Marstons Mills Historical Society

Interview with Doris Crocker Easter

(by Jim Gould & David Martin)

April 26, 2010

MARSTONS MILLSHISTORICAL SOCIETY

P.O. Box 1375 Marstons Mills, MA 02648

maretonsmillshistarical.org

I was born in 1926 in an old Cape Cod house on Prince Av. in Marstons Mills. I stayed with my

family in that house until I was six years old. I had one sister and four brothers. My father,Laughlan Crocker, grew up on Bog Road, in Newtown. As town road surveyor he built the

tunnel under Race Lane for the Hord Farm cows to get down to the lake.

When I was six, in 1933, my father became Sheriff of Barnstable County The family, six of uskids, moved to the jailkeeper's house, one building with the old jail, which was behind the

county courthouse in Barnstable village. Someone said , "this is no fit place to bring upchildren." It was a weird place where the previous sheriff had stones piled up like gargoyles.The house was dark and Gothic. A steel door separated our living room from the guardhouse.

There were peepholes from our house to the Jail, through which we spied to see what theprisoners were doing. My Mother hung a teaspoon over the hole, which she could tell if we had

moved.

In January 1934 the house burned down. I was seven. The fire started in the attic in somewooden supports of the brick chimney. One evening my Mother smelled smoke. Father was

home, and his first job was to get the prisoners out of the jail. He piled them into a dump truck

and sent them to the Plymouth jail. The siren was sounded and state police came. It wasseven at night, cold and miserable. When the water hit the house it made icicles. We sat out in

the judges' chambers of the courthouse.

They tore the building down, so we had to move. Temporarily, neighbors took us in for a fewnights, and then we rented a house on Merrywood Avenue. Then the 22-room house was built,in which we lived; it was big, even for us six children and my parents. There was a big attic

where my brother Locky slept. There was a playroom in the basement, where we had a pooltable that had been seized from a gambling place in Dennis. McSwan, the football coach,

would bring his boys over from Hyannis.

We moved in there for Thanksgiving 1935, and a new up-to-date jail was opened at the same

time. The prisoners' terms were between 30 days and 3 years; my mother was also a matronat the jail for the few women prisoners. They baked our bread. Most of the prisoners were infor 30 days for drunkenness, so when the best baker got out we prayed that he'd get picked up

again!

My Father was the instigator of many reforms on Cape Cod: finger printing, and police radio(which I operated during the war). The sheriffs office became self-supporting. My father startedgrowing strawberries, whose cuttings he sold to Portuguese farmers in Falmouth. They calledhim "Mr. Croc", for everyone was called by a nickname like "Joe". He was a very friendly andoutgoing man. He grew sweet potatoes in the pasture (now the parking lot). There was a dairy

Interview with Doris Crocker Easter

Continued

herd where the District Court now is, and he sold milk to the Hyannis Teachers College and

the hospital (I remember the milk bottles always had cream on top, which made wonderful

whipping cream for our strawberry shortcake), The pig farm was in Cummaquid. He had sheep

from whose wool different items were knitted, including an old blanket my niece just threw out.

He even grew peanuts, which he'd eat raw, without roasting or salt. And he had a goldfish

pond. He had a pretty English garden on the slope below the house. The greenhouse that he

used is still there. The prisoners did all the work. There was big hay barn, and work horses,

which I'd ride, with my legs sticking out. A great childhood-It was a good life!

Our house was right next to the Barnstable train station, so we waved to the engineer and

conductors. We had a dog who the railroad men said committed suicide. He'd go with us to the

train, and knew how to stay safe. One day the train slowed down and he walked right in front of

the engine.

During that time, local police had to communicate through the County police, and they did that

through me since during World War II I was the radio operator (the men were off to the war).

When I was working the phones, you could see the Pilgrim Monument across the Bay from my

chair. My sister and I used to sit on the cannons in front of the courthouse and wave at the

cars leaving the Cape on summer Sunday afternoons. I remember the old drawbridge that

went across the canal before 1935. We'd drive over Sunday afternoon to watch the New York

boat go through the canal. When the new bridges were built in 1935, my Father said that they

were going to go way up high; so when we went on our first ride in my Father's car across one

of the new bridges, I hid on the floor of the car because I was afraid it was going to be so high.

