Interviewer - Okay, this is Fred Merriam. I'm here with Nancy Clark at number 54 Westford Street in Chelmsford, Mass. And so Nancy, you were just talking about when you came into town, telling me some interesting stories there.

Why don't you take it away?

Nancy Clark - Lincoln's cousin married the daughter of the owner of this house. And, of course, we all came, and then the reception was here.

Interviewer - Oh, so this is the Dunsford family?

Nancy Clark - This is the Dunsford family. And we were looking for a house, and during the reception, Lincoln's mother and I went upstairs to see what it was like upstairs. And we came down, and we said, this is the house we'd like to buy.

And I don't remember, there was no realtor. It was just Mrs. Dunsford and Lincoln and I, and we bought it. And it was a wonderful house.

If you stand here in the front, to the right was the asparagus bed. To the left was all trails for horses. They kept horses here.

There were six bedrooms.

Interviewer - This was around the yard and this yard and everything else?

Nancy Clark - The land went across the highway up and the first house there was the house that Mr. Dunsford built for his only daughter. He had five sons and one daughter. The first house on your right as you go up WestfordStreet was the gardens cottage, and that was right on the road, 495 on the first.

Interviewer - I guess I should mention that today is August 11, 2011, and we're talking about the location we're at. It's right next to where 495 is. And you said when you came to town, what stage was the planning of that highway?

Nancy Clark - Nothing.

Interviewer - It was all just a neighborhood?

Nancy Clark - Just a neighborhood. And across the street was a famous Perham cider mills and a beautiful little house. And across the driveway was Mr. Walter Perham. And they were known as the Vinegar Perhams because they made cider and cider can be made into vinegar.

And they sold their vinegar to S.S. Pierce in Boston.

Interviewer - And was Walter still in the business at the time that you came here?

Nancy Clark - Mr. Walter had turned it over to his son, Sidney.

Interviewer - Okay. And Walter lived right across the street and Sidney was at the old farm?

Nancy Clark - No, Sidney lived with Dad.

Interviewer - Oh, in this house. And then that was the business then?

Nancy Clark - That was still going.

Interviewer - Did they rent the house out, the Perham farm?

Nancy Clark - The old house had two tenants. And when we moved here, there were the Jacobys downstairs and a minister and his wife and son. And they were the Baptist church people.

Interviewer - Central Baptist.

Nancy Clark - Yeah. And he was a nice little boy. He was a friend of Al and Jacoby and Lincoln.

So my introduction to Chelmsford was absolutely delightful. Lincoln was still going to the mill in the Hockmeyer quarter, right? So that was a nice, easy trip.

And I don't think we were here very long when Helen Page gave a tea party for Aunt Jacoby and me, for all the neighbors up and down the street.

Interviewer - Now, is she related to Richmond Page?

Nancy Clark - That's his wife.

Interviewer - Okay. And see, Richmond Page started at the drugstore. He was from Lowell also.

Did you know him before when he was in Lowell?

Nancy Clark - I knew Helen.

Interviewer - Helen, okay.

Nancy Clark - I didn't know Dick. But he was a nice guy. And they had very nice children.

Polly was Connie's age. And then there was the son. And then there were a pair of twins, girls.

And they all played together around. But I met some of the older people that I loved. Arnold Perham.

He was a lovely man. And he was a relative of the Perhams. I don't know how, but he wasn't in the vinegar business.

And he told me when he came here, as delivering milk, he used to charge six cents a quart and deliver it to Widow Knox. And this house was built in 1887. And we have all the names of all the people who lived here and the dates.

And we've left a place for the next person. When the state decided they were going to build 495, Lincoln had the mill had closed because they had very high standards and they were not going to sell corduroy that wasn't up to snuff. And you have to have good dyes.

And if you don't have good dyes, you can sell it cheaply. And they wouldn't do it. So they sold the mill.

And Lincoln started working at the reactor at MIT. And he had to get his master's. And while the children were going to school, he was going to work in school, too.

Interviewer - So just a little background. Lincoln's parents owned the Hockmeyer Corduroy Mill on Dutton Street in Lowell? No, that's our mill.

Oh, your mill.

Nancy Clark - It's right on Lawrence Street in Lowell. It's the mill, the river, and the cemetery. The old cemetery overlooks the mill.

In the spring, they have rapids. And people come miles away and use the rapids.

Interviewer - In the Concord River?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - I've seen pictures. I've seen actually movies of people shooting the rapids in the dam. Okay.

And so the mill is near that?

Nancy Clark - Yes, it's still there. Yes, unfortunately.

Interviewer - And this was your family?

Nancy Clark - No, this is Lincoln's family. Lincoln's mother's family. And to put it all in perspective, you know, in mills in my time, the oldest son went into the mill.

The second son, if there was room, he would be selling or something. And Lincoln's father was the third son, and there was no place for him in the Talbot Mills. So he started work in Boston.

Then he came back to Lowell, and he had known Lincoln's mother, Ethel Hockmeyer, and he married her. And so he came in to the Hockmeyer as the daughter's husband. And he helped run the mill.

So it's very hard when you have three sons. The same thing happened in the Talbot Mills.

Interviewer - And so the mill had a policy where they only allowed the first two sons to work? Oh, yeah, all mills. It was a tradition or a policy?

Nancy Clark - It was a tradition.

Interviewer - I didn't know that.

Nancy Clark - Anywhere, the first son. Even in England, the first son is the one that gets it. Well, look at young Duke of Cambridge.

He's going to be the king. And Harry, Prince Harry, he'll have to find something else to do. He's not going to be king.

He'll never get it.

Interviewer - So it's a tradition that may have come over from England. Absolutely, absolutely, yes.

Nancy Clark - It happened in our Bobbin Mill.

Interviewer - And the Bobbin Mill that your family had, that was on?

Nancy Clark - On Dutton Street, yeah. I guess it's an unwritten law. Well, now, let's see.

Mr. Arnold Perham, I don't know whether you've bumped into him, if people have mentioned him, but he lived right down the street here. And he was the nicest, dearest man. And his wife was lovely.

And she was head of the Florence Crittenton and all. And they were so sweet. And then there was Mrs. Carl Perham, who lived over on Dalton Road in a lovely old house. And she was a Perham, but she wasn't a vinegar Perham. Sidney was the only one. And when the word came that the road was coming through, my husband at MIT, at the reactor at MIT, he found out about it and went to something in the State House, and they gave him the plans.

And they didn't know about it out here. They thought it was going to come way down there. And they said, no, no, they're coming right through here.

Interviewer - Well, so he had a first peek at it. Did he inform people in the town?

Nancy Clark - He was informed. Well, he...

Interviewer - Was he allowed to do that?

Nancy Clark - Well, he did. He showed them. They gave him the maps.

And unfortunately...

Interviewer - So there must have been a shock to the town of Perham.

Nancy Clark - Well, it came... They came so close here, Fred, that 25 feet from the porch.

Interviewer - With the cutting back, the banking. Yeah.

Nancy Clark - And we went to court not to stop the road because... Just your concern about undercutting your... Absolutely.

And three people came to look at the house. And I remember I was younger then, and they said, Sister, if what you need in this house is a pair of roller skates and a stepladder. One liked it.

Two didn't. One was a drummer. I mean, it was very political.

And you know when they take your land, they're supposed to give you a dollar. And they never gave me any dollars. They should have given us three.

Interviewer - No. Because they took... They took over a portion of your lot, right?

Nancy Clark - They took the front.

Interviewer - Because they had to change the contour of the front.

Nancy Clark - Absolutely, absolutely. Because they demolished, they had to demolish the beautiful little house and the vinegar barns. And they had to move the gardener's cottage.

And that was one of the most interesting things. There wasn't one rock in that hill in which it sat. Not one rock.

Interviewer - And they moved it?

Nancy Clark - Oh, they said.

Interviewer - They called it room, beautiful room. That doesn't happen at Chelmsford.

Nancy Clark - It was beautiful, beautiful.

Interviewer - So when they moved it, the new site, was that?

Nancy Clark - No, this is the first little red house.

Interviewer - Right on the other side of 495 now, yes.

Nancy Clark - And the daughter's house went down Dalton Road. Oh, the houses just, you know, danced around. It was extremely interesting.

And they were very nice. And they pulled a fast one. We had beautiful trees in the front yard here and a stone wall.

And they sent Canadian woodsmen in who did not speak English. And I had to go to school with my children. And when I came home, there wasn't one single tree.

The driveway used to come up to the front door and down again.

Interviewer - Mm, semicircle.

Nancy Clark - Yes, because it's dead there.

