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Ella Bartlett Flew England
Gentility vn the Down Grade
No13
STATE
i,:ALE OF LKiR
ADDRESS
LATE
SUB,JECT
it OE' IF:Fortii,AIA
ADDhESS
LASSAOhTIS
LOUISE BASSETT
BRouhFIELD, icASAonuslTS
JAI1LARY 16, 1939
LIVIiqG LORE
LtLLA BARTLETT
Bh,oKinl-LuJ, 1,.ASSAohUSITTs
Liss Ella Bartlett has lived in the town
of Brookfield all her long life, her family
belonged to the town's aristocracy and "Uss
Ella's ideas are those of the land and f“ctory
owners the gentility of a mall Lassachusetts
town. To hear Liss Lila tell the story of
Brookfield's transition from a busy mill
town of the 19th century to an ola-fashioned
sleepy village of the 20th, is to know how
the gentility felt about it. Brookfield is
Ella Bartlett's town; she is proud of it
aria loyal to it. But she must feel that
Brookfield, like Ella Bartlett herself, has
come a long way from the faraway days when
Ella was an adored daughter of a leading
family in bustling, prosperous Brookfield.
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Aasignment Brookfield
Topic: Eligi Bartlett New
Ensiland Gentility
Miss Ella Bartlett was just calming out of the postoffice as I
was going in.
"Wait a minute and I'll walk home with you." I called out,
amazed at my own forwardness. I have known Miss Ella for all of
the twenty -odd years I've lived in Brookfield, but never until
recently have I talked with her at any length. Even our new
"friendliness" is formal and I was a bit aghast at my boldness
in calling out in such a casual manner. If Miss. Ella minded, she
did not show it. I don't think she did mind, although she probably
thought I wasn't very ladylike. Miss Ella has seemed to enjoy our
recent chats although she probably will never admit it to me. There
are few people who care to listen to Miss Ella's stories of the
"old days" or to her opinions of the present. I have won favor be-
cause I will listen.
"Uri' t it too bad the McWilliams' are leavingtown," I said,
as we started down the street. "They're such fine people and al-
ways so enthusiastic and active in town affairs. Brookfield needs
more people like them, don't you think?"
"Well, I don't really know the McWilliams. Of course I always
bow to both Mr. and Mrs. and I was on the church committee with her,
and I called on them when they first came to town because they were
my neighbors, but I can't say I know them. They always seemed nice
though really nicer than most newcomers."
"You know Miss Ella, that's something I've wanted to ask about
Bane Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
kngland Gentility
for a long time. Out in the West where I come from people welcome
'newcomers', as you call them, right away. But here you have to
spend half your life in a town before the natives accept you. The
old settlers don't seem to like anybody who wasn't born and brought
up here."
"'Well, I wouldn't say that, but of course you do have to be
careful about new people canin' to town. Land, you don't know what
they are or what they did before they came. In the old days, we
didn't have so many new people movint in and out, that is not among
the people I knew. Of course the mill people who worked in the shoe
factories, they came and went, but the old families knew each other so
well. It's so much nicer when you know a persons' family and know
that your family knew them and liked them, don't you think? I think
it's terrible the way these young folks today go off and marry people
they never heard of. The girls nowadays don't mind a bit what a
young man's background is. They marry foreigners and everything
and no one seens to mind. I remember when I was agirl Emmy Smith
went to Providence summers to visit her aunt, and one year when she
came home she was engaged to be married. We was all excited to see
what her beau looked like and we planned a great big party for the
two of them when he came to visit her. Well, my land, were we sur-
prised when he came. He was a German or Swede or something, and his
folks lived in some foreign country. BA was a nice looking young man
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
Ingland Gentility
tall and light -haired and kinda handsome, but after all For
myself I'd like to know more about a man's family. It's so funny
the way people have changed since I was a. girl".
"I suppose Brookfield has changed a lot since then too, Miss
Bartlett?"
"Changed? Why my dear you wouldn't know it was the same town
at all. You know Brookfield was a great shoe town once there was
four or five mebbe it was six --shoe factories here. They were
going all the time too. You see, they got started during the Civil
War)and in the 1870's and 1880'sxthey was doing wonderful business.
Brookfield was real lively then. Main Street was as bustling as
as well, as Worcester is. Of course a lot smaller, but busy as
could be. We had a lot of nice stores then. It wasn't like today
when there's only those chain stores and the postoffice and the drug
store. We had a fine dry goods store, real up-to-date, a men's out-
fit store, stationery stores, and I think there was three drug stores.
And we had a grand millinery store too. I can remember my father
saying that the woman who ran the millinery store told him she made
over three hmdred dollars in one week, one time, and that some
weeks was even better. Everyone intown went to her to get their hats
made. And hats were expensive in those days with plumes and veils
and flowers. You didn't buy one for two dollars like some folks do
today. When you bought a hat, it was a nice hat and it would last.
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
England (gentility
Most folks had their hats made over mebbe half a dozen times with
new feathers and flowers and things.
"We were a real dressy town in those days. There was a lot of
strangers cane to town and they always used to say how nice the Brook-
field woman dressed. The main road from Worcester to Springfield ran
right through the center of town then, and the two hotels were always
full. Then too, people used to drive over here from Spencer and
places like that on a Sunday to have dinner at the hotel. It was
quite a treat. Brookfield was awful busy in those days."
"You'd never believe it today. What happened?"
