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09/01/2002 Entry: "Maryfarm in Easton ??"
For a while in the mid 1930's, the Catholic Worker Movement had a commune called Maryfarm (or sometimes Maryknoll) in my hometown of Easton Pennsylvania. I tried to find it today, but without much luck. Apparently it's going to take some real research to locate. The site'll probably just end up being a housing development by now, but I'd still like to know where it used to be.
I've sent out a request to Marquette University since it looks like they have all the data I need. Unfortunately none of it is online.
(By the way, Young Dorothy was quite the hottie, and at least one of her letters would be feel right at home as a diaryland post.)
Update:I found the farm. It turns out my dad and aunt used to go to school with some of the Maryfarm kids, from the group that appartently bought the farm after Dorothy Day sold in in 1955.
The kids used to walk to school from the farm site on Morgan's Hill, wearing backpacks, walking in a line like ducks. Other kids at the school would make fun of them, since apparently no other kids were wearing backpacks in the 1950's, and because they had to walk to school, and apparently didn't have electricity.
One family living on the farm at the time was the Christophers, the other was the Smiths. One of the kids, Peter Christopher, was a year ahead of my aunt in school. My aunt said he was really smart. There is also supposed to be a Christopher from the farm buried in the local cemetery. The plot is marked with a simple wooden cross.
At one point, my great-grandfather donated a baby carriage to the people living on the farm because they had small kids, and he thought they might need it. He pushed it all the way down to the farm by hand, I'm guessing a distance of about three miles. The next week he saw they were using the baby carriage to transport old newspapers on trash day instead of using it for the youngsters. Apparently he wasn't too happy.
A lot of other Easton references are in "A Friend of The Family - Mr. O'Connell is Dead" There's also some verbage from "House of Hospitality" about the school I went to up to the fourth grade:
Most of the Catholics in Easton are industrial workers and it is very hard to keep the church and school going. The high school building is not large, but every inch of it is utilized for class rooms and library, and during the vacation months, Sister Edith allows the unemployed young men who are graduates of the school to hang around the building, use the library and have a special room for themselves to congregate and smoke in.
