Lida Beckwith's Husband, Father, Daughter and Grandson

Photographer Unknown

     Soon after my afternoon with Ted Adams 2 and 3, I had breakfast with Ted Adams 1, and he kindly allowed me to view his mother's scrap book, and make copies of these photographs. Ted I is retired from his career as New Milford's Sheriff. To say that I never expected to meet him is an understatement; I wanted to know more about Lida, but I could not have imagined this find. Ted's mother, Mary Beckwith, appears only in one census, because she married Ted and her father, Burton Beckwith. These photographs show Hidden Hollow in the midst of the Depression. The front porch and clear view up the hillside were gone by 1938.

     I contemplate these photographs and puzzle out how they explain Hidden Hollow's history. It seems to me that the sale of Hidden Hollow was almost over-determined. Lida and Burton had no sons, and their daughter's husbands had careers outside of farming. In any case, erosion of the hillside and market conditions made this farm not profitable. When both her father and Burton died, Lida was living in Sherman Center. She was making a home there for her second child, Frances, and probably needed cash more than she needed land, although she was generous in extending a mortgage to my father for a third of the selling price.