Interviewer - Sure, now it's a drop-off now.

Nancy Clark - Yeah. But the men that worked on the road couldn't have been nicer. They were just as nice as they could be.

And we had a good time with them. You can't cry over spilled milk. There's nothing you can do about it.

I've got one picture. I got a few out. But this you'll see very dearly.

Oh, thank you so much. What's that?

Interviewer - Oh, look at this. It's a dirt road there.

Nancy Clark - This is Westford Street. And right in there is the tiny little, there's the little house. And here are the vinegar barns.

And that's right down. If you go out the front door, that's what you would have seen.

Interviewer - At a cross.

Nancy Clark - Mm-hmm. This is, of course.

Interviewer - So who's the person that's in that particular picture?

Nancy Clark - I have no idea. You have no idea?

Interviewer - I have no idea. So we have several pictures from December 30. It says right here.

Nancy Clark - That's Margaret Mills.

Interviewer - James P. Spaulding, December 30, 1900.

Nancy Clark - Margaret Mills was one of my very, very, very dearest friends. This is the 4th of July. And here's Walter Perham's house.

Interviewer - Oh, yes.

Nancy Clark - And you see the road has come up so much.

Interviewer - And that's the Perham Vinegar Float.

Nancy Clark - You see they've lost their stone wall. They've been raising it.

Interviewer - Well, you had a stone wall, too, apparently. The road kind of went downhill in front of your house, and now it goes uphill. So they covered over the Perham stone wall and yours, too.

So it's hard to imagine what it was like before. But these pictures certainly say quite a bit. Oh, no.

Let me ask you. Was this road paved when you got here? Yes.

It was like tarred and sanded?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - Okay.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, I'd say so, yes.

Interviewer - Because these pictures are a bit older than they show a dirt road.

Nancy Clark - But you certainly can have copies of those if you want them. But you probably have.

Interviewer - We'll keep that in mind. Sure. We do have a lot of parade float pictures.

Isn't that funny? And I think I have one of the Perham Vinegar Float in front of the Perham's house. But it's appropriate.

I'm not sure I have that in front of the house, so I may ask for it sometime. We're actually doing a picture, History of Chelmsford, Volume 2. There's an Images of America book about Chelmsford.

I haven't seen it. It's by a company called Arcadia. And that one was published in 1998, I think.

And they want to do a second edition. Oh, is that the? It's sort of a sepia.

Nancy Clark - Oh, yes. Oh, I have. Yeah.

Okay.

Interviewer - So we're starting Volume 2. Who's writing it? Well, Eleanor Parkhurst was the editor on the last one.

Oh, she was.

Nancy Clark - Turn that off for a minute. Because I don't like to talk about things like that. You know, I don't mind telling you.

Interviewer - Well, it's actually a nice story because she valued your friendship enough to.

Nancy Clark - Well, she and I would talk for hours on the telephone.

Interviewer - Well, you know, my wife accuses me of spending time with Eleanor almost every day.

Nancy Clark - Oh, did you?

Interviewer - Working on the town history book that Eleanor wrote.

Nancy Clark - Are you doing a history book?

Interviewer - Well, I'm finishing her book for her and getting it published.

Nancy Clark - I am.

Interviewer - Maybe you can tell me, did you know her when she was writing it? Did she have any comments on it?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - Do you have any knowledge about it?

Nancy Clark - None at all.

Interviewer - Because she actually stopped in about 1975.

Nancy Clark - She had so many things to tell me. And then I have to tell you, I started, of course, we had two sons. And they have to be Cub Scouts.

And we met once a week. And they'd come here and they'd come through the door and they'd say, Hello, Mrs. Clark. What are the eats?

But we did something every time. And we. He may have returned.

Sorry to intrude. This is my son, Lincoln.

Interviewer - I'm sorry to interrupt. Lincoln number three. Correct.

Yes, sir. So I'm just reporting in.

Nancy Clark - All right. All right. Got everything dried out?

All right. Trying to dry.

Interviewer - So far. So did you do battle with the British or the colonies?

Nancy Clark - He is a British.

Interviewer - I am British. You are British.

Nancy Clark - I'm a former officer.

Interviewer - Down in Old Sturbridge Village. Old Sturbridge Village. There was their Rebels to Red Coat.

Sorry, Red Coat to Rebel weekend.

Nancy Clark - Last weekend.

Interviewer - Which was good on Saturday. But unfortunately, rain Saturday night. It put a damper on Sunday.

They still had pick up.

Nancy Clark - They had to cancel the numbers. He's been here since 75.

Interviewer - So you were here for the bicentennial celebrations. Of course. I was.

I was going to be. I got out of the Army in 1973. The United States Army.

And so I wanted something a little different. So I was going to be a Chelmsford-Bennet man. Margaret Mills wanted you to be.

Until I learned that there's a commander of a British regiment less than a mile away. It's much more challenging to portray the Red Coats. Because you could be sloppy.

As a colonial. So it's much more fun being Red Coat. Besides which, Dad's mother's side was good English stock.

So that was pulling on me too. But that's another story. You've got one to take care of.

So I'll catch up. I know you're part of it too.

Nancy Clark - Yes, indeed he is.

Interviewer - Thank you very much.

Nancy Clark - So to go on. Right here. Oh, I know.

I believe in planting trees. And our little Cub Scouts had five cents dues every week. And I think we had seven.

And we got five dollars. And I went and got. Hello.

Oh, Alan. This is Fred Merriam. This is number two.

Hello. How are you? Fine.

Good. I'm just chatting.

Interviewer - I'll see you in a little while.

Nancy Clark - All right.

Interviewer - Okay. Cub Scouts and the nickel. Cub Scouts.

Nancy Clark - And I went down to the town. And right down here on Westford Street. Near the Baptist Church is a little triangle.

There's a tree there. My Cub Scouts planted that tree.

Interviewer - Is this a bridge tree? No, it's a bridge tree.

Nancy Clark - Yeah.

Interviewer - It's a triangle. A little triangle. So there's a tree there.

Nancy Clark - And there's a tree there for my Cub Scouts. And we used to go down every day with a big bucket of water because a tree needs to drink. And the Cub Scouts would come that day.

And one day when I was lugging this, a very nice lady came down her driveway and over to me. And she said, my dear, it's a shame you have to carry that bucket of water from your house. Why don't you come and use my spigot?

I had no more idea what a spigot was. And I said, excuse me, I would like to maybe, but I don't know what you're talking about. Margaret Mills said, there you turn on the faucet.

And we were friends from then on.

Interviewer - So she lived on the corner of the bridge? No, no. The next one over.

Next one over.

Nancy Clark - Uh-huh. And she used to guard that tree. Don't hurt that tree.

That belongs to the Cub Scouts. And it's still alive.

Interviewer - Tell me about Margaret.

Nancy Clark - She, her father was the town clerk. And she was the only child. And her mother was a mill girl.

And that was her clock.

Interviewer - Oh.

Nancy Clark - Sweet little thing, makes lots of noise. I don't think it's running right now. I think Lincoln forgot to wind it.

We had, she taught me so much about Chelmsford that my head swims. And I, she wanted me to love Chelmsford. And I did.

I do.

Interviewer - She told you about Chelmsford.

Nancy Clark - She, she really, she and Eleanor Parkhurst were good friends. Charlotte DeWolf. Eleanor Parkhurst.

I think Eleanor was younger. I think, and Gwen Dunsford. They all used to go to the top of the Westford Street and slide down.

That was great sport in the winter.

Interviewer - When they were younger.

Nancy Clark - When they were younger, yeah. Chelmsford had some very fine women. They really did.

Dr. Blackman's wife, she was a Varnum. That's the famous family from Lowell. She had a voice so deep that we never could tell whether it was Dr. Blackman or her answering the phone. She was a hoot. She was a hoot. I liked her.

She was a sister of the famous Dr. Varnum. Everybody, the nurses and all general, when they heard his voice, they'd all run into the rooms and get busy because he was coming down the hall. He would yell at them.

And he was just cream puff. He was so cute. Now, let me see.

Interviewer - Charlotte DeWolf was the one responsible for getting Eleanor involved in the garrison house, I believe. They were very good close friends.

Nancy Clark - Yes, but I would say that Eleanor was always interested in history. And I think Charlotte was. When they saved the garrison house, I know that Charlotte and Eleanor were on the board.

Interviewer - I always thought Eleanor was the driving force, but then I heard since that it may have been Charlotte that got Eleanor involved.

Nancy Clark - I do not know. I do not know that. I don't know that.

But Charlotte had a very interesting house. It was full of things. Where did she live?

Park. She was a park.

