Memoirs of
Ellen Edmonia Ware Goddard Reagan St-Cyr
June 24, 1967
Thinking of the times and events that concerned you while you were growing up together make me realize how little you must remember of the background of the years before. Even the older ones must remember only scattered impressions of those early years of your life. Perhaps it would be well for me to tell you so you can understand how you came to be such a united family.
Joseph Sterling Goddard of Chicago and I were married In 1905 in Riverside, a suburb of Chicago where I had grown up. We built a modest house and enjoyed evenings quietly at home reading, serving. Sterling pouring over seed catalogues and planning the garden or often spending an evening playing Auction with friends. We went to the theater in Chicago a few times and on anniversaries during the year. The important events of the winters were the six elaborate Assemblies. Invitation subscription dances with the best orchestras and two course suppers at midnight. My young married and unmarried friends met Monday afternoons at our different houses with our sewing and had "Tea" comparing our children and problems. There was also a study club that met Thursday during the winter.
Caroline was born less than a year after we moved into the new house. Such a precious little girl who looked like a beautiful doll and we were so happy to have her that life took on a new meaning. When Caroline was 14 1/2 months old, Elizabeth was born. So much more robust and heavier that the little girls soon looked like twins and a dear friend whose boys were near in ages too, gave me the double cart they had outgrown. Elizabeth had a round face that often looked as though she were about to cry and enormous dark blue eyes. Once when I left them in the cart while I was in the Post Office, some ladies were talking to and admiring Caroline 'till she said, "Look at my baby sister. She has perfectly booful eyes." They played long hours together in the play yard with an awning over the sand box. I made them blue and white and pink and white pinafore aprons and Elizabeth's were always so soiled in the front of the waist that they showed stains after they were washed and I could tell that way which were hers. When I spoke of this lately, Elizabeth explained, "No wonder--Caroline sat on her chair holding a doll while I made mud pies for us both."
Sterling was an engineer for a large steel company and was often away through the week at the different foundries so he gave up golf to be home with us Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Then his interests centered around gardening and pouring over seed catalogues and planning next year's garden was a great pastime for him. The children loved to help riding in the empty wheelbarrow and back on top of the load. When it was possible, the little girls would sit on the end of the sidewalk to wait for Daddy and he would almost step on his little rabbits--a never failing game.
The spring Elizabeth was two I took them to visit on my father's ranch in New Mexico, where there were cousins their age and animals and farm life to enjoy. Little Sterling was born when Elizabeth was three. Such a beautiful child, fair with blond curls and big blue eyes and his sisters adored him. Their grandparents and Aunt (Daddy's family) moved near and were often with us. Those years our summer vacations were spent on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, Michigan. The cottage had belonged to the family of Sterling's of three generations and our family with the cousins and their children met every summer in that beautiful spot, so dear to us now in memory.
The next baby was born 18 months after Sterling. Grandfather had died and we named the new baby Lester for him. All so well and developing fast in our loving family group. When Lester was crawling age, Daddy varnished the dining room floor one Saturday evening and barricaded it with chairs. In the morning he was shaving and the children playing around him as usual, but he missed Lester and asked the others where Lester was. "Oh, he's stuck," they said. Sterling dashed downstairs to find him stuck fast to the floor. The children couldn't get him up so brought toys to amuse him and he was patiently waiting to be rescued.
When Sterling and Lester were a little older they had a new toy just on the market: "kiddies-cars," a seat and steering rod on three wooden wheels. Pushing around with their feet, they learned to maneuver very fast and it amounted to a tournament bout. Coming from opposite directions to each other and swerving to miss bumping by a fraction of an inch. It was fun for them and breath-taking for us to watch.
Twenty months after Lester's birth, our precious Jaqueline was born in June. We were so proud to have five lovely children. While I was in bed, a congratulatory telegram came from my brother-in-law. "Glad you are nearly half through." I had always said I wanted twelve, but I must admit it seemed staggering then. She was a beautiful little girl. Blond curls and large blue eyes framed in dark lashes--always happy. Lester had even longer lashes and was the envy of his sisters later. They were all handsome and so well. It was a joy to take care of them. In the meantime we had added two bedrooms to the little house to take care of the increase and our life was completely happy.
Then the terrible tragedy came. Sterling, your father, was stricken with pneumonia in November 1916 and died in less than a week. The shock and sorrow were overpowering, and I could not see how to endure without him. Grandma Ware came to be with us 'till after Christmas and then it was arranged to have Virginia Reese, the school nurse, and her sister Eleanor, dear friends, live with us for companionship. What a blessing to have the care of you children to ease the ache in my heart. That summer of 1917 I rented the house furnished and took you to spend the summer at Grandpa's on the ranch in New Mexico. Little Jaque was two years old then. The change of scene was so good for us. Grandma and Grandpa and cousins near. Children enjoyed life on the farm and there was plenty of room for us. A camping trip to the mountains was a fine experience and then it was September and time to go home for school. Virginia and Eleanor joined us in the little house to carry on. They were such a help when illness came at times and good company, and there were my friends with whom I had gone to school and knew all my life. Then the United States entered the World War. In the spring Virginia joined the forces as a nurse. The whole school went to the station to wave her goodbye with flags. Eleanor left too, and we were alone. That summer, too, we went to Grandpa's ranch for a delightful time. The children enjoyed it with their cousins. It was not desolate to go home in September, for I had promised to marry a fine man I had known for several years when I returned. This is the time to write of your father and mother and the background of you, my five new children.
