RV- How about the Hanging at Springdale Crossing?
Well, [the railroad company] wanted to close [off Springdale Avenue] and just use the Dedham Street crossing. But they never got it. They'd build a barricade, you know, a fence across [the road] and fast as they'd build it up then [the townspeople] would tear it down.
RV- So they'd come back the next day and the road would be open again?
Well it went on .. I think it was something that they attempted more than one year. That man [the hanging effigy] I think was the president of the RR..at that time. It wasn't called the New Haven RR you know it was called ...Woonsocket Branch of the New England RR? It's what went through Needham.
I don't know what his name was. That's Higgins Store. Well, you see... that says.. Beware of the Engine or something or other. I don't think this is clear enough so you [can see]..It was [taken in] a rainstorm [by my father].. That's the carryall that they went down in...
An effigy of the president of the railroad hangs from
the RR
sign over Springdale Avenue. It is barely visible just to the
right of the telephone pole in front of the slanted roof edge.
Dorrie Hovey's father drove his horse and carryall wagon
down from Main Street and took this photograph
in a rainstorm. Dorothea Hovey
Photograph
Charles Damrell in his red Jackson touring car in back
of his house on Main Street. Dorothea Hovey
Photograph
I think 1906 was the first year my father had a car. He had a Jackson two cylinder opposed engine ..
[Later, Vivian and I] had a little Hupmobile...
RV-Was it smaller than the other cars??
Oh yes, it was smaller than these miniature cars and the tank on the back held seven gallons of gas. One year we.. drove to NJ.. We got there on one tank of gas...
RV- Tell me about the Clancy boys on Strawberry Hill.
(Laughs)
Oh, well, before we had a fire department there was a fire that ravaged the..ridge..that whole line along there...between Westwood and Dover. It burned three days and three nights.. and some people thought they were never would stop it, and I suppose in the boggy part it must have gotten way down into peat you know and burned.
Well, when ...the church bells [fire alarm] rang..I grabbed my old woolen skirt and the broom and pail and went out in the street and flagged a ride [to Strawberry Hill] . I don't know with who.. somebody..that was going to the fire. The house that Mrs. Arthur Adams has now was owned by Alice Woodward at that time and.. I went up to Alice's house and helped her carry..big oblong wash boilers, you know, that have a handle on each end.. old fashioned ones that we used to scald.. the clothes in.
We'd fill that wash boiler with water and carry it down from her kitchen to the edge of where the woods started [at] a stonewall. And the men would come up there with their .. I guess they called them Johnson pumps...It was just a milk can with a device that you put into the milk can and put your foot on a [stirrup]... and pumped...you know.. And that's where we carried the water for them to fill up the milk can so they could keep on fighting the fire. I was there all day til late afternoon....
And the Clancy* brothers lived up the lane like Stawberry Hill Street extension. Well... beyond where Wilsondale starts. And they came down to the house that's next above Richard Hale's ... I think there was somebody named Brown that lived there.. and Mr. Hale came out with a contraption that was like a barrel on wheels..
He.. thought it was a device he could use to get water.. to the men who were fighting the fire. Well, I guess the wheels hadn't been soaked for a long time and they were all dried out and he just got it out in the road... I think with water in it... and the wheels collapsed.
And I can't remember what it was that the Clancy boys had to say but they had something to say about it that was funny.. Very funny.. and everybody that was there just roared laughing...And Richard was telling them that they ought to be up there working.. and they were giving him their side of the story. They had something else to do. (..laughs..)
[*RV Note- The Clancy boys were my great uncles!]