One smart cat

(1980 memoirs)
Frankie told me years ago she had such a smart cat.  When half grown she taught it to play ball with her.  When I asked what happened to it, I think she would say no nore than it died.  And when I asked if she ever had another, "No."

Squirrels

(1980 memoirs)
Frankie could coax squirrels to eat peanuts out of her hand, and Lorin took a picture one time of a squirrel taking a peanut from my hand, tho no credit to me.

Owl's nest

Near the street on the side of her house was a tree with a hollow trunk, and one year Frankie had an owl's nest in it.  Oh the happiness!  She spent much time there going as close as she dared.  She kept counting them and trying to photograph them.

Monarch butterfly

(1980 memoirs)
Frankie may have made a failure of that dusty, fusty course but not of her life, for every creature was her friend, and she spent hours ferreting out its secrets.  She found a chrysalis of a Monarch Butterfly that had fallen and put the twig of milkweed it was on carefully under a large wire strainer to await results.  When it showed signs of life, she had her camera ready and took many pictures of the various stages.  I have seen the same series since in many nature magazines but none better than hers, in my view.

A failure

(1980 memoirs)
[Frankie took the Classical course at Ripon.]  "I made a failure of it," she would tell me, feeling remorse and pain.  "If only I could have been put in the other course!  I always wanted to learn about animals and living things and about the world!"  --  "But, Cousin Frankie, why didn't you change?  You didn't have to take the Classical."  --  "I didn't think I could change the way they do now.  I took what they said and made a failure of it."

The Classical course

(1980 memoirs)
Cousin Frankie went to the college [Ripon] herself when she was young and often told me what a disaster the whole thing was.  At that time there were two courses only, the Classical course and the Science.  Somehow, some way, God knows how, somebody pushed her into the Classical course where she had no roots, no feeling.  Greek and Latin grammar beat about in her poor brain where it had no place to be.

Spencer Carrier

And yet some how, some way, out of the the past Spencer Carrier came to see her one day.  I didn't know what to expect and came wonderingly down the stairs from my room.  He was such a nice man!  Just a little Mortimer-Sneerd-y - that deep guffaw:  alugh!  It sort of went out all over and all over us.  He was a small person and wore a dark grey suit - straight tan hair - guess maybe a mustache.  As I recall he didn't stay to dinner, only the afternoon.  Cousin Frankie was pleased, but not altogether at ease.  Unexpected company frequently makes us feel that way.  I was always glad I saw him, tho, and knew how nice he was.

Self sacrifice

(1980 memoirs)
And yet Frankie had her romance.  A man named Spencer Carrier (I think) thought a lot of her and wanted to be married.  She told me about it once and said so pitifully, "But, you see, I had to care for Mother.  She was sick and had to have care.  And I couldn't leave her."  I could only nod.  No use to make suggestions:  --Couldn't you have all lived together?  --Couldn't something be worked out?  Water over the bridge and all long ago.

Animal magnetism

(1980 memoirs about life with Frankie)
The next morning [after a date's good-night kiss], my dear cousin would talk to me about "animal magnetism."  She said she herself never liked to take a man's bare hand unless she had her gloves on.  There was just something about it--

No-kissing cousin

(1980 memoirs)
Especially in my freshman year [at Ripon] I was new on campus and probably cute, and so I had a lot of dates.  Often when the evening ended in kissing we would be aware of a dark Shape within the window, which, if ignored, tapy-tap-tapped on the pane.  This was usually enough to bring the good night to a Climax.

Dancing

(1980 memoirs)
When Tommy (Doris) Tucker [later Hamley] and I danced a little in the living room, Frankie did come in and say we'd have to stop because the floor was "too weak to stand it."  [She may have been right; even in the 1920s it was a very old house, probably built in the 1860s.]

Victrola

(1980 memoirs)
I must have come to live with Frankie for four years, while I got my college degree, in 1922.  Now that I am old myself and used to being alone, I marvel at her charity and goodness for having me around.  Of course I was kin.  I was Frank's girl, and she knew my people, and that made a difference.  But tho I know I loved her from the start, I know now I did many many things that must have upset her very much, and many that she suffered in silence.  In the first place, I had a very small "victrola" with cheap records (jazz).  What fortitude it took to listen to that - and never a word of complaint.

Temperance

 A story about Frankie made the family rounds and here it is.  You have to know the whole crew was for Temperance, and no doubt all had signed the Pledge and heard of the pitfall of the Demon Rum.  Well, Mrs. [Alvira] Clapp was very sick, declining, no appetite; Frankie was waiting on her as best she could, but at last a doctor was called in.  After his examination, he recommended two or three tablespoons of wine be given his 90-year-old patient.  Frankie heard this prescription with mixed feelings.  "But, doctor," she remonstrated, "don't you think it may start a bad habit?"

Muskmelon

(1980 memoirs)
One thing as a child Frankie despised above all and that was a muskmelon.  So of course her brother Henry tried to tease her about it.  He dressed one up as a doll and offered it to her.  Amazed at her good fortune and his generosity, she lifted it up in her arms to her face - when suddenly - her eyes still dilated in the telling - she caught the scent of the thing and then threw it as far as she could throw!  Of course then Henry and any others in the joke laughed their heads off.  But when I knew her [over 50 years later], she had gotten over this horror and we had them on the table.

