Annie S. 

When we first moved to Boston in the early 50’s we first lived in Cambridge, then Roxbury and later again back in Cambridge. My Dad had started work with George W. Ellis Electrical construction but later hired on with Cambridge Electric Light, the power utility, and he worked there the rest of his working years. We rented the second floor of a three-decker at 45 Sacramento Street. The house was one of three adjoining places owned by an old Antigonisher who was of my Grandfather’s generation and in fact Grandpa had worked for him for several years in the past as he was a building contractor and my Grandpa a carpenter in those early days.

John MacGillivary was the name of this gent and there are legion tales of him for another time. He was a very tall and strong man who was well over 100 years then and who died at 105 after a fall from a ladder when painting a flagpole in preparation for the fourth of July. That alone gives one an idea about “Uncle John” as we knew him.

Now John had 4 nieces who lived on Sacramento Street. Three of them: Annie, Bessie and Mary-Margaret lived upstairs from him in a two story house, two apartments. After his death they moved into the larger downstairs flat and let the upstairs as Annie had been willed the house.

Annie was a widow whose husband, also a Downeaster and who had been the building inspector in Cambridge, had died many years before and she had raised one daughter who was off and married by then. Bessie and Mary-Margaret were spinsters and lived in with Annie. They were all impossibly old to me then…perhaps 65 to 75.

The “girls” had moved to the “Boston States” young in life as was the wont of so many in their times. Their mother, I am told, was quite a droll old gal and was said to have remarked one time that she had…”four girls in the states and one in Indiana.” …as Indiana was outside the lexicon and experience of the old people when it came to America. Boston was the place.

Mary-Margaret was very private and we seldom if ever saw her when we went there and I have no idea of her story. It is fun to imagine her as the victim of some unrequited and unforgotten love pining her days away in her room; but she may simply have been dotty.

Bessie on the other hand had been “in service” for years with several old-money families from Boston in succession and had traveled the world as a companion to the elders of the various families. Girls from Nova Scotia were in big demand for service in those times as they were clean, honest and hard-working. She was quite well off as her patrons had gifted her considerably and had helped her to invest. After her death she left a rather considerable sum for the times to St FX. The girl’s family name was Sommers and they had an uncle, a clergyman, who was at one time president of the University.; Dr. Sommers. Hence the endowment to the college.

When I knew her Bessie suffered terribly from Rheumatoid arthritis and she was very crippled - her hands severely knotted and deformed. She loved card playing and struggled to hold her cards in her twisted hands but soldiered on anyway. She had spent huge sums on attempts at a cure for her affliction to no avail but she remained cheerful and tried to get back to Nova Scotia for the summers as often as possible in spite of her incapacity.

Annie was quite a girl in her own right. After her husband passed on she had to find a means to support herself and a lone daughter. I expect Uncle John helped her at least with a place to stay. At any rate she set up as a seamstress and was a crackerjack, and it was not too long before she had a very affluent clientele, perhaps in part through the offices of Bessie who worked then with the wealthy and perhaps got her her first start. Her talent carried the day from there and the last time I saw her back in 69 or so (she died at 95 soon after) she was well in her 90’s and still made the occasional dress for special and favored clients. Cabots, Lodges, Kennedys.

Annie made mostly wedding dresses and gowns for debutante balls and such. She did fabulous handwork, beading pearls, hand done French seams and other real quality work, and it was not at all rare to see Rolls Royces parked in front of her place as she worked out of home and clients would be there for fittings and discussing designs.

The other sister, Dolena, lived across the street in an apartment. She too had been widowed at an early age and had been left with three boys to raise and raise them she did. They all did fine. One an accountant, the second had a fuel oil business and the youngest was an engineer in the then infancy of computer electronics.

Now the girls were great pals of my Mom and Dad (the old families were neighbors outside of Antigonish) and they, or we, visited weekly, especially in the Winter, when games of Auction 45’s was the order of the evening just as it used to be out in the country homes as recently as 15 years ago where we lived at Cape George. Cards, tea, music, recitations, conversation and a visit were the entertainment in the country homes before the unifying and destructive stultifying force of television sapped the life out of communities and left a graying indistinct remnant in place of a real culture.

The Sommers girls were fun and funny and it was a good piece of my own formation as a kid to be around older folks from time to time; something which is missed by many young people today to their considerable detriment.

Well it happened that Dolena died rather suddenly in about 55. So this was the cause of considerable sadness and of course the Downeaster network was very much in evidence in the Boston area those times and funerals of folks from Antigonish were pretty big events in the area so there was lots to do; and Mom and Dad pitched in as was the custom. Picking up people at the rail station and generally helping with the arrangements.

Wakes were a big event. And as I was about 10 at the time it was the first time I was to go to such a thing. Now I am sure there was some discussion at home as to whether I was old enough for this sort of thing but after all the girls were close to us and Dolena had doted on me quite a bit so I was off to the funeral parlour one evening.

We went very early, long before the opening time, because Mom was driving Annie and Mary-Margaret who of course did not drive nor have a conveyance and must never be late at a time like this.

Well we stood around the funeral home, myself quite nervous about the strangeness and the setting. Mom and Annie were standing near the remains, laid out and surrounded by flowers, in the gloaming light of the perfumed room. Mom remarked on the dress that poor Dolena was decked out in, said something inane and nice as is the case at funerals and wakes,  and Annie remarked that she had made it in great haste and dispatch. Annie said…” I came here to the undertakers yesterday morning and if you could have seen the dress they had Dolena laid out in!! WELL SHE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CAUGHT DEAD IN A DRESS LIKE THAT!!! So I had to rush home and make something fitting.”

This was in earnest and innocence and Mom had to turn away to stop from laughing out loud.

There is some fun and humour in most any situation it seems.

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