Sunday, January 30, 2011
AUNTIE NECTAR'S FARM
My first run-in with poison ivy and brown soap was on Auntie Nectar's farm. Auntie Nectar and Uncle Karekin (both survivors of the Armenian genocide) owned a a summer place that was once a working farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where they would invite the Marashtzis to picnic at least once every summer. I loved going to that farm and wandering about barefoot while the adults got to chatter about the goings on of their friends and relatives from Marash. It was a wonderful time with hay fields and woods all around. On a summer's Sunday, wandering, dreaming, my bare feet enjoying the earth's massage, shouts of warning interrupted my reverie. 'You're walking through poison ivy!' Alarmed, I turned around. 'Don't worry,' (someone said in Turkish); 'come here and we'll wash your feet with brown soap and you'll never know the difference.' (Well, I was worried because my father, a blueberry picker in his youth, had once contracted a terrible case of poison ivy when his body had been covered from head to foot with the rash and he had had to lay on a bed of ice for days to relieve his suffering -- the ice, he said, that later caused him to have really bad arthritis!) But the brown soap protected me forever . . . I never felt an itch! Nor, to this day, have I ever contracted poison ivy. But now, in this 21st century, there is no brown soap at that farmhouse in Hopkinton. . . then again, no one has to worry about poison ivy on that acreage where there is no longer a farmhouse or a farm. Just another megamansion with no poison ivy.
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Okay . . . Marash girl has now realized a need for yet another challenging project. Move over Proctor & Gamble . . . there may be a little competition coming: Watch for the new product soon to be released and sold at all Star Markets in the New England area: "BETHEL'S BROWN SOAP"!
ReplyDeletePut me on the list for the brown soap! I had poison ivy and its cousin poison oak rashes frequently as a kid, wandering barefoot and barelegged through fields and woods in Georgia, and my family did NOT know about brown soap - we used "calamine lotion" - back then it was chalk-white (now it comes in flesh tone, and is still useful).
ReplyDeletebrown soap is 'pine tar soap' and is still available today. i have been using it for years in the shower. it is the only anti-bacterial soap that is of a natural derivative. unlike the synthetic anti bacterial soap, brown soap, aka, pine tar soap and no downside to it. the one that it is highly recommended is 'grandpa's pine tar soap'.
ReplyDeleteBethel Jan, Yes Hopkintonsti em! I grew up in Hopkinton in the '50s, 60s and 70s. We lived first on Downey St. near Lake Masspenock, and in 64 we moved to Hayden Rowe, near the Milford line,
ReplyDeleteand Connolly's Appliance Barn. Where was your Aunt and Uncle's farm? In those days Hopkinton had half the population it has now. It seems like another, far away world to me today. I have fond memories and a lot of nostalgia for Hopkinton. Fried clams, fries and a lime ricky for less than $2 at Haywards'd Dairy in Woodville. Today a plate or fried clams costs $15, they're lousy and you need a magnifying glass to find them. Because I don't have a car I haven't been out there since my mother sold the house in 92. I know from talking to friends that alot of the open fields and woodland that I remember are now covered with McMansions as you say.
My mother was very sucseptible to poison ivy.I never had any problem with it. We certainly had enough of it in the back yard on Hayden Rowe. Too bad my parents didn't know about brown soap.
Mark Berg
berg@law.harvard.edu
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRe: The location of my grandmother and Bethel's Aunt Nectar's Hopkinton farmland was midway on Pond Street. Either in the late 40's or more probably in the early 50's she bought 14 acres, which included an old farmhouse with an even older barn the leaned to the left. My two cousins' inherited the farm and each built discreet and lovely homes, which are now surrounded by the later explosion of McMansions. Linda
Deletethere was a power about Aunty Nectar that defies one dimensional rendering. she was a palette of colors and sensibility. she could have been a warrior chieftain leading the saxons against the Roman interlopers, or the first armenian woman to be a captain of commerce, or the most genuine hostess for a tribal gathering, or the most feared feline of maternal instinct. she had a smile, day or night, that rivalled the sun as it topped the trees on a sky blue perfect morning. her humor and le joi de vivre were infectious and daunting. she was a redoubt of culture and clan. she was married to one of the brothers of my father's father, a man who was as retiring as she was extroverted, but a man, and one of certainty. the power of her persona was not expressed at the expense of those surrounding her, but was a contribution to the vitality of the moment, at a picnic, at her home, across from a business table. she was, indeed, a nectar in the lives of those whom she touched.
