Biography |
- Reminiscences of Ruth Chapin Hill
THE TWINS
The twins were little devils multiplied by 2.
The story was told that in one of the front bedrooms there was a Victorian bed with a high headboard. The twins would climb up on top of the headboard, one on each side, and watch their mother make the bed. Maybe there were more beds like that in other bedrooms, I don't know.
They were 14 when I was born. When I was little, the story was that they would bring out old mattresses and romp with me in the back yard.
Old Miss Clinger (Mary H. Clinger) lived next door. On a number of occasions she told my mother that Mother was an unnatural mother to let the twins manhandle me the way they did. Miss Clinger would go in her house when the twins were romping with me, she couldn't stand to watch for fear something would happen to me.
Mother told me that story. She apparently thought it was amusing. It disturbed me. My mother had already had one miscarriage, she was up in years, probably would have no other children. How could she be so unconcerned about the welfare of her only child?
But then I was glad she didn't take Miss Clinger's comments to heart. I adored the twins and thoroughly enjoyed our rough games! I'm so glad Mother didn't stop them.
We lived at the Hills' for some period of time after The Holland Tea Room went bankrupt.
Mother often told me that I had been given gifts as a baby: a wide gold wedding ring (from where I have no idea) and an $18 gold piece. Both were stolen while we lived at the Hills'. Mother always suspected they were taken by one of the twins or by one of their friends who were constantly in and out of the house.
When Betty told them they were the reason their sister, Anna, wouldn't invite Bob Baker in after a date, they reminisced about other things. Among those things were that they used to go up to the attic so they could look down into the Clinger bathroom next door, watch Mary and her sister, Bec (Rebecca), take baths.
After those early years, I have no clear memories of the twins until they were grown.
When they were in high school, the teachers solved the problem of not being able to tell them apart by putting them in separate classes. The twins solved their own problems by covering for each other, the one good in history went to both history classes, the one good in math went to both math classes. The teachers eventually caught on to their antics and put them both back in the same class.
I remember Had (Harry) being in the service. I realize now it was the National Guard. I remember him in uniform, jodhpurs and boots. Handsome and exciting. I think he was an officer, but I don't know that for sure. He was out of the service when World War II broke out.
He eloped and married Sarah Lins (Sally) and upon their return they lived at the Hill house for a number of years. Tom was born while they lived there. I have no memory of JoAnn there.
Eventually they moved out, rented a number of different houses until they returned to one side of the Hill house. They were there in 1970 when my mother died.
JAMES OSBORNE HILL (Ob)
Named for Grandmother's doctor, Dr. James Osborn.
When Mother, Dad, and I lived in Sharon Hill (PA, southwest of Philadelphia), Ob was working in Philadelphia, starting training with the Woolworth Company, where Dad worked. He and Jim Edwards (later a Woolworth supervisor) rented and lived in the attic of the house.
Mother told the story that she and Dad would often fall asleep during the evening, Ob and Jim would come home and find them. Mother and Dad would often listen to the radio during the evening, a program that played records dedicated to particular people. One evening a song was played to honor "the horizontal Hills"!
I don't remember Ob's first wife, Myrtle, Shirley's mother.
I know my parents didn't particularly like her. They saw her as a grasping young woman, busy buying things constantly, demanding things her friends owned regardless of Ob's income, running Ob into debt.
Sometime after we moved to Westfield, New Jersey, in 1932, I remember Seth (my father) on the phone with his brother Laurence. Ob had applied for a job on which he needed to be bonded. He had called Seth to ask if he would loan Ob the money for the bond. The two eldest brothers were conferring on how they could raise the money to help Ob.
Seth and Laurence managed to come up with the bond money between them, I have no idea how much or how they did it. They also agreed that they would not turn the money over to Ob. They feared Myrtle, who pretty much got her way, would get hold of it and spend it on herself. They agreed that they would pay the bond directly, bypassing Ob. That's what Ob was told.
Ob refused. He didn't get the job.
Ob and Myrtle divorced.
In the early 1940's Dad and I were going to Milton by train, which meant we had to not only change trains in Philadelphia, but also change stations. Ob met us there and introduced us to Eleanor, who would become his second wife. Dad and I were both impressed with her on that short meeting.
In World War II Ob went in the service. He served as a medic in the Phillippines, but did not see combat.
Eleanor visited in Milton often in those years, apparentiy she didn't get along with her own family out in Butler.
When I was in college, I remember visiting in Milton when Ob was first home and there with Eleanor. He wanted to show me his photo album from the Phillippines. I wanted to see it, after all he was my uncle and he had served in that distant place. We sat side by side on the sofa and looked through the album while Ob explained the various pictures.
Eleanor entered the room and deliberately came over and forced herself between us! She was totally possessive of Ob, jealous even of his niece. I was annoyed, I couldn't see much of Ob's pictures across Eleanor. At the same time I was amused by her jackass behavior.
After Eleanor's death, Ob married again. Ruth. Several family members criticized Ruth for supposedly spending more of Ob's money, but I saw it that she was making life pleasant for him in his later years. He needed some coddling after Eleanor.
|