Gatsby Revisited

Cover illustration by "Skrenda"

Among the many thousands of newspaper clippings at the Archives, one caught our eye a few weeks ago—a book review from The New London News of November, 1933. The article said that Helen St. Bernard (1889–1970), author of Men Forget, had used New London as the central setting for her romance novel. It was first published as a serial but was soon issued as a book by Grosset & Dunlap of New York.

The review noted that "the library has received a copy for which the librarians have already received several requests." Curious, we looked for a copy. The timing was good, and we found one listed online in decent condition, signed by the author. (Apparently there is a market for first edition, Jazz- and Depression-era romances, but collectors often value the dust jacket artwork more than the text.)

The setting is undoubtedly based on the author's memories of the summer of 1930, when she stayed at the home of Mrs. Cressey. Some landmarks have been renamed; others have not. New London and Sutton are fictionalized as Powellville and Sutlow, but Kearsarge and Warner retain their names, perhaps because the author takes no license with them.

Powellville's fictional Valley Vista Farm advertised guest accommodations in the Boston papers, as did many of New London's hotels and inns at the time, and by chance Miss Jardine Emery selected it for her hasty country escape from city entanglements. The guest house seems to have been located on Main Street, not far from the old Post Office. In reality there were several. There was also an automobile repair shop, perhaps Little's or Kidder's. The town's nearby golf club may have been modeled after the Lake Sunapee Country Club, which opened in 1927. Sutlow, however, boasts the small hospital where Miss Emery finally choses between two keen suitors. The real New London Hospital, built on Main Street in 1923, would not serve the story because it was too close to Valley Vista Farm; automobiles figure prominently as conveyances of characters and plot—reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, published to little acclaim in 1925.

Title Page

Library patrons looking for themselves or neighbors may have been disappointed, as most of the story's characters are generic and unencumbered by description or backstory. One exception is Dr. Caleb Powell, who had served in France during World War I and returned to country doctoring—tending patients at home and in hospital. The character bears a resemblance to the real Dr. Bill Clough, Sr., who had served in France, doctored tirelessly by automobile, and had married a young woman from Boston.

In 1918, Helen St. Bernard of Detroit applied for a passport to join the Red Cross in France and England, so she may have tapped her own medical experience and imagination rather than anyone she had encountered in New London. On the 1920 Census she gave her occupation as "stenographer." Unwed at 30, she was living with her sister, Hildegarde, and widowed mother, Elvira. After her mother's death in 1926, Helen worked her way from Detroit through Richmond, Virginia, to St. Petersburg, Florida, by 1940. She died there in 1970.

Her writing was concentrated in the decade of her 40s, during which she produced at least nine published works—a mix of novels, serials, and short stories. The titles suggest she stuck with romance: Men Forget (1932), High Windows (1933), Mystery Girl (1935), Tomorrow Never Comes (1936), Wicked Woman (1937), Where the High Road Led (1938), 'Til We Meet Again (1939), After Tonight, What? (1939), and Heart Unafraid (1941).

A little known author, St. Bernard joins others of that era who found inspiration in the quiet presence of Mt. Kearsarge. Thornton Wilder studied the headstones of West Part Cemetery on his afternoon walks from Blodgett's Landing to Crockett's Dairy for ice cream. Harry Woods reportedly composed music for Kate Smith's "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain" by conjuring a view he knew from his year at New London's Colby Academy, where he was known as "Snooky." Those artists visited and left, but their characters remained among us.

Hybrid Vehicles

Moxie is an acquired taste. First developed as a patent medicine by Dr. Augustin Thompson of Maine (but practicing in Lowell, Mass.) after the Civil War, this bitter product of the gentian root was transformed into a bottled, carbonated beverage in 1880s. The drink's iconic status, however, was more a product of its marketing than its taste. Unlike many "medicines" of the time, Moxie did not contain alcohol and was advertised as beneficial for all ages, especially the temperate.

Early Horsemobile at B.F. Sargent's store in New London.

