Sophie, Jack, tomatoes, flowers
1966 H-O-M-E I-S T-H-E S-A-I-L-O-R
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p42 # 965 - H-O-M-E
-I-S -T-H-E -S-A-I-L-O-R 1947-1969 H-O-M-E I-S T-H-E S-A-I-L-O-R
Hartigan,Pops,RLS- South Boston-West Roxbury-(p. 144) There were many
interesting curios at 640- some from Jack's trips.One was an alligator with
a pencil inserted into the jaws, with an African native's head sticking out
on the head of the pencil.Jack had an old Boston Traveler l907 World Atlas
in the cold front room by the stairs, where he used to sleep, and where John
slept August to November, l947. There was a fancy lampshade which Jack's
deceased sister Katie had made, and some cushions she had embroadered.On the
front stairway, a slightly phosphorescent glass knob hung down from the
electric light so that Mollie could find it when she came home and up the
stairs after dark. I wish we had photographs of the old set tubs and barn
before Mollie modernized everything in l948. The things provided quite a
link with Grandpa Barrett. The refill water closet of the toilet, which he
had made years earlier, was up overhead to utilize gravity.There were coal
stove in the parlor and kitchen. A portion of the house dated from before
1860, but additions were made several times.Grandpa had a victory garden in
l9l8 and peach trees. An old asparagus plant and many hollyhocks grew in
l948 and lilacs.Jack had to report at Boston Navy Yard to show he had
completed his authorized travel to Boston. Before long we took a trip to
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire to see Jack's brother Bill and his son Billy
and "Gram" (Billy's mother's mother) and Billy's aunt Vivian Walsh,
Virginia's sister.Jack made inquiry at Phillips Andover Academy thst day but
learned their school had a four year course starting in the ninth grade,
whereas John was entering the seventh grade. We began house hunting very
soon after we arrived in Boston.At this time we expected John would enroll
in Boston Latin, and his father had started him learning "Adeste fideles"
and other Latin materials.However, Peggy Hurley, entertaining the four of us
at dinner at her house, suggested we look into Roxbury Latin School, a
private day school in West Roxbury, where her son-in-law Broderick had been
a member of the l944 class. This ultimately influenced our choice of a
house. Mr. William Cunningham, a school teacher who did part-time realty
work for the Fowler agency of Jamaica Plain. showed us a number of houses-
Allandale Road and Ardale Road- then on August 28, l947 - Jack's fifty-ninth
birthday, he showed Jack and John a house at 52 Emmonsdale Road, West
Roxbury, which we later bought.That day after showing the house, Mr.
Cunningham bought a round of ice cream cones to celebrate Jack's
birthday.The house was only two and a half blocks from Roxbury Latin School,
and Mr. Cunningham with nine children lived only two blocks from us himself,
so we were ready to believe him about the neighborhood, and he was friendly
for many years afterward.He became principal of Roslindale High School, and
one of his sons was President of Wang computer corporation.The house on
Emmonsdale was owned by the Van Steenbergen family.Mr. Van Steenbergen
taught at Boston Latin School, where John was actually enrolled for three
days.He was in Mr. Jamieson's room there, along with our neighbor Eddie
Brickley of Tennyson Street. John was somewhat upset when his father changed
his plans and went rather unwillingly to an interview at Roxbury Latin The
new head master Frederick R. Weed without applying pressure either way
permitted John to take the entrance exam with some other late applicants
including G. Robert Macdonald of Dedham. John scored very well and was
admitted. Rather to John's surprise, Jack made the decision to send John to
Roxbury Latin and buy the Emmonsdale Road house where no commuting would be
necessary.The tuition at Roxbury Latin was only one hundred dollars per year
at that time for residents in the area of the old town of Roxbury. The
school had just celebrated its third centennial in l945 and received
publicity in Life magazine as 'the oldest continuously operating Independent
school in the Country" and the "biggest educational bargain in the country."
