Millie (Bartlett) Whitten

Ancestors

Daughter of Hollis Manning Bartlett Sr. and Ada May (Storrs) Bartlett

Descendants

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Chris Whitten [send private message]

Biography

Millie was born in Jeffersonville, Vermont^[1] while her father was the pastor of a church there. She was named after her aunt Mildred (Bartlett) Littlefield.

Meeting baby Millie.

Her sister Rebecca wrote of the picture above:

Millie was born Feb. 24, 1922. Our aunts and uncles came to see her. We lived under Mount Mansfield, VT, which made it a nice place for vacations. At one time we had so many visitors that the family slept in the yard in a big old circus tent.

Metcalf Pond.

Beck wrote:

Metcalf Pond was not too far from our village. We went there for picnics now and then. This picture was taken at one. Millie must have been about four. There was a cabin that our folks rented for vacations sometimes. No running water! We washed in the pond. Perhaps there was a pump for drinking water. I don't remember. Gramma Bartlett would walk out on the dock and kneel to wet her wash cloth. She did not like primitive plumbing! Grampa Bartlett would bring the Boy Scouts & camp on the hillside. Gramma would bring the Camp Fire Girls who would sleep upstairs in the cabin. The boys used that circus tent. Everyone had fun!

Beck recorded other stories from their years in Vermont:

Before electric refrigerators you had an ice house behind your house. ... In very hot weather we kids liked to go and sit on the ice in the ice house -- a very big No! No! That ice had to last until cold weather. We also would tease mom to make ice cream -- that took too much ice!

There was a sugar maple tree in our yard. Dad would tap it -- pound a spout into the tree + the sap would flow out into a pail in the spring time. The sap had to be boiled and boiled to get to be syrup. Vermonters liked to pour the hot syrup over clean snow. The syrup gets gummy. You twirl it up on your fork and eat it. Yummy. They would have what they called a sugaring off party. Best I can remember, the "sugar" was the main course with pickles to offset the sweetness + maybe homemade doughnuts.

In the fall of 1926 the family moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, when Millie's father was transferred to the Lake View Congregational Church in Worcester.

All dressed up.

Beck wrote:

I well remember our move! We kids cried & cried because 'we had spent the best years of our lives in Jeffersonville.' That time seems so little now... . We girls stayed with our Aunt Mill while Steve and our parents went to Worcester to see to the furniture and all that stuff.

Circa 1938-1939, she graduated from high school in Worcester and started college.

Her sister Rebecca was friends with Joyce Whitten. Through Joyce, Mildred met Edward. On August 11, 1946, Edward and Millie were married.

Home Movies

Whitten Home Movies, 1969-71, Part 1 | Part 2: These were taken by Ted. Parts 1 and 2 only add up to about 15 minutes of footage. You will notice some things are not in date order, because there were a few reels of footage, and the photo place that did the conversion didn't know their correct order.

T.D.'s 1989 Birthday Video from Dad & Chris - Part 1 |Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5: Filmed January 1989. This video features appearances by numerous family and friends, some no longer with us.

Sources

1. ↑ This is from Beck (Bartlett) Nally. Jeffersonville is the town they lived in. It may or may not be where Millie was born.

• Paternal and maternal relationships are confirmed with an AncestryDNA test match between Chris Whitten and Hollis Bartlett. Predicted relationship reported by AncestryDNA: 2nd Cousins; Confidence: Extremely High.