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Call number: Oneida HX656.O54 N953 1960d

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John Humphrey Noyes, as a young man, during his exhaustive Biblical studies at the Yale Theological Seminary, became convinced that he had found proof that the second coming of Jesus Christ had occurred during the generation of the Apostles. If this was true, as he believed, then it followed that men, instead of living in a state of sin, might, through prayer and right living, become perfect as Jesus had enjoined. The millenium was at hand! Sin no more! Selfishness, of all sins, was at the root of all human evils. Possessiveness was the base of all selfishness. Therefore possess nothing - or possess all things in common. He carried this logic even further:

marriage, always deemed most holy of sacraments, was, in his view, a selfish institution. It, too, must be abandoned.

So strong were his convictions that he began preaching his new doctrine, calling it Perfectionism or Bible Communism, and, to follow the word by the deed, he began an experiment in communal living among the members of his home family and a few near neighbors who had been converted to his belief.

This new system of Perfectionism seemed to bring great peace and happiness to its followers but it proved to be anathema to the inhabitants of Putney, the small Vermont town where they lived, and the communists were asked to leave. Just at the crucial moment, a Mr. Jonathan Burt, who had become a convert through Mr. Noyes's publications, invited him to come and see how well the sharing principle was working among the group which had recently joined the Burt family at the Indian sawmill on Oneida Creek. John Humphrey Noyes promptly accepted the invitation, came, was deeply impressed and felt it was the hand of providence that this group should become the nucleus of the large community he had envisioned.

From this point on, the story of the building of a Community home and the addition of many eager new members is the well-known history of the Oneida Community. This, it is not my purpose to recount. There remain, however, certain foot-notes, as it were, which I can add to this history.

It happened that a few years after the publication of My Father's House, Mr. Bernard De Voto stopped off one day to see my husband and urge him to write a sequel to My Father's House; another book giving more of the practical details of the management of community living which enabled the members to dwell happily together under circumstances requiring so much self-discipline and economy. Mr. De Voto added, humorously, that the Angel Moroni Mr. De Voto was a descendant of the Mormons -demanded that such a book be written by the son of John Humphrey Noyes. My husband, however, was not a man for details and felt no urge to write such a book. It was only some years later, when I read to him the memoirs I was writing for our children, that he seemed to think my account would be the answer to Mr. De Voto's request. I can only hope that the Angel Moroni will be satisfied.

To Constance, Barbara and Melinda and if the want it to Peter, Langford, Patrick and Geoffrey, with all my love.

When you children were very young you used to ask me to tell you stories of about the "olden days"; Barbie loved the Second Best Hat; Connie, the sad tale of Miss Chloe's Baby. Did Peter love the story of Uncle Charlie's Mustang? I do not remember and it may be that , after all, the memories I am about to record, since they are a girl's memories, will be most valued by my daughter's and grand-daughter. If I can please them now, when I am eighty-seven years old, I shall have greatly pleased myself. If my dear son and grandsons enjoy it I shall be doubly blessed.

The story of the founding of the Oneida Community in 1848 by your grandfather, John Humphrey Noyes, has been told many times by writers more accomplished than I. Therefore I shall not say more than that it was , to my mind, a brave and noble experiment, not only in religion but in the art of human association; a scholl of unselfishness, sacrifice and dedication whose equal I could not name. Since selfishness, sacrifice and dedication are qualities which, almost by definition, entail discipline and even suffering, the history of the Community is also a tale of hardships, abnegation and steadfastness; even of suffering. But I remember that in her old age my mother, who had lived half her adult life in this society, said that after living "in the world," she realized that never again could there be happiness such as she had know in the Community. This, from a wise and honest witness, is all I need to say.

In the pags that follow I wish to tell you first about my nearest and dearest: my grandfather, and grandmother and my mother. After that, it occurs to me that you should know more than perhaps you have ever heard about the Community itself, how it looked, how it was operated, about the men and women who presided over it, how we children lived, what we did and what we though. Then in case it might be forgotten in these later years, I shal tel you what I remember about the days after the COmmunity was abandoned in favor of "worldy" living, and how very strange it seem to a young girl brought up to Community ways. In telling this there may be things which I have forgotten or remembered wrongly, buth this is how I recal it. I leave it you as part of your inheritance from "the olden days."

Corinna Ackley Noyes

Before writing my childhood memories of my grandfather, Joseph Ackley, I want you to know something of his background and his family. His father, Rodney, was a well-to-do farmer owning a large farm and a pleasant and comfortable home near the small village of East Hamilton, New York. The Ackley family, with the Carriers, close blood-kin, had migrated from New England at the end of the 18th century. Rodney Ackley's was a large family even for those days, consisting of father, mother and nine children, of whom Joseph was the oldest.

Family history reports Rodney as a close-fisted man but that his stinginess was off-set by his wife, Ruth's generosity. Old daguerreotypes tell the story only too well. Rodney's face is bleak and hard. Ruth's face is smiling and benign. As far as I know, Joseph lived at home during his youth and probably had the usual amount of schooling allowed farmer 5 sons. After that he helped his father on the farm until he married Julia Carrier, a second cousin, my grandmother, and they moved to a farm near Beaver Meadow, a small hamlet not far away.

Now Providence takes a hand. Of all the nine children in the Rodney Ackley family, Joseph seems to have been the only one endowed with spiritual curiosity and the urge to seek spiritual truth, no matter where it led him or what sacrifices it entailed. Not all the facts are available, but from some source Joseph and two spiritually-minded neighbors, William Hatch and Daniel Nash, had evidently come upon the writings of John Humphrey Noyes and had become so impressed with his ideas that they had started a small, semi-communal group at Beaver Meadow. Then came the chance to attend the three-day meetings held at the home of John Foote at Lairdsville, New York, a small village within driving distance of Beaver Meadow, and there he met John Noyes in the flesh and heard him expound his theories of Perfectiomsm.

The result was that Grandpa, the Nashes and Hatches became fullfledged converts at once and decided to ask Mr. Jonathan Burt, an ardent convert, whom they had met at Lairdsville, if they might join him at Oneida. Burt had been a Noyes disciple for eleven years, while living at the time in

the nearby village of Chittenango, but within the year he had bought the old Indian sawmill and forty-acre wood lot on Oneida Creek. However, in trying to do most of the work of felling trees, hauling logs to the mill and doing the mill work himself, his health had broken down and he was obliged to hire help. When Grandpa suggested joining with all the Beaver Meadow group, Mr. Burt promptly accepted.

The sharing spirit had taken hold of these people to such an extent that the Burts offered to take Grandpa, his wife and two children, into their own small home for the month during which he, Mr. Nash and Mr. Hatch were building the rude structure that was all they could afford, in time and money, to house their families. As may be imagined, the next year was one of hardship, cold and crowded living in a house so hastily built that it scarcely deserved the name. They had only frugal fare and incessant hard work, yet the spirit of Perfectionism triumphed, and conditions were met happily and without complaint.

Soon after the Beaver Meadow families were settled in their new quarters, Mr. Burt wrote to Mr. Noyes, telling him of the activities at the sawmill, of the promising start already made there, and invited him to come and make this small center of communal living on Oneida Creek the nucleus of the community of his dreams. In response to this invitation, Mr. Noyes came to visit, greatly liked what he saw of the prevailing spirit and gratefully accepted the offer.

The next thing to be done was to find a home for Mr. Noyes and his family, since the Putney Community had just been abandoned owing to the hostility of the little Vermont village. Fortunately, a near neighbor of Mr. Burt's was willing to sell his four-room log house with twenty-three acres of land on Oneida Creek. There was also on the property a one-room hut, twelve by twelve, which had been used as a shoe-shop. Possession was to be given immediately. This solved the problem temporarily. The house, by a little squeezing, could accommodate not only Mr. and Mrs. Noyes and their young son Theodore, but also Mr. and Mrs. Cragin and their youngest son. This was particularly convenient because at that time Mr. Cragin was acting as a liaison between Mr. Noyes and all wordly affairs, a sort of business manager, attending to publications, and collecting funds for the new project.

Though conditions were very primitive compared to the old Noyes home in Putney, the Noyeses and Cragins were brimming with enthusiasm. Everything looked promising and Mrs. Cragin, who had a passion for teaching young children, at once turned the shoe-shop into a comfortable school room, a boon to children and mothers alike.

"Nothing succeeds like success", and, from hopeful believers, money

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began to come in until they had $2800 which they promptly invested in more land and more log houses. This, however, was not sufficient to meet the needs of the growing family group. News of the promising young community had found its way to northern Vermont and soon five more families from there applied for membership, were quickly accepted and, by taking the ferry across Lake Champlain and the Erie Canal from Albany to Durhamville, made their way in three weeks time to the new community on Oneida Creek.

Now the matter of crowded housing was acute. Something permanent and adequate must be provided. Luckily, by this time there were fifty-one members, and among them many men with the training or aptitude to build an adequate community home. From nearby Syracuse came Mr. Erastus Hamilton, a master architect, and he and Mr. Noyes selected what seemed a most suitable site, on the brow of a low hill nearby. The foundation was of easily-procured field stone; the super-structure of wood, of which there was an ample supply at the mill. There was only one professional stonemason, but he chose several likely young men as helpers and in jig-time that part of the work was done. The actual construction was also done in record time, since there were several carpenters, joiners and cabinet-makers among the members, and even the women helped with the lathing, so that by the end of the year 1848, the Mansion House, a building sixty feet long by thirty-five feet deep, three stories high plus a usable attic, was ready for occupancy. Now the time was at hand for the deliverance of the Beaver Meadow group. Now there was room and warmth and a home for them all.

This, in brief, is the story of how my grandparents came to Oneida Creek and how the Oneida Community began. It is too long a story for me to tell in detail, a story of hardship and hard work and hard trials, but as it was told to me even as a child, I could recognize the triumphant spirit of those people, and their devotion. My Grandfather Ackley, from those early days to the end of his long life, never lost that spirit of devotion.

My first memory of him was a little child's impression of a dignified and rather austere person. This may seem strange, in view of the loving intimacy that grew up between us later. The fact was that during my early years in the old Community I seldom saw him and felt scarcely acquainted with him. After the Break-up, when we had moved to Turkey Street, he occasionally walked over to see us and seemed interested in the place and in our family. It was then that I began to know that he was really a loving man and a man who wanted to be loved, and from that time on, our friendship grew deep and abiding.

As a young man he must have had a commanding figure, tall, broadshouldered, with a fine head and strong features. Probably he was blond,

He had moved from a cramped little room adjoining the Court to the large, pleasant room at the foot of the Mansard stairs, and here he lived for a number of years. Mr. John Skinner lived just across the way, in what was the old South Sitting Room, and Grandpa spent quite a little time with him in friendly service, since Mr. Skinner was very feeble and had no regular nurse that I remember. In those days, one depended on friends or family for nursing care and, until nearing the end, that was usually sufficient.

