This is a wonderful memory regarding growing up in Matawan at the turn of the last century. Marjorie Hulsart VanBrackle was born in Matawan on August 25, 1891, the fourth child of Charles C. Hulsart (1855-1931) and Mary Elizabeth Van Brunt 1860-1939). The 2nd great granddaughter of the Matawan militiaman Mathias Hulsart, Marjorie grew up on a farm on the Holmdel Road, what is now Route 34, the farmhouse being located to the north of the current Park Place Diner. Her husband was James Mathias VanBrackle (1889-1977), who was employed by a brokerage house in New York City – James was appointed Borough Councilman in 1931 and was re-elected to that post the following year. Their daughter Shirley June VanBrackle Bentley (1918-2000) was a commissioned officer in the Army Nursing Corps in WWII. Marjorie is the 2nd cousin, twice removed of MHS member Richard Hulsart. Her story, transcribed about 1975:
As I look back over my 84 years of life, the very first memory that comes to me is our house – warming party when we moved into our new house. (Note: the home of which she speaks was the Hulsart farmhouse on Route 34, next to the Park Place Diner, going north.)
I remember the gaiety of the occasion, the music, the dancing. I remember someone lifting us up on the porch, the happiness mother had moving into a larger house.
There were five of us at that time – my brother, Edward, George, Fred, my twin sister (Mildred) and I. We hadn’t lived there too long before Mother had a baby girl named Lucy.
Both George and Ed developed pneumonia that year and both died. (Edward L. Hulsart was the eldest, born October 6, 1878, in Matawan – he died on March 19, 1896. Second child George Howard Hulsart, born June 23, 1881, in Matawan, died about two weeks later on April 1, 1896. Both are buried in the Old Tennent Churchyard in Tennent.)
Perth Amboy paper was running a contest for schools. Every paper had a coupon in it and the school that turned in the most coupons would win a baby grand piano. George was selling papers and collecting coupons for Matawan Grammar School. He caught a cold that turned into pneumonia and died. Never knew that his school won that piano.
Lucy was born with a throat defect and one day while nursing she choked to death. This was three in one year. (Born April 8, 1897, died the 15th of May. She, too, is buried in Tennent.) Mother was always a whistler but after that she never whistled again.
Living in the country and there being two of us, we never needed children to play with, so when it came time for us to go to kindergarten, we were shy little country girls.
Fred (3rd son Frederick Monroe Hulsart, born July 20, 1883, in Farmington, CT) took us our first day and left us with our teacher, whose name was Miss Mack. We cried all day long, Miss Mack sat us one on each side of her, but that didn’t stop our crying. She finally had to send for Fred to come calm us down. (The teacher was South Amboy resident Miss Mary Mack (1876-1957) who graduated from the State Normal School – now TCNJ – and was hired in 1897 to teach kindergarten in Matawan.)
When we finally got used to school and Miss Mack, we loved her. Then we were promoted and had a teacher by the name of Miss McConkey, she was a holy terror, punished everyone. So when the day came to leave that grade we were all very happy. But low and behold when we got to 5th. grade she was promoted too and was the same old Miss McConkey.
As small children I don’t ever remember our grandparents ever holding us on their lap or reading us a story. We would go to Grandpop VanBrunt’s (George T. Van Brunt (1826-1906) once a year for a family reunion. Uncle Harry had run away from Aunt Jul, Ceal & Bill. Grandma V.B. never got over that and always at these reunions everyone had to sing “Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight” then just before we left they all sang “God Be With You Til We Meet Again”.
That was always a day to remember for all the cousins were there. Grandpop let us play in the big barn.
Winters in those days were cold with lots of snow. As soon as the snow began to fall, out would come the sleigh and downtown we went where there was always racing up and down Main St. We had a lazy old horse called Moses who never wanted to do anything more than walk. But put sleighbells on him, and he would go like sixty trying to get away from them. We would put bricks in the oven to get good and hot, put them in the sleigh to keep our feet warm.
We had a very happy childhood, never miss a Sunday going to church, and I remember the day Pop & Mother were baptized. The pool was under what is now the choir loft. Millie and I were left in the front pew and told to stay there until they came for us. We were so little our legs dangled. If I remember correctly the minister then was a Mr. Whalen.
