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156 her mother, and developed by practical experience through long periods of severe sickness in both her own and in her parents' family. For a number of years she has kept a home for teachers of the high school, of both the normal and other grades, having sometimes four in the family, and this because so few are willing to receive them. She has derived much pleasure and benefit by reading and studying with them, thus keeping in touch mentally with the active workers of the younger generation.

Mrs. Baker's reminiscences of her girlhood give interesting pictures of country life in the thirties and forties of last century. "Every daughter," she says, "had her work planned and systematized. Those were strenuous times. The family rose at five in the morning, even in winter, getting and eating breakfast by candle-light." Beside the ordinary work of housekeeping there was much to be done at special times in the course of the year. Among other things she specifies the "cider to be boiled down, barrels of apple sauce to be made for home use and for regular customers, apples to be cut and dried, cucumbers to be pickled, yeast cakes to be made and dried for the coming year, pumpkins to be cooked and dried, sausages to be made, candles to be dipped or later run in moulds."

"I remember the cooking of chickens and turkeys on the spit of the tin kitchen set before the open fire, the baking of johnny-cake on a wooden form, the first rotary stove and the pleasure of turning it. Grandfather was very busy at the shop with his loom in those early days. He wove our woollen sheets for winter use, also the material for our winter gowns. Very warm and strong it was. During vacations we were taught to braid straw, each having her stint of so many yards of braiding, and then knitting so many times round before we could go out to play." Mental diversion was sometimes happily combined with work, so that it was "not always drudgery." Then, too, there were special seasons of festivity and fun. "Thanksgiving Days were times to be looked forward to and prepared for the whole previous year. As years passed on, the tables, bountifully spread, grew larger and larger. In the evening all kinds of games were played, the father, the youngest player of all, the evening ending with singing, Bible reading, and prayer."

Considering herself primarily a home-maker, caring for husband and son, and exercising hospitality, Mrs. Baker continues in her old-time habits of reading and study. For leisure hours she finds congenial employment in making scrap-books. Of these she has "many for many purposes," and she hopes they will be pleasing and useful to the coming generation. Looking back, she says: "Certain physical and mental traits have descended through all the generations—strong constitutions, long lives, large families, habits of industry, good mental abilities, and a high standard of morals."

SABEL NORTON HOLBROOK, of Holbrook and Boston, Mass., for several years Regent of Paul Reven^ Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and now one of the tliree honorary State Regents of that society, is a native of New London, Merrimack County, N.H. Born February 14, 1841, daughter of Walter Powers Flanders and his wife, Susan Everett Greeley, she numbers among her ancestors many colonial worthies whose names are woven into the history of New England. Among them w^as Major-general Humphrey Atherton, who held many positions of honor, both civil and military, and at the time of his death, in 1661, was commander-in-chief of the colonial forces. Another was Tristram Coffin, whose descendants trace their lineage back to the Nantucket home with pride; and beside these were James Trowbridge, John Whipple, Edward Jackson, John Ward, and Ebenezer Stone, all prominent men in the early days of Newton and Cambridge. Of the fifteen ancestors under whom Mrs. Holbrook qualified for membership in the Society of Colonial Dames, nine were Deputies to the General Court. Four of her ancestors — namely, Stephen Harriman, Stephen Harriman, Jr., Etenezer Shepard, and Joseph Greeley — served in the Revolutionary War, the last two as minutemen on the alarm of the battle of Lexington.

Walter Powers Flanders was born in Warner, N.H., March 29, 1805. He died in Milwaukee, Wis., January 24, 1883. He was son of Ezra