Interviewer - Oh, was she on Park Road?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - That was the house that was demolished recently. They put a street and some new homes. And that was a shame because that was a historic home right next to the golf course.

Nancy Clark - She had a son that was still alive. And I think we got the garrison house. She left it that if there was anything that was needed at the garrison house, we could have the lumber.

And I think we got some wainscotingfrom that house.

Interviewer - Oh, so they salvaged some of the parts?

Nancy Clark - Yes. Oh, it is so sad the way they knocked down these houses.

Interviewer - Well, we have a demolition delay bylaw since 2005 that has some teeth in it. In that there is a one year cooling off period to find a resolution, find a better solution. The garrison house has been given some granite.

For foundations and so on. Yes. When they put it in the hell jock.

Oh, I love that house. The fist barn.

Nancy Clark - Wasn't it something to see it go through town?

Interviewer - I missed it going through town, but I saw the pictures.

Nancy Clark - Oh, well, Dana Gray.

Interviewer - He was riding a shotgun.

Nancy Clark - He was up in the chimney and pushing the wires out of the way. But you know, I have been interested in the garrison house for so long. You know, Eleanor Parkhurst gave us her family's blacksmith shop

. And I saw that get cut in half and brought over the road. It was amazing.

Interviewer - It is funny, just before I came over here, I was looking at a picture of it being pulled out over on Maple Road. I think it is number 7 or so. And the first section coming out on the truck.

Nancy Clark - It took so long. And the next day, everything was prepared by the first one. I remember the man's name was Mr. Dane.

Interviewer - He was the mover? Yes, yes.

Nancy Clark - And where he was from, I don't know. But I can remember. That was great, great excitement.

That is a very interesting little house.

Interviewer - And then the fist barn went over, but that went over in a container.

Nancy Clark - Yes, it did.

Interviewer - We have got another house from Loudon that is waiting to go up. Really? Where is it?

Nancy Clark - In the yard.

Interviewer - I didn't know that. Yes. Loudon, New Hampshire?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - Wow, so it must be a smaller house if it came that far.

Nancy Clark - Yes. And Dana Gray got it. And he just needs time.

Was he going to call it the Loudon house? I am sure we will, oh yes. Well, we hope, I hope we will get an oval someday.

Interviewer - You have a little community of all many services. Oh yes, I hope so.

Nancy Clark - We have got so many things that just need to find a home. I have been collecting shoe forms. You know, the little iron ones and the little wood ones.

I want to get a room.

Interviewer - You don't see many of those around now, do you?

Nancy Clark - Well, I have been collecting them.

Interviewer - Shoes come stuffed with cardboard or wadded up paper.

Nancy Clark - And I have gotten them as far down as Petersburg. Lincoln and Allen, Lincoln especially is very interested in the Civil War. And so we have always traveled down.

In fact, he went to Gettysburg College just because he wanted to do that. It is a wonderful, wonderful country.

Interviewer - Right there in that little country. I actually spent quite a bit of time last year next town over, Chambersburg.

Nancy Clark - Oh, did you?

Interviewer - And I visited all the historic sites of the Civil War and picked up quite an appreciation for Harpers Ferry and Antietam.

Nancy Clark - It really is. It is so sad. I know in my mother's family that part of it came from Kentucky and one was on the northern and one was on the confederate.

It is terrible. Families, broom asunder, talking of family. Lincoln's father was in World War I.

My husband was in World War II and the Korean conflict. And Lincoln was in Vietnam and Desert Storm. And he brought me back a Desert Storm hat.

I use it out in the garden. It is the best hat I ever had.

Interviewer - Boy, that is quite a long tradition.

Nancy Clark - We are flag wavers. Of course, I know you have heard Lincoln say, the Hockmeyers who started in Lowell, the Hockmeyer Corduroy were English and from Germany to England. And they had a manufacturing plant in Manchester, but they wanted to come to the United States and they all came through Ellis Island.

I have looked them up.

Interviewer - Oh, in the Ellis registry? Nice.

Nancy Clark - Indeed, I did. Because I have known Lincoln for so long, I did not have any aunts. So his mother was, when I was a little girl, was my courtesy aunt.

I was called her Aunt Ethel.

Interviewer - You said you knew Lincoln since you were four years old. You grew up together. Was that in Lowell?

Mm-hmm.

Nancy Clark - I am 25. He lived at 62 Fairmount. We lived at 25.

So you were right in the same neighborhood. Yes. Our parents were friends.

I hate to boast about him, but there was nothing he could not do except he could not ride a horse. When we moved in here, he did the electrical. He did the plumbing.

He could repair a television set. And after he did all the wiring in the house, the electrician from the mill came out to check it. He said, I said, Are you okay?

That's good. Make sure you're up to speed. But you know, that generation, Fred, had to learn to do everything.

If it broke, you fixed it. This generation, if it breaks, you say, I'm sorry, we'll have to get you another one. It's not the children's fault.

Plastic is terrible. But I mean, you fix things.

Interviewer - Well, things are too complicated nowadays to fix. Either that or they're too cheaply made to be worth fixing.

Nancy Clark - Well, I agree that cars now, they have all this, you open the hood and you can't get your hand in to fight. But I mean, in the old days, you changed your oil yourself. You didn't have to go downtown.

Interviewer - You could take a carburetor apart and change the gaskets and clean it up and be like new. Well, we were out.

Nancy Clark - As a family, we traveled around and camped a lot with our children and something went wrong with our car. And we were near Bakersfield, California, in a forest fire. And let me tell you, my husband had to take the motor apart, whatever it was.

And he fixed it. There was nobody. So the fire went off?

We saw the fire coming over the hills and the planes were flying and dropping some chemical and the tear-stained faces of those people coming up the hill and going by us, escaping with what they had. And there we were. But he fixed it.

The boys were little. I didn't know anything about it. I said, don't complain about it.

As long as it goes, it's clean and the horn blows and the brakes work, I'm fine. I don't have to have a new car.

Interviewer - You got to keep the oil up to level two.

Nancy Clark - Well, I go to Howie Ryan, Northern Automotive. I don't know if you know him at all. He's been my friend for, I don't know, we were laughing the other day.

It must be 30 years. This is the most wonderful town. Everybody helps everybody else.

How long have you been here?

Interviewer - Since 1971.

Nancy Clark - Where'd you come from?

Interviewer - My wife kind of grew up in Watertown, Newton area. And when I was little, I was in Cambridge, went to high school in Danvers. But my parents are both New Hampshire people.

They come from the farms. They're first generation to get off the farms.

Nancy Clark - What part of New Hampshire?

Interviewer - Pelham and Sanboornton.

Nancy Clark - My forebears came from Brookline, New Hampshire. And my granddaughter now wants to join the DAR. And we're having fun digging.

You see all these family trees. We have one man by the name of Giles Corey who was pressed to death in Salem as a warlock.

Interviewer - You know, it's funny, but about four weeks ago, my son and his wife were visiting California. We went to Salem. I saw the story.

We went to the museum down in the basement and they told us about Giles Corey.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, that's our relative. Poor fellow. Isn't that awful?

Interviewer - They actually have a little diorama of him getting squashed.

Nancy Clark - I guess they just kept putting rocks on him until he died.

Interviewer - An awful way to go. So you know. I thought the name sounded familiar.

Nancy Clark - Yes, that's one thing. The children just loved it when it was show and tell. We'd roll up the family tree and I tried to show them where it was.

And he's there. Poor soul. Now let's see. What else do I know about this town that's interesting that you probably... Margaret Mills started Jane Drury on her way. And our second daughter Nancy was home in the summer during her college days.

And Margaret used to come up and have a map. And then she had a piece of tissue paper and Nancy would be drawing the houses on it.

Interviewer - Oh, was this part of the project for a walking map that they were doing?

Nancy Clark - Yes, it was.

Interviewer - Because I think that's how Jane got started. Margaret had asked her to do a walking tour. And according to the story, I think it was in her obituary, that got her started, but that didn't actually get finished.

Then she got started on other things and she caught the bug. The street bug. She was a dear girl.

Nancy Clark - Oh, she was charming.

Interviewer - Well, I spent quite a bit of time with Jane too because her research and files, they had asked me to do a website for the historic commission. So I have the distinction of being the only person that she would let take the files out of her house. Because I had to take them home to scan them.

And I was brought them back with everything exactly the right order, you know.

Nancy Clark - I'm so glad they're saved.

Interviewer - I have to tell you one little story. I went to the house once and I knocked on the back door and Jane shouted out, Is that the paper boy? And Bill came out and said, No, it's not.