At one time it was very heavily endowed, but its finances suffered severely
in the l930's. A new school building was opened in l926 in West Roxbury, but
a planned gymnasium was deferred until l955.Peggy Hurley, widow of Jack's
South Boston friend Joe of the Boston Post, who had died in l94l, was very
friendly when we arrived back from Hawaii.Besides having us to dinner, she
invited us to her daughter's wedding in Duxbury spring l948 and introduced
me to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Collins one block away from us on Emmonsdale
Road.They visited us at our new home two days after we moved in on
Thanksgiving l947. Jack also found his former French teacher at Boston Latin
School William Pride Henderson living in West Roxbury -aged eighty-four in
l947. Bill Barrett's Latin School l912 classmate John Vaccaro was one of the
first people John Barrett met in Boston as he had John and his father to
lunch at Lockober's Restaurant in August.He also searched the title to the
new house, and another l9l2 Latin School classmate of Bill's Archie Dresser
appraised the house at a value of eleven thousand dollars.We ultimately paid
Mr. Van Steenbergen twelve thousand dollars plus the commission. Jack's l906
classmates Dan Lyne and Edward Illingworth wrote recommendations for John at
Roxbury Latin. Illingworth an organist and vocal and piano teacher lived at
64 Hastings Street West Roxbury and was very well acquainted through the
Highland Club of West Roxbury with Roxbury Latin French master Joseph Henry
Sasserno.Our house is on the slope of Bellevue Hill, the highest ground
within the city limits of Boston.Survey maps say the top of the hill is 328
feet, and the Boston state house is visible, and the South Boston
waterfront. Our house is at about 210 feet elevation. Mr. Illingworth, who
Jack knew from the fourth grade in South Boston onward through Boston Latin
School, was nicknamed "the eternal question mark." He studied in Rome with
the composer and virtuoso Ferruchio Busoni. His wife was a South Boston
neighbor from L Street.He invited Jack to join the Highland Club, but Jack
was not much of a joiner, and also passed up the American Legion and the
Veterans of Foreign Wars as well. Mr. Illingworth one time drilled John on
the dotted rhythms of Beethoven's "Minuet in G." Mr. Joseph Sasserno had a
considerable conversation with Jack at the Roxbury Latin parking lot the
first day of school.He was one year older than Jack and had attended Boston
English High School and Harvard College- then taught seven years at Norwich
Military Academy in Vermont l911-l9l8. He later was a close friend of his
former pupil General Harmon,who became President of Norwich and asked Mr.
Sasserno to write a history of Norwich, which was incomplete when he died in
Genoa, Italy August 12, l962. Mr. Sasserno and his sister Mary and brother
Henry lived in apartments near us at 30 Bellevue Street. Their family were
from East Boston and Dorchester.Henry was later our investment broker at
Kidder Peabody Company.Joe was active in the Italian Historical Society and
West Roxbury Historical Society.Jack's conversation with Mr. Sasserno
undoubtedly helped sell him on Roxbury Latin School, where John attended for
six years. There was a high attrition rate among the students, but a very
fine education was available, and all twelve members of the small faculty
were of great ability and became our very good friends.John began piano
lessons with Giuseppe deLellis, who took a very wonderful special interest
in Jack senior in his last two years, l967-l969.He and his family have been
wonderful friends throughout more than twenty-two years.For the first two
months Jack drove John from South Boston to school. John was unfamiliar with
the Boston streetcars, and the trip was slow and roundabout, with several
changes of cars and trolleys.Sometimes Gil Hoag would ride to Dorchester
with us to his home in Savin Hill, and Ronald Havelock would ride to the
Elevated to connect to Cambridge.We later often regretted that Mollie was
not closer to us. Mollie at this time worked in a Metropolitan Life
Insurance local office on West Broadway near F Street just beyond Dorchester
Street, ten or fiteen minutes walk from her home. She received weekly cash
collections at the cashier window and so knew a great many people in the
neighborhood.At this time she frequently saw the Barretts' former next door
