Part One
Mrs. Smith had 6 kids to manage all day long, all summer long, at a little cottage on the town line of Halifax and Hanson. No car. No video games. One black and white TV that got 4 stations. Barely. Mr. Smith stayed home in West Roxbury to work, and breezed in Friday night and went home Sunday afternoon.
How did she manage us? We had a schedule the Army would be proud of. Get up. Breakfast. Get dressed. Make your bed. One hour of music lessons. One hour of chores. One hour of reading. Lunch. And then, only then, play time – whether running through the sprinkler in the back yard, to a walk on the country roads (and maybe a stop at the penny candy store) to some time at the lake. Some days we had visitors to help – Grandma and Grandpa, my godparents the Hochs – who sent me Hummels from Germany every year as my birthday gift – to my exotic Aunt Peggy, Mom’s younger sister, who always had a twinkle in her eye, a boyfriend, and fun adventures to share with us.
She died in her early 20s after a horrific struggle with MS – when no one really knew what MS was. She taught us a lot about grace under fire.
My mother was born in 1930, an only child. Unfortunately, 5 years later her brother Walter showed up and ruined everything. Her mother’s mother was Francis Jane Chartres. Yes, as in the city in France. Her mother’s father was Charles Franklin Goodale. The Goodales, Robert to be exact, settled in Salem, Massachusetts in 1634. Robert’s son Jacob was killed in 1675, by a man named Giles Corey. Giles escaped punishment for his crime, but in 1692 was tried and found guilty of being a witch. He was pressed to death – stones were piled on his chest in an attempt to make him admit the error of his ways. The stones killed him before any confession was obtained.
Her father Walter McLean was descended from the McLeans of Virginia. Yes, as in McLean, Virginia. Her parents were married in 1929.
Here is Madeline Chartres Goodale McLean with Mom, curly haired brother Walter, and then the next boy to come along, the towhead, Bob. The twins, Margaret and Joseph, named after Grandpa McLean’s sisters Margaret and Josephine, arrived in 1940 so are not in the photo, dated 1939.
My grandmother Madeline was about 44 years old when the twins were born in 1940. She and Walter were both schoolteachers. Madeline worked tirelessly for students who in those days were called “mentally retarded” – she could not understand why they did not receive the same free public education as all the other kids. Eventually her efforts and the work of many dedicated educators resulted in Chapter 766, passed in 1972 in Massachusetts, which became the federal model for serving all children in the community
Walter and Madeline delayed their 1929 marriage until their early thirties so they could save for their Grand Tour of Europe honeymoon, and could purchase their first home, 50 Fendale Avenue in Dorchester, with no mortgage.
The twins, Margaret and Joseph, both were college educated. Margaret, Peggy, went to Boston College. But the MS slowly ravaged her body, and I watched as she went from cane to walker to wheelchair to bedridden. Joe went to Boston Latin and then Harvard, and got his Master’s degree in education from Boston Teachers College. I just remember he was wicked smart. He taught history at a school in Roxbury. He got lots of grants and stipends to write research papers and to create amazing curricula for his students. Like his brothers, he played an instrument – the clarinet. But most of all I remember going to his house when he was married to Elaine, the apartment on Florence Street in Roslindale overlooking Healy Field. They had stuff from other countries in their house! Countries other than Ireland! From traveling outside the US! They had a serape from Mexico on the couch and a donkey made from papier mache! Exotic!
Many years later I would see the same traits of hilarity and gaiety in his son and namesake, my Uncle Walter. Of course my mother, his older sister, called it ‘foolishness’. But she always laughed.
We are all dressed up and going to dance, Mrs. McLean reports. I am so glad I brought my pink taffeta ballgown. And Walter looks handsome in his tuxedo. “We have fooled no one to date as to our newlywed-ism!”
Another rather formidable letter is from my grandfather to the proprietors of their hotel in Belfast, advising of the theft of his camera. Whether it was recovered, or whether he was reimbursed by insurance, I do not know.
My grandmother kept a detailed diary of her grand tour of Europe – they traveled until the late summer of 1929. Each day she wrote about her experience, and then cut and pasted images from brochures of the hotels, restaurants, and sites that they visited. There are even dried shamrocks from Ireland.
Lynn Smith 