Subsequent marketing efforts included the horse-drawn Moxie Bottle Wagon of the late 1880s. Around 1905, an early automobile was outfitted with distinctive Moxie lettering. These two concepts were fused into a new hybrid vehicle around 1915 — the Moxie Horsemobile. With its gas and brake pedals extended to the stirrups, and its steering wheel protruding from the horse's withers, the rider/driver was perched some five feet above the roadbed.

The prototype proved dangerously unstable and was soon replaced by another version based on a Dort Motor Car chassis and a light-weight, paper-mache horse, obtained from a defunct tack and harness shop. Over the next couple of decades, new Horsemobiles were constructed from Buicks, LaSalles, and at least one Rolls Royce.

Three Horsemobiles at Kidder's Garage.

Moxie's fleet of Horsemobiles was dispatched to parades and pubic exhibitions throughout New England and as far west as Ohio. Photographs in the town's Archives show that Horsemobiles visited New London on at least two unidentified occasions.

Once a national brand, the cash-strapped Moxie was forced to limit its advertising in the 1930s and lost its market share. Moxie remains the official drink of Maine, but it's no longer distributed beyond the New England states.

You can visit the only remaining original Horsemobile at Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, NH, and maybe sample a cold Moxie while you're there.

Blood Work

Newspaper advertisements often contain interesting, sometimes amusing, snippets of history.

Advertisement for R. A. Blood, M.D.
 New London Advocate (September 1872)

One of New London’s early surgeons was the aptly-named Dr. Robert A. Blood (1839–1916). He attended the New London Literary and Scientific Institution (formerly Colby Academy) before the Civil War, joined New Hampshire’s 11th Volunteers, Company F, and, badly wounded at Fredericksburg, was finally discharged in May 1863. He next decided to study medicine, training at Harvard’s medical school before establishing a short-lived practice (1871–1873) in New London. [He left to assume the practice of Dr. H.C. Bickford, his uncle and a New London native, in Charlestown, MA. Beginning in 1896, Dr. Blood served for eight years as the surgeon-general of Massachusetts.]

Today, if you have blood drawn and analyzed at New London Hospital, you might thank Colby-Sawyer students and alumnae. After returning from Christmas break in early 1941, Barbara Jane Baker, a third-year med-tech student from Rye, New York, died of meningitis at the old New London hospital on Main Street (near Pressey Court). In those days, blood samples were sent from the hospital to the college’s laboratory, but Baker's illness went undiagnosed. Her twelve classmates thought, as Barbara reportedly did, that the hospital should have its own facilities.

The first lab, just a bench and microscope located in closet-sized room by the cellar stairs, was formally dedicated with hymns, prayer, and a benediction on April 16, 1941. Although money had been raised, additional equipment was unavailable until after World War II. Dr. Clough Jr. analyzed samples and typed test reports until a part-time technician could be hired in 1942. 

Barbara Jane Baker (1920-1941)

By one reckoning from 1956, the third-year students had made annual donations totaling over $10,000—helping purchase equipment like EKG and BMR machines, a centrifuge, constant-temperature oven and water bath, binocular microscope, colorimeter, and a blood bank refrigerator. As the equipment grew, so did the need for work space, and the lab was relocated to a “slightly larger room” in 1955. In the move to the new County Road hospital building in 1958, the lab was allocated two rooms.

By 1972, the cumulative donations had reached $40,000. Contributions to the Baker Memorial Laboratory Fund continued through the 1970s, with Baker’s former classmates often answering the fundraising call to support "Colby's own charity." In 1980, the balance of the memorial fund was legally transferred from the college to the hospital.

So the next time you are waiting for your name to be called at the Drawing Station, peek through the lab’s window and think of the college students and alumnae that made it possible, starting with B.J. Baker. But when those vials appear with your name on them, you might also think of Dr. Blood.

Sources:

• New London Archives — Colby-Sawyer, New London Hospital, and newspaper collections.
• Granite Monthly, "New Hampshire Necrology", Dr. Robert A. Blood.