Memories of Adele S.

Waretown Historical Society Memories
By Adele Ruth Sattler Shaw

Christmas memories:
So many of my Christmas memories came from growing up in Waretown Methodist Church. Back in the 1970s, Dad used to take the youth group caroling in the back of his green Chevy truck. Aunt Louise Corliss would give him hay bales from their pony, and we brought every quilt and blanket in our house. Dad drove around to shut-ins on the church list. We clambered out of the truck and sang three carols, one verse each, ending with "We wish you a Merry Christmas!" The old people's eyes would light up as we sang. They gave us candy canes and hugs. Can you imagine kids riding in the back of a truck today? Poor Dad would be arrested for endangerment.
After the caroling, we went back to Fellowship Hall, where my mother had hot chocolate and cookies waiting. Some of my friends got picked up after that, but my besties, LeVerne Corliss and Dana Lopez, got to stay until it was time for the eleven o'clock service. We would run around the church and goof off. We'd play hide and seek in the Sunday school rooms, romp around in the nursery, run up and down the church aisles, stand in the pulpit—silly things irresistible to kids.
The most memorable Christmas of all was the year the lights went out. LeVerne, Dana, and I had finished our hot chocolate, and were crawling around on all fours in the nursery playing some game—I don't remember what—when everything went black. We found my parents pretty quickly after that. But what was crazy, was that the lights never did come back on. We did the whole Christmas Eve service by candlelight, from start to finish. It was the most beautiful thing ever--except for one minor glitch. As the choir came up the aisle holding candles, Dorothy Horner was walking behind Lillian Lopez, and accidentally set her hair on fire.
Minor mishap—no harm done, but certainly one for the memory books. That night was so magical, I swear I heard Santa's sleigh bells as we left the church.
As sad as I was to see the old church get torn down, I deeply loved the new sanctuary—pews were dedicated to my grandmother and Aunt Anne, the lectern to my stillborn baby brother Billy, and a stained-glass window to one of my mother’s cousins on the Wilkins side. It was a wonderful place to grow up.
Every Christmas, we had a wonderful Christmas Program where the children memorized little poems we called “pieces” and sang songs. I remember practicing and practicing, and the excitement of wearing my Christmas dress for the occasion. There was also the Sunday School Christmas Party, where Santa gave out boxes of candy and oranges. One year, my dad was thrilled when he was asked to be Santa for the occasion. Waretown Methodist Church always did a similar program at Easter.
Another thing I learned from Waretown Methodist Church went back to the fact that Dad and Engel Sprague took turns being Lay Leader for decades. Dad always went to the Convocation of the Laity at Buck Hill Falls. Mom already had MS by then, so guess who he brought along? I was all of 12, and the only one there under 35, but I loved every minute of it.
Once, I got to personally meet Jim Irwin, an astronaut who walked on the moon. A worship leader one year said something I’d never forget: “Learn all the verses of hymns. Beautiful messages are hidden there.”
Learning old hymns by heart was a precious gift I still treasure. Singing those hymns got me through many rough times, and they became my children’s lullabies.