Even while he was tenderly nursing the illness of a friend, Grandpa was ill himself, having developed a stomach ulcer, an unusual complaint in those days, and for weeks at a time he would live on milk with lime water, soda crackers and dry cheese. He asked for no care at these times, except that someone should bring him milk daily and keep him supplied with the crackers and cheese, which he kept in a small china pail in his closet. Dr. Leonard Dunn, the family dentist, was his only medical consultant, as far as I know. For several years his one room with the nearby public bathroom, seemed to meet all his needs. Later, after Mr. Skinner's death, Grandpa moved to this now-vacated sitting room and small bedroom adjoining, and I like to remember that he spent his last days in those larger, sunnier rooms. By that time he had acquired more furniture; a bookcase and desk, two or three comfortable chairs and a lounge on which he frequently rested and where, one day, he so serenely died.

One morning, after I had spent the night in Grandma's guest room - a former stage ante-room off the Big Hall - I decided to make an early call on Grandpa, before going to my work in the Home Office below. To my surprise he was still in bed, sitting bolt upright against the headboard, and when I exclaimed over his position, he made light of it; said he often sat up like that most of the night, though he had never mentioned the fact that he had trouble breathing. I asked him if he could sleep that way. He said, "Not much, but at my age one doesn't need much sleep and it's the grandest time in the world to think." Heroic Grandpa, heroic all his life, but how few of us realized it!

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Grandpa, although one of the earliest joiners, was never a Central Member, evidently lacking some quality of leadership or authority which the position required, but I doubt if there was a more devout or devoted soul in the entire Community. He had an unwavering faith in God and in Mr. Noyes as His annointed-one, and he lived the unselfish life taught by the Bible, seemingly without effort. It was simply the manifestation of a consecrated soul.

An incident I remember showed the effect of such a personality upon the unregenerate. One day, while we were living at Turkey Street, Grandpa walked over to see us and had been looking with his practiced eye at our orchard, which stood on a rise of ground behind the barn. As he neared the barn he heard angry voices, then oaths flying back and forth. Grandpa's Community training couldn't stand for that. He stepped into the barn just as our Irish hired man and the equally Irish foreman of a railroad gang were squaring off for a fight.

Grandpa simply stood in the doorway, looking at them. Then he said in his clear, gentle voice, "Oh, tut! tut! I wouldn't talk so!"

That was enough. The men's arms dropped to their sides. They stood silently gaping for a moment, then turned and went about their business. Those were simple words, but there was a spiritual power behind them which mastered the situation at once.

While staying with Grandpa at different times, I had heard him speak of the victories of the spirit and that the last enemy to be overcome was death. I did not realize then how much that subject was occupying his thoughts until the very end.

He had a stroke one afternoon and someone came to me in the office below and told me to come quickly. My mother and grandmother could not be found so that, save for the nurse, he was alone. He was lying on the lounge with his eyes closed, but he was still breathing. I knelt beside him and took his hand. Then, to let him know I was there, I spoke to him. "Grandpa, dear –"

For a while I felt stunned. He was so sure that he had overcome death, and yet he had seemingly died. Later it came to me that what he had overcome was the fear of death and so that passing into another life was, indeed, a victory and a joyful translation.
 

This story set me wondering how much of the history of my rather unique childhood I could recover by dipping deep into my subconscious, so, as my children heartily endorse the idea, I have decided to make at least a beginning.

My earliest recollection is of lying in my Grandmother Ackley's arms while she sang in a sweet, low voice, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." I was too young to sense the meaning of the words, but her faith and fervor must have been dimly understood, I think, as a power that meant safety and peace.

From then on my grandmother continues to be the outstanding person in my child's world. Why she should have taken my mother's place, I never inquired, but it was doubtless owing to a rule of the Central Committee which must have feared the growth of an undue "mother spirit" if I was left too much in my mother's care. Whatever the reason, it is my grandmother's sweet face, gentle voice and comforting love I most clearly recall as I look back to my earliest days, and there is never a word, look or act of hers that I would wish changed.

Grandmother how clearly, to this day, my memory pictures her -was short in stature, only a little over five feet tall, quite plump and rather broad. Her fine black hair, parted in the middle, the ends curling under all around, was worn short as was the Community custom for most women, and kept in place by two black side-combs. Those side-combs! How well I remember them! With them she always smoothed her hair before every special occasion.

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Her eyes she always described as "butternut color," a sort of greenish hazel. They were not unusually large but there was an ingenuousness of expression, a warm friendliness which strangers never forgot and which was one of the reasons, perhaps, why it seemed so natural that, in the big Community family, she should be called Aunt Julia.

Time had begun its inevitable etching when I knew her, and there were many fine lines in her face, but they were lines that only added strength and beauty, especially around her mouth, which was generous in size and smiled easily and often. Her nose was straight, her chin somewhat pointed and her forehead full and of good height. Added to these mature beauties she had a wonderfully smooth fair skin and was so exquisitely fastidious about her person that she had the delicate and indescribable fragrance of a nice, clean baby.

I never remember seeing her untidy or in soiled clothes, and yet she was a very industrious person. In the early days she was reckoned one of the family's best cooks, especially renowned for her doughnuts. Later, when I knew her, she had evidently served her turn at heavy labor and was given the care of the Reception Room, Vestibule and Front Hall.

Besides these duties, mornings and evenings she washed the glass and silver for the dining room and by early afternoon was expected to be ready to "wait on company," a duty she carried on for some years after the Breakup. If she were told company had arrived and must be "waited on" the phrase always used her first instinct was to run her side-combs through her hair, then she would smooth down her apron, a gingham one in the forenoon, a black silk in the afternoon, and her toilet was complete. She could have met the Queen without a shade of self-consciousness. It was a simple duty to be done and, as a person, she hardily entered into it.

I was not old enough to sense what the "Break-up" must have meant to Grandma. It must have been a severe shock, for both she and Grandpa were still staunch believers in the old Community theories, and, to add to their sorrow, my Mother, their only living child, joined the "seccessionists," the "Townerites," so called, and married Martin Kinsley, also a "Townerite," by whom she had had two children. There must have been some painful sessions between Mother, Grandmother and Grandfather before they could reconcile themselves to having her go over to the enemy, but in the end they showed their life-long training as peacemakers, for I was never conscious of any break in their loving interest toward her or her children.

Outwardly Grandma's life was not greatly changed by the "Break-up." She still lived in her same old room, continued going to the dining room for her meals, though the old dining room must have seemed somewhat empty, once the "Townerites" had taken over the Company dining room in the

Socially there must have been a big adjustment to be made. In 1879, I have been told, the Big Meetings in the Hall were discontinued but the Loyalists held meetings in the Directors' room, the old East Room of Children's House days, Mr. Hamilton being the leader. These meetings were carried on during the whole period of his presidency of four years.

Grandma always attended them, which must have given her a feeling of spiritual support and her life must have flowed on pretty much as usual. Recreation and entertainment, however, were now up to the individual, and her evenings, after the short meeting, would have dragged sadly had she not started an evening reading hour for boys, ranging in age from seven to ten or twelve. She began taking the Youth's Companion, the first paper ever printed for children, which was on a par with St. Nicholas in point of youthful interest. There were at least two exciting serials in each issue and a number of short stories and, in case the interest flagged, she had recourse to St. Nicholas or Harper's Young People, old standbys, which could be drawn from the Mansion House Library.

At seven-thirty each evening Grandma 5 room would be filled with boys, every chair taken, the broad window sills packed tight and with several sitting or lying on the floor, all absorbed in the stories and quiet as mice. The readings were kept up for some years, until livelier interests attracted the boys. Then they were dropped, and one would find Grandma alone in her room, knitting in the twilight.

At times, if I happened in before dark, she might be reading from an old diary or the Community's Daily Journal, reliving in mind, I suppose, the simple, happy doings of the old Community life. Sometimes she would take from her table drawer a much worn copy of Pizzaro, a drama which was given on the stage in the early days and in which she had played the part of Elvira, the heroine. Often she would recite some of her lines from this play which she did with surprising fire and passion.

In the old Community days it seemed to be the custom for people to change their rooms every little while, probably for the same reason that they often changed their occupations; to avoid humdrum routine. It was always quite an exciting event and we children liked to happen around, especially if the mover was a woman, to see what she might have acquired besides the necessary furnishings of bed, bureau, table and a couple of chairs.

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If the woman was a beauty-lover there might be a miniature bureau or a what-not, gift of some friend who had a talent for cabinet making. Perhaps a gaily covered ottoman, which gave extra storage space, or a well-padded Boston rocker with a "tidy" in crewel work. But to us children, most desirable of all belongings were the vases of wax flowers kept under a glass bell, very sacred, which only the artistic few were able to make.

At the time of my earliest memory Grandma was living in the room opening from the north landing of the main front staircase, now ~1959~ known as the Historical Room. Today it seems like very cramped quarters for both bedroom and sitting room, but in those days every room in the house was occupied, and a few people were even sleeping in the garret.

One rather eccentric woman, Miss Frank Hillerman, had a small cubby up there, its only light coming from a skylight, its furnishings just a huge, unpainted wooden cradle on sturdy rockers, a small table, one hard chair and a looking glass. The cradle large enough for an adult held, of course, the customary nice, Community substitute for a mattress, a plump tick of dried corn husks and was made up with sheets, blankets and pillow. There was a curtain which could be drawn across the entrance of the cubby and to provide fresh air, if the day were fair, the skylight could be lifted. At times, when the house was crowded, two small rooms in the gable ends of the main garret were used as bedrooms, but to our childish imagination, Miss Frank was up there alone, holding rats, mice and occasional bats in scorn. Certainly she was without doubt the "bravest" woman in the world, in our world, at least.

It was while Grandma was still living in the present-day Historical Room that I had a well-remembered bout with the measles. This was shortly after the Break-up and, for the first time in most of their lives, the men and women of the Community having married, were having the experience of setting up housekeeping for themselves. My mother was engaged in making the upper floor of the "Concrete," a small cottage standing in the Quadrangle, near the Tontine, ready for our first home as a family. Measles weren't considered serious anyway, if proper care was given, so I was handed over to Grandma's tender mercy.

Her room was ordinarily light and airy, but both light and air were considered bad for measles, so the shades were drawn down, the windows kept shut and I had to lie on Grandma's feather bed, covered closely with woolen blankets lest a draft of cool air strike me. I was burning with fever and longing for a drink, even a sip of cold water, but all the liquid I was allowed was hot black tea, which I loathed, and, for nourishment, thin, hot gruel. To sponge a sick person to reduce fever was unheard of. It would have been considered sure death.

Today such treatment seems most benighted, but Community people prided themselves on holding advanced ideas in their care of the sick, and their records for health were unusually good, on the whole. In this case, certainly, the treatment produced a cure, for I made a good recovery, and even Grandma survived the ordeal of having to sleep with me in a narrow bed, besides giving me untiring care.

