homesick no more

My old website, homesick cure, is now a thing of the past. The site was created with Yahoo's old Geocities service, which in web terms was pretty much a dinosaur, and Yahoo has done away with that service as of October 2009. So, the pages on the site are no longer accessible. (And since I had no clue that the end was near and didn't save copies of the pages, it's not a simple process to recreate them.)

Some day if I have the time and energy I may create some new site on Chester Loomis and/or the Leonard family history, since those were the ones that got a lot of feedback from people doing research. For now I'll stick with blogging until the next new thing comes along.

second cousins

Had a short but wonderful visit with the Holloways and Leonards at their vacation rental in Westport. A gorgeous evening, great food, and nonstop talk. But wait -- there's so much more to catch up on -- we have to visit again soon!

See more photos of the evening here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyloomis/tags/westport/

halcyon farm photos

For those of you who may not get regular updates from the Leonard branch of the family at Halcyon Farm New York, Fransje and Aunt June sent a link to some amazing photos of the farm/bed and breakfast, taken by their guest and photographer Walter Paul Berbirian. We're so often there at Thanksgiving time that we miss the summer lushness of house, gardens, and fields. Really spectacular - makes me want to drive out there and share a glass of iced tea on the porch. We miss them all, and are thrilled that we'll be seeing them next week when they come east for a visit. Can't wait!

xo

developed

Here are the photos that have been in the Pentax camera that I mentioned in my previous post. They've been there for about 4 years -- since the year that everyone traveled east for Thanksgiving at the farm, and Nick brought friend Josh along. The photo taken at the dinner table looks a bit like The Hippie Family Robinson -- a scary bunch! Nick, Josh, and Hannah all have much shorter hair now. I love the one of Sara and Grant at Sandy Neck beach. It was such a grey day and the colors were so dull that I played a little bit with black and white editing. So, we travel back to 2004....

Grant plays with GPS

Sandy Neck looking west (above) and east (below)

Grant and Sara

Who ARE these people and why are they sitting at my table?

Grandma Susie suspects Matt of cheating at cards

Aunt Junie, hoping for a quiet moment to herself

Nicholas van Beethoven

Josh

Miss Hannah

gravestones

There's a woman in Lakeville who has documented all the gravestones and their inscriptions in the town of Lakeville. I thought that Pa Leonard, considering all his work as Lakeville Cemetery Commissioner, would appreciate this labor of love. I helped him one summer organize his files, and Mom did a lot of work with him, too.

Here's an article and a short slide show where the author talks about her work. In them she talks about the gravestone of a child of Elkanah Leonard, a long-departed cousin and grandson of original settler James Leonard. Both were involved in the Taunton ironworks.

If you click on the image of the book it will take you to her website.

love and whaling

I just recently stumbled across this article about Love, Marriage, and Family in Nineteenth-Century Whaling Communities which quotes from the letters of Sylvia Tucker and John W. Leonard. An interesting look at the lives of our ancestors. Excerpts from the letters and another article are posted on my old homesickcure website under the link He Went Away : Love Letters from the Whaling Days.

mamie i in france

Here's a great letter that Mom submitted --

I discovered this letter while sorting through boxes of my Mother’s papers---(Winona Stevens Leonard). In light of the many young people being sent off to wars over the past ninety years, I thought this letter written to her sister Ruth Nye Leonard by my aunt Mary I Leonard was a meaningful memoir---a young farm girl who studied nursing and chose to go to France to serve her country. I couldn’t help but think of the nurses in MASH during the Korean war, their flirtations, their impromptu parties, their dedication and hard work in a field hospital.

Susan Leonard Loomis
Pembroke, Mass. August, 2006

---

France, Dec.1, 1918

Feel like a full fledged war nurse now..have found 5 cooties on me and have seen these huge rats..Boo!!

Dear Ruthie,

Am going to rub it in still not a word have I heard from you yet nor from mother. I have written you twice a week, have you received them?

Must tell you about our Thanksgiving party. It was so pretty, 150 officers and sisters attended with an eight course dinner from soup to nuts and plenty of liquids. I was accused of being a little tipsy but don’t worry, had two prim and proper old maids at my side. Am still on night duty so had to report immediately after one dance, which I had with Chan Lewis. You’ll be surprised when I tell you he is here as Captain of the Dental Corps. Isn’t it funny he should be in this same unit. He is most popular and quite good looking in his uniform. The first dance I went to I recognized his face but just couldn’t place him as I haven’t seen him since he was a barefoot boy in Long Plain, but he is a nice boy and a slicky dancer. Perhaps we didn’t show ‘em. We had a real jazz band and he does everything so we were quite the talk. Oh, such a good time as I had. Oh, Ruthie, these Englishmen! It’s worth your life to dance with them, not to mention dodging them in the hall…and the girls are awful. But I met one Padre who was a divine waltzer, ooh! La la! Chance for talk….

We all went to a dance given to us by the Machine Gun Officers. They sent a lorry for us and you could have seen these two or three dozen men assemble to boost me in. Much to their surprise I was quite light on my feet.

When we got there I waited until the last one to get out and without a bit of warning just opened my arms and said “Here I come!” There’s but one man left to tell the story. They don’t know what to make of me. I can jolly them off their feet. All of them dying to kid me about being fat and when I start it they are in their glory.

A Major Mac Kaye calls me “tiny”. At the dance I went around the hall once with him and when I saw two empty chairs I stopped and told him he was hopeless, he not only laughed but shrieked and admitted that I had a lot of courage to go that far.