Or I said, I guess I said, No, it's just Fred. I said, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It's only me.

I just had to pick up some files. So it turns out, I didn't exactly understand why she was so excited about the paper boy, but it turns out that was living history. Every day was another day of history for them.

So when the paper came, they just scoured it and she would clip all the articles and get them filed away. And that's what Eleanor had been doing. And Jane actually had inherited a portion of Eleanor's files and was adding to those.

And that included that history book that I'm working on. And I didn't know that Jane had it. I'm not sure if very many people did until she turned it over to Linda Prescott.

Yes. And the Historic Commission. And I got the task of reorganizing the files.

Nancy Clark - Well, that's wonderful.

Interviewer - And ran into it.

Nancy Clark - I'm so glad. I'm so glad. It should go on.

It should go on.

Interviewer - Once I started reading it, it was a little hard to read because the manuscript was so rough and heavily marked and her typewriter had all these quirks.

Nancy Clark - You didn't get it. There were certain letters.

Interviewer - You could not scan them. It was like an encrypted...

Nancy Clark - Hieroglyphics or something.

Interviewer - It was easier just to type it from scratch. You know, looking at it and typing. But it was too good to leave it.

Oh, I'm so glad.

Nancy Clark - Please put me down that I want a copy.

Interviewer - Oh, sure. I'll do that.

Nancy Clark - Well, I know when we came here, let's see, they built a house on the asparagus bed. And then when this tract of land was sold, the little house that was there has a twin over... What's the name of that?

What's the name of the road? Oh, this is... When you get to be my age, this is the thing, you forget the name of the road.

Interviewer - I'm getting there pretty quick.

Nancy Clark - What's that?

Interviewer - I'm getting there pretty quick. So this is Alexia Road?

Nancy Clark - Oh, no, no, no.

Interviewer - I mean the main road.

Nancy Clark - Westford? Road to Concord. But it's that road.

Boston Road is...

Interviewer - Boston Road.

Nancy Clark - There's a Eugenia or something terrace and the twin house survived.

Interviewer - Is it on Eugenia?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - Okay.

Nancy Clark - It belongs to the Smiths. Okay, so when they built this Alexia, is it this... Alex...

That's not quite right. You haven't got it quite right. Alexander.

Interviewer - Alexander.

Nancy Clark - Alexander Way, I think.

Interviewer - Okay. When they built this road, they tore down the twin.

Nancy Clark - Bulldozed it in.

Interviewer - Bulldozed it in. Was it a small cape or...

Nancy Clark - Oh, it was a dear little house. It was one that was literally taken from a... It was seen in a magazine and they sent away for the plans.

Interviewer - But they owned the land in the back and were purchased to develop it.

Nancy Clark - Of course, that was all. This belonged to this house and then they sold it off. They sold off the asparagus bed.

Interviewer - Okay. Was it a friend at the time? Pardon me?

They sold it to somebody they knew?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - Way back?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - Just sold it to...

Nancy Clark - Just sold it. For a certain amount of land. Yes, before 54.

And there's always been water there and the sump pump went night and day. But it was a dear little house and Mr. Pearson was superintendent of the boys' club in Lowell. Dear, dear, dear man.

So sweet. Nice wife.

Interviewer - No relation to Jim Pearson, the highway superintendent?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - No.

Nancy Clark - And then they came along and you know how things go under the table in Chelmsfordwood. And he was going to build five houses in this Alexandria way or path or whatever. And Fred, they were going to build on wetlands.

Interviewer - But the Conservation Commission has regulations about that after a certain point in time.

Nancy Clark - Everybody, we went to every single meeting. Lincoln was still alive. And the builder of these houses never opened his mouth.

He hired people to talk for him. And when he finally got permission, my husband went up to him and said, I wish you luck. And I think he thought Lincoln was going to shoot him.

He just blanched. But it's over with. We have lovely neighbors here.

But they inherited the worst house.

Interviewer - There's water everywhere. So it came to pass that their basements are wet?

Nancy Clark - Swimming pools. It's a sin. It's a sin.

And they're young and they came here. Well, it's water over the dam. But we had the loveliest little forest for 50 years there.

Interviewer - Now did those riding trails go out and back through that forest too?

Nancy Clark - No, no trails, no.

Interviewer - Just the garden over there in the park?

Nancy Clark - They had a beautiful, beautiful garden there. And if you look, if you drive, you can drive in and drive around. It's sunken in there.

And every spring you think you have a swimming pool.

Interviewer - Is that in the road?

Nancy Clark - No, it's off the road.

Interviewer - Right next to the road.

Nancy Clark - They built it up. And they just put in a swimming pool here. And I believe that they had to put one that was all built because it would be sitting in the water.

Interviewer - So it started floating in the water table. That's too bad.

Nancy Clark - Too bad, too bad. Now I'm trying to think of other nice people on the street. I went to call on Mr. Parham, and we immediately had a thing in common because he went to Phillips Academy, Andover, and my husband did. So that was that. But he was very elderly, and he died soon after we came. And Sidney lived there with his wife, Marguerite.

He didn't marry her until quite a while after we moved in here.

Interviewer - Now, Walter, you said the older one was he was alive and you met him. Yes. Which one was in the funeral home business?

Was he in the funeral home business? No? I'm thinking of the wrong one.

Nancy Clark - I don't think.

Interviewer - I never knew there was one. And one of them was a postmaster? Yeah, that's Sidney.

Sidney, okay. That's Sidney. So he was the youngest younger.

I think he was the only child. He was strange. Strange, okay.

Tell me about it.

Nancy Clark - When we moved in here, we loved birds and animals. We had the most beautiful pheasants, and we fed them. And this is nice for children.

And they would wander around, and he would feed them. And at 5 o'clock, you'd hear a gun go off, and we knew that he got a pheasant. And I'll tell you one thing.

Interviewer - So he would lure the pheasants with food, and then that was before the gun regulations went into effect, I think.

Nancy Clark - The gun regulation wouldn't have bothered him at all. He, when the Canadian woodsman came through, I was working at Belvedere School. I'm a nursery school teacher by trade.

And so I would, the day we left, the trees were there. When we came back, they were down. But Sidney had a beautiful, tall pine tree.

I don't know what kind it was. And he let the woodsman cut it down, and then he went, it's mine. And he got somebody to cut it up for him, and he burned the wood.

Interviewer - But it was fine. You don't normally burn a wood. Of course you don't.

No. Nancy Clark -

He was strange.

Interviewer - It's his wood, and he's going to burn it.

Nancy Clark - And when we, that bridge started in 1959, and we took our children out west in 1959. And we did not see them torch the farms. They bulldozed the little house.

I cried.

Interviewer - Now when you say little house, there was a pretty big two-story colonial farmhouse. Is that the one you're speaking of? Oh, no, it was tiny.

Really? Oh, it wasn't. It wasn't like a big house.

No. Of course the barns were a lot bigger.

Nancy Clark - Oh, the barns were enormous.

Interviewer - Does it sit here?

Nancy Clark - Yes. It was tiny. The reason I know it's tiny is because I used to go down about three times a week to have tea with my friend Ann Jacobi.

And it was so little. It was just a little house.

Interviewer - I'll have to take another look at the pictures. I kind of thought it was a farmhouse.

Nancy Clark - When they torched the vinegar barns, the people sat on Dalton Road and watched it. And Fred, as I'm telling you, we had left to go out west. The rats that came out of there, people saw them streaming out and they came here.

Interviewer - Into your cellar?

Nancy Clark - Into our barn. And I had stored, Lincoln and I had stored my mother's, we got half of mother's library. And they ate the bad bindings on all the books that were out in the barn.

And we had rats in here when we came home. And it is the most scary thing. You open the door and here are these things as big as cats.

And I told my husband, I said, I'm not going to stay here until we get rid of them. And he did everything he could. And I said, we're going to use what my father taught me.

My father was a real yank. And if you really have to kill a rat, you find his hole and you take a bottle and you smash it. And you stuff it down that hole so the glass is where he will have to come and he can't get through.

And Lincoln did it and they disappeared. But we used to come home from school and dance outside the kitchen door.

Interviewer - Just to get them awake.

Nancy Clark - Or move. It is scary.

Interviewer - So that story about the Perham cider mills, I had never heard before.

Nancy Clark - I'll tell you things. Sydney was, it was different.

Interviewer - Was he postmaster when you first moved here?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - He was retired. Oh, he got it while we were here. Oh, he did?

Okay. Was he appointed by a Republican or Democratic administration? Oh, no, not Republican.

Nancy Clark - This was a Republican town. I'm a Republican.

Interviewer - Well, that's what Eleanor says in the history book, too.

