Kate
sat in her kitchen at 4 Eaton Avenue in
Camden, enjoying a hot cup of tea, poured
from the tea kettle that seemed to ‘sing’ on
the wood-fired stove. The fire snapped
as it heated the cozy kitchen. The
only other sound was the ticking of the
clock in the front room.
Kate was
expecting her next customer for a fitting
of a brocade suit with velvet trim, and
lace-trimmed shirtwaist, which she had
stitched on the treadle sewing machine.
Kate was well-known for her
intricate hand-stitching and embroidery.
She was an accomplished seamstress with
well-to-do customers, from Camden,
Thomaston, Rockland, Waldoboro, Belfast,
Lincolnville and other places, with an
occasional customer from as far away as
Portland, making custom-made long dresses,
shawls, capes, camisoles and petticoats.
She had
learned to sew from her Irish-born mother,
Mary Jane (O’Neil) Lermond. Kate’s
mother, Mary Jane, had come to America
when she was about fourteen years of age.
Mary and her sisters had worked in the
factories, and for the elite ladies in
Massachusetts, where they learned the
skills from Mary’s mother, and from their
employers.
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Kate was born Julia
Katherine, on Aug. 30, 1870 in
Rockland, Maine where her parents,
George and Mary Jane Lermond had
settled after their marriage in
Massachusetts. When Katie, as
she was called as a child and young
woman, was in her teens, the family
had moved to Lincolnville.
She, with her younger
siblings, Fred, Maude, George,
Richard, Frankie and Bernard, lived
a care-free childhood attending the
Lamb Schoolhouse on the Searsmont
Road. Frank Levenseller was one of
her teachers. His children,
Jennie, Addie and Edgar were friends
of the Lermond family. Jennie and
Lulu Thomas, Helen, Sarah and George
Leadbetter, Lillian, Ernest and
Albert Knight, Clara Ordway, the
Higgins children and others were
also classmates.
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Katie
recalled the crisp, cold evening in 1893
that she, her brother, George, Jennie,
Addie and Edgar Levenseller, Lulu Thomas,
Helen Leadbetter, Jim Lamb, and Ralph Heal
went on a sleigh ride to Northport to
visit their friend Alice Knight, who had
served them hot tea and little cakes,
making an enjoyable evening. They
came back over the crispy snow in Papa’s
sleigh, drawn by Frank Levenseller’s
horse. The crunch of the snow and
the ringing sleigh bells were still a
pleasant memory.
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a family picnic at Lincolnville
Beach, Katie was attracted to tall,
dashing, handsome Sylvanus Spaulding
Griffin. He lived with his
family near the Beach, the youngest
of the twelve children of Peleg
Decrow and Elizabeth (Herrick)
Griffin, and was three years older
than Katie. They kept company
for some time. Sylvanus worked in
the ship yard at the Beach, and in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Katie often took the Boston Boat to
visit her many aunts, uncles and
cousins in Massachusetts.
On
one of his trips home, after a
lengthy courtship, Sylvanus gave
Katie an ultimatum, that they get
married on his next trip home, or
that he would look elsewhere for a
wife. Katie was a Catholic
girl, while Sylvanus was
Protestant. Much to the
consternation of her aunts, Katie
and Sylvanus were married on
Christmas day, 1897, in Camden, by
Rev. Fred M. Preble, Pastor
of the Baptist Church, as there
was no Catholic priest in Camden
at the time.
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The next
morning, Katie and Sylvanus planned to go
to Rockland to have a formal wedding photo
made. Sylvanus rose early as usual,
and went to the kitchen to start the
morning fire in the kitchen stove.
The coffee pot from the previous day
was on the stove shelf, with leftover
coffee and coffee grounds. He shook the
stove handle so vigorously that it rattled
the coffee pot off the shelf, which landed
on his head with the coffee grounds
dripping down his face. This is how
Katie found him when she came into the
kitchen. She could not stop
laughing. When they got to the
studio for the photo shoot, she was still
laughing. When the pictures came back, a
tiny smirk was shown on her face.
Sylvanus never saw the humor in the
event, though it could easily bring Katie
to smiles as she retold the story to the
relatives.
Katie’s aunts
were very upset that she was “living in
sin”. They arranged for Katie to
come to Massachusetts on the Boston boat
to have a blessed Catholic ceremony.
