The Staff Social Scene at Mt. Washington Hotel

The waitresses were not allowed to date any of the hotel guests.  If you did you were dismissed.  But after 9:00 pm we could date each other.

At 10 pm when our work was finished, we didn’t fall asleep exhausted.  No! we would go out.  For long walks to see the Aurora Borealis or lots of times a bunch of us would hop into a car and go out for drives into town for ice cream.  And we’d sing all the way, songs like “the Yellow Rose of Texas” and “You are my Sunshine”.

One of the things we girls loved to do was skinny dip in the hotel pool.  It was very close to the hotel and we had to be very quiet about it.  No guys were allowed to participate and of course we never talked about it to them.

There was one young man.  He was probably one of the bell-hops.  His name was George and George loved the mountains and trees and stars and the Northern Lights – the Aurora Borealis!  He loved to go for long walks.  We used to start out and walk toward where ever the Northern Lights were going to be.  George was, of course, a college student and he didn’t know that I was probably 10 years older than he was.  I can’t say we had a lot to talk about together, but we had a good time walking together.  One night we discovered that to get there – we had to walk all night – and when we got back – we where exhausted.  We got a couple hours sleep and went back to work.  Luckily for me, breakfast wasn’t served too early that morning; not until about 10:00 am that day.

All the time I was out dating the boys and going on drives into town with the gang, Polly, as I remember it, was in her room painting pictures.  On one of the few trips she did take with us into town, she ran into a salesman selling Windsor Newton oil paint sets.  She still has the one that he gave her.  (I wonder if she has any of her paintings still from that summer)

One of the cute waitresses did find a date among the guests.  He was young and wealthy.  The rest of us used to pass all sorts of rumors about their clandestine dates.  Boy, was that a conversation piece for a long time.    All the rest of us wondered for weeks if she was going to get fired.  After a while they just up and eloped and got married.

End of summer departure delayed……

During our last week at the Mt. Washington, about a dozen of us waitresses stayed to close the kitchen and that was a fun job.  We learned a great deal about what it takes to run a kitchen in a resort hotel and Mr. Grey guided us all the way. 

One of the other girls, Eve Marie, and I had discovered that we both wanted to go to New York City after we were finished and try looking for work there.

After we were all finished closing the kitchen, we went for a last hike in Bretton Woods and I jumped over a dead log and sprained my ankle when I landed.   My departure was delayed a week, but I didn’t mind very much.  My doctor was charming and I had a view of the gorgeous Bretton Woods.