neighbors Katherine Kinnaly and Mr. and Mrs. Daniel and Emily Kinnaly who
lived on Clement Street in West Roxbury. Danny worked in the Post Office and
was very cordial when he heard we were copming to West Roxbury.Our new house
was painted by Meissner Brothers of South Boston, and a new heater and
shower and cellar bathroom were installed by Rull Company. Jack's second
cousins, Gertrude and Mary Hartigan were still at 80 Brown Avenue,
Roslindale, near Cummins Highway and Sacred Heart Church,where their mother
moved from South Boston in l9l7.May gave Jack a cordial greeting on his
return and frequently brought us poinsettias, azaleas and other plants as
presents. Her brother, Father Edward Hartigan, was in North Braintree as
pastor until l953- then he became pastor of Immaculate Conception parish,
Everett, retiring in l970.For a while May Hartigan kept her car in our
two-car garage, as she lived only two miles away and parking was
scarce.Until her retirement in l956 at age seventy, she taught mathematics
at the Washington Irving intermediate school in Roslindale. Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Buckley dropped in soon after we moved in.Subsequently Jack would see
Joe around City Hall where he worked in the Sewer Department- and also in
Joe's private law office.Joe wrote a recommendation when Jack applied for
the Graduate Law Course at Northeastern University in l95l.While we were
still living at 640 East Seventh Street, we went with Mollie to 168 I Street
to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of Mrs. Fortunato Pistorino, the
mother of a family of nine, among whom several sisters were very good
friends of Mollie Barrett.Mr. and Mrs. Pistorino observed their fiftieth
wedding anniversary about the end of the war, and now they were having quite
a birthday celebration. Josephine Pistorino worked for Bell Telephone
Company.Her sister Frances was a legal secretary, and their brother John was
a barber. Their paternal grandfather came from a distinguished family of
Messina, and the Pistorino family operated a business in Boston. One of the
nephews was with United Fruit company.Mrs. Pistorino's family, long in South
Boston, traced back to Skibbereen, Cork, Ireland. Their name was Daly, and
they may be related to Jack Barrett's father's mother.Mollie would often
have Wednesday and Sunday meals at the Pistorino home, while Josephine and
Frances would come to Mollie's for fish dinner on Friday. Jack's second
cousins Gertrude and Mary Hartigan lived at 80 Brown Avenue, near Cummins
highway and Sacred Heart Church in nearby Roslindale, and their brother
Father Hartigan was in Braintree but in l953 became pastor at Immaculate
Conception church in Everett.May gave Jack a very cordial welcome home and
gave us several azalea plants.For a while she kept her car in our two-car
garage.Until her retirement in l956 at age seventy, she taught mathematics
at the Washington Irving intermediate school in Roslindale. Mr, and Mrs.
Joseph Buckley of South Boston - with whom Jack had been friendly since
young boyhood, came to call.Jack saw him frequently at City Hall, where Joe
worked for the Sewer Department.After dropping John at Roxbury Latin in time
for the start of school at 8:42 every morning, Jack would drive to our new
home at 52 Emmonsdale road, where the Meissner workers were painting and
papering, and Rull, the plumber was putting a new bathroom in the
cellar.Jack unpacked furniture, put the Chinese rugs on the floor, washed
dishes, pots and pans, and when the telephone was installed, he called me to
say that he had just unpacked the piano, so I listened while he played one
of his favorite piano pieces.The piano was in perfect condition although
many other items of furniture had been damaged in the round trip to and from
Pearl Harbor in 1941 to storage in Boston.By the time the
painters,plumbers,and electricians had finished their work, Jack had the
place ready for occupancy by John and me.The floors were scraped. Jack
bought an electric wax polisher, and on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Jack
and John missed their Sunday dinner at 640 because they were determined to
finishing waxing the floors and polishing them so we could move in. -and we
did move in on Thanksgiving Day l947, when Mollie came out with us and was
most helpful in getting us settled. Our next door neighbors at 21 Rustic
Road, Tony and Mabel Bernazzani and their two daughters were flower lovers.
