A BELOVED MONUMENT WITH A TALE TO BE TOLD

Beginning this Memorial Day series of Posts, I decided to forego chronological order.  The story of the rocking chair so captured my imagination that I used writer's prerogative to start with it.  I shall return to the origins of Memorial Day in Taunton, and the Village, in the next post.

 I am still doing more research, as well.

There are three cemeteries along E. Brittania St. in Taunton: The Mayflower Cemetery (which also fronts along Broadway), St. Joseph's Catholic Cemetery (which backs onto School Street ), and then in-between a small "Pauper's Cemetery" which we shall return to later.  In this post we will concentrate on the Mayflower, a public cemetery, and in this post, one particular monument.

 All cemeteries are of interest to historians and genealogists for they hold a

 trove of precious information.  Sometimes one finds something 

so fascinating that it deserves its own Post.

Thus it is with The Rocking Chair Monument. To those listed above with interest in cemeteries I shall now add paranormals.   This photo was taken by members of such an organization who were investigating reports of sightings of a small child sitting in this Empire style rocking chair. The recorder at the right of the photo must have been for listening….perhaps?

I was first alerted to this chair monument by a post by Stephen Kaska on I'm From Taunton Facebook page.  I had forgotten this monument and set to learn more with the Research Department at the Taunton Public Library and on the Internet.  It is a very unique story and one that gets told and retold over the decades as we shall see.

The Rocking Chair Monument

Mayflower Cemetery

Taunton, MA

What is the origin of this child's chair cast in stone?

 Why does it still appeal to children who, year after year, leave stuffed toys on and around the chair, as you can see so clearly here?

The chair is of white marble and marks the grave of Pearle French, a little girl who died of spinal meningitis in Boston, Sunday, March 26, 1882 - yes, 1882! 

 Note that the toys on the grave are all of recent vintage.

Local lore had it that there had been a fire and a child had died.  Not true.  

Penny Humphrey, a Taunton Gazette reporter investigated and reported on the story in the March 27. 1995 issue of that newspaper "Laying Some Local Lore to Rest." 

Legend had it that the child had misbehaved and been told to sit in the chair and not move….fire took care of the rest. The other story was that the child was ill and was rocked

 in the chair in her mother's arms.  Also, not true.  Pearl died in a Boston Hospital 

and was buried in this plot owned by her father.

There are no birth records for the child, only the death record. Old records that do exist show that the cost of the plot was $10.  There is no record of parents or an address.  Pearl's grave is over 100 years old and now you can see why it is beloved by paranormals and by children who over the years have all sat in that chair at one time or another. 

Later, Patricia Corey, office manager at Rex Monuments across E. Brittania St., researched other stones and found that Pearl's parents were  Edwin French who died in 1920, and Emma J. Leonard, who died in 1902.  Mr. French worked in Boston but had lived for some time in Taunton.

The grave is still marked by flowers. When the chair was smashed by vandals almost a decade ago, Mrs. Corey gathered all the pieces of marble for safe keeping. Mr. Rex, a master stone mason and owner of Rex Monuments, repaired the beloved stone with all the pieces she had rescued and gifted it back to the City of Taunton.

The rocking chair apparently was inspired by this poem which at the time of Pearl's death had been published in a magazine.  Some or all of the poem may have been engraved on the stone. 

The words her vacant chair apparently can still be seen if one looks hard enough.

Right next to the chair is another monument, a scroll.  This was in memory of little Pearl's cousin

Veva L. Johnson, born Oct. 28, 1880 and who died of a "spinal disease" on April 26, 1884, 

two years and one month to the day after Pearl's death.  That era was filled with the 

sadness of high child mortality which thankfully no longer besets our children today thanks to antibiotics and medical advances.  

Note: the lights in the background are of cars going by on Broadway, I simply blurred them

for simplicity to see the monuments better.

Now here is an odd thing: I kept saving this post as I went along, but toward the end, the last parts of it kept disappearing, over and over.  

The other bits and pieces I had saved did the same thing.

That has never happened before.  Hmmmm.

Well, here I go again for the fourth time to finish this post.

This is the photograph I kept losing…

Alright girls, game is over….

Pinterest vintage photo

Sources for this Post

Aaron Cushman, Research Librarian, Taunton Public Library  with this article:

" Laying Some Local Lore to Rest", Pamela Humphrey, staff writer for

The Taunton Daily Gazette: March 27, 1995

…..

http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20081030/News/310308596

"More Scary Folklore in Greater Taunton".  Jane H. Hennedy, Director: Bristol County

Historical Society, Taunton Daily Gazette, Oct. 30, 2008.

……...

http://southcoastghost.weebly.com/taunton.html

…….

http://www.parahunter.com/investigations/mayflower-cemetery-taunton-ma/

Paranormal investigators.  Photographs of Rocking Chair Momument

and reports.

……..

Pinterest on the Internet for the Victorian photograph of the girls.

