Husband: Clyde Sylvester Morgan (1 Sep 1888 - 21 Nov 1962)
married 26 Oct 1910 in Caribou.
Father: Hiram Pike, Jr. (4 Jul 1834 - 8 Jan 1908)
married 2 May 1881 in Caribou
Mother: Clara Alice (Merritt) (12 Mar 1861 - May 1900)
Memoriam written by daughter Dorothy (Morgan) Barnes:
Blanche Hazel Pike was born 27 April 1889, the tenth child of Hiram Pike, Jr., and the fourth child by his second wife, Clara Alice (Merritt) Pike.
She was nicknamed "Bunch" and "Bunny" by her family and friends while growing up, although in my lifetime I only heard her called "Blanche". She grew to be 5'5" tall and must have been very slim at the time of her marriage since she had a waist measurement of twenty-one inches. By the time she reached her late forties she weighed approximately 170 pounds.
From hearing my mother, Blanche Pike Morgan reminisce through the years, I'm sure life was hard for the whole family from childhood. She told of winters when the snow sifted through cracks around the windows and onto the beds as they slept in the home on the Washburn Road (Noble Farm). She also told of how they carried water in pails from the Caribou Stream, some one hundred yards from the house, , to be heated on the cook stove in a "boiler" or tub for washing clothes, cooking baths and all other purposes. She told how they walked from that home to school in what is now the Sincock School--probably two and one-half to three miles, sometimes arriving with sodden clothes. She told of having to stand in the corner by the stove for being late for school and feeling so sick from the heat and the smell of wet clothes.
My heart always aches a little for a little girl of 13 years left with the responsibility of cooking and cleaning for a family. She told me of scrubbing bare pine floors until they came white and clean and how bad she always felt when "the boys would come in with muddy feet" getting them dirty again. She told us of her inexperienced cooking and of how her father coming home from his work tasted and seasoned the food, and of doing the family wash by hand.
Apparently theirs was always an industrious family, because Mother told of their digging dandelion greens, a spring delicacy in this area, and selling them from door to door to the townspeople. She always chuckled when she told us of how they would wash them well in the Caribou Stream, thus keeping them crisp and filling their containers which would have held more greans if they had wilted. They also picked wild berries and she told of asking her father to "make Jennie help pick" but that Jennie was the baby and wasn't required to help. When Uncle Charles Pike came to visit our home in 1937 after being gone for many years, he remarked upon that fact and said how unfair they had been in giving all their loving attention to the baby without appreciation for Blanche's heavy burden. Knowing her sweet and loving nature, I cannot believe that my Mother ever showed or even felt any jealousy over that fact although she surely must have been very discouraged at times.
I suppose her school days ended when she took over as homemaker because her formal education ended with the eighth grade. However, her education never stopped. She was a prodigious reader and very interested in what was going on in the world.
I'm sure they must have been a loving family, because as they all grew older we could feel their affection and concern for one another. I also think they were happy people although their amusements were simple. Mother always took part in church activities and probably that is where most of their social life was spent although she did tell of skating on the Aroostook River and of having "box socials", probably in a schoolhouse.
After her father Hiram died, Blanche went to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a garment factory making underwear. The hours were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and she told of how tiring the days were spent at the sewing machine. During this time she lived with a family named Fisher with whom Annie her sister had also lived.Apparently she was treated as one of the family because she always spoke of them all as close and loved friends. She also worshiped with them at their church.
After about a year spent in Lowell, Blanche returned to Caribou and married Clyde Morgan on 26 October 1910. Clyde worked for his father, George Melvin Morgan, in the furniture store and as an embalmer and undertaker. They lived with Clyde's parents on Sweden Street in Caribou for the first two years of their married life and produced Regna Louise on 11 June 1911. They then built a house on Washburn Street with the Aroostook Valley Railroad tracks running nearly parallel with the house. Arline Blanche was born in that house on 13 June 1913. It was from that fenced-in yard on 24 May 1915, that Arline either walked through an unclosed gate or under a gap in the fence and onto those railroad tracks to be run over by the train and maimed for life. There followed a terrifying and anxious time spent tending a small paralyzed body at home and finally in Children's Hospital in Portland, Maine before they brought their baby home to learn again to walk in high laced shoes--the left one stuffed with padding in place of toes and a left hand with only one finger and thumb. After this trying time, they brought suit against the Aroostook Valley Railroad and after hearing that the brakeman and the engineer had been angry at each other and not speaking so the brakeman didn't tell the engineer he could see something on the track, they received judgement--the princely sum of $4,500.
