Millicent Hart Waite
1927 – 2001
And [everybody] loved [John Hart’s] daughter Millie, I was very friendly with her. Leonard Waite, her husband, took me for a tour through Gray’s Store and the residence attached where they lived, which was such an honor for me. Nothing had been changed. These were people that took care of their neighbors. There was no welfare system of course. It was country, it was remote. He showed me, down in the basement, the birdhouses that were made by a disabled son of a neighbor of theirs. They would put him to work making birdhouses. We went upstairs, the place was chock-a-block with furniture which eventually they had a big auction. He showed me Millie’s bedroom where she had scarlet fever and would look out of the window onto the pond with all of the kids skating and couldn’t go because she was sick. I wish I had had [a tape recorder] at the time because you really got a feel for Adamsville and the people through the residence attached to Gray’s Store. It was an honor. They were great people.
Millie would come in on Saturday mornings which was my usual stint, 8:30 to 12:30 for thirty-two years, with her grandson Jonah, who inherited the store on the death his father Grayton quite recently. And he’d ring the bell on the counter. That was a big joke. They’d be on their way to a movie, or she was taking him to baseball practice. The grandmother and the grandson off for a day of fun and games, enjoying each other, happy. It always made me feel much better, whatever I was doing.
Based on an oral history interview with Sarah Bullock Desjardins.
First published in “Remembering Adamsville” by the Little Compton Historical Society, 2013.
I remember more as a child, when I was five, I would walk down to Adamsville by myself, down the hill, which was no problem. Coming back was always interesting. But, I’d always go to Gray’s Store and get some penny candy. I mean, that’s what I knew. Then I would go, actually down to Millie [Waite’s] house and play. What I remember is always having two or three other houses you could stop at for a drink of water, or because there were kids my age. I wasn’t in school then, so I had days free, and it was still in a day and age when my mother felt free just to let me go. So, down Old Stone Church Road, and down Stone Church Road, there were at least three or four kids I remember playing with. We were all just safe and free.
What I remember at five years old were the bazaars that the church used to have. In those days it took a week to set it all up, all the booths and stuff. Then what I remember was the toy table and the grab bags that Millie Waite used to put together there. It was, ‘You pay your nickel, and you get to pick a bag.’ It would have either a toy for a boy or a toy for a girl, never knew what you were going to get. They had the auctions on the lawn, and it was just a great festive day.
Based on an oral history interview with Rev. Bob Hollis.
First published in “Remembering Adamsville” by the Little Compton Historical Society, 2013.
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