As I wrote, I was going to have a dancing class—front liners have red ribbons, second have blue, third white. When he came up to have tea with me the other p.m. he had three bows of all three colors. He’s about forty but the best looking old sport. He’s been in the army for years and is a wonder at telling stories.

The first night I get off night duty we’re all going to the Du Lac for dinner where they have a piano. They all sing like birds and I can manage to bang it through, look forward to quite a grand party. I told them I didn’t drink or smoke and they’d have a miserable time, but I’d promise to see them home, probably lead them to Paris.

About Chan Lewis—Cybil is married and has two boys, lives in Melrose near her mother and Mildred is instructing at Sargents…call her up sometime and ask her over, perhaps Sally could run over and see her and visit her class. It is quite interesting. I used to go…Chan has been very nice to me, am going to the village to have tea with his Major and wife this week. Am having lots of fun, but the nursing isn’t very exciting. I got here just in time though to get some real war nursing. Most of the boys are sick now with the “flu” but very mild. I have some cute Yankee boys, one I tease awfully. Sewed up his trouser legs last night and the night before made him a French bed. I have two young Irishmen who are always doubly ready to help me, and you should hear the boys in their beds laugh, right in their glory when we are teasing someone, especially Yankees.

I have one devil who groans all the time, selfish, and doesn’t care who he wakes up. But believe me he got his last night. About 10 o’clock we threatened to put him out of doors and my word, I left the ward to go into the other to give some cough syrup, and upon returning those boys and orderly had him out of doors. Of course I never dreamed they would do such a thing. I made them bring him I, he hasn’t said BOO since. Everyone of them had their ammunitions ready to fire at him tonight---pillows flew in every direction. He makes a noise exactly like a dog and one of the boys who is wounded and can hardly move hollers out, “How much do they have to pay for your license?” and “Why didn’t the King let Kaiser Bill use him as a target?” Funny, you’d die at their expressions.

Write to me often, and when you get this read it to all as I can’t write everything two or three times.

I am fine, I hope everyone else is. Call Kittie up and give her my love, am going to write her a long letter very soon.

Wasn’t it awfully sad about Leita? I wish you would send Kittie some flowers for Christmas from us both or if not, then it is her anniversary Jan. 1st, just let her know I remembered it. Will write her so she will get it about then, poor old soul.

Hope to hear from you all real often, letters are better than food.

A Merry Xmas to all. Sorry I won’t be there. Don’t feel sorry for me ‘cause I am having it pretty soft, and heaps of fun.

Tell Sally and Al to write to me. BOOBS!!

…..Mary I.

memories of mamie i

Tissy wrote this and sent it to me a few years back -- it never made it to the old website but here it be now.

Memories of Mamie I. and Horseneck Beach, circa 1948-1954

Mamie I. was our dear summer nanny -- Mary Isabelle Leonard -- a wonderful, round Auntie with blue and white seersucker dresses (probably made by Aunt Stevie), little canvas hats and white sneakers with her nylons knotted at the knees! To hell with the varicosities!

These are memories from numerous summers when she would take Tissy, Roozie, Susie, and Johnny down to the duplex for hours and days of excitement -- but never sisters and brothers together. Too much bickering!!! And of course she liked the boys best! I can remember at age 10 being made to strip on the side porch, cleaning our feet in the basin, and Mamie would pour water over us before we entered the house...humiliating at 10 for this little girl! She also made me wear just boy's pants down on the beach and water -- no halter! "Oh for heavens sakes, Tissy, you have nothing to show anyway!" But those were just the silly embarrassing memories; the most important part of our summer was going to Horsneck and being with family and friends, the Coopers -- teachers from Attleboro -- who rented the cottages. The kids were all about our ages -- Tykie, Ginny and Paul were my age. Tykie and I were great friends, and played paper dolls with old Sears catalogs. Each of us would choose a whole family of people and then cut out all kinds of clothes, shoes, etc. for each of them; then we would furnish their houses with the pages from the furniture and household section -- hours and hours of fun! Then, of course, we grew up and combed the beach for boys!

No one has had a shampoo until Mamie I. gives it to you! Water in your eyes, ears, lemon juice and pulp as a rinse, to make your hair shine. Then the drying was the best experience. She practically rubbed your hair off your head and then took the towel and cleaned your ears!

Packing up Mamie I. in May from Halcyon Farm, Lakeville, was wonderful fun for all of us kids. My Papa, Uncle Lukie, was the man in charge of packing -- he was a master at that. I have a picture of the truck backed right up to the front door, and trunk after trunk, basket after basket, being loaded and secured on the flat bed. Everything secured with clothesline! Wah-Wah and Raymond were there to help, too. Uncle Lukie was also the one who would rush down and pack Mamie up in a hurricane and bring her home.

No matter how old you were .... you must REST AFTER LUNCH! How I remember the heat in those front bedrooms...resting for one hour and sweating like a pig. We needed a swim after that, but not until 2:00 PM, and only when Mamie was sitting down on the beach in her canvas deck chair. "Only go out to you knees, or you will have to come in." Rules, of course, were most important so we would all be safe -- how in the world could Mamie have saved us?

Remember the Cushman truck? It backed up in the little driveway at the back of the cottage -- it was loaded with breads, and those wonderful filled cookies that were made with oatmeal and dates. I am sure the Cushman driver loved Mamie I.

What would we have done without her? It was such a special summer to go to Horseneck and we owned the place, we thought. The trip down was so picturesque, the excitement of driving by Lincoln Park, smelling the honeysuckle on the roadside all the way down. Delightful and delicious, and Mamie's food was beyond compare.