Washburn Street was no home for them now so they built another house on Page Avenue which was home to all of us until her death. In that house I was born, Dorothy Hazel on 8 June 1919; Ruth Avis on 22 August 1921 and Marjorie Lillian on 24 January 1925.
I believe that where my mother was, was also home to her brothers and sisters and why wouldn't it have been, since she had been like a mother to them most of her life. My earliest memories were of Aunt Annie Pike Jacobs being in our home and when Aunt Annie died it really became home for Hollis Jacobs who at the age of 11 came to live with us. He lived with us the next five or six years sharing our life as the brother we never had through the lean depression years when another child to feed and clothe must have made things a little harder for my parents. I'm sure they never begrudged anything they gave to anyone. I remember the summer months through the 1930's when men and boys from all parts of the country followed the harvest hoping for work. Many times Mother fed them on the back porch of our home, sometimes as payment for odd jobs but more often because they were hungary. She would say, "I feel so sorry for that boy, so far from home and with nothing to eat."
Alda and Clara Jacobs also considered our home their home after their mother's death since they no longer had a home of their own. They would find work for awhile or spend time with Uncle William Pike's family or Aunt Jennie Farley's or some of the Jacobs family but seemed to gravitate toward our home.
Through our growing years we had many who stayed with us. Some girls from New Sweden who boarded with us while they went to high school (one paid board--$3 per week). Earl Robinson also stayed with us and went to school one year although I do not know the circumstances that brought him.
It seems there was love enough to go around because through the years they all came back to visit and were always greeted with joy and affection.
Mother's sincere religious beliefs showed in her daily life and the love she had for her family and friends flowed back to her. To me it shows in one little way--her neices, Alda Blanche Jacobs, Shirley Blanche Pike, Blanche Lillian Pike, my sister Arline Blanche (surely my father's doing), and her granddaughter, Coralie Blanche Todd.
Blanche and Clyde Morgan were members of the Free Baptist Church and when that church united with the First Baptist Church they became members of Caribou's United Baptist Church. Blanche was one of the members honored during the laying of the Cornerstone of their new edifice on High Street in Caribou during the 1950s. Many times I walked past her bedroom door as she knelt by her bed to pray before retiring. I can still see her in her long nightgown and her dark hair in a long braid down her back.
Blanche suffered her first heart attack in 1943 but recovered after a long period of tender nursing by her daughter Ruth, to carry on a fairly active life for the next ten or fifteen years. Through the late 1950s and until her death she had several smaller attacks and a slight stroke. Her indomitable spirit survived her loss of many loved ones through those years but when she lost her beloved Clyde on 22 November 1962, she seemed to lose interest in living. I joined her for lunch nearly every work day since my work as Clerk of Court is almost across the street in the County Courthouse. It seemed to me that as I ate with her in hopes to encourage her to eat, I gained weight and she got thinner. We, her daughters, asked her if she ever thought we'd call her "Littla Mama". Another heart attack came in March of 1964. Seemingly, she had recovered and her doctor had told her she could be discharged from the hospital on 6 April 1964, which was a Sunday. Thoughtful of others as she always was, she told him she would wait until Monday when her housekeeper would be back and we, her children, would not have to leave our homes to spend the night with her. She died that night while still in the hospital--6 April 1964.
Blanche was a member of the Caribou United Baptist Church for more than 50 years, she was active in church work and was a past member of the Eastern Star and of Philander Rebekah Lodge. She was an honorary member of the Caribou Garden Club.