Mother was always very proud of us and loved to dress us as well as she could afford.
Pop was no ordinary farmer; he was what in those days they called a scientific farmer. He worked with the Agriculture College in New Brunswick. He would plant acres of one kind of corn etc., use a different fertilizer on each half acre, keep a record of production, send it to the college.
Later on, he traveled all over N.J., Maryland and Penn, lecturing on different crops and the fertilizers to use etc.
All this while we were growing up as all kids do. Millie took sick and had to drop out of school for a while. After we graduated from Grammar School in 1906. That same year Fred married, and we were brides maids in our graduation dresses.
The old mill and brook on Mill Road were our playground, we loved that brook and spent hours there. One Sunday, Ceal my cousin (Cecelia Van Brunt Clark (1892-1983), Millie and I were down at the old Mill and decided to break windows by throwing stones at them. Everything was going along fine when Mr. Hawkins (Nellie Grace’s grandfather) heard us, he came running with a big stick in his hand and chased us across the brook and up the bank straight home to our house. Pop and Mother heard us coming screaming and crying, they met us in the front yard. Mother was so mad at Mr. Hawkins, she grabbed his chin whiskers and shook him and said you let my young ones alone.
We were wrong of course, but Mr. H. got a good talking too, and so did we after he was gone. Millie got so hysterical Pop had to take to the doctor. That was a lesson for us, and we never tried that again.
Pop bought us a piano. He had watched us playing a make believe piano on the windowsill, and decided to give us one. We loved the piano but like all children hated to practice.
One day while practicing Millie dropped a cold dead mouse down my back inside my dress. I could have killed her. I screamed and hollered until Mother removed it.
She was always doing things like that, chasing Ceal & I with a dead snake, another time she chased us with an old setting hen. We ran into the outhouse and stayed there all P.M.
Ceal and I were always such good pals, in all these years we have never spoken an unkind word to each other.
Aunt Jul and Ceal would always come up to stay with us when Pop & Mother went away. We were never left alone on account of hired men.
I was going out with a guy by the name of Bill Roberts, one night Aunt Jul & Ceal were there and they with Millie wanted to go for a ride in Bill’s horse & wagon. It was ok with him so away they went. They got down the road (34) almost to the R.R. trestle when the harness broke and the shafts went up in the air. They were scared and didn’t know what to do, so unhitched the horse, one led him, the other two pushed and pulled the wagon all the way back home. Bill fixed it and left the horse standing there while he came back in for his coat. When we went out the horse was gone. There was a wagon path that went back to the woods around and back to the barn. We separated some going one way some another until we finally got the horse.
Bill and I finally separated when I found out he drank. Millie was going with a boy named Joe Loveth. She thought she was madly in love with him, but one day she met Howard Conover, and she dropped Joe.
We had a hired man named Jake. He liked his liquor and whenever Pop would go on one of his lecture tours Jake always got drunk. One night we invited all the Cadoo girls down for an evening of dancing. We were short one for our square dance and asked Jake to fill in for us. We knew he had been drinking and we twirled him around and around until he fell flat on the floor. He said he slipped on the toe of his stocking. His dignity was hurt, and he wouldn’t dance any more.
Jake too, would let the cow loose and shoo it over toward Jake Applegate’s saloon (now the Brass Rail on Route 79.). Pop thought he was catching the cow when all the time Jake would be in the saloon.
Pop was a very smart man, but he trusted everyone. He was very particular about his horses, if they had worked all day, he wouldn’t think of taking them out again at night. Every Friday night he would go to N.Y. on the produce boat to see how the market was. Every night there was a band concert in Matawan, so Mother would get the hired man to put crates for seats in the market wagon, and we would ask folks to go along with us to the band concert.
Poor innocent Pop never found that out. When he got mad, look out – he could hoot and holler all over the place, like he did when the hog fell into the cesspool. It was a huge hog, and the cesspool was slippery and slimy. He was sure the hog would drown, he got so excited, all the hired men ran to see what the trouble was. As fast as they would get hold of the hog, he was so slippery, he would slide out of their hands. Finally made it, poor Pop’s blood pressure must have went sky high that day.