He was a professional gardener with an unusually green thumb.He had planted
the peonies, day lilies, and hydrangeas on the Van Steenbergen property we
bought. His own property had a wide variety of rambler roses, yuccas,
hollyhocks, violets, Spanish iris,tomatoes, strawberries, bulbs, and ususual
trees.The Bernazzanis enjoyed the outdoors and had a large fireplace, where
they invited us and other neighbors for spaghetti and steak dinner, which we
enjoyed at long outdoor tables. One Sunday noon Mollie called up to invite
us to dinner at six o'clock..Since it was a very cold day, I at first
refused, but Jack and John, who loved 640 East Seventh Street accepted
gladly, as it was a very dull cold day here.I simply suffered in that cold
weather- couldn't get warm despite the adequate oil heat.After they left,
the house was so quiet, I decided to go to South Boston by subway, even
though I wasn't sure how to get there. But our Emmonsdale neighbors, Joe and
Grace Collins,picked me up in their carand took me to the Jamaica Plain
Civil War Monument, where they put me on a trolley car to Park Street under
Boston Common, where I changed for a subway train to South Boston.Jack was
glad to see me.it was a lovely party, with the smell of ham pleasant after
the long cold trip. Everybody was there - Mollie's cousins, Tom and Bessie
Palmer of North Cambridge, her old neighbor Katherine Kinnaly, her cousin
Bill Lane of Melrose and his wife Jean,Josephine Pistorino of 168 I Street,
and Mollie's second cousins Mary Elizabeth and Helen Lynch of Hyde Park.
There was a lot of good talk, the food was excellent, and it was far better
for me than sitting at home.Our next door neighbor at 44 Emmonsdale Road was
Mrs. Allen, a widow with two grown sons. She was enthusiastic when John made
the honor roll for the first marking period at Roxbury Latin. Two neighbors
on Rustic Road, Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Ethel Maier came to call one day while
John was studying for mid-year examinations.We told them about our trip
across the country. Mrs. Maier's father retired police Captain Anderson,
lived with her and her husband Otto.Our first winter in Boston was an
unusually snowy one. Usually when the Boston public school closed because of
snow, Roxbury Latin remained in session, but one morning at 8:30 when the
snow was very deep, and it was still snowing, we heard via radio that there
would be no school at Roxbury Latin. Against my advice, John went off to
school, two and a half blocks away.About noon, when it was still snowing,
with the snow two feet deep, I began to be concerned.About two o'clock Mrs.
Heffler, wife of the school custodian, telephoned and told me she was
surprised when her husband found john reading in the School Library- and
when she learned John had been there since 8:30 AM, she gave him a bowl of
soup and some crackers.He finally returned late in the afternoon, and when I
asked him how he got into the school, he said that the head master had been
there and said to him, "Don't you know there is no school?" John admitted he
knew it but asked permission to use the library that snowy day. He was
eleven and a half years old. Mr. Richard Whitney was the Sixth Class home
room master and taught English and geography.When John told the class about
some of his experiences in the western national Parks, en route from Hawaii
to Boston, Mr. Whitney suggested he use the subject for the annual Fowler
Prize history essay competition, offered for the best paper in each class on
a subject related to United States History.John used his spring vacation to
write the paper and won the five dollar prize. The winner was ineligible the
next year, but in l950 John again won with an essay on "Life on Oahu from
July l941 to June, l947."John got his best grade in Latin, with Mr. Earl
Taylor, who ran the bookstore before school in the mornings - John would
often go in early and discuss difficult points in the assignments. Mr.
Taylor led singing of hymns in Hall four mornings a week. On Tuesdays and
Fridays Giuseppe deLellis came to the school to teach music, and played the
piano accompaniment.John soon continued the piano lessons he had begun with
Laura Canafax at Punahou in l946.They worked in the Schirmer collection "59
piano solos you like to play" -the Schubert Moment Musical in f op. 94 #3,
and Military March, the Beethoven Minuet in G, the Strauss Blue Danube
Waltz, Verdi's Grand March from "Aida", the Brahms Waltz in A Flat, the
Mozart Turkish Rondo, and the Tannhauser Act 3 March of Wagner, Handel's
"Largo" from "Xerxes".and Bach Prelude in c from Well Tempered Clavier #1.
Mr. DeLellis and his wife Connie became family friends,and we visited back
and forth from their home in West Newton.I met many of the mothers of the
sixth class students at a tea party given by the Parents Auxiliary in
October l947 At a second tea party given by Mrs. Clifford Ronan and Mrs.