Click Here for Family History
married 26 Oct 1910 in Caribou.
Father: Hiram Pike, Jr. (4 Jul 1834 - 8 Jan 1908)
married 2 May 1881 in Caribou
Mother: Clara Alice (Merritt) (12 Mar 1861 - May 1900)
Memoriam written by daughter Dorothy (Morgan) Barnes:
Blanche Hazel Pike was born 27 April 1889, the tenth child of Hiram Pike, Jr., and the fourth child by his second wife, Clara Alice (Merritt) Pike.
She was nicknamed "Bunch" and "Bunny" by her family and friends while growing up, although in my lifetime I only heard her called "Blanche". She grew to be 5'5" tall and must have been very slim at the time of her marriage since she had a waist measurement of twenty-one inches. By the time she reached her late forties she weighed approximately 170 pounds.
From hearing my mother, Blanche Pike Morgan reminisce through the years, I'm sure life was hard for the whole family from childhood. She told of winters when the snow sifted through cracks around the windows and onto the beds as they slept in the home on the Washburn Road (Noble Farm). She also told of how they carried water in pails from the Caribou Stream, some one hundred yards from the house, , to be heated on the cook stove in a "boiler" or tub for washing clothes, cooking baths and all other purposes. She told how they walked from that home to school in what is now the Sincock School--probably two and one-half to three miles, sometimes arriving with sodden clothes. She told of having to stand in the corner by the stove for being late for school and feeling so sick from the heat and the smell of wet clothes.
My heart always aches a little for a little girl of 13 years left with the responsibility of cooking and cleaning for a family. She told me of scrubbing bare pine floors until they came white and clean and how bad she always felt when "the boys would come in with muddy feet" getting them dirty again. She told us of her inexperienced cooking and of how her father coming home from his work tasted and seasoned the food, and of doing the family wash by hand.
Apparently theirs was always an industrious family, because Mother told of their digging dandelion greens, a spring delicacy in this area, and selling them from door to door to the townspeople. She always chuckled when she told us of how they would wash them well in the Caribou Stream, thus keeping them crisp and filling their containers which would have held more greans if they had wilted. They also picked wild berries and she told of asking her father to "make Jennie help pick" but that Jennie was the baby and wasn't required to help. When Uncle Charles Pike came to visit our home in 1937 after being gone for many years, he remarked upon that fact and said how unfair they had been in giving all their loving attention to the baby without appreciation for Blanche's heavy burden. Knowing her sweet and loving nature, I cannot believe that my Mother ever showed or even felt any jealousy over that fact although she surely must have been very discouraged at times.
I suppose her school days ended when she took over as homemaker because her formal education ended with the eighth grade. However, her education never stopped. She was a prodigious reader and very interested in what was going on in the world.
I'm sure they must have been a loving family, because as they all grew older we could feel their affection and concern for one another. I also think they were happy people although their amusements were simple. Mother always took part in church activities and probably that is where most of their social life was spent although she did tell of skating on the Aroostook River and of having "box socials", probably in a schoolhouse.
After her father Hiram died, Blanche went to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a garment factory making underwear. The hours were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and she told of how tiring the days were spent at the sewing machine. During this time she lived with a family named Fisher with whom Annie her sister had also lived.Apparently she was treated as one of the family because she always spoke of them all as close and loved friends. She also worshiped with them at their church.
After about a year spent in Lowell, Blanche returned to Caribou and married Clyde Morgan on 26 October 1910. Clyde worked for his father, George Melvin Morgan, in the furniture store and as an embalmer and undertaker. They lived with Clyde's parents on Sweden Street in Caribou for the first two years of their married life and produced Regna Louise on 11 June 1911. They then built a house on Washburn Street with the Aroostook Valley Railroad tracks running nearly parallel with the house. Arline Blanche was born in that house on 13 June 1913. It was from that fenced-in yard on 24 May 1915, that Arline either walked through an unclosed gate or under a gap in the fence and onto those railroad tracks to be run over by the train and maimed for life. There followed a terrifying and anxious time spent tending a small paralyzed body at home and finally in Children's Hospital in Portland, Maine before they brought their baby home to learn again to walk in high laced shoes--the left one stuffed with padding in place of toes and a left hand with only one finger and thumb. After this trying time, they brought suit against the Aroostook Valley Railroad and after hearing that the brakeman and the engineer had been angry at each other and not speaking so the brakeman didn't tell the engineer he could see something on the track, they received judgement--the princely sum of $4,500.
