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Gertrude Lucinda Shumway married Frank Howard Bachelder in Hoosick Falls, New York on 11/6/1900. They were both 22 years old. They had three children: Raymond Lloyd, born 3/13/1901; Myrtle Clare, born 3/13/1908; and Frances Helen, 2/20/1922. Gertrude, my grandmother, was the daughter of Rufus Tory and Georgianna Elizabeth (Goodrich) Shumway. She was born in Athol, Mass.. Her father was very successful in real estate around Orange and Athol. At one point in time he was receiver for the White Automobile Company of Orange, that had gone into bankruptcy. He had a street in Orange, Mass. named for him. When Rufus decided to expand his real estate ventures into the market at Springfield, Mass., the 'city slickers' plucked him clean. He never did recover financially. Grandma was deaf most of her life, and she would tell the story of how her parents would attempt to make her take a medicine related to the problem (Scarlet Fever, I think) that made her go deaf. She said that they would not always be totally successful in hiding the pill in her food. I got the impression that it wasn't her favorite occupation. Grandma was agile, and quick witted. The milk in Orange, before and through the second world war, was delivered by horse and buggy from the local dairy. Apparently, prior to our visit one time, my mother had been talking to my father about the fact that that milk was not pasteurized. My grandmother gave me a glass of milk to drink and I asked "has this milk been pasteurized?". My grandmother without blinking immediately replied "Yes, drink it up and go play.". After I went out, she turned to Aunt Kate's raised eyebrows and said "The cows have been in the pasture all day.". They chuckled over that many times after, as did I, years later. Grandma was always the first person up and about, and was an excellent cook. For breakfast there was always homemade doughnuts and cream of wheat that her brother Warren called paper hangers' paste. But it was a staple in her household. Uncle Warren lived in Cranston, R.I., a suburb of Providence, and he loved to point out all the buildings in downtown Cranston that he had been the general contractor for. He didn't make it up to Orange too often in later years. Grandma was really pleased when she was fitted with her Beltone hearing aid. It was so bulky that she had to fashion a pocket for the battery pack and control on the inside of her dress at the back of the left lapel. The hearing aid would start squealing so she'd turn it down, and then when you would start talking to her, she'd say "Wait a minute.", and turn it back up. Quite a ritual. Grandpa had quite an arm waving ritual of his own to get her attention. At the dinner table, he would start his arms in a swimming motion over his head that ended up in a right hand wave cradled in the left arm while he called out loudly "Gertie!". Grandma got a present of a steel dinette set, red and white with chrome or stainless steel legs, and a drawer in the front. It was her pride and joy. That table was used for breakfast, making doughnuts, snacks and especially bed time snacks. It was also used for bridge or cribbage games. When the cards weren't going her way, she'd always listen for the nine o'clock whistle, because, "the cards always change at nine o'clock". She loved to read. One book she was quite caught up in was "Elizabeth, the Woman" by Amanda Ellis. I'm still not quite sure if I made her understand that I took freshman English from Amanda Ellis at Colorado College. By the time, I had received an autographed copy of Miss Ellis' "Rebels and Conservatives", grandma had passed away. She would have liked to see it. I don't know if she would have enjoyed the book. Grandma was always interested in the history of western Massachusetts, and on several occasions recited the events of Shays's Rebellion to me. When I and my family visited her and Grandpa just before their deaths, she told us to visit the historic district just recently renovated, similar to Jamestown, Virginia. Because of the press of time and the need to return to my job, we didn't get to visit it. Many times she would tell how the 'thank you maams' got their name. A thank you maam is a frost heave in the road, and as the buggy went over the frost heave it would bounce the young lady on to the driver's lap and he would say, "thank you maam". Western Massachusetts is rife with thank you maams. -11-