Huston Banton I saw the mothers again., and I met many other parents of the
Auxiliary at meetings in Rousmaniere Hall.After the meeting we went to the
school dining room, where the hospitality committee served coffee,sandwiches,
and small cupcakes. We enjoyed talks by Mr. Weed and other invited
speakers., and at the Spring meeting we heard the Roxbury Latin Debating
Team. We also met parents at school football and baseball games, after which
we gathered in the dining room. Since John was interested in debating, we
attended many debates at the school and even drove to Groton the fifth class
year, where John was a speaker in a junior debate. Roxbury Latin won taking
the affirmative on the topic, "Should Athletic Scholarships be Granted by
colleges? Mr. J. Clifford Ronan, father of John's classmate Cliff and two
younger children, Frank and Dorothy, was a track coach at Boston English
High School, and he cited the case of Center College in Kentucky, which was
little known until highly successful sports teams brought publicity - then
the school was able to raise money and develop a strong academic program.
Mr.Ronan's material worked out well in the debate, and when John had
finished speaking, Headmaster Peabody of Groton remarked to me, "That boy
has a head" In the spring of l948 our former Waikiki neighbors Mimi and
Harry Bronson came to visit us. Harry was working as an entomologist for the
state of California,and they had bought a home in Santa Paula but were
visiting Mimi's parents and sister Frances Gage in Marlboro. Since they had
movies and slides of the Hawaiian Islands to show us that Sunday afternoon,
we telephoned Aunt Mollie and invited her to come and see them and bring
home John, who was visiting in South Boston that day.They also showed views
of brightly colored spring flowers from their hikes high in the Sierra
Nevada. We bought only two tickets for Roxbury Latin Night at the Boston
Pops in May, l948, because it was the last Friday in May, the night I was
scheduled to attend my twenty-fifth reunion at Mount Holyoke college.I went
to Pops the next year when John was in the fifth class. We sat next to Randy
Hare and his mother,- had a pleasant evening. MR. DELELLIS WAS THE PIANO
SOLOIST WITH ARTHUR FIEDLER IN A BRILLIANT PERFORMANCE of RACHMANINOFF'S
SECOND PIANO CONCERTO. On that last Friday in May l948, Jack drove me to
Brookline to the home of my classmate Carol Fisher Mallory.Clara Michael,
Ruth Phinney and I rode with Carol to a Howard Johnson's for dinner and then
on to Mount Holyoke. where we registered for reunion at Student Alumni Hall.
I spent the early part of that evening rehearsing for my part in the play
written by my classmate and friend Rebecca Glover Smaltz.The play was to be
presented Saturday afternoon. We then went to Pearsons Hall, where I lived
freshman year.and where we had Reunion rooms and breakfast Saturday and
Sunday.We had a class meeting at which our president Marion Lewis Smart read
letters from classmates not in attendance at reunion.When we awoke Saturday
morning, it was raining so we could not have the Alumnae parade.So we
gathered in student Alumnae Hall, where I sat next to my friend Betty Gilman
Roberts, and we had box lunches. In the afternoon l923 presented a good skit
by Becky Smaltz, and the Alumnae President announced gifts to the college by
various classes. Late in the afternoon we went to Pearsons Hall to dress for
dinner- a banquet at a hotel in Holyoke.Ruth Peck Doyle drove Betty Giles
Howard, Betty Gilman Roberts and me to the hotel. The drive was one of the
highlights of the Reunion for me, because I had lived with them in Brigham
Hall junior and senior years, and Betty Gilman and I had taken Master's
degrees together in l925 -the only two candidates for the degree that year.
