I am excited. My copy is 100 years old!

If you aren’t familiar, The Allen Gazette was written by the Allen Family as a family newspaper. All of it is written in sarcasm, which was apparently their base language. It is themed in dry witted humor with a tendency to mock the English language.It is am amazing peephole into their lives and voices. I consider this one of my greatest treasures entrusted to me. Few people have such resource into the personalities of their ancestors.

It you read the Gazette beginning to end, you gain a good insight into their personalities and playfulness with each other. Here is a link to the post containing the original typed version I provided here.

Best,

Susannah

The Original Allen Gazette

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in the end I decided to scan in all 20 pages. I added them in order onto the page here entitled The Original Allen Gazette. My hope is that people can save each page to their own computer to either read or print. This allows relatives to have their own copy.

Reading it over, I see an issue. It’s a recurrent issue all historians need to address. Who is everyone? I know Parker A. is Parker Allen, my great ,great uncle. But this could very quickly become the proverbial box of untitled photographs. I need to identify who each person is. This will also allow family members to know from whom they are related.

But at least for now, the original Allen Gazette is uploaded on this blog and available for reading. And as the title page states, Long Live The Allen Gazette!!! I bet they never thought it would live a near 100 years!

Read it here

Susannah

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How marvelous, wondrous and fleeting is Tim.

Scarce has the ink of our last editorial dried seemingly before it is time once more to buy a ream of paper, bottle of ink, box of pens and start again that exciting and interesting paper known as the Allen Gazette of which modesty forbids us saying that the Editorial is not the least part.

The most obvious subject – the problem against which we constantly find ourselves striving – the nightmare which makes our sleep broken and turns our hair gray and our pockets empty – that subject is H.C.L. THE HIGH COST OF LIVING.

Economy is a word of which we long thought we knew the meaning but the present situation shows us that alas! we are only too ignorant of the A.B.C.’s of it.

Today we feed a family of four on what fed a family of eight a few years ago. We buy one dress for what we used to get several. We see one show where we used to go weekly;we have one child where we used to have twins. What, we ask, is the reason of these things? The answer is H.C.L.

The various members of this highly original family  have already solved to their own satisfaction this problem so vital to the community.

IN EAST BRAINTREE

Inez Delirious Merrill uses hen manure tea as fertilizer.

Laura Lane Lynx uses old necktie ends for her marvelous needle work

Sarah Old Oaken Bucket lacking carfare will make a trip to Maine on foot.

IN SOUTH WEYMOUTH

John Vinton  wears the same shoes he wore last week.

Mary Cataline Allen only goes to the movies once a week.

Picker Populous Allen is planning to have his next spectacles made of tin instead of glass to avoid breakage.

William Artichoke Allen wears rubber soled garden shoes.

Jenny Frankfort Allen wears the same dress twice.

Elizabeth Montgomery Allen cuts her own corns and is much surprised when in the morning she gets dressed-down instead of dressed-up as is her usual procedure.

Barbara Bellevue Allen dyes her hair ribbons and wear made overs. It’s a lucky sister of B. is long of limb.

Harold Hamlet Allen forgoes a new bicycle rim and visits the junk pile.

Henry Grasshopper Allen denies himself the solace of a smoke except when his wife finds his tobacco.

Inez Angular Kohler uses only one piece of toilet paper.

John Angular Kohler is raising his own teeth this saving the price of a false set.

IN NORTH WEYMOUTH

Stanley Thirsty makes one pair of pants to the work of two.

Mary Asking Torry sells her clothing and jewels.

Marjorie Asking Torrey wears only one pair of stockings at a time.

Ronald Greenhorn Torrey chops his own wood.

IN WOLLASTON

Harold Bumpus Burrell uses the same water for rinsing patient’s mouths.

Ruth Georgette Crepe Burrell by using the broad Atlantic saves soap as well as H2o

IN WORCESTER

Charles Angelous and Eve Bibulous Fischer are obliged to take their vacation on a farm where they will work for their board.

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