Washburn Street was no home for them now so they built another house on Page Avenue which was home to all of us until her death. In that house I was born, Dorothy Hazel on 8 June 1919; Ruth Avis on 22 August 1921 and Marjorie Lillian on 24 January 1925.
I believe that where my mother was, was also home to her brothers and sisters and why wouldn't it have been, since she had been like a mother to them most of her life. My earliest memories were of Aunt Annie Pike Jacobs being in our home and when Aunt Annie died it really became home for Hollis Jacobs who at the age of 11 came to live with us. He lived with us the next five or six years sharing our life as the brother we never had through the lean depression years when another child to feed and clothe must have made things a little harder for my parents. I'm sure they never begrudged anything they gave to anyone. I remember the summer months through the 1930's when men and boys from all parts of the country followed the harvest hoping for work. Many times Mother fed them on the back porch of our home, sometimes as payment for odd jobs but more often because they were hungary. She would say, "I feel so sorry for that boy, so far from home and with nothing to eat."
Alda and Clara Jacobs also considered our home their home after their mother's death since they no longer had a home of their own. They would find work for awhile or spend time with Uncle William Pike's family or Aunt Jennie Farley's or some of the Jacobs family but seemed to gravitate toward our home.
Through our growing years we had many who stayed with us. Some girls from New Sweden who boarded with us while they went to high school (one paid board--$3 per week). Earl Robinson also stayed with us and went to school one year although I do not know the circumstances that brought him.
It seems there was love enough to go around because through the years they all came back to visit and were always greeted with joy and affection.
Mother's sincere religious beliefs showed in her daily life and the love she had for her family and friends flowed back to her. To me it shows in one little way--her neices, Alda Blanche Jacobs, Shirley Blanche Pike, Blanche Lillian Pike, my sister Arline Blanche (surely my father's doing), and her granddaughter, Coralie Blanche Todd.
Blanche and Clyde Morgan were members of the Free Baptist Church and when that church united with the First Baptist Church they became members of Caribou's United Baptist Church. Blanche was one of the members honored during the laying of the Cornerstone of their new edifice on High Street in Caribou during the 1950s. Many times I walked past her bedroom door as she knelt by her bed to pray before retiring. I can still see her in her long nightgown and her dark hair in a long braid down her back.
Blanche suffered her first heart attack in 1943 but recovered after a long period of tender nursing by her daughter Ruth, to carry on a fairly active life for the next ten or fifteen years. Through the late 1950s and until her death she had several smaller attacks and a slight stroke. Her indomitable spirit survived her loss of many loved ones through those years but when she lost her beloved Clyde on 22 November 1962, she seemed to lose interest in living. I joined her for lunch nearly every work day since my work as Clerk of Court is almost across the street in the County Courthouse. It seemed to me that as I ate with her in hopes to encourage her to eat, I gained weight and she got thinner. We, her daughters, asked her if she ever thought we'd call her "Littla Mama". Another heart attack came in March of 1964. Seemingly, she had recovered and her doctor had told her she could be discharged from the hospital on 6 April 1964, which was a Sunday. Thoughtful of others as she always was, she told him she would wait until Monday when her housekeeper would be back and we, her children, would not have to leave our homes to spend the night with her. She died that night while still in the hospital--6 April 1964.
Blanche was a member of the Caribou United Baptist Church for more than 50 years, she was active in church work and was a past member of the Eastern Star and of Philander Rebekah Lodge. She was an honorary member of the Caribou Garden Club.