at the dinner we were seated alphabetically just as we had been for chapel
for four years so I was surrounded by people I knew well. Marion Lewis
Smart, our class president asked me as Sergeant-at-Arms of the class to pour
the champagne, which I did after saying that this was a strange state of
affairs after I had spent so many years in the Navy advising against the use
of liquor.The classmates applauded and laughed. As Carol Fisher had two
young children left in her husband Dr. Mallory's care, we left South Hadley
right after breakfast Sunday morning. Carol came to my house to meet Jack
and John.She had met her husband Kenneth Mallory in Vienna when they were
doing graduate study in biology and medicine.Dr. Mallory was a pathologist
at Boston City Hospital where the Mallory building was named for his
relative. we were invited to the Mallorys for Sunday dinner later in June
BEFORE CAROL LEFT FOR MOUNT DESERT ISLAND MAINE with the children. Carol was
an active member of the League of Women Voters. That summer Jack and I had
considerable contact with Roxbury Latin parents. Mrs. Martin of Dedham,
mother of Fred Martin came to visit one morning in June before Fred left for
summer camp Kabeyun. Mrs. Stikeleather, mother of Robert Stikeleather wanted
John to spend a week at their summer home in Stow to help Robert learn some
French, before the boys officially started the new language with Joseph
Sasserno that fall in the fifth Class. We saw her when we drove John to
Stow, and Mr. Stikeleather had come from their East Dedham home to West
Roxbury to give us a local map showing their place by the lake.When we went
to get John the next week our neighbors Mr.and Mrs.Sweeney of 229 Wren
Street rode with us, so we got well acquainted with them too. Mr. Sweeney
taught shop in Boston Public Schools,and their son John was class president
for three years, until he lost a year with bone tuberculosis, for which he
was successfully treated at Lakeville Sanitarium. We also had an invitation
for lunch and a swim with Mrs. and Mrs. J. Clifford Ronan at their summer
home "Silver Hills" West Newburyport, in the area where Mr. Ronan had grown
up.He taught mechanical drawing and was the track coach at Boston English
High School. John Sweeney was with us, and Mrs. Ronan urged us to stay for
supper. - we had cream of tomato soup- most welcome after a cool swim.Mr.
Ronan in later years became a landscape painter. His home on Tennyson Street
West Roxbury, and the summer place at West Newbury, which became their home
after his retirement, became filled with paintings, and they gave us one - a
lovely snow scene which hung many years in our dining room.Mr. Ronan wrote a
newspaper sports column "Ronan's Reckonings"- a forecast or "educated guess"
on the standings of high school in the track competitions. Mrs. Ronan's
father and mother Mrs. Goodwin and her sister Grace Antell lived near us on
Howitt Street. Cliff went to Amherst, and his brother Frank did track at
Bowdoin. In l948 Jack finally had a chance to grow some good sized tomatoes
after fighting insects and mildew in Hawaii. His favorite was the Winsall
tomato. We had many three-pound fruits, and once he had a five pound tomato.
They were delicious but too fragile for commercial use. He supplied many
friends and neighbors with tomatoes and plants and seed to start new ones in
February. indoors. He also grew"Crystal White" tomatoes, a variety l45
developed from the yellow tomato. We grew some for many years. Originally we
obtained the seed from Peter Henderson Company later from Breck's of Boston.
Since l965 we have had to use seed from our own crystal white plants as they
now seem to be unavailable commercially.Jack grew tomatoes every year until
l965.-#55- p.148 (#55)). With my encouragement Jack entered the accelerated
two-and-a half year daytime course at Boston College Law School in January,
l949 financed as a War Veteran under the G.I. Bill.He made inquiry at
Harvard, where Dean Erwin Griswold was courteous, but explained he was
crowded with returning veterans. Griswold encouraged Jack to talk to Father
Kenealy of Boston College, who strongly welcomed his effort, even though
Fordham Law School had not been nationally accredited, and Jack did not get
credit for his two years' hard work there 1927-9.One of the professors told
the entering law students,"Look at the man on your right and the man on your
left, as one of the three of you won't be here when you graduate." There
were fewer women in those days, but Jack was friendly with Phyllis Levine,
who was on the committee for the excellent Yearbook "Sui Juris". Louise Day
Hicks of South Boston was at the Law School one year and was always friendly
with Jack in later years when they both spent much time at the Registries of
Deeds and Probate. The teachers included Father Kenealy in Jurisprudence,
Wendell Grimes, John D. O'Reilly, Emil Slizewski, Cornelius Moynihan, and
Law Librarian Steven Morrison. Under the case method students were expected
to read and abstract cases carefully in preparation for class discussion.
