Stories from our family history, circa 1907-1910:

[My great-aunt Becky wrote a small book of family memories from her childhood growing up in rural Vermont. Glendon, Alice, Phil, Marvin, and Becky made up the five children of the Goddard family; their parents were Dr. A.M. (Anthony) Goddard, a physician who had his office in their large home in Albany, Vermont, and Grace Darling Goddard. Dr. A.M. also had a buggy and horses because he often traveled long distances to see his patients at their homes and to deliver babies.

Sometimes I like to read sections of this little book aloud to A.J. We know the best parts by heart! These three are about my grandfather, Marvin, when he was a little boy. Becky is the narrator.]

...There was also another helper for Mother, a buxom maid named "Mertie" who helped in the care of the younger boys before I came along. One week Dad was to be away for a few days and brought Mother and the two youngest to stay with his folks in Hyde Park. While he was away Marvin fell in the bathtub. This resulted in a large bunch over his rib section, so Mother took him to Dr. Valleau in Morrisville for a check up.
As she removed the three year old's shirt, the doctor, wishing to put the young patient at ease, remarked, "Well, young man, that's quite a bunch you have there." To the mother's distress and the doctor's amusement, the child retorted:
"Yes, but you ought to see Mertie's -- she's got two of them!"

...My sister and brothers attended Sunday School across the street regularly and were rewarded with a Bible Picture each Sunday. Mother was alarmed one Sunday morning with the sounds of a rising wail coming from the churchyard. Hurrying to the porch she saw Marvin running and crying while holding onto his "reward." As he reached his mother he held the picture out at arm's length and sobbed,
"I don't want a man's head on a dish!"
It had been his lot to draw the graphic illustration of the sad end to the life of John the Baptist.

...The first car owned by our father was a two cylinder red Reo of 1910 vintage. This chain-drive vehicle was cranked on the side instead of the front where many broke their arms if the crank let go. I have been told that the chain would break often so he had to either back into a bank or drive into one, depending which way the force of gravity would head him. In going uphill, the power would sometimes be lacking and a passenger would have to jump out and place a rock in back of a wheel if there was no bank handy.
This procedure affected my mother to such a degree that she never again trusted any car that stopped in the middle of a hill. I can imagine the effect some of the hills such as Hitchcock Hill might have had on the early cars and their passengers.

Horses remained, nevertheless, as weather had to be reckoned with and the hazardous roads of other seasons. Our barn had the same amount of hay to feed the many animals. Also, it provided sport for my daring brothers. One day when Marvin was crossing a high beam over the main barn floor to the haymow with his younger brother Phil, he heard a "thwump" below him. Phil had fallen. He lay pale and still. Marvin's descent must have been rapid as the prostrate form of his brother remained there with no sign of breathing.
Horrified by the sight, the older boy bent over his brother and loudly announced,
"Phil Goddard, you're dead!"
and then ran to tell his mother. He reached the kitchen with the awful news to find his brother close behind him. He had regained his breath and was as frightened as Marvin at the thought.