Archive 2008 - 2019

Still Living the Simple Life in Holliston

by Krista Harper
3/29/2010

Just like most other small towns, Holliston has its share of old standbys – town traditions that residents can count on, year after year. Summers are inevitably spent down by the lake, and Fiske’s General Store remains the most reliable place to buy a pack of gum or a bar of soap, among other things.

But there are many other aspects of life in this Massachusetts town that have changed drastically in the last 80 or so years, Holliston residents Everett and Mary Blair agree. Everett Blair, now 87, moved to Holliston with his parents when he was 5, and has spent most of the last 82 years here. Mary Blair (born Mary Moore), 83, was born in Holliston and has lived here ever since.

“In those days, you knew everybody in town and you knew all their business,” Mary says.

Everett remembers the Holliston of his childhood in the 1920s and 1930s as little more than a village – a community that revolved around town hall, where one high school teacher, Mr. Miller, served not only as a teacher but as principal and school district superintendent, as well.

In 1920, just two years before Everett was born, Holliston had only 2,707 residents, according to U.S. Census data. Holliston may still be a small town, but Everett says that the jump from around 3,000 residents to over 13,000 is no small change. “Now, a lot of people don’t even know their own neighbors,” he says.
 


When the Blairs were children, nearly anything you might need was available in Holliston. Everett estimates that the town had five or six small grocery stores, three dentists, a couple pharmacies and one cop. Most folks had at least some of their groceries delivered straight to their homes – necessities like kerosene, milk, grains and molasses, which was delivered by the barrel.

Children didn’t have to look far for recreation in those days, Mary says. After school, kids would play hopscotch and jump rope. On Saturdays, there were baseball games to play in or watch. In the summer, people went swimming in the lake, and in the colder months, children went ice skating.

“The winters must have been colder then, because we always went skating,” Mary says. “It doesn’t seem to happen anymore.”
There were all sorts of jobs for kids to do around town to earn a little spending money, Everett adds. In the summer, he weeded carrots for two cents a row.  In a day, he would earn about twenty cents. There was a nearby skeet club where he picked up unbroken clay pigeons for cash.

There was no lack of entertainment for adults either. The town had a popular bowling alley, a mini golf course and a dance hall that doubled as a roller skating rink. Still, Everett says, on weekend nights four or five of his friends would squish into a coupe to go roller skating in Boston.
Every Sunday he’d go to Framingham or Milford to see a movie. In the summer, carnivals stopped in Holliston and the surrounding towns, and young people would gather around bonfires at night to talk. Holliston’s only gas station threw outdoor dances throughout the summer.

Then the U.S. joined the Second World War, and everything changed for Everett Blair and his classmates. Most of the young men his age went off to war, and he was no exception. In all, Everett spent five years in the Navy, and he went just about everywhere. He was in the Merchant Marines in the South Pacific for two years, but he also spent time in Europe, South America, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

Mary was still in high school, however, and she saw how Holliston changed through the war years. “There was no gas to go anywhere when the war came,” she says. People stayed closer to home, and more women took on jobs. When Everett came back to Holliston a couple years after the war ended, he got a job at a cobbler shop just a few stores down from the pharmacy where Mary worked, which is how the pair got to know each other. In 1949, the two were married, and soon after they bought the site of their current home. They paid to have the basic construction done, and once the house was framed, Everett did the finishing work inside. Between 1950 and 1959, the Blairs had five children. Mary became a stay-at-home mom.

Like many Holliston residents at the time, Everett worked for a loom factory in Hopedale owned by the Draper Corporation. After 25 years at the company, he eventually quit in 1975, just a few years before the factory closed.

After a few more years of work elsewhere, Everett retired in 1988. Since then, he’s kept busy, working at Holliston’s American Legion Post and attending many Navy reunions. Since their children moved out, Mary has had more time to garden, knit, crochet and dry flowers. For years now, the Blairs have also been busy keeping up with their seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

And though Mary says that it seems that half their time is taken up with doctor’s visits these days, the Blairs say that they still find time to keep up with their neighbors. In Holliston, perhaps, some traditions will never really die. With a chortle, Everett says he won’t be checking out anytime soon, either.

“I’ll make it to 99,” he says. “Only the good die young!”
 

 

Comments (2)

Thank you for this article. My mother, Mary Hoey Williams and her sister, Clare Hoey Morash, tell great stories of the times they shared with Mr and Mrs. Blair when they were growing up in Holliston. I have forwarded the article to both. Glad to see the Blairs are well.

Sally Williams Kacprowicz | 2010-04-11 12:32:30

Thank you for writing and posting this article. While I don't know the Blair's, the town now feels a little smaller to me, and that's a good thing.

Mark | 2010-03-30 09:53:50