Halloween Memories:
When I was a kid, a highlight of the year was the annual Waretown Firehouse Halloween Parade. We would parade down the street in our costumes, to the firehouse, where there would be trophies for the best costumes. The winning categories were “Prettiest, Funniest, and the Most Original.” Then there were hotdogs and cupcakes in the fire hall.
Oh, how I wanted one of those trophies! They stood big and tall, all shiny with chrome and flashy green metal, with a victorious Greek goddess on top. Every year, however, I didn’t win. It slowly dawned on me that the box costumes I had been wearing never won. The kids who won were more creative than that.
LeVerne came up with a great idea. She noticed that two kids had worked together to be a clothesline, and they won “Most Original.” She suggested that we should do something like that together, as a team. We racked our brains over it. One evening, Mom picked LeVerne and I up after Girl Scouts. Since Dad was working late, she took us to Grant’s Department Store in Manahawkin (Where Value City Furniture is today) for a little shopping expedition. We had dinner at the Bradford House, the little restaurant inside the store. As LeVerne and I ate together, the idea hit like lightning--What two things go together? Salt and Pepper!
My dad got big sheets of white posterboard that we connected with straps like a sandwich board, but taped around at the sides so they looked like a cylinder, wide enough at the bottom to walk in. We decorated them with “S” and “P,” and put lots of black dots all over the one that said “P.” We wrapped tinfoil around our heads, hair, and faces, with just small spaces to see and breathe from.
When we marched in the parade, she was “S” and I was “P.” As always, back at the firehouse parking lot, we marched in a circle around the judges. I was so thrilled when they motioned us to join them in the center. We had won most original! They even gave us both a trophy. It’s still up in the attic. Through several purges in my life, I was never able to throw that one away.
Dad built a “party room” onto the side of the garage in the back yard, where we threw many a Halloween Party for the youth group, and even the Adult Fellowship. They were such good times! My mother’s father, whom I called Poppy, lived with us after my grandmother died. At first, Poppy didn’t want to go to any parties. But one Halloween, Dad got a blanket, and a fake wooden arrow on a wire that looked like it was going through the wearer’s head. He put the blanket and the arrow on Poppy. He said, “Look, Pop! You’re an Indian! Now come out and join us for the party!” Poppy did, and he had a wonderful time.
We laughed our way through many a New Years’ Eve party back there, as well. We always had to eat tuna fish on crackers at the stroke of midnight. Dad said that was for health and wealth in the New Year. Sometimes, we just had parties for no reason at all. I fondly remember playing Michigan Rummy, or “Hearts,” in the back house, with red, white, and blue plastic poker chips in old margarine cups. Aunt Ann, Uncle Steve, and Annie were all there. The snow was falling outside, but we were all happy and warm. On another occasion, they actually got snowed in at our house. They were heading down route 532 to go back to Philadelphia, but the road was so bad they had to turn around and come back. The wind howled, and the storm knocked out our electricity. That night, Dad cooked steaks and baked potatoes in the living room fireplace. I think it was the best meal I ever tasted!
Snowball and the hayloft
Whenever I think of my third cousin/best friend LeVerne, I always remember riding her pony, Snowball. She had the most amazing barn in her back yard, where the pony lived. We used to go out back quite a bit, to pet him and ride him. Everybody had to be careful to shut the gate, though, because LeVerne’s poor mother, Aunt Louise, had to chase that pony down the street more than once.
Snowball’s barn had the coolest hayloft above, that you had to climb a ladder to reach. The hayloft was always stuffed with stacks of fragrant hay bales. LeVerne’s parents owned Vern’s Market, (which later became the IGA). I used to love visiting her house. We’d go to Verne’s, and get Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Tiger Beat magazines. Then, we’d climb up into the hayloft. She’d swing open the big wooden shutter over the window, to let in light. We’d make ourselves a nest with haybales, eating the candy and reading the magazines. It was pure childhood bliss. I still remember the way the golden light slanted in through that open window, and dust motes swirling in the sunshine.
One year, LeVerne and her older sister Lori had a Halloween pajama party in the hayloft. Lori’s friends hung out on one side of the loft, and LeVerne’s on the other. There was even a real tombstone from the 1800s in the back yard behind the barn, adding to the whole spooky feel of the place. It was an amazing Halloween party. We talked and laughed all night long.
Speaking of Vern’s Market, it was Bill’s Market before Vernon Corliss bought it. I know this for a fact, because LeVerne’s dad gave us kids a bunch of old Bill’s Market pads to play with, all printed up like fancy real-life receipts. They were yellow with age, but absolutely perfect for imaginative fun. We kids played restaurant in Dad’s party room, and even traffic cop, with those old pads of Bill’s Market receipts.
LeVerne also had a creek in her back yard. That added to the magic of playing there. Wading, tossing stones, and watching leaf boats sail away were wonderful pastimes for a bunch of happy kids.
Another interesting thing about LeVerne’s back yard was that they raised ducks in a big coop. The kids would gather eggs for eating, and the rotten ones went in a box by the coop door. One time, LeVerne and I began throwing those rotten eggs at each other. I don’t remember what started it. The game was all good fun until all the rotten eggs were gone and the stink really hit.
Aunt Louise laughed, “That was the only time I ever called your mother to pick you up early!”
Waretown Elementary School
Long before there was a Priff School, there was just Waretown Elementary School. It opened in 1958, because the town had outgrown the Little Red Schoolhouse. I started just a few days after my fifth birthday in 1967. Mrs. Pyrah was my kindergarten teacher. She was very kind. I remember sitting on the floor singing lots of fun songs as she played the piano. Sometimes, the class would also hold hands in a big circle and sing “Did you ever see a Lassie go this way and that?” as we took turns weaving in and out. “The Farmer in the Dell” was another song we sang in the big circle. One boy was chosen to be the farmer, who got to stand in the middle. Then he chose a wife, who chose a child, who chose a cat, who chose a rat, who chose the cheese. They all stood in the circle together until the end, when “The cheese stands alone!” LeVerne and I were in the same class. Dana was a year ahead of us, but we saw her at recess. Back then, there was only one classroom for every grade level.
I distinctly remember LeVerne and I being the spring “Wake Up Fairies” in the school play. We touched all the other kids with our “magic wands,” and they pretended to be flowers waking up from winter slumber. We sang, “Good Morning, merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon? You scared the little stars away and shined away the moon!”
We loved to sit in the back of the bus, because whenever the bus went over the railroad tracks at the intersection of Wells Mills Road and Route 9, the kids in the back seats got a big bounce up in the air. I was shy, and the kids sometimes picked on me. LeVerne would never let that happen in her hearing. It broke my heart when she moved away right after sixth grade graduation, and I had to go to the middle school without her.
I had some amazing teachers that I still remember fondly—Mrs. Sawicki in the second grade, and Mrs. Valis in the third. Mr. Schnell in the fourth was also amazing, and well loved by every single one of his students. Some of my best memories of Waretown Elementary involved the fact that we were in “Mac’s Fifth Grade School.” By the time I entered fifth grade, the school was getting seriously overcrowded. For some reason, the fifth grade was the largest class in the school, and there were fifty of us. So, the school worked out a deal to use the large basement of the town hall for our “fifth grade school.”
Our teacher was Mr. Mackenzie, but everybody called him “Mac.” Mrs. Hopkins was hired as a co-teacher. They divided the large basement with moveable room dividers. I remember our large class was split up into three groups, which rotated locations throughout the day: Mrs. Hopkins taught math and English in one area, while Mr. Mackenzie taught social studies and science in another. I loved his social studies lessons, because he taught the subject by telling stories of the past. He made them amazing and exciting, which fed right into my love of history. The third group went to the “Learning Station” area, where we worked on independent assignments, or did the SRA reading cards series. They involved reading a story, and answering questions afterwards. Each level of the SRA reading cards was a different color. I remember LeVerne and I racing each other to reach the highest levels. I remember crazy fun, too. One day, at the end of the year, Mac showed a funny movie about surfers wiping out to music. Then, he showed it backwards. I don’t know which way was funnier!
If we talked too much, we had to stay in at recess and write the definition of “quiet” out of the dictionary two or three times. That was a real pain. I must have been a pretty good talker, because I still remember there were nine definitions!
We wound up having “Mac’s Sixth Grade School” in the basement of the town hall as well. I remember all of us walking together in a long line from the town hall to use the baseball fields occasionally, but lots of times we just had recess in the open area outside of the basement. It wasn’t all a paved parking lot then, just gravel. We didn’t go to the cafeteria to eat; we just brought our own lunches from home. However, I remember buying lunch every Wednesday, when the school cafeteria sent over boxes of subs.
Near the end of our sixth-grade year, we worked on a big pinelands’ ecology project. At the time, there was talk of developing the pinelands, or putting in a large airport there. As a class, we wrote a letter which was sent to the governor. I remember being thrilled when one of my ideas was chosen to be added: “The beauty of the pinelands could never be replaced by a city.”
Everyone was assigned to work on different aspects of the ecology project, and we presented it during sixth grade graduation. I was very excited to get a speaking part, with a hand-held microphone for the occasion. We also sang songs—I still remember every word of John Denver’s “Country Roads,” which we sang that day. Graduation was such a big event. I remember practicing again and again. I also remember picking out a new pink maxi dress with my cousin Annie, and going to the hairdresser to get an “upsweep” style for the occasion.
Waretown Lake and Daniel’s Bridge

