Growing up in Woodstock: Harry Ambrose

Below is an excerpt taken from The Horse’s Mouth, which was written by Harry Ambrose. His memoir provides insights into the town, the people, and what life was like for children growing up in Woodstock in the 1930s and 1940s.

Above: The Ambrose family in their bathing suits. Front row, Faye; second row (left to right): Alfred, Harry, and Larry; back row, the children’s father, Harrison Ambrose.

Postcard of River Street, where Harry Ambrose lived while growing up. Collection of the Woodstock History Center.

Harry states:

Coming up in Woodstock in the 1930’s and early ‘40’s, life was much simpler than it is now. We never locked our houses. If we had a key it was the same as everyone else’s house key anyway! I lived on River Street, dirt in those days, not yet paved. Billings Farm’s milk wagon delivered to our doorstep for ten cents a quart. In freezing weather the cream on top would push the paper caps an inch or more above the glass bottle’s neck. We thought it was ice cream, but couldn’t understand why it wasn’t sweet! Mr. Severance’s meat wagon came by regularly. We had an iron hitching post with a horse’s head on top, but no one used it. They threw down an iron weight on a long strap connected to the horse’s bridle, and the horse stayed put contentedly. Occasionally, a run-away horse, its eyes wild, nostrils flaring, mane flying, sometimes a buggy clattering behind, would tear by in a mad flight down River Street.

View of Woodstock’s “Overstreet” or Village Square, replete with Mackenzie Fountain.

“Downtown” or “Overstreet,” as the village square is still called by many, was a thriving center of commerce. Merchants remained open late on Saturday evenings for the farmer trade. They came in from their hillside farms in droves to purchase the week’s sundries and maybe catch a “flick.”

There were five grocery stores, two of them selling hardware as well, and, for a short time, three movie houses. Dave Farrelly’s mother played the piano during silent movies. My Dad took me to the Gem once, to see the silent “Rin Tin Tin,” which scared the hell out of me. Then there was the Town Hall Theater – where later I pulled open the curtain before the film started in exchange for getting in free – and Lamier’s in the old Methodist church across the Town Hall. There’s a brick house there now that was moved up from where the Grand Union market was built, after the church was torn down.

The Gem was a movie theater located on South Street (on part of what is now the Woodstock Elementary School property).

Joe Ward parked his popcorn wagon by the corner of the White Cupboard Inn [what is now Focus Gallery and Encore Clothing], catching the movie-goers. Wednesday was “dish night.” For 30 cents you saw the flick and received a free dish as well. Not a bad deal when a set of dishes was going for three or four dollars at Cabot’s. Many a dish cupboard was filled this way from Maine to California!

Horses and buggies parked in front of the downtown stores along with the “flivvers” and “tin Lizzies” were common into the early 1930’s. In winter, the snow in the square was shoveled by hand into the Village dump trucks and then dumped off the iron “Middle Bridge.” Snow packed down by autos formed a sort of white ice which had to be sanded on the hills but was excellent for Fraser’s dog sleds and Husky teams, a regular sight. A magnificent winter attraction was the snow sculpture by Reverend Hallowell. A true artist, he could be seen in his long black overcoat and earmuffs, breath steaming and nose dripping, as he worked on his many creations around the Village.

I came home one day and found my mother had a brand new electric stove – on legs, the oven up where it belongs, beside the burners. Never having seen one before, I put my finger on the pretty red coil. Didn’t ever do that again, I assure you!

We still had an ice box. Ice was harvested every winter from the mill pond behind the old wooden dam across the Ottauquechee River near where the Recreation Center is. The ice took the log and plank dam out one Spring shortly after World War II, but not before most of us had electric “Frigidaires.” It was hard work, wet and cold, for the men cutting the thick ice with long and heavy saws, fishing the large blocks from the freezing river with tongs and loading them on wooden sleds pulled by oxen, to be taken and packed away in sawdust in the ice house. The ice truck delivered door to door. Ice was sold by the pound, the large blocks being chipped into small chunks to fit the customer’s ice box. On hot summer days we boys swarmed over the tailgate after the chips and slivers of cold ice to chew and such on and quench our thirst – or crack a tooth.

Men with saws standing on frozen mill pond. The ice house, where the ice was packed with sawdust and stored, is behind the workmen. In the distance, on the right-hand side of the photo, is the old mill that is now the Woodstock Recreation Center. © Woodstock History Center.

Telephone numbers were short. Ours was 202. Bunny Bertram’s was 152-4. Numbers were not used much anyway. Grownups would just ask for whoever they wanted and the operator, Bessie Cowdrey, either knew if they were home, where they were, or would find them.

Early image of the telephone office in Woodstock. © Woodstock History Center

At about the time the Woodstock Railway gave up the ghost, bested by the internal combustion engine, the tar and gravel road in the downtown square was replaced with concrete paving, and the grand old 1888 Victorian cast iron watering trough was removed. Dark green, almost black, the thing was so ugly and forbidding that when I was very young I was afraid of it, and would cross the square further up by Gillingham’s. The world’s greatest collector of “whatever,” Lyle Pearsons, had it for years, lying in pieces behind his River Street saw mill. I assume it ended up as scrap for the war.

Note: While parts of Mackenzie Fountain may have been scrapped for the war effort, other parts have surfaced over the years, including part of the base, one of the large water troughs, and a couple gargoyle heads. To learn more about Mackenzie Fountain, click Mackenzie Fountain.

Mackenzie Fountain, which stood at the intersection of Central and Elm Streets. © Woodstock History Center.