Nancy Clark - I used to call up Eleanor and say, Eleanor, now whom, for whom will I vote? And we always talked about it. She said, good, I'll tell you who you want and who you don't want.

And who I missed, I missed, and then I used to call Carol Cleven. I saw Carol today. There's a honey.

She has lost the sight of one eye. The other one isn't very good. That's hard.

She's a honey. Do you know her?

Interviewer - My wife actually took her seat on the school committee when she moved to the state house.

Nancy Clark - Good for your wife.

Interviewer - And that's how Carol ended up meeting Eleanor originally. She was friends with Eleanor because Eleanor helped her with her campaign. She supported women in town government.

And my wife Carol was one of the early, I think she was the only female on the school committee for a while. And another one came on a little later.

Nancy Clark - Do you know the story about, you know, when they, early when Alan, whom you met, went to first grade in town here, the school bus used to come down WestfordStreet. And this was before 495. And stop at a most inconvenient place because the children would have to walk up the street.

They should have come down. Well, anyway, I went to Roger Boyd, B-O-Y-D, and he was a rough old fella. And I explained my problem to him.

And he said, that makes sense. So they did it. And he lived on Bartlett Street.

And he had a sign outside his house. And there was a little bird in the nest. And a little, that was Boyd.

Interviewer - Boyd. That's cute. I guess he had had several upgrades in town, and that was one of the bigger houses that he had.

Nancy Clark - And his sister, his sister, his sister was, there were a lot of them. He had a brother. I don't remember his first name, but he was in the class of Lincoln at Harvard.

Oh. He was from the West. His brother, was that it?

One of our, it was a big family. Big, big family. Tell me about Roger.

Well, he was a rough and tumble guy. But he.

Interviewer - He must have been, had a salesman at heart, because he was into. He sold cars, didn't he? He sold a car dealership at Central House.

Nancy Clark - Yeah.

Interviewer - He was a politician. He built that brick, cement block building, fairly large building there on Chelmsford Street.

Nancy Clark - I guess he did.

Interviewer - Is that, do you know if that building is still there, or did they rebuild it, or did they tear it down? Boyd Chevrolet. I've been trying to figure that out.

Nancy Clark - Isn't that where they used to sell the bicycles?

Interviewer - I'll have to check, see if it's the right shape. That's like Bill and Andy's? Yes.

That's a brick front.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, I think that's it, isn't it?

Interviewer - Yeah, I remember meeting, I think it was Andy at a party a while, a few years back, at the town hall.

Nancy Clark - Yes. Yes, there were. And there used to be a nice couple that were farther down, and they had the nicest games for the, we liked to play games and card games and things, to do things with the children.

We used to love to go in and see her. I don't remember their names, but they were awfully nice. It's funny, you and I talk about something, and I remember that they thought about it.

Interviewer - That's the idea.

Nancy Clark - I'm trying to think of other people in town that we've talked about. Charlotte DeWolf, she was a very interesting lady. She was town clerk for a long time.

That's right. And very well. You get to know everybody as town clerk.

Yes.

Interviewer - Yes.

Nancy Clark - And then Mary St. Hilaire.

Interviewer - I interviewed Mary last year.

Nancy Clark - Did you?

Interviewer - Yeah.

Nancy Clark - And Delaney.

Interviewer - Betty is retiring in October.

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - Yeah, in the paper they mentioned the name of the new lady who worked as a clerk in Natick in her time.

Nancy Clark - And she's been well-recommended. I'd never met Mr. Cohen. Now let's see, who else is interesting in town?

Julia Fogg, did you ever meet her? Oh, she was lovely. Her husband was killed in the war.

She was a sister of Miss Miriam Warren, and their brother was the dog officer when Lincoln was alive. And we had more strange animals, and he'd come and Lincoln would talk. They were a wonderful family, Julia Fogg.

She worked very hard at the Historical Society.

Interviewer - She did? She did. I've been working on computerizing the archives and seeing a lot of her handiwork.

Nancy Clark - Well, I Knew her at a table once, and I thought it was time for me to get it back because I needed a table to put a plant on. It had a marble top. She knew exactly where it was.

She had it all ready for me.

Interviewer - Oh, yeah, she was so nice. Just from my experience, she did a lot of typing of accessions at the Historical Society over quite a few years. And you could tell because she initialed the JF at the top, and her typing was so good.

I actually electronically scanned all of those accessions, and it turned out to be 2,500 pages. And I can go in and I can actually search and find anything I want to see. Her typing is so good.

All the words are there, and you can find it. Go right to the topic and see who donated the item or the document or the photo or whatever, and read about it. And it's been very, very useful.

So I just want to thank Julia to Future Generations for the work that she did.

Nancy Clark - I don't know where she fits in. She had a sister, Miss Miriam, who lived in the old house.

Interviewer - She's part of the Warren family, and Becky Warren. Becky is the daughter of the dog officer. Yes, and she's vice president of the Historic Society.

My wife is president right now, so Becky is going to be the president of the Historic Society next year. She'll be a good one. She's very good at the National Park, and she does tours at the Historic Society also.

A very good tour guide and fun to listen to and fun to work with.

Nancy Clark - Yes, and you know, I hope they're writing things down because sometimes in the low things, they don't get them right.

Interviewer - You know, I've been in the subject of a few articles, and I've seen articles that I was familiar with, and I have to agree with you.

Nancy Clark - But you know they mean well.

Interviewer - So you have to wonder, what about the articles? Is that something new, or have they always been a little off?

Nancy Clark - A little shaky.

Interviewer - A little shaky like that. I'll tell you one story that's related to the Perham Cider Mill, and I mentioned it in the history book. There was an article in 1980 that's in our archives, and it said that Lupien Farms had a cider, a huge barrel. It must have been like six feet diameter and ten feet tall, and they sai

d it was one of the few remnants left from the destruction of the Perham Cider Mill. And they used it outdoors to collect water. And so I had never heard the story until I saw the news article. So I called my friend Al Lupien, and I said, what's the story on the water barrel? And he says, ah, he said, no, no, no. He said that came from a cider operation on Pawtucket Boulevard in Lowell that went out of business after the 36th flood.

And he said that the Oxbow next door, and he mentioned the names, I can't remember the name of the fellow that had the Oxbow, but he had took a whole bunch of those barrels, and none of them came from the Perham Mills. They all came from this other place. And then he said that Mike, who over in Westford at the ice cream stand, Mike Kimball used some of those barrels.

They have a miniature golf range, and some of those barrels are in that. So that's the history. They came from Lowell after 1936, and they went next door to Lupien Farm.

So sometimes when you check, you find out even the older articles had flaws in them. And that's a Perham story, and we were talking about the Perhams. Tell me, there were a couple other houses.

You mentioned the Little Red House, and that was like a caretaker's house for this house?

Nancy Clark - Yes.

Interviewer - And that's moved diagonally across Westford, and it's right over in this area.

Nancy Clark - It was the daughter of the original Perham here.

Interviewer - Dunsford? Dunsford here. Okay, so they built that for her.

I actually met the fellow. Oh, I think he was working on your garden or your lawn one day, or one of the lawns in this area. The fellow that owns the Red House now.

Oh, he's a weird little tinker. Really? Well, he was working in somebody's yard, and I got talking to him, and he invited me to go take some pictures.

He told me that the house had been over here.

Nancy Clark - Yes, it was right out here. So this side of the road? This side of the 495 that's going that way.

Interviewer - So directly across the street from the Perham house to the Cider Knoll House.

Nancy Clark - No. No, there was a knoll. It was sap on it.

I'm so sorry. There's not a picture of it. It was directly out there, and it would be on the first lane.

And when they took that down this road, There was a knoll originally? There was a knoll. You know, when the glacier went through, sometimes they just left nothing but soil.

They were trying to explain it.

Interviewer - So this was the knoll that you were telling me about that was all dirt?

Nancy Clark - Yes, yes. And that little cottage was on it. It was on that knoll.

And, oh, they were just thrilled because, you know, you'd hear the whistle, and you knew they were going to blow up rock. But they didn't have to do nothing. Oh, they were so pleased.

But that little house, and lots of Mrs. Dunsford used to rent it out to brides and grooms. John, did you ever hear the name John Leggett? No.

Well, he and Ruth lived here in the little gardener's cottage. And John was one of my brother's good friends. He came from Lowell.

His father was a judge. And as a matter of fact, two weeks ago, Priscilla Elliott died. You might have read about her in the paper.

She was an aunt to the Leggetts, and she lived to be 96. And I went to her funeral and saw that John Leggett has died, but his two brothers are still alive. So I had a nice visit with them.

