Last month we introduced the memoirs of Stella Hyde Morey who lived in South Sandisfield as a precocious young girl in the mid-1910s. Stella's transcribed 3,600-word memoirs, written in 1987, include remarkable, detailed impressions of everyday life and people.

Part One, published last month, included recollections of farming traditions. Part Two here continues with excerpts about her daily life, with slight edits for clarity and conciseness. The South Sandisfield Congregational chapel was the social center of the community. The church and its ministers and parishioners are recurrent in her writing. Two of her anecdotes detail Sandisfield thunderstorms of the early part of the last century.

By a quirk of fate, my mother [Ethel] was 41 years old when I was born [New Rochelle, NY] and my father [Howard J. Hyde Sr.] was 52. My brothers were grown and away at school. So, I associated completely with older people. We had a huge 14-room house (built in 1770) about 10 minutes' walk from the church. I was in the middle of everything that was going on. Because I was my father's shadow, I went where he went, saw everything, and didn't miss a trick.

Vera Hartshorn was the daughter-inlaw of a very well-known New England portrait painter.* She was very (lively). Fire-red hair, curly; blue eyes. Creamy complexion sprinkled with freckles. She loved life.

Thunderstorms

We had a dreadful thunderstorm in the area and her husband [Owen] and hired men were rushing to get in the last bit of hay before the downpour. He asked her to take the team to a corner of the field. She hopped on the rake and was down in the field when a bolt of lightning hit the rake. It killed the team and threw her 10 or 15 feet. She was rushed to the hospital unconscious and remained so for some time. They believed the reason she lived was because she brought along a heavy raincoat and threw it on the iron seat to give a little "cushioning." In those days raincoats were made of rubber, not plastic! We used to get very dreadful thunderstorms in that area, and I'll bet they still do. Behind the church there was a small pond - not natural but formed by a dam. There was a meadow between the church and pond. As you face the church you will see behind it, a little distance, a mountain (more like an overgrown hill). It was heavily timbered, and that mountain is loaded with iron ore. The Indians mined it for ore. It was also loaded with rattlesnakes.

But I can remember standing in the window counting the times the lightning struck the mountain. There always seemed to be a great disturbance around the mountain during storms. Mother was scared silly of thunderstorms. She would go into the family sitting room, pull down the shades, light the piano lamp and play and sing songs. I wasn't having any of that so I would crawl under the shade and watch God's fireworks. When a storm got going, she always sang 'Rock of Ages' - all the verses.

'Rev. Goodie' and the Snowstorm

Stella mentions Rev. Asa Stanley Goodrich, one of the Congregational ministers who impressed her.

He was called "Goodie" behind his back. He was a most delightful person, and the young people adored him. He was a champion for the young. One year on a Friday or Saturday in January we had heavy snowfall. Sunday was bitterly cold. (Although) the roads were very bad, families were at the church waiting for the minister anyway. He didn't come. Father was about to send Ray (my brother) back to our place to (get) saddle horses so that he and another of the boys could ride up to New Marlboro [where Rev. Goodrich also preached] to meet him. Just then Will Sage, son of Mrs. C. H. Sage, came in on horseback to say Rev. Goodrich wouldn't be in. Goodie was safe at their house. The Sage place was about halfway between New Marlboro and the church in South Sandisfield.

His horse fell and hurt its leg and Goodie had to walk almost a mile (back) to the Sages, leading the horse. The way Mrs. Sage expressed it was that neither horse nor man was in any shape to travel further. Mr. Sage said, "Goodie was beat out" and he thought frost bitten as well. He also remarked that "Ma" had given him a glass of her dandelion wine because he was shuddering with the cold. That made him feel good so he asked for more saying, "he felt so much better that he might get to church to hold a short prayer meeting." The net result was that Goodie was out like a light and (Mr.) Sage remarked that he was gassed (and) "that would hold him for 24 hours."

Part One appeared last month. Part Three, "The Quilt," will appear next month.