FERNBANK: ~PLANNING IT~---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
Alma bought a plot of land in Woods Hole on Cape Cod in 1921, and had a summer house, later named Fernbank, built on it in 1922.
Why?
Why did she want a house?
Because she wanted a nice place for her family - i.e. her mother, siblings, nephews, and nieces - and her friends to gather and have fun together. There had been a summer in 1909 when she rented a house in Truro, near the end of Cape Cod. She, her mother Mama Margaret, her older brother Will, and her younger sister Eva had a good time there, and Eva's fiancé (and later ex-husband) Frank Evans visited. They enjoyed swimming, rowing, and good local food. Mama Margaret wrote in a letter to Will 1909-06-24 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL before he arrived:
I suppose the girls have been sounding the praises of our cottage by the sea that there is nothing left for me to say. It is a delightful place to rest and do as you please, and dress as primitive as you did in your camp by Lake Erie.
A couple of years later, Will remembered it fondly. His first wife Margaret wrote from California to Mama Margaret in 1911-10-18 LETTER FROM MARGARET TO MAMA MARGARET:
My dear mother we are very anxious to come east and in the event we can come next summer you can decide upon the place. Will is in favor of Cape Cod. I know I would love it.
The happy weeks in Truro were surely in Alma's mind when she decided to buy the Woods Hole land.
While the house was being built, her older brother Will visited and wrote to his wife 1922-08-21 LETTER FROM WILL TO KATHLEEN:
This will certainly be a fine place for the children. Alma said that that was one of her main reasons for building her cottage.
What about the location? Why Woods Hole?
Because that's where the MBL was - the Marine Biological Laboratory. Alma was a full professor at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and Mount Holyoke had some sort of association with the MBL. I haven't bothered to figure out the details of the association. And I'm not sure exactly what Alma's association was with the subject of marine biology. Her specialty was ferns, not fishes. But Alma was always good at seeing how to use things to her advantage. So she had a lab at the MBL, and she bought a piece of land in Woods Hole, a village where other scientific people also came for the summer.
Why?
Why did she want a house?
Because she wanted a nice place for her family - i.e. her mother, siblings, nephews, and nieces - and her friends to gather and have fun together. There had been a summer in 1909 when she rented a house in Truro, near the end of Cape Cod. She, her mother Mama Margaret, her older brother Will, and her younger sister Eva had a good time there, and Eva's fiancé (and later ex-husband) Frank Evans visited. They enjoyed swimming, rowing, and good local food. Mama Margaret wrote in a letter to Will 1909-06-24 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL before he arrived:
I suppose the girls have been sounding the praises of our cottage by the sea that there is nothing left for me to say. It is a delightful place to rest and do as you please, and dress as primitive as you did in your camp by Lake Erie.
A couple of years later, Will remembered it fondly. His first wife Margaret wrote from California to Mama Margaret in 1911-10-18 LETTER FROM MARGARET TO MAMA MARGARET:
My dear mother we are very anxious to come east and in the event we can come next summer you can decide upon the place. Will is in favor of Cape Cod. I know I would love it.
The happy weeks in Truro were surely in Alma's mind when she decided to buy the Woods Hole land.
While the house was being built, her older brother Will visited and wrote to his wife 1922-08-21 LETTER FROM WILL TO KATHLEEN:
This will certainly be a fine place for the children. Alma said that that was one of her main reasons for building her cottage.
What about the location? Why Woods Hole?
Because that's where the MBL was - the Marine Biological Laboratory. Alma was a full professor at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and Mount Holyoke had some sort of association with the MBL. I haven't bothered to figure out the details of the association. And I'm not sure exactly what Alma's association was with the subject of marine biology. Her specialty was ferns, not fishes. But Alma was always good at seeing how to use things to her advantage. So she had a lab at the MBL, and she bought a piece of land in Woods Hole, a village where other scientific people also came for the summer.
FERNBANK: planning it---~BUILDING IT~---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
Here is a map of the lot and the surrounding area that Alma sent to Eva:
Alma's map showing the lot she had bought in Woods Hole. I love to imagine the satisfaction with which she wrote: "Mine".
And here is a picture of Alma's younger siblings Eva and Fred on the lot before the cottage was built:
Eva and Fred at the site of the future Fernbank. Woods Hole, Massachusetts September 1921.
Alma built the house in 1922. It was a prefab construction, nothing fancy. Alma had gotten tenure at Mount Holyoke in 1916, but she wasn't rich.
Will, who was living with his wife and four kids in Cincinnati at the time, came up to Massachusetts on work-related matters in August 1922, and also took a look at Fernbank being built. He reported to his wife in his 8/21/1922 letter:
Alma’s house is coming along very nicely. They put on nearly all of the siding to-day. The contractor said he did not expect to get the whole thing done for about 3 weeks. One of Alma’s neighbors slept in her house on the 6th day after it was started, but the carpenters thought she was an awful nuisance. Alma is going to try to stand in with the carpenters by staying out of hers until it is nearly done.
So other people were building at that time. Maybe somebody had bought a big piece of land there and divided it into lots to sell.
When the house was finished, there was a little time before the end of the season to enjoy it. Several years later Fred later wrote in 1927-08-11 LETTER FROM FRED TO SIBYL:
I was there for about two days before coming out here. She built it that summer and it was finished just in time for about two weeks use before school began in September.
Fred went off for his second missionary stint in Africa, leaving behind his nice wool bathing suit in Woods Hole so that he had to buy a flimsy cotton one in Portugal on the way to Angola.
Below are a couple of pictures of the front of the house.
Will, who was living with his wife and four kids in Cincinnati at the time, came up to Massachusetts on work-related matters in August 1922, and also took a look at Fernbank being built. He reported to his wife in his 8/21/1922 letter:
Alma’s house is coming along very nicely. They put on nearly all of the siding to-day. The contractor said he did not expect to get the whole thing done for about 3 weeks. One of Alma’s neighbors slept in her house on the 6th day after it was started, but the carpenters thought she was an awful nuisance. Alma is going to try to stand in with the carpenters by staying out of hers until it is nearly done.
So other people were building at that time. Maybe somebody had bought a big piece of land there and divided it into lots to sell.
When the house was finished, there was a little time before the end of the season to enjoy it. Several years later Fred later wrote in 1927-08-11 LETTER FROM FRED TO SIBYL:
I was there for about two days before coming out here. She built it that summer and it was finished just in time for about two weeks use before school began in September.
Fred went off for his second missionary stint in Africa, leaving behind his nice wool bathing suit in Woods Hole so that he had to buy a flimsy cotton one in Portugal on the way to Angola.
Below are a couple of pictures of the front of the house.
PICTURE 1-A
PICTURE 1-A: The original front of Fernbank.
PICTURE 1-B
PICTURE 1-B: Another view of the original front of Fernbank.
Helpful note: If you're familiar with Fernbank in the later years and are saying, "Huh?", then YES, these pictures really are of Fernbank, and NO, I didn't get pictures of the wrong house.
Another helpful note: If you're diligently trying to memorize these pictures so you can compare them to later pictures of Fernbank, don't bother. You'll be seeing most of these pictures again further down. Just look at these pictures and think of Stokey friends and relations having happy times inside and outside of the house.
Picture 1-A is the clearer of the two. You can see the four windows in the front of the house. Upper left is the upstairs bathroom, upper right is the front bedroom, and I don't know anything about the lower two windows. In the middle are stairs leading to a landing for the front door. There's a woman standing there, but I can't tell who she is. On the side of the house you can see the upstairs windows for the front bedroom, Eva's cubicle bedroom, and Alma's cubicle bedroom, and then two windows for the living room in the back. The downstairs - i.e. the basement - windows aren't for any room in particular, and then in the back you can see that the area under the two living room windows is open, with a pillar.
Picture 1-B is much less clear, but it looks as though there's a little roof over the landing for the front door, and there's a railing by the driveway, which is on the right. This might have been what you would see as you came back from a swim in Buzzards Bay.
Below are a couple of pictures of the back of the house:
Another helpful note: If you're diligently trying to memorize these pictures so you can compare them to later pictures of Fernbank, don't bother. You'll be seeing most of these pictures again further down. Just look at these pictures and think of Stokey friends and relations having happy times inside and outside of the house.