"What happened?" Ella's eyes snapped and her little figure
stiffened as she answered in a colder voice than I have ever heard
her use, and Ella's voice can be mighty cold. "What happened? Why
there was a couple of those strikes. Those awful strikes". The words
came out like epithets. *Some poor fools in this town didn't know
when they was well off. They weren't contented to have a decent job
in the mill working for decent people. They asked for more money and
they didn't want to work so many hours."
"Well, you can't blame them for wanting to improve working con-
ditions. After all, they had to work pretty long hours in those days
and they didn't get so much money." With every word, I was wondering
if I was forfeiting a new friendship.
"They got enough money. A lot of tam spent half they got getting
drunk and acting up. They weren't workin, any longer hours than most
-5
Name Louise Basiett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
England Gentility
folks were in those days and they was used to it too, so I don't see
why they got so riled up over it. But then, it wa'n't the workers'
fault, that is, not all of it. There was some man who cams here
from somewhere I can't recollect now where he did come from. He
was Irish anyway and all the Irish who worked in the mills listened
to hiss tories. A lot of the others listened too. It was terrible
the way he got them all excited. The men who owned the mills were
real nice men, realntlemen. They told their htlp they couldn't
give them any more money, but this man he was a a a
"Union organizer?"
"Yee, I guess that was it. He wanted them to get together in
a union and be toldthem the man who owned the mill could pay them
more money. So they went on a strike. It was 4errible time. All
those people out of work and name of 'em had much money. You know
they were mill workers; the kind who aren't very thrifty and don't
get ahead much. Course, I don't know much about it all except what
I heard the men say. My cousin used to talk a lot about what fools
the men were to be out striking and losing so much pay."
"Did they win the strike?"
"Indeed, they didn't. They lost their jobs for good and all too.
I guess nobody thought what did happen would happen. Mebbe they
wouldn't a -gone on strike, if they had. Anyway, the men who owned
the eillsclosed up tight and they was never opened again. People
thought at first it was just for the time -being, and that the mills
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
Mngland Gentility
would be open right away, but they never did. The man who had been OM
strike had to leave town and get jobs in Worcester or sanewhere else.
It was just as good some of than went. They weren't no good to the
town."
"But Miss Bartlett, it must have been rather bad for the town to
have so many people leave at once. Didn't any of the influential men
in town try to settle the strike?"
"Guess there wasn't anything could be dons, though I have heard
some say that the men who run the mills should have been willint
to give in a little and let the help have more money. I don't
really know though, for my cousin, who knew a lot about those things,
always said it was the help's fault, that ttkey was too stubborn. It
did make a terrible difference in Brookfield. So many people moved
away and the mill buildings just stood there idle. After awhile, some
of them was torn down, others were just left to fall apart. It was
terrible. I can't see why soma one didn't do somethini. They was
nice buildings too, big, high ones with rows of windows all around.
The people who worked in 'em always seaned contented enough to me.
Many's the time I've seen the girls goin' back and forth to work in
the mills arm in arm, laughing and talkinl. The amused to play
games and have a lot of fun in the old pastures around the. mills.
I knew some of the men who worked there and a few of the girls,
though most of the girls who was in my crowd didn't go to work. They
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
England Gentility
stayed to hone. But some of the men in our crowd used to work there
bosses and skilled shoe men."
"Brookfield never recovered from the strikes did it? When I
came here over twenty years ago, I remedber they were still talking
about how the town wasn't what it used to be and they hoped to get
more manufacturing here."
"Well, it may not be so good for the town not to have manu-
facturing, but it certainly makes it a lot nicer place to live. Look
at the way some of these towns around here look Spencer and Ware
all dirt and loads of foreign people. ;Id rather have Brookfield look
the way it does. It's a pretty town, don't you think?"
"Yes, a very pretty town even after all the damage from the
hurricane, but I often wonder, Miss Bartlett, what's going to become
of Brookfield. McLaurin and Gavitts,(the two small factories left in
town) are just keeping up. There isn't much farming. No new blood
ever moves in and the young people get out as soon as they graduate
from high school. Violet's Brookfield going to be like in a few years,
if something doesn't change?"
expected an outburst. Zustead there was silence. I glanced to
see if Miss Ella was too indignant to speak. There was an odd look
in her dark eyes
but not of anger sorrow, rather, and bewilder-
ment. But her words were characteristic of Miss Ella keeping her chin
up.
Name Louise Bassett
Title Living Lore
Assignment Brookfield
Topic Ella Bartlett New
England Gentility
"I guess Brookfieldell pull through. This depression and this
money sponding that's goint an is enough to ruin anytowal. Land
sakes, if they don't figger things out pretty soon down to Washington
and decide what they want to do and de it, I don't know where we'll
be. I never saw so much jumping around first one way and then another.
My idea is to decide to do something and do it, no matter what folks
think. My father always used to say, Make up your mind Ella, and keep
it that way.'
"There's nothing wrong with Brookfield. It just needs some of
the people who used to live here. People today don't like to live in
small tovons anymore. They can't get settled down, have to be movint
around and seem' new things all the time. People want too much out
of life today that's why Brookfield isn't like it was once. I wish
you'd known this town when I was a girl. There wasn't a better place
anywhere. Nice people lived here then. They were proud of the town
and kept it up. Now they don't cazi snap. The other day there was
a couple of children little boys playin' that football game over
to the common. I heard one say, 'Gee, say ain't this samethin', you
can kick your football thirty yards without hittin' a tree', and the
other one said 'You colaldn't do that before the hurricanell Can you
imagine, little children not being brought up to feel bad when our
beautiful trees are ruined. What'swrong with Brookfield is that it
hasn't enough people who have who have Othought for a horrible
moment Miss Ella was going to say "guts") who have gumption".