I remember singing “God Bless America” with the Girl Scouts at the ceremony when Waretown Lake was dedicated. It had been a cranberry bog owned by the Corliss Brothers, until LeVerne’s grandfather died, and her grandmother, Ruth Letts Corliss (1910-1976), donated it to the town as a recreation area.
When I was growing up, Waretown Lake was the place to be. Going there on a summer day was a real treat. It wasn’t always freezing cold like Daniel’s Bridge. The lake’s shallow end was perfect for little kids, and closest to the parking lot. Older kids walked around to the dock to jump or dive in. There was even the dam, a little more than halfway between the two. I liked jumping off the dam, because the water was deep enough there to do a great cannonball dive, but not over my head like the end of the dock.
The lake was always crammed with kids and families all summer long. I can remember begging my dad to take me after work on summer evenings, as well. It was fun to go in the evenings, because it wasn’t as crowded. We’d gather up LeVerne or Dana—or sometimes both, and away we would go. When we weren’t swimming, we were digging for clay in the sand at the water’s edge for our elaborate sandcastles and moats.
Waretown was so cutting edge back then, the lake even had a swing set and tennis courts!
My parents took me for Red Cross swimming lessons at Waretown Lake. I was doing fine, until the day of the test. They asked me to jump off the dock, swim out to a volunteer, and swim back to the dock. I had never jumped off the dock before in my life, and I was terrified. When they finally convinced me to jump, I never thought I would reach the surface. I remember the sheer panic of opening my eyes underwater and seeing how deep I still was, then flailing around gasping for air. Needless to say, I flunked that test. It took me a long time to get up the courage to jump off the end of the dock again.
Years later, the slide was added to the end of the dock. By then, I had gotten past my fears and found the slide a blast. I have a wonderful picture of Dad going down that slide in his seventies, white hair flying. It was always so much fun to do things with Dad! He made everything fun wherever he went.
In the winter, we would ice skate at the lake, or sled down the steep hill that leads to the water. Somebody would generally light a fire in a big drum, so we could warm our hands.
Daniel’s Bridge was also a great place to go, and we went there a lot before the lake opened. It was part of Oyster Creek, a swiftly moving stream that went under a bridge out on Route 532. The water was chilly, however, straight from natural springs deep in the pine barrens.
Daniel’s Bridge was a great spot to cool off, but you couldn’t stay in for too long. We measured the water temperature there one spring day for our school ecology project, and it was in the 40s. The bottom of the creek bed was full of smooth gravelly stones. It was fun to look for the pretty pink ones, or clear “Cape May Diamonds.” Once, I found a Venus Fly Trap growing naturally at Daniel’s Bridge by the water’s edge.
There used to be a rope swing. It was such amazing fun to swing out over the water and drop in with a big splash, tingly cool on a summer day. It was also a great place to take the dog for a bath. I fondly remember splashing with Sam, my dear childhood sheltie, and later Napoleon, the sweet Walker Hound puppy I raised with my children. After the fun of swimming with the dog, we would give him a quick shampoo. The cedar water made his fur soft. I remember watching the bubbles swiftly float away under the bridge.
Speaking of Waretown on summer days, back then we would often see the kids from Camp Lighthouse, locally known as “the blind camp,” riding around town with their counselors on the back of tandem bicycles. My dad loved to bicycle, and this gave him an idea. He bought a bright red tandem bike, and he and I pedaled all over town on it. I remember riding along in the back, with the wind in my hair, hearing him sing:
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true
I’m half-crazy over the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage
I can’t afford a carriage
But you’ll look sweet
Upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!”

We won a trophy in the Stafford Township Founders Day parade one year, dressed like the olden days and riding that tandem bicycle together.

Another summer memory that was fun at the time, but disturbing today, is how much we kids used to love running in the DDT fog put out by the mosquito sprayer as he drove his truck around town. Crowds of kids would follow him like the pied piper, dancing in the mist as it swirled around.

Once, I tried it at home, as he drove down Main Street. I was dancing across the front lawn in the mist, when the upstairs window suddenly flew up, and my mother leaned out. “Get inside!” she yelled. “That spray could make you sick! Never do that again!” And I never did.

Loving Waretown History
Another dear childhood friend was Dana Lopez. Dana and I spent many hours together wandering through the woods around my house, making magical fairylands to play in with our dolls. On rainy days, we would cut pictures out of old Sears catalogs and make families of paper dolls. We would then build elaborate houses for them by cutting out pictures of furniture.
I loved Dana’s mother, Lillian Lopez, as well. She was the town historian, and she knew all kinds of interesting things about local history. I used to love listening to her stories and trying to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in Waretown in the “olden days.” I regretted being too young to experience the Little Red Schoolhouse. By the time I started kindergarten in 1967, Waretown had outgrown the old school. I went to the new Waretown Elementary School on Railroad Avenue.
I well remember commiserating with Lillian when the old Waretown Methodist Church and schoolhouse were torn down. “Progress!” was the catchphrase of the day, but it didn’t feel like progress. It felt like a betrayal of Waretown’s heritage. Lillian and I, as well as my parents, were heartbroken about it. My dad tried to save the old schoolhouse by offering our side lot as a place to move the building to. Unfortunately, the town decided a move would be too costly.
Lillian shared with me how a story from Dana’s and my childhood that made it into her book Piney Girl. Dad used to take us kids to the drive-in movie at Manahawkin occasionally for a night out. Dana and I saw a scene in a movie where a Native American and his friend became “blood brothers” by slicing their palms, then shaking hands to mingle their blood. Dana and I wanted to be “blood sisters,” but we weren’t allowed to touch any knives. We came up with the perfect Waretown solution--we each scratched open a mosquito bite on one arm! There was never a shortage of mosquito bites growing up in Waretown.

