William Porter and Elsie Porter Reid Wolf

by John P. Reid, April 18, 1995.

These are some of my memories of my great grandfather William Porter and his
daughter Elsie Wolf. Included are a few memories of "Aunt Daisy" or Emily
Bliss. They are lumped in one narrative, because they were so interconnected
in my experience. Some hearsay is included and identified.

I have three distinct memories that would seem to be my earliest. Two are of
life in Marshall, Missouri, in 1934 when I would have been about two years
old. The other was probably immediately before this in Bridgeport,
Connecticut. I was taken to see my great-grandfather Porter. I think I
remember my great-grandmother there, so this  may have been before her
death. My picture is of a shabby Victorian house on a large lot with a dirt
driveway and a spacious kitchen.

I think this was the house Elsie grew up in. There are a number of family
stories about that period. Bill Porter was said to have had a quick temper.
They say he once threw a baked potato at Elsie when she would not stop
crying and blackened her eye. It is said, too, that Porter and his wife
spent most of their summers on a sailboat moored in Long Island Sound.
During these times, it is said Elsie cared for by Aunt Daisy.

This may also have been the site of the apocryphal cat. Supposedly the old
cat was chronically sick and was put down with chloroform. The body was
thrown in the cesspit, which every house had because Bridgeport did not
collect garbage. A few days later the cat emerged from the pit healthy and
fit. There are a number of variations on this story.

Another story says Elsie and her parents were taking my father, Jack, on a
long auto trip when he was an infant. To keep him quiet, Elsie gave him
paregoric. Her mother, not knowing this, also gave Jack paregoric. They say
he slept three days.

By the time we returned from Missouri to Long Island, Bill Porter or Grampa
(pronounced "GRAM-puh") was living with Elsie in her rooming house on
Congress St. in Bridgeport. This was a large Victorian which we were told
was left to her by George Wolf, her second husband. It had a porch around
two sides and hand-cranked doorbells, which fascinated us kids no end to the
annoyance of the adults. Bridgeport was a smokey city from industry and from
soft coal home heating. If you touched anything outdoors you got sooty, so
we were not allowed out much when we visited.

Elsie took in roomers but did not provide board. Cooking was forbidden in
the rooms. The prize roomer was a man named "Bernie," who had the front
downstairs room that had probably once been the living room. The other room
in front was a small parlor we never went into. Upstairs were two elderly
ladies. These people all had jobs, and we seldom saw them.

Down the first floor hall toward the rear of the house was Elsie's sitting
room, which doubled as her bedroom. I think there was a Murphy bed. (This
had probably once been the formal dining room.) Beyond that was a pantry and
then a large kitchen. Grampa slept in the kitchen on a folding rollaway bed
kept in the pantry during the day. He pretty much spent his day in a rocking
chair in the kitchen, though he had a vegetable garden next to the house on
the only unpaved ground on the lot.

The kitchen faucet dripped and was never fixed, even though Grampa was a
plumber. This is because Pete the cat would jump up in the sink and drink
from the drip. My mother thought this was most unsanitary. Pete was a Manx
or else just a big tomcat who had his tailed docked. He would often
disappear for days at a time, doing what tomcats do. He is definitely not
the cat of the cesspit.

There were two large bathrooms in the house, one on each floor, shared by
roomers and family alike. There must also have been unused rooms or
additional roomers, because I can not account for all the upstairs space.

The house was furnished in late Victorian or Edwardian style, with oriental
carpets, heavy drapes, overstuffed furniture, and lots of knickknacks.

We visited Elsie and Grampa often in the late '30s and early '40s. Usually
there was an additional day trip to Chester and Mabel Harper. Many summers,
the trip to Elsie's was the prelude to going to "the country."

"The country" meant a number of acres of land near Monroe, Connecticut,
where the family had cabins. Supposedly this was the remains of the family
farm (whose I never knew) that had been divided and redivided by
inheritance. The land was on a gravel road. We spent a week or two there
most summers. Usually Ann, Elsie, and we kids would stay there and Jack
would come up weekends. I am not sure how this worked, because we only had
one car.

