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From Our Kitchen
Elizabeth Richardson Haskell
"Lizzie Cush"
by Jean Loesch Krauklin

My grandmother, Lizzie Haskell, ran a summer boarding house on Deer Isle, Maine, an island a little south of the fashionable Bar Harbor. "The Ark" was usually pretty well filled but Grammie always found room for our family, and it was a thrill for us to stay "free" at Grammie's wonderful 45-room home when her other guests had to pay as much as $18 a week for room and three meals a day!
My earliest memories of my oldest relative are of a short, heavy woman with feet bent outward at the ankle and white hair in a bun on top of her head. She would usually be standing by her big hotel-size woodstove, stirring something in the large basement kitchen of her five story summer boarding house.
When as children we arrived for our summer vacation, we tumbled out of the car after the daylong ride from Berlin (including the ferry ride across the Penobscot River at Bucksport and another ferry ride across Eggemoggin Reach to the island). We ran around to the kitchen door of The Ark to greet Grammie. There she was in her accustomed place, getting dinner ready for her 18 (?) boarders, in charge of a flurry of waitresses, directing operations efficiently. We always seemed to surprise her by our arrival, and she always seemed a little smaller to us as we grew from year to year.
"Land sakes, it’s Jean and Ruth Anne! Little David and here's the baby! Come in, you caught me right in the middle of dinner, and there'll be complaints if dessert isn't ready on time." After a quick hug all around, we dashed off to the little room next to the kitchen where Grammie spent most of her time in winter. It was dark, with only one small window, but was cozy with velvet cushions, braided rugs (that was one of her accomplishments, braiding rugs, and hooking them too, and knitting us mittens.)
Victorian style furniture crowded the room, and the phone nailed up to the old oak roll-top desk by the window was the kind you had to crank up to get the operator. But the parlor organ was what we rushed to get re-acquainted with. It had wheezing tones and the foot pedals leaked air, but it had all those white-tipped levers to change the sound from "flute" to "trumpet" and "vox humana." It was for us the perfect combination of musical instrument, toy, and challenge. We played it every day, even though it was much harder making music with that than with the upright piano in the upstairs parlor.
Grammie spent three winters with us in Berlin, and during that time we found out a good deal about her life, as she had plenty of time to talk to us and tell stories and read to us. In the morning we girls would bound into her room and jump into her double bed, one on each side, demanding to know which one of us she liked best. Once we jumped too hard, and the bed collapsed. After cuddling up to her big softness, it was time to help her pick out a dress for the day. Her clothes were different--old-fashioned and shapeless, with tiny flowers or doughnuts printed on them. I don’t know whether she had them made by a dressmaker or found them in a mail-order catalog. Grammie would read to us for hours when we didn't have to go to school, or were sick. "The Snow Queen" was so long that she said her voice was completely worn out. Mother being so busy with the household and the cooking downstairs, we were grateful for Grammie's attention in her bedroom.
She would tell us tales of when our father was a little boy, and they were almost always about his incorrigible behavior. He played tricks on her hired help, he teased her boarders, he took dangerous chances with his bobsled on the hills and his iceboat on the millpond, and he somehow acquired a goat that was a terrible nuisance around The Ark. After that, "I got hold of him and fired him!" she would say. We took it that this means she either gave him a licking if she could catch him, or she threw him out of the house.
Grammie made her two sons, Phil and Stacy (11 years younger) attend church every week. They went reluctantly, but in later years when we girls were playing the piano, Dad would pay us 25 cents for each hymn we learned to play out of the old church hymnal he brought from his old home. Deer Isle was a very small village, and my father was a very bright boy. I don't believe he was challenged enough at the one-room school where he had little competition. He no doubt had one or two inspiring teachers because he was a great reader even in those days, when he wasn't out fishing or hunting (he loved those sports all his life.)
Elizabeth Elliott Richardson was born in Machias, Maine in 1861. I do not know how she met her seafaring husband, Capt. William Haskell. She came to Deer Isle as a bride, I assume, and moved into what was the largest house on the island, The Ark. William being off at sea for one, two or even three years at a time, Grammie must have learned early to take care of herself while she raised her two sons alone, more or less. Then in 1915, she received word that her husband had been lost as sea off the coast of Cape Hatteras in a bad storm, along with all hands on board.
