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Aunt Nellie Goodrich, my grandfather Hutchinson's sister, who lived to be around 96 as I recall, lived in her own house on Willow Street until she was up in her eighties, then finally agreed to move into a small apartment on West Genesee near downtown where she stayed until she was over 90, when she finally moved in with her daughter, Cous.Nellie Barker. I guess Aunt Nellie lived alone for at least fifty years, maybe sixty. She was fiercely independent and when she was widowed, took up teaching and rose to principal of one of the local grammer [sic] schools. She would have Mother and me in to a meal occasionally up to thetime she was 90 or more, preparing the meal and serving it personally and asking no odds of anybody.

Cousin Lucia Crouse finally disposed of her house on West Genesee as business gradually moved outward toward her, and bought a perfectly magnificent gray-stone mansion way out on East Genesee near the city line, one of the most beautiful homes in the city. Her husband had died, leaving a few million, and she could well afford it, of course. Which reminds me that her husband, Cousin Charlie, who was a rather slightly-built man, left an expensive and extensive wardrobe, a few items of which came to me, particularly some formal clothes which I actually never had occasion to wear. I think I did wear one suit and as I recall, it was made of material that was so excellent that it would have worn indefinitely and I finally had to throw it away because it was simply out-of-date.

In a letter from Stella Talmadge, Mother's old friend in Seattle, written in 1931, giving Mother all of the details on the death in Alaska of J.C. Readman, Mother's old flame in the '90s when she visited Seattle, Stella mentions an "aunt" of Mother's out there and I think she must have been a sister of Mother's real mother and was the one who must have left Mother the property in Seattle.

Mother's friend in Brooklyn was Florence Menage, 136 Hicks St. and she was either a distant cousin or a friend from the days when Mother spent some time living in Brooklyn; I've heard her refer to having been there during the famous blizzard of, I think, 1888. But this is a good example of what I'd like to have a record of -- Mother's life in Brooklyn: why she lived there, when, what she did, etc.

When Mother was president of the Women's Alliance of May Memorial Church in 1923, she made a trip to Boston to a meeting and I find she visited Mrs. Gurden R. Fisher of Northboro who, I think was a cousin. Mother's real mother, Abbie Phelps, was from around Boston and that's where the New England side seems to fit into the picture, at least part of it. Mother also saw a lot of Aunt Sally (Miss S.L. Patrick) on the trip and stayed at the Hotel Bellevue on Beacon Street.