Pop was a very stern man, he never laid a hand on us, he didn’t have to, just let him look disapproval or just open his mouth and we would cringe. He was a progressive farmer always wanted to be first in everything. He was the first farmer around to put in heat in the house, a bathroom, we had a hot house, and he was first to buy a car.
As a kid I remember droves of cows coming up the road from the station, horses too, there was a horse dealer in Holmdel. One in Matawan too, often a carload of horses would be unloaded at the station and driven through town.
Nellie Grace’s grandmother lived next to us when we were smaller. She was a very religious woman and didn’t think children should play on Sunday. So each Sunday P.M. all the kids in the neighborhood would accumulate at Mrs. Lambertsons, and she would tell us stories all P.M. We loved it, she made a lot of them up. I remember one that I never forgot about a little boy getting lost in a jungle and his father, mother searching for him calling his name, “Valparizo”. We all loved Mrs. Lambertson.
Fred liked pigeons; he had a lot but always wanted more. Other people’s pigeons would come to our field for food. Fred cooked up an idea how he could get some. He made a frame covered it with wire propped it up on one end so the pigeons could go under to get corn, he would put there. A string was tied to the screen with Millie and I on the other end a few yards away. We waited until all the pigeons would be eating corn, then we would pull the string and the frame fell on them so they couldn’t get away. Fred would then capture them. It didn’t take long before he had a nice flock of pigeons.
As we were growing up and getting to be teenagers, Mother dressed us so nicely. We would go to dances, Pop was always willing to take us. While Millie and I did not look much alike, we dressed alike and it always attracted the boys, so we were always popular and both good dancers.
Millie did not go to High School, but I did. I loved being in all the plays both in school and in church. There was a boy in my class that was popular, but I always said he was too sissy for me, I didn’t want to date him. Shows how things can change, I fell madly in love with him. His name was James VanBrakle.
We walked to school together every day was always late. We had one teacher who was romantic, she always knew I was coming when she saw Jim coming. I had further to go, and Miss Bloomingdale always held that last gong until I got there.
My cousin Pearl Woolley and I took turns playing the piano to march out or for assembly. I loved that and thought I was the whole cheese. There was always competition between us, whenever a new song came out that was a march tempo it was nip and tuck who would play it first.
In my 3rd year of High School I flunked, I had played all year never dreaming I wouldn’t pass. I was in Jim’s class but got left behind and he graduated one year ahead of me. I was so ashamed of myself I made up for it the next year leading the class in high marks.
While I finished my last year Jim went to Poughkeepsie to school. We had decided each was to go his own way while he was away. So I went out with a friend of Howard Conover’s who was dating Millie. We made a foursome and had lovely times. John Longstreet was his name and a nice guy, but I was still in love with Jim and whenever he could get home John was out of the picture for the time being. Later John died during the flu epidemic.
Millie married in 1912 and so did Ceal. That put ideas in our heads. Pop bought a car that year and let me learn to drive it, was I ever thrilled-only two other girls around that drove. No examination to get a license, just said I had been learning for 3 weeks.
The car was a Jackson, wooden body, wooden wheels, gas for headlights in a tank on the running board. Every time we would go for a ride, we would have 2 or 3 flat tires. That never bothered, it was an automobile right hand drive and not many on the road then. How times have changed.
That year I got interested in sewing, I remember the first outfit, a white mull with blue flowers. I made Millie’s too. We embroidered hats and had Mrs. Coe make them for us. She put beautiful ribbon bows on the hats ribbon had blue flowers. Then Mother, bless her, went to N.Y. and came home with white parasols with blue flowers. Did we think we were the world’s best dressed gals.
Jim graduated in 1910 with 9 in his class, the largest graduation class the High School ever had. Ceal, Deal Little, Mill Herrick, Helen Taylor were some in his class.
I graduated in 1911 with 15 in my class and the first colored girl ever to graduate from High School was in my class. Her name was Lucy Jamison. She worked so hard to make it. I still have my graduation dress and wore my first pair of silk stockings that night.
