Rachel Gilmore Pool

December 11, 1851

Unpack

Dec 11th Thursday.  Have had a bad head ache and

very bad cold  Called into the other part of the

house with Mrs S Ames.  Mrs Witherell had bound

the quilt that we quilted yesterday  Mrs R Pool

called & I went into Edwins house with her.  She & her

husband have spent the day at Augustus  I varnished

store room stairs & porch.  Mr Ames came from New York

Mr Clarke put the inside windows in sitting room

Both Evelina and Old Oliver noted that Oakes Ames “came from New York” today after having been away eight days. He was probably glad to be home; he confessed late in his life that he didn’t enjoy travel. And family dynamics, if they had altered at all in his absence, would have reverted to normal once his “stalwart and rugged”* self returned to his own place as the head of the household.

Evelina’s cold, which had been hovering since Sunday, finally landed with vehemence, although Evelina continued to be up and around. She sat with both sisters-in-law, Sarah Ames and Sarah Witherell, and went over to Edwin Gilmore’s new house with her niece (and Edwin’s sister) Rachael Gilmore Pool. In addition to socializing, Evelina varnished her porch and storeroom stairs. The strong smell from the varnish wouldn’t have helped her “bad head ache,” at all; in fact, it probably made it worse. What was she thinking? Was she too economical to let Mr. Scott complete the job? And did she know that she was spreading her cold everywhere she went?

*William L. Chaffin, Oakes Ames, 1804/1873, Easton Historical Society, North Easton, 1996, p. 1

 

August 30, 1851

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*

Sat Aug 30th Have been marking Olivers clothes and fixing

them.  Called to Mr Whitwells Major Seba Howards

Mr Samuel Dunbars and at Alsons with Pauline

Took tea at Alsons brought Orinthia home with us

All of Mr John Pools family were there or rather

Rachel Augusta & Elisabeth.  Mrs Stevens came

there yesterday  Alson & Mr N Hall here to

dinner & tea

Another sociable Saturday was enjoyed by many throughout Easton, as friends and neighbors rode here and there calling on one another. As one modern historian has noted, “formal and informal forms of socializing were the most common amusements throughout the period. Then, as now, folks liked to visit one another, usually after supper and on weekends. The middle class gathered in their parlors, talked, sang, played games, and so on.”**

Evelina certainly did her part. With her friend Pauline Dean, she paid calls on various friends, including the Howards, the Dunbars, and the dependable Reverend Whitwell and his wife Eliza. At her brother Alson’s farm, where they took tea and visited with old Mrs. Gilmore, they chatted with three daughters of the John Pool family, including Rachel, Augusta and Elizabeth.  Rachel and Augusta had visited Evelina earlier in the month and accompanied her to the company store and the shovel shop.  Evelina was a friend to young women – especially to Orinthia Foss, the schoolteacher, whom they scooped up and took back to North Easton.

On their way home, as they likely rode past fields of Queen Anne’s Lace and Goldenrod, did they acknowledge that summer was coming to an end?

 

* Photograph by John S. Ames III

** Marc McCutcheon, Everyday Life in the 1800s, Cincinnati, 1993, p. 200.

 

August 20, 1851

Scales

Weds 20th Aug  Rachel, Lavinia and Augusta Pool spent

the day here  Mr Ames and Augustus went to Boston

Pauline Dean came to night in the stage

appears the same as she did when she left

Went to the store & was weighed  148 lbs

called at the factory to see Edwin work and he came to

tea  Mr Whitwell called while we were gone

Not shy, Evelina stepped on the scale at the company store.  Fully clothed in the voluminous fashion of the day, she weighed 148 pounds. Given that her dress was full-skirted and worn over a chemise, undersleeves and petticoats, and that she wore a bonnet and most likely kept her hose and shoes on, her actual weight was probably several pounds less than she reported.  She likely weighed closer to 140.

Evelina missed a visit from Reverend Whitwell today, as she was out and about with young female company.  Two nieces, Lavinia Gilmore and Rachel Gilmore Pool, came over with Rachel’s sister-in-law, Augusta Pool.  They were ages 19, 21, and 22, respectively. They visited the store, shopped, perhaps, and watched their aunt get weighed. Perhaps they got weighed themselves. It might have been a lively time as they chatted and moved back and forth.

From the store the group traipsed to the shovel factory to watch Evelina’s nephew and Lavinia and Rachel’s brother, Edwin Williams Gilmore, work – an unusual visit to say the least, and one that could only have been accomplished in the company of the boss’s wife. What did the workmen think?

Edwin, nearly 23, would not work at the shovel shop for long. By 1854 he would be manufacturing hinges along with business partners Oakes and Oliver Ames Jr., whom he would eventually buy out. All that was in his future; today he would join his sisters and their friend Augusta for tea at his aunt’s.