“Why are you selling poppies, Mommy?”

My Son asked me the other day.

“Do you make the poppies, Mommy?

And what do people pay?”

I thought before I answered him,

This little boy of seven.

“Mommy’s selling poppies, dear,

To honor our soldiers up in heaven.”

“The poppy is the nation’s memorial flower

in the fields of France it grows,

Over the graves of our solders that died

In the war - most everyone knows.”

My son sat very deep in thought

With the answers I was giving,

“Not only do we honor the dead, my son,

We also remember the living.”

“Many of the soldiers went off to war

And some came back it’s true,

But they are ill in hospitals now

Making these poppies for me and for you.”

“They are the disabled veterans

You’ll hear more about some day.

Some are in wheelchairs or on crutches,

And others in their beds just lay.”

“And those who are able to use their hands

Make poppies with crepe paper and wire.

The stem is green, green as the grass,

And the blossom is red, redder than fire.”

“The money Mommy receives for the poppies

Goes back to the soldiers who are ill,

And it makes them feel almost better

Earning money for them is a thrill.”

“In eighty hospitals in forty states

These poppies are now being made.

American Legion Auxilliary gives the material

To these soldiers so brave, so unafraid.”

“Gosh, Mommy, that’s quite a story,

How can I do my share?”

I looked at this little boy of mine,

He seemed too young to care.

“Why there’s two things that you can do.”

I said as I held him oh so near.

“You can buy a poppy son

And you can pray, my dear.”

“Wear the poppy over your heart,

honoring the veterans as we pray.

May God bless and keep us all

On this Memorial Day.”

Why are you selling Poppies, Mommy?

By Clifton (Jerry) Noble, Sr.

The optometrist for whom I worked in Fresno California nicknamed his wife “Hester” because he thought she was TOO careful about money matters. My mother, Minnie E. Noble, managed my teen age earnings VERY well so I nicknamed her “Hester” in imitation of the doctor. After returning to Mas-sachusetts in 1945 we sold show cards to stores in Springfield and Westfield in addition to my work for the Westfield Athenaeum. In October 1947 I started as rodman in a survey party with the Mas-sachusetts Department of Public Works. Hester’s management of finances enabled us to buy an abandoned country schoolhouse for $800 from the town of Montgomery, remodel it and move in by April 30, 1949. There was no running water, but I dug a ten-foot deep well on adjacent land. At first we used the old school-house wood stove for heat, but finally replaced it with a pot-type oil burner which kept the house warm when we were away all day. We also acquired a 1949 Plymouth car.

My late father’s cousin, Walter D. Allyn, was Town Clerk. He, along with Selectman Myron Kelso, helped arrange purchase of the school on Carrington Road which had not yet seen electric poles and wires. My journal shows what happened day by day.

May 3, Saturday. The wood shingles on the rear schoolhouse roof did not leak, but new asphalt shingles were needed so Wal-ter’s son, Kenneth, put them on as he had promised de-spite having a bad cold. I had the same thing Friday night.

May 10, Saturday, I took the Junior Civil Engineer exam at Technical High School in Springfield. Passing can qualify one permanently as chief of survey party. I know I made one mistake in the 15 math questions. Am doubtful about some of my other answers.

Clarence and Doris Barnes have bought Mr. Duggan’s old Clark farmhouse across the road, and have done a lot to fix it up. The foundation wall and one chimney have been rebuilt and a heatolater fireplace installed. The kitchen wing was separating from the main house. That has been pulled back with a turn-buckle and solidly reattached. A cesspool has been added and the water pipe from the spring up behind our schoolhouse has been replaced.

Charles Peckham, from whom we bought our well lot, told Hester that at rate of $49 the Barnes’s tax bill is $135. Although he lives in Russell, Mr. P. owns a lot of land in Montgomery and complains that he is taxed more for his farm than some folks on Main Road are taxed for houses, barns, and land altogether. We think he paid $388 for his land.

On Sunday Mrs. Barnes walked over to talk when she saw me working on our lawn. Finally she said bluntly that she heard in Westfield that Hester was disturbed to learn that they had bought the place. I told her that Hester likes to be alone. Saying she likes to be alone is apt to be taken by some that she doesn’t like people. Mrs. Barnes says she looks forward to leaving Westfield. Neigh-bor children have begun calling her unflattering names. She has anemia, a bad leg, dark complexion and everyone (including Mrs Sykes) says she has never gotten over losing a son in the war. She

May 1952

Above: Clark (Duggan, Barnes House across Carrington Rd.

Right: Clark barn opposite schoolhouse.

Photos by the author.

said that of course Hester has had her share of trouble, but in-timated that it couldn’t compare with Mrs. B’s burden of woe. She appeared to lie in wait to catch my words and probe them for hidden meaning by remarks such as “Do you really think so?” and “What do you mean, so and so?” Such was my first impression of Mrs. Barnes.

Bill Clarke took his Grade One and Grade Two Civil Service exams the same Saturday I took my Grade III Junior Civil. He doesn’t feel secure about passing either one. He and new wife Irene have bought a place out in Leverett for $3,000. They have electricity and telephone and Bill got a dog from the SPCA. Irene doesn’t mind living in the country. Bill is taking trigonometry and Eng-lish two nights a week at Western New England College in Springfield. In remaining free time he lugs wood and works in his garden. He does well at work.