Many years later Grandma moved into the room opposite, always called the "Vestibule Room." It was a good bit longer, though no wider, but much pleasanter, as the three windows looked out onto the Quadrangle. It was in this room the boys used to assemble for the evening readings. By this time Grandma had begun to show signs of worldliness. She had got some handy friend to paper the walls with a pretty flowered paper and besides her old furniture had bought Nottingham lace curtains, an ingrain carpet and a sewing machine.

On the walls were some framed photographs, a looking glass and her "what-not." "What-nots" were always considered a great ornament to a room. Grandmother's was of black walnut, quite plain but nicely made, and, as she hadn't much bric-a-brac, was devoted to practical uses. It held her lamp, some favorite books, a jar which sometimes held pieces of candied sweet flag and a small bottle of spirits of peppermint. But it was lifted high out of the realm of the prosaic by a beautiful bottle of Baccarat glass filled with white rose cologne, which always stood on the middle shelf.

This was a gift from my mother as thanks for Grandmother's ever-faithful care of me, but how Mother could have afforded such a piece of extravagance out of her slender appropriation, I cannot guess. It must have taken much scrimping of necessities. However, it was greatly prized and we children deemed it a special treat to smell the exquisite perfume and have the moistened stopper pressed to our handkerchief. Those were days of very simple pleasures.

Having more space in her new room, Grandma, at once, as a lure to children, acquired from some quarter a large box of hardwood blocks of various shapes and sizes, a board for playing a clever game with marbles and an audiphone. This audiphone was a queer contraption, consisting of a giant size mouth organ supported on small posts, the air being supplied by hand squeezed bellows which were ingeniously attached to the mouth organ. As with the later pianolas, across the top of the mouth organ ran a broad ribbon of perforated paper which produced the tune to be played. Grandma wasn't particularly musical, but she seemed to value this oddity greatly and kept it carefully put away in her top bureau drawer, considering it the last word in high entertainment.

If I was visiting Grandma and the day was dull and I could think of noth-

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ing better to do, I was allowed to play the audiphone and could render with great effect Listen to the Mocking Bird or Columbia, Gem of the Ocean. There were other touching numbers, but at the end of two selections my hand that was squeezing the bellows would be aching with such fatigue that the last bars were but little more than a wheeze.

Oh, I mustn't forget one other advantage the larger room afforded a trundle bed great fun which enabled one of us children to spend an occasional night with Grandmother.

Grandma was quite content with the Vestibule Room for some time, but when a small room nearby was vacated, (what is now the Serving Room adjoining the Big Hall), she was glad to have it for a bedroom, still keeping her old quarters as a sitting room. This new room was rather a bleak place, just one small window for light, the furnishings her bed, a table and a couple of chairs. On the floor a small bedside rug, the rest bare linoleum, but she used it only for sleeping and, the move allowed her to have a good looking couch in her sitting room where her bed had formerly stood.

How long she remained in these rooms I cannot say, since dates mean little in young lives, but as Grandma grew older her health began to fail. All the old familiar duties had had to be given up, stairs were difficult to climb and when the chance came to move down into the western end of the old South Room the room had been divided she was glad to take it and even to submit to being cared for by a nice friendly woman from the neighborhood.

I was married by that time and living at Niagara Falls so saw her seldom, but Mother and my sister, Meg, kept in close touch with her and superintended her care. During her last days, Meg tells me, she seemed to dread dying, but as the end approached she lost all fear, was happy and serene and said to Meg one day, "To go or stay, it is all right with me.

Her "going" however, meant a great deal to all her grandchildren. We not only missed her precious personality but, while she lived, there was always a special home center at the Mansion, always someone happy to see us. We felt as if we still "belonged."

After she left, for a long time, the Mansion House felt lonely to us. We wandered around with our memories, trying to link them up with the present. But time passed, a new generation was born. Pierrepont and I came back to live again in the old Mansion for a time, then in a house of our own nearby, the Red House.

Up to this point I have written my own memories of my Grandmother but you cannot get a true estimate of her character unless I tell you something of her early life before she met and married my Grandfather.

Julia Carrier, her maiden name, was the youngest of eleven children born

to Clarissa and Ebeneezer Carrier, living at the time on a small farm near the hamlet of Liberty, N. Y. in the foothills of the Catskills. It was a wild, unsettled country of dense forests interspersed with clearings from which the trees had been cut but the land had yet to have the stumps removed and to be made usable for crops. Ebeneezer had wrested a small farm from the forest, built himself a house and barn, married and was evidently bent on showing the world that he could raise and support a family of champion size in spite of unfavorable circumstances when his wife died, leaving Julia, a child of three, to the special care of Maria, her oldest daughter.

Maria, a girl of nineteen, took over also the supervision of the whole household for the next three years, then she married a peddler of good prospects and left home taking Julia with her. For the next two years Julia flourished. Maria was devoted to the child and taught her to read, write, sew and sing as Maria had a fine singing voice. Grandma, in speaking of her, always especially mentioned her beauty. Apparently she was the flower of the flock.

Had these conditions continued Julia would probably have had opportunities for a good education but after two years of Maria's loving care Maria died and Julia was taken back to her father. Here she found scant welcome as, during her absence, he had married a widow with eight partially grown children of her own. Julia was now eight years old and deemed able to care for young children and do light housework so that the hard-pressed Ebeneezer, her father, decided she should be "farmed out." For her services she was to be given bed, board, needed clothing and a chance to go to school when she could be spared, which was seldom.

Her first home was with her stepmother's son where she lived two years, during which time she was taught to milk the cows and was expected to do so from then on. When she was ten she was loaned to a brother-in-law's brother. There were no children in the household but the gay young wife went visiting often and Julia had to do practically all the housework besides milking, feeding and watering the livestock twice a day. All the water used on the farm had to be drawn from a well sixty feet deep which today would be considered a day's work in itself.

After this period of doing the work of a seasoned adult she went to live with a newly married sister. Here she might have looked forward to some loving care but the sister bore four children in the next six years and never had Julia had to work so hard. Besides the usual housework and baby tending she had to prepare the home-grown flax and learn to weave it into linen cloth for sheets and pillow cases, card and spin the wool for yarn for the home-knit stockings, and, to use to the full every spare minute, she had to learn to weave rag carpets from material brought in by neighbors for which

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her sister was paid. The one bright spot in her life was the day she could take the family washing down to the spring and spend the whole day there. The water, of course, was cold and it must have been back-breaking work but the spring was thirty-five rods from the house on the edge of the forest and there she could be alone, too far away to be interrupted by any household needs and there she could find herself and dream of a happier future. That this place must have seemed a harbor of refuge is shown, I think, by the fact that her long day's washing at the spring was the only story she ever told me of her youth and the spring was the only place she wanted to see when she visited relatives in Liberty many years later.
Julia stayed with her sister until she was eighteen when, after ten years of hardship, fortune suddenly smiled on her. An uncle living in East Hamilton asked her to come and make her home with him and his wife. Here Julia received the love and care she had not known since the death of her sister Maria. She was given good clothes and taken to church where she experienced a sincere conversion and later met my Grandfather with whom there was such a strong mutual attraction that soon they decided to marry.

Grandmother's story as told to one of the editors of the American Socialist was published as one of a series entitled "Stories of Poverty."

In finishing her account she says: "Joseph not only proved a good, kind husband but through his influence I was brought to the Oneida Community where I found emancipation from household drudgery and social slavery."

This last paragraph sounds as if the editor couldn't resist the chance to put in a plea for Bible Communism but the story itself, I am sure, is an accurate history of her life.

After reading Grandma's story I can only marvel at the refined sweet-tempered woman I knew as my precious Grandma. Was it inheritance from her father, who, it was said, was often asked to read a sermon when the local preacher was absent and did it so well and with such fervor that the parishioners preferred him to the regular incumbent, or was it Community training and association that molded her? She had had very little schooling yet never did I hear her make a grammatical error in her speech and when she read aloud she never mispronounced a word but read clearly, fluently and very intelligently in a low well-modulated voice. It was a pleasure to hear her. I don't wonder that the young boys gathered around her like bees around a honey-pot for her evening reading hour.

Her manner when meeting company I have already spoken of but she was always the same sweet, serene, friendly woman wherever you met her, ever ready to give a helping hand. Many times the memory of my grandparents' silent heroism has given me courage in a dark hour.

"You asked me to tell you my feelings since giving up the care of my baby. You knew my trials and temptations when the move was first proposed. I gave her up at last, with the others, heartily, feeling that she would have every want supplied and that I should be a better and happier woman for doing so.I now realize, as I did not before, that the old way of each mother's caring exclusively for her own child, begets selfishness and idolatry and in many ways tends to degrade woman. The new system works well in every respect. Yours for giving up everything that stands in the way of improvement and the revival."

Poor Mother, so loving, so unselfish, so truly good, how I can now sympathize with her "trials and temptations" in her struggle against "idolatry" towards her first baby. All this, of course, was long before my own memory begins. She must have slept with me at night during my first year, as that was the Community custom, but I was too young to have kept in mind more than an instinct of deep attachment which persisted through later years, when she was being disciplined for the "mother-spirit" and we were often kept apart for a week or two at a time.

What she felt during these periods I can only guess, but I can remember well my own feelings when, during one two-week period of separation, I caught a glimpse of her passing through a hallway near the Children's House and rushed after her, screaming. She knew what I was too young to know that if she stopped to talk with me another week might be added to our sentence. There was no time to explain. Hoping, I suppose, to escape, she stepped quickly into a nearby room. But I was as quick as she. I rushed after her, flung myself upon her, clutching her around the knees, crying and begging her not to leave me, until some Children's House mother, hearing the commotion, came and carried me away.

That has been a painful and lasting memory, but there were many pleasant ones. I was deeply conscious of my mother's beauty and of her wonderful voice and, although I was embarrassed, as all children are when their parents are in any way conspicuous, I loved to look at her when she was singing on the stage and to listen to her lovely songs.

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I wish I could describe her as I saw her then but, as I suppose is natural, children are almost never able to see their parents as objective personalities. When they look, they see "Mother" or "Father," a blurred composite of their own emotions toward their parent, not the person himself. I was a natural beauty-lover, so that my memory records the knowledge that my mother was beautiful, as it records the beauty of her voice, but it gives me no clear picture of her appearance.

I know from later memories that she was tall for a woman, had a sumptuous figure, a fine, erect carriage. She had light brown hair, eyes blue and deep-set, a mouth so richly curved that her girlish pictures make me think, somehow, of ripe fruit. Her later photographs, taken towards the end of the old Community, have, for me at least, a more serious beauty; the modeling around the eyes has a tragic quality, the expression of the face is sad, noble, resigned. I do know that, even in old age, she had an ineffaceable beauty of another kind. My daughters have said that this was because she had perfect bones. I do not know about that: perhaps what I always saw was the beauty of her spirit.

