Everett and Ethel are my great-grandparents. I was not fortunate enough to meet them as they died before I was born. They lived during hard times, and their story reflects the difficulties of their lives.
 |
| From Pictures |
They were married in Hanover, MA by Melvin S. Nash, clergyman, on May 1, 1906. Everett was 21 years old and Ethel was only 18 years old. I am not sure how they met; my grandmother never spoke of her mother or father, and I did not have the interest to ask when she was alive. Even if my grandmother were still living, I am not sure I would even now have the courage to ask her about her parents, as I always felt there was this hush about them. My mother does speak sometimes of her grandmother Ethel, always praising how she was such a hard worker, that she managed a farm and her family mostly by herself.
At the time of their marriage, Ethel was living in Norwell, MA and Everett was living in the neighboring town of Rockland, MA. As I mentioned above, I am not sure how Everett and Ethel met. The only connection I have found is that both Ethel's father and Everett were shoe workers; which was very common during this time in MA. Ethel's father most likely worked in Norwell or a neighboring town. In 1902, four years before their marriage, Everett was living in Hanover, which is close to Norwell. Perhaps Ethel's father and Everett worked together and that is how he met Ethel.
I knew I had some additional information on Everett from family papers I have in my file that my mother gave me a while back. Looking through these files, I found a piece of paper which looks like it came from, or was photocopied from, a small book. It must have been from a book written for, or about, the Emerson Shoe Company. The Chaper title from the page I have is "Who's Who in the Factory", and on the top of the page is handwritten 1918. The subtitle of the chapter is "Everett L. Torrey, Dressing Department". The entire page is written about Everett. I wish I had a copy of the entire book or pamphlet, but I am happy to at least have this page about my great-grandfather. I did a quick search on google books for the book, but had no luck. From this excerpt, I did learn that Everett, at the age of 14 (around 1898), worked for the J. E French Company in Rockland, MA. If the handwritten date on the paper is correct, Everett worked at J E French until 1905, as the article states he left there 13 years ago to work for Emerson Shoe Company in Rockland, MA. Maybe Arthur Stoddard, Ethel's father, was also working at J E French, as his mother-in-law was a French. I will have to see if Lydia French was connected to J E French, which would make this scenerio more likely. I did a quick search on who J E French may have been, but I did not find any additional information. There does not seem to be a J E French In Lydia's immediate family tree.
 |
| From Pictures |
About two years after their marriage, Ethel and Everett had a son, born March 9, 1908. Unfortunately, they also experienced their first loss, as the child was born ill with kidney problems and died 6 days after he was born. He remained unnamed, and is buried with Ethel and Everett as "baby boy". The cause of death on his certificate from familysearch.org states he died of uremia.
Their next son, Kenneth, was born in June 1909. He stayed in the Norwell and Weymouth area until his death in 1973. I do not have a record of any children that he and his wife had, I will have to ask my mother to confirm.
After Kenneth, another unnamed son was born; this time prematurely, in December of 1910. The death record shows he died of atelectasis, collapse of a lung. He died the day he was born, December 21, 1910; which would become a significant date for this family. Three of Everett and Ethel's children died on December the 21st, including my grandmother. Also, another close person to my grandmother, her husband's sister, (we called her Auntie), also died on December 21st.
Getting back to Ethel and Everett, they had their 4th son (second son that lived past infancy), Linwood (aka Ben). Linwood also stayed close to home in Massachusetts throughout his life. The Social Security Death Index states he lived in Norwell, MA when he died in 1979. I do not have any information on a spouse or possible children for Linwood.
Some months after Ben was born Ethel experienced more grief in her life. Her sister, Carrie, at the age of 23, committed suicide in November of 1913. I am sure this was difficult for Ethel to deal with. The newspaper article that I found on the matter explained Carrie was having some difficulty with her students in Brockton, MA, which led her to committ suicide. A later article discounts this theory saying 300 students attended a memorial for Carrie. The article states that Carrie committed suicide by gas inhalation. According to the 1910 census, Carrie was living with her parents in Norwell on High Street. I am not sure if Carrie was living there three years later at the time of her suicide. Ethel's other sister, Nellie, also lived on High Street with her husband and family. At that time, Ethel and Everett were living close in Norwell on Main Street.
