Mother

Mother was born November 15, 1901 at 208 Hamilton St., Dorchester. Not in a hospital, but at home, as was the custom in those days. When she was born she weighed only three pounds, so they put her in the oven to keep her warm. It worked. She survived and became a fine, healthy, beautiful and athletic young woman

Mother with her parents

Mother with her younger brother, John. She was a blonde until she got her first permanent. Curling hair artificially was new technology and not perfected yet, but her hair may have changed naturally at that particular time just by coincidence. The family always blamed it on the permanent.

Wessagusset

Mother was very much the athletic, outdoor girl. The family had a cottage at 69 Squanto Road, just over the hill from Wessagusset beach, and they were among the group that started the Wessagusset Yacht Club. They had a large lapstrake dory and Daddy used to row the family out to various islands for picnics. The whole family was involved in the yacht club, especially during the Depression, when many formerly wealthy people suddenly found themselves no longer wealthy, but still in possession of fine homes overlooking the water, and fine yachts, neither of which they could sell, there being no one who could afford to buy them. If you can’t sell it, you may as well enjoy it, so the yacht club was supported by the proceeds from whist parties, dances, and spaghetti dinners.

The boat was for when Daddy wasn’t at work, but swimming was something for every day in the summer, unless it was raining hard. Mother was an avid swimmer. One time she and some other teenagers swam from Wessagusset Beach to Grape Island, accompanied by someone in a rowboat. She also used to dive off the old Back river Bridge, which I hope was not as high off the water as the one they have there now. Swimming wasn’t just something she did when she was young. Dad didn’t like to swim, but Mother insisted on spending her summers at the cottage, whether he came along or not.

Mother (right) at the beach with Aunt Bessie. (Those are bathing suits. Fashions change.)

Her Only Son

Daddy Moakley, Mumma, Dad, me, Uncle Dave, Mother, and Uncle John on Uncle Dave’s front steps, South Burlington, Vt., 1930

Mother had a difficult time giving birth to me, and the doctor told her not to have any more babies, so she determined not to lose this child that she had. She was an overprotective mother. I did some foolish, dangerous things as a teenager and into my early twenties, but I never told her about them. Before she married, Mother worked for the Travelers Insurance, and she got to read accident claims from amusement parks. She was very reluctant to let me ride the roller coaster or the Ferris Wheel.