Mom’s Memories—Ruth Letts Sattler (1925-2000)
My mother was born in her grandparents’ house on Chapel Street in Waretown in 1925. Mom loved to sit out on the front porch of our house at 170 Main Street, and watch the cars go by. I was an only child, and Mom and I were very close. Sometimes, when Dad worked late, she’d send me over the Stewart’s Root beer Stand across the street to bring home hamburgers, French fries, and root beer in a plastic jug that looked like a barrel. We would sit out on the porch together and have a picnic. Sometimes, on warm summer nights, we would sit out there after the mosquitoes settled down and talk. There was an old hoot owl that lived in the woods across the street. We would hear him call, and listen to the peepers and cicadas sing. We’d hear the bobwhites and the whippoorwills, who lived where the Woods at Oceana development is today.
Listening to the whippoorwills always made Mom nostalgic for her childhood, where she spent weekends, and every summer, with her grandparents in the big house on Chapel Street built by my great-grandfather, William Birdsall Wilkins (1852-1932). It was the same house where my mother was born, on Christmas Eve. Her oldest sister May (1914-1981) was so surprised at mom’s arrival, she thought mom was a rubber doll meant to go under the tree. Once, that house on Chapel Street looked exactly like the one next to it, which belonged to mom’s great uncle Jonathan Wilkins (1847-1932), until my uncle Steve (1916-1979), the husband of Mom’s older sister Ann (1918-1970), took off the top floor—but that’s another story.
I loved to hear Mom tell of when she was a little girl, and I begged for her stories again and again. Mom adored staying at her grandparents’ house in Waretown best of all, but also spent time at Sim Place Cranberry Bog, in Warren Grove, where her uncle Theodore Holloway (1886-1961) was foreman. Everybody called him Uncle Dorey. He had a big, sweeping mustache, and they used to joke that he kept his breakfast in it.
Mom would sigh happily and tell of spending the night at her grandparents’ house. Mom spent most of her time in a row house in South Philadelphia, because her father worked there at a box factory, until he was hired at the Campbell’s Soup Company in Camden. That’s where Mom spent her weekdays and went to school. But when Mom came to Waretown, she slept on a feather mattress under her grandmother’s handmade quilts.
Mom fell asleep to the sound of whippoorwills calling, feeling happy and content, far away from the sounds of the city, like she was in heaven on earth. Mom was awakened by her grandmother priming the hand pump in the kitchen in the morning, with the squeaky handle going up and down, up and down. Then came the wonderful smell of bacon frying. Mom fed the chickens in her grandparents’ yard and used the outhouse. There was no hot water heater—water had to be warmed on the stove. They could hear people singing hymns at the Universalist Church next door on Sunday mornings.
Mom spent evenings at her grandparents’ house talking with family or playing board games. There was a gas lamp in the kitchen with a cash box attached. When her grandfather put in a coin, the light would flare up brightly. Then slowly, as the evening wore on, the light got dimmer and dimmer, until her grandfather put in another coin. Eventually, when it dimmed down again, they would let it go out. It was time for bed.
They used kerosene lamps upstairs. There was no plumbing up there, just a bowl and pitcher on the dresser, and a lidded chamber pot under the bed, to save from using the outhouse in the middle of the night. The next morning, mom helped clean the soot off the glass chimneys of the kerosene lamps with old newspapers. Her mother and grandmother taught her to mend and sew by hand on the living room couch in Waretown, as well as simple embroidery stitches she later taught me.
Mom’s Great Aunts—Annie Smith Gaskill and Ida Smith Chapel
Mom’s great-aunt, her grandmother Amelia Smith Wilkins’ sister, was Annie Smith Gaskill. Annie and her husband Joe Gaskill owned Gaskill’s Emporium, an ice cream parlor and horse-drawn taxi service. It was right around the corner from the house on Chapel Street. Mom loved going there for ice cream.
Decades later, as they were preparing to sell Gaskill’s Emporium, descendants of the Gaskill’s found something amazing in the attic—a box of sixteen antique glass negatives of Waretown scenes taken around 1910. They were made by a photographer named Alick Merriman, as postcards which were sold in Gaskill’s Emporium. They gave the glass negatives to my parents, because of Mom’s deep connection to Waretown, and how much our family loved history. I treasure these one-of-a-kind windows to Waretown’s past.
Aunt Ida Chapel was another one of Mom’s grandmother’s sisters. Ida Smith Chapel lived on what used to be called Wilkins Lane, which ran between Bryant Road and Chapel Street, catty-cornered across the street from her sister Amelia Smith Wilkins. Aunt Ida had a small, but interesting old house. After she died, it was in disrepair, and about to be torn down. Because she had no children, the family was invited to take anything of interest. Dad got an ornate wood burning stove, and the small kerosene lamp she used to light her way to bed on a winding staircase. Interestingly, Dad also found a wonderful old Victorian Era photograph album tucked in the eaves of the attic. No one there at the time knew who anybody was, so they told him to toss it in the trash. Dad was too much of a pack rat for that, though.
Years later, when I did my mother’s family tree, we pulled that wonderful antique album out of our own attic. We discovered that the three Smith sisters had been photographed as young women in the 1870s. They had been placed in the album, one after the other, by age. Next came their husbands. We were able to discover this on whisps of memories by my mother—“Aunt Ida had curly hair…Aunt Annie’s hair was lighter…” family resemblances, and photos from other sources helped. That old album is another treasured possession today. Aunt Ida’s kerosene lamp proudly sits in my stairwell, and her pot-bellied stove is on display at the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum.
Mom’s Grandparents—William Birdsall Wilkins and Amelia Smith Wilkins
Mom’s Waretown memories always started with her grandfather, William Birdsall Wilkins. He was the town clerk. He was also on the town council for decades and served as a justice of the peace. He even performed weddings. My mother’s brother remembered walking around town with WBW checking telephone and telegraph poles back in the nineteen twenties and thirties.
WBW was a brick and stone mason as his main occupation, but he also took out party boats on fishing expeditions. Mom said he walked across the frozen bay on more than one occasion to reach his boat on the island. Family lore said that WBW’s father, Elwood Wilkins, was also a brick and stone mason, and helped to build the Barnegat Lighthouse. Elwood was also community minded, as he was one of the original trustees of Cedar Grove Cemetery. Strangely, however, he was not buried there, but his wife and children were.
The story was that Rebecca Chamberlin Wilkins (1820-1873), WBW’s mother, died at just 53 years old. Elwood remarried, and WBW had a brother he’d never met. Looking at old receipts from Cedar Grove Cemetery, I was thrilled to discover that WBW not only followed in his father’s footsteps as a cemetery trustee, but also built the three sets of steps at Cedar Grove—one at the entrance, and two smaller sets on the west side of the U-turn. (Tony Fonseca made a photo op out of replacing the front steps when he ran for town council a few decades ago, more than a century after they were built. The other two sets still look great and are going strong.)
Anyway, there was no town hall back when WBW was township clerk and served on the town council. Township meetings were held at Red Men’s Hall, a kind of community center on Main Street used by many clubs that’s now a private home. Records were not kept in that public place, however. WBW handled all his township responsibilities from home. The Waretown Historical Society is proud to have his original notary seal on display at the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum. All the town’s birth, death, and marriage certificates were signed at the big roll top desk in his living room. Decades of Waretown’s important records were stored in his attic.
But WBW’s first house was not located on Chapel Street. He had also built his first house himself. It was located approximately where Breakers Tavern is today, in the area that’s still woods, alongside it. Mom’s grandmother was Amelia Smith Wilkins, and the two were married in 1879. Their first house was built near Amelia’s parents.
Her father, George Smith, was a Civil War veteran from the 11th NJ Volunteers. He owned the land today’s Kristy’s Diner sits on, and the surrounding woods behind it, where his house was located and his family grew up. Much of that parcel of land is now the Woods at Oceana development. It makes me smile to think that my daughter and son-in-law bought a house in that very development, near where the Smith house was originally located, according to the Beers Map. In an interesting twist of fate, my daughter’s house could be located on property once owned by her great-great-great grandfather.