A natural modesty, plus the rigorous Community training, made my mother a woman without vanity. She must have been admired in her lovely girlhood. Indeed, William Hepworth Dixon, in his book, New America, in recounting the tale of his visit to the Community, comments on the "short dresses" and their wearers.

"... a dress in which a plain woman escapes notice and a pretty girl looks bewitching. I am told that it is no part of Noyes' design that the young ladies of his family should look bewitching: for such is not his theory of a modest and moral woman's life; but for my own poor self, being only a Gentile and a sinner, I could not help seeing that many of his young disciples have been gifted with rare beauty, and that two of the singing-girls, Alice Ackley and Harriet Worden, have a grace and suppleness of form, as well as loveliness of face and hand, to warm a painter's heart."

What my mother thought or even if she knew of this comment, I have no idea. She sang and was praised for it, in the moderate Community way. What they called the "Prima Donna Spirit" was severely condemned, so I doubt if such praise overwhelmed her. A note in the Daily Journal records that her mother, my grandmother Ackley, announced in the Evening Meeting that she wished "to join Mr. Noyes in dedicating Alice and her gift for singing, to God." Not even a talent was to be considered a selfish possession, but was, instead, a contribution to the whole group and to God.

At exactly what age I do not know, but possibly in her late twenties, Mother and several of the other young women of her "class" were asked

to pose for one of the men who was studying photography. Remarkably enough, they were allowed to pose in World's Clothes; a lace-trimmed, off-the-shoulders gown, jewelry - a brooch and necklace and jeweled combs - and a wonderful "waterfall" of false curls. These pictures, which my mother regarded with horror to the end of her days as being immodest and a piece of shocking vanity, confirm Mr. Dixon's report of her "rare beauty."

How I wish I could remember her more clearly in those early days. Later, of course, during the painful years on the farm, I do remember her perfectly; remember how I loved her, how I worried about her, too much hard work, too many babies, too little money. Those memories I can hardly bear to recall, and yet I never remember Mother's complaining about her lot, never heard her lament that her singing days were over. As my daughter has written of her, She was a beauty and an artist, music should have been her life; she was Mary, not Martha, although she acted Martha for fifty years." In a way, this still seems to me a great waste, but in another way, her life of love and service is one I am proud to remember.

Her voice was a most unusual quality, as rich as a contralto but with the range of a dramatic soprano, and when she sang, from the beautiful oratorio music of The Creation, the aria, With Verdure Clad, or that majestic aria by Von Weber, Ocean, thou mighty monster curled, Like a green serpent round the world, I was overcome with emotion. Oratorio music was what she loved best and what was best suited to her voice.

In 1869, when she was twenty-two years old, it was decided by the Central Committee to send my mother, Minerva Norton, Abram and Charles Burt to New York City to study singing with Dr. Boehm, organist and choir master of St. Mark's Church. The idea was, I think, to perfect them as a quartet for the home concerts. I doubt if they had any individual instruction which, according to Community theory, might have encouraged that Prima Donna Spirit, so strongly disapproved. Still, they were well taught by a notable teacher and there were other advantages, for though they lived at the small Community Center, established there, they did have a whiff of the outer air and came back home, probably, with a somewhat broader outlook, as well as with some fine quartets for the family enjoy' ment. To this day, snatches of those old songs come back to me and with them the setting and the poetic atmosphere. One I especially remember was Shakespeare's I know a hank whereon the wild thyme grows, set to an English glee. They sang many of the old English glees.

I am not sure what my mother's special work was, during the Community days. I think she helped supervise the housework at times and, since she was a fine cook, I presume she took her turn in the kitchen. She also trained the children's chorus and under her tutelage it acquired quite

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 repertoire for group singing on the stage at the popular Community concerts. These performances by the children were a great success with the outside public. See, 'Tis Sow, Sow Doth the Peasant, I Put My Right Hand In, Jolly Boys, and Johnny Schmoker, were special favorites.

Programs of concerts given by the Community during the 1870's show that my mother sang some of the simpler arias from the operas, as well as many German songs which, though sung in English, always so stirred the emotions. For encores, I remember that she often sang Annie Laurie, Coming Through the Rye and The Last Rose of Summer. The rich quality of her voice was especially adapted to the negro spirituals and when she sang Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, Roll, Jordan, Roll and Go Down, Moses, cold chills would seize me and I would think of repentance for past misdeeds.

In Mother's later years, after Father Kinsley died, she lived in the Mansion House. She would not travel nor stay more than a day or two with any of her married children, but, she always said, moving was her way of travel, and she did move frequently, from one house or apartment to another. She enjoyed the transfer to new surroundings and everywhere she moved, although her belongings were simple, she made a kind of charm about the place. Pleasant colors, comfort, something warm and welcoming and intimate; pictures of all the children and grandchildren, small personal objects, so that her room always looked unmistakably like her.

During these late years, also, she was absorbed in her pet charity. She used to say that she couldn't bear to think of cold babies, and every dollar that could be spared from her slender income was spent to buy material which she, herself, made up into warm little nightgowns and wrappers and dresses for poor babies. On the day she died with, for her, a blessed suddenness, a half-dozen of these garments were left unfinished beside her sewing machine and, on the worn cutting-board, a half-finished game of solitaire, which was one of her few diversions. Leaving them so, she walked down across the Vineyard to her daughter Alice's house, entered, perhaps called a name. That was the end.

If, as well as fine descendants, the memory of love given and received is our posterity, my mother still has a life in the world, for I shall never forget her or cease to love her.

The leaders of the meetings were changed from time to time. I especially remember Mr. Frank Wayland-Smith as a very charming and interesting leader. There were also Mr. Pitt and Mr. Charles Joslyn, both able but rather awesome. Dr. Cragin was good at news reports and, especially as a reader, Mr. Underwood was also popular. Whoever was leader sat at one side of a tall, well-lighted reading table placed on the hall floor in front of the stage. Mr. Noyes, if present, sat on the other side of the table, his chair being placed on a low platform.

In the body of the hall, well-lighted by numerous bracket lamps affixed to the sides of the balcony, stood several rows of the stencilled settees which we have with us today. The seats were cushioned in green rep, but the backs were bare and as uncomfortable as they still are. Some Puritanical-minded cabinet maker who made them must have considered "mortification of the flesh" as being good for the soul.

Thinking of the meetings reminds me of an amusing incident related to them which occurred many years later, long after the old O.C. had been succeeded by the present Company. There must have been a time, now dim in my mind, when the original green cushions became too shabby for use, and were discarded, and so, for some years, the "benches" as we called them, went bare and we endured their discomfort without complaint. Then one day, at the close of formal Company Stockholders' Meeting, one of the surviving old members, Aunt Neelie (Mrs. Cornelia Wayland-Smith) rose

with fire in her eye and said, "I think it is a shame to ask people to come to this hall for meetings or entertainments and expect them to sit on these abominable benches. I, therefore, move that this meeting vote to have them comfortably cushioned at once." Everyone sat for a moment stunned at her daring, then burst into laughter and hearty applause and the vote was passed unanimously. Soon after, the present red cushions appeared and have brought comparative ease as well as providing impromptu sleds for riotous groups of our children and grandchildren, who always have and probably always will play, unauthorized but happy, in the Big Hall. One of these days the present cushions will have to be renewed but on what generation will the duty fall, to my children's or my children's children? I shall be interested to note from some adjoining sphere.

I have put more emphasis than I should, perhaps, on the hall benches, for there were redeeming features in the other furnishings of the room. Under the balconies at each side were many rows of comfortable, cane-seated arm-chairs and rockers and, before meeting time, the benches always were pushed out of the way and eight to ten small pedestal tables, with octagon tops homemade, I fancy - were brought out and conveniently placed. Chairs could be drawn up to them, and the women who always brought their mending or knitting to meeting, could avail themselves of the light given out by the green shaded glass kerosene lamps which stood on each table.

Around these tables there would be at least four or five women, making the most of the opportunity to do a humdrum weekly stint of mending or darning while being entertained by the evening's program. And what a friendly homey touch it gave to the scene.

I don't think I have mentioned the way in which the men's clothes were cared for, in this almost wifeless society. To each woman was allotted the care of the clothes of from one to three men, according to her ability and leisure.

Each week the men would collect their freshly laundried clothes from the Distributing Room in the cellar, take them to the room of the woman appointed and, receive in return a pile of nicely mended garments. As there might be buttons to be sewed on or rips or tears in a suit to be repaired, much of her spare time might be used up in the work, hence the eagerness with which the women looked forward to Big Meeting and the chance to get the darning done while listening, perhaps to David Copperfield, Innocents Abroad, or some novel just being talked about in the journals.

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That was one of the remarkable things those Guiding Spirits did. They discovered latent talent and gave it a chance to develop. Think what a kindling thought that must have been to everyone with a spark of ambition.

In those days, when my Grandmother play-acted, the Community was too poor to buy instruments for a band as they did later, so that they must have had to rely, for music, on singing and, for accompaniment, on an old harmonium brought, doubtless, by some early joiner. The songs they sang, I presume, were mostly of the type found in The Franklin Square Collection:

Long, Long Ago, The Old Oaken Bucket, Far Away or Listen to the Mocking Bird, when they were feeling light-hearted. When in serious mood, they sang from The Plymouth Hymnal and the Moody and Sankey Hymn Book.
Later, when the Treasury could stand the expense of instruments, the idea of a band was discussed and approved. From that time until the end of the Community, not only did a band come into being but also an orchestra, and a square piano was purchased for the Big Hall. Who were the teachers on the various instruments? I do not know. Probably, at first, it was largely a matter of self-teaching from instruction books, and the practicing must have been done in the evenings, in order not to interfere with the daily work, but enthusiasm ran high and was felt by the entire family. J.H.N., who hadn't a wisp of musical talent, took up the Second Violin for a while, and the furor for the orchestra was so great that his distressing, off-key mutterings were tolerated with a smile, so my mother told me.

After a time, I think, the band must have been discontinued, for during my childhood I remember only the orchestra, a small one of perhaps a dozen or fifteen pieces, sometimes with Mr. Charles joslyn as leader. I have heard that he was mostly responsible for selecting the music which was not too difficult for a group with so little musical training and background. My remembrance is of overtures and selections from the operas, though they undoubtedly played popular pieces as well.

But music, while holding first place on the entertainment program, didn't

dampen the Community's interest in the stage. Evidently their budding actors and actresses were clamoring to be heard, and they set their goals high - Shakespeare, no less. They produced Merry Wives of Windsor, with Leonard Dunn, the dentist, as Falstaff and an outstanding one he made, Merchant of Venice, with Mrs. Helen Noyes as a commanding Portia and Mr. Van Velzer, our shy little cobbler, as Shylock. It must have been the big moment of his life, for I always heard that he played the part in a masterly manner.

