A feeling of entitlement

As kids growing up we simply felt that the world around us was ours to use as we saw fit. The fields in Hall’s Farm, the woods behind Casoli’s, the river behind the Colley’s & Hannigans, Urrans Pond, Grampa Mac’s Pond (actually his land on Maquan Pond), and all points in between – we understood that other people technically owned this land but “why shouldn’t we be allowed to play there unconditionally?”

Now as a grown-up parent, I try to teach my own kids respect for other peoples property and privacy, and I hate it when they act as if they are entitled to anything. I then of course feel guilty (I can’t believe we were so self-centered as kids) and hypocritical (why should I deny them the same sense of freedom that we enjoyed?).

Part of my dilemma has been somewhat resolved (or at least rationalized for me) recently. Mary’s love of – and now career in – genealogy has prompted me to research my own family’s local history. Combined with brother Wes’ collection of old family anecdotes and history, it has led me to know why we as kids felt entitled to free reign of our environs. It’s because of the Everson’s! Back in the 1800’s around the time that Pembroke’s West parish became the separate town of Hanson, the Everson clan was apparently omni-present – there were tons of them and they multiplied with great success. They apparently lived all around the east and south sides of Hanson. My great-great-great grandfather Barnabas Everson owned a large parcel between what is now Indian Head Street and Wamputuck Pond. It included all of what is now, the Little League Field complex, the Hanson Town Forest and further south along the road as well. He married into the Howland/Bates family who owned land across the street and extending back to Maquan Pond (ring a bell?). At some later point in time he purchased and moved to a large tract of farmland along side of the railroad tracks by the South Hanson Station. This would be the farm we as kids knew as “Hall’s Farm”. The house I grew up in at 30 Phillips St was built for my great-great-grandmother Imogene McClellan (Barnabas’ daughter. It stands to reason that all of Phillips St was once part of the larger Everson Farm parcel. I never knew until very recently that our neighbor (3 houses up the street) Mr. Ford was actually Grampa Mac’s cousin. Our neighbors 2 houses up were Howlands, and the house next door was my great-grandfather Roddy McClellan. I never realized it before but it’s all starting to make sense now – it was all a “family compound”! And we don’t have to travel far to see the reach that the clan had. 300 yards east on Main street is where Barnabas owned a saw mill and hired George McClellan (who married his daughter Imogene) to build the huge chimney which still stands prominently today. George and Imogene’s grandson Edgar (Grampa Mac) married Sally Annis who eventually lived at 30 Phillips St. Her parents lived for awhile in a house tucked away behind Urran’s Pond. Great-grandfather Billy Annis was found dead in the woods behind the Plymouth County Hospital (where now is housed the local 4-H extension office) on High St – geographically about halfway between Phillips St and Maquan Pond. So you see, without knowing it, we WERE entitled to having all of South Hanson as our playground. It was genetically and historically pre-destined and all of our neighbors were aware of our connection to this corner of the world even if we kids weren’t. That must be why they never complained (not out loud anyway) much if we short-cutted through their yards and built forts in their woods.

Now none of the Phillips St. neighbors are relatives, homes long since sold and resold. Only Nenna (Mom) and my sister Heather (the product of a Howland/McClellan Phillips St marriage) and baby Jessica remain as direct descendants on the Phillips St “ancestral homestead”. Aunt Maria, cousin Mo, and her children remain on the Maquan Pond “ancestral homesite”. The rest of us have relocated to places where it will be impossible for our children’s children to feel an entitlement to. Our half-acre in Carver will never be sub-divided into a family compound (unless Joe moves into the chicken coop and Jamie lives in the tree fort – don’t laugh, it’s not much different than the set-up that Aunt Sally and the Doyle cousins are living in right now - and on less land!).

I want my kids to understand why “The Pond” is important, so that they will respect it and revere it accordingly. Maybe this is why I maintain an unrealistic dream to someday acquire the “Pond” land (I’d obviously have to win big on the MegaMillions, offer Maria a really sweet deal, and count on the fact that she loves Sue & Mary so much!! She’s only seven years older than me, so based on MY genetics she will most likely outlive me – not that I hold any preferential standing in her list of potential heirs anyway!)

I suppose that at some point in time - hopefully not in MY lifetime - the Pond land with get sub-divided and built on, restricting access and eventually getting lost and absorbed into the rest of the bigger outside world.

So maybe I’ll start anew and spend my "bound-to-happen-any-day-now" lottery ticket windfall buying a 200 acre farm/mountain in New Hampshire where my kids can continue on after I am gone – generations of my own offspring having unexplained feelings of entitlement to the land of their fore-fathers. Maybe 150 years from now some young descendant will try to figure out who I was and what I did and why I mattered.

(if he figures it out, I hope he holds a séance and explains it to me!)