Picture 1-A is the clearer of the two. You can see the four windows in the front of the house. Upper left is the upstairs bathroom, upper right is the front bedroom, and I don't know anything about the lower two windows. In the middle are stairs leading to a landing for the front door. There's a woman standing there, but I can't tell who she is. On the side of the house you can see the upstairs windows for the front bedroom, Eva's cubicle bedroom, and Alma's cubicle bedroom, and then two windows for the living room in the back. The downstairs - i.e. the basement - windows aren't for any room in particular, and then in the back you can see that the area under the two living room windows is open, with a pillar.
Picture 1-B is much less clear, but it looks as though there's a little roof over the landing for the front door, and there's a railing by the driveway, which is on the right. This might have been what you would see as you came back from a swim in Buzzards Bay.
Below are a couple of pictures of the back of the house:
PICTURE 1-C
PICTURE 1-C: The back of of the original Fernbank.
PICTURE 1-D
PICTURE 1-D: Fernbank is the left-hand house in this picture.
Picture 1-C clearly shows the four pillars holding up the upstairs overhang of the back of the house. There are six windows across the back. The lefthand three are for the living room, and the righthand three are for a bedroom. On the side we see three windows for the bedroom, the window for a cubicle bedroom, the window for the dining area, and the kitchen window. Downstairs are two windows and a door to the basement.
Picture 1-C also has a good view of the roof. The house was rectangular, and the roof would have been a pyramid if the house had been square, but since it was longer front-to-back than side to side, the roof was more like an elongated pyramid, with a ridge running front to back. Also you can see the chimney for the living room fireplace
Picture 1-D shows the back of the house - three plus three windows - and a couple of the side windows that are seen in Picture 1-A. Also, you get a better idea of where the chimney was. There are bushes or something around the open area in the back, which there aren't in Picture 1-C.
Picture 1-C also has a good view of the roof. The house was rectangular, and the roof would have been a pyramid if the house had been square, but since it was longer front-to-back than side to side, the roof was more like an elongated pyramid, with a ridge running front to back. Also you can see the chimney for the living room fireplace
Picture 1-D shows the back of the house - three plus three windows - and a couple of the side windows that are seen in Picture 1-A. Also, you get a better idea of where the chimney was. There are bushes or something around the open area in the back, which there aren't in Picture 1-C.
The basement was not underground, but it was still called the basement. it was basically unfinished and had very little. There was a water closet with a toilet, and there were two soapstone sinks, but that was it, I think.
The upstairs had the living area. There were five bedrooms, which may sound like a lot, but it is not much when you're accommodating at least three grown up siblings with a spouse or two, plus four children, plus various friends who happen along. And anyway, three of the bedrooms were cubicles with narrow metal cots.
There was a small to medium-sized living room, with a fireplace. It was in the part of the cottage that was over the open area that you can see in Pictures 1-C and 1-D. The living room did not take up the whole area; there was also a bedroom. The living room was the left three windows in the back, and the bedroom was the right three windows.
There was a tiny kitchen, a dining space - more like a booth - and small bathroom.
There was no heat and no refrigerator. If you bought stuff that needed to be refrigerated, you bought it the same day you were going to use it, and if you didn't use it up, you stored it on a board at the bottom of the stairs that went from the basement to the upstairs, because that was where it was cool. There's more about refrigeration in the next section.
The cottage was so close to the pond that when you were outside, walking from the front to the back, you had to be careful not to get your feet wet as you went around the corner to the back. You can see that quite clearly in picture 1-C.
The upstairs had the living area. There were five bedrooms, which may sound like a lot, but it is not much when you're accommodating at least three grown up siblings with a spouse or two, plus four children, plus various friends who happen along. And anyway, three of the bedrooms were cubicles with narrow metal cots.
There was a small to medium-sized living room, with a fireplace. It was in the part of the cottage that was over the open area that you can see in Pictures 1-C and 1-D. The living room did not take up the whole area; there was also a bedroom. The living room was the left three windows in the back, and the bedroom was the right three windows.
There was a tiny kitchen, a dining space - more like a booth - and small bathroom.
There was no heat and no refrigerator. If you bought stuff that needed to be refrigerated, you bought it the same day you were going to use it, and if you didn't use it up, you stored it on a board at the bottom of the stairs that went from the basement to the upstairs, because that was where it was cool. There's more about refrigeration in the next section.
The cottage was so close to the pond that when you were outside, walking from the front to the back, you had to be careful not to get your feet wet as you went around the corner to the back. You can see that quite clearly in picture 1-C.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---~REFRIGERATOR NOTES~---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
I've accumulated a bunch of notes about refrigeration at Fernbank. Maybe someday I'll be able to incorporate them gracefully into the narrative.
Fernbank refrigerators (according to AG):
1. Shelf in the basement where it was cool. Even after Fernbank got a refrigerator, this board was used. My cousin Barbara says:
Another thing that was kept on a step near the bottom was Aunt Alma’s glass double boiler of oatmeal. Her breakfast was always oatmeal and coffee and juice as I remember. It was the slow cook kind of oatmeal, and you made a full recipe and then added a bit of milk and heated it every day and then cooled the pot and set it back on the step for the next day until you needed to make a new batch. Most days the first summer I was there she liked breakfast in bed, and she woke up and ate much later than when Aunt Eva and I and any guest had breakfast.
I think this was 1964. AG says the original double boiler wasn't a glass one; the glass one came later.
2. Box with ice - blocks of ice in the bottom, food on top in the same compartment. Ice from a pond in Falmouth with an icehouse, usually via the fish market, occasionally directly from the icehouse.
My brother Roger says:
The ice for icebox almost certainly came from Icehouse pond. That’s where Sam Cahoons Fish Market harvested it. It’s at the corner of Sippewisset and McCallum. Called Miles Pond but never heard it called that.
The Icebox was remained in the basement until the property was sold AFAIK. Too heavy to move. There was also a green box with some scene on it that AG painted.
I asked AG about the scene that she painted. She said that there was a button on the box that was how you fastened it shut, and she made the button be the eye of a big fish. The big fish was chaser a smaller fish, who was chasing and even smaller fish, and so on.
3. Turquoise circular icebox with a place on the top where you put the ice in, and a drainpan underneath that you could empty. Came from Atlanta when Will and Kathleen got an electric refrigerator. Seems to me that I saw a circular icebox in The 39 steps, a 1935 movie. That was in England, so probably not the same, but maybe similar. And since Kathleen was from England, it is just barely conceivable that the turquoise circular icebox did indeed have something to do with England. AG is quite sure that the icebox was American, but maybe the idea came from England, or maybe Kathleen's father, who was a big shot in Savannah for a British naval store. Or maybe it was just a plain old American icebox.
4. The refrigerator with the hard cider dent in it. (There might be something between #3 and this refrigerator.)
Here's the story about the hard cider dent: In the 1940s, Will wanted hard cider, but was not well enough to make it himself. So he got Eva to make it for him - sneakily. Eva would not approve of drinking alcohol, but she was also not outstandingly bright. Will told Eva to put a jug of cider in the refrigerator and leave it there until the top popped off. The top was a bottletop, sold for the purpose of home bottling. So when it popped off, the sharp sides made a dent in the inside of the door, and Will got his hard cider.
Additional note: As I was dealing with ants in the spring of 2025, I suddenly remembered something my mother told me. She said that Uncle Fred devised a setup to prevent ants from getting at food. You would put the food on table, and then put the four legs of the table in containers of water, because the ants couldn't swim across the water to get to the legs. It seems likely to me that this system was used in the basement at Fernbank. I asked AG about it, and she didn't remember it. Maybe it was used only for one particularly bad ant invasion?
A random note unassociated with refrigerators:
AG once was ironing in the basement of Fernbank, barefoot. Got an electric shock. Wore sneakers after that when she ironed. Didn’t tell anybody about it . She told me about this on a 8/25/22 family Zoom call after I told about Mother getting an electric shock from the refrigerator in the Vagabond basement. This led to a conversation about how it apparently never occurred to our honored forebears to just get the electrical problems fixed.
