Mazelle Remington Slocum

Mazelle Remington Slocum Comery (1891-1970)

Mazelle Remington Slocum, the first child of Eason Lafayette Slocum Jr. and Edna Agnes Remington, was born on Nov. 24, 1891, in Pawtucket, R.I. She would have a childhood marked by a great deal of loss.

Two siblings died young. Leon Whitfield Slocum was born in 1895 and died that same year, perhaps at birth. Mazelle’s little sister, Carolyn, was born in 1898 and died Jan. 28, 1903. Only her brother Kenneth, 1894-1982, lived to adulthood.

In 1903, when Mazelle was 12, her parents separated. Some time after 1904 Eason moved to Maine, where he died in 1907. His death certificate described his condition as “debilitated.”

After Eason left the family, Edna struggled financially, but she always maintained an aristocratic demeanor, according to her grandson, Robert Whitfield Comery. Like her husband, Edna came from old New England lines, and that apparently was a source of pride and identity.

Although born in Pawtucket, Mazelle spent her childhood and youth in Central Falls, R.I., and she graduated from Central Falls High School. It was there that she met her future husband, George Edward Comery.

234/236 Central St., Central Falls. Photo taken in 2014.

In the 1910 Federal Census, Mazelle is still a student, but it’s unknown what, if any, post-high school education she received. She was living with her mother; her brother Kenneth; her maternal grandmother, Caroline M. Knight Remington, who was a widow; and her aunt, Lillian Remington Daniels, who was divorced. They all lived at 236 Central St. in Central Falls. Edna was listed as a dressmaker.

It appears that this house (234-236 Central St.), which still stands, was originally built as a duplex in 1900; it now has multiple apartments. Both Edna and her mother are listed as renters, not owners of the property, in the 1915 census.

In the 1912 city directory, they are all still there. Mazelle had become a stenographer. In the 1915 state census, Kenneth has left the Central St. house, but the others are there, along with three unrelated women who are listed as boarders. Mazelle is listed as a teacher at a private school.

Mazelle married George in 1916. They were devoted to one another, and complemented each other well. He was bawdy, funny and gregarious: a tough businessman, but generous with his family, friends and favorite charitable organizations. Mazelle was gracious, but highly proper and sometimes austere. George made the money that put them in the upper middle-class; she brought the refinement.

George was one of the founding partners of a highly successful accounting firm in Providence – Comery, Davison and Jacobson. In the earliest years of their marriage, he and Mazelle lived in Pawtucket, but after the birth of their children they moved to the more affluent East Side of Providence – first to 71 Mount Hope Ave., and then to 140 Fosdyke St.

They had three children: Mazelle Slocum Comery, who married John H. Ritter; Robert Whitfield Comery, who married Dorothy Florence Haslam; and Richard Tomlin Comery, who married Jean Jeffers.

The nature of Mazelle’s relationship with her mother, Edna, is unclear. Mazelle never spoke about her to her grandchildren, and it’s unknown now what she might have said to her children. In the 1930 Federal Census, Edna is found living as the only boarder in the home of a widower named Walter Spencer Arnold in Smithfield, R.I. Edna and Walter, a mill worker, married some time between then and 1934, the year he died. It’s hard to imagine that Mazelle – with her fairly rigid code of conduct and her concern over appearances – fully embraced that relationship.

Edna, who died in 1941, is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Pawtucket with her parents and siblings, all of whom have tall elaborate headstones that explain their relationship to one another. Edna has only a simple marker that reads  “Edna A. Arnold  June 21, 1870 – May 21, 1941.” (Walter Arnold was buried with his first wife in Connecticut.)

Presumably it was Mazelle and/or Kenneth, Edna’s children, who purchased and designed that stone. Unless you were aware of Edna’s brief second marriage, it would be impossible to know her relationship with the others in that plot. In the family tree in which Mazelle kept detailed dates for her relatives and ancestors, she never entered the date of death of her mother or the fact that she had remarried. (Edna’s grandson Robert Comery referred to her as “Grandma Slocum” long after her death.) It took some research to uncover the details of Edna’s final years and the date of her death.

Mazelle enjoyed needlepoint, and a piece of her work can be found on a pew in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Her other hobby was genealogy, an interest she shared with her favorite uncle, Dr. John Remington, who died in 1923.  She was an active member of the Gaspee Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution, and served as its first vice regent for several years in the 1950s.

George, who suffered from muscular atrophy all his life and spent his final decade in a wheelchair, died in 1950 of some form of cancer. After the death of her husband, who was not religious, Mazelle became an active member of St. Martin’s (Episcopal) Church, and developed a close relationship with the rector, the Rev. Charles Wilding, and his wife. The three of them often traveled together.

Mazelle’s brother Kenneth, a salesman, married Mildred Hannah Asquith, and had two children, Elizabeth (Betty) M. Slocum and Kenneth Matteson Slocum Jr. Mildred died in 1942. At some point in the 1940s, Kenneth Sr. moved to Charlotte, N.C., where his son lived. Kenneth Sr. died there in 1982. He and Mildred are buried in the Moshassuk Cemetery in Central Falls, R.I.

Mazelle remained in the Fosdyke house until just before her death from cancer (stomach cancer?) in February 1970. She is buried with her husband at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence. She was survived by her three children and eight grandchildren.

 

Eason Lafayette Slocum Jr., father of Mazelle.

Edna Agnes Remington Slocum, mother of Mazelle.