According to Everett's WWI draft registration card, by 1918, Ethel and Everett had moved to High Street in Norwell also. The 1920 Census enumerates Ethel and Everett, Ethel's sister Nellie and family, and Ethel's parents all on High Street living next to each other. Ethel and Everett had not had any more children up to this point after having Ben in 1913; perhaps she was trying to deal with the loss of her sister. In 1921 however, they had their first daughter, Ruth. Ruth is one of my grandmother's siblings that I do remember. We would visit her and her husband in Duxbury near the beach when I was younger. They had two children, but they were older by the time I remember Ruth and John, and I did not know their children. Ruth died from a car accident with her husband on that ominous day of December 21, 1994.
 |
| From Pictures |
Ethel and Everett had a 5th son, Russell, who also stayed close to home. His obituary of 2006 states he was from Norwell, MA. Russell was married, and had at least three children who stayed close to the Norwell area, according to his obituary.
Their next and final son, Arthur, was born in 1926. He was the only child that moved out of Massachusetts to New Hampshire. He was married and had at least one child, who I have spoken to through email. She had bought and was living in Ethel's house on High Street until 2001. The Social Security Death Index has her father Arthur Torrey's death in Nashua, NH. He died on December 23, 1995, only a couple of days after the infamous December 21st date!
The last child Ethel and Everett had was my grandmother, Helen, in 1929. Ethel was 41 years old, Everett was 45 when they had her. Soon after my grandmother was born, her father Everett moved to Millford, MA. Perhaps one of the reasons that my grandmother never talked about her father was that she really did not know him. The census records show that he was living in Millford as a boarder working in a shoe factory in 1930. Ethel and all her children were still living in Norwell at this time with her father, Arthur on High Street. My grandmother was only 1 year old at this time. It was obviously a tough time during this period with the stock market crash and the depression, so Everett probably went looking for work wherever he could find it.
I am not sure if Everett came back to visit and support his family, but I am sure it was a very difficult time for Ethel and her children. I have been told that she eventually had to sell off most of her family farm in Norwell to support herself. I will want to check the deed records to see whose land it originally was before Ethel was there and if she did sell some of it off. My mother remembers visiting her grandmother Ethel, along with some unmarried older women who lived next door. My mother believes these women were Ethel's sisters. As mentioned above, her sister Carrie had died in 1913. One of the women could have been Nellie, although she was married with at least 7 children. At the time my mother would have visited though, her husband could have passed and her children moved away; therefore, my mother may have assumed she was an umarried woman. The women could also have been some of Nellie's daughters, so they would have been my grandmother Helen's cousins. About 20 years before my mother was born, the 1930 census shows that Nellie and her husband were living next door to Ethel and their farther Arthur. I do not recognize the other names neighboring them.
 |
| From Pictures |
It was fortunate that Ethel's father and sister were so close, as she would soon need their support when her husband, Everett, committs suicide in 1938. I found some conflicting information about the location of Everett's death. The death certificate states he hung himself near his home on High Street in Norwell, but the body was not found for about 4 months. Another newspaper article states his body was found under a tree in Saylesville, RI. I cannot find a connection of him to that area of Rhode Island. If he was still living in Milford, MA at this time, Saylesvill, RI is about 25 miles from there. Everett did have a sister and a brother living in Rhode Island in 1930, but about 18 miles away in Warwick, RI. I am not sure how to proceed to find the most accurate information on Everett's death.
 |
| From Pictures |
Ethel lived for another 26 years after her husband Everett died. She stayed on High Street in Norwell, MA until her death in 1964. Ethel was buried with her husband at the Washington Street Cemetery, along with three of her sons.
 |
| From Pictures |
To do list:
1. Find deeds to farm on high street in Norwell to see how land changed hands. Who bought the land first.
2. Find more about Everett's death location.
3. Fix picture of Ethel's 75th birthday
4. Find more living cousins - nellies children and grandchildren.
