of milk on the stove to boil.
Butter a pudding dish and in it put ½ cup of meal, ½ cup molasses, an even tsp of salt, and a pinch of all kinds of spices.
Stir all together, then pour in the hot milk. Add a piece of butter half the size of an egg.
Bake 3 hours. Stir it 3 times while baking; the first time, stir in ½ cup of cold milk.
Sponge Cake
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup hot milk
1½ tsp baking powder
VanillaBeat eggs separately and then together. Add sugar and vanilla, and beat again.
Add flour, baking powder and hot milk in that order. Bake in 6"x10" pan at 375º for 20 minutes.
War Cake
1 lb seeded raisins
½ cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp salt
2 tsp soda
4 cups flourPut raisins into 2 cups of boiling water, boil for 15 minutes, drain and mix with other ingredients.
Place in 4½"x8½" loaf pan, bake at just under 350º for 55 minutes.
Bran Bread
1/3 cup brown sugar
½ cup dark molasses
1 tsp salt
1½ cup buttermilk or sour milk
1 tsp soda
2 cups flour
¾ cup All Bran
Raisins, ½ to ¾ cupBake at 325º for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Brown Bread
1 cup flour
1 cup corn meal
1 cup water
½ cup molasses
2 tsp soda
½ tsp salt
1½ tblsp lard or oil Sometimes I roll ½ cup raisins in flour and add.
Grease top part of boiler and steam 3 hours.
Ham Glaze
Rub brown sugar and dry mustard on ham. Pin 3 small pieces of bay leaf onto ham with cloves.
Put more cloves all over ham.
Mix ¾ cup vinegar and a heaping tblsp brown sugar to baste ham while baking.
Place ham on rack in pan in 325º oven for about 14-18 min per lb for precooked, or 20-30 min per lb otherwise.
Dressing for 15-lb turkey
Boil gizzard, heart and liver with medium onion until tender. Take liver out after 10-15 min.
Cool and chop giblets. Fry medium-chopped onion and 2 chopped stalks of celery in 2 tblsp butter.
Put in large bowl: ¾ (or more) loaf of bread, crumbled. Add 1 tblsp poultry seasoning, 1 tsp salt and dash of pepper.
Then add giblets, onions and celery. Add some liquid that the giblets were cooked in if too dry.
Chinese Chews
½ cup butter
1½ cups flour
1 scant cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 egg yolksMix and spread in bottom of square pan. Beat egg whites until stiff.
Add 1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup chopped walnuts, ½ cup raisins, vanilla, and spread over bottom mixture.
Bake at 350º for 1 hour.
Cherry Molded Salad
1-lb can dark sweet pitted cherries
3-oz pkg cream cheese
1 pkg black cherry jelloDrain cherries and save juice which should be about 1 cup.
Add 1 cup hot water to jello and 1 cup cherry juice.
Beat in cream cheese.
Cherries should be cut up or put through meat grinder.
Sweet Potato Fluff
Rice 4 boiled sweet potatoes. Add 1 large ripe banana mashed, 1½ tsp salt, 1½ tblsp butter,
1 egg yolk, enough hot milk to make potatoes light enough to beat.
Beat well. Add stiffly beaten egg white and 1/8 tsp each of mace and paprika. Beat again.
Pile lightly in buttered baking dish, brown slightly in hot oven.
Break pecans (1/3 cup) and mix with potato. Cover with marshmallows and brown again.
Apple Crisp
Put 6 to 8 sliced apples in buttered casserole. Work together as for pastry:
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ cup butter
¾ cup flourCrumble over apples and bake at 350º for 1 hour.
Yorkshire Pudding
1 cup flour
7/8 cup milk
2 eggs
½ tsp melted butter
¼ tsp salt Mix salt and flour. Add milk gradually to make smooth batter.
Beat eggs and add to mixture. Add butter. Beat 2 min. Put in buttered custard cups.
Bake at 500º for 30-35 min., decreasing to 350º as they start to brown.
This batter may instead be spooned into baking pan with roast, basting with drippings.
Strawberry Rhubarb Cream
3¾ cup cut-up rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1 pkg strawberry jello
2 egg whites
1 tblsp sugar
½ cup heavy creamCook rhubarb and sugar over low heat until juice comes from rhubarb.
Strain, saving 1 cup rhubarb juice. Dissolve strawberry jello in boiling water.
Add rhubarb juice. Chill mixture until mashy. Beat egg whites with 1 tblsp sugar.
Beat heavy cream. Add these to jello mixture along with rhubarb.
Tomato Bisque
½ of a 1-lb can of tomatoes
1 qt milk
1/3 cup butter
1 tblsp corn starch
1 tsp salt
white pepperStew tomatoes until soft enough to strain, then strain and set aside.
Heat milk in a double boiler. In a small saucepan, heat together 1tblsp butter and cornstarch.
Add enough hot milk to make the butter/cornstarch mixture pour easily, then remove milk from fire.
Take mixture off heat also, stir until smooth, then add remainder of milk.
Put mixture back on fire and boil 10 min, stirring occasionally.
Add remainder of butter to mixture. Add less than 1 tsp soda to tomatoes you set aside.
