PROLOGUE

Jesse Cornelius Edwards (although he preferred to be called Jess, I think he thought Jesse sounded to feminine) was born somewhere in Connecticut two weeks before Christmas 1909, to Martha (nee Marsh) and Hillary Edwards. His mother was a migrant factory worker, and his father, when not drunk and abusive, was a painter and wallpaper hanger. Little did Jesse know that the father he would come to despise, was not unlike the husband and father that he would become. Later another son, Elmer, and then a daughter, Inez, were born to Martha and Hillary. They too were destined to become alcoholics and blights on their families, Inez ultimately abandoning her husband and children. 

Now with three children, an elder daughter having passed on at an early age, Martha divorced Hillary and married a man named Jim, whom Jesse would always consider to be his only real father. Life was never easy for Martha and the children, as they moved from one New England mill town to the next, and borderline poverty was a constant companion. Jesse having to fight for respect as he transferred from one school to another, his clothes so tattered that he was called the “raggedy assed cadet!”

After Jim died Martha remarried Hillary, and at the age of sixteen Jesse left the family fold, such as it was, and rented a room. For a year he bounced from one odd job to another, until he landed a job sweeping floors for The Louttit Laundry Company, a mammoth five story building running the length of one block on Broad Street in Providence, Rhode Island. It was one of four related companies owned by brothers Easton and Robley Louttit of Barrington, Rhode Island. By the age of twenty-one Jesse had become supervisor of the shirt pressing unit, just the beginning of his rise within the firm, which would eventually take him to the vice presidency of the entire Louttit empire.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hope Inez Streeter was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, on April 18, 1912, to Lois P.H. (nee Dean) and Freeman W. Streeter, the couple’s first child. She was followed by a sister, Lois, then a brother, Lawrence (‘Bud‘), who at an early age narrowly survive a bout of meningitis which left him somewhat retarded. Hope’s mother was the sweetest and most loving person one could ever know, and her father the typically stern, strait-laced New Englander hiding a heart of gold under his cold exterior. As a child Hope was ahead of her time, and unlike her female peers, when she was approaching the driving age she was anxious to learn. Although the family did not own a car at the time, Freeman was employed as a delivery man and taught his daughter how to drive the delivery truck . . . a laundry truck . . . a Louttit Laundry truck. Kismet!

At the age of eighteen Hope graduated from Larchwood High School in Warwick, and shortly thereafter started working for Louttit Laundry as a “shirt girl”. Jesse was her supervisor. At the time he was quite debonair, he still had hair . . . and a wife. This did not deter his attraction to Hope, and he pursued her relentlessly. She wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man, but that didn’t stop Jesse. One day he said to Freeman, “I really like your daughter.” As Freeman sputtered in search of a response, Jesse added, “I think I might marry her!” “You’ll marry no daughter of mine!” Freeman protested.

As time went on Jesse got a divorce and then, despite Freeman’s objections, Hope and Jesse started dating. It wasn’t long before he proposed and they started to make plans for a wedding, but hadn’t decided on a date. Then when invited to the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of Jesse’s Aunt Frances (his mother’s sister) and her husband, Uncle Art, the only relatives from his family with whom he was close, they decided to get married at their party, and in twenty-five years the two couples could celebrate their respective fiftieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries together (which they did). So on April 6, 1933, Hope and Jesse were married.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the time Jesse was promoted to General Manager of Louttit Laundry, Hope had stopped working. In the meantime, Freeman had left the company and took a lease on a gas station in the Conimicut section of Warwick, which included a double-story bungalow, as well as an ice house that Bud was able to run, and an oil truck with which Freeman delivered heating oil as a side-line. Freeman, Lois, and Bud left the double-story house in Norwood which they owned, and moved four miles away to the bungalow in Conimicut. Jesse and Hope then rented the Streeter house in Norwood. Life went well for the young couple. They were very active, avid hunters (Hope was a good shot), enjoyed boating, and raised English Bull dogs. Yet there was no sign of a child on the horizon, at least not until the end of 1941.

When Hope discovered that she was pregnant, Jesse was not pleased. He didn’t want their wonderful life to be changed, and he told Hope that he knew where the problem could be eliminated. Hope wanted no part of that and on August 28, 1942, their first son was born – Jesse Cornelius Edwards, Jr, who would always be known as Jay. He was about the quietest, best behaved baby a couple could ask for. They took him everywhere; he’d sleep peacefully anywhere never making a fuss, and for the most part their lives continued unaffected.

Early 1945 Hope became pregnant again and Jesse, not wanting to push their luck, tried to convince her that one was enough. Again she wanted no part of his scheme. On November 20, 1945, Lance Streeter Edwards came screaming into their world, and he didn‘t shut up for a year. Because of his colic, he and his mother moved from his parent’s second floor bedroom, down to a first floor room so that his brother and father could sleep. Their lives, thus disrupted, would never be the same.