Helen Angier Ames
1851
Feb 25 Tuesday This morning Helen left home for school
at Dorchester. She felt so bad when she left
that I did not go in to see her. Her Father & Mother
went with her and returned to night, they went into
Boston and stoped an hour or two. Mr Jennings
& Crommet called this evening to see Orinthia
I have been to work on a bosom of shirt putting
a new one into an old shirt of Oakes Angiers. Very windy.
A[u]gustus here
Under some duress, the teenaged Helen Ames was taken to boarding school today, clearly not wishing to go. Her parents insisted and accompanied her to see her settled. Their stop in the city on the way home might have been a lift of spirits for a mother and father who had just driven away from a disconsolate child.
The children of both Oakes and Oliver Jr. each went away to school for a portion of their education. Oakes and Evelina’s boys had already gone and returned home; Susan still had her boarding school ahead of her. Oliver Jr. and Sarah’s two children, Fred and Helen, were at this stage both away at school. Oliver Jr. and Sarah were empty-nesters, to use a term they wouldn’t have recognized. They might have recognized the emotion, however. Strange to think of them in their separate house, just the two of them now, quiet, (although Sarah’s younger brother, Cyrus Lothrop, sometimes lived with them) while right next door in the old homestead lived a whole commotion of relatives.
Schooling seemed to be the theme of the day. A Mr. Jennings and a Mr. Crommet called to see Orinthia Foss, presumably on matters of her employment as a schoolteacher. Does any reader out there know either of these names?
His wife and son still living elsewhere – Bridgewater, perhaps – while he set up their rented lodgings in North Easton, Augustus Gilmore was staying temporarily with his aunt Evelina and her family. He would soon bring Hannah, who was expecting, and little Eddie to town.
evelinaames 