Pages of the Past: Diaries of Two 19th Century Brookline Readers

Step into the past and explore the lives of two 19th century Brookline women and the books they read. This presentation will take place at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum on Saturday, February 10th, from 12:30 to 2:00 pm.

Proceeds ($15 per person) help support the non-profit museum, which is hosting the event. Register here.

Mary Wild raised six children in her home on what is now Weybridge Road, where she lived from the 1820s to the 1850s. Adelaide Faxon lived nearby, on Linden Street, as a teenager in the 1850s. Both houses are still standing. 

The 19th century homes of Mary Wild, left, and Adelaide Faxon, both still standing today.

One thing they had in common is that both were avid readers who documented what they were reading. The Brookline Historical Society has painstakingly transcribed and annotated the diaries of these women, providing insights into the tapestry of life and society in Brookline during the 1850s.

This program offers a look at the books they read and what they tell us about mid-19th century literature and two people who made it a part of their lives.

Diary entries from Mary Wild, top, and Adelaide Faxon, about books they read.

Brookline Take-Out a Century Ago

Brookline Chronicle, October 16, 1920
(Click image for larger view)

Most restaurants today offer take-out as well as dine-in options. That's been true for a long time. At the height of the pandemic, that was the only way restaurants could survive -- many did not -- and delivery services like GrubHub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats expanded their operations.

A century ago, take-out from restaurants was rare and delivery practically unheard of. But an unusual, though short-lived, Brookline business was ahead of its time.

Image credit: Massachusetts Historical Society

The Community Service Kitchen opened in the western half of a recently constructed commercial building at 1473-1475 Beacon Street in June 1919. Two months later, the business doubled in size, taking over the other half of the two-storefront building as well.

(I told last week how this unusual building -- the only single-story structure and only commercial building on Beacon Street between Coolidge Corner and Washington Square -- came to be.)

Roger Wheeler in 1919

The business was the brainchild of two young Newton brothers-in-law: Guy E. Wyatt and Roger A. Wheeler, both 23.  Wyatt had been in the leather business. (He joked that he "knows the cow thoroughly, inside and out.") Wheeler had left Columbia University to serve in the ambulance corps in World War I. (He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his role in rescuing wounded French soldiers while under fire.)

The name "Community Service Kitchen" may sound like the kind of "soup kitchen" that served those in need, especially during the Great Depression that began a few years later. But it was not like that. 

Wyatt and Wheeler targeted middle- and upper-class women in Brookline, Newton, and the Back Bay.

"Let us save you the trouble and expense of cooking a hot meal every afternoon, and make it possible for you to sit down in the evening with your own family in the privacy of your own dining room to a delicious, hot, home-cooked dinner," they said in an article in the Brookline Chronicle.

 

"We can relieve you of the tiresome planning of meals, the trouble and labor of cooking them yourself, and make every afternoon the 'cook's day off' -- and we can do this at a lower cost to you than if you hire a cook at a present-day salary and give her board as well."

 
The meals were placed in aluminum containers "so constructed as to keep hot for several hours." (The article included a picture of the containers, shown below). 

 
The food was delivered by automobile, and the empty containers were picked up the next morning.

Two delivery vehicles of the Community Service Kitchen, their backs against the curb, are seen in front of the store in this photo. (Click image for a larger view). 

Image credit: Massachusetts Historical Society

"Every housewife can readily see the value of this service," wrote Wyatt and Wheeler. "No standing over a hot range all the afternoon; no worry about keeping the dinner hot and tasty, if Husband happens to come home a little later than usual; and, best of all, no greasy pots and pans to wash after dinner."

Pricing varied depending on how many meals were ordered in a week. Customers ordering meals less than four days a week paid the "casual rate": $1.25 per plate for weekday dinner; $1 per plate for weekday supper; $1.50 per plate for Sunday dinner. Customers placing orders for four or more days a week paid a discounted "regular rate."

This example of a daily dinner menu from the Community Service Kitchen appeared in the Boston Herald

The Community Service Kitchen was taken over in the fall of1923 by the Maddalena family who continued to operate it until 1926.

Brookline Chronicle, November 10, 1923

Brookline Chronicle, May 22, 1924

Other businesses followed, as outlined in last week's article, with carpet and rug stores occupying part or all of the space for more than 80 years. It has been home to a childcare center since the 2010s.
 

Wyatt and Wheeler, the founders of the Community Service Kitchen, pursued other careers after that early business venture. Wyatt got into public relations and government service. He was director of field service for the U.S. Department of Commerce in the 1950s. He died in 1964 at the age of 68. Wheeler became a writer and teacher who wrote plays for radio and local theater and hosted a radio program on WEEI. He was 61 when he died in 1956.

A Beacon Street Oddity

There is an unusual building on the south side of Beacon Street, just across from the inbound Brandon Hall stop on the MBTA Green Line. It's not particularly noteworthy architecturally. In fact, part of what makes the building stick out is its lack of notable architecture.