The Wilkins House Fire
The railroad came through in 1871. Although close to Amelia’s parents’, WBW and Amelia’s first home was also near the tracks. They had two daughters, mom’s Aunt Laura (1884-1948), and Mom’s mother, Ida May (1891-1965). A third sister, Julia, died at two years old.
On May 15, 1913, a Central Railroad section crew was burning brush around the tracks. As WBW went to work that morning, he reminded them to be careful because of the location of his house, and the direction of the wind, which they promised to do. When Amelia went to the grocery store later, she noticed the crew was closer, and the wind was still blowing towards the house. She again reminded them to be careful.
Laura was already married to Uncle Dorey, so Ida May was now home alone. She was planning her own wedding in January, which was to be at the house. Suddenly, to her horror, Ida saw flames and ran outside. The cedar shake shingles on the roof were ablaze.
Ida did her best to haul out as much as she could carry, burning her arms in the process. WBW and Amelia were both notified, and dashed home. They managed to save the big roll top desk. They lost all their clothing, except what they were wearing. The house burned to the ground, along with the majority of Waretown’s records. The blaze also ignited a forest fire, which the section crew and local volunteers eventually put out, with some difficulty.
After the fire, WBW built the big house on Chapel Street, next to his brother’s home, because he wanted to be farther away from the railroad tracks. However, the wedding day was approaching, and the new house was not ready.

The Wedding at Letts Farm
Ida May Wilkins met Frederick Louis Letts (1891-1969), at a church picnic at the old Waretown Methodist Church. Fred occasionally came down on weekends to visit his grandparents, who owned Letts Farm on today’s Lighthouse Drive. Fred’s grandfather, John Wesley Letts (1837-1911), was a Civil War veteran of the 23rd NJ Volunteers. He owned a big farm on today’s Lighthouse Drive. He also served on the Township Committee.
Originally, Letts farmhouse had three stories. The top one was destroyed by lightning, so the family took it down. The house still stands as two stories with a flat roof today. In fact, the Holiday Harbor development was once Letts Farm, and Letts Landing Road was named after JW Letts. He owned a grocery store at the corner of Main Street and today’s Bryant Road (then Bay Road), where he sold his vegetables, among other staples. He also sold vegetables to the Campbell’s Soup Company in Camden. Letts Store was Waretown’s Post Office for many years, and JW’s son Herbert was the postmaster.
In 1911, John Wesley Letts hitched his horse to the wagon and went to cut firewood in the woods. The horse brought him home a few hours later, dead in the wagon. The doctor pronounced the cause apoplexy, or a stroke. My grandfather Fred’s grandmother, aunt, and uncle all lived in the farmhouse. Fred lived in Philadelphia, because his father, Charles Letts (1862-1909), had become a Philadelphia city fireman, where he drove a horse-drawn fire engine.
Sadly, Fred’s father had a heart attack at the scene of a fire and died at just 47 years old. Fred’s mother survived by doing the firehouse laundry. Fred had a job at a box factory at the time. On one of his visits to see his family in Waretown, he met Ida at the church picnic.
Because Ida’s family home had burned, Fred’s grandmother and aunt opened the old Letts farmhouse to Ida for her wedding, on January 11, 1914. They also provided a big flower arrangement shaped like a horseshoe in front of the fireplace for the occasion.
Unfortunately, years later, Letts farm was lost to taxes. By this time, the direct descendants lived in Camden and Philadelphia. Nobody ever got a tax bill, so they just assumed somebody else was taking care of it. By the time they learned of the situation, it was too late. This left a deep animosity in many family members about how the township took control of the property, and how it got sold to the developers of Holiday Harbor. The last remaining vestiges of the Letts Farm are the old farmhouse, and Letts Landing Road.

