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Notes for Ellen Hynes: I remember her as a sturdy kindly old lady that my parents and I used to visit at least once a month, usually every other week, until she died suddenly in her 86th year when I was 12. At that time, her home was just before (bridge on the left of the house) the covered bridge across the Otter Quechee river as you leave Woodstock for Bridgewater. That bridge was removed in the late 1930's and replaced by a concrete-steel girded one the right of the old house, wherere it is as of this writing (Route4). After marrying widower Peter Gobie she lived in the house on the left just before (eastside) the bridge leading to the Pomfret road by the Lawrence Rockefeller mansion. This was the home visited by my fatheather when he was a young boy. When married to Charles Rice their home was located on the site wher the stone Catholic Church is now. She had 3 children by her first husband Charles Rice who died in his 39th year. Son George, although married fofor a period of time, had no children. Her daughter Elsie died at age 14. Henry, her youngest Rice child, had only the one, her grandson Gerald Henry whom she doted on for the rest of her life. She married widower Peter Gobie and had a 4th child, Harold, who was married to Bessie Riley (sister Mammie, wife of J. Parke Goddard, owners of the areas largest Bakery in the 1930's of Claremont, New Hampshire.) had no children. It was then understandable that when greatgrand child Gerald Jarvrvis Rice came along her love and attention only multiplied. The tradition of solo summer visits by a young (or great) grandchild continued. Her attic was an adventure in itself: Civil War paraphenalia (if only I'd saved some!), probably belonged to her brother whom I believe was Michael Hynes from Castleton who served in the 2nd Vermont Regiment of the famous Old Vermont Brigade; articles from the 1st WW (Harold Gobie was a supply office and went to France); Boy Scout Equiptment; a cycylindr Edison record player that worked (we still have it ), boxes of cylinder records including my favorite: "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly"; bags of marbles for playing "keepies" with othr boys; just about the whole collection of Zane Grey bookbooks (I could take home one each visit to Keep), books by James Oliver Curwood and Jack London about the far North; baseball bats and gloves; hatchets and jacknives old fishpoles and the like. Even a small deerskin covered dolls chest lined with a Vermont newspaper dated 1820, probably saved from the Angell family. In the late 1930's a teenager named Eddy Riley lived in her home. The Boy Scout equipment and the baseballs, bats and gloves were probably his. I remember vaguely that he was from the city and needed a loving place to live. I also seem to recall he had been the CCCC program of the depression, perhaps, but when the war started he was gone. I believe he survived and had a family but I don't know where. Admiral (retitired) Warren Cone, a class mate of Eddy's and now a fellow Rotarian of mine, tells me he believes Eddy was in the Merchant Marine during the war. The fact that Harold was married to a Riley might have played a part in his being in the household, but I just don't know. The ony thing I can remember as being slightly less than ideal about those visits was the fact that great-grand ma's failing eyesight would sometimes cause her to leave little pieces of eggshell in my morning "egg on toast". To this day I think lovingly of her whenever I bite down and feel the grit of a hidden piece of eggshell. GJR Endnotes: 1. ANGEL FAMILY BY Avery Angell; 2. internet - Kindred Konnection No idea if this is accurate or where he died; 3. Angell Family-David Angell: 4. Angell family book by Avery F. Angell and The Ancestery of Emily Jane Angell by Dean Crawford Smith: 5. Town records Wendell, New Hampshire; 6. ANGEL FAMILY BOOK by Avery Angell Town Records, Wendall, New Hampshire; Grave stone, River Street Cemetery, Woodstock, Vermont; Gen. Reg. of Edm. Rice Desc.; The Rice Family by Ward:10. Town Records of Woodstock, Vermont The Rice Family-Ward; 11 town rec. Woodstook, Vermont; 12. History of the town of Barnard, Vermont--very inaccurate as to the Rice family; 13. Town and church records, Woodstock, Vermont. Herman William Tripp--Remembering......
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