Mary Caroline Findley

Mary and Ernest lived in a stone cabin in North Reading (click to see a full-size picture) during the early years of their marriage. As Ernest's health declined precipitously during the 1920s and he could no longer bring in a paycheck, Mary needed to be the breadwinner. She took on more and more work as proofreader for the Andover Press. During those years Mary and Ernest joined the Episcopalean Church. Mary continued to be a member of both the Episcopalean Church and the Congregationalist (the Free Christian) Church for the rest of her life.

Here is a picture of Mary and her family just a couple of months before Ernest's death (click it to enlarge it). She was widowed in 1928 at the age of 41, with three children (Ethel Jean, 19, Allan Christie, 17, and Ernest John, 11), and she needed to work all the harder, taking out loans and paying them off with small installments. Just to cover Ernest's funeral expenses, Mary paid $1-per-week installments for years until the bill was paid up.

In 1936, when she was 49, Mary began keeping a diary, and she recorded each day's events for the next 34 years. The diary reveals that during the 1930s, she loved to play rummy and whisk, and she went to the movies at least twice a week. (She gradually weaned herself of her movie addiction during World War II, when more and more movies were full of violence.) She frequently made doughnuts for her family and friends.

She kept excruciatingly detailed records of every penny that went into or out of her hands; for example, in the 1930s she was earning $28.42 per week at the Andover Press (no paid vacations), her church offerings were typically 30 cents, and her installments on a couch she bought were $2 per week. Here's an entry for 26 March 1938: "Went to Lawrence & paid $10 on Rogers mortgage, bought slip 59 cents, hairwash $1.00, eats 75¢, movies .25--saw Gary Cooper & Claudette Colbert in Bluebeard's 8th Wife--Good Housekeeping .25, doughnuts & coffee .17, papers .04, carfare .20." Here's one from 28 August 1938: "Went to church with Mrs. F. [landlady] and up to farm. Cream .10, cukes .10, eggs .40, church .50, bread .10, paper .10, postage .03, icecream .25--total 1.58." (A 1938 dollar would be worth nearly $13 in 2002.)

In 1947, when she was 60, Mary became matron at the Andover Town Infirmary, a post she held for 5 years. In 1954, when she was 67, she began taking insulin to deal with diabetes, the malady that had stricken down her mother. She had a couple of long hospital stays in that year, one to have her gall bladder removed. She showed some of her humor in the hospital: "Had intravenous feeding in hand, which took about an hour. Then my belly ached again and I was up on the bedpan all night. I told the nurse she might as well have put it [the intravenous] in the bedpan in the first place. Haha."

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