Then there were tableaux, great favorites, since those who had beauty but could not act could yet know the joys of the lime-light for a brief period. One of the most aspiring tableaux I remember was called Cleopatra's Barge. The carpenters and painters had produced from a drawing the semblance of a royal barge which, being set up on the stage, was then filled with six of our most beautiful girls dressed in fluffy, white tarlatan, their short hair covered with wigs of jute ringlettes. Mrs. Helen Noyes, at least a mature forty, as Cleopatra, in regal robes of white, sat on a dais in the gilded prow. It was a breathtaking sight for the whole audience. We knew nothing about period costuming, so this Community version of oriental splendor was all and more than we had ever dreamed.

There was one other tableau which left an impression on me, young as I was, which I shall never forget. It was given one evening at the end of a musical program. The family knew that a tableau was to follow but did not know what it was to be, so were greatly surprised when the lights were slowly extinguished, leaving the room in absolute darkness. Whispering had ceased. Not a sound was to be heard.

The proscenium curtain was then raised and there on the stage, standing in a flood of soft light from above, stood Miss Charlotte, robed in white, hair flowing to her shoulders, looking lovelier than I had ever seen her. By some unseen mechanism, a small section of the floor on which she stood, then began to ascend until she seemed to float halfway between the lower region of darkness and the realm of light above. Then with face uplifted, she sang that hauntingly beautiful, mystical old and Spanish Hymn.

Then the curtain was lowered. I do not remember what followed. I like to think that people went quietly to their rooms, one by one, to think over the burden of that song.

Very wisely the Home Entertainment Program was never allowed to flag. As time went on, the Children's part was given more importance and especially were they drilled to sing and act at concerts given before the summer excursionists who, at one time, made a visit to the Oneida Community their Mecca. How much morbid curiousity prompted their choice of a picnicking ground, I do not know, but the hearty welcome they received must have done much to counteract any idle gossip they may have heard, and the appearance of such a group of happy, healthy intelligent children might have set inquiring minds wondering what the O.C. system of child training could be, to produce such results.

Great pains were taken with the children's part of the program. We were carefully drilled in the acting as well as the singing, and our clothes were given particular attention, the girls wearing white dresses and red slippers, the boys wearing pants and jackets and dark blue slippers. We always galloped on to the stage to music, a boy and girl taking hands together, then separating and forming a line across the front of the stage. It was great fun, and the children enjoyed it as much as the grown-ups.

I also remember that after we had been drilled for a week by Mrs. New-house in the balance-step, to be used in the "Shashy de shashy" (chausee de chausee), in the square dances, Mother came in to teach us the schottische. The big folks had learned the waltz, schottische and the polka by that time and, a gifted few, the redowa, a rather complicated step.

As I go into the past, memories of those concerts rise in my mind quite surprisingly. One morning lately, on waking, the songs our two comic singers used to give came vividly before me. I can remember only one verse of each of the two favorites, but they should be recorded. I only wish I could record the applause they always received.

Mr. Milford Newhouse was an amusing person offstage and could tell a story with so droll a wit he would always have his listeners in gales of laughter. Naturally, he was wanted on the concert program to relieve highbrow tension, but the man had no voice. He had an ear, though, could carry a tune very well and had an unabashed stage presence. He also had an instinct for selecting the songs he could dramatize.

The one I remember was Don't Wake the Baby, the story of a proud and

anxious father, told in a musical setting. Mr. Milford, coming before an audience already prepared to be highly amused, would take out a large, white handkerchief, fold it elaborately into an oblong roll which he would cradle tenderly in his left arm, his right hand patting it in time to the music. Then with his body swaying slightly, he would sing the song in his funny falsetto, finishing each verse with the refrain:

Mr. George Hamilton would enter limping, his right hand clutching his right thigh, then tell the story in song, of his accident. It began:

My mother, Alice Ackley, was reckoned at one time as the prima donna in voice and beauty. Harriet Worden also had a fine voice and much beauty. Then came the younger set: among the women, Lily Hobart, with a very sweet voice and most unusual dramatic talent, and Marion Bumbam with a good voice and a very attractive personality. Our stars among the men were Abram Burt with his fine, sympathetic tenor, Charles Burt, a fair baritone, and Mr. Henry Burnham, a good basso. The solo violinist was Frank Wayland-Smith. He had great talent and, could he have had more

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teaching and time for practice, he might have gone far. Mr. De Latre, a good flautist and Dr. Cragin, the cellist, were often on the program. With the orchestra, our solo players and singers, our musical fare was nicely varied.
On the whole, the home audience was very appreciative. Those who had no musical taste or training were in process of learning to know and like good music. It was one of the fine, cultural assets of the Community.

An amusing story was told of Mrs. Skinner, whose high intelligence didn't run to music. There was a concert about to be given to a train load of excursionists. The place was inundated with visitors and much excitement was abroad. The program, though carefully selected, was found at the last minute to be too long. Then Mrs. Skinner had a bright idea. She told Frank Wayland-Smith to play his elaborate solo twice as fast as the tempo called for! Outraged artistry was swallowed up by merriment, and a shorter piece was substituted.

Aside from mentioning briefly a play which was produced toward the end of the 70's, The Doctor of Alcantara, in which Dr. Noyes, quite fittingly, played the Doctor and which was only a mild success, I must devote myself now to my memories of H.M.S. Pinafore, the great dramatic achievement of all our artists' dreams.

Whose idea was it, I wonder? I wish I knew. It was a brave and aspiring one, anyway, and deserved the success such daring sometimes reaps, for, reviewing all the possible talent among the Community members, I can think of only two or three who had both adequate voice and sufficient dramatic talent for the parts.

The outstanding star, of course, was Lily Hobart, who sang the part of Josephine, the Captain's daughter. She had beauty, a lovely voice and was a born actress. Next came Marion Burnham who had a fine voice but, though she lacked beauty, was very attractive and acted the part of Little Buttercup very well. Charles Burt, as Captain Corcoran, had a fairly good baritone and his acting was passable, but Abram Burt as Ralph Rackstraw was a sad misfit.

He had a good tenor voice and could take the high notes with ease, but as a romantic lover well, one wanted to close one's eyes. Charles Marks, a quite handsome youth with a good tenor, was chosen first for the part but found he hadn't sufficient range to sing the music and so - Abram did his simple best and, with the super talent of his Josephine, made the part acceptable to an uncritical audience. However unromantic the singer, the pathos of "Farewell, My Own, Light of My Life, Farewell," became high tragedy, at least to a seven-year-old.

I don't know how many times the operetta was given for the home folks but, encouraged by this home experience and the praise of their friends,

the company dared to try out their luck in three small neighboring towns, charging admission, I believe. Evidently it did not pay, for the idea was carried no further and, with the unrest at home making itself felt at that time, the O.C. opera season was definitely over.

I cannot close the chapter on Home Entertainment without telling of the happy part dancing played in it. Amazingly, in view of the mores of the period, there were in the Community no moral or religious scruples against dancing nor against card playing, and yet many of the members must have come from homes where both were considered "wiles of the devil." The religion of Father Noyes naturally did away with all senseless taboos, against pleasure as well as against superstition. Now I think of it, I never heard the word superstition mentioned nor saw any of its observances until we left the Community. Nobody was afraid of black cats nor afraid of walking under a ladder. Nobody was frightened if he broke a mirror and nobody "knocked on wood" to protect himself from boasting.

Card-playing never held the attention of many of the members. Euchre and Whist were enjoyed by the competitive few but dancing was enjoyed by young and old alike and the dance held every two weeks in the Big Hall, to the music of our home orchestra, was an occasion never willingly missed by any member. Square dances were the popular favorites and one would find the most unlikely people suddenly becoming as frisky as young colts. Old Mr. Inslee, our highly-valued machine expert, would find in little old Aunt Betsy Whitfield a kindred spirit and, beaming with happiness, they would go through all the changes of the Lancers without a single mistake. Even elderly, ponderous Mr. Clark never failed to "make up a set" and his partner would feel greatly honored, since it was generally agreed that he kept perfect time and was very light on his feet. In his youth he was probably a gay blade and love of the dance was in his blood.

The square dances, however, were not our only pleasure. The Virginia Reel was great fun and the Spanish Dance, a combination of some changes from the square dances and a few measures of the waltz was quite a pretty dance. For the young, the waltz, schottische and polka were beginning to take most of their interest and before long the square dance appeared only once or twice to please the old people.

Who, I wonder, was responsible for these expanding ideas? It must have come through wider reading of the doings of the outside world. The library subscribed to several illustrated magazines, Frank Leslies, Harpers Weekly and Harpers Monthly, which might have had a worldly influence, though there were plenty of monthlies of the more solid sort. The Atlantic, The Forum, The North American Review and Scientific American were never sullied by even a line drawing or map, nor a word of advertising.

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In the early days discipline was much too rigid, I always heard, but in my childhood a milder attitude had supervened and we heard little of punishment. Good children didn't have to be punished and, if we were being properly taught, why shouldn't we be good? "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." The same idea was proved in our health. If we were properly cared for we would be healthy and we were.

In my day there were two Community doctors, Dr. Theodore Noyes and Dr. George Cragin. The decision that these men should study medicine must have been a decree of the Central Committee as neither of them, I am sure, would have chosen to be practicing physicians had their taste been consulted. Dr. Cragin told me, many years later, that he would have much preferred to be a civil engineer and Dr. Noyes, while he doubtless enjoyed theorizing about the human body as he enjoyed any intellectual problem never enjoyed the actual practice of medicine. After his return from Yale, where the men went for their medical training, he turned his attention largely to the Dansville Sanitarium system of diet and hydrotherapy. However, both men met the family needs, though I never remember either of them having an office in the house or hours for consultation and the nearest we ever came to a pharmacy was the old medicine cupboard kept, during my youth, by Aunt Sarah Dunn.

In this cupboard were kept castor-oil, cascara, arnica, Rochelle and Epsom salts, ippecac, porus-plasters, Trask's ointment, laudanum, wormwood and sulphur. Probably even others which I do not remember but enough to give quite a range to those who liked home-doctoring.

Two never-to-be-forgotten doses were wormwood and sulphur and molasses. Every spring the children would be lined up in the South Room and given a dose of wormwood tea and, a week or two later, a large spoonful of sulphur and molasses. The wormwood tea is self explanatory. The sulphur and molasses was supposed to cleanse the blood after a winter without fresh fruit or vegetables. The wormwood was very bitter and the sulphur and molasses quite gritty but with all the children watching no one dared to make a fuss. In case of sore throat, dry sulphur was blown into the throat through a glass tube.

Actual sickness was seldom in evidence. Occasionally there would be an epidemic of measles, chicken-pox, mumps or pink-eye and then the chil

dren who had had the disease and were immune, felt as if left out of a party, for there were often delicacies the convalescents were given which the healthy seldom tasted.

