Walter Littlefield

Profile manager: Chris Whitten [send private message]

Biography

Walter was born in Massachusetts, as were his parents.

In 1910 and 1920 he was working as a printer in a print shop in Haverhill.

In 1930 he was working at a newspaper.

Bob Bates reports, from family lore and personal memories, "Walter was born in Newburyport. He worked for much of his life as a linotypist for the Haverhill [MA] Gazette. He once took this 12-year-old through the Gazette facility in Haverhill and demonstrated how he typed words on a typewriter-like keyboard and the words were cast in lead slugs with a raised typeface which would be placed into the printing presses.

"He had a dandy - and sometimes randy - sense of humor, and was quick with a witty retort to a funny story or anecdote.

"Walter was a musician of considerable note. He had a fine tenor voice and was in demand as a soloist, especially at his many nieces' weddings. He sang in quartets and other musical groups.

"He also played flute and piccolo, and perhaps other instruments as well. Walter told of a parade in which he was to play piccolo. With the other musicians, he crowded into the local outhouse/privy, and as he stood there, his piccolo flipped out of his pocket and through the hole into the abyss below. He fished it out, wiped and washed it off as best he could, and never missed a note during the parade.

"He retired from the Haverhill Gazette about 1960. He and Mill, with another couple, drove west on a Grand Tour of the United States soon thereafter. He was continually dazzled with many of the western vistas, especially Zion National Park, of which he reported brought tears to his eyes at its overwhelming grandeur.

"Retirement also afforded his large group of grand-nieces and -nephews a chance to learn of all sorts of real and not-so-real things as he often visited Mildred's family. Larger than life and completely straight-faced, Uncle Walter spun tall tales of how Indians greeted one another with 'How! Cher-wah-way nickety moose!' And we wide-eyed youngsters thus greeted one another for years afterward."

Death and Burial

Walter died at Haverhill's Hale Hospital, essentially of old age, about 1968. He is buried with Mildred in the Bartlett family plot in Griffith Cemetery, Groveland, MA.

Sources

• Profile created through the import of Bates, Robert N.GED on 28 February 2011.

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