Evelina Gilmore Ames
1851
Jan 2 Thursday I sit down to my sewing pretty early this morning. Had
some squash pies made Quinn & wife carried Mrs McHanna
to Mansfield about 2 Oclock PM soon after Mrs Peckham
came & passed the afternoon & evening. I had to get my own
tea. Isabel washed dishes. Mr P[eckham] came in about eight
Thomas Davidson & wife at Olivers [Jr] this evening Frank went
to A A Gilmores with Quinn Not able to work Looked
over a barrell of Apples & locked them up from the boys
Evelina had to do without her servant, Jane McHanna, this afternoon and thus made her own tea. Isabel Orel, who usually worked for Sarah Witherell and “Father Ames” (known today as the original Ames patriarch, Old Oliver), helped Evelina by washing dishes. Jane McHanna, meanwhile, was driven to nearby Mansfield where she may have had family. Jane came from Ireland, originally, as did Isabel Orel, Patrik Quinn, and most of the domestic employees in the village.
John Peckham worked in the counting house at O. Ames and Sons shovel factory; he and his wife Susan would move away from North Easton this year. Thomas Davidson, a merchant and the town’s postmaster, spent the evening with his wife Betsey at the next-door home of Evelina’s brother-in-law Oliver Ames Jr and his wife Sarah Lothrop Ames.
And “the boys,” from whom Evelina had to safeguard the winter’s supply of apples? They were the sons of Evelina and Oakes Ames: Oakes Angier Ames (often referred to as “O A”), Oliver Ames (the third of that name, who, for the purposes of clarity, will be identified with a “3” after his name), and Frank Morton Ames, the youngest and wildest brother of the three. OA is 21 as the year opens, Oliver is a month shy of turning 20, and Frank is 17; he spent part of this day with his older cousin Augustus Gilmore. Strapping young men, they work at the shovel shop six days a week. Small wonder that they have prodigious appetites, thus causing their mother to lock up the apple barrel to protect the supply.
evelinaames 