Fernbank refrigerators (according to AG):
1. Shelf in the basement where it was cool. Even after Fernbank got a refrigerator, this board was used. My cousin Barbara says:
Another thing that was kept on a step near the bottom was Aunt Alma’s glass double boiler of oatmeal. Her breakfast was always oatmeal and coffee and juice as I remember. It was the slow cook kind of oatmeal, and you made a full recipe and then added a bit of milk and heated it every day and then cooled the pot and set it back on the step for the next day until you needed to make a new batch. Most days the first summer I was there she liked breakfast in bed, and she woke up and ate much later than when Aunt Eva and I and any guest had breakfast.
I think this was 1964. AG says the original double boiler wasn't a glass one; the glass one came later.
2. Box with ice - blocks of ice in the bottom, food on top in the same compartment. Ice from a pond in Falmouth with an icehouse, usually via the fish market, occasionally directly from the icehouse.
My brother Roger says:
The ice for icebox almost certainly came from Icehouse pond. That’s where Sam Cahoons Fish Market harvested it. It’s at the corner of Sippewisset and McCallum. Called Miles Pond but never heard it called that.
The Icebox was remained in the basement until the property was sold AFAIK. Too heavy to move. There was also a green box with some scene on it that AG painted.
I asked AG about the scene that she painted. She said that there was a button on the box that was how you fastened it shut, and she made the button be the eye of a big fish. The big fish was chaser a smaller fish, who was chasing and even smaller fish, and so on.
3. Turquoise circular icebox with a place on the top where you put the ice in, and a drainpan underneath that you could empty. Came from Atlanta when Will and Kathleen got an electric refrigerator. Seems to me that I saw a circular icebox in The 39 steps, a 1935 movie. That was in England, so probably not the same, but maybe similar. And since Kathleen was from England, it is just barely conceivable that the turquoise circular icebox did indeed have something to do with England. AG is quite sure that the icebox was American, but maybe the idea came from England, or maybe Kathleen's father, who was a big shot in Savannah for a British naval store. Or maybe it was just a plain old American icebox.
4. The refrigerator with the hard cider dent in it. (There might be something between #3 and this refrigerator.)
Here's the story about the hard cider dent: In the 1940s, Will wanted hard cider, but was not well enough to make it himself. So he got Eva to make it for him - sneakily. Eva would not approve of drinking alcohol, but she was also not outstandingly bright. Will told Eva to put a jug of cider in the refrigerator and leave it there until the top popped off. The top was a bottletop, sold for the purpose of home bottling. So when it popped off, the sharp sides made a dent in the inside of the door, and Will got his hard cider.
Additional note: As I was dealing with ants in the spring of 2025, I suddenly remembered something my mother told me. She said that Uncle Fred devised a setup to prevent ants from getting at food. You would put the food on table, and then put the four legs of the table in containers of water, because the ants couldn't swim across the water to get to the legs. It seems likely to me that this system was used in the basement at Fernbank. I asked AG about it, and she didn't remember it. Maybe it was used only for one particularly bad ant invasion?
A random note unassociated with refrigerators:
AG once was ironing in the basement of Fernbank, barefoot. Got an electric shock. Wore sneakers after that when she ironed. Didn’t tell anybody about it . She told me about this on a 8/25/22 family Zoom call after I told about Mother getting an electric shock from the refrigerator in the Vagabond basement. This led to a conversation about how it apparently never occurred to our honored forebears to just get the electrical problems fixed.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---~LIFE BEFORE THE GREAT RAISING~---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
Despite the house's deficiencies, there were happy times there. Lots of friends visited, lots of friendships were made with other visitors to Woods Hole, and Will and his family came up and stayed. This was how Alma wanted it: a place for people to come and have a good time. What a lovely vision she had in 1921!
Will and his wife Kathleen and four children moved to Atlanta in 1923, when Will was transferred from Cincinnati to Atlanta. Kathleen and the kids came up to Fernbank (which wasn't yet named Fernbank) that summer. They hadn't yet found a place to live in Atlanta, so it would have been convenient as well as fun for them to be in Woods Hole. And Mama Margaret was there enjoying her last summer (though nobody knew it yet) with her grandchildren.
I don't know yet if any of the Atlanta Stokeys came up to Woods Hole in 1924. Mama Margaret died in May of that year, so I don't think it would have changed summer plans much. In August Alma was up in Ontario with her friend Anne Starr collecting sphagnum specimens, but that needn't have taken more than a few days.
The Atlanta Stokeys definitely came up to Fernbank in 1925. And there was a Fernbank News (the very first edition, I think) mentioning that Roger, aged four, had learned to swim a few feet. I'm hoping to get hold of that Fernbank News sometime. It may be the one that has the account of the christening of Fernbank, which had been delayed until there were some actual ferns there.
As for the Fernbank News - it was produced very irregularly over the years, using a typewriter and carbon paper. Alma was the editor. Will would have gotten the 1925 edition because he was at home in Atlanta. Fred mentions in his letters receiving copies in Angola. I need to include more of them, but at the moment I don't have much.
At the moment I don't know about 1926.
The Atlanta Stokeys came again in 1927. Kathleen left the children at Fernbank while she went to a Christian Science gathering in Boston. It sounds though Will didn't come in either 1925 or 1927; he didn't retire until 1928.
Below are a couple of pictures from 1927. I tried to match the houses in the background to the houses in Picture 1-D above, but I couldn't. But the pictures say they were taken outside of Fernbank.
Will and his wife Kathleen and four children moved to Atlanta in 1923, when Will was transferred from Cincinnati to Atlanta. Kathleen and the kids came up to Fernbank (which wasn't yet named Fernbank) that summer. They hadn't yet found a place to live in Atlanta, so it would have been convenient as well as fun for them to be in Woods Hole. And Mama Margaret was there enjoying her last summer (though nobody knew it yet) with her grandchildren.
I don't know yet if any of the Atlanta Stokeys came up to Woods Hole in 1924. Mama Margaret died in May of that year, so I don't think it would have changed summer plans much. In August Alma was up in Ontario with her friend Anne Starr collecting sphagnum specimens, but that needn't have taken more than a few days.
The Atlanta Stokeys definitely came up to Fernbank in 1925. And there was a Fernbank News (the very first edition, I think) mentioning that Roger, aged four, had learned to swim a few feet. I'm hoping to get hold of that Fernbank News sometime. It may be the one that has the account of the christening of Fernbank, which had been delayed until there were some actual ferns there.
As for the Fernbank News - it was produced very irregularly over the years, using a typewriter and carbon paper. Alma was the editor. Will would have gotten the 1925 edition because he was at home in Atlanta. Fred mentions in his letters receiving copies in Angola. I need to include more of them, but at the moment I don't have much.
At the moment I don't know about 1926.
The Atlanta Stokeys came again in 1927. Kathleen left the children at Fernbank while she went to a Christian Science gathering in Boston. It sounds though Will didn't come in either 1925 or 1927; he didn't retire until 1928.
Below are a couple of pictures from 1927. I tried to match the houses in the background to the houses in Picture 1-D above, but I couldn't. But the pictures say they were taken outside of Fernbank.
Fernbank, August 1927: Alma, Billy, Madeline Monro, Kay, Roger.
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The Mill Pond outside Fernbank, 1927: Maggie, Billy, Roger, and Kay, and Dr. Alfred Meyer.
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I think the children must have slept in the bedroom next to the living room. In later years, Kay told AG about overhearing a conversation before she went to sleep. This would have been in 1927. Kay was an eight-year-old aspiring reporter, and I imagine that staying awake to listen to the grown-ups talk was part of her nightly routine. What she heard on this particular night in 1927 was the grown-ups talking about the news from Kay's Uncle Fred, who was still in Africa as a medical missionary. Fred was getting married! And here was the question the grown-ups were discussing: Should they tell the children? Decades later, Kay still was baffled as to how the grown-ups were planning to handle the situation if they didn't tell the children about their new aunt.
Back in those days, Kay was still known as Kathleen, and so in 1928 we have the following item in a letter from Fred in Africa 1928-06-14 LETTER FROM FRED TO ALMA:
Kathleen can put in the society column of the Fernbank News that Mr. Uncle Fred and Miss Sibyl Hosking were married on May 30 at Vila Silva Porto and Chissamba.
