Beal Farm – 1960

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The pictures on this page came from an envelope of Milford Daily News negatives dated June 1960. They were originally owned by Robin Philbin who gave them to the Milford History Museum. The Milford folks passed all that were of Mendon to the Mendon History Museum. The children in the pictures are Paul Gilbert Beal and Connie Jean Beal. The farm was named Hillside Farm, and was at 139 North Avenue in Mendon.

Here’s what I received from Connie Beal after sending her a link to this page.

These are great pictures. Thanks for sending them. We had such good times growing up on the farm. The boy is my brother, Paul Gilbert Beal, on his buckskin horse, Beauty, and on our Jersey heifer, Sugar Baby. The girl is me, Constance “Connie” Jean Beal. These photos are taken on our family farm Hillside Farm, 139 North Ave. My Grandfather, Walter F. Beal, and Father, Gilbert Williams Beal, had a dairy farm with mostly Holstein-Friesian cows which are also shown in some of the photos. We also had a few Guernseys and Jersey cows. Before we had Beauty, Paul used to ride a heifer to bring the cows in from the pasture for milking. 

We had an ideal childhood growing up on the farm, where I’ve always wanted to be. I’ve lived here from 1954-1963; and then came back in 1986.

The photos also show Seth and Ora Davenport’s barn (later owned by the Lowells, then Tom Hackenson and now Kevin Meehan) at 133 North Avenue along with the silo and milk room that are gone now. 

In 1953, Milford Daily News also published the attached photo of my Grandfather, Walter Beal, plowing on the farm with his two workhorses. 

We loved haying time and brought in loose and used pitch forks to load onto horse-drawn wagons. Grandfather and Don McGrath always used the horse-drawn hay rake to turn it over and pile it into rows. Grandfather loved using his horses, and probably helped with hating that field opposite Don’s house. (Freedom Street, Hopedale) He also took his team and went and helped Dick and Ann Porter at their farm on Dutcher Street. I have a photo of Grandfather on his milk wagon with his horse hitched up perhaps you’d like to put it up on the farm milk wagon site. When my Dad had a tractor and baler we would load square bales onto horse-drawn wagons and pickup trucks. We had an old hay fork in the barn to hoist up the loose hay, I still have the fork.  Haying time was a great family get together even in the 1970’s and 80’s when we were all grown and living on our own married we would come back to the farm,  and would have a big lunch outside under the ash and birch trees for shade during our breaks in haying.
 
Don used to rake up the loose hay left on the sides of north Avenue and glean after the field haying on our farm and a few others to get enough hay for his horse to get through the winter. 
 
Those were the good old days. 
Connie

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