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By Priscilla Januskiewicz October 30, 2004 My mother, Ona, has many fond (some not-so-fond) memories of living in the village of Williamsville, Vermont as a child. For a few years, her father was the pastor of the Methodist Church there. The town was named after the ancestors of the large Williams clan and the Williams’ country store was just across the street from the church. Ona went to school with William Williams, son of the proprietor. The large parsonage, the temporary home for the pastor and his family, was located up the hill from the church, just past the store. Across from the parsonage was the two-room elementary school where Ona attended first grade, and part of second grade. There were several other grades in the same building. The parsonage had a beautiful curved veranda around the front of the house and a barn for a horse and buggy in the rear. Inside the house, Ona remembers “rooms off of rooms”, and quilting bees where the church ladies would gather in a circle to work on a large quilt together. She remembers playing “Keely Over”- throwing a ball over the school-with the boys on one side and the girls on the other. She also recalls making May baskets and decorating them and filling them with candy or flowers. “We’d leave them on someone’s doorstep and run and try to hide out of sight, but we didn’t try too hard to hide because we wanted them (the boys) to catch us. When they caught us, they gave us a kiss.” Ona says, “My older brother, Euel, had to pump the church organ (while the organist played hymns). I worried about him, afraid he’d stop pumping in the middle of a song and there’d be no music! The organist couldn’t play if he didn’t pump!” “Did he ever quit pumping?” she was asked. “I don’t think he ever did, but I’ll bet he would have liked to!” Ona replied, with a twinkle in her eye. One summer day the Charltons were taking photos of their children on the lawn of the parsonage. (Ona’s daughters each have a framed copy of a hand-colored photo of her sitting in a small rocking chair with a big bow in her hair, holding a doll.) Ona says, “My mother made me hold the doll. My sister, Christel, was mad at me because it was her doll! ‘My doll!’ she’d say. I can hear her now. I didn’t want it-I didn’t even like dolls! I wish they had given me a teddy bear or a real cat. I would have held it. But the doll was just a dead thing. I wasn’t supposed to take it (away from Christel) but they made me do it!” Ona remembers vividly one Christmas Eve children’s program at the church. She must have been six or seven years old. She was supposed to recite a poem: “Tonight I’ll hang my stocking up and off to bed I’ll go; And there I’ll dream of Santa Claus, and lots of things you know. When morning comes I’ll soon be up with just a jump or two; And down I’ll hurry to find out if my good dream’s come true.” Ona says, “I learned it at home, and studied so hard.” I thought I would just go and say it. I didn’t know so many people would be looking at me. I got up on the platform and got scared and wouldn’t say the words. My mother didn’t tell me there would be an audience-(small as it was, to me it was huge.) I knew the words all right, but I couldn’t say them. The people scared me. I wasn’t prepared for them. Offstage, my mother kept prompting me….” ‘Toni..i..i..ght……….’ And then, a little louder, ‘Toni..i..i..ght………’ And louder, still, ‘TONI..I..I..GHT………….’ “I wished she’d shut up. I knew the words, but I wasn’t going to say them. Finally, my mother beckoned me off the stage. I embarrassed her to death. I was the pastor’s daughter! We weren’t supposed to make mistakes! Today, 100 years later, I’m reliving it in agony!” (Ona now recites the poem beautifully.) In 1918, her father, Allen Charlton gave up the pastorate, and the family bought a small farm in Marlboro, VT, next to Williamsville. After two years, the farm was sold and they moved to Gardner, Mass., where Allen had found a job. The pastor’s daughter, learning from her talented, prize-winning, public-speaking mother, went on to enjoy performing in plays and even wanted to study drama after graduating from high school. But that was not to be. She became a nurse instead. And to this day, she remembers many of her mother’s monologues and poems, and recites them with wonderful feeling and expression, much to the delight of her family. |
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