Fashion Evening Dresses

Column: Granddaughter recalls strong-willed 'Andover Annie'

Andover Annie was what they called her when she'd roll into town in her familiar horse and buggy back in the 1920s and '30s. She would be bringing her fresh eggs and farm vegetables to sell to the grocers who regularly bought from her. They must have enjoyed sparring with this small but feisty woman who could haggle over prices completely unhindered by her limited command of the language. Broken English, they used to call it, but hers was always rich and colorful. She had nicknamed me, her fussy, delicate granddaughter, "Queen Mary" (which always sounded like Coon Merry).

Andover Annie was my father's mother. She lived next door to us on the farm on Lowell Street. She was four foot something tall and stout of body, heart and mind. Her face was creased and wrinkled beyond her years from too many summers out in the fields under a merciless sun. She kept her long gray hair braided and coiled around her head, though sometimes it would break loose and hang defiantly down her back. Her trademark cotton print dresses were pinned and patched haphazardly. Her billowing apron was always used to carry fruit from her trees or eggs just gathered from the coop.

Source: Andover Townsman