Whenever there was a case of serious illness or childbirth an Oneida doctor was called and there were a few women, known to have a special talent for nursing, who were always put in charge. Aunt Sarah Dunn was a particularly fine nurse. She seemed to have special intuition for diagnosis and what the immediate treatment should be, and she inspired courage and confidence in the patient at once. Mrs. Sears, I have heard, was an excellent midwife. Aunt Charlotte Reid had a special faculty with children, being patient, wise and kind.

In case of emergency such as an epidemic, any woman or man in the Community was glad to be called on to help, and often new talent would be discovered. My mother, though she had never had scarlet fever herself, nor had any experience with it, was put in sole charge of one child victim, day and night, and brought it through successfully. If the health department seems rather less organized than many of the branches of the Community, it must be remembered that though there was a recognition of the value of medicine, there was always a strong belief, by many, in the power of prayer and faith healing.

In the early days, faith in Divine Healing was but the logical result of a firm belief in the miracles of the Bible and I have heard that Mr. Noyes was able, as a channel of the Divine Power, to restore Miss Mehetibel Hall to health after years of invalidism and, after losing three of the Clark children in an epidemic of diphtheria, by resorting to prayer and cracked ice the epidemic was brought to an end. Later for some reason I never knew, they gave up sole reliance on God and used medicine when deemed necessary, although invoking His power as an ally.

Sickness among those in active life was rare, I should say. Occasionally we would hear that someone had "fever 'n ague" brought on from Walling-ford, which was always rife with it, but on the whole, sickness was seldom in evidence and I remember but one death occurring among the young. That was the death of beautiful Edith Waters, who died of consumption in nearby Verona Springs, where she had gone hoping for a cure. Even to us young children had come the story of her love affair with handsome, attractive Mr. Charlie and the suppression of such a notable case of "special love" was supposed by many to be the cause of her death rather than the true malady.

At the time it must have been decided that it was well for the children to know something of man's inevitable end for the children were allowed to look on that lovely face before the funeral service which we did not at

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tend. To me, it was quite a shock, since up to that time I must have forgotten Aunt Chloe's baby I had thought everyone lived to be a hundred, and my life seemed secure for years to come. Now, it was all different but, luckily, unhappy thoughts do not last long in childhood.

To us children even people of fifty seemed quite old and, by that reckoning there were many old people in the Community, the young-old and the old-old. The young-old took care of themselves nicely, but the old-old were given the same cheerful and tender care given the children, and apparently they were never considered a burden. They were kept clean and as attractive as possible. Meals were carried to them in a basket if they were unable to walk to the dining room and their rooms were usually situated adjoining either the Upper or Lower Sitting Room, thus giving them the benefit of those big sunny rooms to sit in and the opportunity to widen their horizon by meeting younger people who happened in.

One of the old ladies had completely lost her mind and was of great interest to the children whenever they happened to see her. She was always called Old Aunt Jane, because there was a younger Aunt Jane, and she occupied a room off the Upper Sitting Room. Every day after being dressed she was placed in a nicely cushioned rocker by one of the sunny windows and there she would sit by the hour, never speaking, hardly stirring save to fold and unfold her handkerchief. I have a ridiculous memory in connection with this poor woman, and one which still pricks my conscience. It happened that one day Josephine and I, finding Old Aunt Jane alone, in her usual chair, were inspired to see if we could get her attention. After some consultation we decided on what seemed a brilliant plan. We got down on our hands and knees and crept up to her, barking loudly like dogs. It brought a frightening response. She uttered a pitiful cry and put out her hands to fend us off.

By this time Josephine and I were so ashamed of our bright idea that we got up and ran away as quickly as possible thanking heaven that no one had seen us and that Old Aunt Jane could never tell of our wickedness. Had we been found out, punishment would surely have followed since respect for old people was taught us early and always insisted upon.

The most memorable of the old men was Mr. Perkins who was badly palsied. He was given the job of testing chains in the chain room. It was fascinating to us children to watch him missing the hook at which he aimed time after time but always persisting and always accomplishing his stint in the end. We children were often reprimanded by Papa Kelly for making false motions when making chains. It was a very bad habit we were told, and in Mr. Perkins we could see the sad, sad end to which the maker of false motions could possibly arrive. Fortunately there was a story we were

told later which greatly lessened our fears. The children's version was that in his youth Mr. Perkins was asked by his younger brother to go with him to a nearby pond to see him swim, which the boy had just learned to do. Very soon, whether through fear or cramp, the swimmer began to sink and called loudly for help. It was at this point that Mr. Perkins, who couldn't swim himself, simply walked on the water, like Peter in the Bible, and saved his brother's life. The boy was brought safely to land but poor Mr. Perkins, his faith unused to such a strain, was left a nervous wreck for evermore.
 

It happened that J.H.N. had established himself in Ithaca at the time, feeling that a center in Mid New York State would be an advantageous place from which to publish his journal, The Witness, and it was from Ithaca that he wrote David Harrison, a special friend and follower, a letter stating his very advanced views on marriage, leaving it to Harrison to judge whether it be shown to others. Harrison kept the letter for months before he dared show it to anyone alse. Finally he decided to send it to Simon Lovett, a close friend, first extracting a promise it should go no further. Lovett, however, who heartily approved Noyes' views, could not refrain from passing it on to Elizabeth Hawley, a young fire-brand of his acquaintance and she, carried away by the new gospel, insisted it be sent to Theophilus Gates of Philadelphia, owner and publisher of the Battle Axe, a new and very radical news-sheet.

And so the great, the revolutionary idea, was launched through no effort of Noyes' own. He had not thought the time was ripe to announce it to the world but under the circumstances he was forced to come forward as the author and sponsor of the letter, which he did with courage and strong conviction.

Though I have not been able to find further information concerning Miss Hawley's activities in promoting the new Truth she had so valiantly espoused, she must have been a strong supporter in some one of the various small groups of Perfectionists which had sprung up in New England and she was an early joiner of the rapidly growing Community at Oneida.

In my day she had become Aunt Elizabeth to the young people and was a rather odd but always interesting personality. She was quite short and

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not impressive physically in face or figure but there were always certain oddities in her dresses, which she made herself, a shrewd look in her bluegray eyes and a determined expression to her mouth and chin which showed one quickly she was an incurably independent character, one to be reckoned with.

What particular function she filled in the early days I do not know. Not one that carried any continuous responsibility, I am sure, as she was too erratic, too inorganic, undesirable qualities in an organization where obedience was necessary. However, she went her way seemingly undisturbed, even by criticism, choosing whatever work she wished to do and it seemed to be tacitly understood that argument about it was useless and to be avoided.

Sometimes it would suit her fancy to braid palm-leaf hats, at one time one of the minor industries of the Community. Sometimes she would devote herself to making scrapbooks for the children, which she considered important in those days of few illustrated books for children.

Her real passion was for flowers and she was an indefatigable gardener. Although, in her later years, after the Break-up, she became an enthusiastic disciple and correspondent of Dr. Totten of Yale, who was putting forth the theory that the English race was one of the lost ten tribes of Israel, she was still an ardent supporter of the doctrines of J.H.N. I suspect, however, that she reserved her own opinion as to his complete inspiration, since I once heard her say, "Yes, he was a great man, a wonderful man, but I never went near enough to see the brush marks."

After that utterance she turned away with the low amused chuckle so characteristic of her when she thought she had scored a point.

But as the years passed, she no longer felt controversial. As her strength declined she had to be moved down from her third floor room to a room on the second floor where she could be waited on more easily. Fortunately, too, for in her 91st year she fell and broke her hip.

In those days, before modern surgery, such an accident was very serious. An old person was not expected to live, much less to walk again. But such ideas were not accepted by Aunt Elizabeth. She had had "an inner witness," she told her friends, that she would both live and walk and walk she did, with only a cane for support until her 96th year. If one asked her how she felt she would say, "Don't ask me how I feel. Ask me how I do. I am doing well." What better epitaph could she have than that?

But why, you may ask, have I written very little about the active men and women of the O.C. outside my own family, and the people who cared for us children and a few eccentrics?

I wish I could tell more about the important members, those who were

responsible for managing the various departments or held professional positions. But on thinking the matter over I realize how little I actually knew about them. We felt their influence, however. There was always a general atmosphere of youth and vitality among them. They always seemed bent on important business matters but happily so. They never seemed worried. The whole atmosphere seemed serene, one of faith in God's approval of their lives and aims, and it never occurred to me that the Oneida Community would not go on forever.

In those days children were still supposed to be "seen but not heard," when with their elders. I could and did admire a few grownups from afar; Mr. Frank when he played his violin so beautifully, and his accompanist, Miss Tirzah, with her amazingly nimble fingers; Henry Hunter's playing of the clarinet in the orchestra and Miss Lily's sweet voice and lovely complexion when she sang on the stage. But the children's association with the older people in charge of running the affairs of the O.C. was practically nil. We knew their names, and we knew they felt kindly toward us, but that was the extent of the acquaintance.

There was nothing about them or their occupation to excite our interest, whereas Old Mr. Perry, who, it was rumored among the children, had no stomach and certainly he looked it, buttoned up so tightly in his black Prince Albert coat, was an object for frequent discussion. We almost envied him when we saw the delicious eggnogs sent up to him so regularly with his dinner.

Then there were the old ladies, so old they were allowed to wear the long dresses and the lovely swaying hoop skirts of their youth and, instead of short hair wore black wigs neatly parted in front, the back covered by a thick beribboned net. Whether because of age or their regal dress, several of these women were called "Lady." There was Lady Joslyn who wore barrel-hoops and Lady Norton and Lady Allen and one other, Lady Thayer, who wore a wig and net but a short dress and so had none of the swaying graces of a "lady" yet Lady she was called. I think her title must have been conferred because of the dominating vigor she displayed at an advanced age. It had to be recognized in some way.

And what a haven the Community was for old people, those who had joined probably in their thirties or forties and had given many years of honest work to the society so had earned a release from heavy labor. To keep them happy, light occupation was found for all those who wished it. Knitting, mending and silk-tying for the old women. Light kitchen work, apple-paring and the preparation of vegetables for the family table for the old men. They were humdrum duties but when done in company with others and in pleasant conditions, there was a happy social flavor about

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them not to be found in the isolated farm houses those people had probably come from.

When old people reached the stage where they needed constant care some qualified person was appointed to look after them, often a man or woman near their own age but still strong enough to keep up a high standard of care for the patient's person, clothes and room. Friends would drop in frequently to see them, bringing news of the family life and so their days would pass peacefully to the end.
 

This was a bit over my head at the time but before long Wallingford became for me a real place. One day I happened to see a trunk being unpacked by a person who had just come from there and had brought with him several large golden apples, each with a note attached to it by a large pin.

