Millie Boynton Hannan
 
1879-1930

By Isabel Morse Maresh

Millie Boynton Hannan’s Eventful Life
 

Millie wiped her hands on her apron. She would have wiped her eyes, but she could not cry, nor shed a single tear. She’d often cried at night, but no one would ever see her cry.

She looked back over her life. So much had happened in her lifespan of thirty-three years. She remembered her wedding day when she was nineteen. Her mother had passed away in June of that year, never knowing that her youngest daughter was “in a family way.” Mother had suffered a long time with terrible pain due to stomach cancer.

 

On Christmas eve in 1898, Mille had married Herbert Hannan, six and a half years older than she. He was a handsome young farmer whose father and grandfather had served in the Civil War.  Herbert’s own mother, Melinda, had died at age forty when Herbert was but twelve years old. How Millie missed having her mother to talk with. Herbert had swept her off her feet with his charming ways and flashing wry smile. Just a twinkle in those sparkling blue eyes of his would melt Millie‘s heart.

Herbert was a hard worker and provided well for her and their growing family. But as more children arrived, it seemed harder to keep up with feeding and clothing the brood. Mildred was born in 1899, followed by Gladys in 1900. Then came Herbert Jr., Roy, Bertha, Daisy, David, Trafton, Waldo and Lester, all within eleven short years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papa was a great help, asking Herbert and Millie to move in with him in his large farmhouse in the Kingdom. Herbert and his brother, Dell and sister, Cad had gone to the other side of Montville on the Plains Road in November 1903 and brought Hebert's father, Civil War veteran and widower Martin Hannan on a sleigh called a pung, home to the Boynton farm to live with them. Martin died in April 1904, age sixty-four years of age.

Herbert worked out for local farmers, as well as coopering at home on the farm. His barrels were of fine quality, which he hauled to Rockland, through Searsmont, down over Moody Mountain to the Bog Road, through Camden with his horse pulling the old hay wagon loaded with barrels, which were termed ‘lime casks.’

He sometimes took young Herbert and Roy with him. Even though they were young, they were a great help around the farm and in the cooper shop, so much so that he often forgot Herbert was only nine years old.

One winter night in 1909 Herbert’s cow died. The local newspaper under the South Montville town column wrote: “Herbert Hannan recently lost his only cow and as he is a poor man, with quite a large family, his kind neighbor Mr. Baker, has started a subscription to get another cow for him. We hope all who have the opportunity and can help, will put their hand down into their pocket. A friend in need is a friend indeed.”

Millie worked hard raising her children, breast-feeding as long as she could, preparing meals, canning, making butter and cheese, salting down greens and salt pork, washing their clothes on a scrub board, drawing water from the well for cooking and washing.

She made clothing for her children whenever she could get material. Her father-in-law, Martin gave Millie his blue woolen Civil War coat with brass military buttons on it. Millie made a coat for Mildred from it. Mildred wore the coat, Gladys wore it, then Herbert. It was then given to a poor neighbor boy to wear out. It was hard to believe there were any poorer children than Millie’s in the neighborhood.

On another cold night in January 1911, one of the family smelled smoke. The fire in the stove had been wooded to ward off the chill that crept into the old farmhouse. A fire was discovered in the living room, which had started around the funnel of the stovepipe which went into the chimney. Embers had dropped onto clothing drying on a rack behind the stove. Some of the clothing and bedding burned, but the family thought itself very blessed to still have a roof on the house.

Millie remembered the day Herbert came in from the cooper shop, saying he couldn’t see well, and that he had a blinding headache. He went to bed, asking young Herbert to come sit with him. He told the boy to take care of his mother and to watch over the younger siblings. The headache grew worse. There was no money to call for the doctor, but Papa sent young Herbert to Liberty to fetch Dr. Albert D. Ramsay. Herbert had passed away by the time that the doctor arrived. He was only thirty-eight years old.

The Centre Montville town correspondent wrote: “Mr. Herbert Hannan died Wednesday, the eighth, after suffering from an abscess in the head which broke and discharged on the brain. He leaves a wife and ten small children, who were dependent on his earnings for their support. The oldest is eleven, and the youngest a month old. He was an industrious man and has always been able to care for his family ...”

It all had happened so suddenly. Millie had thought that she and Herbert would grow old together, and now he was gone. It was all like a bad dream. Nothing made any sense. She couldn’t even think about what tomorrow would bring. She couldn’t organize her thoughts. She had ten children now dependent on her, including a one month-old baby who needed feeding. Mildred and Gladys tended to the young ones and put a meager meal on the table.