Running a boarding house was one of the few occupations a widow could pursue in those days. The Ark was ideally situated, facing a stunning view of Northwest Harbor. Grammie added some "modern conveniences" like electricity and a bathroom on each of the four floors. She hired three or four young women each summer to make up the rooms, do laundry, and wait on tables. Later on she also hired an older woman to act as manager and hostess, do the books, and advertising. She also hired a young man to do maintenance work out in the barn. Gram kept one cow and a flock of hens; I recall a 1924 Chevy in the barn, and the live-in maids had rooms in the loft.
There were long lines of rocking chairs on the wrap-around porch for sunset watching. Her guests (usually schoolteachers) would spend their quiet vacation looking at stereoscopic pictures in the parlor, taking walks around the millpond while picking wild-flowers, going for a boat ride with my dad rowing, or just waiting around for the mail -- or the next delicious meal.
The breakfast bell (we loved to ring it) came 15 minutes after the rising bell, so none of the boarders could spend too much time in the bathroom. The young waitress would announce the breakfast menu: fried flounder filets, or bacon & eggs. With these came fresh doughnuts that Grammie made at 4:00 a.m. every day; home-made jelly or jam that she had put up the previous fall, and much more. On Sunday for dinner there was chicken and homemade strawberry or peach ice cream; the Fourth of July had a traditional menu of fresh salmon and peas. There were many extra people for dinner on Sundays and holidays -- local people would make a reservation and swell the ranks of diners to perhaps 50.
We children had the privilege of going into the kitchen after meals and having seconds of dessert, homemade rolls, or whatever. Ruth once ate 13 rolls at one sitting. As Grammie grew older her fame as a cook was widespread, and she was still at it in her 70’s, but by then her cakes came out burned more often; it was a wonder she didn't hurt herself, because she could hardly see. I wonder if the operation of The Ark was profitable. At $15 to $20 a week per boarder, I doubt it. I know my dad gave her a check occasionally to help on her expenses, and advised her on buying stocks too. The Ark certainly kept Gram busy and interested for many years. She was far too independent to work for anyone else.
Vacations at The Ark were fun for the children, and great for Dad, who spent every available minute deep-sea fishing or lobstering with his friend Burt Dow, but for Mother they were not much good. She still had the responsibility of seeing that we three (or four) were neatly dressed for all three meals in the dining room with the other guests, and she had to keep out of Grammie's way. In 1938 or so, when Dad decided to build a small camp on the shore of his newly acquired property in Pressey Village, we were all quite excited.
Dad had not expected all six of us to want to live in one room and a tiny attic for the whole summer, but that is how it was, for three or four summers. I don’t believe Gram visited us there more than once, but we certainly visited her many times. We would row a mile or so into the harbor, tie up the boat, and walk up the hill to The Ark to take a bath. What a treat to get nice and clean in a tub instead of washing ourselves out of a sink. We'd put on the same clothes, get back in the boat, and row home. Well, one doesn't sweat much in cold Maine weather.
In her relationships with the various boarders, mostly the same ones year after year, Grammie had mixed feelings. Somehow from the maids she heard about all their foibles and quirks, and Gram often made fun of her guests by imitating them behind their backs. Mostly women, the guests would come to her office and pay their respects once, but after that they just came to pay their bill; at Christmas she did get hundreds of cards.
If Gram had lived in a later generation, I feel sure she would have been right at home as a first-class career woman, much respected, and admired for her dry wit. As for her nickname, Lizzie Cush, I believe that was to distinguish her from another captain's wife named Lizzie -- and I think "Cush" was Gram's husband's nickname.
Gram didn’t open The Ark during World War II. Not only was she getting old, but also travel was restricted so her boarders couldn't get to Deer Isle, and many kinds of food and supplies were rationed, adding to the difficulty. In 1944 Gram was in Berlin with Ben and Lydia when she caught whooping cough and passed away.
I remember Grammie vividly. She was the only grandparent we knew, and we find a lot to be proud of in this Victorian lady.