The Barnegat Pirates
Family lore says a few less scrupulous Letts descendants were involved with the "Barnegat Pirates," sometimes also called the “moon-cussers,” since they could not do their dirty work by the light of a full moon. Local stories say the Barnegat Pirates tied lanterns on poles to the backs of mules and walked them up and down the sand dunes of Long Beach Island, after dark.
In those days, ships navigated close to shore, moving goods up and down the Eastern Seaboard. This was called "the Coasting Trade." Captains seeing lights in the distance, rhythmically rising and falling, assumed it was safe to come in closer, as another ship was obviously there and doing fine. Then, the trusting captain would snag his ship on a sandbar, where it would be torn apart by waves.
The ship's cargo would later wash up on the beach, to be salvaged by the waiting "pirates." Our pirates were apparently a little kinder than the ones on Long Island. It was said that Long Island pirates would cut a ring off a person’s finger, even if that person was still alive!
When a ship got hung up on a sandbar back then, it usually meant death for everyone on board. A swim of 300 yards or so in 40-degree water would usually kill by hypothermia. Many people back then couldn't swim at all. The Lifesaving service didn't start regularly patrolling all stretches of New Jersey beaches until 1870. The coasting trade was a very lucrative, but dangerous, way to make a living.
One particularly sad story tells of a young woman who assisted her family in their pirating business, while she was waiting for her fiancé, a young mariner, to return home. One night, she helped lure an unsuspecting ship onto a sandbar. The next day, they were salvaging cargo, and bodies were beginning to wash in. She was horrified to discover that one was the body of her lover. There is an old ghost story that this heartbroken young woman still wanders the beaches of Long Beach Island, wringing her hands and crying for her lost love.
Stories of the Barnegat Pirates have circulated for years. Some people say they are just myths, not to be believed. I leaned that way too, until I got an email from a cousin out in Oregon. His grandmother, my great aunt, loved family history and told all kinds of stories. He said that he especially remembers stories about the Letts family causing shipwrecks by “Messing with the harbor lights.” He wrote, “They were so good at it that the British Government offered them a land grant in Canada if they promised to stop.”
Apparently, the grant was never completely settled in court, and my grandfather, Fred Letts, got a letter about it years later, probably in the 1910s. My grandfather was not into family history, and assumed it was some kind of scam. He threw the letter into a drawer and forgot about it.
According to my cousin from Oregon, my uncle found out about the letter long after the fact, and several family members were mad at my grandfather for quite awhile. All of this just blew my mind. I met that great-aunt once or twice, when I was little and she was a very old lady. She was as sharp as a tack, and she didn’t lie about anything. I had read about the Barnegat Pirates before, but never with any names attached. Now I find out that not only are at least some of them true, but my own family was likely involved.
Ida Wilkins at the Little Red Schoolhouse
Mom’s mother Ida and her older sister Laura went to the Little Red Schoolhouse together. The oldest picture we have of Waretown students dates from 1901. Ida and Laura are both in it.
Ida remembered how when she went to the school, all eight grades were in one room. Boys sat on one side of the room, and girls on the other. A big pot-bellied stove sat in the middle. The student’s families took turns bringing wood each week. If your family brought the wood, you got to sit closest to the fire, along with the kids who were “head of the class.”
Ida also remembered how school was never cancelled on snowy days. Her father, WBW, was a tall man with long legs. He would walk to school ahead of his daughters, breaking a path in the snow for them. They would follow along in his footsteps like ducklings.
My mother never went to school in Waretown, but her older sisters and brother did for a short time. One terrible winter, Ida got pneumonia. Fred had to keep working or he would lose his job. He brought Ida and the kids to her parents’ home in Waretown, and she stayed there for many months recuperating. Fred came every weekend to see the family. Uncle Bill, Aunt May, and Aunt Ann all went to the Little Red Schoolhouse together during that time. My mother didn’t go, however. She was too young for school.
By the time my aunts and uncle attended, the school had been divided into two rooms—one for First through Third grade, and the other for Fourth through Eighth.
Mom’s Parents—Frederick Louis Letts and Ida May Wilkins Letts
Fred and Ida moved to Philadelphia after their wedding to help his widowed mother, Ellen Louise Jaiser Letts (1861-1946). Fred and Ida had four children: May, William (called Bill), Anna, and Ruth, my mother, who was the youngest. Fred’s mother, Ellen Jaiser Letts, was a thrifty person who saved everything. Mom remembered that her grandmother Ellen saved every scrap of string, which she tied together and rolled into a big ball. Ellen went everywhere and did everything with the family, but she was a bit jealous of the relatives on Ida’s side. Once, when Amelia and WBW were in Philadelphia for dinner, the family was having pork chops. Ida offered the last one to Amelia, and Ellen burst out, “Now what will the dog eat?”
Mom had some great Waretown stories with her brothers and sisters, since they spent every summer in Waretown, and almost every weekend there. My grandmother used to buy fresh milk from a dairy farm in Waretown, located at the old Jacob H. Birdsall house, where Waretown Library is today. One day, my grandmother decided that my Aunt Ann was old enough to go by herself. She handed Aunt Ann an empty bucket and a few coins, asking her to walk to the dairy farm and get the bucket filled with milk for the family.
To Aunt Ann, however, those big old cows were scary. On her way home, she decided to run past them. Of course, she fell, and that was the end of the milk. Embarrassed, she made her way home, with an empty bucket and no money. “Don’t cry over spilt milk” became a family joke.
Another fun Waretown story had to do with Aunt May. When she was a child, she got scolded for something, so she decided to climb under the big wooden front porch and hide, to sulk where it was shady and cool. She fell asleep under there, dozing for quite awhile.
Aunt May woke up to hear the whole neighborhood in a panic, calling her name. Now, she was afraid to come out, and admit where she’d been. But she could hear the worry in her mother’s voice. Aunt May decided that rather than coming out, she’d let somebody find her. She called out “Hoot, Hoot!” In her best imitation of a hoot owl. Grandmom looked under the porch and saw her there. She said, “I’ll hoot you, you little devil!” and hauled her out.
Mom was the baby of the family, so every night her sister May loved to give her a big kiss before going to bed herself. One night, Uncle Bill pulled mom out of her little bed and climbed in himself. He put on mom’s baby bonnet and wrapped up in her blanket. When Aunt May leaned down in the dark for her nightly kiss, Uncle Bill jumped up and sang, “Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?” a hit song of the day. Aunt May jumped straight up in the air. When she got over her fright, she didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or smack him upside the head.
Mom also remembered that her brother Bill nicknamed their grandmother Ellen Letts “Whib,” because she “whibble-wobbled” when she walked. Besides spending time in Waretown, the family also spent many happy days at Sim Place, the cranberry bog at Warren Grove, where Uncle Dorey was foreman. A lot of romance bloomed along with the cranberries at Sim Place. My mother’s two older sisters, and her brother, all met their lifelong spouses there, working side by side. Ellen would get a bit rattled when all the young people and their friends showed up at once for dinner. She’d yell to Ida, “Here they come! Put some more water in the soup!”
Mom loved going to Sim Place with the family, because as a child she loved playing with her cousin Isaac (1923-1982), who everybody called Ike. Ike was near her age, and they had lots of fun roaming the woods together. She especially remembered playing in Ike’s “car,” which was a dug-out place in the sugar sand where the two of them sat and pretended to drive through the pine barrens.
Ike had an older sister that neither he nor my mother ever knew, because Martha (1906-1920) died young of diphtheria. Mom remembered her mother Ida talking about what a terrible time that was. Aunt Laura and Uncle Dorey brought Martha to WBW’s house on Chapel Street, because it was closer to the doctor. The doctor came and went every day. The family fought valiantly to save Martha’s life, taking round the clock turns at her bedside. Martha was only thirteen when she died. Mom had one picture of Martha in the old album. Martha was about ten years old at the time, feeding the chickens. Years later, I found a lovely obituary written by Martha’s teacher, about the young girl winning a homemaking competition, representing her school all the way up in Lakewood, and spearheading a food drive for a needy family.
When Mom got a little older, she also worked at Sim Place. She didn’t harvest cranberries, like the others, but worked instead in the sorting shed, separating out bad ones. Eventually, mom got a job in a toilet paper factory in Philadelphia. In those innocent days, she would hide her address inside random rolls, and she had pen pals from all over the country. Later, Mom worked at an index card factory, where a co-worker set her up on a blind date with my father, William C. Sattler (1919-2012).

