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Saving
Yesterday for Tomorrow
A
Reminiscence
by Donald Hyatt
We all reach back in time to gather up our own
special thoughts and memories…to smile at some of
life’s precious moments…to ponder the paths taken
and the turns left behind. Memories can give us
perspective and serve as a kind of personal balance.
It is with these thoughts in mind that The Academy
on the Green Commission initiated an oral history
project in observance of Branford’s 350th
Anniversary celebration. The project, entitled
Branford Memories, is designed as an ongoing effort
in which many of Branford’s native senior citizens
will have the opportunity to share with us, on audio
tape, their life experiences here in town. Pearl
Esther Blackstone Milne at the age of 99 years can
take us on a journey that begins around the turn of
the century.
“I went to Damascus School. There was one room for
eight grades and about 33 pupils. There was an
outhouse for the girls and one for the boys, also a
coal bin for the stove which stood in front of the
room. We recited in front on benches in back of the
stove. Oh…I can remember how hot it would get. There
was a closet near the entry, and for punishment the
teacher would put us in it, close the door…and leave
you in the dark. You could also hold out your hand
for a good slap with the ruler.”
“Two children each week were given the job of
getting a pail of drinking water from a well down
the road. We all drank from the same dipper. I had
pink eye, chicken pox and whooping cough when I was
there. Oh…that whooping cough was terrible.” “We
used to play snap the whip. The biggest boy was
always at one end, and when I was 8, I was the
smallest so you know who got put on the other end. I
did a lot of somersaults and broke my collarbone. A
pupil had to walk two miles to get my father to
bring me home. Dr. Gaylord couldn’t come until
night. He set my collarbone by kerosene lamp. I
remember he put a safety pin through the sling and
into my flesh.”
” The Town Farm, also called the Poorhouse, was on
the southside of my grandmother’s on Damascus. Men
who had no home or money stayed there. Transients
stayed overnight. They were called tramps. In the
morning they would often rap on our door, and we
would give them bread and a bowl of milk. I can’t
remember ever refusing any of them.” ”My father used
to hunt in the woods in back of back of our house on
Damascus. We had baked pheasant, broiled woodcock
and other birds. I also made squirrel and rabbit
pies”
There is a richness
of life living in the memories of these who traveled
before us. Their stories constitute a treasury of
all the bits and pieces of daily life that make up
the sum total of human experience. It is our hope
that the recorded stories in the Branford’s Memories
project will create a kind of oral legacy for future
generations.
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