| Name |
Flora Ursula Remick [1] |
| Birth |
27 Jan 1918 |
Sculptured Rocks Road, Groton, Grafton, New Hampshire, -USA  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Note |
Jul 2008 |
Hebron Historical Society Gazette, Hebron, Grafton, New Hampshire, -USA |
- Flora Remick Braley
by Barbara Brooks
Born Flora Ursula Remick on January 27, 1918 little did the Groton, Hebron and Bristol areas ever dream what this little girl would accomplish. Having recently celebrated her 90th birthday, we felt it fitting to let our readers know some of Flora’s accomplishments.
Born at home in Groton with a nurse in attendance Flora was the 7th child of Alfred and Flora Guerney Remick. When she was 3 years old, her family moved to the house now owned by Louis Albert at the junction of Sculptured Rocks Rd. and this is where her parents ran the country store and manned the gas pumps.
Eight years separated her from her 3 older siblings, consequently Flora and her three other siblings; Warren, Mildred and Clarence made up a “younger family” of four who lived and grew up at the store. Flora was a big help to her widowed mother (Alfred had died of pneumonia when she was eleven). Always wanting to use the treadle sewing machine, Flora soon became very capable of turning out clothes and other homemade items.
With an eye towards a hope chest Flora sold LARKIN products. The prize for the most products sold was a hope chest which she earned and still uses today. This was the first of many goals she would reach.
When it was time to go to school travel was (often walking), usually horse and buggy or by sleigh. With a January birthday Flora did not start school until she was seven. She graduated from the 8th grade in 1931 and in the fall went to Bristol High School. An older sister Lillian was married and lived in Bristol. For the first year this provided Flora with a place to stay and after that she went back and forth with her sister-in-law each day.
In the ninth grade, Frances Smith Morrill became Flora’s very best friend, they remain so to this day. In 1977 they made a trip to Rota, Spain where Flora’s son-in-law was in the Naval Air Service and stationed there. Flora was thrilled to see her family and especially her five year old grand- daughter.
I asked when she met Richard Braley, Flora replied, “Well, he just lived down the road and always came into our store.” Four years her senior, Flora and Richard were married in April of 1936.
On a small plot of land on Hobart Hill Road was a workshop which was a storage area for a boat. After purchasing this piece, Richard redesigned the shop and in June of 1946 they moved in.
Flora worked hard helping Richard to support their growing family of two girls, Carol and Myrna. For six summers she worked at Journey’s End, a summer resort not only keeping house, but putting her love of sewing to work by making all the curtains and bedspreads for the cottages. Very capable and ever busy, Flora also ran the store and did the bookkeeping!
In 1946 the Superintendent of schools in Bristol hired Flora as his secretary. Pregnant with Carol she nevertheless continued to work and with her mother able to take care of the baby things worked out.
In 1952, daughter Myrna went to Washington, D.C. which was an exciting trip but she became very homesick and a call home meant that Flora had to go to Washington! Earning the money to pay for the trip Flora made her homemade bread, donuts and rolls and sold them on the Common each morning at mail time. Norton Braley’s wife and Carol accompanied her on this trip.
Manson Smith’s sugar house on Hoyt Hill was not only well known for its delicious maple syrup, but for Flora Braley’s cooking. Besides her pastries and breads and maple syrup she also made maple candy using the old fashioned molds. During July and August, Myrna worked along side her mother at the sugar house earning the money that would put her through college.
Dressing up the sugar house were curtains made by Flora. The house had ovens for their baking and the pine slab sign was Flora’s creation. It was a sad day when they discovered the sign was stolen! There were some special times when the family would rent a cottage at York Beach, Maine or a vacation trip to Florida, as well as, many family get togethers. Memories the girls treasure.
Flora spoke of her church membership, which has continued since 1934 when she has been involved with the church suppers and the Friendly Circle group, which was instrumental in starting the now popular Hebron Fair. For forty five years Flora contributed her delicious homemade donuts and coffee to the fair, making as many as four hundred at one time. Now that is a lot of donuts!
Meanwhile, Flora continued with her secretarial job at the superintendent’s office. In 1972 there were major changes and Flora’s office moved to Meredith to be part of the InterLakes school system. In 1978 Supervisory Union #4 was recreated and she moved back to Bristol where she stayed until her 1982 retirement after 36 years.
Not one to slow down Flora continued pursuing her varied interests. Taking a cake decorating class in Laconia, she became well known for her wedding, birthday and specialty cakes, even giving lessons. Some of her students were Ginny Barnard, Lil Jacques, Gail Bartlett and Carol Gillery. The albums of some of her creations leave you admiring not only her talent but her patience! For a time she would travel to Manchester to learn how to make chocolates...all given to her family and friends. Yum! Yum!