Then add those tomatoes, plus salt and pepper, to the mixture.
Don't mix until ready to serve. Serve very hot.
Baked Custard
Beat 3 eggs and pour on:
2 cups milk
pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp vanilla
nutmeg (sprinkle over top)Set custard cups in pan of hot water.
Bake at 350º for about 40 min.
Test with silver knife.
Banana Bread
½ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
3 ripe bananas, crushed
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
¼ cup nut meatsCream the shortening with the sugar.
Add flour and bananas alternately to creamed mixture.
Bake in loaf pan at 350º for 55 minutes.
Date & Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups oatmeal
2 eggs
1 cup shortening (½ butter, ½ Crisco)
1 cup flour
1 tsp soda
Filling, boil until thick:
½ lb dates, cut fine
1 cup sugar
1 cup waterRoll out and cut out cookies. Put together while hot.
Articles & Clippings
The following two items appeared in the February 10, 1888, issue of The Exeter News-Letter, Exeter's newspaper that is still published today, thrice weekly. For current issues and limited archives, see the News-Letter. Rolla A. Tyler was Gam's father, and the house being moved is the one she grew up in.
Item 1 - extract from a newsy column
Not often in these days is to be seen the stirring spectacle of thirty-one yoke of oxen and seven pair of horses, exerting their full power in the moving out of a heavy building. A few were fortunate enough to witness it last Saturday [Feb 4] at the moving of Mr. Rolla A. Tyler's dwelling, which is described at length in a card appearing in another column. [see next item]Item 2 - "A Card"
We wish to make public our thanks to the "valiant men and true" who so nobly helped us across the river on Saturday, and so make use of the most available means. On the morning before mentioned there was an unusual stir around our dwelling house. To the casual observer it may have meant little, but to the inmates of the home it meant much. Those manly fellows with ox goad in hand, spurring onward pair after pair of oxen and horses, had come to convey the home, family, goods and chattels of their friend to a site some forty rods [220 yards] away, where he will improve the old and erect new buildings.We had felt some misgivings about this move, on account of the [Little] river, which we were obliged to cross. When the final moment came and the order was given to start, each animal, spurred by his master, pulled his utmost and away went our home over the road and into the valley, when, as ill luck would have it, an ox was drawn under a chain, and the command was given to halt. On trying to start again it was found that the shoes were so burrowed into the snow that it was impossible to go on. After much shoveling and repeated trials it seemed as if superhuman strength alone could ever move the house from the spot.
"There is only one thing to be done," said the kind-hearted boss, "and that is to take hold and jack up this house! Are there men here who will do it?" Instantly every shovel, axe, lever and jack was in motion, and in two hours the command was again given to go on, this time with success. And when an exultant shout gave token that our house was landed at last, a flame of gratitude was kindled in our hearts towards our benefactors which will burn as long as life lasts. The patience and perseverance of these gentlemen was almost divine and their kindly actions were an earnest of the brotherly love which exists among the inhabitants of Heaven. — Mr. and Mrs. Tyler
Obituary of Rolla A. Tyler
This item appeared in The Exeter News-Letter, date unknown but very likely November 14, 1935.]Born in Bernardston, Mass, in 1846, Mr. Rolla A. Tyler came to Exeter in 1868, for the express purpose of attending the Philips Exeter Academy. At that time there were only three teachers at the Academy, whom many will remember as Dr. Soule, Professor Wentworth and Professor Cilley. These men of sterling character made a profound impression on this young man. After attending the Academy for three years he married Mary M. Drinkwater, a teacher in the Exeter schools, and built the first hand laundry in the town. He invented the "Tyler Ironer," which was used to iron the stiff bosoms (also cuffs and collars) of shirts that man commonly wore at that time. The iron, by the use of a strong spring, made a direct downward pressure on the board. This "Tyler Ironer" was used by many laundries. Mr. Tyler sold 36 of these machines to the Troy, N.Y., Laundry, alone. Confinement in the laundry brought on tubercular conditions, so he discontinued the business, upon the advice of the well-known Dr. Perry, that he might live in the open. He then established a route through the country selling "Globe Soap" and small wares. The out-of- door life proved so beneficial that all tubercular symptoms disappeared and he enlarged his business, adding dry goods to his store, which he carried in a two-horse team. People anticipated his monthly calls and found it very convenient to patronize him. Some of his customers corresponded with him to the end of his life.
He enjoyed excellent health up to last week when he took cold and failed to rally from senile pneumonia, and died November 13 in his ninetieth year, at Lexington, Mass, where he had lived for about ten years with his daughter, Ruth (Mrs. Ralph Tibbetts). By his first wife he had six children, and by his second wife, Elizabeth Emily Judson Dearborn, he had six children, all of whom survive him.
He was a loyal member of Sagamore Lodge, I.O.O.F.
Funeral services will be held at the Junkins funeral parlors, Exeter, Friday afternoon, November 15, at 2 o'clock.
Go to Gam's 1909 diary
Go to Gam's 1910 diary
Go to Gam's 1911 diary
Go to Introductory notes for Gam's diaries
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