Mary Caroline Findley
Mary and her husband were part of the reactive Lost Generation. Her parents were part of the adaptive Progressive Generation. Her siblings were part of the idealistic Missionary Generation. Her children were part of the heroic, civic-minded Greatest Generation.
Hardworking, tough, critical (judgmental), sometimes severe, pious, responsible. Here is a picture of her as a young girl (click it to enlarge it).
On Valentine's Day, Mary's mother "used to make [sister] Susie and me valentines and stick pennies on them and hide them under the mats around the house."
Mary was brought up Congregationalist, confirmed in 1903. Mary was on the basketball team at Punchard High School in Andover, MA.
On Sunday 25 October 1903, at the age of 16, Mary rode an electric car for a 20-cent fare from Andover to Saugus, where she visited her friends Elbert H. "Bert" Edmands, 1878-1946, 25, and his wife(?) Nellie at their farm. There she met Bert's brother Ernest Carl Edmands, 1884-1928, 19, who was working as a farmhand and groundskeeper. Bert and Ernest were two of the four sons of Artemas Seymour Edmands and Ella Josephine Mansfield Edmands of Saugus. (Artemas had three older sons from a previous marriage.)
Mary and Ernest fell in love and became engaged. (Click either picture to enlarge it.) Ernest was attending Massachusetts Agricultural School in Amherst, but since he was lonesome for his sweetheart, he did not finish. Ernest's parents did not approve of Mary, because they considered her too "unladylike."
Mary graduated high school in 1904 and then attended Cannon Commercial School in Lawrence, MA. She became a secretary and later a proofreader at the Andover Press, which published the Andover Townsman and the Phillips Academy Bulletin among other things.
Her long engagement with Ernest continued to be resisted by his parents. Their friend, George Allan Christie (b. 5 May 1869, d. 3 December 1933), who was a printer at the Andover Press, enhanced the otherwise difficult courtship by acting as a liberal chaperon. He was best man at their 1908 wedding, and the couple named their first son, Allan Christie Edmands I, 1911-1945, after him.
![[ Mary Caroline Findley as a young girl, ca. 1895 ]](images/marycarolinegirlx.jpg)
![[ Mary Caroline Findley, age 17, 1904 ]](images/marycaroline1x.jpg)
![[ Ernest Carl Edmands, age 19, 1903 ]](images/ernest1x.jpg)
![[ Mary Caroline Findley as a bride, 1908 ]](images/marycarolinewedx.jpg)