……….

THE ART OF CONSCIOUS LIVING; A MESSAGE FROM YESTERDAY

As you may have noticed, the I'm From Taunton Facebook Page is a frequent source of inspiration for this blogger.  Recently, a post appeared of an autograph book from the 1880's.  For me this was a message from the vintage days of Taunton when our grandparents
were bringing up our parents and building the Village.
The message echoed the beautiful, studied photographs by H. Boutin
in which clearly the photographer
and the photographed were giving their best.  

It is a message of Conscious Living.

     Pondering that graceful pace of living long ago takes us onto other paths. 

 It made me think about the care with which people wrote their signatures

 knowing they were a window into who they were.

                     Look at this beautiful signature from the 1800's which I found online!

Below is  a  fascinating online find.  On coming upon this, I thought…Taunton, England?
  No, this is from Massachusetts.  Anyone have any ideas?  The Duncan family 

ended up in Maine as far as I can tell.

                              Another incredibly artistic and lovely signature from Pinterest.

What about other aspects of that long gone gracious living? What we can take from these signatures?  For me, they are a sign of considerate and conscious effort. 

 The old adage of "if you are going to do anything, do it well"comes to mind.

Conscious living, as they tell us, happens when thoughtfulness occurs.  There is a revival of that thoughtfulness in what is being called "slow living".  People are seeking time out from speed obsessed technology and the isolation it often brings.  I would be the first to say that  I am a techie and would be hard pressed to be without my computer and iPad.  Because I live at a distance from family and old friends,
it keeps me connected.  Still, the real thing: a voice, a hug, eye contact
 is never going to be displaced.  

Neither will the experience of fine conversation.

           

Arlene Rose Gouveia sent me, as part of her written memoirs, an example of that other hallmark
of slow and conscious living: the art of conversation.  Her comparison to the
famous Algonguin Round Table in New York is very appropriate.
The Algonquin club was a luncheon gathering that brought

together many literary personages of the time.  Their goal?  

Stimulating and interesting conversation.  

                                         The Algonquin Round Table, New York City

Arlene tells us that something of that famous get together took place periodically in the dining room of St. Anthony's Church on School St.  The first pastor, the beloved Father Alexandro Loura, gathered together people whose purpose was to share that same stimulating 

and graceful conversation around an excellent table.

Although not as large nor filled with national and international literary celebrities such as Hemingway, those evenings would still have been impressive. The dinners at St. Anthony's  preceded the Alconquin Round Table by quite a few years.  Fr. Loura  came to St. Anthony's as Pastor in 1906.  The N. Y. group went from 1919 to 1929 and was known for its witty and sparkling  conversation.  In N.Y. the attendance would change from week to week.  At St. Anthony's some of the participants would have been Monsignor James Coyle, Jean Dupont, Lawyer, and Joseph Enos, Funeral Director.  Since we have written of some of those people in this blog, it is easier now to retrieve their photographs and start to imagine those dinners.

They would have been graceful, probably those attending would have thought of various themes of conversation.  Just knowing Sophia Dupont and her lovely voice and laugh helps to picture it.

 These photographs show some of the attendees in later years,

 but nevertheless, I am glad to offer them.  

           Dr.Joseph Murphy                          Father Loura               Maybelle Murphy
                                                                                                             and Sophia Dupont

Those were some of the guests at the dinners hosted by Father Loura.  The table had to be set just right, and there were five courses with interludes for deeper conversation.  This is not a photo below of that dining room but certainly must echo it.  The guest list  could change. 

 Sometimes, Fr Couto, assistant at St. Anthony's, 

Monsignor James Coyle for whom 

Coyle High School would later be named and perhaps others would participate.

(Father Loura was at St. Anthony's from 1906 to 1927 at which time, after
becoming exhausted in his work, he retired to his native Terceira, Azores. There must have been many dinners before 1927! He and Msr. Coyle had a deep friendship
which even included Fr. Loura taking Msr. Coyle to visit the Azores and Portuguese mainland.)

Writing this and the last posts let loose my imagination stretching it way back by following a thread of living now in the distant past.  Like many such nostalgic meanderings,
 it leads us to ponder the things that have been lost over the years.  What is now called mindful or slower living is one such treasure.  Living detached from the immediacy of short,
 often trivial technological messaging and abbreviated faceless communication.

We seek that which is fading: simplicity, the savoring of life, of moments sweet and precious, the dance of fingers and wrist in creating an art of writing, a conversation laced with friendship, 

family, respect and tolerance.

                             I wonder, how can we bring those values into our lives today…..?

Recently, a paper entitled :The Southampton Paper was presented to the American Psychological

Association, noted that nostalgic memories inspire positive feelings of joy, high self regard, belonging and meanfulness in life.  In two other studies it was found that past fond memories help us become more self-reliant and cope better in the present. 

 So ---reading this blog

  MAY BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH!