Across from the road from the cabins was an additional parcel where Aunt
Daisy and her husband Clarence Bliss lived. This is my first memory of Aunt
Daisy. She was held in some awe by Elsie and my parents. When we called on
her, we kids had to be on super behavior. One time Ann joked in our hearing
that Aunt Daisy was so frugal she heated her tea water over the reading lamp.

On Aunt Daisy's land was a shallow well with a crank and bucket, which was
the only source of drinking water for her house and the cabins. It was
absolutely delicious water. Downhill from the well was a rectangular
artificial pond with waterlillies, huge goldfish, and a rotted-out rowboat.
We were told the bottom of the pond was quicksand that would suck under
little boys. Supposedly a horse was lost there once.

There was a barn on the property that was sold to a city couple. They
retrofitted the inside for living quarters. This was considered eccentric
and arty but very modern.

There were three cabins, called "Elsie's," "Grampa's," and "Uncle
Charlie's." We only used the first two. Uncle Charlie was a distant
relative. Some distant Porter cousins (I recall being told 5th cousins) and
their young widowed mother  used his cabin during the summer. One cousin was
diabetic and kept his insulin in a jar on a rope in Aunt Daisie's well. This
cabin was made of stone. Often the snakes had to be chased out when it was
opened for the season.

Our two cabins were wood. Each consisted of several rooms. There was no
electricity or plumbing, though there was telephone service at one time. Big
shutters covered the windows when no one was using the cabins.

Each cabin had a traditional one-holer outhouse. When the pit got full, the
outhouse was moved forward a few feet to a new pit. Wasps were a problem,
but the odor was not bad. It certainly was more acceptable to us kids than
Grandmother Harper's chemical toilet. Poison ivy was also a problem around
the outhouse. All the boys and men were supposed to urinate on the poison
ivy. This not only killed it, but kept the outhouse seat dry for the ladies.
There was also a chamberpot for night calls. This was always dumped on the
poison ivy, too.

Cooking was on kerosene stoves. Light was by kerosene lamp. There were small
built-in ice boxes in the cabins, which were used only for milk for the
boys. There were also rain barrels that collected water from the roof. This
water was used for bathing and dish washing.

Sponge bathing in the country was where we heard Elsie's saying, "First you
wash down as far as possible. Then you wash up as far as possible. Then you
wash possible."

One year Elsie and Ann decided to make wild green grape jelly. We all spent
the morning in swamps along the dirt road picking bunches of unripe grapes.
Everyone suffered from mosquito bites, Elsie especially. The jelly making
operation took days on the kerosene stove.

Often we got to the country and found Hattie and Harry Goldman using one of
the cabins. These were friends of Elsie's and were tolerated by us because
of that. I know my father did not like them. They had a nasty little dog we
kids did not like. Harry may have contributed to the cabin upkeep, however.
The Goldmans had Connecticut license plate HGHG. Vanity plates were awarded
for ten years of accident-free driving we were told.

I really can not recall what my brother Bill and I did during those one and
two week stays. (Gene would have been an infant.) I do not remember going
very far from the cabins into the meadow or scrubby woods. We certainly did
not go on the adjacent property, a farm owned by a man known to us as Oren.
Elsie told us Oren had a crazy son, and indeed the son did come to the fence
and make faces at us every so often.

There was a pit in the meadow which was supposed to be a failed attempt at
digging a well. This was glacial country and the soil was full of rocks. We
were told that Jack and his stepfather, George wolf, attempted to dig a
well. When they struck a huge boulder, they dynamited it. The result was a
crater four times the diameter and one-quarter the depth of the hole that
had been dug so far. When I got home after hearing that story, I went to the
library and read up on driven wells, but never convinced the family to use
my knowledge. Hauling buckets of water from Aunt Daisie's well was hard work.