Mom and Dad Meet—Ruth Adele Letts and William Charles Sattler
My parents met in 1953. Mom worked at an index card factory with Dad’s sister Dot’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Lilly. She set them up on a blind date. “Have I got a nice young man for you!” Mrs. Lilly told Mom. My parents dated for five years, and they married on October 25, 1958. At first, they lived in the house where my father was born, 2811 Polk Avenue in Camden.
My parents bought their home at 170 Main Street in Waretown in 1962. They made settlement the day I was born. Camden was starting to go downhill, and they were looking for somewhere to raise a family. They settled here because my mother’s heart was in Waretown, with family connections going back six generations. Several of Mom’s family members continued living in the area, making a close-knit circle ready and waiting for them.
I fondly remember the wonderful holidays and picnics with Aunt Ann, Uncle Bill, and Aunt May, and all their families. I grew up as part of a wonderful circle of cousins. I remember walking down to the bay with my cousin Annie, bringing bread for the ducks. We wanted to put our initials on the pavilion, like so many generations of Waretown kids before us, but we were afraid we’d get in trouble if we carved them. So, on one of our trips, Annie brought along a black permanent marker. We found inconspicuous spots and put our initials on that way.
Dad loved going fishing with Uncle Steve, Aunt Anne’s husband, on his boat, Annie Laurie. Summers were packed full of fishing, crabbing, swimming, and clamming. We had wonderful fish fries, with clam fritters and crab cakes on the side. Dad used to say that he never knew anyone as kind as Grandmom Letts—“She beamed love.”
Annie and I walked all over Waretown as kids. When my mother’s MS got worse, Aunt Ann and Aunt May would help Mom with the housework. They would ask Annie to take me for a walk so I wasn’t under foot. Annie, Cousin Lizzie (Aunt May’s daughter), and I would go down to the bay, always cutting through Cedar Grove cemetery. It was so mysterious and interesting back there, a museum in stone. Without fail, we would get cactus prickles in our feet, because we always wore flip flops. You would think we would have learned, but we never did. A walk through the cemetery was always irresistible and fun, but it always involved tweezers afterwards.
170 Main Street
Mom and Dad fell in love with the old house on Main Street, and they made it a happy home. There’s another family property twist of fate here—the old house was owned during the 1850s by Amelia Smith Wilkins’ uncle, George Eayre, and passed along in the family for generations. 170 Main Street was always bursting with family and friends, picnics and pinochle parties. Dad commuted to Cherry Hill for his job at RCA, 50 miles each way. He always said it was worth it because he loved Waretown and wanted me to grow up here. When his mother died, he inherited the house in Seaside Park with his siblings. He kept it as a summer residence, because he loved swimming in the ocean. He used to say, “Once you get sand in your shoes, you’re hooked.”
The house at Seaside reminds me of another Waretown story. My Dad’s brother, Uncle Vernon, lived in the Seaside Park house for many years, but eventually moved to Miami. Once, when he was up for a visit, Uncle Vernon got an old PT boat from a friend. He gave it to my father, but the catch was they had to get it across the bay to Waretown. Dad got Uncle Steve to help. They put the boat in the water, but weren’t far along in their “three-hour tour” when the boat started leaking—and they started bailing—like crazy. One leak was so bad that they shoved a clothespin down into the hole to try and slow it down.
Their simple trip across the bay wound up taking all day. I remember Mom and Aunt Anne saying, only half-joking, that they were ready to call out the Coast Guard. Dad got the boat out of the water and brought it into our side yard, where it wound up on cinder blocks for years. He wasn’t sure whether it was even worth attempting to fix. Then, wasps started building nests in it.
Finally, James Reid, who was a friend of Dad’s, offered to take it off his hands. Dad jumped at the chance to be rid of it, but he did take the cool looking ship’s wheel that steered it. Mr. Reid turned the cabin of the old boat into a chicken coop, and Dad put the ship’s wheel up on the wall in our family room. Everybody laughed for years over the PT boat that became a Waretown chicken coop.
Dad believed in serving both church and community, and he did both throughout his long life. He was a member of Waretown Methodist Church, and served on the board, as lay leader, and as a Sunday School teacher. He also assisted with the youth group, and took us caroling in the back of his truck every Christmas Eve. Dad was a member of the Waretown School Board, and the Waretown Historical Society. He was a member of the Centennial Commission when Waretown planned its 100th Anniversary Celebration. He was treasurer of the Republican Club for many years.
Dad also served Waretown as a part-time tax assessor, and drove a school bus here for awhile after he retired from RCA. Kids on the school bus remembered singing with him as he drove down the highway:
“Roadrunner, that coyote’s after you--
Roadrunner, if he catches you, you’re through!”

