Annie Agnes Quinn

Annie came from Ireland to the United States in 1880 at the age of 15. (another version says she came at 11) from Ballygar County Galway. Mary Feeney met her and took her to Newfields, New Hampshire to live with relatives. At that time cousins Ed Quinn and Helen Quinn (brother and sister to each other) as well as her sister Mary or Mame were in Newfields. (Sister Margaret as well?) and a sister Catherine in Newport, R.I.

The story goes that the oldest one would come over and earn money to bring the next. She is said to have wanted to come after her mother died, her father remarried and she didn't feel comfortable and wanted to move.

She lived on 23 Hemenway Street in Boston. Both Mary and Ruth were born there. She worked as a lady's maid as a young woman. She was known as awonderful seamstress and hairdresser. She worked for the Peabody family on Ivy Street in Boston. She met Horace Fuller there. They moved into an apartment in Brookline for two or three years.

They then bought the house on 201 Davis Avenue in Brookline, Mass. It had a nice flower garden along the driveway, trellises with red blaze climbing roses on the front porch and a large PeeGee hydrangea on the front lawn. In the fall, Nancy Clemnt Kline would pick the creamy, pink blossoms to be used in the house for dried arrangements. The vegetable garden was in the back yard.

The front parlor had an upright piano on top of which was a portrait of the Pope. This room was also used for family wakes with the caskets in the bay window over the driveway. The large painting of the standing womn was in that front parlor as well as several pieces of furniture now owned by Stan Clement, Jr. The hallway a ceramic the umbrella stand.

The dining room as well as the parlor had sliding pocket doors and heavy velvet curtains which Nancy used to wrap herself up in when visiting. This room had the usual dining room furnitire, a tall secretary and 2 Morris chiares for Horace and Annie. William Morris designed these as part of the Arts and Crafts movement. Also a large floor radio. The whole family was there on the Sunday that Pearl Harbour was bombed and war was declared (WWII) on 12/7/1941.

Sunday dinner at 201 Davis Avenue was obligatory - in winter followed by games of Chinese checkers and aride in the country in the summers.

Mrs. Haely was their cleaning lady. Peter, the vegetable man and a bread man and a milk man came to the door and other groceries were ordered over the phone form S.S. Pierce and delivered to the house. Except during the war, when Mary did their shopping for them with food stamps for sugar, eggs, meat, etc. They alwys managed to have a roast for Sunday dinners during the war. There was also a large pool table in the basement. nancy would chalk the cues.

They attended the Priory church not far from the Brookline house. The Priory had Benedictine monks who wore brown robes, rope belts and sandals. The whole family went to church together during Nancy's childhood in the summer months.

She always hired a dress maker to make her children's clothes. One Easter she made dresses for the girls with hats with ostrich feathers. She and Horace cooked together. They went to York Beach, Maine for summer vacations. She married at 33 in 1899. Ruth was born when she was 36 and Mary when she was 39. As an older woman, she always sat in her Morris chair and Horace waited on her hand and foot, peeling grapeskins off. Mary and WInifred (friends of Mary Fuller's) called her Queen Anne. Mary was named after Mary or Mame her Aunt. Ruth was named after Horace's sister Ruth. Annie was one of the few women to ride a bike. She had an accident with a snake in the wheel and was reprimanded for riding.

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