The night Jim graduated the only other boy was Roy Close, he had an impediment in his speech, so Jim was elected to read his essay. He didn’t want to and could have murdered the teacher who made him. He couldn’t get out of it, so all dolled to kill he went up on the stage to read the essay and the leg of his pants had caught into his garter, he kept shaking his leg to free it, but no good. After that he really could have murdered that teacher.
He went away that fall to Easton’s Business College in N. Y. State. He wanted to give me a nice present before he left, so he painted a house two coats in order to get $18 to buy me a necklace. I was thrilled. I had a good time while he was gone but did miss him too. I had one more year to go in school.
Didn’t know what to do with myself after graduation. Pop didn’t believe in girls going to work if their father could support them, so I stayed home and helped on the farm. Pop bought his first car and only had it a short time when another car ran into us broadside. After he had it fixed, he lost his nerve and decided to let me learn to drive. After 3 weeks of practice, I was given my first license in April of 1913.Jim and I had announced our engagement the Christmas of 1912, and on October 4th we were married in 1913. Just a quiet home wedding. Millie and Howard standing up with us, Ceal playing the wedding march, Irene Bower the ministers daughter sang “Oh Promise Me”.
For two green kids we did have a lovely honeymoon, first to Poughkeepsie, then Albany & Boston. Came home with a dollar and a little change in our pockets.
We had our apartment and all our furniture in it, so came back already to start housekeeping. Same house we are living in now.
Shortly after we were married, World War I broke out. Gramp didn’t want to go to war, so he quit his job in N. Y. and went to work for his father on the farm for $5.00 a week. We moved to a house on 34 where (their daughter) Shirley was born. God surely blessed us that day when he gave us a beautiful baby girl.
Ceal had come to see us the day before and we walked across the farm to pick strawberries, next a.m. 3 o’clock I knew my time was coming. We waited until a.m. and Jim went for the doctor and Mother. My own doctor had gone away and had to get a strange dr. to take care of me.
That winter was a bitter cold winter, Jim worked on the roads etc. We only had stoves downstairs; bedrooms were cold icicles formed on the bed clothes from our breaths. No inside toilet, those were the days.
We were so far out of town we decided to buy a Ford for $450. When the war ended Jim went back to work in N.Y., I driving him to the station each day, that became a chore in the winter, so we bought a house in Matawan on Broad St. and moved there.(Note: the home was located at 163 Broad Street.)
Millie had left Howard by then and she came to live with us. She went to school in N. Y. to study chiropractic medicine and soon bought a practice in Perth Amboy, did real well.
Our house was near the school and the ball field. Shirley loved a ball game, as soon as she heard any yelling she was gone. One day I couldn’t find her, so went to the ball field and there she was down on her knees looking between a man’s legs. Too small to see over people.
That winter of 1918 there was a flu epidemic, something this country had never had before and our doctors didn’t know how to handle it. People died by the scores, no caskets available. We all had it but luckily we all pulled through it.
The O.E.S. (Order of the Eastern Star) was started in 1920. I joined as a charter member and was appointed Asst. Conductress. Mrs. Gittens was Matron, Myrtle Woolley was 2nd Matron, and I was 3rd Matron.
Before we left Keyport for the farm, Pop’s barn was struck by lightning and burned to the ground burning up 3 horses.
Then after we moved and the war was on, one night about 7 o’clock we heard a terrible explosion. We knew that there was an arsenal at Morgan and realized something had exploded there. We went to bed but at 2 a.m. there were more explosions. We picked up the bassinet with Shirley in it and went downstairs to the kitchen. We had no more than reached there when the bedroom ceiling came down right where her bed had been. The rest of the night was terror.
When daylight came men drove all over telling us to keep our windows open aways and to go elsewhere if we could. So I packed all baby things and we took off for Ceal Russel’s in Monmouth Beach. It was Oct.4th, our anniversary, the one I’ll never forget.
When we were kids a produce boat used to come up Matawan Creek and all farmers carted their produce there to load it for N. Y. There were also 2 boats out of Keyport, The Wyckoff and The Holmdel. A passenger boat ran to N. Y. from Keyport too. That was a nice trip, Ceal & I used to take that trip often.
