Collections: N

Rebecca Nourse, born on October 5, 1928, was Laurence G. Nourse’s second child. Laurence, a graduate of Dartmouth College, was a long time educator and served as the Superintendent of Schools for Norton, Mass. from 1924 to 1958. Rebecca was born with intellectual disabilities and after attending the Norton Public Schools and the Deveraux School, now known as Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, she was committed to the Belchertown State School in 1949. She remained at Belchertown for eleven years, transferring to the Laconia State School in Laconia, New Hampshire so she could be closer to her parents’ home in Deery. Rebecca died on March 12, 1993.

The Rebecca T. Nourse Collection though small, paints a rich portrait of the challenges of managing a daughter’s care in a State institution. The collection is made up of Laurence’s correspondence leading up to Rebecca’s commitment and with State School administration about issues ranging from replacing Rebecca’s broken glasses to attempts to make her tuition more affordable for their family. There are also a small number of letters from Rebecca to her father and mother and Rebecca’s commitment papers, school reports, certificates, brochures, and her death certificate.

A fine bookbinder and daughter of New Thought dietary reformer Charles C. Haskell, Helen Haskell Noyes (“Nellie”) was raised in privilege in Deer Isle, Maine, and Norwich, Conn. At the age of 21, Nellie and a group of friends embarked on a grand tour, visiting Switzerland, Italy, France, and England over the course of several months, taking in the usual fare of art and antiquities, cathedrals, palaces, fortifications, museums, and hotels.

In her diary for 1885, Noyes kept a careful record of her experiences while on her grand European tour. In sometimes perfunctory, but often interesting and humorous detail, she notes the challenges and pleasures of European travel, but more importantly, she offers a reflection of a young American woman’s first encounter with a foreign culture and her growing fascination with the deep art history in Italy.

Agent or part-owner of a firm, who may have been a ship’s chandler, from Fairhaven and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Includes personal expenses and business accounts (large bills for firms and small bills for labor, repairs, food, blacksmithing, and other items and services). Cash book is made up of six smaller cash books bound together; also contains lists of deaths in the family and notations of the lading of several ships.

Quaker worship in Weare, New Hampshire, began in 1769, and by 1785, it was set off from Seabrook Monthly Meeting as a monthly meeting. Initially a part of Salem Quarter, Weare was transferred to Dover Quarter in 1958.

The records of Weare Monthly Meeting include minutes and newsletters from 2010-2018 (including reports on the ministry in Kenya), and a scattering of earlier state of the society reports. Older records of Weare were still held at the Meeting as of 1997.