One of my last memories of Elsie's Congress St. house was the time my
brother Bill got his tonsils out. We went to Bridgeport to have it done. He
was only allowed to eat ice cream. Elsie's ice box could not keep ice cream,
so I was sent several times a day down the steep hill of Congress St. to get
ice cream at the drug store. Bill was often asleep when I got back, and I
would have to eat the ice cream.

It was probably on this stay that I was piled into the car with Ann, Elsie,
and Grampa to visit Grampa's old plumbing shop. I was sent in alone with
orders to say, "I'm Bill Porter's oldest  great-grandson." I hated this, but
was greeted warmly. They all came out to the car to talk to Grampa and were
obviously pleased to see him.

Let me describe Elsie at this time in the view of a ten-year-old. She was
young looking for her age, blond, busty and hippy, and had very good legs.
She wore large-brimmed hats to frame her face and was a flashy dresser.
Elsie always smelled of powders and toilet waters. She was relatively
uneducated and showed it from time to time. Her speech was careful and
dignified, but there were many odd pronunciations, like "chimbely" for
"chimney."

The contrast between her and Grandmother (Mabel) Harper was a source of
wonder to me. Elsie was a flamboyant gadabout. Baba was small, bent,
white-haired, baked pies and cakes, hauled her own water from the spring,
and accompanied herself on the reed organ as she sung "Beautiful Dreamer" in
the high-pitched voice of an old woman.

Grampa was rather unremarkable in appearance. He was slender, straight, and
had a shock of unruly white hair. His beard was always stubbly. He laughed
easily and tolerated us boys, but had a reputation for being grouchy. He
would often tell stories of the old days, but these were very commonplace
and boring to us kids.

When my brother Gene was born, it was Baba (Mabel Harper) who was asked to
come help with us kids the first week or two. Elsie was miffed at this, but
my parents thought that Baba was more qualified.

Trips to Elsie's and the country were less frequent during WW II. We were
living in Radburn, New Jersey, by this time.

(Digression: After my parents returned to the East in the '60s, Jack started
to buy parcels of the "country" land from various relatives, most of whom
needed the money. Eventually suburban sprawl got closer and taxes on the
land became a burden. He put it on the market but it remained unsold for
some time. He said that when the realtor suggested dropping the price, he
told the realtor to double it instead. Supposedly, the land sold within a
month to a developer. Ann used to say Jack got some resentment from family
members who had sold him there parcels, because he made a profit on the sale.)

Near the end of the war, we moved to Santa Monica, California, and Elsie and
Grampa moved in with us shortly thereafter. I have never known the
circumstances of her giving up the Bridgeport house. I do know it no longer
exists.

Elsie got a bedroom and Grampa got the breakfast nook. A curtain was rigged
to close it off at night. He spent a lot of time there in a rocking chair,
smoking a pipe and reading pulp Westerns. Behind the house and garage was a
large chicken coop and fenced-in chicken run no longer in use. Grampa took
over the fenced-in area for a vegetable garden. He also took over one end of
the coop for his tools and supplies. He provided vegetables year-round. I
got the other end of the coop for my radio lab.

Grampa really naturalized to California and spent most nice days sitting in
the garden in the shade of the coop. He rigged a mirror and wash bowl so he
could shave in the sunlight. He said this was for his dimming eyesight, but
the fact that seven people of four generations shared one bathroom probably
had something to do with it. Though he smoked in the house (as Ann and Jack
did), he reserved his cigar smoking for the garden. The cigars were
inexpensive Red Dot brand and very foul. I tried one once and got sick,
though I smoked cigarettes by that time.

His garden was a minor disappointment to me, since I had been the vegetable
gardener in Radburn. I was told I would hurt Grampa's feelings and sense of
usefulness if I gardened too.

After gas became available at war's end, we drove into the mountains and
desert every Sunday in the '41 Packard. I do not remember Elsie being with
us too often, but Grampa was a regular. He sat in the front on the right
with Ann or one of the kids in the middle. When the fire danger caused
smoking restrictions in the mountains, he chewed tobacco in the car.

