Growing up in Woodstock: Mildred Pulsifer Whitney

By Jennie Shurtleff

On May 26, 2000, Kathy English interviewed Mildred [Pulsifer] Whitney for the Woodstock History Center’s Oral History project. In this interview, Mildred talks about her experiences of growing up in Woodstock.

Mildred was born on February 13, 1924. Her family’s home was the building now occupied by the Rainbow School at the base of Mount Tom, just outside the Village of Woodstock on Route 12N.  Mildred’s father, Doctor Walter Pulsifer, was the local veterinarian, and he instilled in Mildred, her sister, and two brothers a love of animals and the belief that animals must always be treated kindly. Growing up, the Pulsifer children had a variety of pets, including a skunk, goats, ferrets, dogs, canaries, guinea pigs, and rabbits.

In addition to playing with their animals, they spent much of their free time outdoors playing games like Pom Pom Pull Away, Kick the Can, and Hide and Seek with the other Willowvale neighborhood children. They also enjoyed playing in the barn, where they would make tunnels in the hay. Often they were so involved in their games that they wouldn’t come back inside the house until nighttime, when their mother would call them because it was dark outside.

When indoors, Mildred and her sister, Kitty, amused themselves by cutting out photos of the models in the catalogues and then drawing and coloring paper dresses for them, replete with tabs, so that they could dress their paper dolls. While the girls played with dolls, Mildred’s brothers spent their time making “rubber guns” with pieces of wood and inner tubes.

The Pulsifer children had very few commercially-made toys. Mildred noted that each year for Christmas, she and her sister would each get a new doll, but they didn’t get to play with them immediately. Rather, their new dolls were “always kept in the closet.” According to Mildred, “when we went for a ride on Sunday, we could each take our doll. And when we got home, we’d put it away. The next Christmas, we could have that one to play with and the new dolly would go in the closet and stay for the next year.” While the girls received dolls as their Christmas presents, each of Mildred’s two brothers usually received a truck.

The Pulsifer children enjoyed sports, especially skiing. Mildred’s first pair of skis only had a toe strap. However, her older brother rigged up her skis so that that they would stay on. He put one nail in front of her foot, and another nail behind her foot. Then he put two pieces of inner tube around her ankle and stretched one piece to the nail in front and the other to the nail behind. On make-shift skis like these, Mildred, and many other local children, learned to ski.

As with most other children of the times, chores were also a part of life. The Pulsifer children had to complete their chores before they were allowed to play or do sports, like skiing. Mildred recalled that in her family, the chores included tending the animals, mowing the lawns, shoveling the snow, helping their father with operations on animals, and (for the girls) doing the indoor chores, such as cooking, washing dishes, ironing, and sewing. To master the sewing techniques that a young girl would need, Mildred and her sister were sent to a sewing school that was held at the elementary school each Saturday. At this school, they learned how to do French seams and all sorts of fancy stitches. If they did anything that was less than perfect, all their work was taken out, and they had to repeat it.

Another topic covered in Mildred’s oral history was health. In the early 20th century, if someone were ill, the local Health Officer would come around and nail up a sign warning others that the residents of the home were in quarantine. Given that there were four children in the Pulsifer family, Mildred notes that the sign was often hanging at their house.

The most serious disease that one of her brothers contracted was polio. Although he recovered, he had to wear high shoes and leg braces to his knees until he was 7 years old. At that point, Mildred’s father took her brother to Boston. One of the Boston surgeons operated on him, taking the muscle from the inside of his leg and putting it on the outside of his leg to pull his foot straight. Despite this operation, his leg continued to bother him, as Mildred recalled later in her oral history that their house was just under a mile from the school, and consequently they did not qualify to ride the bus. By the time her brother got home, his leg would be sore, and his mother would take off his brace and rub his leg. He limped for the rest of his life.

Mildred’s brother was not the only who had a physical challenge. Kitty, Mildred’s sister, suffered from crossed eyes. As a family of some means, the Pulsifers were able to afford to have her eyes operated on, cutting the muscle so, at least temporarily, her eyes were straight. In time, however, one of her eyes began to move the other way. She had to have an additional operation to correct it, and repair the damage done by the first operation. It was later determined that her eye would have likely straightened out all on its own if not for the first operation.

As for Mildred herself, she had what she referred to as double pneumonia when she was 13 months old. Her mother wanted to take her to the hospital, but Dr. Eastman - the local doctor - told her, “A mother’s care is best.” His treatment was to sew Mildred up in what was called a “pneumonia jacket.”  While some pneumonia jackets were made from oiled silk or muslin, and sometimes included a system of tubing that allowed hot water to circulate around the patient’s chest, Mildred’s pneumonia jacket was made from cotton batten. The idea behind the jacket, as explained in a New York Medical Journal article in 1895, was to keep the patient’s chest warm which “hastens the various stages of the pneumonia process [and] sustains lobular vitality and consequently the lobe will not be so prone to chronic disease or to recurrent attacks of pneumonia.” Mildred wore the jacket from February until September, and – as she noted - was frequently “sweating bullets” because of the treatment. One can only imagine the discomfort of wearing such a jacket during the hottest days of summer.

Oral histories, such as this one of Mildred Whitney, provide a goldmine of information about everything from gender roles and pastimes, to health issues and treatments of the day. These oral histories often contain specific details that never make it into more scholarly works, but help us to better understand our past, which in turn gives insights into our present and our future.