Fred brought Sibyl to Woods Hole in 1929. I hope Fred was reunited with the nice woolen bathing suit that he had left behind in 1923. Sibyl met most of Will's family at Fernbank. 16-year-old Maggie reported to Roger in 1929-08-13 LETTER FROM MAGGIE TO ROGER:
P.S. Aunt Sibyl is just fine. You sure would like her. She is so sorry you and Mother aren't here - for then she would have seen the whole family + now she hasn't. Too bad!
Sibyl's parents also came to Woods Hole that summer, as well as Laura, the sister between Alma and Eva. This was the only time Laura ever came to Fernbank. The family story is that Laura was so shocked by the brevity of the bathing suits in Woods Hole that she never came back. We don't have Laura's side of the story, however. Maybe she thought the journey by herself from Ohio was more trouble than it was worth.
Here are some pictures of Stokeys in 1920s bathing suits. Note the knees on the grown-up (is that Kathleen?) in the left-hand picture. Scandalous!
Back in those days, Kay was still known as Kathleen, and so in 1928 we have the following item in a letter from Fred in Africa 1928-06-14 LETTER FROM FRED TO ALMA:
Kathleen can put in the society column of the Fernbank News that Mr. Uncle Fred and Miss Sibyl Hosking were married on May 30 at Vila Silva Porto and Chissamba.
Fred brought Sibyl to Woods Hole in 1929. I hope Fred was reunited with the nice woolen bathing suit that he had left behind in 1923. Sibyl met most of Will's family at Fernbank. 16-year-old Maggie reported to Roger in 1929-08-13 LETTER FROM MAGGIE TO ROGER:
P.S. Aunt Sibyl is just fine. You sure would like her. She is so sorry you and Mother aren't here - for then she would have seen the whole family + now she hasn't. Too bad!
Sibyl's parents also came to Woods Hole that summer, as well as Laura, the sister between Alma and Eva. This was the only time Laura ever came to Fernbank. The family story is that Laura was so shocked by the brevity of the bathing suits in Woods Hole that she never came back. We don't have Laura's side of the story, however. Maybe she thought the journey by herself from Ohio was more trouble than it was worth.
Here are some pictures of Stokeys in 1920s bathing suits. Note the knees on the grown-up (is that Kathleen?) in the left-hand picture. Scandalous!
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August 1925: Maggie, age 12, and Roger, age 4
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Alma was in India from 1929 to 1931. In fact, it is quite possible that she had already set out for India when Maggie wrote her August 1929 letter to Roger. Fernbank was rented out in 1930 to a Dr. and Mrs. Potter; we have a letter about it:
1930-07-15 LETTER FROM WALTER O. LUSCOMBE TO EVA
Alma probably returned to Massachusetts in the late summer of 1931. Apparently Fernbank was not rented out in that summer, because Sibyl mentioned in a June letter that she would visit Eva in Woods Hole for a few days.
In 1932, Alma was back in Woods Hole. She wrote in a letter that's on the Mount Holyoke website:
https://mtholyoke.com/dalbino/letters/text/alma12.html
There is no prospect of the Atlanta family coming north this summer. Margaret is in camp, the same camp as the last two years. She taught in a kindergarten several weeks this summer and now she wants to be a kindergartner.
I believe that, years later, Maggie/Margaret taught kindergarten, but of course that's nothing to do with Fernbank.
Fred and Sibyl visited in 1932, however. We have this nice picture of them:
1930-07-15 LETTER FROM WALTER O. LUSCOMBE TO EVA
Alma probably returned to Massachusetts in the late summer of 1931. Apparently Fernbank was not rented out in that summer, because Sibyl mentioned in a June letter that she would visit Eva in Woods Hole for a few days.
In 1932, Alma was back in Woods Hole. She wrote in a letter that's on the Mount Holyoke website:
https://mtholyoke.com/dalbino/letters/text/alma12.html
There is no prospect of the Atlanta family coming north this summer. Margaret is in camp, the same camp as the last two years. She taught in a kindergarten several weeks this summer and now she wants to be a kindergartner.
I believe that, years later, Maggie/Margaret taught kindergarten, but of course that's nothing to do with Fernbank.
Fred and Sibyl visited in 1932, however. We have this nice picture of them:
1932 Sibyl & Fred at Fernbank
1933 was a busy year for Will and Kathleen in Georgia. Kathleen spent the summer in Savannah, where her father was seriously ill, and Will kept the Atlanta house running. (Hey, it was a real job! Besides the children, there were chickens to care for and eggs to collect! And bees to tend to!) In the spring Fred and Sibyl had driven down to Florida to visit the parents of Fred's first wife, Mabel, and in June on the way back they stopped in Atlanta and picked up Will's four children to take them up to Woods Hole. Here we have irrefutable proof that Fred and Sibyl loved children. We've got the four kids - Maggie, Bill, Kay, and Roger, ages 20 down to 12 - in one car with Fred and Sibyl for an undetermined number of days. AG says that Fred (her father) never drove above 40 miles per hour, so I'm surprised it didn't take the whole summer to do the trip. They even made a detour to West Point so the kids could see their father's alma mater. And by golly, when they arrived in Woods Hole, not one kid had been strangled or even conveniently lost.
Here's Maggie feeding a couple of cats at Fernbank in 1933, because of course there were always cats.
Here's Maggie feeding a couple of cats at Fernbank in 1933, because of course there were always cats.
The following year, 1934, was sort of an off-year for Fernbank. The Atlanta Stokeys didn't come up to Woods Hole (Will was in Texas, vainly pursuing oil riches), and in August Alma and Eva went on a road trip visiting relatives in Pennsylvania and Ohio, so Alma rented the cottage out in August.
Alma went back to India for another year in 1936, but Fernbank was not rented out; in fact, it was proving useful in an unexpected way. Fred lost his job in the Westboro Hospital, probably in 1935, and, as someone in his mid-50s in the height of the Great Depression, he could not find another job. For two or three years he spent a large part of the year living in Fernbank, doing medical work where he could find it, until the winter would become too cold. Remember, there was no furnace in Fernbank, just a fireplace in the living room. He would last until January, and then he would head up to Canada, where Sibyl was working as a nurse. (As a Canadian citizen, she did not have permission to work in the US.) I like the thought of him going up to Canada for the warmth. Eventually, when the US started getting involved with World War II, Fred got a job at the Springfield Armory.
Sibyl and Kathleen died, and Will's children went out to help save the world (Bill and Roger were in the Navy), but the Five Stokey Siblings - except, of course, for Puritanical Laura - continued to come to Fernbank in the summer. In the summer of 1944, Alma, Will, and Eva were joined by Maggie, Kay, and Roger's wife Edie. Edie was working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I don't know what Maggie and Kay were doing. But in the evenings Maggie, Kay, and Edie were all ears as Alma, Will, and Eva talked about family stories. The three older siblings said nothing about their father (Papa Charles), but Edie learned more about Will's marital history than Will's son Roger had ever known.
Alma went back to India for another year in 1936, but Fernbank was not rented out; in fact, it was proving useful in an unexpected way. Fred lost his job in the Westboro Hospital, probably in 1935, and, as someone in his mid-50s in the height of the Great Depression, he could not find another job. For two or three years he spent a large part of the year living in Fernbank, doing medical work where he could find it, until the winter would become too cold. Remember, there was no furnace in Fernbank, just a fireplace in the living room. He would last until January, and then he would head up to Canada, where Sibyl was working as a nurse. (As a Canadian citizen, she did not have permission to work in the US.) I like the thought of him going up to Canada for the warmth. Eventually, when the US started getting involved with World War II, Fred got a job at the Springfield Armory.
Sibyl and Kathleen died, and Will's children went out to help save the world (Bill and Roger were in the Navy), but the Five Stokey Siblings - except, of course, for Puritanical Laura - continued to come to Fernbank in the summer. In the summer of 1944, Alma, Will, and Eva were joined by Maggie, Kay, and Roger's wife Edie. Edie was working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I don't know what Maggie and Kay were doing. But in the evenings Maggie, Kay, and Edie were all ears as Alma, Will, and Eva talked about family stories. The three older siblings said nothing about their father (Papa Charles), but Edie learned more about Will's marital history than Will's son Roger had ever known.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---~THE HURRICANE OF 1944~---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
The Hurricane of 1938 is infamous. It came as quite a shock to people on Cape Cod, who hadn't realized a hurricane could be so awful. It was The Hurricane of the Century!