In a few days, friends and neighbors brought in firewood, vegetables and food from their larders. Herbert had raised a good garden the year before and had raised a pig. She had a partial barrel of salt pork in the cellar, potatoes, salted greens and perhaps one hundred jars of her home canning left, but how long would it last?

At least she still had her eighty-one year old father to lean on. Mr. Baker was coming by with his gasoline engine to saw up the wood. Millie had no hay to speak of in the barn, so the next week she sold her horse to a neighbor. After all, what good was a horse if you had no feed and no place to go. With the immediate help of the neighbors, it seemed that good will was soon forgotten.

Millie was not eating well herself. She did not want to take food from her family. Baby Lester fussed more and more. He was so tiny, and did not seem to be growing. She just did not have enough milk to feed him. In May, at three months of age, Lester died, just two months after his father. They buried the tiny babe beside his father in the Pine Grove Cemetery in Searsmont.

She struggled on, thankful for the help of her older children, even though they were very young. So much was expected of them. She was also thankful her family was all together. Gladys had not been feeling well. Dr. Ramsay diagnosed her with rheumatic fever, which caused her to be blind. As if those problems were not enough, Papa Boynton, Millie’s father, contacted pneumonia and died January 12th. He was eighty-two years of age. His death left Millie feeling completely drained and alone. She had been doing some housework, cooking and cleaning for some of the more affluent farmers’ wives to bring in food for her children.

It was sometime after Herbert’s death, and probably after Lester’s death, Millie couldn’t seem to remember when because life had all become a blur in her memory, that the town selectmen held a meeting. Shortly after, they came to Millie’s door to tell her that because of her circumstances of being a young widow with all of those children, they had come to take some of her children away “to a better life.”

Bertha, age five and a half, and Daisy, age four years, were taken away from the only loving family that they’d ever known to the Girls’ Home, the county orphanage in Belfast.

Roy, who was seven and a half, was taken to a local farm to work. Millie was once again in shock. She had no say in where her children were taken, nor did she even have a chance to hug them or to say, “I love you,” or anything. This was something Daisy remembered the rest of her life. The other children were also devastated by the break-up of the family. They did not meet again until they were grown.

Millie stopped thinking about her past year, and again wiped her hands on her apron. So much had happened. Here it was, nearly a year and a half after Herbert’s death. She stood alone in the kitchen, twisting the apron in her hands. What was she to do now? She was thirty-three years old, and once again “in a family way.” This should never have happened. The charitable neighbors had not all been honorable. She had no one to talk to, no one would believe the word of a young widow about a “pillar” of the community.

One fifty year old neighbor, Joe Chapman had been asking her to marry him. She didn’t really like the man, but it seemed as though it was the only solution to her problems. So, November 12th, one year and eight months after Herbert’s death, she and Joe were married.

The Liberty newspaper correspondent wrote, “Joe Chapman and Mrs. Millie Hannan were married last Saturday night, L. D. Jones, Esq. tying the knot.” It all seemed very flippant. Millie often thought about what the neighbors thought about her. They should have walked in her shoes, such as they were, for awhile.

Joe was abusive from the night of their marriage. He looked down upon her, accusing her of many things, and often hit her. Millie thought life couldn’t get any worse. Three months after their marriage, George was born. Joe left, and good riddance. Millie clung to her baby, George, who went by the name of Hannan all the days of his life.

Millie was told that Roy would be taken to a farm where he was to be clothed and well taken care of. A few years later, one of his sisters saw him driving a horse on the road. He was thin, dirty, dressed in rags and covered with lice. He said often he did not have enough to eat. He was allowed to come home for a time.

Putting meals on the table three times a day was often a challenge. The only bread the family ate were biscuits made from dough made from flour, baking powder and milk, when available. This was usually rolled out and each biscuit dipped in salt pork fat or melted lard, heating on the woodstove. When Millie was rushed, she mixed the dough a little softer and dropped by spoonfuls on the baking sheet, with a dab of hot melted pork fat on them before baking. These she called “slut biscuits”.

Life improved a little for Millie as the family grew older. Mildred married at age seventeen to John Edgar Perkins, having three children before Edgar left her to raise the children alone. Gladys married at age nineteen to a hard-working immigrant from Russia, Anthony Maresh. Herbert had been working out since he was very young, helping his mother as much as he could. In 1924, Mildred, her children, Gladys and Tony had gone to Massachusetts to find work there.

 

 

 

 

That same year, Millie married Charles S. Hubbard, aged fifty-three, in Belfast. Charles and Millie took her younger sons and went to Massachusetts, also.

While in Massachusetts, she came down with scarlet fever. Millie died at the Boston City Hospital, age 50 years, 11 months and 15 days. Millie had lived through some hard times in her short life. How different life would have been, had she and Herbert lived to a ripe old age together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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