Click Here for Family History
Husband: Clyde Sylvester Morgan (1 Sep 1888 - 21 Nov 1962)
married 26 Oct 1910 in Caribou.
Father: Hiram Pike, Jr. (4 Jul 1834 - 8 Jan 1908)
married 2 May 1881 in Caribou
Mother: Clara Alice (Merritt) (12 Mar 1861 - May 1900)
Memoriam written by daughter Dorothy (Morgan) Barnes:
Blanche Hazel Pike was born 27 April 1889, the tenth child of Hiram Pike, Jr., and the fourth child by his second wife, Clara Alice (Merritt) Pike.
She was nicknamed "Bunch" and "Bunny" by her family and friends while growing up, although in my lifetime I only heard her called "Blanche". She grew to be 5'5" tall and must have been very slim at the time of her marriage since she had a waist measurement of twenty-one inches. By the time she reached her late forties she weighed approximately 170 pounds.
From hearing my mother, Blanche Pike Morgan reminisce through the years, I'm sure life was hard for the whole family from childhood. She told of winters when the snow sifted through cracks around the windows and onto the beds as they slept in the home on the Washburn Road (Noble Farm). She also told of how they carried water in pails from the Caribou Stream, some one hundred yards from the house, , to be heated on the cook stove in a "boiler" or tub for washing clothes, cooking baths and all other purposes. She told how they walked from that home to school in what is now the Sincock School--probably two and one-half to three miles, sometimes arriving with sodden clothes. She told of having to stand in the corner by the stove for being late for school and feeling so sick from the heat and the smell of wet clothes.
My heart always aches a little for a little girl of 13 years left with the responsibility of cooking and cleaning for a family. She told me of scrubbing bare pine floors until they came white and clean and how bad she always felt when "the boys would come in with muddy feet" getting them dirty again. She told us of her inexperienced cooking and of how her father coming home from his work tasted and seasoned the food, and of doing the family wash by hand.
Apparently theirs was always an industrious family, because Mother told of their digging dandelion greens, a spring delicacy in this area, and selling them from door to door to the townspeople. She always chuckled when she told us of how they would wash them well in the Caribou Stream, thus keeping them crisp and filling their containers which would have held more greans if they had wilted. They also picked wild berries and she told of asking her father to "make Jennie help pick" but that Jennie was the baby and wasn't required to help. When Uncle Charles Pike came to visit our home in 1937 after being gone for many years, he remarked upon that fact and said how unfair they had been in giving all their loving attention to the baby without appreciation for Blanche's heavy burden. Knowing her sweet and loving nature, I cannot believe that my Mother ever showed or even felt any jealousy over that fact although she surely must have been very discouraged at times.
I suppose her school days ended when she took over as homemaker because her formal education ended with the eighth grade. However, her education never stopped. She was a prodigious reader and very interested in what was going on in the world.
I'm sure they must have been a loving family, because as they all grew older we could feel their affection and concern for one another. I also think they were happy people although their amusements were simple. Mother always took part in church activities and probably that is where most of their social life was spent although she did tell of skating on the Aroostook River and of having "box socials", probably in a schoolhouse.
After her father Hiram died, Blanche went to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a garment factory making underwear. The hours were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and she told of how tiring the days were spent at the sewing machine. During this time she lived with a family named Fisher with whom Annie her sister had also lived.Apparently she was treated as one of the family because she always spoke of them all as close and loved friends. She also worshiped with them at their church.
After about a year spent in Lowell, Blanche returned to Caribou and married Clyde Morgan on 26 October 1910. Clyde worked for his father, George Melvin Morgan, in the furniture store and as an embalmer and undertaker. They lived with Clyde's parents on Sweden Street in Caribou for the first two years of their married life and produced Regna Louise on 11 June 1911. They then built a house on Washburn Street with the Aroostook Valley Railroad tracks running nearly parallel with the house. Arline Blanche was born in that house on 13 June 1913. It was from that fenced-in yard on 24 May 1915, that Arline either walked through an unclosed gate or under a gap in the fence and onto those railroad tracks to be run over by the train and maimed for life. There followed a terrifying and anxious time spent tending a small paralyzed body at home and finally in Children's Hospital in Portland, Maine before they brought their baby home to learn again to walk in high laced shoes--the left one stuffed with padding in place of toes and a left hand with only one finger and thumb. After this trying time, they brought suit against the Aroostook Valley Railroad and after hearing that the brakeman and the engineer had been angry at each other and not speaking so the brakeman didn't tell the engineer he could see something on the track, they received judgement--the princely sum of $4,500.