Unfortunately, I know very little about the hurricane of 1938 as it related to Fernbank. I know that Fernbank was flooded. AG was two and a half years old at the time, so doesn't remember it, but she was told that the roof of Fernbank blew off, flew across the Mill Pond, and landed in somebody's back yard. (Of course when she told me this, I asked, "Did it land on a witch?") The story seems outlandish, and the implication that the roof landed in one piece seems unlikely, but I still am pleased to have that image in my head.
So much for the Hurricane of 1938. But Roger's wife Edie was on the scene for the 1944 hurricane, and she talked about it.
I think it was on Friday, September 15, 1944, that the hurricane hit Cape Cod. I think that Kay must have left by then, but other than that, I believe that Alma, Will, Eva, and Maggie were still there, and Fred had come with his daughter AG to stay. He prudently took AG to somewhere off of the Cape so she would be out of harm's way. Of course, being eight years old, she thoroughly resented being taken away from the excitement. (AG remembers that!)
Edie talked about the hurricane in her eulogy for Gladys Green:
1988 EDIE'S EULOGY FOR GLADY
I remember all too well the early evening of the '44 hurricane. My sister-in-law, Maggie, and I were trying to get the older members of the Stokey family out of Fernbank and over to Vagabond House, where they had reluctantly agreed to spend the night. We weren't having much success, and Glady came over, flashlight in hand, to help us hurry them along. The wind grew stronger, the lights went out, and still we struggled. Finally the Coast Guard arrived and ordered us out. We straggled around the corner, five Stokeys, two cats, and a dog, with Glady bringing up the rear. It was pitch dark and the wind and surf were roaring; the rain had just begun. The next morning we woke to another world -- bright sunlight and a Fernbank surrounded by salt water 7 or 8 feet deep. We learned we would have no electricity for at least a week, and there was no kerosene to be had in Woods Hole or Falmouth. "No problem." said Glady -- and then we discovered why she had lagged so far behind us the night before. As she left Fernbank, she had spotted a 5-gallon can of kerosene in the basement, full to the brim. It was now sitting on her front porch; there was enough to supply the whole neighborhood. How she carried it we never figured out.
More from Edie about the hurricane, in a letter that she wrote to Maggie's husband and two children after Maggie's death:
1988-11-30 LETTER FROM EDIE TO AL, PETER, AND PEGGY
I particularly remember Maggie and me on the night of the 1944 hurricane. We struggled and struggled with the family to persuade them to make a few preparations - - moving stuff up out of the basement, putting bureau drawers on top of bureaus, jacking up the piano on blocks of wood to give it a few more inches. All of that was against Aunt Eva's religious principles because it showed a lack of faith, and she had no hesitation in making her disapproval clear. Meanwhile Aunt Alma and Maggie and I carried load after load upstairs. When we finally got the whole household over to Glady's to spend the night, Maggie and I headed for the Oceanographic building, where I worked. The administration had ordered all people with families to stay home with them and requested all the single people available to spend the storm in the building to help save scientific equipment should it become necessary. Maggie and I were assigned the task of evacuating the small tools in the machine shop, but fortunately didn't have to do it because the tide stopped rising just in time. We slept on army cots in the corridor and staggered home at 6 a.m. to find Fernbank sitting in 8 feet of salt water. The water finally receded after about 10 days, but poor Maggie spent the next couple of weeks cleaning out the stinking muck in the basement; I luckily had had to go back to work.
The piano, a baby grand, was ruined, despite being jacked up on blocks of wood. AG says that the water reached the legs. I asked where the piano was in the house - which floor - and she said it was on the second floor. I said, "The water came up that far?" and she said yes. A new baby grand was bought for Eva. (Side note: She left that replacement baby grand piano to me, but I didn't have room for it, so it went to AG's son Alan and his family. I got another family piano, an upright, which I believe my grandfather Will had in Atlanta.)
I wish I could give you a picture of the 1944 hurricane at Fernbank, but I guess everybody was too busy to think of pictures.
Unfortunately, I know very little about the hurricane of 1938 as it related to Fernbank. I know that Fernbank was flooded. AG was two and a half years old at the time, so doesn't remember it, but she was told that the roof of Fernbank blew off, flew across the Mill Pond, and landed in somebody's back yard. (Of course when she told me this, I asked, "Did it land on a witch?") The story seems outlandish, and the implication that the roof landed in one piece seems unlikely, but I still am pleased to have that image in my head.
So much for the Hurricane of 1938. But Roger's wife Edie was on the scene for the 1944 hurricane, and she talked about it.
I think it was on Friday, September 15, 1944, that the hurricane hit Cape Cod. I think that Kay must have left by then, but other than that, I believe that Alma, Will, Eva, and Maggie were still there, and Fred had come with his daughter AG to stay. He prudently took AG to somewhere off of the Cape so she would be out of harm's way. Of course, being eight years old, she thoroughly resented being taken away from the excitement. (AG remembers that!)
Edie talked about the hurricane in her eulogy for Gladys Green:
1988 EDIE'S EULOGY FOR GLADY
I remember all too well the early evening of the '44 hurricane. My sister-in-law, Maggie, and I were trying to get the older members of the Stokey family out of Fernbank and over to Vagabond House, where they had reluctantly agreed to spend the night. We weren't having much success, and Glady came over, flashlight in hand, to help us hurry them along. The wind grew stronger, the lights went out, and still we struggled. Finally the Coast Guard arrived and ordered us out. We straggled around the corner, five Stokeys, two cats, and a dog, with Glady bringing up the rear. It was pitch dark and the wind and surf were roaring; the rain had just begun. The next morning we woke to another world -- bright sunlight and a Fernbank surrounded by salt water 7 or 8 feet deep. We learned we would have no electricity for at least a week, and there was no kerosene to be had in Woods Hole or Falmouth. "No problem." said Glady -- and then we discovered why she had lagged so far behind us the night before. As she left Fernbank, she had spotted a 5-gallon can of kerosene in the basement, full to the brim. It was now sitting on her front porch; there was enough to supply the whole neighborhood. How she carried it we never figured out.
More from Edie about the hurricane, in a letter that she wrote to Maggie's husband and two children after Maggie's death:
1988-11-30 LETTER FROM EDIE TO AL, PETER, AND PEGGY
I particularly remember Maggie and me on the night of the 1944 hurricane. We struggled and struggled with the family to persuade them to make a few preparations - - moving stuff up out of the basement, putting bureau drawers on top of bureaus, jacking up the piano on blocks of wood to give it a few more inches. All of that was against Aunt Eva's religious principles because it showed a lack of faith, and she had no hesitation in making her disapproval clear. Meanwhile Aunt Alma and Maggie and I carried load after load upstairs. When we finally got the whole household over to Glady's to spend the night, Maggie and I headed for the Oceanographic building, where I worked. The administration had ordered all people with families to stay home with them and requested all the single people available to spend the storm in the building to help save scientific equipment should it become necessary. Maggie and I were assigned the task of evacuating the small tools in the machine shop, but fortunately didn't have to do it because the tide stopped rising just in time. We slept on army cots in the corridor and staggered home at 6 a.m. to find Fernbank sitting in 8 feet of salt water. The water finally receded after about 10 days, but poor Maggie spent the next couple of weeks cleaning out the stinking muck in the basement; I luckily had had to go back to work.
The piano, a baby grand, was ruined, despite being jacked up on blocks of wood. AG says that the water reached the legs. I asked where the piano was in the house - which floor - and she said it was on the second floor. I said, "The water came up that far?" and she said yes. A new baby grand was bought for Eva. (Side note: She left that replacement baby grand piano to me, but I didn't have room for it, so it went to AG's son Alan and his family. I got another family piano, an upright, which I believe my grandfather Will had in Atlanta.)
I wish I could give you a picture of the 1944 hurricane at Fernbank, but I guess everybody was too busy to think of pictures.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---~THE GREAT RAISING: THE OUTSIDE~---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
The fact that the cottage was flooded twice in the space of ten years - in 1938 and in 1944 - told Alma that this was a recurring problem that needed to be addressed.
So she had the cottage raised. For purposes of brevity, I am calling this event The Great Raising. Nobody before me has ever called it that.
AG says it was done in 1946, which sounds plausible. I doubt that it could have been done while World War II was still going on.