JLK
4/3/03

Any comments or questions? Contact
louise@loesch.net
S i t e d e s i g n b y W e b f a i r

Home Family History Family Tree Photo Album Reminiscing Reunion Info Family News Address Book From Our Kitchen		Elizabeth Richardson Haskell "Lizzie Cush" by Jean Loesch Krauklin My grandmother, Lizzie Haskell, ran a summer boarding house on Deer Isle, Maine, an island a little south of the fashionable Bar Harbor. "The Ark" was usually pretty well filled but Grammie always found room for our family, and it was a thrill for us to stay "free" at Grammie's wonderful 45-room home when her other guests had to pay as much as $18 a week for room and three meals a day! My earliest memories of my oldest relative are of a short, heavy woman with feet bent outward at the ankle and white hair in a bun on top of her head. She would usually be standing by her big hotel-size woodstove, stirring something in the large basement kitchen of her five story summer boarding house. When as children we arrived for our summer vacation, we tumbled out of the car after the daylong ride from Berlin (including the ferry ride across the Penobscot River at Bucksport and another ferry ride across Eggemoggin Reach to the island). We ran around to the kitchen door of The Ark to greet Grammie. There she was in her accustomed place, getting dinner ready for her 18 (?) boarders, in charge of a flurry of waitresses, directing operations efficiently. We always seemed to surprise her by our arrival, and she always seemed a little smaller to us as we grew from year to year. "Land sakes, it’s Jean and Ruth Anne! Little David and here's the baby! Come in, you caught me right in the middle of dinner, and there'll be complaints if dessert isn't ready on time." After a quick hug all around, we dashed off to the little room next to the kitchen where Grammie spent most of her time in winter. It was dark, with only one small window, but was cozy with velvet cushions, braided rugs (that was one of her accomplishments, braiding rugs, and hooking them too, and knitting us mittens.) Victorian style furniture crowded the room, and the phone nailed up to the old oak roll-top desk by the window was the kind you had to crank up to get the operator. But the parlor organ was what we rushed to get re-acquainted with. It had wheezing tones and the foot pedals leaked air, but it had all those white-tipped levers to change the sound from "flute" to "trumpet" and "vox humana." It was for us the perfect combination of musical instrument, toy, and challenge. We played it every day, even though it was much harder making music with that than with the upright piano in the upstairs parlor. Grammie spent three winters with us in Berlin, and during that time we found out a good deal about her life, as she had plenty of time to talk to us and tell stories and read to us. In the morning we girls would bound into her room and jump into her double bed, one on each side, demanding to know which one of us she liked best. Once we jumped too hard, and the bed collapsed. After cuddling up to her big softness, it was time to help her pick out a dress for the day. Her clothes were different--old-fashioned and shapeless, with tiny flowers or doughnuts printed on them. I don’t know whether she had them made by a dressmaker or found them in a mail-order catalog. Grammie would read to us for hours when we didn't have to go to school, or were sick. "The Snow Queen" was so long that she said her voice was completely worn out. Mother being so busy with the household and the cooking downstairs, we were grateful for Grammie's attention in her bedroom. She would tell us tales of when our father was a little boy, and they were almost always about his incorrigible behavior. He played tricks on her hired help, he teased her boarders, he took dangerous chances with his bobsled on the hills and his iceboat on the millpond, and he somehow acquired a goat that was a terrible nuisance around The Ark. After that, "I got hold of him and fired him!" she would say. We took it that this means she either gave him a licking if she could catch him, or she threw him out of the house. Grammie made her two sons, Phil and Stacy (11 years younger) attend church every week. They went reluctantly, but in later years when we girls were playing the piano, Dad would pay us 25 cents for each hymn we learned to play out of the old church hymnal he brought from his old home. Deer Isle was a very small village, and my father was a very bright boy. I don't believe he was challenged enough at the one-room school where he had little competition. He no doubt had one or two inspiring teachers because he was a great reader even in those days, when he wasn't out fishing or hunting (he loved those sports all his life.) Elizabeth Elliott Richardson was born in Machias, Maine in 1861. I do not know how she met her seafaring husband, Capt. William Haskell. She came to Deer Isle as a bride, I assume, and moved into what was the largest house on the island, The Ark. William being off at sea for one, two or even three years at