Thank you, Lucy, for sharing the excerpt from Mary Westgate Chellis’ Diary that was posted from the K.U.A. archives. Now I have a real question to answer!

Mary was the daughter of Daniel (7) Westgate, brother of our William Westgate and his wife Clara Stone. In other words, she was Mattie (Martha) Westgate Quimby’s first cousin. They socialized often, although Mattie was a proud graduate of Windsor High School, not K.U.A. Like our great great grandfather William, Daniel ran a prosperous farm in Plainfield. He served in the N.H. legislature, like our Elwin (and his brother Erwin) Quimby.

Mary was born on November 11, 1879 in her father’s house on Westgate Road in Plainfield. (One of Daniel’s granddaughters drew a sketch of the house, which is held by the Plainfield Historical Society.)

Mary Westgate was a lovely young lady, and like so many women in our family, she became a teacher after graduating from high school. (Her sister Bessie travelled far away to Skyland Institute in Blowing Rock, North Carolina to teach.). Mary married Harold Chellis in 1903 and spent the rest of her long life in Plainfield. (The photo below is from the Plainfield Historical Society’s website, which has other pictures of her from throughout her life in Plainfield.)

She and Harold had four children, Harold, Clara, Ruth and Frank. (Only Clara moved away as an adult.) And, like all of the women in our family, Mary worked. In her case, she was employed as a switchboard operator for Meriden Telephone Company for more than 50 years, a job she did from her own living room. She was active on the Plainfield School Board and in the Meriden Grange, and belonged to the Meriden Congregational Church.

Mary died in 1968 at 88 years of age, long after her husband Harold passed away in 1935. Her death certificate mentions “coronary infarcts” as the cause of death, along with obesity and and old femur fracture, which may have disabled her in old age. She is buried in Mill Cemetery in Meriden Village, if you want to visit her.