Hilda Olsen
Hilda Olsen was born in 1896, making her 19 years Nina’s junior. Hilda was introduced as “Miss Olsen” in Nina’s diary of April 10, 1923, when Nina was working as a library assistant at the Waltham Public Library and Hilda was a teacher of gardening and natural history in the public schools there. Hilda and Nina went from a professional relationship to a personal friendship, as evidenced not least by becoming on a first-name basis with one another, by September 9, 1923. Nina and Hilda discovered a shared passion for nature and the outdoors, and a deep friendship was quickly cemented. Hilda is a professional landscape architect by training, a graduate of the prestigious Lowthorpe School in Groton. Hilda is the illegitimate daughter of a mother who immigrated to the U.S. from Sweden and worked as a cook in a private home. Hilda is at turns energetic, sickly, affectionate, moody, manipulative; she is overall force of nature with whom Nina is constantly preoccupied, in an almost obsessive relationship that is difficult to categorize as either mother-daughter or big sister-little sister. Hilda has lived for several years as a boarder in the home of the late Bradford W. Drake of Waltham, and his daughter, Martha “Dickie” Drake.
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Earl Grey and I were startled when you first identified Hilda Olsen, Norwegian immigrant, as a landscape gardener. My father's family came from Scandinavia in the late 1800's and we never heard of an immigrant woman who did anything other than domestic work. The men were mostly skilled tradesmen, with a few farmers for variety, but -- landscape gardener? I don't think there is a Norwegian word for such a thing.
So I set up a family tree for Hilda in Ancestry.com. Long story short, Hilda appears to be the daughter of an immigrant cook named Oline Olsen and an anonymous member of a wealthy Boston family. Oline could not raise a child and keep her job, of course, so Baby Hilda was raised by foster parents Henry & Mary Hill on their farm in Canton.
Far as I can tell, our Hilda Olsen appears in only one family tree on ancestry.com. It's a small and sketchy tree that traces Oline Olsen and her immigrant siblings, and includes a findagrave memorial to Hilda, who is buried with the May family in Canton. A note calls Hilda a mysterious cousin. The owner of this tree also has a larger tree labelled May Family, but it's not public. I'm guessing that descendants of the Mays knew about Baby Hilda's origins. Next rainy day, I might try to get in touch with the tree owner & see if they can fill in more story.
Hilda Olsen appears in the 1900 Census of Canton as the 3 year old Boarder of Henry May, Farmer, his wife Mary and their sons Oscar & Walter, all 5 born in Massachusetts. In the 1910 census, Hilda is 13 years old and At School, still born in MA. In 1920, Walter Hill & his wife live with 23 yr old Hilda Olsen, who is a Landscape Gardener for a Private Family. That would be Bradford Winslow Drake, whose household also lists a 23 yr old Hilda Olsen of No Occupation. The Drakes report that Hilda was born in Norway, as were both her parents. Daughter Martha Drake, a Wellesley grad and sometime school teacher, appears to be BFF with Hilda, who meets Nina Winn at the Waltham library. In 1923, Nina Winn accompanies Hilda Olsen to visit her brother Walter Hill on the family farm near Ponkapoag Pond and the rest is, um, history.
According to that one online tree, Oline Gunelle Olsen was born in 1874 in rural Norway (then part of Sweden). She arrived in New York about 1894 and in the 1900 census she is a 26 yr old Cook in the household of Malcolm Graeme Haughton, Cotton Merchant, on Cottage Street in Brookline. The two other servants are also Scandinavian. The youngest Haughton son is 23 year old Percy, who later became famous coaching Harvard football -- he's the one who supposedly once strangled a bulldog in the locker room to motivate his team. You can't make this stuff up.
The Haughtons didn't employ a gardener or a landscaper, so I started looking at their neighbors on the census sheets. Next household is headed by Architect Shepley, son-in-law of the adjacent wealthy widow Julia Richardson and her sons. Then there is William Whitman, another Cotton Merchant. Next comes Arthur Hartt, Landscape Architect. Then the census-taker turns the corner of Cottage Street onto Goddard Avenue, where he finds one Larz Anderson, whose staff listings occupy the next page or two. Then there are the Goddards themselves, whose household includes the entire cast of Downton Abbey. Oddly, only the Haughtons have Scandinavian servants. The other households employ Irish and English staff, with the occasional French governess and Polish bricklayers. Florists may be German. So the possibilities for Hilda's paternity are endless.
In 1910 & 1920, the census finds Oline Olsen cooking for Eben Dyer Jordan at 42 Beacon Street. Yes, those Jordans. Oline last appears in the 1930 census, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where she is the cook for a Jordan granddaughter's family. She never married and reported no children. Several siblings also settled near Boston, but none seem to have gone into Service as a career.
Maybe you already know all this? And more? Or better?
I don't know why the Hills were chosen to raise Hilda. Maybe their farm supplied produce to Brookline and somebody slipped a basket with Baby Hilda under the seat of the delivery wagon when Henry wasn't looking. Maybe Little Hilda was allowed to visit the gardener-landscaper-architect-customer as she grew & she paid attention when they talked about plants. I don't know how Hilda met the Drake family, who hailed from Stoughton before Brad married Miss Whitford and her father deeded them the outfit in Waltham. (On first pass, I scored 6 bunks on the Mayflower for the Drakes) It's easy to see how Adult Hilda could have been Born Again as an immigrant herself, orphaned and then raised by a respectable farmer's family, without any parental backstory needed.
I would love to see Hilda's marriage and death certificates, but can't legitimately claim to be a relative in order to obtain copies. I have no idea who her husband was and ancestry.com explodes when I try to look for men named James Smith. So that's the end of my story of Hilda so far.
It was so nifty to read Nina's progress in this new friendship -- First, she met with Miss Olsen, then Hilda Olsen, now Darling Hilda! Even knowing that Hilda will marry in 1929 & die within the year, I can share Nina's excitement thanks to you!
Best!
Ruth
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Have been following along Hilda's adventures with you. Adrienne has a clipping that says Hilda graduated from the Swedenborgian high school (later Waltham School for Girls, now part of Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall) and also from the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture and Gardening for Women in Groton -- a very elite credential. This was Hilda's golden ticket to being able to support herself, not to mention an entree to social circles that would be otherwise closed to her. Miss Grace Cabot Holbrook of Naulakha was likewise a graduate of Lowthorpe and just a few years older than Hilda. So I'm guessing that Hilda's Brattleboro gig came about via the Old Girls network. Huzzah for Hilda!
Martha Louisa Drake b. 1888
Aunt Sarah 1844
Susanna 1852
George 1873
Mabel 1876 m 1903