Washburn Street was no home for them now so they built another house on Page Avenue which was home to all of us until her death. In that house I was born, Dorothy Hazel on 8 June 1919; Ruth Avis on 22 August 1921 and Marjorie Lillian on 24 January 1925.
I believe that where my mother was, was also home to her brothers and sisters and why wouldn't it have been, since she had been like a mother to them most of her life. My earliest memories were of Aunt Annie Pike Jacobs being in our home and when Aunt Annie died it really became home for Hollis Jacobs who at the age of 11 came to live with us. He lived with us the next five or six years sharing our life as the brother we never had through the lean depression years when another child to feed and clothe must have made things a little harder for my parents. I'm sure they never begrudged anything they gave to anyone. I remember the summer months through the 1930's when men and boys from all parts of the country followed the harvest hoping for work. Many times Mother fed them on the back porch of our home, sometimes as payment for odd jobs but more often because they were hungary. She would say, "I feel so sorry for that boy, so far from home and with nothing to eat."
Alda and Clara Jacobs also considered our home their home after their mother's death since they no longer had a home of their own. They would find work for awhile or spend time with Uncle William Pike's family or Aunt Jennie Farley's or some of the Jacobs family but seemed to gravitate toward our home.
Through our growing years we had many who stayed with us. Some girls from New Sweden who boarded with us while they went to high school (one paid board--$3 per week). Earl Robinson also stayed with us and went to school one year although I do not know the circumstances that brought him.
It seems there was love enough to go around because through the years they all came back to visit and were always greeted with joy and affection.
Mother's sincere religious beliefs showed in her daily life and the love she had for her family and friends flowed back to her. To me it shows in one little way--her neices, Alda Blanche Jacobs, Shirley Blanche Pike, Blanche Lillian Pike, my sister Arline Blanche (surely my father's doing), and her granddaughter, Coralie Blanche Todd.
Blanche and Clyde Morgan were members of the Free Baptist Church and when that church united with the First Baptist Church they became members of Caribou's United Baptist Church. Blanche was one of the members honored during the laying of the Cornerstone of their new edifice on High Street in Caribou during the 1950s. Many times I walked past her bedroom door as she knelt by her bed to pray before retiring. I can still see her in her long nightgown and her dark hair in a long braid down her back.
Blanche suffered her first heart attack in 1943 but recovered after a long period of tender nursing by her daughter Ruth, to carry on a fairly active life for the next ten or fifteen years. Through the late 1950s and until her death she had several smaller attacks and a slight stroke. Her indomitable spirit survived her loss of many loved ones through those years but when she lost her beloved Clyde on 22 November 1962, she seemed to lose interest in living. I joined her for lunch nearly every work day since my work as Clerk of Court is almost across the street in the County Courthouse. It seemed to me that as I ate with her in hopes to encourage her to eat, I gained weight and she got thinner. We, her daughters, asked her if she ever thought we'd call her "Littla Mama". Another heart attack came in March of 1964. Seemingly, she had recovered and her doctor had told her she could be discharged from the hospital on 6 April 1964, which was a Sunday. Thoughtful of others as she always was, she told him she would wait until Monday when her housekeeper would be back and we, her children, would not have to leave our homes to spend the night with her. She died that night while still in the hospital--6 April 1964.
Blanche was a member of the Caribou United Baptist Church for more than 50 years, she was active in church work and was a past member of the Eastern Star and of Philander Rebekah Lodge. She was an honorary member of the Caribou Garden Club.