From time to time, my Father had to go on a raid on gambling, and then confiscated property;

that is how we ended up with a pool table in our house. That was a popular thing, for boys

would come all the way from Hyannis to play in our basement. Father once had to raid on our

Uncle Zenas' speakeasy at Mystic Lake one time; he and my Father used to joke about this

afterward.

Mother got our clothes in Fall River, and shopped at the Star Store in New Bedford,. We would

also go to Boston and shop in Filene's. She made me wait with the packages in a chair she

pointed out. Father drove us there in the Sheriffs car when he had business in Boston, and he

triple-parked when he came to pick us up. My parents met in Cotuit when she worked in the

Sears Department Store. She had been a nurse's aide in Boston, daughter of Dora Heiss, who

had immigrated from the Rhineland in Germany, and at 16 married Mr. Sherman.

My Father was a non-com in the Engineers in World War I. His brother Zenas was a pilot in

that war, and trained British pilots in England. When we lived on Prince Av. in the Mills my

father was road surveyor, and grew lots of vegetables which he traded for lobsters. The house

was supposed to have been dragged there by oxen. We played in a sand pile behind the

house. Mother baked bread then, which later was done by the prisoners. Prince Av. was paved

with shells, which they sprayed with oil. Mother wouldn't let us get our shoes dirtied in that

stuff. One of our neighbors was Aunt Nellie Hamblin, who picked up loose flower pots. Another

was Phyllis Hamblin who was 16 when she was babysitting, and got killed by a shot. Leonard

Hamblin's house was built right over the river, so you could hear the river going by.

Interview with Doris Crocker Easter

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My parents didn't go to church, but they made sure we did. I was confirmed at St. Mary's

Episcopal Church in Barnstable. They had their own religion—they didn't drink or smoke. He

never cursed except once, on Pearl Harbor Day when I was 12, listening to the news on the

radio, he said, "J—C—, Wilhelmina, we're at war!"

Mother was the disciplinarian. She'd say, "Don't forget, your father is the sheriff!" But he was

really a "marshmallow." He'd fall asleep in the dentist's chair. He weighed over 300 pounds,

but no flab. He was a 32d degree Mason. At home Father would take a nap with his very

private Mason's book open on his stomach; he joked "that's the way I learn".

I met my future husband, Charles Easter, when I was only 13 and he was 18. His father Matt

Easter of Baltimore had married one of the Metivier girls next door in Marstons Mills. I went to

Barnstable High School and a year at La Salle College in Boston, which was more of a

finishing school at that time. You learned what to do when your boyfriend called. My husband

and I only had about six dates before we married. I was 19. He was on a Navy minesweeper

on D-Day in Normandy. He worked on the radio station at the jail after we married, since I was

home with two young children. Then we moved to Baltimore, where he worked for 43 years for

the Baltimore Sun in retail advertising. We returned to Cape Cod eight years ago; we owned

37 acres on Crocker Neck Road at one time.

My siblings have a!l passed away. Locky (junior), a builder, was stationed in the Aleutian

Islands throughout World War II, after training in a hot place like Texas. Sherman was killed in

Europe during the war, oddly only a short distance from where our maternal grandmother was

born in Germany; my parents had sent him to Bordentown Military Academy in New Jersey to

keep him out of trouble. Anne married Wayne Hayes and moved to the south, and remarried

Dale Weaver, has six children. "Buzzy" (Merle) lived in Cotuit, where his wife Jean still lives.

And Jim was a plumber in Osterville; he had five daughters and a son, Jimmy, the town

councilor; his business went to the Hildebrand "Twins". I had four children.

Two generations back were some interesting Crocker stories. My grandfather Zenas, on my

Father's side, went West; he and his family lived in a sod house during the land rush. My

Father was born in what is now North Dakota. His mother was Annie MacLean from Nova

Scotia. Once when her sister Janet was visiting a shotgun fell off the wall and killed her.

Father was the baby. His oldest sister was Susie, who married Willard Nickerson of Cotuit.

Number two was Zenas of Oyster Harbors, the World War I pilot who started the Cape Cod

Airport. Then were the identical twins Henry and Neil. No. 5 was Ruth, who married Judge

Knight, father of Al Knight.