Some professors occasionally threatened to cancel classes when not enough
students did these assignments, but Jack and the more serious students
usually talked them out of such extreme action. One of the faculty may have
been the source of a student joke, "It is sufficient to say 'NOT PREPARED.'
It is uncessary to demonstrate." The property professor taught them about
the disadvantages of joint interests in real property and joint bank
accounts, especially under modern tax laws, "Stay out of expensive joints".
All his new classmates were much younger-serious men with a living to make
in the law but a number of them told me at various times that Jack had a
wonderful mind & that the professors liked to draw him out in class.We went
together to the Red Mass an annual event sponsored by the Boston College Law
School every fall to mark the opening of the legal season.Father Kenealy
conducted the Mass, where we enjoyed a most learned speaker from the legal
profession.During the second year his class sponsored a dance at the
Recreation Hall of Boston College in Chestnut Hill to raise money to defray
some of the expense of the class yearbook. We sat with some of his young
friends including Larry Burkart,Frank Amsler,Gene Lyne & his wife Ruth-
Gene's Jack's law school classmate was the son of Jack's l906 Boston Latin
classmate Dan Lyne, who lived nearby on Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill. John
and I attended one of the moot court sessions in which Larry Burkart of
Newton and Joe Neylon of Somerville participated - they were members of the
very successful moot court team named in honor of 1840s Massachusetts Chief
Justice Lemuel Shaw, father-in-law of Herman Melville and author of a
leading opinion on circumstantial evidence, Commonwealth v. Webster.At the
end of two and a half years of hard work, he received the LL.B degree in
June,l95l twenty-four years after starting his law studies.When he passed
the Massachusetts Bar exam in October 1951 and was admitted to law
practice,he Boston Globe gave him first page headlines in big print-wrote a
long first page account of his accomplishment at 63 years of age & published
a picture of him with his Navy hat & law books in our West Roxbury dining
room with John & me.Father Kenealy had asked the Boston Globe to feature
Jack. Jack passed the Massachusetts Bar examination on the first try, even
though a majority failed to pass,& "there was weeping at the Bar".He then
applied for Northeastern University's night classes at the law school to
earn a l953 Master's degree, writing a tax thesis he typed himself & taking
course in Taxation, Admiralty, Massachusetts Practice, International Law
(using the Louis Sohn "World Law" textbook). He took a tax course with
Massachusetts Tax Commissioner Henry Long, a colorful & outspoken
thirty-year veteran originally appointed by governor Calvin Coolidge around
l9l9- & arranged for John to interview the Commissioner in l952 for Albert
Kelsey's English course,which required students to record conversations in
the style of James Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson" (l788). Professor
Gardner gave the Admiralty course. I [Sophie] read Catherine Drinker Bowen's
biography of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes junior and was amused by his wife
Fanny's remark that Washington D.C. is full of eminent old men and the women
they married when they were young. Jack's books included Clark and Marshall
on Crimes, Salmond on Jurisprudence, Erwin Griswold's Taxation text, Oliver
Wendell Holmes jr "The Common Law" James Casner and Barton Leach Property
text, Warren Seavey Restatement of Agency. Samuel Williston "Restatement of
Contracts", Mottla in Massachsetts Practice series. Jack liked to quote
Holmes's definition of an 'act' as a 'voluntary muscular contraction' and
his remark, "I used to think when I was a young man that TRUTH was the
majority vote of that nation which could like all others." At a time when
Holmes's ideas were in great vogue, Jack had reservations about the
positivistic side of Holmes's thinking, although he read him carefully. In
Father Kenealy's Jurisprudence course, they compared the views of several
natural law theorists, including Lon Fuller and Jacques Maritain, who wrote
"The American Philosophy of Law" and whose words Jack often quoted, "The
Lord always gives light enough for one more step. Don't stop walking until
the light gives out." In l948 Jack,John & I were crossing Linnet Street on
Bellevue Street in West Roxbury,when an elderly lady emerged from a house at
l65 Bellevue Stree.Struck by the color of her Alice-blue big felt hat, I
smiled at her as we approached -I remarked "Your blue hat brightens up this
dark afternoon."She was carrying a cane, & when I noticed that she had