Almira Clapp

(1980 memoirs)
I can't tell you anything about Frankie's father, oldman Clapp [Quartus].  I think originally they lived out on a farm, not too far from Ripon.  Frankie's mother [Almira] was little and frail but lived a long time, and because Frankie was such a dear devoted daughter, she gave her youth to caring for her mother and set her marriage aside.

Drain & cool

[In Frankie's house] a large hinged, covered drain took care of all dirty water.  And lord, now that I think of it, I have to say it was in the dining room; however, actually rarely used.  As to refrigeration, I recall things like butter and milk being kept covered in the earth-floored basement; for the rest, I guess we just went to the store more often.

Bedroom washstand

(1980 memoirs)
In the bedrooms [in Frankie's house] they had wash bowl and pitcher on a wash stand, fresh towels hanging on its side racks, soap in the proper soap dish.  The toilet I think was down the short, clean basement stairs.  And a pot under the bed - a chamber pot.

Newberry Street

(1980 memoirs)
[Henry Clapp's] sister Frances [1866-1958] was a very dear and unusual person.  She lived in a nice little white colonial house on Newberry Street [in Ripon] and let out some rooms converted into an apartment to an unmarried lady - Clare Mears - who sewed beautifully and made her living by it.  They got along year after year with no bathrooms, no furnace, no refrigeration.  Imagine that.

Congo cow

(1980 memoirs)
One thing I remember with a smile is the tale of wicked Halloween tricks college boys played in Henry Clapp's day [1880s?].  I am thinking of the one where somehow boys got a cow up in the belfry of the Congregational Church, the one college vespers were held in, etc. Henry was a good story teller.  He was small boned, slight, small twinkling eyes now, and had a good command of language.  November1 when school opened there was an unfamiliar lowing, heard by all, understood by the farm boys, a cow wanting to be milked in her own familiar quarters.  Memory fails when I try to recall how "the authorities" got her down, but of course it was done and amid no tell-tale faces.

Helen & Carol

(1980 memoirs)
But later two children were born to them [to Florence Clapp & Herman Hillsburg]:  Helen, dark haired, smaller again than her mother but like her, musical; and her brother Carol a couple of years younger.  They had many slim years and Florence gave piano lessons to help out.  I believe eventually Florence and Herman were divorced.  No doubt once passion was satisfied the difference in their education and experience made living together too trying to be bourne.  [In 1910 Florence wrote Lois a long letter detailing her life as a single mother in New Hampshire.]

Sad doings

(1980 memoirs)
On the night of Florence's graduation from the [Ripon College] School of Music, her parents had a "doings" for her, sort of a social hour, and Herman was not invited as he was only the hired man, and her pleas were ignored.  So the poor girl lay on her bed and cried her eyes out.  Aunt Lois told me, and I think she said she went up to her.  Some time later the lovers laid their plans and ran away together.  I don't know any details about this.

Herman

(1980 memoirs)
[Florence Clapp] grew up well educated and graduated in music from Ripon College in piano.  Her parents "kept her down," were very strict, and she was not allowed to have any beaux, any fun.  So of course what was to happen did happen and she fell in love with the hired man, Herman Hillsburg.

Florence

(1980 memoirs)
The Clapps only daughter was a dark haired girl, Florence, a smaller, nicer replica of her mother.  When I knew her, she had married twice, so I am writing hearsay, which no doubt is the truth after all.

Flowers

(1980 memoirs)
[Chores for the Clapps] might include getting flowers from the greenhouse to the church Saturdays.  By providing flowers every Sunday, they always got their names in the weekly leaflet of the Congregational Church, tho of course it was splendid of them to do it; and tho it advertised, was also costly and I am sure often a lot of work.  The kind of flower and what was ready blooming was often a topic of discussion at dinners.

Chores

(1980 memoirs)
[Lucretia Clapp's college girl] Edna would get up early and get the wash on the line before leaving for college -- hurry hone at night to clean and cook supper, and studied after the dishes were done.  I think there was a college boy too, who shoveled walks, fired the furnace, carried out ashes, mowed the lawn, and did what needed to be done.

College girl

(1980 memoirs)
I will say this about her [Lucretia Clapp], she knew how to solve her problems - some of them anyway.  She lived in a great big white house with greenhouse nearby and the gardens and orchards behind.  [By 2010 these had become the grounds of the Ripon High School.]  By keeping on a college girl to work for her room and board, she managed to get her work done without paying for it.

Business woman

(1980 memoirs)
Henry's sister Frances and family didn't care for Lucretia because she was so bold and inquisitive about business matters which were better left to the men.  Frankie told me about it when I lived with her and went to Ripon College.  "When Father and my Brother Henry were talking about business, she went right behind Father's Chair and leaned over to read his papers!" she said, still with awe at the enormity of it.

Lucretia Clapp

(1980 memoirs)
Lucretia Clapp was a big horsey person with an English accent, large boned, well filled out, long black naturally curly hair.  The hair is what I have never forgotten because if you stretch the truth a little you could say she never washed it.  She parted it in the middle, combed it neatly down on each side where it waved, and wound it into a big bun on top of her head with a comb to hold her back hair up.