Cora Hyde Hale

A LETTER about Cora Hale’s quilts, January 5, 2013, from Don Woodworth

My dear daughter,

Cora, Nana Hale, was my mother’s mother. Mom revered her and admired her. In the pictures, you will see that Cora often took a stance with her fists on hips and her elbows out, a posture Mom read as a sign of her watchfulness, determination, and strength. From her, Mom adopted that sense of a woman’s role and shaped it to her own ends. 

Cora worked for a long time (perhaps 1902 to 1930) as a seamstress and clerk in the Dry Goods department at Oscar Lougee’s Department Store in Laconia. I am sure it was there that she bought the material for the quilt you asked about, selecting among many bolts of fabric. We can be confident she made a good many quilts over the years, most of them hand-stitched.

Cora Levinia Hyde was born 10 July 1879 in Sutton, Vermont, to Horace Hazen Hyde and Caroline (Carrie) (Provenchar-dit-Belville) Hyde. She was named Levinia for her grandmother, Lovina (Calley) Hyde. Cora was reared with brothers and sisters, and once they had their own families, they often visited in Laconia and Bristol, New Hampshire and Hartford and Bethel, Vermont. (I make that point to emphasize that families at the time lived -- as their ancestors did – in towns and farms close enough for frequent visits.) 

She married 8 March 1897 in Laconia, N.H., Leon Paxton Hale, employed at the Laconia Car Company where railroad and trolley cars were made. He was a machinist, and in one report, worked in the brass foundry, probably grinding the rough edges left by the molds and polishing the pieces that would be displayed in the cars. 

Leon was a handsome and even dashing man. He brought humor, optimism, and a passion for life that came down to his children, important balance for his wife’s serious side. He was a snare drummer like his grandfather, Thomas J. Hale, the Civil War drummer who kept the cadence in the New Hampshire Fourth and Ninth Regiments. Leon was photographed in 1899 with the Pease City Band, behind the bass drum but holding drumsticks where they could be seen.

Leon at the far right in a photograph published in The Laconian, 1899

Cora and Leon had Eva in 1896 and Edward in 1899, and after 10 years, Leoine was born (November 21, 1909). Edward promised to take care of Leoine when he heard his parents were worried about caring for her. His daughter Edwyna said he was true to his word, taking time from his own play to be with her. 

Cora’s father-in-law, Edward D. Hale, worked in these years as a machinist, work that allowed him to rear a family of six and have the pleasures of a boat, an old in-board motorboat that he let Leon run on Lake Winnisquam. By one report, he had a camp at the head of the lake east of Loon Island, and in 1915 the family was photographed on the shore.

Her sister Lottie died in January 1913, and the remaining three sisters, Cora, Maude, and Flossie each took a child. Cora and Leon adopted Gladys Lottie Cote, daughter of Fred and Lottie Cote. Leoine, close to four, now had a sister, one who was said to be demanding and unhappy, a challenge for Cora and Leon, and sometimes for Leoine, too, I suppose.

Cora and Leon were later called upon to raise Gladys’ only child, Leon Richard (Dickie) Pickford, and moved to Pennacook (near Concord) to live on the farm with Eva and Roy Buzzell. Leon died in 1936, and at Cora’s death (January 27, 1945), Eva “took to raising Dick” as Roy said later, though it strikes me that she must have shared with Cora the responsibility much earlier. The farm was a family operation with cows to milk and feed,, land to prepare for planting, and crops to can and store. Since Roy ran a rural delivery route and Eva was a clerk for the telephone company, they had more work than one likes to imagine. But Roy was a loving man who watched out for Dickie, I am sure, and, as he told me, “kept a fire in Ma Hale’s room.”

Through the 1930s, my parents drove to the farm, an hour south of Laconia on country roads, but I was too young to remember much about those visits, and at times may have been left with a babysitter. By 1942, the war brought gas rationing and such trips were more difficult to arrange. So I have but few memories of the farm, of Dickie, and of Nana Hale. Perhaps to make up for those losses, I have been saving photographs and writing more. I am very pleased you have the quilt and will enjoy it.

Love, Dad