a time, Grammie must have learned early to take care of herself while she raised her two sons alone, more or less. Then in 1915, she received word that her husband had been lost as sea off the coast of Cape Hatteras in a bad storm, along with all hands on board. Running a boarding house was one of the few occupations a widow could pursue in those days. The Ark was ideally situated, facing a stunning view of Northwest Harbor. Grammie added some "modern conveniences" like electricity and a bathroom on each of the four floors. She hired three or four young women each summer to make up the rooms, do laundry, and wait on tables. Later on she also hired an older woman to act as manager and hostess, do the books, and advertising. She also hired a young man to do maintenance work out in the barn. Gram kept one cow and a flock of hens; I recall a 1924 Chevy in the barn, and the live-in maids had rooms in the loft. There were long lines of rocking chairs on the wrap-around porch for sunset watching. Her guests (usually schoolteachers) would spend their quiet vacation looking at stereoscopic pictures in the parlor, taking walks around the millpond while picking wild-flowers, going for a boat ride with my dad rowing, or just waiting around for the mail -- or the next delicious meal. The breakfast bell (we loved to ring it) came 15 minutes after the rising bell, so none of the boarders could spend too much time in the bathroom. The young waitress would announce the breakfast menu: fried flounder filets, or bacon & eggs. With these came fresh doughnuts that Grammie made at 4:00 a.m. every day; home-made jelly or jam that she had put up the previous fall, and much more. On Sunday for dinner there was chicken and homemade strawberry or peach ice cream; the Fourth of July had a traditional menu of fresh salmon and peas. There were many extra people for dinner on Sundays and holidays -- local people would make a reservation and swell the ranks of diners to perhaps 50. We children had the privilege of going into the kitchen after meals and having seconds of dessert, homemade rolls, or whatever. Ruth once ate 13 rolls at one sitting. As Grammie grew older her fame as a cook was widespread, and she was still at it in her 70’s, but by then her cakes came out burned more often; it was a wonder she didn't hurt herself, because she could hardly see. I wonder if the operation of The Ark was profitable. At $15 to $20 a week per boarder, I doubt it. I know my dad gave her a check occasionally to help on her expenses, and advised her on buying stocks too. The Ark certainly kept Gram busy and interested for many years. She was far too independent to work for anyone else. Vacations at The Ark were fun for the children, and great for Dad, who spent every available minute deep-sea fishing or lobstering with his friend Burt Dow, but for Mother they were not much good. She still had the responsibility of seeing that we three (or four) were neatly dressed for all three meals in the dining room with the other guests, and she had to keep out of Grammie's way. In 1938 or so, when Dad decided to build a small camp on the shore of his newly acquired property in Pressey Village, we were all quite excited. Dad had not expected all six of us to want to live in one room and a tiny attic for the whole summer, but that is how it was, for three or four summers. I don’t believe Gram visited us there more than once, but we certainly visited her many times. We would row a mile or so into the harbor, tie up the boat, and walk up the hill to The Ark to take a bath. What a treat to get nice and clean in a tub instead of washing ourselves out of a sink. We'd put on the same clothes, get back in the boat, and row home. Well, one doesn't sweat much in cold Maine weather. In her relationships with the various boarders, mostly the same ones year after year, Grammie had mixed feelings. Somehow from the maids she heard about all their foibles and quirks, and Gram often made fun of her guests by imitating them behind their backs. Mostly women, the guests would come to her office and pay their respects once, but after that they just came to pay their bill; at Christmas she did get hundreds of cards. If Gram had lived in a later generation, I feel sure she would have been right at home as a first-class career woman, much respected, and admired for her dry wit. As for her nickname, Lizzie Cush, I believe that was to distinguish her from another captain's wife named Lizzie -- and I think "Cush" was Gram's husband's nickname. Gram didn’t open The Ark during World War II. Not only was she getting old, but also travel was restricted so her boarders couldn't get to Deer Isle, and many kinds of food and supplies were rationed, adding to the difficulty. In 1944 Gram was in Berlin with Ben and Lydia when she caught whooping cough and passed away. I remember Grammie vividly. She was the only grandparent we knew, and we find a lot to be proud of in this Victorian lady. JLK 4/3/03
		Any comments or questions? Contact louise@loesch.net S i t e d e s i g n b y W e b f a i r