LifeStories
...personal & family history books
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Name: Carol
Age: 80
Carol, who lives in New Hampshire, has been
widowed since 1998. She has 3 children (one
adopted), and 3 step-children. She is a
grandmother to 7 step-grandchildren; 4
grandchildren, ranging 18 months to 16 years
old. She was born in 1925 in West Rumney,
NH.
Tell us about your parents and grandparents.
My grandfather (on my father’s side) met my
grandmother at the Boote Mills in Lowell, Mass.,
that’s where they manufacture cotton materials.
They bought a farm in Dorchester, NH and had 6
children, one of which was my father.
My mother’s side, one parent was French, the
other was Abenaki Native American Indian.
They lived in Winooski – where they have an
Abenaki settlement now. My grandfather, being
half-Indian, raised my mother as a boy because
he had lost a son at the age of 12…and he
wanted a son more than anything in the world.
He taught her how to take care of the pony and
the canoe in the river…and he insisted that she
play the piano. He himself played 4 or 5
instruments – he was a very fine musician. My
mother, after her father trained her, played for
the silent movies in Keene (NH) Scenic Theatre
(which was destroyed by a fire in 1927). She was
hired in 1916 or 17 – and played the piano. She
had all the sheet music. I read somewhere there
was also a drummer at the theatre. My mother
was a very elegant grandmother. She made
beautiful clothes.
What was the best thing you remember about the
“good old days”?
Good old days beautiful in so many ways. Life
was very simple and happy. We didn’t know
fear. We didn’t know a lot of things. We were
very happy with little things. The doll’s cradle
was an oatmeal box. We had marbles and skip
rope. There was such an innocence and
wholesomeness about those years. And we
didn’t know we were poor. We were extremely
poor…we had only one pair of shoes for the year.
We went barefoot all summer. And we were
taught to work and to be disciplined, which as
helped us all our lives. We were taught honesty
and work ethic. My mother always made
beautiful holidays out of nothing. We thought
we were terrific…we didn’t know we were so poor.
What do you think is the most important change
you have experienced in life?
The change is happening to all of us and it is
wonderful and it is terribly important. We have
to speak up for ourselves…to anybody, to the
president, to the doctors to the lawyers. We are
just beginning – I started years ago because my
husband taught me to be free – to take lessons in
anything I wanted and he opened the doors for
me. But, relatives and friends are very slow to do
this, but they are doing it. They are becoming
their own advocates, they are not afraid to tell
how they feel. And if they disagree with their
doctor or lawyer they’ll speak up. That to me is
the biggest thing that is happening right now.
LifeStories
personal & family history
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Contact us
Jenny Wojenski
603-358-3350
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