by marian ullman
The approaching fortieth
anniversary of the Neighborhood
Association of the Back Bay has prompted
me to recall some of my early days on
Marlborough Street. I moved here in the fall of
1947. There was no neighborhood association,
no playground, and, aside from church, very little
opportunity meet anyone. Many houses in the Back
Bay were still private homes, as were those of three of
my immediate neighbors. On one side lived Mr. and
Mrs. Lowell, parents of the poet, Robert Lowell, not
yet famous. On the other side, but one, lived Mrs.
Francis B. Crowninshield (in spring and fall). In
this house, the only residence in Back Bay designed
by H.H. Richardson, and the one across the street
occupied by Mrs. Henry Endicott, there were large
staffs of servants, including a chauffeur. When Mrs.
Endicott departed for her summer home on the North
Shore in her Cadillac limousine, the staff lined up
on the front steps in white aprons in very Upstairs,
Downstairs fashion to wave goodbye. Behind me,
in a huge house at 306 Dartmouth Street, lived Mr.
and Mrs. Edwin S. Webster. Their conservatory
was always filled with flowers raised and brought
in from greenhouses at their spring an fall home in
Chestnut Hill. Passersby on Commonwealth Avenue
appreciated the bright color of flowers always turned
toward the street for the benefit of the neighbors.
Prior to World War II, the heavy wave of Irish
immigration had provided a generous supply of
servants, but during the war many servants left for
better-paying jobs in the factories. Rosie the Riveter
had likely previously been a chambermaid, a waitress,
or a cook in some Back Bay town house. Since it’s
well nigh impossible to run one of our four- or fivestory
houses with a basement kitchen and a dining
room on the floor above without servants, many,
many houses were put up for sale when servants
became difficult or impossible to find, and the owners
moved to the suburbs. The houses were bought largely
by rooming-house operators and people like me who
turned them into apartments. It was a period of
tremendous change in Back Bay.
Coal furnaces were common, and of course a janitor
was a necessity to tend the furnace twice a day, not
to mention the job of taking out the ashes.
Dirt on the windowsill was much worse
than it is today. The janitor also shoveled
the snow—not just a shovel’s-width path down the
middle, but the whole sidewalk and a path out to
the street so that Madam could reach her limousine
easily. Gradually coal gave way to oil, and the sight
of heavy barrels of ashes waiting to be picked up from
the alley was no more.
You can see how life was lived then at the Gibson
House Museum at 137 Beacon Street. The kitchen
and laundry are an especial treat.
Small food markets, which did a large business by
telephone and delivery, and supplied only the finest
quality in meats and produce, gradually went out of
business. There was no such thing as a supermarket.
The nearest approximation was an A&P on Mass.
Avenue. Pilgrim Laundry Company, which had keys
to half the houses in Back Bay, picked up the laundry
and dry-cleaning and returned it a week later. That
company lasted a little longer but it, too, finally went
out of business. I did not have a washing machine
until about 1955, nor did I have a television set until
about the same time.