Sylvanus would have nothing of it,
so the aunts found a substitute to stand
in for him.
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In
August 1899, Katie and Sylvanus had
a son, named Leonard. Tragedy struck
when baby Leonard died at age five
months of pneumonia. A year
and a half later, in April 1902,
Katie’s younger sister, Maude died
of tuberculosis, aged twenty-nine.
In August 1902, her beloved
Irish mother, Mary, died of
tuberculosis, aged fifty-nine, and
her younger brother, Frankie, died
in October, 1902, of the dread
disease, aged twenty years.
Katie
and her father, George, were
devastated by the loss of so many
in their family. She stayed
in Lincolnville with her brother
Bernard, and her father to keep
house.
Katie
and Sylvanus became the parents of
Nancy Marie, born in Dec. 1906.
Nancy weighed five pounds at
birth. Her Aunt Nancy
(Griffin) Lyon made a tiny shirt
to help keep her warm. She
was wrapped in swaddling flannel
and put into a shoe box as a
cradle. Nancy was much-loved
by all of the family, especially
the Griffins. Katie and Sylvanus
then had a baby daughter that she
named Mary, after her mother.
The baby Mary was born and
died in 1909, a breach birth,
strangled by the umbilical cord.
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Sylvanus
worked out-of-state, mostly in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island
as a steam fitter. In 1910, he
was working in Rhode Island.
When they heard that the
Samuel Coombs house at 4 Eaton
Avenue had been for sale for a
few years, they purchased the
two-and a-half-story house, with
eight rooms, a bathroom, hot
water, with broad spacious
piazza. Katie was content
in their new home. Her
out-of-state aunts, cousins and
other relatives came on the
Boston Boat to Camden on the
Eastern Steamship Lines to
visit.
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In 1910,
Katie was called to come to Providence,
Rhode Island where Sylvanus was
dangerously ill with pneumonia. She
stayed and nursed him back to health. In
1912, her beloved youngest brother,
Bernard, died of Brights’s disease, aged
twenty-nine, ten years after his mother,
sister and brother. Bernard had been
a popular young man among his former
schoolmates and many friends.
Sylvanus,
once a rugged, healthy man, became ill
with Bright’s disease. In Jan. 1917,
at age forty-nine, he succumbed to the
disease. Katie was now the sole provider
for herself and Nancy. She kept busy
with her seamstress work. Over the years
she took in roomers in the big house.
Her Lincolnville Lermond nieces
boarded with her while they attended High
School in Camden. She had a sewing
room off the front parlor, using the
dining room for a fitting room for her
customers. The large beautiful house
was unchanged over the years, having
hardwood floors, window and door casings
with medallion trim on the doorposts.
Katie’s
brother, Fred, with his wife Edith, lived
in a large set of farm building which he
had built on Washington Street in Camden.
Her brother, Richard, and wife
Annie, lived in Lincolnville. The
brothers brought her potatoes, milk, eggs,
apples and other produce. They held
family reunions, which she attended at
Oakland Park in Rockport, and with
Sylvanus’ family, the Griffin relatives,
at Lincolnville Beach.
In the early
1930’s, one of her boarders was Leo Atkins
and his friend from Gardiner, Maine. Leo
and Nancy courted and were married in
1934. They lived on Arsenal Street
in Augusta, Me. when they first married,
where Leo worked for the Kennebec Journal.
They became the parents of two
daughters, Mary Louise and Carol Ann.
Leo
registered for the draft when World War II
broke out. Times were hard. Leo
thought that if he were drafted, he wanted
Nancy and the children settled. Kate had
invited the family to live with her.
Leo took a job at the Camden Herald
as a compositor, where he stayed until his
retirement. Three generations lived
together in the house on Eaton Avenue.
Julia
Katherine (Lermond) Griffin died April 20,
1956, aged eighty-five years, living most
of her life in the home on Eaton Avenue.
She is buried in Lincolnville Centre
with Sylvanus, babies Leonard and Mary,
her parents, and her siblings. She was
loved by all who knew her. [Kate’s
granddaughter, Carol (Atkins) Savage of N.
H., assisted with her memories in the
story of Julia Katherine (Lermond)
Griffin’s life.]
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