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Mrs. Marie Hagerty
Paper 4
STATE MASSACHUSETTS
NA LE OF 6ORKER EMILY B. MOORE
ADDRESS WORCESTER) MASSACHUSETTS
SUBJECT LIVING LORE
DATE OF INTERVIEW June 15, 1939
AL CF INFORLANT 1TRS. MARIE HAGGERTY
ADDRESS WORCESTER) MASS.
7/1/3i
-1.
Name: zany B. Moore Assignments Werceatott
Title: Living Lore Topic: Mrs. Marie BaggertY
Pager 4,
*I'm very glad you came today, for I haven't been
out of the house since you came last time. What, with theweather so bad
and me so scart of fallin', and John not workin', poor John, he's 'bout
to his wits lend. He has a fight most every two weeks, but in betwix he
should train, and he can't do his pacin' with the ground so bad. With
things like they is, it gives a body lots of time to think, and jest
today I was thinkin' how Pa and me, no matter how bad the weather was,
we'd go ice fishin' down at Doherty Pond. My goodness, we used to ketch
fish enough for the neighborhood, and it was fun, too. We had a boat-
house right by the pond; Pa built it hisself, and it was right cosy. We
had a stove in there, right in the middle, and summer times we'd cook on
it, and winter times seams like everybody for miles around would change
their skates, and the like there. Well, we'd go down on his days off,
and he'd make a fire and /'d set there and knit, or mend, and keep my eyes
on the tilts, and he'd busy hisself, tinkerin' around with this or that.
When the 'tilt' would drop, I'd say, 'Pa, you got a. bite.' and away held
run, arop everything, and come back with a fish, sometimes as long as
his arm. Oh, yes, he'd have a bottle of something to 'nip' at, but that
was half the fun, for poor Pa would never have a drip in the house, for
he was a-fear'd the boys might get the habit on account of him4 them days
we'd have to ourselves, and nobody bothered us, and we'd stay there till
dark, and then we'd go home. 1Twarent far, and by that time the children
would be in for the night, and we'd have supper home, and then to bed.
-2
Names Zmily B. Moore
Title: Living Lore
Assignments Worcester
Topic: Mrs. Marie BaKKOrtY
Paper 4
Pa always felt better the next day, after his fishing day. It give him
time to rest up, and get the air at the same time.
*Its fanny 'bout children, ain't it? I was thinking about
Kitty, my married daughter. You know Kitty had the best of all my children,
and she was sweet girl. Course I didn't like her marrying a Jew, but
Aaron is a fine man, and I've nothing against him, but the first two years
she was married, I didn't see nothin' of her, to speak of, but since the
second° aby came, she comes here a lot, or some of us,. is always down
there. I was thinking this morning, to myself, gI wonder if its be-
cause she wants me to help her mind the children, and if it is, well,
I dunno.1 Well, mebbe you're right; mebbe she didn't think IgOaron
around, but he's a nice boy, and makes a good husband, and better than
a lot of her own kind might be.
"Now, I don't think you'd call them superstitions in my
day, for everybody did about the same thing, and I'm sure nobody thought
they were any different. Well, let's see; I well remember when I was
about 13 or 14, what I heard my uncle say to my aunt. You know them
days you'd have, mebbe sausages, ham, salt pork, or stew -beef for you
heavy meal during the week, but Sundays we always had chichen; not so
much roast chicken, out boiled or fried in different ways. Well, as
far back as I could think, near to that time, we'd been having chicken
during the week, and while I wondered, just a little, I satisfied my-
self with the thought, 'mebbe they expected company, but they didn't
come'. Well, one night I was laying on the lounge, and I suppose they
thought I was asleep, or meboe they didn't think I was about. My aunt
.3.
Names Emily B. Moore Assignment: Worcester
Titles Living Lore Topic: Mrs. Hagerty
Paper 4
was scolding my uncle for killing so many chickens, and the bens, too.
I'll never forget what my uncle said. He said, 'As long as there's
one of themIll hens crowing, they'll find their way to the pot.' Next
day, for it bothered me most of the night, why alien had to be killed
just because shw crowed, I asked my aunt what my uncle meant. First
she didn't want to tell me. Well, after I hagged at her for a spell,
she told me. It was on account of me, for all my days, as long as I
could remember, I liked to whistle; I never sang; anc my uncle didn't
mind it when was little, but when I started growing up, he said he'd
have to do something about it, for
'41. whistling lady and a crowing hen
Is sure to come to some bad end.**
There wasn't much for me to do then, but to atop whistling, for I
didn't want him to kill off all the hens. He didn't mind the cackling,
but sometimes they made a. noise like crowing.
*Now, mebbe you'd call things like that, and some other
things, superstitions. or instance, whenever my uncle would blow out
a. candle, he'd say, '114 the Lord send us light from Heaven.' No, I'm
not superstitious but some things are facts, and I know itt Why, take
'breaking a looking -glass' that means bad luck, and I know it. Why,
the year poor Pa died, my own Bill was target practicing, and he sent a
bullet right through the looking -glass over the sink, in the kitchen.