The raising wasn't a straightforward matter of jacking up the whole cottage. When I asked AG how much the cottage was raised, she said that the cottage was raised 3 feet under the basement and 4 feet under the upstairs. So, I asked, the cottage was cut in half horizontally to so that the basement ceiling was higher? AG said yes.
Additionally, Alma took the opportunity offered by The Great Raising to add a few other improvements as well: finishing the basement, adding some heat to the upstairs, expanding the upstairs bathroom, and adding a little bit on the back.
So there's a lot to deal with here, and I'm still working on getting it all straight. (And if you think getting it all straight is more trouble than it's worth, then you are absolutely right. But fortunately I'm not doing this for profit.)
Here are some before and after pictures of the house.
So she had the cottage raised. For purposes of brevity, I am calling this event The Great Raising. Nobody before me has ever called it that.
AG says it was done in 1946, which sounds plausible. I doubt that it could have been done while World War II was still going on.
The raising wasn't a straightforward matter of jacking up the whole cottage. When I asked AG how much the cottage was raised, she said that the cottage was raised 3 feet under the basement and 4 feet under the upstairs. So, I asked, the cottage was cut in half horizontally to so that the basement ceiling was higher? AG said yes.
Additionally, Alma took the opportunity offered by The Great Raising to add a few other improvements as well: finishing the basement, adding some heat to the upstairs, expanding the upstairs bathroom, and adding a little bit on the back.
So there's a lot to deal with here, and I'm still working on getting it all straight. (And if you think getting it all straight is more trouble than it's worth, then you are absolutely right. But fortunately I'm not doing this for profit.)
Here are some before and after pictures of the house.
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BEFORE
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AFTER
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BEFORE:
This is PICTURE 1-A from pictures above.
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AFTER: PICTURE 2-A.
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The front of the cottage now looks quite different from before, but it's still the same house. There are two major changes:
1. Picture 1-A shows a short flight of steps up to a small landing before the front door. Picture 2-A shows a longer flight of steps, because the cottage was raised, leading up to a new porch added to the front. You can't see the front door because it's in the middle, hidden by the other major change.
2. There's an addition on the lefthand side, pushing forward to enlarge the upstairs bathroom, and also to create space for a small bathroom in the basement. You can see that the shingles on the new addition are darker than the shingles further back on the already existing part of the house. This picture was taken in 1949, three years after The Great Raising.
The roofline looks quite different, with a peak over the left side of the house. But on the right side you can see a remnant of the original roofline. And the side of the house looks familiar.
There are cement blocks on the bottom four feet of the house in the Picture 2-A. Looking at the Before pictures, I think the cement blocks were there before The Great Raising, but I'm not sure.
1. Picture 1-A shows a short flight of steps up to a small landing before the front door. Picture 2-A shows a longer flight of steps, because the cottage was raised, leading up to a new porch added to the front. You can't see the front door because it's in the middle, hidden by the other major change.
2. There's an addition on the lefthand side, pushing forward to enlarge the upstairs bathroom, and also to create space for a small bathroom in the basement. You can see that the shingles on the new addition are darker than the shingles further back on the already existing part of the house. This picture was taken in 1949, three years after The Great Raising.
The roofline looks quite different, with a peak over the left side of the house. But on the right side you can see a remnant of the original roofline. And the side of the house looks familiar.
There are cement blocks on the bottom four feet of the house in the Picture 2-A. Looking at the Before pictures, I think the cement blocks were there before The Great Raising, but I'm not sure.
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BEFORE
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AFTER
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BEFORE: This is PICTURE 1-C from the pictures above.
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AFTER: This is PICTURE 2-C.
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The back of the cottage also looks quite different from before.
1. The open area under the end in Picture 1-C, under the living room and the back bedroom, has been closed in in Picture 2-C.
2. In Picture 2-C, an extra bit has been added to the living room side, but not to the bedroom side, creating an L. The space under the extra bit is also closed in, so that under that whole bedroom and living room area there is a new, L-shaped room, called the shed.
3. In Picture 2-C, at the front of the house, you can see the bathroom expansion, with no windows.
Care was taken to make the roof type in the back similar in style to what it was before, unlike with the roof in front.
There must have been quite a bit of fill brought in to make this possible. In 1946, the town of Falmouth may not have put up too much of a fuss about filling in wetlands. Where would the fill have come from? I don't know.
In Picture 1-C, you can see six windows across the back: three for the living room and three for the bedroom. In Picture 2-C, there are three living room windows in back, but in the back of the bedroom there are only two windows instead of the original three. Maybe the windows on the side of the living room in Picture 2-C were taken from the back-facing trio of windows in Picture 1-C.
I can't see any difference in the color of the shingles between the older and newer parts of the house in the back in Picture 2-C. And in Picture 2-C, the addition in front is darker than the the rest of the house in back, whereas in Picture 2-A the addition is the lighter part. It's a little surprising, but I don't know when Picture 2-C was taken.
There are two women sitting out in front of the shed door in Picture 2-C. I figure the smaller one on the left is Alma. I don't know who the other one is. Somehow it doesn't look like Eva to me.
1. The open area under the end in Picture 1-C, under the living room and the back bedroom, has been closed in in Picture 2-C.
2. In Picture 2-C, an extra bit has been added to the living room side, but not to the bedroom side, creating an L. The space under the extra bit is also closed in, so that under that whole bedroom and living room area there is a new, L-shaped room, called the shed.
3. In Picture 2-C, at the front of the house, you can see the bathroom expansion, with no windows.
Care was taken to make the roof type in the back similar in style to what it was before, unlike with the roof in front.
There must have been quite a bit of fill brought in to make this possible. In 1946, the town of Falmouth may not have put up too much of a fuss about filling in wetlands. Where would the fill have come from? I don't know.
In Picture 1-C, you can see six windows across the back: three for the living room and three for the bedroom. In Picture 2-C, there are three living room windows in back, but in the back of the bedroom there are only two windows instead of the original three. Maybe the windows on the side of the living room in Picture 2-C were taken from the back-facing trio of windows in Picture 1-C.
I can't see any difference in the color of the shingles between the older and newer parts of the house in the back in Picture 2-C. And in Picture 2-C, the addition in front is darker than the the rest of the house in back, whereas in Picture 2-A the addition is the lighter part. It's a little surprising, but I don't know when Picture 2-C was taken.
There are two women sitting out in front of the shed door in Picture 2-C. I figure the smaller one on the left is Alma. I don't know who the other one is. Somehow it doesn't look like Eva to me.
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BEFORE
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AFTER
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BEFORE: This is PICTURE 1-D from the pictures above. Fernbank is the left-hand house in this picture.
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AFTER: This is Picture 2-D. Fernbank is in the middle left of this picture.
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This pair of pictures doesn't tell us much more, but 2-D does give us a view of the roof in the back and the chimney location.
Below are a couple of AFTER pictures. I don't think they tell us much, but you never know what somebody else might notice.
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AFTER
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AFTER
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AFTER: This is Picture 2-E.
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AFTER: This is Picture 2-F. Fernbank is the lefthand house in this picture.
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And, finally, here is a Google maps picture of Fernbank from 2023.
In the middle of the house you can see the original pyramid-plus-ridge roofline. On the left is the altered roofline for the bathroom addition in the front of the house, plus the separate roof for the new (in 1946) porch. On the right is the addition to expand the living room. We know that subsequent owners greatly changed the interior of the house, but the shape of the exterior remained the same - though I'm unclear on whether the chimney is still there, and I'm wondering if I'm seeing a vent pipe near the middle of the roof.
And, of course, there's a nice margin of ground between the house and the pond.
And, of course, there's a nice margin of ground between the house and the pond.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---~THE GREAT RAISING: THE INSIDE~---life after the great raising---related-pages---site navigation
For the interior of the house, we have no pictures to help us.
The front door was on the left-hand side of the porch - i.e. the middle (left-to-right) of the house.
After The Great Raising, when you went in the front door, you found yourself in a sort of a well. In front of you were four steps leading up to the upstairs, and to your right was a door leading to the basement stairs. On your left was a wall, and in back of you was (obviously) the front door.