Click Here for Family History
married 26 Oct 1910 in Caribou.
Father: Hiram Pike, Jr. (4 Jul 1834 - 8 Jan 1908)
married 2 May 1881 in Caribou
Mother: Clara Alice (Merritt) (12 Mar 1861 - May 1900)
Memoriam written by daughter Dorothy (Morgan) Barnes:
Blanche Hazel Pike was born 27 April 1889, the tenth child of Hiram Pike, Jr., and the fourth child by his second wife, Clara Alice (Merritt) Pike.
She was nicknamed "Bunch" and "Bunny" by her family and friends while growing up, although in my lifetime I only heard her called "Blanche". She grew to be 5'5" tall and must have been very slim at the time of her marriage since she had a waist measurement of twenty-one inches. By the time she reached her late forties she weighed approximately 170 pounds.
From hearing my mother, Blanche Pike Morgan reminisce through the years, I'm sure life was hard for the whole family from childhood. She told of winters when the snow sifted through cracks around the windows and onto the beds as they slept in the home on the Washburn Road (Noble Farm). She also told of how they carried water in pails from the Caribou Stream, some one hundred yards from the house, , to be heated on the cook stove in a "boiler" or tub for washing clothes, cooking baths and all other purposes. She told how they walked from that home to school in what is now the Sincock School--probably two and one-half to three miles, sometimes arriving with sodden clothes. She told of having to stand in the corner by the stove for being late for school and feeling so sick from the heat and the smell of wet clothes.
My heart always aches a little for a little girl of 13 years left with the responsibility of cooking and cleaning for a family. She told me of scrubbing bare pine floors until they came white and clean and how bad she always felt when "the boys would come in with muddy feet" getting them dirty again. She told us of her inexperienced cooking and of how her father coming home from his work tasted and seasoned the food, and of doing the family wash by hand.
Apparently theirs was always an industrious family, because Mother told of their digging dandelion greens, a spring delicacy in this area, and selling them from door to door to the townspeople. She always chuckled when she told us of how they would wash them well in the Caribou Stream, thus keeping them crisp and filling their containers which would have held more greans if they had wilted. They also picked wild berries and she told of asking her father to "make Jennie help pick" but that Jennie was the baby and wasn't required to help. When Uncle Charles Pike came to visit our home in 1937 after being gone for many years, he remarked upon that fact and said how unfair they had been in giving all their loving attention to the baby without appreciation for Blanche's heavy burden. Knowing her sweet and loving nature, I cannot believe that my Mother ever showed or even felt any jealousy over that fact although she surely must have been very discouraged at times.
I suppose her school days ended when she took over as homemaker because her formal education ended with the eighth grade. However, her education never stopped. She was a prodigious reader and very interested in what was going on in the world.
I'm sure they must have been a loving family, because as they all grew older we could feel their affection and concern for one another. I also think they were happy people although their amusements were simple. Mother always took part in church activities and probably that is where most of their social life was spent although she did tell of skating on the Aroostook River and of having "box socials", probably in a schoolhouse.
After her father Hiram died, Blanche went to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a garment factory making underwear. The hours were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and she told of how tiring the days were spent at the sewing machine. During this time she lived with a family named Fisher with whom Annie her sister had also lived.Apparently she was treated as one of the family because she always spoke of them all as close and loved friends. She also worshiped with them at their church.
After about a year spent in Lowell, Blanche returned to Caribou and married Clyde Morgan on 26 October 1910. Clyde worked for his father, George Melvin Morgan, in the furniture store and as an embalmer and undertaker. They lived with Clyde's parents on Sweden Street in Caribou for the first two years of their married life and produced Regna Louise on 11 June 1911. They then built a house on Washburn Street with the Aroostook Valley Railroad tracks running nearly parallel with the house. Arline Blanche was born in that house on 13 June 1913. It was from that fenced-in yard on 24 May 1915, that Arline either walked through an unclosed gate or under a gap in the fence and onto those railroad tracks to be run over by the train and maimed for life. There followed a terrifying and anxious time spent tending a small paralyzed body at home and finally in Children's Hospital in Portland, Maine before they brought their baby home to learn again to walk in high laced shoes--the left one stuffed with padding in place of toes and a left hand with only one finger and thumb. After this trying time, they brought suit against the Aroostook Valley Railroad and after hearing that the brakeman and the engineer had been angry at each other and not speaking so the brakeman didn't tell the engineer he could see something on the track, they received judgement--the princely sum of $4,500.
