Radio Script #1232

Little Talks on Common Things
March 2, 1980

I found rather interesting a newspaper that was brought to my attention recently. It was an issue of that old Hearst paper the Boston American, published on July 22, 1914. That was a bit more than 65 years ago and only a few weeks before what Mrs. Tuchman called “the Guns of August” were heralding the First World War. Reading the columns of that Boston paper in the peaceful summer of 1914, one would have no suspicion that before the end of another month England and Germany would enter a conflict that would eventually involve the United States. and have everyone singing “Over There. Over There. ”

Thoughts of editors and reporters on Boston Newspaper Row seemed far removed from war. Yet I well remember what was happening there at the end of August. I had just completed my first year of teaching at Hebron Academy and was spending the summer in the Boston area.

In the opening days of the war, almost every evening I joined the crowd on Washington Street eagerly reading the bulletins that were spread outside the building as news came in. At that time I had acquired in school and college a little speaking knowledge of German and I had some delightful communications there on Washington Street with officers of the German liner Vateland then interned in Boston Harbor. While naturally inclined to favor England, the United States was then officially neutral. In fact those German officers were kindly treated in Boston and most Americans of my age then considered the new war interesting but none of our business. How wrong we were became apparent three years later when a reluctant and peace-loving President Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany.

But in July 1914 this Boston paper was not concerned with war. A bronze tablet had, however, been placed in the Old North Church, commemorating another war long ago. It did not honor Americans, but was in memory of 250 British soldiers killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. Of course the paper reminded its readers that the church steeple was the place where the lanterns had alerted Paul Revere to start his famous ride.

Over in Melrose there had occurred what the paper called a riot. It involved high school students. Members of the junior class had been quizzed by school authorities and the police. and ten had been expelled from school. It seems that the outbreak occurred when juniors tried to seize and destroy the senior class banner.

Referring to what was then the new feminist movement demanding votes for women, the Boston comments did not use the word suffragette which was just coming into vogue, but used a hyphenated phrase. It said: ”Miss Minnie Mubry, one of the votes-for-women speakers in Pemberton Square, was heard to say, ‘If men go out together they call it a stag party. If they have to run this country all by themselves, without women, this must be stagnation.” Cutting as was that quip, it was equalled by a remark of an opponent of women’s suffrage who said: “I’ve heard about hen parties as well as stag parties. If this means women’s rule, it will be foul play.”

The big event of that week in July 1914, was the opening of the Cape Cod canal, greatly reducing the distance by sea between Boston and New York, as well as avoiding winter hazards around the Cape. A fleet of a dozen vessels including a gunboat and a torpedo boat of the U.S. Navy, had paraded throughthe waterway, thrilling the hundreds of sightseers who thronged the bridges. Among the more spactacular vessels had been August Lamont’s SCOUT and J. P. Morgan’s CORSAIR. It was about that yacht that Morgan had made a memorable remark. When asked how much the yacht cost. Morgan replied: “If one has to ask that question, he has no right to own a yacht.”

My memories of Cape Cod would come some twenty years later when I was a frequent visitor to my brother’s cottage at Mattapoisett on Buzzard’s Bay. In the evening we would sit on the porch and watch for the lights of the passenger steamer as it issued from the canal on its nightly run from Boston to New York.

Aviation was in its infancy in 1914, and only a few months after this issue of the Boston American came from the press, those vulnerable, little, open-pit fliers would be dropping bombs and having dog-fights over France and Belgium. But what excited the newspaper on that July day was the action of a stunt aviator whose exhibition the newspaper was itself sponsoring. Here is the story: “Clifford Welester, whose swooping, climbing. diving airplane has thrilled a million people in many exhibitions, will put on a performance of remarkable flights next Saturday at Paragon Park, Nantucket. Welester will climb 3,000 feet, more than a half a mile above the sea. The American will sponsor two contests at the flight. One will
be a prize to the person who makes the nearest estimate of Welester’s exact top height. Another prize will go for the nearest estimate of his exact speed as he levels off at the top of his flight. Welester will fly in a hydroplane, rising from the water at Marblehead at 3:00 p.m. He will pass over Swampscott and the beaches at Lynn, Nahant and Revere and over Nantucket to Paragon Park.”

In 1914 Boston had two baseball teams. I know because during that summer I attended some of both teams home games – the Red Sox at the old and much smaller Fenway Park and the Braves at Soldiers Field on Columbus Avenue. That summer the Red Sox were not doing well, but the Braves were on their way to the National League pennant. This issue of the Boston American made comment on the Red Sox game of the day before.

“Baseball may have been played under worse conditions than the Red Sox in yesterday’s fifth inning, but the oldest fans fail to remember such an occasion. A sudden gust of wind swept across Fenway Park, whipping up clouds of dust. Home plate could not be seen at all from the bleachers. Manager Bill Carrigan asked that the game be suspended until the wind let up, but Umpire Eagan was adamant, the game must go on. It did and the Red Sox lost.”

