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Note: [Recollections by RAD, 1998]
Jean Webster (1876-1916) wrote the novel "Daddy Long-legs" (1912) while boarding at the Lundquist house down Kellogg St. A picture of the main entrance of the Kellogg house appears as a frontispiece, and a "Mr Kellogg" makes a brief appearance as a recently-deceased minister. "Daddy Long-Legs" is generally considered as the original model for the "correspondence" style of novel, being a supposed collection of letters.
Jean Webster was a grandniece of Samuel Clemens, a/k/a Mark Twain. It is possible that he visited her there.
"Daddy Long-Legs" has been made into a movie no less than 4 times: 1919, with Mary Pickford; 1931, with Janet Gaynor; 1935, with Shirley Temple; 1955, with Leslie Caron (and Fred Astaire). The novel has never been out of print.
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Grandpa Martini taught me how to tie my shoes. I must have been 4 or 5 at the time. He was a very formal man, and every arrival at the house was followed by the solemn ritual of Shaking Hands. He always wore two flannel shirts, often with a light sweater, even in the heat of summer. The only times that I can recall him wearing anything else was when we went to church, and when I saw him laid out in his casket.
Martin was a house painter by trade, and also dabbled in the fine arts. We still have several of his paintings, which remind me of Grandma Moses' style. Both of his daughters (from his first marriage) painted, too. I also have a very large oil that he accepted as partial payment for a painting job.
Before he stopped driving, he used to take us to church in Brookfield Center in his 1937 Chevrolet sedan, in immaculate condition, with little pull-down shades for the windows. The route to church took us over a road that had a hairpin turn on a very steep downhill. There was always the question of whether the old car would make it back up on the return. It always did. After he stopped driving, he kept the car in the garage and ran it once a month and oiled everything. He knew that machinery wanted oiling, and he was happy to oblige.
There were several kinds of fruits and berries growing there that he made into the most delicious wine. Although it was on the sweet side, it had an intense fruit flavor -- and quite an alcoholic kick. I remember watching him make it in a large earthenware crock, of perhaps 5 gallons, in the cellar. Since the quantities were rather small, the wine was brought out only on the most special occasions.
There is a horse chestnut tree in the back that is the largest I've ever seen. It must be 15 or 20 feet around. The deep shade prevented anything from growing under it, so it was always bare ground there. Every year it set an immense number of nuts. They weren't good for anything, but they were so perfectly shiny and smooth -- and there was so many of them, that they cried out to be collected -- and we did, by the bushel basket-full. If my recollection of the size of this tree is near correct, it is almost certainly a Champion Tree, at least in CT.
Having grown up in the days when real candles decorated the Christmas tree, Grandfather had grown accustomed to nailing the tree to the floor to prevent disasters -- a habit he never changed when the newfangled electric lights replaced the candles. Under the rug in one corner of the "front room" the floor looked like a war zone from years and years of Christmases.
When I was young, there was no central heating in the house, nor indoor plumbing! The only heat was supplied by two pot-bellied stoves, and the range in the kitchen, all coal-fired. One stove was in the dining room and the other in the so-called front room. Heat percolated to the bedrooms upstairs by one register in the ceiling above each stove. This heated two of the four bedrooms, the other two being abandoned during the winter. I imagine that this was not the case when Mother and her siblings were growing up there!
There was a chemical toilet in a small closet upstairs. We had strict orders not to use it, but sometimes we kids did anyway. The outhouse was quite an amazing place, full of spiders and mud-daubers in summer, and really breezy in winter! That path was the first one shoveled after a snow! There was a hand pump on the kitchen sink which drew from a well under the front porch. There was also cold running water from a tap in the sink. This came from a spring about � mile away on Hickory Hill. Since it was a higher elevation, no pump was required, I believe. At some time it was decided to install indoor plumbing and something had to be done under the kitchen floor, where there was only a small crawl space. The space was too small for any of the menfolks, so I was elected to accomplish the task. I don't remember what that task was, but I have a really intense memory of the dust and the spider webs!
The male grandchildren and step-grandchildren, myself included, were his pall bearers. I particularly remember that he was buried in a massive elm casket.
[RAD 1998]
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