• Walter and Alice and little Frannie came here the 20th of December to spend the holidays. Frannie was taken sick and for four weeks she was at death’s door. Two physicians gave her up. We were all worn out with anxiety and watching and now she seems as well as ever. She is 18 months old today. I think they froze her almost to death taking her out in the severest weather an hour at a time - but she had a showy cap and lovely white fur robes which was all show instead of warmth and she came down with inflammation of lungs, stomach and bowels. Oh, such a sick child. We had such an excellent Dr. often staying with her all night. Well I hope they will not repeat it, if they do they will have no Frannie.36, p 11, lines 477-484

• [excerpts] It is interesting to me how the family traditions continued, of keeping a close watch over the daughters.  Walter Hay, my grandfather, was overly protective of his daughter, my Aunt Fanny.  The story was re-told, a thousand times, how, when Fanny finished high school, she was sent out to California (about 1917) to stay with Cousin Louise, and help her with the care of Bill Hewlett, who was 4, and a handful.  She stayed for 3 years, until age 21.  Aunt Fanny told me herself that she was never out of the site of a female chaperone, and that they took her around California to see the Spanish historical sites, to art museums, hear concerts, and introduce her to the finer things of life, which she loved.  The reason behind the trip was that Sam Medina (pronounced Ma deena, and not  Ma dinah, like the county that bears his family name--and Seville is now in Medina County and not Wayne Co. as it was 100 years ago--) who was a music teacher, college educated, and very Italian Catholic, came courting Aunt Fanny and she liked him.  Grandfather Walter had Fanny on the next train to San Francisco!
After they married, he took Aunt Fanny out to Saturday night dinner every week, come rain or shine.  I used to go for a long visit down to the farm every summer.  She always wore dresses and stockings, no matter how hot it was.  When she came to Sandusky to visit us, usually for Sunday Dinner, I recall she always chose to sit in a straight-back chair. "I prefer a straight chair," she would say.  Aunt Ada and Cousin Louise taught her it was better for her posture to sit in a straight-back chair instead of schlumping in an easy chair.  I can see her now, sitting with her knees together, ankles crossed and slightly to the side, her hands quietly resting in her lap.  She taught me that a lady never crosses her legs.  She didn't "put on airs" like Elizabeth O'Brien, but was just genteel, in the most lovely, quiet way.  She got John Chambers to drink his coffee out of a china cup instead of a mug!2180

• We were close with Fanny and John.  Once a month, Daddy would take his mother to Seville, and Fanny would keep her for a week, and then Fanny would bring her back and stay over, as Seville was about 2 hours away.  We had "Sunday Dinner"--the long drawn-out ordeal that kids hate--twice a month, once at Fanny's and once at our home.  Fanny had that dinner on the table at 1:00 P.M. and you could set your watch by it.  My mother, a much younger woman, with artistic temperament (the trophy wife for my dad!) had a more leisurely approach, but you could see Uncle John taking the sneaky looks at his pocket watch as the dial eased down toward 1:30 P.M.2181

• Alice recounts that her mother Fanny, was courted by Sam Masi of Medina, not Sam Medina, of Medina, as I [previously] told you.  Alice says that Sam Masi became a coach in a local high school, that he was quite handsome, but swarthy and "foreign-looking" and "our family didn't 'do' foreign."  She recalls being told that Sam Masi was run off twice with a shotgun:  one time he came courting to the front door, and Grandpa Hay greeted him with the shotgun and ordered him not to come around again.  Alice believes that her mother continued to flirt with Sam, and that Sam, undaunted by Grandpa Hay's brandishing of the shotgun, waited until Grandpa was out of town, and tried to crawl into Fanny's second-floor bedroom window of the house in Seville, using a ladder. The family heard some noise outside, and our Grandmother Hay greeted Sam with a shotgun to his forehead when his face appeared at the open window on the second floor.  Shortly thereafter Fanny was shipped out to California.  Alice says that years later, Sam Masi appeared suddenly showed up at the house where Fanny now lived with her husband John Chambers, and his appearance caused "quite a bit of consternation in the family."  Alice said that her Dad was terribly jealous of Sam Masi, and just the mention of Sam's name would get a rise out of John Chambers.2182

• 1900 Census: Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan. Age 8/12ths, b Sep 1899, CT. Parents b IL.2138
• 1910 Census: Seville, Medina, Ohio. Age 10, b CT. Parents b IL.2139
• 1920 Census: Seville, Medina, Ohio. Age 20, b CT. Single. Parents b IL.2140
• 1920 Census: San Francisco, San Francisco, California. Age 20, b CT. Father b OH; mother b MO. Niece in household of Ada Redington.2170
• 1930 Census: Guilford, Medina, Ohio. Age 30, b MA. Father b IL; mother b MO.2183