My early remembrance of your mother was when we were in the same fifth grade class in our Riverside school. Then her family moved to Chicago and in 1903 she married your father, and moved back to Riverside. She was not very strong, with nervous depression at times. After Archibald was born, and then Keturah, they did not join the social life of the village. Later they lived in the large house with her mother after her father's death, Babbie was born soon after that move in 1909, Barbara in 1910, and Ruth In 1911. Your grandmother died earlier and your father bought Aunt Maud's and Aunt Florence's inherited interest in the property where they lived--82 Nuttall Road.
Your father graduated in Engineering from the University of Nebraska and came to work in Chicago where he met your mother and joined the firm of your uncles. They were devoted to their children and had a happy home life. Your mother was not very strong and had a helper to be a nurse. Later she decided she could join our literary club and they were popular additions to our group. Your mother was such a sympathetic help to me when I was fighting a nervous breakdown after my youngest baby was born and we were close friends. Ethel and Herbert and Sterling and I made social plans many times and were most congenial. Then came Sterling's death and they were so good to me. But Ethel was expecting a baby and was unnaturally ill those months. The baby did not live and your mother lost strength and death came to her while I was visiting my family in the West.
When I returned in the fall our mutual sorrow was a bond and Herbert came often to see me and plan entertainment of theater. You had Aunt Edith, an elderly relation, looking after you and good servants.
Herbert was so kind to my children that he won my love and respect and after much consideration of my possible ability to be a successful Mother to you, we became engaged the next spring and after another summer with my children at my family's, we were married just before the end of World War I, In September 1918.
The children were so nearly the corresponding ages from Archibald, 14, to Jaque, 3 1/2, that they had known each other and became a harmonious family in the big house. We left them in Aunt Edith's care at her request while we had an automobile wedding tour. A few days before the wedding the Reagan children came with their goat wagon and moved my children's toys to their house. We were married in our Episcopal church with Aunt Edith and the rector's Wife as witnesses. That night we had a festive dinner all together. The girls wore corsages and the boys a flower in their button holes, which they wore to Sunday School the next day to the amazement of the people--announding our marriage. The following summer Archie and the four older girls went to summer camp and we hoped the expected baby would arrive before the children came home, but little Herbert was born soon after they were back. Archie went away to school and camp again the next summer. In March the next year, 1921, Ben was born. Then we had twelve lovely children.
But tragedy struck again and Herbert was stricken in the fall of 1921 and lingered until March 1922. A sad ending for all we had hoped to do. His insurance was generous to provide for us and we lived on In the big house with Rena, our faithful cook staying with us.
Everyone had duties in house cleaning Saturday mornings and setting the table, dish-washing, and every way to help me. So living became adjusted. As the girls grew up and graduated from High School they each were educated to fit them to earn money; most important to help them later.
Caroline was married first in 1926. Then Elizabeth, Keturah and Babbie in four successive years. Sterling and Lester were in college and Jaquelin at school in Virginia. I turned the house over to the three married girls and their husbands--Babbie had the third floor, Elizabeth the second, and Caroline the first. Barbara was recovered from her long illness and that fall I planned to take her, Herbie, and Ben with me to Italy where we lived in an apartment. The next summer vacation Lester and Jaque (Sterling did not want to come) came to join us in Paris where I rented an apartment.
After they returned to school we four went back to Rome and in October 1932 I married Mario Saint-Cyr, who was born in Italy of Italian Mother and French Father, of a distinguished family and we rented a larger apartment and appreciated the beautiful city. Early the next spring Elizabeth's husband had a tragic death and I sent for her and her baby Jaque and for my Jaque to leave school and come with them to live with us. We took a villa on Monte Verde to have enough room. The girls gradually made friends at the American Academy. Here Jaque met the man she later married and who was to be the Director of the Academy after several years. Meanwhile, Babbie had left to live in Japan. Caroline and her husband were left alone in the big house. Barbara and Jaque decided to go back to Riverside. Elizabeth and little Jaque stayed on 'till summer and we moved back into an apartment in Rome. Herb and Ben were going to a French school in Switzerland. Then the depression came. Lester had finished law college and was teaching in a boy's school in Cuba and we sent Herb and Ben over to him for that year. Mario's father died that winter and we made plans to go to United States that spring. Herbert had polio and recovered except for a shoulder muscle and the boys came back with Lester when we did. Ruth was a trained nurse in Boston and arranged to have Herb's shoulder operation and therapy after which she could give him care. Then I rented an apartment for Barbara to be housekeeper with Ruth and the two boys to go to visit my family in the West and the next year Jaque was married to Frank Brown and went to Syria, where her husband was doing Archaeological research. Elizabeth married again and lived in Chicago. Caroline, divorced, was in an apartment nearby, with her two little girls. Sterling had married and lived in Chicago, too.