They looked like apples but they were quite hard, rather fuzzy and had a most delicious smell, quite unlike any apples I had ever seen before. When I asked what kind of apples they were through my Grandpa I knew quite a little about apples - I was told these were quinces, which could not be grown at Oneida because it was too cold. They grew well at Wallingford, however, so our people there would often send them in the fall, as a loving remembrance to friends at Oneida. They were delicious, baked and served with cream.

Soon after that, Wallingford began to have a more important interest for me. My precious Grandma was sent there to help in some domestic capacity, I believe, and before very long I was told I might go and stay with her for a while. That was my first experience in travel. Nice Aunt Sarah Johnson, who later became my teacher, and Miss Jane Abbot, one of the Children's House Mothers, were going to Wallingford for a change and I was to go with them. It was an unforgettable journey.

Aunt Sarah was kind, loved children and they felt it, but Miss Jane -never "Aunt Jane"- was the martinet type and was one of the quite permanent Children's House Mothers. She was the one who saw to it that the

children were kept clean, went to their meals and bed on time, were properly dressed when they went outdoors, were prompt in attendance at five o clock meeting and were obedient and respectful. The children obeyed her, not from love but through fear of her severity. She seldom spanked but sometimes used the back of a hairbrush on the hand. When Aunt Sarah took your hand in her soft, gentle palm, it was a hand-clasp. When Miss Jane took your hand in her thin, hard one, to hurry you along, it was a hand-grasp and you'd better not hang back. She was in charge of the journey to Wallingford.

We went from Oneida to Albany by train arriving just in time to catch the Hudson River night boat. I remember but little of the first part of the trip save feeling very homesick and longing for my mother, but the scene on the badly-lighted dock in Albany, the gleam of lights on that black and menacing river has stayed with me through the years. Our cabin was tiny - barely room for us and our modest amount of luggage.

Miss Jane was small, so I had to sleep with her in the lower berth, perhaps because if I crowded her out she wouldn't have so far to fall. This arrangement, however, obliged Aunt Sarah, who was very stout, to climb up a shaky ladder to the upper berth. I watched the proceeding, my heart in my mouth, and heard her bed creak and groan as she settled into it. Then I was helped to undress, told to get into the lower berth and lie as close to the wall as possible. Miss Jane followed, excluding all light and air.

How frightened I was! Never having traveled by boat before, I didn't know that even the best of them creak and strain frequently, so that every time I heard those strange boat noises I thought Aunt Sarah was about to descend on us and, though I trusted her kindness usually, I was sure she was bound to crush Miss Jane and me flat as a pancake before morning. Luckily I was too sleepy and tired to lie awake long and in no time, it seemed, it was morning and we waked unharmed and at the dock in New York.

We must have breakfasted somewhere I suppose, then transferred to a train and the next thing I knew I was at that mythical place called Walling-ford and in my precious Grandmother's arms, all fears forgotten.

There was just time before the twelve o'clock dinner to be shown around the house which seemed pretty small compared with the Mansion at Oneida but there was the same big family atmosphere and I was soon feeling at home. Fortunately there were three other children there at the time -Humphrey, Theodore and Agnes, I think - and after dinner I was told I could go with them to the playroom which was located in the printing office, as the printing establishment adjacent to the Big House was called.

The "printing office" was really a fair-sized building which housed the printing of the Circular and all Community publications. The printers

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 could doubtless have used all the space for their business, but the children's welfare always came first in domestic considerations, and a large, well-lighted room on the first floor of the printing office was allotted for the children's use. It was here we spent most of our time when not outdoors.

It was plainly furnished, following the custom at Oneida, but had a nice smooth hardwood floor, so essential to active play, and, an innovation, some small low cupboards arranged around the wall for the children's special use. It is the memory of those cupboards that brings to mind a tragic incident - that is, as a child knows tragedy.

When I left Oneida my mother had given me a present, all carefully wrapped and not to be opened till I reached Wallingford. I am sure it was Mother's idea that this gift might tide me over a very probable touch of homesickness. I knew nothing of that, however, and my one thought after dinner was to get Grandma to unpack my bag so I could see my present. Presents were rare in those days. Luckily it lay on top of my clothing and in a trice I had taken off the wrapping paper and there lay a candy rose, as large as a real rose but in has-relief. The back of it was flat, just plain white candy, but on the upper side there were lovely curved pink petals with a center of green and a short green stem.

I had never had anything so lovely in all my life, I thought. I wanted to show it at once to the children, so I wrapped it carefully and went downstairs to meet them, carrying it very importantly in my hand. I said nothing about it and they were too polite to ask immediately what it was, but on entering the playroom I was told at once which was my cupboard and that I could put my things in it. I could keep my delight no longer to myself, so I undid the paper and displayed that beautiful rose.

They were all as overcome by its beauty as I was and there were Oh's and Ah's aplenty, but it was candy, after all, and just as I was about to put it into my cupboard for safe-keeping one bold spirit blurted out, "But, aren't you going to share?"

"Oh," I said, "It's too pretty to eat." This was not at all the general sentiment, and my remark was met by silence and sour looks. Then a bright thought struck one of the children. "Couldn't we just lick the back of it? It wouldn't hurt it." Our mouths were all watering by that time and it seemed quite feasible, so I unwrapped my rose and passed it around, dire apprehension in my heart. Those licks were long and loving but by the time it reached me I couldn't see that the lovely rose had suffered. It was just as pink and perfect as when I got it, so I dared to take my turn at licking, then wrapped it again carefully and shut it in my cupboard, hoping it might be forgotten. But, of course, it wasn't. That lick simply whetted the appetite of the candy-hungry children and I was very overtly given prefer-

ence in all the games we played, even though a neighbor's little daughter had been asked in to play with us.

We built block houses, looked at picture books and, best of all, raced marbles, starting them from the top of the big, zigzag marble-roller and racing them the entire length of the room.

In about a half hour little Martha, the neighbor's daughter, said she must go home. Her mother had said not to stay long. We were so engrossed in play by that time that we called out a brief goodbye over our shoulders and went on with the game, secretly glad I think, that there was one less mouth to feed.

Finally even marble racing palled and memories of that sweet, sweet rose came to us all. I couldn't bring myself to offer it again but I didn't have to. It was suggested in a loud, enthusiastic tone by Humphrey, "Let's have another lick on the rose." The others all joined in and I could not deny them, though my heart sank. Could that loveliness stand another round of licks unharmed? But it had to be tried.

I was escorted to my cupboard with deference and with reluctance opened the door on a bare shelf. Not a vestige of that lovely rose was left. It was gone Gone!

We children had been brought up on the Ten Commandments and knew what a dreadful sin stealing was, but it was an ugly word, never referred to save as "taking-what-doesn't-belong-to-you-without-asking." That was considered as definition enough yet avoided that hope-destroying word.

So we didn't say Martha had stolen the rose although we knew she had. And even if we had called her a robber, thief wasn't in our vocabulary either, nothing we could have called her would bring back my lovely, lovely rose. But never, never again would we play with little Martha, child of perdition.

There are only two other incidents that stand out clearly in my four-year old memory of that first visit to Wallingford. The children realizing, I suppose, that Wallingford didn't offer the varied facilities for play that Oneida did, did their best to find for me interesting things to see or do. One of the most exciting things in the place, they said, was Mr. Charlie's Mustang, but the barn was out of hounds and they could not take me there. That word Mustang, such a nice word, whetted my curiosity.

I wanted very much to see it, so when one morning Mr. Charlie - he was my Uncle Charlie - asked me if I would like to go with him to the barn, my joy knew no bounds. And what a beautiful creature that horse was! It was not large but of perfect build and had a coat the color and sheen of a ripe chestnut, while the forelock, mane and tail were black, the tail almost reaching the ground.

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Uncle Charlie had me stand well outside the stall while he fed the Mustang an apple. Then he picked me up in his arms and let me pat the horse's satin-smooth neck which it seemed to like, as it turned its head toward me with a whinney and a very friendly look.

I was then told by Uncle Charlie to go outside while he fixed the head-stall and I started to obey but I was fascinated by that long, black tail, so, unseen, slipped back into the stall and took the end of the beautiful tail up in my hands. I must have handled it very gently for nothing happened until Uncle Charlie, turning, saw me. Then, with one swift stride and without a sound, he snatched me up in his arms and stepped out of the stall. His face was awfully white and his voice sounded trembly but he didn't scold.

All he said was, "Don't you know, child, that you must never go behind a horse's heels? He might have kicked you." "But he didn't," I said. "He likes me.

"Yes, he must," Uncle Charlie said. He didn't mention Guardian Angels but I am sure he saluted them and gave silent thanks. All the way to the house he held my hand close in his, although he didn't say a word nor did I.

I might have thought I had gravely displeased him, since he never asked me again to go to see the Mustang but whenever I saw him riding by, looking so handsome and happy, he would wave his hand at me and I felt we were still friends.

In thinking over my visit to Wallingford and trying to place my age by the kind of things I remembered, one simple touching incident comes to my mind showing the child's early and instinctive trust in the goodness of God.

One lovely sunny day soon after I arrived, the children said, "Let's go and see where Miss Chloe's baby is buried." Miss Chloe's Baby! Had Miss Chloe had a baby of her own once? And it had died? Why, Miss Chloe was one of the mothers of the Children's House and the dearest She was always kind, never scolded even if you were naughty, could love you into being good and had so expressive a face and so lovely a voice that her storytelling was pure delight.

We children would sit quiet as mice for as long a time as she could give us, listening to her enchanting tales. Yes, of course, I wanted to see it, not that I really comprehended anything about it. So we started out playing "follow the leader" on the way and were soon led to a little footpath which wound up to a sunlit grove of slender oaks at the foot of Mt. Tom. This places the time of my visit in the fall, as the ground was covered with yellow leaves which we scuffed up into great heaps, then threw ourselves into them amid shouts of laughter.

We were so carried away with the fun we were having that we almost forgot the reason for our walk but soon Humphrey called us together and

led us to a secluded corner of the grove where there were a few graves with headstones, gray with age, and beyond them, next to the fence, to a little grave marked with a small stone, the grave of Miss Chloe's baby.

Suddenly we felt quite concerned about that little boy lying there all alone, taken away from his mother but not yet gone to heaven. Why was that? Yet God was our loving Father. We didn't question that.

We stood there quietly for several moments, then Humphrey said, "Now, if you will lay your head down on his grave you can hear his heart beat."

Solemnly and with unquestioning belief, we all took turns laying our heads down on that golden coverlet of leaves, certain that the faint rustling we heard was the baby's heart still beating.

"Yes, he's all safe," Humphrey said.

"Yes, all safe," we echoed. Then we went away, not saddened but feeling the baby was being tenderly cared for by good Mother Earth till God should call him home.

My second and last visit to Wallingford, two or three years later did not, for some reason, record nearly such vivid memories as that first one.