letters to mail,I offered to mail them for her to save her from crossing
Linnet Street.She accepted, & as John went to the mailbox, she Jack & I
chatted as we waited for him.We told Mrs. Gertrude Cutter that we were
comparatively new in the neighborhood & that the Reverend Harold Arnold
lived right across the street from us on Emmonsdale Road.She told us that he
was the retired minister of her Unitarian Church at the corner of Corey &
Centre Streets l50 & a distant cousin of James Arnold for whom the Arnold
Arboretum was named. When we were out walking Christmas afternoon,we
impulsively rang Mrs. Cutter's bell, as John wanted to talk with her,& it
was calling-hour.She greeted us graciously,& for the next half-hour we were
treated to an account of the very old houses on Centre Street between
Richwood & Corey.A few of them were being demolished to make room for a
supermarket-to Mrs. Cutter's regret.She invited us to call on her very
often.She told us that Mr. Cary Potter of Roxbury Latin was the grandson of
Bishop Potter. She & John enjoyed many games of backgammon through the years
. Often after playing with her he came home with a can of peanuts.Each
Christmas she sent John a calendar from the Museum of Fine Arts.Often about
noon she would telephone me to call on her about three in the afternoon.She
was hard of hearing but amazingly adept at lip reading if you looked right
at her as you talked.She liked to tell about her mother-in-law "Madam
Cutter" whom she considered an outstanding woman.One afternoon she told me
about her father-in-law's experience in job hunting: one day - as he was on
his way from Winchester where he lived to Harvard college to see President
Charles Eliot to inquire whether he was to be appointed Librarian of Harvard
College, President Eliot was on his way to the Cutter home in Winchester to
offer him the job.When Mr.Cutter learned that President Eliot was not in his
office, he went to the Boston Athenaeum & accepted the job as librarian
there & developed that famous library for many years 151 His Cutter library
classification was the forerunner of the Library of Congress system.As a
young woman Miss Gertrude Cross took a job as an art teacher in the
Winchester school and declared,"l'll never marry a man from Winchester", but
she married Madam Cutter's second son Roland, an MIT graduate & an engineer
for the city of Boston.Madame Cutter's first son was named Ammi, as the
first son in every Cutter family for some generations is named.Mrs. Cutter's
nephew Ammi is a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts (l97l).One of their family friends was founder of the Windsor
school for girls.When the author of a widely used book on geometry was
revising his work,he showed the new illustrations to Gertrude,the young art
teacher.She examined the drawings & said,"I could do better myself." She was
stunned when the author said,"All right. You are hired.You make the
illustrations for the book.I'll pay you anything you ask & give you an
unlimited expense account." He told her to take all the time she needed to
make the illustrations, so important in math work.She regretted her rash
statement but took on the job.He accepted all of her illustrations &
acknowledged her work in the introduction to the new edition. Jack had the
book- a well-worn copy `-& that acknowedgement appeared in the mathematics
text he had used at Revenue Cutter School in l909.He immediately telephoned
Mrs Cutter, who was pleased the future Coast Guard officers had benefited
from her work.Mrs.Cutter had an arthritic back for which she had a brace
called "Gracey Bracey"She was rationed as to daily trips up & down stairs. A
friend designed an ingenious thirty-inch long wooded scissors that she used
to pick up papers or small books from the floor.In l955 Mrs. Cutter moved to
a nursing home on Alfreton Road,Needham and gave us a large collection of
books Jack picked out -a complete set of Charles Dickens, several Trollope
novels -"Barchester Towers" and "The Warden," - and Pagan & Christian
Rome.There is even a history of the Cutter family.When she had back
troubles, her motto was "Cooperate with calamity." She lived to age 83 -
l874 to March l958. She knew the Codman family,who were Brook Farmers 1843 &
preserved an l846 engraving of the Brook Farm site, which was given to West
roxbury historical Society & has proved useful to archaeologists interested
in tracing positions of the buildings - some of which have been moved from
their foundations & later destroyed by fire.There are very few extant
pictures of Brook Farm from l84l-46, the era of the social experiment. The
engraving also clarifies what areas have been flooded or filled.
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