In 1983 Claudine Huckins taught Flora how to make quilts and quilt them. Twelve of the 13 she completed were given to family members, the one remaining beautiful quilt is on her bed. The quilting frame she used was made by her brother-in- law, and is a beautiful piece of work in itself. Taken out of storage only a few years ago it again was used for quilting.
Even with going to work every day and tending her garden Flora found time to make her own clothes and also for her daughters. After 36 years in the office of the Superintendent of Schools, Flora was feted with a testimonial dinner and presented with a plaque naming the white building at the Bristol elementary school for her. When I asked what accomplishment she was most proud of Flora said, “my family” which now includes six grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and another great expected in December. She also said that she has been an AVID Red Sox fan since the 1930’s. For her 90th birthday in 2008 Hebron recognized and applauded Flora as one of our most enterprising and beloved senior citizens. We are proud to have her as a resident of Hebron.
|
| Note |
Jan 2014 |
Hebron Historical Society Gazette, Hebron, Grafton, New Hampshire, -USA |
- [COLOR:1,1,1,255,255,255]FLORA REMINISCES with Ron Collins
On a rainy afternoon this past August, I had the opportunity to sit with Flora Braley and listen to her talk about her long and interesting life. Flora Ursula Remick was born on Sculptured Rocks Road in Groton on January 27, 1918 the youngest of the seven children of Alfred A. Remick and Flora B. Gurney. The house where Flora was born is still there but is now only used for storage. She was born in the left most room on the second floor with windows facing the road.
When she was three years old her parents bought and moved to the Groton Village Store which still stands as a private home. Her family ran the store for many years. The Remicks sold everything from hardware, to grain and all the everyday necessities. Flora said with a glint in her eye, “we sold ice cream”. The family had a barn beside the store where the ice was stored. The ice was cut on Spectacle Pond each winter and stored in the barn. The ice was used to keep the ice cream cold throughout the summer months. That was more than seventy years ago and Flora still remembers that ice cream fondly.
Her father, Alfred, died on Flora’s birthday in 1929 when Flora was eleven years old. Her mother and brother carried on running the store until 1941. The growing use of automobiles allowed people to drive to Plymouth to shop and that forced the store to close. Her mother sold the store in the 1940’s and the new owners tried to continue running the store but it eventually closed for good.
When she was little and living at the store she remembers that in the evening around sunset the local men would come to the store and she was told to leave because of the bad language they used. The store had wooden bins for hardware, and the bins had wooden covers upon which the men would sit as they solved the world’s problems. During the hurricane of 1938 the canopy that was over the store gas pumps was ripped off and tossed completely over the house into the back yard.
She didn’t start school until she was seven years old. The one-room school house on Sculptured Rocks Road (still there just past the baseball field on the opposite side of the road) was about a half a mile away from the store and her parents didn’t think it was safe for her to walk there. But at seven she started. She was so good at learning that she was only in first grade for a short time and was then moved to the second grade. When she finished fourth grade she was moved into sixth grade and graduated from eighth grade at age thirteen.
Next door to her school lived her grandfather. He was a house painter who was also an artist. When he painted the inside of a house he would find an appropriate spot and paint something artistic. One home he painted was the home of Richard Braley’s family, and next to the pantry door he painted a bunch of flowers. She doesn’t know if the flower painting is still there or not. Her grandfather’s house stands on Sculptured Rocks Road. Across from it he had a barn and paint shop. Only the chimney of the paint shop is standing. We took a ride to Sculptured Rocks Road so Flora could point out the houses, store, school and area of her youth. “All this was open and not over- grown like it is today,” she says.
Flora and her future husband Richard Braley knew each other from an early age. Richard was five years older than Flora. They practically lived around the corner from each other. She was in the Groton store and Richard’s family lived in the house on Groton Road just west of the Pratt Cemetery and on the same side of the road. At the time the Braley home was the first house west of the cemetery but today it is the second house as another house was built in between. Flora’s husband, Richard Nelson Braley, was born on October 25, 1913 on Hobart Hill Road in Hebron. Richard was the son of Ned Henry Braley and Bertha Melina Waite. He died at age ninety five on November 30, 2008. Flora and Richard were married on April 11, 1936, when Flora was eighteen years old.
When Flora was fifteen she took a job as housekeeper and cook for a Mrs. Smith, a retired opera singer, who had rented the house next to the Church (currently owned by the Sycamores). “I was chief cook and bottle washer,” she says. But when Mrs. Smith had guests Flora was not allowed into the living room and had to stay in the back out of sight. She slept upstairs in the attic. Her room had a small window that looked out onto the church. She says she could clearly hear the Saturday night dances at the church, and once, because she knew her brother Warren and his wife Rachel were there, she snuck over to the dance and had one dance with Richard.