You went up the four steps, and on your left was the entryway to a narrow closed-in hallway that immediately turned left. So, after those two left-hand turns, you were facing the front of the cottage. The hallway, with dark wood paneling, led to the bathroom at the front of the cottage. Paths are fun for a child, and I liked that dark little hallway. There was a set of triangular built-in shelves in the right-hand corner ahead of you as you entered the hallway, with a curtain over it. I never bothered to notice what was on those shelves, and I might not remember them, if it were not that after Fernbank was sold, AG took the curtain and made it into a vest for herself. Barbara says:
I was disappointed when I first saw behind the curtain heading into that bathroom to know it was nothing exciting and I can’t even remember – extra supplies, cleaning stuff?
Now, about the bathroom. This was the bathroom for which the front of the house was extended on one side. The resulting bathroom was quite big. Barbara says:
I was always surprised at the relatively large size of the bathroom, say compared to the kitchen. It had a clawfoot tub and the feature I’ll always remember was lots of toothbrush slots and little places for labels so everyone could identify their own toothbrush. It was fun to pick out and label your own slot for the duration of a visit.
The clawfoot tub was added during The Great Raising, and I think it must have been the prospect of having a bathtub that encouraged Alma to expand the bathroom. Granted, the creation of the bathroom in the basement was a plus, but I think Alma could probably have managed to create that basement bathroom without expanding the house.
As for why the bathroom was so big compared to the kitchen: the bathroom started out small and was expanded to accommodate the clawfoot tub. Alma was spending quite a bit of money on The Great Raising: the raising itself, two additions (front and back), and the new porch. Moving walls around to expand the kitchen would have cost even more money, and I don't think Alma liked cooking much. Her mother, Mama Margaret, talked a lot in her letters about the meals she cooked, but Alma didn't talk about cooking. She liked eating good food, but the preparation of it didn't seem to interest her. So I imagine that a shiny new expanded kitchen didn't entice her the way a bathtub did.
Back to the dark and mysterious pathway to the bathroom: Was it there originally? This depends on whether the well-type area by the front door was there originally. If the well-type area was there, then a wall was needed to keep you from falling from the hallway into the well-type area. If the area by the front door was originally on the same level as the rest of the upstairs, then no closed-in hallway would be needed. And I don't know which case was correct. I've asked AG about it, and she says no, the well-type area was not there before The Great Raising, but I'm not convinced that her memory is reliable on this. She was, after all, only ten years old at the time of The Great Raising. When I look at Picture 1-A, of the original front of the cottage, it seems to me that the steps didn't go all the way up to the level of the upstairs floor. But I just don't know.
Note: I was previously puzzled by something AG said about the size of the bathroom, and now that I've looked at the pictures, what she said makes perfect sense. So distrusting AG's memory does not seem like an altogether safe bet.
Continuing down the central hall: after the opening for the bathroom hallway on the left, there was the doorway to the kitchen. AG says it wasn't much changed by The Great Raising, although a refrigerator was added. The kitchen was minuscule both before and after the Raising. It was L-shaped - a very stubby little L.
After the tiny kitchen was a tiny dining area. There was a long wooden table, with benches built into the walls on both sides, like a booth. The area was open to the hall. If somebody wanted to get up from the table, anybody sitting closer to the front had to get up and get out to make room. When I was small, I was able to crawl between the two table legs on the hall side to get out.
The table didn't go all the way to the opening to the hall. When there were more people than usual, there was an extension, maybe 30 inches square that could be added to the basic table. The basic table was slightly curved at the corners, and the extension was cut to make it fit onto the curves, with a leg at the other end.
In my time, there was a phone on the wall in the dining area, over a little table. I doubt that the phone was there when the cottage was first built. It was a party line, but the other party used the line only very rarely.
In the central hall, just outside the dining area, was one of the major changes from The Great Raising: the heater. It was underneath the floor, with a big vent, in the central hallway in front of the dining area. This, I think, was made possible by the fact that the upstairs was raised a little more than the basement. Barbara says:
There was a door at the end of the hallway leading into the living room. In my memory it had about six glass panes and a sheer curtain over them all. Perhaps it was originally just a regular door and was changed after the addition and raising? It was shut whenever the little heater unit in the basement was blowing warm air up the floor vent to keep the heat near the dining area, and I remember the floor vent being right across from the dining table. In fact, I think you had to move a throw rug out of the way to see or use it.
After the dining area on the left was a cubicle bedroom, and then the door to the expanded living room. The living room now had windows on three sides, so I always remember it being filled with light during the daytime. The new piano, a baby grand, was in the back right-hand corner of the room.
I think the only other change in the upstairs wrought by The Great Raising would have been in the front bedroom. Barbara calls it AG's room, and says:
When I stayed with Aunt Eva, I was in AG’s room, and really liked that room. Great cross ventilation with the two windows so you could always keep a comfortable temperature at night. The closet was interesting – it was built over the beginning of the staircase to the basement, so you had to step up to reach the clothes hanger rod and the floor of it sloped as the stair ceiling did.
That's something that would have been altered during the Great Raising, but it's a small detail compared to everything else.
That's all I have for how the Great Raising affected the upstairs.
Downstairs in the basement, a full bathroom, with a shower, was added under the expanded front part.
A bedroom was created in the right-hand side, in the back of the area that was already closed in when the house was originally built. So the basement stairs went down parallel to the front of the house, and ended at the front right-hand corner. You turned left and saw the door to the new bedroom in front of you. If you turned left again you would see a door to the outside straight ahead of you across the basement room, and when you got to that outside door, the bathroom was to your left, at the front left-hand corner of the house, under the upstairs bathroom but much smaller than the upstairs bathroom. Barbara says:
The basement bathroom had the square metal shower stall just sort of put there against the middle of the west wall as an afterthought, but it worked well for showering after swimming.
The shed, created by closing in the previously open area and also the addition in the back, was not accessible from inside the house. My brother Roger used it in the 1960s, and says:
I worked on boats in the back basement which I erected a sign “Stokey Marine”. Built a small skiff there as well with the money I made selling papers to and collecting garbage from the NYYC.
(NYYC was the New York Yacht Club. That's another story.)
Barbara says:
I have a few memories of the shed, but had no real reason to go in there much. I think there was a bed on the right as you went in – not a real bed, but I think something Uncle Fred would sleep on when we were little and it was crowded? Doors weren’t locked much, so easy enough for him to use the downstairs bathroom. And I think he would keep his car in there some of the time. Workbench to the left, and then past that I don’t really recall – just a large space and the shed was definitely L-shaped, following the walls of the bedroom and enlarged living room. The corner triangle on the NE formed outside by the walls of the bedroom and living room was Aunt Alma’s compost heap – mostly corn husks and weeds, and above it a line stretched across from the entry to the shed to the far NE corner of the living room, for hanging wet bathing suits and towels.
There was wood piled in the shed, for the fireplace in the living room. I remember that termites got into the wood once in the 1960s and we had to tote it all outside.
The front door was on the left-hand side of the porch - i.e. the middle (left-to-right) of the house.
After The Great Raising, when you went in the front door, you found yourself in a sort of a well. In front of you were four steps leading up to the upstairs, and to your right was a door leading to the basement stairs. On your left was a wall, and in back of you was (obviously) the front door.
You went up the four steps, and on your left was the entryway to a narrow closed-in hallway that immediately turned left. So, after those two left-hand turns, you were facing the front of the cottage. The hallway, with dark wood paneling, led to the bathroom at the front of the cottage. Paths are fun for a child, and I liked that dark little hallway. There was a set of triangular built-in shelves in the right-hand corner ahead of you as you entered the hallway, with a curtain over it. I never bothered to notice what was on those shelves, and I might not remember them, if it were not that after Fernbank was sold, AG took the curtain and made it into a vest for herself. Barbara says:
I was disappointed when I first saw behind the curtain heading into that bathroom to know it was nothing exciting and I can’t even remember – extra supplies, cleaning stuff?
Now, about the bathroom. This was the bathroom for which the front of the house was extended on one side. The resulting bathroom was quite big. Barbara says:
I was always surprised at the relatively large size of the bathroom, say compared to the kitchen. It had a clawfoot tub and the feature I’ll always remember was lots of toothbrush slots and little places for labels so everyone could identify their own toothbrush. It was fun to pick out and label your own slot for the duration of a visit.
