COLLECTION # ONE
Meet Lillian Howard
Lillian Howard was born in Northboro, Massachusetts, the oldest child of a “third” family. Lillie’s father was Arthur Desrosier. His first family had seven children, when his wife died of consumption. Lillie’s mother was Jeannia Rousseau Corriveau, who had her own family in Rhode Island with two children, when her husband died after being bitten by a rabid dog. Arthur and Jeannia met and married in Northboro, and decided to start a third family together. Lillian was the oldest of this third family. She knew everyone from all three familes and lived in a small house with most of them. So, as she would say, “It was a pretty mixed up family!” (Her stories were recorded and preserved in audio files.)
The New Cow
When I was a little girl we lived on a farm and one day we got a new cow. My father said, “Lillian you take that new cow up the hill to the brook so she can drink.” The brook was way up in the woods behind our house. So I got a rope and put it around her and I said, “C’mon!” and I yanked on her rope. We had just gotten a little ways past the yard and near a big stone wall. I guess that cow was smart enough to hear the brook way up behind us in the woods. She took one look at the stone wall, and off she went, dragging me right over the wall. I couldn’t walk or sit down for two months! Some cow!
Uncle Joe’s Candy
I couldn’t have been more than five years old, when my uncle Joe worked in the factory down the street from our house in Northboro. He was the boss, with his own desk and a window on the front of the building. And he was awful good to me, so I would run away from home to see him. I knew just where his office was, so I would sit under his window, till he opened it. I knew he would give me a little striped bag of candy. And that candy was good! But when I got home, my mother would give me an awful licking!
No More School!
My sister, Jeannia, and I walked to the schoolhouse together. When she got as far as fifth grade and I got
as far as sixth grade, mother told us that we couldn’t go any more. It was time to work in the factory and help
earn money for our large family. I didn’t care much because I didn’t like all the work and all the things
we had to do at school. But Jeannia cried all the way home. She was smart and she liked school a lot.
Don’t Go Out of Your Way
If there is anyone who went out of her way to offer care and assistance in a moment of need, it was Lillian. She was a housekeeper and live-in companion to Mrs. Roy, the wheelchair-bound matriarch at a local funeral home. She later moved in with her niece Claire and family when Claire had baby number six at age forty, and was also trying to run a family business school. Then Lillian was a live-in companion for her sister Hattie when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Lillian sent hundreds and hundreds of birthday cards, bought children new clothes for the first day of school, loaned money to family members, and prayed for us all when we were in trouble. She always had little envelopes stashed in a drop leaf desk for visitors.
Lillian provided a good example of all of the ways to love someone that are listed under “caregiver” in the dictionary--admire, appreciate, comfort, cultivate, defend, encourage, guard, harbor, hold dear, honor, love, nourish, nurture, preserve, prize, reverence, safeguard, shelter, support, sustain, treasure, and value. Here is a letter she wrote:
Dear Administrator,
On Dec 1, 1987 my sister Jeannia Young died in City Hospital. She had lived at Hermitage
since 1973. I want to thank you personally for the fourteen years of care that she received.
She told us often that she didn’t know what she would do without you.
I’m sure that there were many kindnesses that went unnoticed too, like giving medicine and eye drops so often, feeding her, washing her, listening to the dear soul, and even helping her downstairs for birthdays and parties. Thank you for letting her hear mass and pray the rosary in her room, even when it meant changing her lunchtime.
I remember when her daughter, Claire, died in July 1975 and someone took the trouble to bring her to the funeral with her walker. They didn’t have to do that, but went out of their way for her. There are so many nurses, therapists, and aids, who were so wonderful to Jeannia. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy. Please thank as many as you can for me.
Like Jeannia would say to each of you, “Thanks a million! You’re a peach!”
Sincerely,
Lillian Howard