It's so sad. You need to visit all your friends at funerals. You'd much rather at a wedding.

It's much more fun to see the old times at weddings instead of funerals.

Interviewer - It is. We went to our son's wedding two years ago, and we were thinking how nice it was to get together for a really happy occasion. But it's either way.

You still get together, and that's part of life.

Nancy Clark - Yes, yes.

Interviewer - There was another house that's on Dalton Road that was here on Westford that got moved. Where was that?

Nancy Clark - Well, that's Gwenny's. Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn Dunsford married a Navy man, and her house went around the corner on Dalton Road.

That moved.

Interviewer - So it was Gwen, another? I thought there was only one daughter.

Nancy Clark - The only daughter who lived in this house was brought up in this house.

Interviewer - Okay, and that house, her house, her parents built her house, but that wasn't the caretaker's cottage. It was after. It was beyond the caretaker's cottage.

Nancy Clark - Oh, it was. The caretaker's cottage was here.

Interviewer - Oh, it was right in front of this house almost? In front of this house?

Nancy Clark - Just look out and pretend you're coming. Go under the bridge, and that's where it was.

Interviewer - Oh, it was on the other side of the road?

Nancy Clark - Oh, yeah.

Interviewer - Oh, okay. So the caretaker's cottage is on the same side of the road, but on the other side of 495. Right.

And the daughter's house was on this side of the road.

Nancy Clark - No, it was farther up.

Interviewer - On the other side of the road?

Nancy Clark - On this side.

Interviewer - This side? Okay. And they moved it down Dalton Road.

Nancy Clark - Down Dalton Road.

Interviewer - How many houses down there?

Nancy Clark - I wish I could remember, but I don't.

Interviewer - Do you know what color the house is right now? No. No?

Nancy Clark - I think somebody would tell you. But we watched. Oh, it was interesting.

When he told us about this house, this is a huge house.

Interviewer - Does Gwendolyn still live down there?

Nancy Clark - Oh, she's dead and gone.

Interviewer - Oh, yeah.

Nancy Clark - She married a Navy man, and she traveled all over, everywhere. But she came back here to tell Lincoln and me about the house, and we had such a good time with her. And Margaret Mills remembered that every Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Dunsfordand Miss Dunsfordand the five brothers would walk down the street. I believe they went to the Unitarian Church, and then they would walk back. It's not that big a walk. No, but you know, they were all prim and proper.

All dressed up. All dressed up. You know, nobody dresses up.

Interviewer - Some days you would drive if you only had to go a block back then.

Nancy Clark - Well, that was what you did in this town. And when we moved in here and Arnold Parham said to me, you'll be dead and gone, and this house will still be the Dunsford house. And I think it will be.

And it's interesting, the youngest Dunsford's name was, the name Reuben comes, but he's in the middle. But anyway, his son was a friend of my son's.

Interviewer - Oh, in college or?

Nancy Clark - No, in Belvedere School. It was a nice little theater. And then they moved out here.

Belvedere School moved out here to Chelmsford, and Margaret Mills told me, and I told the trustees, and I was a trustee, that where we put the site of the gymnasium was the only place on that hill where you could put cows at any time of year and there would always be water. And they poo-pooed me. And the day they came in and opened the door to the gymnasium, all the tiles were floating.

I didn't say anything. I just said, I'm sorry. The springs, it was famous.

Margaret said it was famous. One of the best places.

Interviewer - Bubbling springs, I believe.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, the animals.

Interviewer - Is that school still in town, in Chelmsford?

Nancy Clark - It's the Armenian Church.

Interviewer - Oh, okay. So at the St. Vartanantz, it's on Old Westford Road. Okay.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, that's our school. It was a nice little school. It was the school in Lowell, that's where we all went to school.

Interviewer - I see. So that was your neighborhood school, and it happened to move into Chelmsford.

Nancy Clark - Well, we moved when Rogers Hall needed our building. We moved down to Andover Street, where I was born, and it was a lovely little barn, and we made it into a building. And we stayed there until we got so big, and we came out here.

Interviewer - So the building didn't move. The school moved. Gotcha.

I was picturing a big schoolhouse going up. We've been talking about so many house moves here.

Nancy Clark - But you know, in the old days, they moved houses. If you go down to Provincetown, you can look up high between the first and the second floor, and you can see there's a little sign, and it's a house moving. They moved them.

And we went over to Canada, and I can't remember the name of the town, and when the river froze, everybody got his house on the river and moved it on the ice and got it to where they wanted to be. It didn't waste anything. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I can tell you.

Thank you, dear Eleanor and dear Margaret. I don't know whether you know. You probably don't know.

But when Margaret Mills died, Lincoln and I went up to Belfast, Maine, and stayed three months and cleaned out her house.

Interviewer - So she had her main house in Main Street?

Nancy Clark - Oh, she did.

Interviewer - She retired to Belfast?

Nancy Clark - She and Inslee. You know, Margaret owned. Margaret's father was a town clerk.

And, you know, a lot of people collect houses, property, and their house is the second house in this Bridge Street, and then one house and then another house, and that's Margaret's house. That's the house in which she was born. And she was born in that house, and she left the house and had a job, and then her mother became ill and she came back.

And at that time, Notre Dame was going to buy the old Hezekiah Packard house, which is the one next to it, and her father bought that house because he didn't want a school next to him. And that house, the bones in that house were beautiful, and there was upstairs in the front room, there was a mantel painted black, which was done at the time Abraham Lincoln died. They painted that.

Interviewer - Respect and mourning for Abraham Lincoln.

Nancy Clark - And Inslee worked. He worked so hard in that house. And the boys were beginning to be naughty, and they'd break in, and he had no, there was no bottom floor, and if they had broken in and gotten in and fallen and been hurt, he would have been responsible.

And it's the child that did it, but the laws. So he had, he rigged it up that if he ever heard a noise, he'd push a button, and the whole house inside would light up.

Interviewer - So people could see what they were in for. Now, was Margaret Mills, was her father a Robbins?

Nancy Clark - That's right.

Interviewer - He was in real estate big time at the turn of the century.

Nancy Clark - I don't know how much he collected, but his little sled is hanging on the wall on our porch. It says Eddie.

Interviewer - Now, I think there was an estate auction somewhere in this area. It might have been Westford. Well, it was Marion Curry's husband that had the auction.

Nancy Clark - I know him very well.

Interviewer - I believe he had some of Margaret Mills' items, and we purchased a chest that was hers from her estate, so we have a piece of her estate at our house also.

Nancy Clark - I bet I know the piece you've got. Is it a big piece?

Interviewer - A fairly big chest.

Nancy Clark - A chest of drawers?

Interviewer - Not a chest of drawers, no. It's a travel chest that you would pack to take on a steamer or something like that.

Nancy Clark - Oh, nice. I hired him to come up. I promised Margaret that no one would go in her house, that everything would be taken out and brought down here to sell.

Interviewer - Okay, so that's how it got from Belfast down to here. Ah, now that makes sense, because when you said Belfast, I was trying to make the connection. I know that she owns the Hezekiah Packard house, and it was in absolutely terrible shape, and then a young couple bought it that had a lot of energy and didn't.

That's not right.

Nancy Clark - Not quite. Is it Finnerty? The people in it didn't do it.

Oh, Finnerty. They lived over in the Westlands. They bought it from Margaret and fixed it up the way they wanted to.

Interviewer - Okay.

Nancy Clark - And then they also did the barn.

Interviewer - Oh, okay. I remember when the barn was converted for residential use. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you say they did it the way they wanted it. It went from a two-family to single-family. Didn't it have two doors originally, side by side?

Which one? The Hezekiah Packard house. It was a single-family.

It was single, okay, because the pictures led me to believe.

Nancy Clark - Oh, it was, yes, you're right. For a while there, they did rent it out, and I think there were two families in there. One was Mrs. Royal, Mrs. Dutton.

Interviewer - Mrs. Royal Dutton?

Nancy Clark - Yeah.

Interviewer - Okay. That's another famous name.

Nancy Clark - Yes. Yes.

Interviewer - So she must have been a widow in her later years to that point.

Nancy Clark - I'm wrong. Mrs. Royal Dutton that you are speaking about taught in the high school, and that was the first Mrs. Enslie Mills.

Interviewer - Okay.

Nancy Clark - Enslie lived in that house with her and her two daughters.

Interviewer - This is the second house from Bridge Street.

Nancy Clark - This is the Hezekiah Packard. Oh, okay.

Interviewer - That's number 16. So that's next down from where Margaret and Enslie ended up living. The Hezekiah Packard house is next door.