I also had many wonderful animals growing up—two goats: black and white Patricia and all white Duchess, three ducks: Fluffy Diddles, Jack, and Honeysuckle. We also had countless dogs and cats. My mother’s father, Fred Letts, who we called Poppy, lived with us for awhile after my grandmother died. He loved to work in the yard and take care of the animals. I still remember the grape arbor he cultivated, and how much fun it was to pick a grape and eat it on a summer day.
The little goat Patricia loved the fact that Poppy smoked a pipe and carried a tobacco pouch in his back pocket. She’d follow him all over the yard for a taste of his tobacco, which he would occasionally feed her from the palm of his hand. Once, she was so anxious for it that she butted him from behind and knocked him over. He got to laughing so hard that he couldn’t get up. Patricia was so friendly, that one time, she followed me into the house. I thought it was great. My grandfather was in his big chair reading the newspaper. She went straight over to him and began nibbling the bottom of his paper. Poppy thought that was the funniest thing. Poppy loved Fluffy Diddles as well. We have an adorable picture of Poppy and Diddles in one of the albums. Poppy is holding the duck, and the duck has wrapped its neck around Poppy’s, giving him a hug.
Dad never smoked, but he used unfiltered cigarettes to get Patricia to do a trick. He would put a cigarette between his lips (unlit, of course) and hold up a hula hoop. Patricia would jump through the hoop, take the cigarette from his mouth, and eat it. One time, as I got off the bus, I set down my schoolbag and gave Patricia a big hug. The next thing I knew, her head was in my schoolbag, and she was eating my math homework. Of course, truth be told, I didn’t protest too much…The teacher raised an eyebrow at my excuse the next day—“The goat ate my homework!”
The white goat Dutchess and the white duck Jack were the last two survivors of our back yard menagerie. They stuck together like glue. Every Christmas, Dad would put out a large nativity scene that lit up on our front lawn. He made a little wooden stable to set the figures in, and got more hay from Aunt Louise to put around it.
Dutchess would wander out to the front yard to eat the hay, and Jack would follow her. We had people slowing down to look as they drove past the house, and even taking pictures. They thought we had set up the animals with the manger scene on purpose.
With all these dear beloved animals, our back yard eventually became a pet cemetery. Before long, even friends of the family were bringing dogs, cats, hamsters, and parakeets to join the heavenly party. My son Iain, at around 5 years old, summed it up perfectly. He said, “It’s God’s zoo!”
A Summer of Lightning Bolts
One summer Saturday, we spent the day with Aunt Ann and Uncle Steve. We all went to Toms River together. The men went to Trilco, which was like the Home Depot back then, and the women went shopping on Main Street, which was where all the nice stores were before the mall came along.
Mom was just beginning to show symptoms of MS at that time, and the doctor wasn’t sure what the problem was. She fell on the sidewalk that day, outside of Harris’ Department Store, and had some difficulty getting back up. A passer-by had to help her. I was six years old, and her fall was scary for me. The sky was getting dark with thunder clouds when the men picked us up for the trip home.
As we started dinner, a terrible thunderstorm broke. Suddenly, a huge flash of lighting hit with a resounding bang that made everybody jump. Then Olga, my mother’s elderly relative who lived across the street, burst in the front door, soaking wet. She cried, “My house is on fire! George and I were sitting on the porch, and we saw a big ball of lightning run the electric line from the pole into our attic! Please help us!”
Mom rushed to call the fire department. Dad, Aunt Anne, Uncle Steve, and my cousin Annie all ran across the street to help Aunt Olga save any valuables she could. Uncle George was already showing signs of Alzheimer’s, so mom kept him occupied at the dining room table with snacks and tea. I was too little to do anything, but vividly remember sitting on our front porch watching my loved ones scurry to help, as smoke curled out from under the eaves of Aunt Olga’s house, and firemen rushed around with hoses.
Later, I sat at the table with Aunt Olga, Uncle George, and Mom, as my mother poured more tea and tried to help everybody calm down. Aunt Olga kept saying, “My house, my house, my poor house!” Over and over, as if in shock, which I’m sure she was. Mom set up a big coffee maker on the front porch for the firemen, and they came back and forth, drinking coffee and giving Aunt Olga updates on what was happening.
Thankfully, the fire had been confined to the attic. The rest of the house was saved, although with some smoke and water damage. When the excitement was over, Mom decided to sit down and pour herself a cup of coffee. When she picked up the cup, she nearly dropped it—she’d completely forgotten that she’d hurt her hand when she fell that afternoon.
Aunt Olga and Uncle George Smith were related through my mother’s grandmother, Amelia Smith Wilkins (1861-1936). Besides her sisters, Amelia had a brother named Joseph Smith. George was Joseph’s son, and Olga was his wife. Olga was another dear one who told me wonderful old stories of what it was like to live in Waretown during its heyday, when as she said, “ships were in the harbor and trains were in the station.”
Uncle George and Aunt Olga had only one son, Robert Smith (1924-1948). He flew a bomber in World War II on several successful missions. Aunt Olga had a framed picture of him in her dining room, with a service medal hanging off the frame. He was a very handsome young man, with dark hair and brown eyes.
Sadly, I never met Robert. Not long after getting home from the war, he announced his engagement. While driving in Waretown one day shortly before the wedding, he was hit by a drunk driver at an intersection and killed instantly. I remember his story when I see his name on the Ocean Township Honor Roll sign at Waretown’s new Veteran’s Park. The wooden sign there is a replica of one made during World War 2, naming each Waretown boy who served. (LeVerne’s father is also named on that sign). My own dear Daddy also served, but had not yet married my mother, so he was not then a resident of Waretown.
Aunt Olga’s house wasn’t my only brush with lightning that summer. Not too much later, we had another bad storm, but it seemed to be over. Dad went outside, and I followed him. Back then, I always followed my Daddy around. Soon, thunder started rumbling again, and the sky turned that lurid orange color. Mom opened the back door and called us both in. She held the door open for me as I ran to her. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning came right between us, and hit the electrical outlet by the back door, where the dryer was plugged in and running.
The force of that bolt sent me flying, and a huge tongue of flame leaped out of the outlet. Dad came running. I never saw him move so fast! Thankfully, Mom and I were both unhurt. Dad shut off the electric at the main switch, and we used kerosene lamps until the electrician came. He fixed everything, but warned Mom never to run the dryer during a thunderstorm. He said that dryers pull a lot of electricity, which is what could have drawn the lightning in our direction that day.
Visiting Waretown’s Cemeteries
Another big part of growing up in Waretown was visiting Cedar Grove Cemetery with my mother. Every spring we would decorate family graves with daffodils and lilacs from our yard. Mom would tell me stories of each family member as we walked, until I felt like I knew each and every one personally, even those who died long before I was born.
There were two very old and weathered stones in Cedar Grove. Mom said they were the oldest in town. One clearly dated to the year 1742, but the other was chipped away to the point of being impossible to read. Mom said, “we used to be able to read the poem on that stone. I never tried to memorize it, but it stuck in my head. It said:
“Old and young as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so shall you be
Prepare for death and follow me.”

Now it’s stuck in my head, too. Thanks, Mom.

Aunt Olga Smith used to ask Mom to drive her to Old Presbyterian Cemetery on Main Street, because she had relatives buried back there. I was maybe ten or twelve years old. As Aunt Olga walked around, I wandered on my own, reading epitaphs on those interesting old tombstones. One in particular was as tall as I was, but just a few inches thick. The epitaph inscribed there for a young woman who died in 1850 deeply touched my heart:
“How bright she shown in social life
As daughter, sister, friend, & wife
Now done with all below the sun
She shines around Jehovah’s throne.
This, this alone her husband cheers,
And joy wipes off the falling tears.”

I could imagine her in a candlelit ballroom, dancing with her young husband, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. In later research, I discovered that her name was Eliza Ann Hoag Bowker, and she died in childbirth at 22 years old.
On one of our Old Presbyterian trips, I will never forget Aunt Olga taking my arm and pointing her long, bony finger at Julia Eayre Smith’s grave (1834-1912). She said, “That’s your great-great grandmother.” It gave me a wonderful kind of shivery thrill, and started my interest in family genealogy.
Today, I can count four generations back in Cedar Grove Cemetery, and three more in Old Presbyterian, all the way back to Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Chamberlain (1754-1831). Now, it brings me a great deal of pride to point out those same graves to my own grandchildren.
I almost never hear whippoorwills around the old house on Main Street anymore. However, I heard one last summer, and burst into tears. I miss you, Mom. I’m still here in Waretown, loving it for you, carrying our family’s torch on our own bit of hallowed ground. I still try to live by your advice: “Hold on to the good, let go of the bad, and never turn from God.” We’ll have a wonderful reunion in heaven one day. I can’t wait to meet all my relatives!