A Truro Boy Rebels Against the Hardness of Life, ca. 1905
by
Thomas Hopkins (1889-1982)
L. Thomas Hopkins was an influential, progressive educator who was born and died in Truro. His family lived on the now-vacant property across from Snow Park in Truro Center; his mother ran the Central House, which operated as a hotel on the corner of South Pamet Road, and his father carried the mail four times daily from the railroad to the post office.
First educated in Truro, he later graduated from Tufts, earned a doctorate in education at Harvard, and taught at University of Colorado and Teachers College, Columbia University. His academic work consisted of a re-thinking of the idea of ‘curriculum’; he credited his experiences growing up in Truro as the source of many of his pragmatic ideas.
Hopkins’s wife was Truro artist Hester Hopkins whose work may be found at Highland House Museum. This story comes from a talk he gave at Friends of the Truro Library in 1976. One hundred people attended.
“…On one occasion I rebelled against this rigid demanding life. Each July Fourth, Truro held a field day on the Town Hall Hill, with games for adults and children, plenty of homemade food, and fun for everyone. People came by train from Provincetown and Wellfleet to enjoy the outing. With a pair of horses and a buckboard, I had carried four loads of passengers from the depot to the Hill where I saw all of my friends enjoying themselves while I must go home, feed the horses, and come back in the afternoon for the return trips. As I watched the games, all seemed to be so unfair. I could catch a greased pig better than other kids because I had fed pigs, talked to them, watched their actions, knew how they would behave. I could grab a calf quicker than most of them because I had been around them for years and knew how they ran. When I reached home, fed the horses, went into the house, it was 12:30 and I was late, so the other family members were finishing dinner.
When they had left and I had my meal, I told Mother I wanted to talk with her, so she sat in her rocker with her hands rolled in her apron, a behavior she sometimes assumed when nervous. I pulled a stool up in front of her and said, “Mother, I am NOT going to Town Hall this afternoon to carry any more passengers! All my friends are up there having a good time and all I do is work, work, work, nothing for myself, no fun as they have…” On and on I rambled until I had vented my soreness.
After I finished, Mother said very calmly, “I know exactly how you feel. It seems so unfair that you must work while others enjoy themselves. But did you ever think about what this day means to us? You know that cash money is hard to get. We have very little of it. Today you could take in at least twenty-five dollars, and we have no other way to obtain it. Let me see, that would buy a barrel of flour, a barrel of sugar, two furkins of lard, two tubs of butter, and many dry groceries which we need for the winter. If you do not earn it today, I do not know where we will get it. And another thing, you agreed to take these people back to their trains. Perhaps we can get someone to drive if you will hitch up the horses. Yes, I know how you feel, but what you earn today means so much to us.”
I arose from the stool and said, “Mother, I will go; I never knew before what this day means to all of us.” Before going out the door I looked back. Mother was still sitting there. She had stopped twisting her apron, but tears were dropping from her eyes. I never rebelled again…”