Bates Family

Nancy Alden Bassett Guilford, 8th generation descendant of
John and Priscilla Alden, lived her entire life in Ashfield,
Massachusetts. At the time of her death in 1931, she was the
oldest resident of Franklin County at the age of 102. Nancy’s
brother John died as an infant in 1825 and her other brother
William moved to Hammonton, New Jersey and operated a nursery
there.

Lucy Guilford Church married George Church. They had two
daughters Helen and Isabel and a son Frederick.

George B. Church, a native of Buckland, ran a farm in the
Baptist Corner section of Ashfield. He served as President of
the Board of Trustees of the Belding Memorial Library from
1918-1930 and was also a Selectman in the town in 1908.

Helen Church was a librarian at the South Ashfield
Library. Together with her sister Isabel she took care of her
parents, her grandmother Nancy, and her aunt Mary.

Isabel Church was also a librarian at the South Ashfield
Library. Together with her sister Helen she took care of her
parents, her grandmother Nancy, and her aunt Mary.

Frederick Church grew up on a farm in Ashfield,
Massachusetts and graduated from the Massachusetts
Agricultural School in June 1902. From 1902-1905 he worked at
the School in the Agricultural Department of the Experiment
Station conducting experiments dealing with fertilizers. From
April 1906-November 1907 he worked as head farmer at the
Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. He left
employment there in 1907 due to a change in farm plans made
necessary by the taking of land by New York City for an
aqueduct. He later worked as a traveling salesman for Lucius
Sanderson Fertilizer Company. He was killed in March 1910 in
an accident at a train station on Long Island, New York.

Lucia Grover Church was born in Prescott, Massachusetts on
December 16, 1877. She worked as a secretary at the
Massachusetts Agricultural School from 1897-1904 and then as
secretary to the director of the experiment station at the
School from 1911 until her death in 1943. She and her three
daughters lived at 33 Pine Street in North Amherst.

Cora Grover, sister of Lucia Church, lived with Lucia and
her daughters in North Amherst. She was employed as a
secretary at the West Experiment Station of the Massachusetts
State College from 1913-1957.

Cornelia Church was born on July 21, 1906 in New Paltz,
New York, graduated from Amherst High in 1924 and from
Massachusetts State College in 1928. She worked at the
Worcester Free Library, Greenfield Regional Library, and
later was director of the Western Massachusetts Regional
Library with an office in Springfield.

Gertrude Church Salter was born in Ashfield on November
12, 1910 and graduated from Amherst High School and
Massachusetts State College in 1932. She married Leonard
Austin Salter (also class of 1932) on June 23, 1934. Gertrude
and Leonard lived in Eaglesville, CT while Leonard taught and
pursued his Masters degree at Connecticut Agricultural
College. They later lived in Wisconsin when Leonard taught in
the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of
Wisconsin. Gertrude, Leonard, and their son Leonard 3rd were
killed on June 5, 1946 in the LaSalle Hotel Fire in
Chicago.

Marcia Church Bates was born on April 17, 1908. She
graduated from Amherst High School and North Adams State
College and taught in Sunderland and Buckland before her
marriage to Raymond Bates in 1930. She and her husband ran
the Bates store on the corner of Meadow and North Pleasant
Streets in North Amherst from 1928-1960.

William Luther Bates, father-in-law of Marcia Bates, was a
motorman for the Amherst and Springfield Railway and later
for the Holyoke Street Railway Company. He and his wife
Esther operated the Bates Inn at the corner of North Pleasant
and Pine Streets in North Amherst from 1925-1944.

Genealogy Charts of Families attached.

The Marcia Church Bates Family Papers, 1712-1999,
collected by family members over two centuries, is a
collection rich in the local history of North Amherst and
Ashfield, Massachusetts.

The Bates family ran two of the businesses in North
Amherst: William Bates and his wife Esther operated the Bates
Inn from 1925-1944, and Raymond Bates and his wife Marcia
operated the Bates Store from 1928-1960. Marcia Bates’
letters reveal the difficulties of keeping a business running
during the Great Depression and later during the war years of
the 1940s. Her letters also indicate some of the daily tasks
involved with running the store and the lengths to which she
and her husband went in order to maintain financial
stability.

The Church family ran a farm in Ashfield, also subject to
economic fluctuations. Clearly, the financial constraints
that families had to endure during the 1920s-1940s are
evident in the materials in this collection. Money is a
frequent topic, whether it is discussed in the
correspondence, legal documents, account books, or
diaries.

This collection also depicts details in the lives of
several generations of women, many of whom were
college-educated, who worked, lived long and endured family
tragedy. In a letter to her aunts, Marcia Bates writes,
“Mother rejoices that we were brought up poor and with the
knowledge that if we wanted anything done we would have to do
it ourselves.” Lucia Church, a single mother after her
husband Frederick was killed, raised her three daughters in
North Amherst and ensured that each of them went to
college.

Lucia’s daughter Cornelia became a librarian and worked at
the Worcester Free Library in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Cornelia’s letters to her mother often discuss her work at
the library. Cornelia’s aunts, Helen and Isabel Church, were
librarians at the South Ashfield Library, and her
grandfather, George, served as President of the Board of
Trustees of the Belding Memorial Library from 1918-1930.
Therefore, libraries and librarianship are topics of note in
this collection.

The local weather is also mentioned frequently. The
effects of the March 1936 flood on the local communities are
detailed as well as the devastation of the September 1938
Hurricane. In addition, the Church family diaries describe
the daily weather conditions in Ashfield.

The collection is organized into seven series, including:
I. Correspondence, II. Legal Documents, III. Account Books,
IV. Diaries, V. Oral History and genealogical material, VI.
Photographs, and VII. Memorabilia.

This collection is organized into seven series:

• Series 1. Correspondence, 1837-1967; n.d.
• Series 2. Legal Documents, 1712-1867; n.d.
• Series 3. Account Books, 1828-1955
• Series 4. Diaries, 1871-1956
• Series 5. Oral History and genealogical material, 1999;
  n.d.
• Series 6. Photographs, n.d.
• Series 7. Memorabilia, 1849-1967 n.d.