Memories of Emily Dennis Harvey, Who Grew Up in Washington in the 1940s
In May of 2023, Emily Dennis Harvey visited Josh Greene, who now owns the house Emily lived in with her mother, Eleanor Dennis, and her sister, Laura. She shared memories of her childhood with me during that visit, and afterwards in emails. I wanted to capture some of what it was like in Washington then, and share it with others who call this town home.
Emily went to the school in Becket in the 1940s. Her teachers were Helen Perkins and Eleanor Mullen (who lived across from the school in the house opposite the Grange, now the Historical Society). Joyce McNearny, whose family lived on McNearny Road, wash her best friend in grades 6, 7, and 8, which were in one room in the school. Emily and Gladys Robinson (of Robinson Farm in Becket), who was also in her class, were jump rope champions; they used a clothesline as a jump rope. The playground was just an empty field and the children invented their own games. Someone brought a ball for dodge or kickball. Joyce and Emily played jacks on the school steps.
Robert and Louise Elliot lived nearby in a Colonial house that is no longer there; it sat part way up the hill where there is now a shared driveway to several properties that overlook the vistas to the southwest. Emily and her sister spent many hours with their daughter, Roberta (Bobby) in a hammock that stretched between two large pine trees, Louise providing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk. Louise had an enormously productive vegetable garden, which fed her family with eggs from her chickens and eventually milk from a cow. She cut hay in the field with an old fashioned scythe. The family added a horse so Bobby and I could go on rides together. Bobby was homeschooled by Louise with the Calvert System. Mr. Elliot was only home on weekends, spending the week in Fitchburg Mass where he was a coach.
Eleanor Dennis she capably ran a dance studio in her barn, and cared for the family, house and yard, but she needed assistance with many tasks. Murray Stone, a nearby farmer, was of great help to her and the family. “We were the beneficiaries of Murray's many skills and experience and readiness to help my city parents with innumerable problems that came up all the time,” Emily recalls. "Our 911 was CALL MURRAY. Memorable for me were his patience, generosity and kindness to us as children. He taught us how to catch trout in the brook, cutting a sapling first for a pole. He gave us tasks to do and let us ride between barns on the back of his pickup truck sitting on the side walls holding on with our hands on either side. The highlight of our day was this wind-in-the-face ride.“
Murray owned a barn across the street and a little farther down the road. He kept cows there, and called it “Stoneacres”. Emily remembers “As children we ran across the street to help get the cows in and watch every milking. The hay Murray cut from our two large fields was taken to that barn. The hayfields are now the property that borders the eastern edge of Josh's up on the hill). Our family enjoyed free milk from Murray's cows in exchange for the hay.”
Murray’s parents Fred and Grace Stone, lived on a working farm near the Becket line on the property where Rika Alper and John McElwain now live. Murray worked on that farm as well. Fred and Grace had taken over this larger farm from Fred’s father. Emily recalls “it was a colonial, very old, and it’s a shame it is now gone”. Grandfather Stone lived nearby in a newer (1900s) house that may have been built for him. This is likely the yellow house at the corner of Washington Mountain Road and Nocher Road. Murray built himself a small house in one of the upper hayfields.
Emily recalls “ Even after Murray got a tractor in the mid 1940s, he reluctantly kept the Belgian team for his dad Fred, who cut the hay at both farms. He was a grizzled old guy who spent entire days in the hot sun first to cut the hay, and another to rake and turn it. Before the tractor the team also pulled the heavily loaded wagons of loose hay to the barn. As children we would walk out to the fields across the street to carry water and sometimes a cold beer, for him, I remember he was so happy to see us!“
“My fondest recollection,” Emily says, “ is the joy we experienced as kids riding atop the big loaded hay wagon back to the barn and leaping from high barn beams into the soft hay below before it reached the roof. Best of all, was the short ride on the back of the horses when their work was over.”
