2 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



Our family numbered five children, one girl and four boys, one of whom 

 (a boy, Edwin) died in infancy. My sister, Harriet Emma, taught school 

 for a number of years and later married a farmer. She died suddenly of 

 pneumonia, contracted in attending a sick brother, April 2, 1900, in her 

 54th year. My two brothers, Edgar, a moulder by trade, and Irving, a 

 farmer, are still (August, 1916), living, the latter at the old homestead in 

 Springfield. 



My early training was rigidly puritanical. My parents were both 

 members of the Congregational church, and strict in their religious ob- 

 servances. Family prayers invariably followed breakfast, and also closed 

 the routine of Sunday, all the religious requirements of the day being strictly 

 observed. 



My earliest recollections are naturally associated with the surroundings 

 of my birthplace on the old farm, situated on a hill about a mile and a half 

 east of the then thickly settled part of Springfield, known as the Watershops, 

 where the United States Government has for more than a century carried 

 on the manufacture of fire-arms. The family home was a large two-story 

 square-roofed house, at that time innocent of paint and unshaded by trees. 

 One of the pleasantest remembrances of my younger days is of helping my 

 father plant the row of maples and elms which long since became the promi- 

 nent feature of the road frontage of the farm, and in recovering and painting 

 the house. We were not crowded by neighbors, the nearest residence on 

 the west being half a mile away, and there was only one house within half 

 a mile to the eastward. Subsequently others much nearer were built in. 

 both directions, the lonely country road has become Allen Street, and a 

 trolley car line has been projected to connect the rapidly extending, suburbs 

 with the business portion of the city. 



Dandelions and daisies and other wild flowers were early attractions, 

 the profuse gathering of which at an early age led my elders, and particularly 

 my mother, to predict that when the toddling youngster grew up he would 

 favor the profession of medicine, and I was often facetiously dubbed " Dr. 

 Sykes," in allusion to our then family physician, an herb-doctor of local 

 reputation. In due time I was assigned a share in the household chores, and 

 trained to perform the allotted tasks with promptness and care. 



The nearest schoolhouse was a mile distant, of the conventional red 

 type, situated as usual on the crest of a hill. In summer the school was 

 taught by a schoolmistress, while the winter session was conducted by a 

 schoolmaster selected for his ability to keep the larger boys in order as well 

 as to teach the "three Rs." Some years later a schoolmistress was em- 

 ployed for both the winter and summer sessions. In these days the services 

 of boys of even six and seven years were considered too valuable for farm- 



