Aunt Emma ...

I have mentioned my Aunt Emma often over the years. She was from Brattleboro, Vt. and still alive when I was born in 1933. However the few times that I met her I found her to be uncommunicative and severe. After she died I was given 12 of her diaries and I couldn’t wait to read what she’d written. Maybe I would finally get to know my mysterious great aunt.

I knew that she was a spinster and a very frugal one at that; but I had no idea that her life was so devoid of enchantment or just plain fun. Page after page recorded nothing but the weather conditions for the day and the exact price of everything she bought but not much else of interest until … imagine my surprise when I read, in her diary of 1912: “I stood on my front porch and waved to President Taft as he rode by on the trolley.”

I couldn’t wait to research this and, sure enough, here is a picture of the trolly tracks and a caption that reads: “In the early years of the 20th century, the town built a trolly which traveled the length of Main Street and out Western Avenue to West Brattleboro.”

And here’s the big man himself speaking at a town just North of West Brattleboro. 

So I guess Aunt Emma had a special treat that day ... even if her New England stoicism made it hard for her to express it!