My survey party and I are cross-sectioning the big field in front of Brightside on Riverdale Road in Holyoke. A new hospital is to be built there and D. O’Connell has the grading contract. He can use what he excavates for fill on the Route 20 (eventually Mass Pike) bridge approaches. I have a big Irishman in my survey party who is very good natured and helpful. However, he talks a blue streak. He finally asked, “Jerry, what can I do to help?” With my best smile, I answered, “Shut up.”

In cooperation with Larry Clarke’s party I will do a lot of survey for what will become the Mass Pike bridge over the Con-necticut River. If two points with the exact long distance known between them are established on each shore and angles at all four points are measured precisely, then the span length across a thousand-foot-wide river can be calculated to within an eighth of an inch. This is called triangulation. After a work ramp to cof-fer dams for pier construction is built most of the way across the river it is possible, with a 200-foot steel tape, to check-measure the calculated distance and insure that prefabricated steel gird-ers of the proposed bridge will fit. Points on additional traverse lines made on shore provide accurate centerlines of each pier. When interlocking steel cofferdams shut out river water I will

lay out positions for each “pipe-like” steel pile to be driven into the river bed and filled with concrete. These support the concrete footing-slab for each pier. When pier tops are formed to proper height we set transit up on them and mark exact posi-tions for bearing plates which will support ends of steel girders. Without survey engineering none of the other construction crews could know how to make anything fit.

May 31, Saturday. This morning, while waiting for the car to be greased at Holcomb’s on Free Street, I went to the library (Westfield Athenaeum) to prac-tice in the Lang Auditorium (I have no piano.) I had been playing about a half hour when a girl came in. She said her curiosity got the better of her. She stud-ies at the Community School of Music in Pittsfield where she lives and works as accompanist for a voice teacher. She played for me including some original compositions. She did well, but, like me, needs practice and ex-perience. Hester came in at the end of the concert so I had to ask the girl’s name in order to introduce her. It was Connie Willis. She had never been to Westfield before and was here for a track meet. She came originally from Vermont. This season her last concert is next Wednesday evening at the Pittsfield Museum.

In the afternoon Uncle Ralph Emerson came up to our schoolhouse bringing granddaughter Leslie. We went hiking in the wet, wet woods up on Chester Hill.

The Southwick Time Machine presents:

The House of Hall

By Ross Haseltine

Map of Tolland

ing naked on his backside, leading authorities to conclude that something dragged him along the ground for some distance. They also believed that the killer or killers may have used Cal-vin’s suspenders to attach a weight to sink him as they were hanging loose on his body, and a piece had broken off.

Upon closer inspection, Calvin’s skull showed multiple fractures, with one side broken into many fragments driven into his brain, and his left shoulder was bruised and swollen. The rest of his body remained largely untouched, with only some sporadic bruising.

Authorities turned their at-tention to Jesse Hall Jr.

Jesse had joined in the search for Calvin, offering assis-tance and showing great interest in locating the missing man as the townsfolk combed the woods and fields around his property. However, Jesse kept making dis-paraging comments and contra-dictory statements, which were amplified when the searchers di-rected their attention to the pond; he also got highly agitated at the prospect of them dragging it.

As the searchers neared the pond, Jesse, largely unnoticed, perched himself on an incline on the west side of it. It provided the perfect vantage point where he could observe and hear ev-erything happening. And when he knew Calvin’s body would be found, he quietly fled: northbound.

A manhunt was soon underway. Fearful that his vigilante pursuers would shoot him as he trekked through the woods, Jesse cut his throat, thinking such a move would disappoint them. The self-inflicted four-inch wound, however, turned out to be superficial, and Jesse, weak from losing about a quart of blood, made his way to a house and was eventually brought to a doctor’s house. Authorities took him into custody there on Saturday, about ten miles from his home in Tolland, in the adja-cent town of Blandford.

Jesse Hall Jr.’s murder trial started in December, with Pat-rick Boise, who became a distinguished lawyer and statesman, representing the accused. Jesse offered little to his defense; speculation was that he wanted to spare the Widow Fuller of the information he had surrounding her late husband’s adul-tery, but perhaps more so, his horrific demise.

Jesse was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The governor and his council scheduled Jesse’s execution for Valentine’s Day, 1838, at the Charlestown State Prison between

ten and one o’clock.

Facing the gallows, Jesse seemed unfazed. In an attempted last-minute reprieve, Squire Boise visited Jesse at Charlestown to secure his signature on a petition for commutation. When Jesse hesitated to sign the document, Boise became provoked and reminded him that he was facing certain death. Jesse rea-soned that death was a better option, as the state prison was no place to live. Boise angrily responded that the prison was “A great deal better than any place you ever lived-in in Tolland,” and Jesse signed the paperwork. Soon after, Jesse’s punishment was commuted to imprisonment for life at hard labor.

At the time, legal scholars and others formed the opinion that had Jesse chosen not to spare the Widow Fuller of the details of her husband, he more than likely would have been found guilty of manslaughter instead of first-de-gree murder due to Calvin Fuller’s provocation.