ReplyDeletei miss her terribly.
Bethel and I just realized today that we are long lost cousins and Nectar, my grandmother, was a wonderful reconnection. What a true and beautiful description of Nectar (my Nana). She loved family and friends cooking with love and sharing mountains of wonderful food with all. She always enjoyed life with an open heart and tremendous strength despite a bitter past. A three dimensional woman with many, many facets; a pioneer and woman ahead of her time; she will always be a role model for me. Karekin/Puppa, as you said, was extremely retiring, happy to sit back, observe and enjoy the frivolity. I miss her in too many ways to count. Linda
DeleteSpeak Memory
ReplyDeleteReal, physical places change with time, while our childhood and youthful memories of them occupy places in our minds. We afraid that to see present day places might jar our memories. I guess it's like for us with our memories of Hopkinton. I have many memories of Hopkinton. Someday I'll put some of them on paper.
Mark
Hello, Mark. Please feel free to put some of those memories right here!
ReplyDeletetime lapse photography is what history provides. we can speed it up or slow it down according to our will. now, if i just knew how to work the camera.
ReplyDelete@Marash Girl
ReplyDeleteOn a day like today 2/1/11 I remember watching the snow coming down from my window facing south toward Milford. In the '50s and the beginning of the '60s we went on vacation without locking the door. I remember in '62 or '63 when my father told my mother and I to start locking the doors when we went out. At the time that I was born in '54 there were only 1, 2 or 3 police officers in Hopkinton. We had milk delivery and delivery from Cushman bakery.
3 1/2 years ago I reconnected with my classmate Steve Doherty, and his brother Jeff when Steve had a photo exhibit at ALMA. Their mother was Angel Vartanian from Watertown. Jeff was telling us how their grandfather sold fresh eggs to the Armenian families in the Blackstone Valley towns. I mentioned it to my mother and she said "Yes, I remember that because I used to buy eggs from him."
About 7 years ago I met someone who had lived Hopkinton for a few years. He mentioned "that ornery old guy who runs the hardware store..." and then he did a perfect impression of Don Hitchens; "Whatdayamean ya don't know what size nut?"
I grew up eating pizza and spaghetti at Carbone's restaurant.
I already loved mushrooms when I was 4 or 5. Pete Carbone was generous with the mushrooms and my father said "Save the mushrooms for Mark, he'll eat them all." and I did.
We were the permanent Jewish family in town. There were others but they came and went. My father referred to himself as the elder of the Jewish community of Hopkinton. Whenever my mom got wind at the Woman's Club of newly arrived Jewish family my father would say "I'll have go over hit them up for a contribution to the Temple Fund. (We were secular and didn't go to any temple).
My dad would stop and "chew the fat with the guys at Katz' Pharmacy. He was friendly with Father Frank Russo. One time he gave Fr. Russo a ride home. A few days later one of the gossips in the drug store said "Morris I see you gave Fr. Russo a ride home the other day. " My dad replied; "Yes, I think it's a very good thing for the respective leaders of the different religious communities to get together now and then."
That's a start. More to come,
Marx Pasha
@AnonymousHey, Mark. Thanks for your beautiful blog; I can't believe the parallels here though -- I remember when my mother began locking our doors, earlier than the '60s, but in the mid-'50s. And we had milk delivery and delivery from Cushman bakery. I think all that changed when my mother got her driver's license and was able to go out and buy her own milk and bread!
ReplyDeleteMy mother learned to drive sometime in the early or mid '50s. She wasn't good with manual shifts so my dad always bough cars with automatic transmissions. The first car that I remember was the Hudson, which was probably a '49. Because it was streamlined design it looked to me like a racing car. After the Hudson my father always bought Buicks. I remember the '54 Buick rumbling over the cobblestones on Water Street in Worcester. More about Water St. tomorrow. My parents told me that when I was born, they brought me home in a Jeepster. Remember them?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteHitchens Hardware closed earlier this year, and the building was torn down on May 13. Apparently, they're going to move the dry cleaner into a new building on the site.
Always sad to see a piece of a small town go away.
Some video of the teardown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IogEirAch3g
Hitchens Hardware closed earlier this year, and the building was torn down on May 13. Apparently, they're going to move the dry cleaner into a new building on the site.
ReplyDeleteAlways sad to see a piece of a small town go away.
Some video of the teardown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IogEirAch3g
@AnonymousHello, George. Thanks for the update on what's happening to what was Hopkinton. My heart breaks to think that noone thought to move that historic building to another site.
ReplyDelete