In the late 1930s, Hancock Shaker Village, in Massachusetts, was still open, though in decline. The community contained fewer than twenty-five members, only two of whom were brothers, as well as a few girls being raised by the sisters. Many buildings had been abandoned, including the lovely Round Stone Barn and the Meetinghouse. The Hancock Shakers lived a quiet life, their membership dwindling until the village closed in 1960. Hancock Shaker Village has been restored as a not-for-profit educational organization, open year round, where visitors may see how the Shakers lived during the nineteenth century.
Brother Ricardo lived in the village at the time of this story, and Fannie Estabrook was eldress of Hancock throughout the 1930s and until the village’s demise. However, the following tale and Fannie’s and Ricardo’s parts in it are fiction.
Deborah Woodworth
May 1, 2000