Washburn Street was no home for them now so they built another house on Page Avenue which was home to all of us until her death. In that house I was born, Dorothy Hazel on 8 June 1919; Ruth Avis on 22 August 1921 and Marjorie Lillian on 24 January 1925.
I believe that where my mother was, was also home to her brothers and sisters and why wouldn't it have been, since she had been like a mother to them most of her life. My earliest memories were of Aunt Annie Pike Jacobs being in our home and when Aunt Annie died it really became home for Hollis Jacobs who at the age of 11 came to live with us. He lived with us the next five or six years sharing our life as the brother we never had through the lean depression years when another child to feed and clothe must have made things a little harder for my parents. I'm sure they never begrudged anything they gave to anyone. I remember the summer months through the 1930's when men and boys from all parts of the country followed the harvest hoping for work. Many times Mother fed them on the back porch of our home, sometimes as payment for odd jobs but more often because they were hungary. She would say, "I feel so sorry for that boy, so far from home and with nothing to eat."
Alda and Clara Jacobs also considered our home their home after their mother's death since they no longer had a home of their own. They would find work for awhile or spend time with Uncle William Pike's family or Aunt Jennie Farley's or some of the Jacobs family but seemed to gravitate toward our home.
Through our growing years we had many who stayed with us. Some girls from New Sweden who boarded with us while they went to high school (one paid board--$3 per week). Earl Robinson also stayed with us and went to school one year although I do not know the circumstances that brought him.
It seems there was love enough to go around because through the years they all came back to visit and were always greeted with joy and affection.
Mother's sincere religious beliefs showed in her daily life and the love she had for her family and friends flowed back to her. To me it shows in one little way--her neices, Alda Blanche Jacobs, Shirley Blanche Pike, Blanche Lillian Pike, my sister Arline Blanche (surely my father's doing), and her granddaughter, Coralie Blanche Todd.
Blanche and Clyde Morgan were members of the Free Baptist Church and when that church united with the First Baptist Church they became members of Caribou's United Baptist Church. Blanche was one of the members honored during the laying of the Cornerstone of their new edifice on High Street in Caribou during the 1950s. Many times I walked past her bedroom door as she knelt by her bed to pray before retiring. I can still see her in her long nightgown and her dark hair in a long braid down her back.
Blanche suffered her first heart attack in 1943 but recovered after a long period of tender nursing by her daughter Ruth, to carry on a fairly active life for the next ten or fifteen years. Through the late 1950s and until her death she had several smaller attacks and a slight stroke. Her indomitable spirit survived her loss of many loved ones through those years but when she lost her beloved Clyde on 22 November 1962, she seemed to lose interest in living. I joined her for lunch nearly every work day since my work as Clerk of Court is almost across the street in the County Courthouse. It seemed to me that as I ate with her in hopes to encourage her to eat, I gained weight and she got thinner. We, her daughters, asked her if she ever thought we'd call her "Littla Mama". Another heart attack came in March of 1964. Seemingly, she had recovered and her doctor had told her she could be discharged from the hospital on 6 April 1964, which was a Sunday. Thoughtful of others as she always was, she told him she would wait until Monday when her housekeeper would be back and we, her children, would not have to leave our homes to spend the night with her. She died that night while still in the hospital--6 April 1964.
Blanche was a member of the Caribou United Baptist Church for more than 50 years, she was active in church work and was a past member of the Eastern Star and of Philander Rebekah Lodge. She was an honorary member of the Caribou Garden Club.
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BLANCHE H.
1889-1964