Some new comic strips that would be long lived were in their heyday in 1914. Do you remember the one called “Bringing up Father” and featuring Jiggs and Maggie? It was in all its glory on that July 22, in 1814. So much for that newspaper of more than 65 years ago. Now I want to tell you about an incident that concerns the radio station from which this program goes on the air. The year was 1949, when this program was about one year old, and it concerned an early program in which a participant was a woman who is now WTVL’s star interviewer, Allison Day. At that time, some of the station’s interviews were conducted by a team. Allison’s partner was Paul Huber, who later became a state senator.

The person whom Allison and Paul interviewed on May 6, 1949, was one of Waterville’s leading matrons, Mrs. Josephine Drummond, wife of the Treasurer of the Waterville Savings Bank, Bert Drummond, the man who later donated the athletic field for the present Waterville Senior High School. This is how Allison explained Mrs. Drummond’s appearance on that radio program. “Each year the Golden Rule Foundation selects a Mother of the Year. Their choice is based on a mother’s religious and moral integrity, courage, cheerfulness, patriotism, kindness, and understanding; also on the character and careers of her children, and finally on the woman’s participation in community activities. With those criteria in mind, Mrs. Drummond was chosen as an outstanding mother in this community, and she was asked to talk with us on this program.”

Then Allison said to Mrs. Drummond: “I should think just keeping up with the family would take a lot of your time.” Mrs. Drummond replied: “Of course my family is my major interest. I’m very proud of them all. When I was asked a few years ago how many were in the family, I said I didn’t know because I hadn’t yet received the day’s mail. That was because for a while the grandchildren were coming along so fast.”

Then Allison asked if any of Mrs Drummond’s five children were living in Waterville. She said, “Yes, one daughter, Katharine (Mrs. Errol Taylor), wife of a local automobile dealer.” Here we may proudly add that Mrs. Taylor in 1980 is a life deaconess of the Waterville First Baptist Church and has been a member of that church longer than any other living person. It is the church that Mrs. Drummond herself had joined in the pastorate of Dr. Spencer in the late 19th century, when Mrs. Drummond was a student at Coburn.

Then Mrs. Drummbnd told Allison that her other daughter, Mrs. George Beach lived in New Bedford and that her three sons were respectively in Bangor, Augusta and Cohassett. I may now add that George Beach was my classmate at Colby in a class that graduated 67 years ago. His son, also named George is a prominent Waterville citizen.

Mrs. Drummond said her grandchildren tended to be male. In 1949 she had 12 grandsons and one granddaughter. She admitted also to being a proud great-grandmother. Mrs. Drummond said she remembered well Waterville’s first recognition of Mother’s Day. Miss Anne Jarvis of Philadelphia had suggested that a day be set aside to honor mothers. She said it would be a day to honor the best mother who ever lived, your own mother. Just before the First World War, Congress made the day official, and it was first observed nationally on May 10, 1913. For a number of years it was customary to wear on that day a pink carnation if one’s mother was living, a white one if she had died. Then came the presentation of gifts to Mother on the appointed day and taking her out to dinner.

Paul Huber asked Mrs. Drummond if she considered it a mother’s duty to change with the times. She replied. “Yes, I do. Sometimes it is hard to change, but if we are understanding parents, we must, I think a mother must develop two outstanding qualities: patience while you’re young, tolerance as you grow older.”

When Paul remarked that those sounded like good qualities for a father as well as a mother. Mrs. Drummond agreed. “Indeed, they are. but a mother changes more easily than a father. That isn’t because mothers are more indulgent. I learned through my own mother. I came to realize that for her to be tolerant toward my changing attitudes required tremendous effort. I felt, as I grew older that if she could change so could I.”

Mrs. Drummond insisted that, despite obvious changes in family life, the basic pattern had not changed. She said, “I do not agree with those who criticize today’s young mothers. I think most of them give as much serious thought to bringing up their children as their own mothers did. The important problems that mothers face are the same in every generation.”

Allison Day then said, “I understand your children made a practice of bringing other children home with them from school.” Mrs. Drummond replied, “Indeed they did. We were perhaps more tolerant of trampled lawns and muddied floors than were some families. Children must have a place to play. I never knew how many would be sitting down to eat with us on Saturday noon. In winter we usually had oyster stew because I could stretch it.”

Mrs. Drummond was emphatic in her opinion that while a mother should engage in community activities, her first duty was at home. She told Allison, “A mother should be there when the children return from school. I think this is especially necessary, not only when children are young, but also in their early teens. Children should feel that mother is more concerned with them than with any community activity.”

And that was WTVL’s interview with a well-remembered Waterville mother 30 years ago.

Year: 1980