     
         The article relating this can be found in the February issue of Natural Awakening below.

http://www.naturalawakeningsmag.com/Natural-Awakenings/February-2014/Nostalgia-Arms-Us-for-the-Future/

………………...

                                              For more about the Algonquin Round Table

                                        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquin_Round_Table

                                             Unfortunately, I lost the site where I found the

    Taunton, Ma/Boston image of handwriting implements.
   Mea culpa, once in awhile they get away from me…

To view an excellent documentary on the history of the Algonquin Round Table (and thus its period in American history), Arlene Gouveia directs you to this You Tube video.

Also, she comments that the St. Anthony's "round table" was a group of interesting people who could talk on many subjects.  When the Algonquin Roundtable tried to have a reunion, it failed.
 People had passed on, and it was an end of an era.
This could be said of the St. Anthony group as well….an end to an era.

"One fact I am sure about.  Sophia Dupont had more class than Dorothy Parker"
                                                                 Arlene Gouveia

(I so agree, Arlene)

VILLAGE STRONG !

Indeed, this blog is just that…a mosaic.  Look at this precious piece of the Village Story! This is a family photograph of the Castro family who lived on Purchase St. in the Village.  The young man in the center, only son in a bevy of 8 daughters, is the father of Jimmy Castro, a classmate of
mine from Fuller School, and Jimmy's sister Joan.
It is Joan who has shared this amazing photograph with us. 

Thank you, Joan! 

 I have known Jimmy, who is my age, all my life.  I remember Joan well, too.  I remember their Dad and Mom. Who knew that Jimmy and Joan had at least 8 aunts?  All of us kids growing up were set in our own context and never having any idea who the families we knew really were!

            The photograph was likely taken in 1931, and no doubt Boutin Studios produced it.

Top row: left to right: Florrie (Pimental), Joan's Dad Tony Castro, 

Mary (Medeiros) and Helen (DeSilvia).

Middle row: Agnes (Araujo) and Julia (Silvia).  

Bottom row: Grandfather Castro, Catherine (Tenikos), Elizabeth (Texeira), 

Madeline Castro and Grandmother Castro.

Catherine is the only child still living.

Are you with me in figuring that this family produced many of the families that we knew? That from families such as the Castros and the Souzas came our inherited strength of purpose and family values? This family, and my own, are only two examples.. A fascinating privilege to go back to our roots with this photograph. It just sets up greater yearning for more that will allow us to peek way back into the history of the Village.

Following up on my own Souza grandparents and their family, one sees the commonality of the larger family. In the Castro family, the preponderance of the feminine.  Imagine growing up within that cocoon. Nothing against uncles, but oh. the aunts!  No wonder the Village was a world unto its own, a place of such safety. With all those siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, 

in-laws it was built on family and friendship all the way! 

The Grandmoms, Moms and the Aunts were always there.  I had seven paternal aunts.  Along with our dear Fuller School teachers, we certainly had enough role models.

When we see a photograph like that of the Castro family and in the previous post of the Souza family, there is a wisp of a glimpse into the generation of our grandparents as they built the Village community. One sees strength there, although we have only echoes of stories. They were the movers and the shakers of the Village. What were their lives like?  They, in many cases, came to this country from simple backgrounds and those men and women made the Village what it was for all of us.

The Village "grew" its young within those woven relationships…strong.  Both young and old were part of those extended families that nourished us.

                             

Much later, in 1985, I married…and lo and behold, my husband had 9 aunts!  What a treasure, as so many of my dear Aunts were gone by that time.  I nested into this new aunt-dom complete with a precious mother-in-law and felt right at home.  Always smiling, encouraging, those women.  Now they, too, are nearly all gone. Below is a photograph of my husband's maternal French Canadian grandparents with 13 of their living children ( from left oldest to right youngest) .

 There was one other child, the oldest, who died at age 19.

I have heard stories of their third floor dormitory in the family's three decker Fall River home.  Just a bit of imagination is needed to hear the laughter and chatter.

In looking at the statistics for this blog, it is remarkable in its growth.  I am still amazed.  There is a cord of nostalgia that is struck all over the world for stories.  Stories of our roots, of the values and safety nets provided by many of our families and in our case, by a Village.
Click on to the map on the right side of the blog and look at the countries
all over the world where viewers and readers originate.
Many of them are regular readers.
Readers of the stories of the extraordinary people who nourished us
in that little borough on School Street.  Readers who find echoes of their own stories.

                                Maternal Great Aunt Annie Fostin and friend, Winter St. in the 30's

To my Village

The past is a portal

a door to who we are.

We grasp hands, if only in memory,

hands that provided love, friendship, 

 hands that sheltered and guided us.

Down the years, parent to child

who became parent to another child

and on and on

from across an ocean to this piece of home

away from home.

Echoes of the sea, of song, of soft green hills

and Church bells

kept being heard in the soul

of those who came to a land unknown.

and made this our home.

……….

Sandra Souza Pineault