So many firsts in our time, first airplane, automobile, radio, television, Lindberg flying across the Atlantic, that was a thrilling day. Corrigan tried it next without permission where he was taken to task about it, he said he didn’t realize he was going in the wrong direction. After that he was always called “Wrong Way Corrigan”.
I remember the sinking of the Maine in the Spanish American war, remember McKinley being shot, the Von Hindenburg exploding at Lakehurst. We went down to see that. We climbed a fence to get into that, thousands trying to get into the entrance. Boys boosted Millie and I over the fence. Went to Asbury to see the Morro Castle when it washed ashore down there. Remember the Titanic sinking, the Lusitania and many other things.
Remember so many presidents, Teddy Roosevelt I remember distinctly and heard Pop talk of others.
Round trip ticket to N. Y. was $1.25 so we thought nothing of taking a trip to N. Y. When my brother Fred was married, they lived in Newark, so would often go there for a few days at a time.
During the war he got a job in Philadelphia making guns. It didn’t last long for he had a heart attack and died.
Shirley grew up, had a happy childhood, graduated from High School, took a job in Newberys until she decided to go into training to be a nurse. She had honorable mention several times as being best bedside nurse, best operating room nurse. After she graduated from Long Branch, she went to John Hopkins for a post graduate course in operating room technique, then went with Service in the army.
We sold our house on Broad St. in 1924 and built a house in Schenck Ave. It turned out to be a hoo doo house, we had nothing but bad luck there. First Jim had an operation and a nervous breakdown. Then Shirley had an appendicitis operation and finally I had an operation. Along came the depression and we struggled hard to keep the house.(Note: their afflictions were described in the Matawan Journal. Of interest is the fact that the current owner of 2 Schenck Avenue, MHS member Tibor Egervary, recently found medical prescriptions for the VanBrackles tucked above a basement wall in the residence.)
That year Jim’s Mother died and left the house on Broadway, Keyport to Jim and his sister Sara. We bought her out for $2500, did a little remodeling, moved into that house, rented our new house to save it and finally sold it.
Jim’s mother had to have her leg amputated, but didn’t survive and died on Mother’s Day 1930. The next year on Mother’s Day 1931 my father was dead.
When we were first married and lived in this house, we paid $7.00 a month rent. Food allowance was $5.00 a week, any kind of meat was 25 cents a lb. Many times when the farm wagon from the farm was taking produce to the boat Ma Van Brunt would pack a basket of vegetables and stuff for us. I loved that and watched to see that basket hanging to the wagon.
Jim got tired of commuting so gave up his job, went to work for Brocker in Morganville. After Brocker died Jim went with Rooney Brothers. in Englishtown.
It was about this time that Shirley and Bob married.
Uncle Ed Ziegler died and Aunt Ethel was left alone. I took her dinner up to her for a year or more. She died and left my cousin Maude and I to settle her estate. I inherited so many of her lovely old things. About this time Jim’s father died leaving him the house half of the farm. We cleaned that out renovated it and Shirley & Bob moved in there. Peter had been born by then and was a tiny baby. Three years later Robert came along.
Soon after that Jim decided to retire and spent 13 winters in Fla. In 1962 Jim had a stroke, made a good come back, and we continued to go to Florida.
The boys were growing up, I had babysat for them ever since they were born and loved every minute of it. They were and still are my pride and joy.
Our Florida years were such happy ones made so many new friends from all over the U. S. and Canada. Marion & Edgar Pike were there with us in Fish ‘N Hole. Bernice Larson was my special friend.
Years have passed us by, boys have grown up, Peter married Lara in 1972. She has been precious and added to our happy family. Then in 1975 Robert married Cindy, she has been a wonderful granddaughter to us also.
In 1976 it was the Bicentennial year, we decorated the house for the parade, had a big picnic in the back yard. The Historical Society had placed a plaque on the house built in 1840.
Jim’s great grandfather bought it in 1876, so it has been in the family 100 years. So many memories I’ll probably fail to mention some. We have lived to see so many presidents in the White House.
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