For three years Mario and I had a car and motored to California two winters and to Florida one, spending alternate summers in the cottage on Lake Erie where the children spent vacations with us and travelling to Italy the alternate two times. Back to the States just before the Second World War broke. When America entered Lester was drafted into Intelligence for Air Force and Ben was interpreter for and Jeep driver for officers in the Army in Italy.
Caroline married again and lived in an apartment in Riverside. That summer at the lake, Mario died suddenly, and Caroline's husband a few months later. Then I lived with her and the little girls 'till the end of the war. The next fall Caroline married again and moved West.
As soon as I could get permission, I built this house where you all come for our reunion.
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There were times when serious illness struck and I walked the streets at night wringing my hands and calling God to help me know what to do. When Sterling was a freshman in high school, his hip pained him and the doctor decided it was T.B. and Sterling must have a cast that would keep him immobile and in bed indefinitely. Two times he went to the hospital, but twice the plaster of the cast failed to set. Then I felt sure God was telling me that that was the wrong thing to do. A noted orthopedic doctor in the city examined him and said that the slight temperature was due to pain and not to infection of T.B., a trouble that shows something with growing bones when they are not hardened to bear the weight they carry and grow out of line to make the leg shorter. The cast he made was to hold from the hip and he could carry on quite normally while the healing progressed. It really made him heavier for football and the boys were afraid he'd fall on them. He could sit on a seat with one leg straight down resting his knee on the floor then stand to relieve that strain and ride his bicycle to school peddling with one foot. The next fall his legs had grown, so a seat had to be built up to take care of the difference. After that six months he could be without the cast and no more pain.
There were the critical years when Barbara had to be in bed with an infection located in the valves of her heart. Without pillows for a year and never out of bed for two years. Then a gradual sitting in a chair and later a bath in the tub and finally proclaimed well. Such a sweet, patient little girl. Fifteen when we discovered her illness. We pulled her bed by the window where she could see people going past and watch the children outside. She would do everything the doctor said and choked down liver at lunch every day. I tried to disguise it different ways 'till she said, "Never mind bothering, Mother. It is always liver, so cook it the easiest way." Her room was the center for the family. From school, each one would go to Barbara's room first to tell their news and when little Herbert and Ben, six and four, were ready for bed in their pajamas, she would call out sitting-up exercises--"one-two-three-four." I remember how rewarded I felt for my care of her. Keturah, at the time having her nurses training in a Boston hospital, came home for Christmas vacation and wanted to help me. She gave Barbara her bath in bed the first day as she was trained, but the next day Barbara said, "I like the way Mother does it better" and I was glad to take over again.
Of course there were all the children's diseases taking their turns. Scarlet Fever kept two shut off in the nursery with a trained nurse. Little Jaque had diptheria. There were measles, chicken pox, whooping cough; none severe and no ill effects. Once I had four older girls in a row of beds in the nursery after their tonsils were removed. They all went to the near hospital early one morning and drew lots for turns. Caroline was first and when she was ready I rushed her home in the automobile, put her in bed and back again for Keturah, ready by that time. This was repeated 'till I had them all back with ice packs on their necks. Misery loves company, so that helped them.
Barbara, when she was stronger, thought out a project of a house to make of cardboard. She planned the measurement of each side wall to divide into the rooms and in her hour for sitting up she marked the wall outlines and painted the walls according to her color scheme and the partition lines marking the separate rooms. After that, the inside walls were measured off on cardboards in the same way. Windows and doors were also planned and when the final set-up was made there was the first prefabricated house I ever heard about.
The last blow was when Herbert, at fourteen, was stricken with polio. It was the severe kind that paralyzes the neck and back and the doctor said if his fever subsides by morning we may save him. How I kept God near us those long hours in constant prayer and He rescued Herb. For days and nights I kept him under sedatives to have him quiet. When the effects of the sedatives wore off, I would heat milk to keep him nourished and he would sing in his delerium, "I love my mother, the dearest, sweetest Mother in all the world." We pulled him through the paralysis gradually, leaving his right leg and arm with only the shoulder muscle not working. This was later partially corrected by a Boston surgeon and does not hinder him now except it exempted him from military service.
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Now it is 1967 and we are planning another reunion on my 85th Birthday, June 24th. There are ten of my children now: Ben, my youngest, was killed in a plane crash in 1956; and Archibald, the oldest, died with a heart attack in 1965. Of the generation of my children, 17 will be here (4 are wives and 3 are husbands); of the next generation, grandchildren, 20 will be here (2 are wives and 3 are husbands); and of the youngest generation, the great-grandchildren, 15 will be here. A very grand total of 52!!!!!
Grannie 1967