In the last Hebron Historical Society Gazette there was a letter written about the Saturday night dance at the church in the 1930’s. Flora’s recollection of those dances was a little different from what was in that letter. For example, she doesn’t think Syd Huckins was ever a policeman in Hebron, and she thinks that Frank Hobart was the fiddle player.
Well, back to her experience working for Mrs. Smith. She said that you entered the house from the rear by this long walk way that led into the kitchen. There was no running water. There was a rock walled well. You lowered a bucket down to fill it and then cranked it back up. There was also no refrigeration so anything that needed to stay cool was placed in the bucket and kept down in the well where it was cool. If you continued through the kitchen back into another hallway and turned left you came to the 3-holer that was installed in the house.
In 1936 she and Richard Braley married and moved into the house on Mayhew Turnpike that still sits in front of where the Lucarellis live today. Later that same year their first daughter, Myrna, was born premature and only weighed a little over three pounds. The doctor in Bristol who examined Flora during her pregnancy told her she had to go the hospital even though she was not due for some time. He was so concerned that he drove her to the Franklin Hospital and soon after Myrna was born. Myrna spent her first six weeks in an incubator in the Franklin Hospital.
During World War II, Richard worked as a miner in the Groton mica mines off of North Groton Road. Mica was considered a strategic material needed to build Army radios and so Richard was not drafted.
During the war Flora and Richard had bought some property on Hobart Hill Road just up the hill and across the street from where Richard was born. The property was two parcels and one parcel had a cellar left from when an earlier house burnt, the other parcel had a small workshop building on it. They planned on using the cellar and building a home on it. But at war’s end the Concord family who owned the house they were renting wanted to be able to use it for summer vacations, and so Flora and Richard had to move. Given how fast they had to move they decided to quickly convert the workshop into a house. Today the old workshop is all but the eastern eight feet of the front rooms of Flora’s home. Richard’s father was a mason and built the fireplace for Flora and Richard, but Richard did the inside fireplace front himself.
Flora’s second and last child, a daughter Carol, was born in 1947.
In 1946 she took a job that was to last her for thirty six years. She became the secretary for the Superintendent of the Newfound Area Schools. Originally the school system was called Supervisory Union #4. In the 1970’s the Newfound schools were merged with the Sandwich Interlake schools and the Superintendent’s office was moved to Meredith. Flora had to drive twenty six miles one way to work every day for six years until the Newfound schools and Superintendent’s office was moved back to Bristol. She says she enjoyed all but the few years in Meredith under a new and incompetent Superintendent. She retired in 1982.
During those years working in an office Flora did not stop doing other things. She was a seamstress and baker as well. Once when she was working in the Meredith office she found some fabric in a store, bought it and took it home. That night she made a dress from the fabric and wore it to work the next day.
In April 1951 Flora is listed as an editor of the Parish Press newspaper that was issued by the Hebron Congregational Church, and in the June 1953 she is listed as a reporter for the same paper.
She also took cake decorating lessons in Laconia with two of her lady friends. She followed that up by taking two Master Cake Decorating classes. Finally, she took a private class from the lady who taught the Master classes. The teacher had a myna bird that said “Hi” every time someone came in the door.
After that Flora made and sold hundreds of cakes and didn’t stop making cakes until she was eighty years old. That wasn’t all she baked.
For years Flora made donuts for sale at the Hebron Fair, and she had a bakery at Manson Smith’s sugar house that sat on top of Hoyt Hill. Everyone I know who has eaten Flora’s donuts says they are the best they ever had. For years I begged Flora for her recipe. To no avail. Then at Howard Oedel’s ninetieth birthday party (she was 93 at the time) I walked Flora to her car and as we walked she said to me that she would teach me how to make donuts. So, the next week I picked her up and in my kitchen we made donuts together. I knew I was watching a Master. Every step was exact. When she cut the donuts after rolling out the dough with less effort than you would believe, there was not one piece of dough left over. The donuts were wonderful. She swore me to never give her recipe to anyone else. So don’t ask for it. [:COLOR]
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| Name |
Flora Braley [1] |
| Death |
23 Feb 2014 |
Speare Memorial Hospital, Plymouth, Grafton, New Hampshire, -USA |
| Burial |
Hebron Village Cemetery, Hebron, Grafton, New Hampshire, -USA |
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HenryAFordT
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FloraRemickT
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FloraRemickT
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| Person ID |
I8939 |
HHTT |
| Last Modified |
1 Jul 2022 |
1918 - 2014 (96 years)