It missed me by inches. Well, that very year, Pa was sent to the hos-
pital; Marie got married, had a baby still -born, and was divorced; Bill
was in the hospital for 11 months; John joined the Marines and was away
Name: rally B. Moore Assignment: Worcester
Title: Living Lore Topic: Mrs. Haggerty
Paper 4
for three years; Pa died in the hospital, never getting back home at all;
Kitty married a Jew; why, goodness me, I had bad luck for seven years
from the time that looking -glass was broken. They say you can break the
spell if you move out of the house you live in at the time. I owned that
house, but with bad luck piling up on ma, I sold it at a loss, for I didn't
know what else was bound to happen before the spell was broken. I'm net
superstitious about a lot of things, though, like the dead, and that, but
I wouldn't like anyone to make light of things. Well., such as, raising
an umbrella in the house, or the like. I wouldn't call them superstitions,
just habits. No, I wouldn't let a visitor comb my hair; my aunt always
said it brought sickness, and, of course, when I think of that, I wouldn't
want to bring sickness to my children; for me, I wouldn't think of myself,
but I look out for them. Well, yea, I don't like to pick up a glove, if
I drop it, as I am going out. No, it wouldn't worry me, but it might be
a 'slight' disappointment."
The little lady was quiet, thinking no doubt.of something
in the days when *Pa* was alive. She was so silent I thought she had
fallen asleep until she spoke suddenly of a neighbor who had died. From
that we drifted to the subject of funerals.
*I do remember quite well the way they had funerals in
New Brunswick, and I know they always lasted for dawn and days, but I
thought the reason for that was so that relatives could get to see their
dead, but when I think back, it seems to me that &good many took a 'wake'
Name: Emily B. *sore Assignment: 14rcester
Title: Living Lore Topic: mrs. MAMA Haggerty
Paper 4,
with plenty of food and drink. I remember once when some of my family
died, people came for miles around and it was a custom to put baked po-
tatoes in the coffin, and before we went to bed, for I was a little girl,
they would have prayers, and then all the people would bawl right out.
Oh, yes, they'd cry and cry and sometimes become hysterical. Land sakes,
when I think of it, the ones who bawled the loudest and made the most
fuss wasn't even any relation to the corpse. Manys the time when some-
oneld die, that is neighbors and the like, that lived out from our place,
in the country more, my aunts and uncle would take about everything they
could lay hands. on. Once when someone died that didn't amount to much
my aunts didn't want to get anything ready, but my uncle made them bake
up bread and -pies and roast meat and the like and take it. He said that
'soul' needed 'lightin' through' the same as anyone else, and just be-
cause they was poor, they needed more than anyone else. Oh, yes, they'd
drink and smoke and set up all night telling wild stories, and each one
telling more lies than the others. My aunts would always chase me off
to bed. Yes, if we went to a wake at anyone's house, it was expected
that we stay all night. The men folks would set around in the kitchen,
takin' turns to set with the corpse, and manys the time I heard of some
wild carryin's on. Some one said that once the men got feelin' good and
decided to take a corpse op to set with them. My aunts said it was non-
sense, that the ones they said done it, was scart to death of a. corps.
and wouldn't even go close enuf to see if it was cold, let alone 'tech'
Names roily B. 'Wore Assignment: Worcester
Titles Living Lore.
Topics Mrs. HaagertY
Paper 4,
it to bring it out of its coffin.
“You know the Irish young men were all light-hearted and
full of fun, and always playint tricks on people. Once there was a
young fellow that was tellin' ghost stories at a wake, and he had the
people just about believing in them, and then he sneaked out with a
pretext of coverin' up his horse, but what does he do but go and get
a sheet and put over him, and came aneakin' up on the people at the wake.
Well, the women like -t' -die, and some of the men was scart to death,
but he met his match. One of the young men that didn't believe in 'hosts,
picked up a fire iron and hit him overthe head, and that cured him of his
pranks. No, I wasn't there, but my Aunt Bess was, and she said the 'ghost'
was knocked out flatter 'n a flounder. Its almost sinful to say, but I
liked goin' to funerals and wakes when I was a child, for I got out of
the work at home, and I saw all my friends and relations. 1.11, after
I went to Boston I didn't know so many people, so I didn't go to many
wakes, and then when I did begin to go again, they wasn't like the old
wakes we had at home. In Boston at wakes, all you did was go in for a
prayer and come out, but the men would set around with their long pipes
and smoke and eat.
wOh, yes, indeed, there was lots of stories told when I
was young, out most of them a body wouldn't tell a child now, I used to
set and listen to them till I shook so much you'd think I had the palsy,
ti
and Iybe too scart to move a limb. Why, usually they was about head -less
horsemen and head -less riders, that rode about in the moonlight, and
Mamas gaily B. Moor* Assignment: Worcester.
Title: Living Lore
Topic: Mrs. BagtertY
Paper 4
and, stopped travellers on lonely roads, and marked them, or gave them
messages from the dead, and many times the one that was tellin' the
stories would say they'd seen him and talked with him, and got sech and
sech a. message, and if they done what the head -less horseman told them,
they's alright, but if they didn't, he'd come after him again. I re-
member once I was riding with my uncle at night and as we went by an old
mill, somethin, white blew up in the horse's face, and he jumped on his
hind feet, and I was so scart that I crawled down in the bottom of the
wagon and I wouldn't come out even after we got in our own barn. I told
my uncle what I thought it was, and from then on, he wouldn't let them
tell any more stories in our house."