The small, plain, single-story storefront (1473-1475 Beacon Street) is the only one-story building and only strictly commercial building on Beacon Street between the Coolidge Corner and Washington Square commercial districts. It does stick out literally, extending several feet further toward the street than its taller neighbors.

This nondescript building, currently occupied by the School is Cool Academy, a childcare center, may be easy to overlook today. But it certainly wasn't when it was built, in 1915. In fact, it caused quite the furor in Brookline at the time.

Headline and image from an article in the Boston Transcript on May 26, 1915

"The building, jutting out from the others, like a sore thumb, not only completely destroys the symmetry of the street," reported the Boston Transcript, "but is regarded by competent real estate men as of serious effect on property values on either side."

 

"Nearly everybody who passed this spot by foot or by car," continued the paper, "has wondered how it was possible for the builder to work with such utter disregard for long-standing conditions and with such lack of respect for the dignity and beauty of one of the most excellent home sections of Brookline."
 

The building at 1473-1475 Beacon Street a few years afters its construction

The developer, H. Bertram Finer, had built several residential and commercial buildings in Brookline. When he bought this undeveloped property, a narrow alleyway between two of the apartment buildings, his intent was to construct a three-story apartment building. That would fit in well with the apartment buildings on either side of it, five to the east and two to the west, all built between 1897 and 1903. 

Restrictions imposed on the site by the town and the difficulty of building at the back, where the plot sloped toward todays' Griggs Park, led to a change of plans. 

These maps, from 1913 and 1919, show the empty alley and then the new building at 1473-1475 sticking further out on the sidewalk than the other buildings in the block. (The two sides of Beacon Street are at the top of the map, with the black and white lines representing the streetcar tracks.)

Finer, as well as the Board of Selectman that had approved his new plan, came under attack from other Beacon Street property owners. 

Headlines in the Boston Transcript on May 31 (left) and June 4, 1915

Finer was surprised. 

"I have never been accused of erecting cheap buildings until the present time," he told the Boston Transcript. "I don't like the accusation. In erecting the one-story building I had no idea of outraging the feelings of the abutters or anybody else who thinks of the city beautiful. If there is any way I can wash my hands of the whole thing. I am anxious to do it."

But the building remained -- and remains today -- an anomaly in this otherwise residential stretch of Beacon Street. Early tenants -- there were two storefronts, later combined into one -- included a plumbing and heating contractor and an upholsterer/interior decorator. 

There were a number of food-related businesses in the 1920s and 1930s, including an unusual (for its time) restaurant called the Community Service Kitchen that offered home-delivery of hot meals in special containers. (That's an interesting story that I'll cover in a separate post next week.)

But for most of its history, the building has been home to rug stores. Brookline Oriental Rugs and, later, Fine Art Rugs occupied all or part of the space from the late 1920s to the early 2010s when it was taken over by the School is Cool childcare center. 

The Community Service Kitchen, an eat-in and delivery restaurant, c1920.

The Brand Spa, an ice cream shop, delicatessen, and convenience store in the 1930s. 1473 and 1475 Beacon Street had been combined into one store by this time, but the original separate entrances are clearly visible at left and right.

This image from a 1951 ad for the Brookline Oriental Rug Co. shows the then newly installed angled entrance that is still in place today.

Fine Arts Rug as seen in Google Street View in 2010, shortly before the space was taken over by the School is Cool Academy

School is Cool Academy in 2024

Cats and Dogs (and Horses and Cows, Too)

An early advertisement for what is now the VCA Brookline Animal Hospital

You might say 2023 went to the dogs in Brookline. And the cats and the gerbils and the guinea pigs and …. you name it.

Two new (to Brookline) veterinary clinics – Boston Veterinary and Small Door – opened branches in former retail spaces in Coolidge Corner; one at the corner of Beacon and Pleasant Streets and the other on Harvard Street next to Otto Pizza. 

But also on the move in 2023 was a veterinary clinic that's hardly a newcomer to town. It's the Brookline Animal Hospital, which began on Boylston Street in 1909, in the building that's now the restaurant La Morra.

46-48 Boylston Street in the 1980s. Vacant at the time the picture was taken, it had most recently been a restaurant called Open Sesame. The building has been La Morra since 2003

Brookline Animal Hospital's Beginnings

This ad announcing the new animal hospital appeared in the Brookline Chronicle on Christmas Day, 1909. The second address shown, 8 Boylston Street, was in a nearby stable where the vets apparently saw patients.

Articles in the Brookline Press and the Brookline Chronicle from the year the hospital opened provide a detailed description. The hospital, wrote the Press, "is not only a model of neatness, but one of the most commodious and finely equipped in this region."

"There are in the hospital private rooms for cats and dogs, and one large and roomy ward where there are five ways of caring for these animals."

In addition, continued the article,

"proper provisions have been made for all surgical operations and treatment of horses and cattle where conditions at the owners' premises are unfavorable. . . The runs, indoor and outdoor, for the exercise of animals are most complete."  

