When I visit Pearl Lake and Hahn’s Peak, it is like going home. My family was there, and now everyone is gone or lives far away. Mom and her sisters are gone. Of course, my grandparents are gone. My cousins live far away and we don’t stay in much contact.
It is crazy to think that my great grandparents, grandparents and mom all lived together. It felt like a real family in the summer. And, when I visit there and sleep in the State Park campgrounds that use to be our family dump, I feel the spiritual connection.
My girls were not at Hahns Peak much. Grandma was gone by then and so some of the family tried to hang on the the property . . . but it was too much to coordinate. So, we sold to Aunt Pearl’s friends Angelo and Helen Icavetto. Their extended family still lives up there, although it is now the next generation.
Sometimes, when I look at my Pearl pictures, I don’t know if I should feel happy or sad. My sister and I have never been close because our childhood years and her mental health were not conducive to relationship building. My parents married because dad came from a poor family and I think he was attracted to mom’s money. They met after mom got drunk and drove down a railroad track – her friend was seriously hurt in the accident. Her friend was dad’s girlfriend at that point, but he dropped her when he heard about mom’s wealth. Mom struggled with alcoholism until I was in my teens and she left dad. I remember the trauma and lies between them – it was never healthy.
My girls and I are distant, I think partially because there is no core family to bring us together. I was fortunate to have time with granddaughter, Maia, when she was little – and that is a gift I won’t forget. Grandson Isaac, is named for the first Hartt ancestor to arrive in America.
and Dotty.
Here is some info on Isaac Hartt: Isaac sold his one-acre of land and buildings on February 3, 1656 and purchased a 170-acre farm of meadowland from Thomas Hutchinson of Reading, Massachusetts. Isaac paid 120 pounds for the land that is now known as North Lynnfield Center, Mass. (A descendant has the original deed, of Isaac Hart’s farm, in a glass case.) That home was handed down through almost 10 generations and became known as “the Hart house.” Source http://myhartt.com/families/isaac_and_elizabeth_hart.htm Please visit the portion of our site about Salem and the witch hunts to learn more about history of the family before Pearl Lake.
My experience as Grandma Hartt is very different from my own grandma’s.There is something called the Grandmother Effect – it is good for both the young and the old. I think we have moved away from so much that connected us – families are distant and lives are lived in isolation. I am fortunate that I had the grandmother effect when I was a kid – I think it made a huge difference. http://thegreentribe.com/2015/02/blue-zones/
Now, my hiking/camping/companion family are my 3 dogs. I don’t let my lack of family slow me down. What I lack in roots, I have in wings. I wonder, sometimes, if life would have turned out differently had Grandma not been 72 when I was born. It almost feels like I have lived two lives in one. The first, I was part of a big family with Grandma Pearl as the matriarch. The second is so much more distant – there just isn’t a core like I knew in my summers at grandma’s house.
Pearl Lake State Park History 