by Dorothea Damrell Hovey
INTRODUCTION
Dorothea Damrell Hovey was born in 1888 and was 88 years old when I talked with her in 1975. Her mind was clear and her memories were carefully stated.
Her family originally lived on Hancock Street on Beacon hill and summered here on Main Street from April to November starting the year she was born. She came here every year as a youngster, and after her grandfather died she and her family moved out here permanently. She went to school in Boston by train but also attended Dover schools for a few spring and fall terms when she was little.
Her father bought land in Dover because her older sister was sickly and her mother did not want to summer on the Vinyard with a sick child and a new baby. Her father commuted to work by train.
She married Vivian Hovey of Dover and they had no children. They lived on Main Street in the family home and later she moved to a smaller home on Haven Street. Vivian was an architect who worked in Boston and also designed several houses in Dover, including the Frost's house that was moved fom the corner of Centre and Walpole Streets in 1975 to become the School Administration Building at the Regional School property on Farm Street. Vivian also served on the Dover Board of Fire Engineers.
In our conversations I noticed that Dorrie often used technical architectural and construction terms to describe buildings. Clearly such talk had been common throughout her life, first with her father and grandfather who ran the City of Boston Building Department and later with her architect husband Vivian. She used words like architrave, plinth, pilaster, lintel and joist.
I first talked with Dorothea Damrell Hovey about old Dover on May 18, 1975. I did not tape that conversation but kept handwritten notes. Later I taped two separate sessions with her: June 29, 1975 for 90 minutes and November 9, 1975 for 1 hour 35 minutes. Not all of our conversations are transcribed here. I have tried to select the most interesting, relevant and enlightening parts.
In combining four separate cassettes I sometimes had to combine and insert her comments relating to the same subjects. I also deleted repetitive and ambiguous information ... and inserted words or phrases [in brackets] for clarity. Otherwise, I retained her own words and expressions.
Clearly, Dorothea Damrell Hovey was different from the typical Dover farmer's daughter at the end of the 1800's, but her memories give clear first hand information about what life was like here in the country in those early days. Some of her detailed recollections about life on Main Street and at the 'Corner' are the earliest and only first-hand information we have.
Dorrie Hovey had a continuing interest in the town of Dover and contributed much to it over the years, She rolled bandages for the Red Cross in WW I, served as the first woman Ballot Clerk and helped the first women voters with their ballots. She was an Air Raid Warden in WW II, and in her younger days often grabbed her old skirt and broom and raced off to fight wildfires in town.
On her death she gave the major part of her estate to the Dover Library, a source of continuing benefit to the people of Dover.
Dick Vara
July 11, 1998
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