The veterinarians running the hospital were Edward T. Ryan and Jesse F. Humphreville, both graduates of the veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania. Humphreville left to open his own practice in Waltham in 1916 or 1917, but Ryan -- and later his son Edward Jr. -- ran what was then called the  Brookline Hospital for Animals for 65 years, until the younger Ryan's death in 1974.

Edward T. Ryan, Sr. (1882-1946) and Edward T. Ryan, Jr. (1916-1974) in their yearbook photos from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine

In 1913, the elder Ryan moved his hospital to a new commercial building, known as Chase's Block, at the corner of lower Washington Street and Pearl Street. He would remain there for eight years. 

Chase's Block under construction in 1912. The building was torn down in 2015 and replaced by a new multistory office building. It had been home in more recent years to such restaurants as Bertucci's, Skipjack's,  and New England Soup Kitchen.

The Move to Winchester and Coolidge Streets 

In 1919, Ryan and his wife, Julia, bought the house at 143 Winchester Street, at the corner of Coolidge Street, and an adjacent Coolidge Street carriage barn. In 1921 they moved the veterinary practice into the former carriage barn next to their new home.

143 Winchester Street today

Brookline Chronicle, October 1, 1921

During World War II, the older Ryan served as a supply officer stationed at Fort Devens and elsewhere. He became ill during that time and died in 1946. His son, Edward, earned his own degree in veterinary medicine in 1943 and took over the practice.

Edward Ryan, Jr., who was 27 when he got his veterinary license and succeeded his father, continued to run the hospital until his death in 1974.  He no longer lived in Brookline after his marriage in 1948, though his mother, Julia, continued to live in the house next to the hospital. A hospital employee lived there after her death in 1954.

Trouble with Neighbors

Ryan had trouble with the neighbors in the 1960s, facing complaints about "barking and vicious disposition of the dogs."  (The local newspaper found the whole kerfuffle amusing, with headlines like "Barks bite neighbors" and stories about neighbors' complaints being "muzzled" when not enough of them showed up at a hearing.)

This article about a hearing on the Brookline Hospital for Animals appeared in the Boston Globe in 1966.

In 1976, Dr. Rodney Poling, a veterinarian who had come to Boston for an internship at Angel Memorial Hospital, bought the practice from Edward Ryan, Jr.'s widow. Poling, who grew up on a cattle and hog farm in Ohio, received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Ohio State University in 1973.

I spoke with Poling, now a vet in Texas. The hospital, he told me, had equipment in it from the Ryans' long tenure on the site, even including a horse stall and a cow stanchion in the basement. (A cow farm on Corey Hill had, at one time, been the Ryans' biggest customer, he said.)

1980 advertisement for the Brookline Animal Hospital

Four years after taking ownership of the hospital, Poling decided to move his growing practice, which he had renamed the Brookline Animal Hospital, to Boylston Street. His plans drew support from some neighbors but vehement opposition from others. Poling modified the plans and, in July 1981, bought the proposed site -- 370-376 Boylston, on the south side of the street -- for $200,000.

Further debate, downsizing of the original plans, and additional modifications continued for two years before Poling gave up and decided to move his practice elsewhere. "It was their contention that it would be a dirty, stinking place," Poling told the Brookline Chronicle Citizen. "I don't think they gave us a fair chance."

Ironically, the location the hospital moved to in 2023 is directly across Boylston Street from the location that Poling was prevented from moving to in the 1980s. (The building on Coolidge Street that had been the hospital was torn down and replaced by a new house. The adjacent house on Winchester Street, now a two-family home, remains.)

The Move to Brookline Avenue

In 1983, Poling purchased the former Back Bay Welding Co. building on Brookline Avenue, near the intersection with lower Washington Street. In March 1984, the hospital moved to its new quarters, where it would remain for 39 years.

The Brookline Animal Hospital in the building that was its home from 1984 to 2023.

"No more lunches on the x-ray table," reported the Chronicle Citizen, "no clambering through the darkroom to get to the bathroom, and hopefully fewer three-ring circuses in the now larger waiting room."

Dr. Rodney Poling in a 1986 ad for the hospital in the Brookline TAB. "Our goal is to show concern for both the animals and their owners," said Poling in the ad, "to use state of the art technology, without some of the impersonal style which sometimes accompanies it."

Poling sold the Brookline practice in the early 2000s and went on to open other veterinary practices in Massachusetts before moving, in 2021, to Texas, where he leads the Prairie Creek Animal Hospital in East Austin.

The Brookline Animal Hospital has been part of the VCA Animal Hospital network since 2007. (VCA also operates the Metro Cat Hospital in Washington Square.) 

Dr. Scott Groper, who started working under Poling in 1995 after earning his veterinary degree from the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, is now the Brookline Animal Hospital's medical director. 

That's one more bit of continuity to a Brookline institution that has been taking care of local animals for more than a century.