The clawfoot tub was added during The Great Raising, and I think it must have been the prospect of having a bathtub that encouraged Alma to expand the bathroom. Granted, the creation of the bathroom in the basement was a plus, but I think Alma could probably have managed to create that basement bathroom without expanding the house.
As for why the bathroom was so big compared to the kitchen: the bathroom started out small and was expanded to accommodate the clawfoot tub. Alma was spending quite a bit of money on The Great Raising: the raising itself, two additions (front and back), and the new porch. Moving walls around to expand the kitchen would have cost even more money, and I don't think Alma liked cooking much. Her mother, Mama Margaret, talked a lot in her letters about the meals she cooked, but Alma didn't talk about cooking. She liked eating good food, but the preparation of it didn't seem to interest her. So I imagine that a shiny new expanded kitchen didn't entice her the way a bathtub did.
Back to the dark and mysterious pathway to the bathroom: Was it there originally? This depends on whether the well-type area by the front door was there originally. If the well-type area was there, then a wall was needed to keep you from falling from the hallway into the well-type area. If the area by the front door was originally on the same level as the rest of the upstairs, then no closed-in hallway would be needed. And I don't know which case was correct. I've asked AG about it, and she says no, the well-type area was not there before The Great Raising, but I'm not convinced that her memory is reliable on this. She was, after all, only ten years old at the time of The Great Raising. When I look at Picture 1-A, of the original front of the cottage, it seems to me that the steps didn't go all the way up to the level of the upstairs floor. But I just don't know.
Note: I was previously puzzled by something AG said about the size of the bathroom, and now that I've looked at the pictures, what she said makes perfect sense. So distrusting AG's memory does not seem like an altogether safe bet.
Continuing down the central hall: after the opening for the bathroom hallway on the left, there was the doorway to the kitchen. AG says it wasn't much changed by The Great Raising, although a refrigerator was added. The kitchen was minuscule both before and after the Raising. It was L-shaped - a very stubby little L.
After the tiny kitchen was a tiny dining area. There was a long wooden table, with benches built into the walls on both sides, like a booth. The area was open to the hall. If somebody wanted to get up from the table, anybody sitting closer to the front had to get up and get out to make room. When I was small, I was able to crawl between the two table legs on the hall side to get out.
The table didn't go all the way to the opening to the hall. When there were more people than usual, there was an extension, maybe 30 inches square that could be added to the basic table. The basic table was slightly curved at the corners, and the extension was cut to make it fit onto the curves, with a leg at the other end.
In my time, there was a phone on the wall in the dining area, over a little table. I doubt that the phone was there when the cottage was first built. It was a party line, but the other party used the line only very rarely.
In the central hall, just outside the dining area, was one of the major changes from The Great Raising: the heater. It was underneath the floor, with a big vent, in the central hallway in front of the dining area. This, I think, was made possible by the fact that the upstairs was raised a little more than the basement. Barbara says:
There was a door at the end of the hallway leading into the living room. In my memory it had about six glass panes and a sheer curtain over them all. Perhaps it was originally just a regular door and was changed after the addition and raising? It was shut whenever the little heater unit in the basement was blowing warm air up the floor vent to keep the heat near the dining area, and I remember the floor vent being right across from the dining table. In fact, I think you had to move a throw rug out of the way to see or use it.
After the dining area on the left was a cubicle bedroom, and then the door to the expanded living room. The living room now had windows on three sides, so I always remember it being filled with light during the daytime. The new piano, a baby grand, was in the back right-hand corner of the room.
I think the only other change in the upstairs wrought by The Great Raising would have been in the front bedroom. Barbara calls it AG's room, and says:
When I stayed with Aunt Eva, I was in AG’s room, and really liked that room. Great cross ventilation with the two windows so you could always keep a comfortable temperature at night. The closet was interesting – it was built over the beginning of the staircase to the basement, so you had to step up to reach the clothes hanger rod and the floor of it sloped as the stair ceiling did.
That's something that would have been altered during the Great Raising, but it's a small detail compared to everything else.
That's all I have for how the Great Raising affected the upstairs.
Downstairs in the basement, a full bathroom, with a shower, was added under the expanded front part.
A bedroom was created in the right-hand side, in the back of the area that was already closed in when the house was originally built. So the basement stairs went down parallel to the front of the house, and ended at the front right-hand corner. You turned left and saw the door to the new bedroom in front of you. If you turned left again you would see a door to the outside straight ahead of you across the basement room, and when you got to that outside door, the bathroom was to your left, at the front left-hand corner of the house, under the upstairs bathroom but much smaller than the upstairs bathroom. Barbara says:
The basement bathroom had the square metal shower stall just sort of put there against the middle of the west wall as an afterthought, but it worked well for showering after swimming.
The shed, created by closing in the previously open area and also the addition in the back, was not accessible from inside the house. My brother Roger used it in the 1960s, and says:
I worked on boats in the back basement which I erected a sign “Stokey Marine”. Built a small skiff there as well with the money I made selling papers to and collecting garbage from the NYYC.
(NYYC was the New York Yacht Club. That's another story.)
Barbara says:
I have a few memories of the shed, but had no real reason to go in there much. I think there was a bed on the right as you went in – not a real bed, but I think something Uncle Fred would sleep on when we were little and it was crowded? Doors weren’t locked much, so easy enough for him to use the downstairs bathroom. And I think he would keep his car in there some of the time. Workbench to the left, and then past that I don’t really recall – just a large space and the shed was definitely L-shaped, following the walls of the bedroom and enlarged living room. The corner triangle on the NE formed outside by the walls of the bedroom and living room was Aunt Alma’s compost heap – mostly corn husks and weeds, and above it a line stretched across from the entry to the shed to the far NE corner of the living room, for hanging wet bathing suits and towels.
There was wood piled in the shed, for the fireplace in the living room. I remember that termites got into the wood once in the 1960s and we had to tote it all outside.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---~LIFE AFTER THE GREAT RAISING~---related-pages---site navigation
I haven't written this section yet. Someday. Here are some notes:
Where you turned off the street into the yard, there was a wrought-iron sign:
STOKEY
EVANS
Fernbank was left to AG after Aunt Eva died in 1974, and it was sold then. AG took the dining table. Ming says she used it as a plant stand. I'll check with AG on that. Some living room chairs went to Scraggy. I've got a picture of at least one, from just before it was finally discarded. And the STOKEY EVANS sign also went to Scraggy. The STOKEY part still hangs there, with a local addition instead of EVANS.
Where you turned off the street into the yard, there was a wrought-iron sign:
STOKEY
EVANS
Fernbank was left to AG after Aunt Eva died in 1974, and it was sold then. AG took the dining table. Ming says she used it as a plant stand. I'll check with AG on that. Some living room chairs went to Scraggy. I've got a picture of at least one, from just before it was finally discarded. And the STOKEY EVANS sign also went to Scraggy. The STOKEY part still hangs there, with a local addition instead of EVANS.
Below are some pictures taken at post-Raising Fernbank. No house pictures, just happy Stokeys.
July 1949 at Fernbank: Bill (Will's and Kathleen's older son) and his first child, Barbara
Fernbank on Sunday, September 25, 1949: Betsy with her grandfather, Will, and her parents, Roger and Edie
Also Fernbank, September 1949: Betsy with her cousin AG and her great-uncle Fred.
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---~RELATED PAGES~---site navigation
Here are the pages mentioned or otherwise used in this write-up:
- KAY'S ALBUM FOR BILL'S BIRTHDAY
- 1909-06-24 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL
- 1911-10-18 LETTER FROM MARGARET TO MAMA MARGARET
- 1922-08-21 LETTER FROM WILL TO KATHLEEN
- 1927-08-11 LETTER FROM FRED TO SIBYL
- 1928-06-14 LETTER FROM FRED TO ALMA
- 1929-08-13 LETTER FROM MAGGIE TO ROGER
- 1930-07-15 LETTER FROM WALTER O. LUSCOMBE TO EVA
- 1988 EDIE'S EULOGY FOR GLADY
- 1988-11-30 LETTER FROM EDIE TO AL, PETER, AND PEGGY
FERNBANK: planning it---building it---refrigerator notes---life before the great raising---the hurricane of 1944---the great raising: the outside---the great raising: the inside---life after the great raising---related-pages---~SITE NAVIGATION~
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