Perhaps that was because it occurred after the main Wallingford family had moved back to Oneida. Malaria, which followed the enlarging of the pond to provide water power for the spoon factory, as it was called, had taken a heavy toll of the Wallingford family. My uncle, Charlie Cragin, had died from it and the Central Committee decided to abandon the whole enterprise. The spoon business was to be moved to Niagara Falls and the Wallingford factory was sold to Maltby, Stevens & Curtis of Meriden, Conn. The machinery and raw materials were to be shipped to the new factory at Niagara Falls. To do this job, Mr. Daniel Kelly was sent to help Mr. Myron Kinsley who for some time had been running the spoon factory.

It is at this point that I come into the picture. After the big family had left for Oneida, someone was needed to keep house for the few men remaining there at Wallingford and my Grandmother Ackley had been the one chosen. I fancy she was rather homesick alone all day in the old house, so it was decided to send me out to keep her company for the rest of her stay. Mr. Kelly, being then en route to Wallingford, was elected to take me with him. As I remember it, Mr. Kelly, while being a very estimable man, was wholly unused to caring for children and seemed rather bored with the idea but had to consent.

We were to take the sleeper from Utica and my mother accompanied me as far as the Utica station. Though I wanted to see my grandma, I was leaving behind Mother, my sister Maggie and brother Bobbie, our new family home, my old playmates and the dear, familiar surroundings. By the time I reached the station I was already homesick and I dissolved in tears,

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begging mother to take me home. Community training came to the fore as usual. If it was best for all that I should go, go I must. It must have cost my mother a pang to send me away, weeping and disconsolate, but she was a good soldier. The whistle blew and I was hurried aboard the train.

It was soon bedtime, fortunately, and Mr. Kelly told me to take off my shoes, coat and hat. Then, still fully dressed, I was helped into an upper berth where, with my new doll Mother had just made me my first doll

hugged tight in my arms I was soon asleep. I must have forgotten my homesickness and slept soundly, too. In no time, it seemed to me, Mr. Kelly called me, told me to get ready, for we were pulling into Meriden. After that there was a six mile drive, but soon I was in Wallingford and in my grandma's arms.

This second visit proved rather dull for there were no children to play with except a little colored girl, child of Cindy, the colored cook who used to come in daily to help Grandma with the work. Cindy made all the bread and it was fun to watch her put her pink-palmed hands into the big pan of sponge, take out a double handfull, drop it onto the floured-board and by kneading with the heel of the hand, turning, folding again and again, a fascinating process, work it into the shape of a loaf just the size of her bread-pan into which she would tuck it as gently as you would lay a baby in its cradle. After this, of course, it must be set in a warm place to rise again, then be baked for a full hour. But what a reward would be yours if you happened into the kitchen when it was done, still warm, and sending forth its delectable aroma! Then Cindy would cut off an end crust for you, spread it generously with home-made butter and there you had food for the Gods.

My only outside amusement was following Mr. Birdsey Bristol while he did the work in the barn, milking the cow, feeding and currying the horse and oxen or plowing with those great rust-colored creatures, Buck and Berry, in a field near the house. Mr. Bristol was a man Millet would have loved to paint. He was big and brawny with a fine head rather sparsely covered with curly gray hair but there was no lack to his curly beard which sprangled out riotously all over his face. His nose was too large and acquiline to be subdued by his beard, but the dominant features were his eyes, large bright blue, observant and friendly, and his deep, resonant voice, which, when he sang out his gees and haws to the oxen, was a joy to hear. We became friends at once and I used to follow him about much of the time. He was such a nice member of the family, too, always looking around to see where he could help.

Another nice family member was Mr. Myron Kinsley my uncle. He was always kind and jolly and surprised us greatly one day by bringing in sweet Miss Jessie Baker whom I had known at Oneida. He had just met

her train in Meriden. Grandma didn't seem surprised, however, but welcomed her warmly as did all the others but why had she come? Grandma didn't need any more help. Next day Miss Jessie told me the reason. That very afternoon she was going to marry Uncle Myron in New Haven and she showed me her wedding dress, a dark green brocaded silk, very pretty, which she had made herself. She was a lovely young woman and would make a fine wife. Here was romance in full flower right before my eyes where I couldn't help but see it. This was very exciting but I was still somewhat homesick so I was glad that after a short time the house was closed and we were on the way home, all but Mr. Bristol whom I was sorry to leave.

It only remains for me to tell of the final end of the Wallingford Community buildings. They were large enough to accommodate a family of fifty, by no means beautiful and not easy to sell advantageously. For this reason Mr. S. R. Leonard, Sr. was sent from Oneida to act as caretaker and to relay any promising bids. Not until two years later was a satisfactory offer made. This came from the Freemasons who wanted it for a home for their aged members. They would also have use for the farm, so it was sold to them and is still used by them for this purpose, thus maintaining its original purpose a communal home.
 

Why it was called the Drawing Room I have never known, but certainly that was its name and here all of us Community children spent the first year of our lives. In this room the babies were cared for from the time they left the nursery, at probably six months old, until they were thought advanced enough to go to the East Room.

The only other features I remember are the willow clothes baskets, two

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 or three of them, mounted on low-wheeled wooden platforms, with a long leather strap, to draw them by, fastened at one end. In these vehicles babies were drawn, instead of being carried from one room to another or, for a little change and amusement, taken for a ride up and down the hallways outside.

The East Room to which we graduated from the Drawing Room, was a large room, nearly square, with two windows facing east and a large bay window flanked by two smaller windows facing south. As in all of the rooms devoted to the children, the floors were bare, the walls white and bare save for a picture or two of childish interest. The most important pieces of furniture that stand out boldly in my mind are the big, round table at which the children ate and the high chairs in which they sat at table. And though furniture was scarce, it was sufficient since it was in this room that play first became active and exciting. There were, besides, other wooden chairs suited to children of different ages and one of the painted wooden settees, like those in the Big Hall.

Most outstanding among the playthings was Shocky, the great rocking horse given us by some interested visitors. Shocky was at least three feet high and four feet long, had a noble head with glowing hazel eyes and his body was covered with real horsehide of a pale tan color which, with his flowing pale blonde mane, tail and forelock, made him what today we would call a palomino. But his beauty was only part of our great delight, for on his back he had a red leather saddle with stirrups attached, on his head a head-stall with reins fastened to his bit and he was mounted on a tremendously strong, flat steel spring which was attached to a heavy wooden base, so that instead of teetering, he bounced. How he bounced! His forelegs curved as if he was about to rear. But he never did. Never a child was thrown off. T'was all pure joy. There was also the little green teeter, shaped like a crescent moon, with seats at both ends for the younger children to ride.

It was in this room we first knew the fun of marble rollers, an arrangement of grooved moldings made into hollow squares or zig-zags, down which we raced our gayly colored marbles. And blocks What a wealth of them, made of hard wood, smoothed beyond the possibility of a sliver and of many sizes.

Picture books began to be of interest, too, but in those days illustrated books were too rare to let little tots look at them by themselves, so two or three of the older women began to make scrap books on double sheets of heavy starched cotton or linen. Eyelets were set into one edge of each page and a dozen or more leaves were laced into heavy cardboard covers. The pictures were chosen with great care from old illustrated magazines, Harpers, Frank Leslie's, etc., but these were all black and white of course; so, to in

troduce color which children love, some one of the scrap-book makers - Aunt Elizabeth Hawley, I fancy - thought of the gorgeous labels used on the fruit and vegetable cans at the Fruit House, as our canning factory was always called, and so, richly scattered through the pages were pictures of beautiful red tomatoes, green peas and string beans, plums, cherries, pears and peaches. The homemade scrap books were great favorites.

As I look back on those days, I am impressed with the amount of time, thought and ingenuity the children's welfare and happiness commanded from men and women alike. The rearing of healthy, happy children was a major enterprise in the Oneida Community, and I am sure the Carpentry Department never felt it beneath them if called upon to make blocks, marble rollers, teeters, strong supports for swings or the winter platform which added an extra thrill to coasting on the South Hill.

Just beyond the South Room there was a West Room a small place used sometimes as a playroom, but its chief use was as a dressing room in which to put on and off outside clothing. This was also where you stood to have your hair brushed before meals and have your hand-and-face washing inspected, the children's sink room being just opposite.

At the age of six or seven we moved on from the East Room to the South Room, the goal of all childish ambitions. Here we really began to feel we were growing up. It was a large room about 30 feet long by 16 feet wide

with four large uncurtained windows facing south but since these windows were sheltered by the South Porch just outside, the room was a bit dark. However, at this age children spent so much of their time out of doors that this didn't matter when everything else was so right.

Here, as in all the children's rooms, there was a sensible austerity in the furnishing. The floor was uncarpeted as the children spent much of their time in floor games and rough and tumble squabbling. There was a large oak extension table between two of the front windows and a black leather-covered settee stood against the north wall. Hard wooden chairs enabled the children to work or play at the table and, on rainy days, the table would be surrounded by youngsters playing cards, checkers, dominoes or parchesi. At times, the rage might be for painting or crayoning or cutting out pictures and making scrapbooks.

There was never a dearth of interesting things to do when the weather was bad or darkness fell. For readers there was a tall bookcase filled with children's books and on dull days some house mother or father, noting mounting restlessness, would read some story aloud or, as a special treat, reverently take down the dancing dolls from their eyrie on top of the bookcase, wind them up and set them on the floor to waltz to their own music, the beautiful Blue Danube. What a delight they were! The lady doll was a

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lovely creature. She wore a large hoop skirt of white satin which nicely covered the music box and machinery. This was topped by a low-necked pink satin bodice, and her exquisite bisque head was crowned with an elaborate coiffure of blonde curls. Her partner was in full court attire, also; black satin knee-breeches, white silk hose, black satin pumps, a full-skirted satin coat of emerald green embroidered with gold thread, a ruffled lace waist-coat and on his powdered wig he wore a tricorne hat of black satin. These wonderfuld olls, like our precious Shocky, were a gift from an interested visitor, one who must have been an extensive traveller, since those lovely creatures must have come from abroad. Strange that they should have journeyed all that distance from an old culture to find a final resting place in such a unique home.

One other outstanding feature in the room that I feel must have had a foreign origin was the remarkably fine steel engraving, now hanging in the Library Annex, depicting the tragic experiences of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress from the moment he left his weeping wife and children at the gate to the city of Destruction, his burden of sins upon his back, until he arrives at the Celestial City and the shining effulgence of God's approval. I don't remember who ~rst read us the story and pointed out the various vicissitudes Christian encountered, but it preached a powerful sermon and brought us the idea of warfare with sin very early too early, I think.

However, it may have given added importance to the children's daily meeting held at five thirty. It was in this big South Room that we assembled every day for these meetings, all washed and brushed and ready for our supper which would follow. The smaller children sat in the front rows in the little oak arm-chairs designed and made in the Carpentry Shop. The larger children sat at the back of the roo