Nancy Clark - It's next door to Margaret's house.

Interviewer - Margaret's house, right.

Nancy Clark - Enslie lived in Margaret's house after he married her, but before he married her, he lived in Hezekiah Packard's house.

Interviewer - That's how he owned it.

Nancy Clark - She owned it.

Interviewer - She owned it.

Nancy Clark - Her father bought it to stop the- And then Enslie moved in there while they all- Moved in there and rented it and didn't know Margaret.

Interviewer - Okay. And then what happened? His wife died?

Nancy Clark - No.

Interviewer - Oh, no?

Nancy Clark - They got a divorce.

Interviewer - Oh.

Nancy Clark - And then she moved down to the other house where you knew her as Mrs. Royal Dalton. Now, I've got a Royal- What was his- Dutton. Dutton.

She then married Dutton, and that's where she lived. And I'm going to tell you a naughty story. Don't you tell anybody I've told it to you.

She was the librarian at the high school, and she was not liked, and she was leaving. And I know this is true. All seniors in the graduating class brought clocks into the library and set them at- Oh, to go off at a certain time.

All different times and hid them behind the books. That was their farewell to her. And they were not chastised by their parents.

I heard about it, and I just played along. She was a very handsome woman. I have to say that, but that's all I know about her.

You don't know what's going on under here.

Interviewer - So Inslee, after they divorced, then for whatever reason, he got together with Margaret.

Nancy Clark - He helped Margaret take care of her father.

Interviewer - Oh, okay. Up until he was- Because she came back, he said, to take care of her father. She was away for a while.

And he helped her until he died. So maybe they got friendly during that time.

Nancy Clark - I think they did.

Interviewer - He was a charming man. Was Margaret a short person? Was she very short?

No, she wasn't. I'm thinking of a different person. Oh, no.

Nancy Clark - She was very stylish. Very stylish. Inslee lived in Ashby, which is near- What's the name of the town out route to the big town?

Interviewer - North Adams?

Nancy Clark - No, too far. Well, anyway, he was brought up on a farm. And near where they manufacture furniture, an Inslee's family, to make money, every week, chairs would be brought to the house.

Interviewer - Gardener?

Nancy Clark - That's- Chairs would be brought to the house, and they would put seats in them. Oh, caning. Caning.

Interviewer - Caning seats.

Nancy Clark - And he tried to teach me how to cane. I didn't stick with it long enough. But the family would- Everybody worked.

And the next week, they'd pick up chairs and bring more. And that was how they made their pocket money. And Inslee taught Margaret.

And this one little lady, Carol Engle, she knows how to cane. And it's a dying art. And she tried to teach me again.

And I guess I don't get it. I can do certain- I can get two layers done, and then I can't do it. But she taught my daughter.

And Nancy can do it. And I think people should learn to do this because there were beautiful chairs that are perfectly good, but you- Well, I inherited a bunch of family hand-me-downs, and they were chairs that had broken-in cane seats.

Interviewer - So I would finish the chairs. And my wife had actually caned a couple of them. Good for her.

And she was working on another one, but she was having our younger son, and it kind of stopped in the middle. So about 35 years later, this last year, we took it to a shop in Kingsborough. I had them finish it for us.

Nancy Clark - Well, Carol Engel can do it, too. You use golf tees to stick in.

Interviewer - Yeah, that's exactly it. We had this chair with the golf tees sticking out of it.

Nancy Clark - Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer - But it had the plastic cane, and the plastic cane had sort of gotten oily. It was deteriorating. So we had it done in a natural cane.

Nancy Clark - Oh, yeah, it doesn't need a plastic cane. They didn't have that then.

Interviewer - No, and it doesn't- It turns out it doesn't last.

Nancy Clark - And it doesn't look nice. All that work, and then what are you going to do?

Interviewer - Well, it was the thing to do 30 years ago, so.

Nancy Clark - Well, I have some that I went out with Margaret and got it, and it's perfectly good. You just keep it, just curl it up, and then wet it, and it comes right, right, wakes up. Who else in town is interested?

We've talked about Eleanor. Did I ever tell you about Eleanor's cars?

Interviewer - Well, I know she had an open Jeep. Yes, she did. And she used to wear sneakers.

Nancy Clark - Yes, she did, and she had a nice dog. But I think her father loved her. G.

Interviewer - Thomas Parker.

Nancy Clark - Thomas, yeah. G. Thomas, yeah.

It was always in the phone book as Thomas. She never had Eleanor.

Interviewer - Well, she never had it in as Eleanor. It was always under Thomas. Yes, it was.

Nancy Clark - When she came back to help, her mother became ill. She came back, and her father was so pleased to have her come back that he bought her two cars. One was to stay in the garage, and she was to use the other one.

And then when this one had a problem, she had to open the door, and she had her mother.

Interviewer - Bring out the spare. Bring out the spare. Were they both Jeeps?

Nancy Clark - Oh, no, no, no. These were probably Flivvers.

Interviewer - Oh, this was back when she was much younger.

Nancy Clark - Isn't that sweet? He cared enough. He thought that that's the way to do it.

When I was cleaning out Eleanor's house, I came across an outboard motor. And I thought, what is she doing with an outboard? It had never been used.

She'd written, you know, write her this and you can win it. She did.

Interviewer - Oh, she won a contest and got an outboard motor.

Nancy Clark - That was hanging in the cellar.

Interviewer - I love that. Her prize.

Nancy Clark - Oh, she had a way with words. She really did. I enjoyed her.

I always read her articles.

Interviewer - I have to laugh because I've been doing a lot of work with her words, and some of it is rewriting. The same meaning, but slightly different words.

Nancy Clark - Don't you love her poetry?

Interviewer - My proofreader, Judy Buswick, that actually published Eleanor's, looking back, yes, you and I were on the peer review committee, and Judy is, she's familiar with Eleanor's writing, too. She's helping me by giving me the clues as to what's confusing. Now, I look at something and I say, this is confusing, but it's Eleanor.

This doesn't sound right, but it's Eleanor. Now she writes down, this is confusing. Okay, I can go in and change it now.

Judy told me to. It's okay. And that's been good because some of the things, I've actually read them so many times since the manuscript that I don't even see them anymore.

It's just, I've gotten used to it.

Nancy Clark - You understand it.

Interviewer - So when Judy reads it, she has a little bit fresher viewpoint, and she's not afraid to flag it. So I've actually been taking almost every one of her comments and either restructuring the sentence or she used to write down word choice, and Eleanor would use some archaic word that kids reading today wouldn't understand, so I'll put it in some more up-to-date term.

Nancy Clark - Well, I love Eleanor. She can take half a page and it's one sentence, and she's got clauses and phrases and things all, and she just goes on. But if you parse it, it will come out right.

She has things modified.

Interviewer - The commas and pairs and quotations. I love it. But she had more one-sentence paragraphs than anything I've ever seen.

So what we've actually done, one of the things Judy did, and it's funny you brought this up, is we have no more one-sentence paragraphs. We've been combining what she'll have a lead in and then a quotation as a separate paragraph, so we moved the paragraph. And she couldn't do that, even if she wanted to, because she was working on a typewriter.

So now two keystrokes, and we've got it, so we can actually make it readable.

Nancy Clark - I'm trying to think if there's anything in her house that was fun. They never threw anything out.

Interviewer - You didn't run into any pictures, did you?

Nancy Clark - Pictures?

Interviewer - Yeah. We were always wondering what happened to the Newsweekly photos, and I always had a fear that maybe they just figured they were part of the business.

Nancy Clark - We didn't throw anything out.

Interviewer - I'm awful.

Nancy Clark - I don't throw out. Margaret Mills taught me. My mother did not.

You have this article. Now, where do you put it? Who could use it?

Who would appreciate it? Where is it? And you put it down, and you think about it, and then it might take a minute, it might take an hour, it might take a week, but you see to it that it gets to the right place.

Interviewer - But the secret is to actually act on it. Some people have that characteristic, and they'll collect all these things that they have to, that, oh, this person could use it, or I need to do this, and they end up filling their whole house with stuff. That's my problem.

I won't throw it away. It runs in my family, so I'm determined my house is going to be empty as soon as I can get it empty. I'm always working on getting it empty, so all the things that I borrow to scan and work on tapes, I get to return them, and they're not going to be collecting in boxes in my house.

Nancy Clark - No, but I mean if you own it.

Interviewer - If I owned it, yeah. Those are borrowed things, sorry. But even if I own it, I'm going to donate it.

