December 15, 1942 - Tuesday - 80 years ago today

-- See previous post for the first part of this story --

Mary McLaughlin - After HS Graduation - Summer Work and College

After high school, Mary learned of a summer job in the New Hampshire mountains, where she worked until attending Lowell Teachers College (now U Mass-Lowell) in the fall.

Mary:

When Colleen and I were seniors, Mr. Davis, our math teacher, told us about the Rosebrook Inn in New Hampshire where we could get summer jobs. We had enrolled in Lowell Teachers College and were to start in the fall.  Irene had enrolled too and already had her job for the summer.  

Colleen and I took the train to Whitefield, N.H. and were met and taken to Rosebrook Inn in Twin Mountain which was a very small town about four miles from Mt. Washington.  Colleen was to be a waitress and I was to be the laundress.  There were five other girls working there.  We all lived in rooms over the garage behind the inn.  We got along well and had fun together.

There was not a lot to do in Twin Mountain.  There was roller skating two nights a week and dancing one night.  So we danced and skated with the Twin Mountain boys, many of whom seemed to be named Monahan.

 

 Mary returned to the Rosebrook Inn the next summer, this time as a waitress rather than a laundress.  Time changes things greatly; when she visited the area in the late 90's, she could no longer locate the inn.  Below is a link to a postcard that shows the inn as it was:

Rosebrook Inn

Here is another image:

 

Mary:

In the fall we entered Lowell Teachers College at Lowell, Mass.  Getting there was not a lot of fun.  I had to walk to Stoneham Square, about a mile, take a bus to Woburn, then take the train to Lowell.  Colleen and Irene rode the bus also, and girls from all the towns around were on the train, so it was fun.  When the train reached Lowell, we walked another mile to school.

Our initiation was quite an experience.  We had to wear a stocking over our hair and carry our books around in a pail.  We couldn't wear makeup and had to bow down to any upperclasswoman we met.  This went on for a week.

One of the things we enjoyed most was our spring dance.  I invited Phil Cody and Irene went with his friend.  Phil knew several of the guys who were there and they did a lot of crazy things that kept us all laughing.  That spring Irene and I were dating some soldiers from the 182nd Infantry who were stationed at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod.  They usually got home on the weekends.

 

NEXT POST: DECEMBER 19TH