An autobiography
BERNICE C. LOTHROP
I was born in the Homeopathic Hospital( later Mass, Memorial, and now the University Hospital) on Sept. 27, 1917. My parents at that time lived in the Meeting House Hill section of Dorchester, very near St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church and the First Parish Church, My father, John Ezra Lothrop, the oldest boy and second child in a family of ten, was born in Stone ham, Mass. My mother, Amy Neumann Lothrop, was born in Woburn, Mass., the oldest girl and second child in a family of six. Both parents had to go to work early, to help earn money to support the younger ones. Family roots go back mostly to England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. Two Lothrop brothers came over from England in 1634 and landed at Barnstable, Mass. My father always joked that one became rich and one was poor- we were descended from the poor one, the minister. The name, in Old English, means "low thorp" or "low village".
My brother, John Winston, fourteen months younger than me, was shy and sickly in his very young days, but grew up to be healthy and active in school, church and neighborhood goings-on. He went to college to become an industrial arts teacher, but disliked teaching. After one year at Arlington High, he left and worked in the printing business, married, and answered a newspaper ad for a job at Polaroid. He worked there for about 40 years, mostly as "Research Machinist Assigned to Dr. Land"- helping, make models for new inventions and using his electricity, sheet metal, machine shop, and woodworking(industrial arts specialties) in the job. He is now retired, happy working on his antique cars, and living in Windham, N.H. He, and his wife, Annabel, see their four children - in Maine, Hew Hampshire,' Texas and Germany -yearly or oftener. He was sent to Scotland by Polaroid several summers to make waterproof containers for Polaroid cameras in the search for the Loch Ness monster!
My sister Amy or "Sally", three years younger than me, had a business-school education, but is also retired from Polaroid, where she was Chief Camera Repairman. One of her chief assignments was being sent to Japan for eleven weeks, to help workers there write a repair manual. She and an incapacitated friend, a former chemist at Polaroid, Phoebe Jordan, had a 5-room house built for them in Sebring, Florida.
After attending the John Marshall School (with Mary Milne and Muriel Davis) and the Grover Cleveland School. I attended and graduated from Dorchester High School for Girls(the yellow brick building just across the street from Second Church). In a five-minute "guidance" interview in my Senior year, the counsellor, Miss Shepherd, said, "You had an 'A' in sewing-why don't you go to Framingham State?" When I explained that, in those depression days, my father could hardly give me a nickel for transportation on cold days, or money for fabric to make a dress in sewing class( we had to work on embroidered sleeves for the queenly headmaster's special clothes, if we didn't have .our own ? fabric;, she suggested Boston Clerical School, a business training school that was free to residents of Boston. After the 3-year secretarial course and two part-time jobs, I was hired from the Civil Service list as a Jr. Clerk and Stenographer at the M.D.C. Six years later, with much experience in purchasing and accounts payable, I joined the Coast Guard Women's Reserve: SPARS. My eighteen months' service, as an Apprentice Seaman and as a yeoman, was all spent in Florida? West Palm Beach, Miami, Tampa and St. Pete.
Then back to Boston for one year at Stenotype (machine shorthand, used for court reporting) school, followed by a delightful year and a half as secretary to the Advertising Manager at Walter Baker Chocolate and Cocoa Division, in Dorchester Lower Mills. Finally, at age 31 I was accepted as a freshman at Simmons College in Boston under the G.I. Bill.
After graduation I taught at Simmons for five years, and earned a Master's degree from Columbia University in four summers. Then came two years at the Boston Statler Hilton as a food supervisor, mostly working nights and week-ends; five years as a textbook editor (English and home economics books) at D.C.Heath and Co, - now a part of Raytheon} and fourteen months of selling gourmet-type food products to schools and restaurants in New England- with my first car. My last job before early retirement was teaching, mostly Special Education majors and nurses, at Fitchburg State College for eleven years.
Neither parent was particularly religious, although my mother had attended Unitarian-Universalist Sunday School when she lived with an aunt after her father died, from about age 10-15. My father never went to church, but said they were not allowed to play cards at home. Of my 31 cousins, 7 are Roman Catholic, I Jewish, 1 Mormon and the rest Protestant. When I was five, I was invited by a 4 1/2-year-old neighbor to attend Central Congregational :Church Sunday School with her. I attended Sunday School, Jr., and Intermediate Christian Endeavor, Loyal Temperance Legion, Girl Scouts, and the choir there. I joined the Church on Maunday Thursday at age sixteen, taught Sunday School, and was Church clerk there for about its last ten years, until Central merged with Second Church in February,1973. I was baptized, too, in 1933? when my brother and I joined the Church. Dr. Albert Schweitzer is one of my favorite religious, and many-faceted, people.
Hobbies seem to run to collecting! cook-books ( over 2,500)? postcards, stamps, a few dolls and coins. I never seem to have time for sorting and enjoying the "things". Travel, photography, and crafts (silversmithing, embroidery, stained glass, leatherwork) are other hobbies I have enjoyed. I have crossed the U.S.A., or Canada three or four times, by bus, train, and driving. And I have driven to Pennsylvania, Florida, Chicago, Montreal and many other northeastern states and cities. Also, I have been to Europe three times, during my working days, by five different ships. No flying yet! Scotland, France, England, Switzerland and Finland were all favorite countries and places where I visited friends in their homes. If I had to choose one, I guess, it would be Switzerland, partly because of the wonderful couple I knew there, and because of the Girl Scout Chalet in Adelboden. Millicent Townsend and I drove to Dallas and Mexico in 1964. Interesting to see, but Mexico was not among my favorite places.
Camp Andover was a pleasant two-week experience in my young life, when I was 13, and later I went week-ends to work with Girl Scout Brownies at Camp Wheaton Byers in Waltham and a summer or two at the New Haven Girl Scout camp in Connecticut.
For the last five years my vacation has been a week at Elderhostel - an interesting, non-credit program of three courses, with meals and recreation, at any of about 400 colleges around the world. So far I have been to Gwynnedd, Pa., Chicopee, Ma., Henniker, N.H., Providence, R.I., and Alfred, Maine.
Right now I am trying to spend two full days a week with my mother's younger sister in Springfield. She is 89, and probably has Alzheimer's Disease, but doesn't want to go into a nursing home yet. She lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment, has a home health aide, and a; physical therapist comes one day a week.
For most of my life I lived in Dorchester. In 1965 I took a room in Fitchburg (to be near the college) but kept my Dorchester apartment. In 1966 I moved up to West Townsend, about fifty miles from Boston. Usually I spend Saturday night with a friend in Milton, so I can get to Second Church regularly.
441 Main Street
P.O. Box 212
West Townsend, Ma. 0l4?4.