With the grown family now spread far and wide, Warren gone to the Klondike, Hamilton to Washington, DC, and Benjamin to Boston. The big house was beginning to hear echoes in the halls. Mary married Richard Keough and Martha married Michael Quigley. Alder, a bookkeeper at Myrick’s store, never intended to be a farmer. Hertz and Frances had died early in life. This left Johnston and Mary Ellen and their children to carry

on with running of the farm. Tragedy struck the family in late 1890 when fire destroyed

the large family home built by Richard. The family, at that time, turned a two—story granary building into a place to live, until a new home was built and moved into in 1901. It was the next year that a devastating blow hit the family again. Alder at thirty-five years of age had died suddenly of acute appendicitis. The money from his life insurance was used to pay for the newly

constructed home. In the years that followed, three ofJohnston and Mary Ellen’s

family left to find work in Boston. This left Grandma, Fred and Annie to run the farm. Grandfather Johnston suffering from ill health passed away. With Fred suffering from asthma attacks, it was now left for Grandma and Annie to save the farm. Neighboring farms were Gallant’s, Handrahan’s, Harper’s, ' Ready’s and Keough’s. The men and women worked side by side on the farms in those days, both in the fields and in the barns.

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