Letters to Alice Cooke
- Brendan Carmichael
- Sep 11
- 5 min read
Shortly after I began volunteering at the Sandwich Town Archives, it acquired a collection of photographs and documents relating to a local woman named Alice Rebecca Cooke (1861-1956). Alice lived a humble life in her home at the bottom of Gully Lane on Route 6A in Sandwich. She shared the house with her older sister, Minnie, and her mother, Abigail, until 1886, when she opened the house to board patients from Tewksbury State Hospital, where she had briefly worked as a nurse. As part of an experimental state program, five women made their home at what came to be called Locust Grove Asylum.
Thornton Burgess, the celebrated children’s author, grew close to Alice later in her life. In Aunt Sally’s Friends in Fur, published in 1955, he recounts Alice as a compassionate elderly woman welcoming wildlife into her “Woodshed Nightclub.” In the book, he called her “Aunt Sally.”
During the years I spent poring over the collection, I began to piece together an image of who she was and what she meant to the people who knew her. Dozens of letters from friends and admirers helped bring this image into focus. These Town Archives letters are mostly confined to the final years of her life as her health was fading before her death at the age of 94.
These correspondences demonstrate the breadth of Alice’s connections. One of these, the reformer Franklin Sanborn, fought from his position on the Massachusetts State Lunacy Board to allow her to continue her successful care of the women in Locust Grove. Sanborn likely connected Alice to significant members of the abolitionist movement. He had influential friends, including Henry David Thoreau, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louisa May Alcott (listed in an obituary among Alice’s friends!).
Aside from the letters, there were many photographs, including more recognizable images of Alice in her woodshed feeding skunks and raccoons. Some of these were reproduced in Burgess’ book. Other photographs show her with a variety of visitors, often posing near a mysterious box in her yard that stood about 3-4 feet tall. I was curious about this box since it was featured so prominently. While seeking clarity on this oddly specific detail, I was introduced to Sandwich native Irving Freeman.
Irving, Alice’s second cousin, grew up just down the road from her house and would assist her with chores and yard work as a child. He informed me that the box encased a chain pump that she used to draw water from her well. Irving speculated that the pump simply provided an accessible spot for her to lean while posing for photographs as she grew older.
This answer, though rather mundane, led to a deeper conversation about her place in the community. Minnie, who operated a photography studio in downtown Sandwich, would drive Alice into town since Alice did not drive. After Minnie’s death in 1932, Alice mostly remained at home. While her strong will and independence never faltered, numerous people in town offered her support in her later years. Despite not having a car, there were vehicles regularly parked in her driveway. Neighbors would bring her food and help with her house and yard work. She ran her house as she always had, ready with instructions for her assistants.
Thornton Burgess, for his part, brought new visitors from near and far. Many of these visits involved joining her in the woodshed to feed her nighttime animal visitors. The majority of letters in the collection were from people that Burgess introduced to her in this fashion, many of whom enthusiastically desired a return visit.
Most of the letters in the archive’s collection addressed Alice by name or as “Miss Cooke.” The use of “Aunt Sally” became more common following the release of Burgess’s book, even among old friends who would use it with a wink and a nudge. Thornton Burgess referred to Alice as “Aunt Sally Rebecca” in his letters and to himself as “Waldo,” the name she always used for him. In the sign-off of one letter, he references himself as “Your nephew-by-permission, Waldo.”
After Thornton Burgess published Friends in Fur, many reached out to share their own stories of communing with animals. Some of these letters read like fan mail. Jeannette Nicol, a neighbor and one of Alice’s friends, identified herself apologetically as a “complete stranger” in a letter where she shares a tale of a summer spent feeding raccoons in her yard. There were a few mentions in various letters of animal snapshots that had been included, namely of birds and raccoons. Few of these found their way into the collection, though one photograph has survived: a woodchuck sent from New Jersey by Marcia H. Gallup.
Other letters were more personal, written with palpable love and admiration. In a letter of condolence sent in February 1956, following Alice Cooke’s death, Katherine M. Jones reminisces, “We dearly loved her, she kissed us all good-bye and waved her two little hands as she so always did.” Letters sent by Imogene Schuneman quickly became my favorite. In the envelopes, along with each letter, she included separate notes with poems, scripture and quotes that made her think of Alice. One such quote was from Robert Louis Stevenson, followed by her own comment in parentheses: “So long as we are loved by others, we are indispensable. (Which makes me realize Miss Alice, how VERY indispensable you are, for you are loved by so, so many!)”
I still have questions about Alice. Having mostly read letters written to her, I recognized that what I was missing was any substantial amount of writing in her own voice. I hope to broaden my search in this direction to learn more about this fascinating and accomplished woman.
Shortly after she passed, Thornton Burgess wrote: “For Alice Cooke was a woman who lived keenly and richly through her wide contacts and constant fellowship with her fellow beings of high and low degree. The ‘Old Biddy under the Hill’, as she loved to sign her letters to me, was actually a strong character far more widely known and loved than she would admit, or perhaps even knew.”
Brendan Carmichael is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives, a dedicated, all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to supporting and promoting the archives’ collections and the rich, diverse history of the town of Sandwich.
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