Like I had some marvelous things that have been passed down for several generations in the Sanbornton family branch, and I don't think anybody had ever looked at it. It just got passed down because this is old stuff, and it's like glass negatives and photographs and old letters and all this stuff, but nobody really... I actually opened it up, and I looked at this stuff, and I said, you know, I'm going to keep it, but I think it's going to Sanbornton or in the other family's case, to Fitchburg, so I took a big load down to Fitchburg, but my parents had this stuff, and I sat in the file cabinet, and so they burdened me with it, so I know my kids aren't going to want that stuff.

Nancy Clark - Oh, haven't you got one that's interesting?

Interviewer - Not yet. Maybe when they get older, but we're going to keep a few care packages around with just a few key things. Oh, do, do, because...

You know, sometimes in today's world, the connections are broken, like the Fitchburg family, they were a family in Fitchburg many, many generations, and they're very well-known in town. Actually, I was surprised when I took this stuff down to... They were very grateful, and it had a lot of meaning to the Fitchburg Historical Society.

Actually, one of the neat things was a trolley car. They had street cars like in Chelmsford here, and there was one that tipped over, and it was right in front of the house that my grandfather and his ancestors grew up in, so I gave them these things. I know, as a member of Chelmsford Historical Society, I would love to have that and put it on the website, get it in a book.

So I passed it along, but I'm not going to forward stuff just because it was in my family. I'm just going to go to...

Nancy Clark - You want to share it.

Interviewer - I want to share it, yeah. Oh, I think that's good. I think that's good.

So back to your story. Back to your stories.

Nancy Clark - Well, I don't know. I'm trying... I'm going up and down the street Arlene Laporte, who lives in the house up there, it's...

She was a Russell.

Interviewer - A Russell lumber.

Nancy Clark - A Russell that lived in the house on the corner of Worthenton.

Interviewer - The brick front and where the people are actually living in the back.

Nancy Clark - And Queen Anne in front and Mary Anne behind.

Interviewer - But I think they were associated with the Russell lumber, weren't they? I think that's...

Nancy Clark - I'm not sure because the Scribners were in the Russell lumber and I cannot tell you about that. I really don't know, but when we came to town, Mr. Russell, who lived in the house down there, came and asked Lincoln if he would like him to plow our driveway. And he was known around town as Fatty Russell.

And Fatty Russell plowed our driveway for five dollars. Nice. He was the nicest man and he was the father of Arlene Laporte.

And Arlene's second son was one of my Cub Scouts and his name was Russell Laporte. Oh, okay. And if you know the road that goes out past the Enterprise Bank...

Interviewer - Route 110?

Nancy Clark - Yeah, you know there's a curve before you get there where the... Lime kiln? Yes.

Fatty Russell's... Fatty Russell's brother, excuse me, Fatty Russell's brother and his lady friend and Arlene Laporte were driving out there when Arlene was very young and the car got out of control and they threw her out and they saved her life. Wow.

I think the others were killed. So she lost her family then? Yeah.

Uncles or something. Yeah. And she's...

She married Laporte who was a drugstore man. Very nice.

Interviewer - Scribner... There was a Scribner that had a store in town or something?

Nancy Clark - He worked at a lumber company.

Interviewer - Okay, and you think that was the Russell Lumber?

Nancy Clark - I think he did. And his Scribner's sister was Brookenshaw's mother.

Interviewer - Okay, let me tell you where I'm leading from. Scribner did a series of postcards of Chelmsford from around the 1900s, early 1900s. Well, that's not Scribner.

And it says Scribner right on it. Okay, here's the funny part. Ralph Emerson that we were talking about earlier in the center, he did postcards, R. W. Emerson. And the name that you just mentioned, Brookenshaw, he did postcards. Nancy Clark - Did he?

Interviewer - Yes, there are postcards with that name on it.

Nancy Clark - Burkenshaw is right up the street. And Burkenshaw is... The funeral director now was in school with Lincoln.

So that's the Burkenshaw funeral home? Yeah.

Interviewer - Okay, gotcha.

Nancy Clark - But his father was before him. And his Ginny, I think Ginny Burkenshaw was a Scribner.

Interviewer - Maybe a couple generations back, maybe they were in business in town and produced those postcards.

Nancy Clark - I know that Scribner, that's my generation. Although on the younger side, I know he worked in a lumber company. He was a nice guy.

A nice guy. And they had two children. They lived right up on Brentwood.

Burkenshaw lives on the corner. Then his mother had a house. Yeah.

And then Scribner was farther up.

Interviewer - Now the Russell House bridges between Westford and Worthen. Yeah. The brick side is on Worthen.

Nancy Clark - Now there is a very, very interesting group of people that used to come out from Lowell and stay in the old house in the summertime.

Interviewer - Mm-hmm.

Nancy Clark - And...

Interviewer - By that you mean...

Nancy Clark - That house that faces, the front door faces... Oh, Worthen Street. And Miss Mabel Hill, and I knew her, and her sister I did not know, but they would come out and spend the six weeks or so in the summertime and stay in the old part of the house.

Mm-hmm. The old part of the house had no heat. I don't think there were any bathrooms, but they loved it and they used to parade around and in the village it was the thing to do, these maiden ladies.

And you will hear, you will read about them.

Interviewer - And they... Mabel Hill you said?

Nancy Clark - Yes, Mabel.

Interviewer - I think I've actually heard that name somewhere.

Nancy Clark - Yes, she came from Lowell. And would come out here. And I can remember her, very tall lady.

This is in the 50s? Oh, heaven's no, there was back. Oh, you? I mean, I can remember her in the 50s, but she was coming out here before the turn of the century. It was the thing to do to get out of hot Lowell and come out to... So when she was younger she...

No, she was... Many, many years. Lady by that time.

Parasol. Oh, yes. Margaret told me about them and I've been reading.

I read about them not too long ago and I'm trying to think where did I read about them? But they had a name and they talked about it and it was the thing to do. And isn't that cute?

Interviewer - Country living.

Nancy Clark - Country living.

Interviewer - Fresh food. Almost like camping in town.

Nancy Clark - But you know, how nice that they could open their house and they made money and she and her entourage, they used to sit in the front and if you look, there's a beautiful front and there are little terraces to come down and they could walk around.

Interviewer - There was a poem written about the terraces and Eleanor, it was one of the things that I've been looking back. I don't think I... There's one about the terraces.

In fact, I took a picture of the terraces for the book that you and I worked on.

Nancy Clark - I got a book for each one, each child. And they've enjoyed them. That's good.

I don't think I have, you know, I'm devoted to my town where I was born and the son put out an edition. I bet you bought it too. I think it's right under here.

Here it is. All about Lowell.

Interviewer - Is this the recent one?

Nancy Clark - Not too long ago.

Interviewer - You know, we had the son for a while but it was getting ahead of us so we didn't have the time to read it.

Nancy Clark - Well, you wait and see. There's a lot of stuff you don't want to read but there's a whole thing about Lowell. I bought one for each.

Here it is.

Interviewer - Oh, the Hull City Makeover.

Nancy Clark - If you want to borrow it, you can, but you have to bring it back to me. If I think of some other things, I'll try to tell you because my mother died when I wasn't smart enough to ask her.

Interviewer - We all feel that way once our parents die.

Nancy Clark - I keep telling my children, if there's anything you want to know, ask me. I'll tell you if I can, and if I can't, I won't. I'd love for you to borrow this because it tells about parts of Lowell.

And you know, I have seen so much come and go. I sent one to Maine to Polly Bartlett. It was A.G. Pollard. And I wish he was here. Pollard Bartlett was the grandson of A.G. Pollard. And A.G. Pollard used to come out here for the summer. And there's a house on High Street on the right where Harry Pollard used to come out for the summer. I can find, I know where that house is. At least I haven't been up High Street for a while.

But the big house, Polly Bartlett has a moving picture machine from about 1929, and it shows A.G. Pollard was in the bank as a director with my father, and Mr. Sawyer was the president of the bank. And all the help, they have moving pictures of the tellers and all the stuff, people from the bank, getting out of the cars with their hats and their bags, and they're going to have a tea party at A.G. Pollard's house.

Interviewer - Oh, so Polly's a guy?

Nancy Clark - Pollard, yes, but we always call him Polly. And the people who didn't know him used to spell his name P-A-U-L-L-I-E-S.

Interviewer - It's like Italian stuff.

Nancy Clark - He's William Pollard.

Interviewer - Well, I think just for our own well-being, we'll wrap it up right here. Thank you very much, Nancy Clark.

Nancy Clark - It was a very nice time. I hope sometime you'll just come over and we'll just talk.

Interviewer - Thanks again.

Nancy Clark - Thank you. It was fun.