"OUR WOMEN OF SANDWICH"
(2020 Summer Exhibit)
JUDY COOLIDGE
1914-1999
The woman of Sandwich who made the most profound impression on me as a child was Judy Coolidge. I met Judy when I was too young to remember – during the early 1950s. She ran a chicken farm across the lake and supplied eggs to Heath’s, Glenn’s store in Sandwich and had a regular customer route that we were part of. Judy lived at and ran Coolidge Farm at the bend of Coolidge Farm Road on Squam Lake. She was the daughter of Anna Cabot and Joseph Coolidge and twin of Joe Coolidge VIII. Her relatives and ancestors were among the most illustrious of the country, Boston Brahmins, hobnobbing with presidents and princes. She was raised in Cambridge and summered at Squam along with the rest of the Boston Coolidges.
She was very short – perhaps 4’8” or so, wore green uniform shirts and pants from Sears and always had a change machine hanging from the front of her belt. I was fascinated with it. It was loaded with nickels, dimes and quarters, and she dispensed them with a flick of a lever. I was way too young to have it occur to me that Judy was unusual. She loved raising chickens and selling eggs, enjoyed the conviviality of her egg route, and this all seemed good to me. She had a huge barbecue at the farm every year where all the year’s layers were served up, and everyone in the town came. I thought that was a wonderful thing to be able to do. The last barbecue I went to she had a Polaroid camera, the first in Sandwich, and quite a feature of the evening. She went on to establish the Corner House as a going concern, but I was gone by then.
As I grew up amid the emerging women’s movement I realized what a remarkable person Judy was. She turned her childhood conditioning upside down -- never married, never had children, worked, and seemed quite happy that way. My Dad told me that Judy had gone to Radcliffe and gotten a Masters in Chemistry, but that there was no way she could have gotten a job as women didn’t do science. That was some food for thought – both in terms of what Judy had been up against, and what my Dad thought about women in science!
I left Sandwich in the early ‘60s and didn’t see Judy again until I moved back in 1997. I am so glad I got to visit with her before she died. She was indomitable, and the first of a number of wonderful women who showed me there is always another way.
Joan Merriman
May 2020
She was very short – perhaps 4’8” or so, wore green uniform shirts and pants from Sears and always had a change machine hanging from the front of her belt. I was fascinated with it. It was loaded with nickels, dimes and quarters, and she dispensed them with a flick of a lever. I was way too young to have it occur to me that Judy was unusual. She loved raising chickens and selling eggs, enjoyed the conviviality of her egg route, and this all seemed good to me. She had a huge barbecue at the farm every year where all the year’s layers were served up, and everyone in the town came. I thought that was a wonderful thing to be able to do. The last barbecue I went to she had a Polaroid camera, the first in Sandwich, and quite a feature of the evening. She went on to establish the Corner House as a going concern, but I was gone by then.
As I grew up amid the emerging women’s movement I realized what a remarkable person Judy was. She turned her childhood conditioning upside down -- never married, never had children, worked, and seemed quite happy that way. My Dad told me that Judy had gone to Radcliffe and gotten a Masters in Chemistry, but that there was no way she could have gotten a job as women didn’t do science. That was some food for thought – both in terms of what Judy had been up against, and what my Dad thought about women in science!
I left Sandwich in the early ‘60s and didn’t see Judy again until I moved back in 1997. I am so glad I got to visit with her before she died. She was indomitable, and the first of a number of wonderful women who showed me there is always another way.
Joan Merriman
May 2020
Judy delivering eggs by boat on Squam Lake ~ c. 1950s
Chris Read, born in 1960, spent the vast majority of his life in Sandwich. When asked if any women stood out in his mind as being unique, one recollection was of Judy Coolidge. In the late 1960s, Judy would show up at the Sandwich Central School in her dark green work clothes (uniform) delivering eggs to the school. Every other person who had ever shown up delivering anything was a guy - the milkman, food deliveries, fuel deliveries. She owned and ran the Corner House. At that time it was a laundry, restaurant and inn. At the end of the school year in June, she would invite the entire grade school to her home on Coolidge Farm Road for a chicken barbecue. Besides Field Day, it was the highlight of the school year. She was the first woman I ever noticed who 'wore so many hats' i.e. running her own businesses.