In 1947, we moved to Columbia, Missouri. Grampa got one of the four upstairs
bedrooms. A side porch was glassed in and finished for Elsie.

Elsie found work as a clerk at the Missouri Store Company, a commercial
organization that served as the book store for University of Missouri
students. (I worked there in the stock room, part time during high school
and full time one summer.) Most of the clerks were students, and she soon
was looked on as chief clerk.

Grampa must have been ailing by then, for he never vegetable gardened in
Columbia. It was a poor site for gardening anyway. He was well enough at
first to repair a toilet by unbolting it and lifting it out single-handed.
However, he soon got very frail and was having bloody bowel movements. Ann
did some nursing. One day I got home from high school and was told he had
died. Elsie was already on a train east with the body. Though he was a grand
old man and much respected by us boys, I do not recall any great surprise or
sadness. It was something we all knew was coming.

I got Grampa's room and Bill and I had separate rooms for the first time.
The room reeked of his pipe smoke for months.

After Grampa died, I remember Elsie on some of our Sunday drives. One time
my father was trying to find a farmer who was said to have some Boone County
hams for sale. (Boone County hams were locally cured hams, incredibly dry
and salty, but highly prized. A slice of Boone County ham with red raisin
gravy was always the top item on the menus of the best restaurants. Harry
Truman had to have one every Christmas.) We parked the car on the gravel
road and walked up the farmer's dirt driveway. A bull in the field was
obviously aroused by a cow, and Elsie panicked that we boys might see
something we shouldn't. She grabbed us by the arms and pulled us back toward
the car, shouting back, "Ann! Jack! We're going to have genes!)

Elsie seemed to be especially sensitive to chiggers. (Chiggers are skin
burrowing mites that cause intense itching. They are common in grass in the
Midwest and South. Natives develop some immunity after repeated exposures.)
She scratched her legs raw and got a rather serious bacterial infection.

Sometime later, Elsie applied for the job of head resident for the
newly-completed freshman women's dormitory (Johnson Hall) at the university.
She falsified her age, making herself younger, and this gave her trouble
later when she wanted to retire. She also falsified her education, saying
she graduated from Miss Porter's Finishing School. There was such an
organization, but she was referring to her time with Emily Porter (Aunt
Daisy). She managed this job very well for a number of years, keeping
control over several hundred young women and gaining much respect. The year
of the panty raids, this dorm was the only one where security was not breached. 

Elsie lived at the dormitory, of course. My parents and we boys had a home
to ourselves for the first time in a number of years. It was much enjoyed.

When the rest of the family moved to Long Beach, California, she stayed. I
was in college in Columbia by that time and married soon after. At our
wedding, Elsie advised me on all things sartorial. She even suggested I
black the soles of my shoes in case I had to kneel during the service. My
Presbyterian in-laws-to-be assured me this was unnecessary. As I recall,
Elsie was always considered the family expert on men's fashions.

Mary Jane and I visited Elsie at the dorm often. When we traded in the $25
'33 Chevrolet for a $400 used '48 Studebaker in deference to Mary Jane's
pregnancy with Paul, Elsie co-signed the loan for us.

I do not recall seeing Elsie again after we left Columbia for the Army in
1954. We kept in touch by letter and Christmas presents. Eventually she
retired and moved to a trailer in southern Florida. Her trailer roommate was
Ethel O'Donnell (sp?), a lifelong friend. Ethel and Charlie O'Donnell were a
vaudeville team known as O'Donnell and Blair. Ethel (Blair) performed in a
corset while Charlie played piano. Occasionally an arm holding a seltzer
bottle would come out of the piano and squirt them. You get the idea. The
team's last hurrah was performing in the stage and movie versions of
Helzapopin. Elsie may have traveled with them when she was young. Jack
certainly spent time as a stagehand with them.

Elsie and Ethel lived an active life for some years in Florida. They had a
gentleman friend with a car. (Elsie never learned to drive.) Eventually
Ethel died. Elsie broke a wrist (I believe) and went to a nursing home. She
died about six months later.

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