In the house on Mingo Beach Hill our Mary Larcom Ober was born in 1835 and here her father died in the same year. There was an older sister Abigail, who died when she was a young woman.
After a while, the widow returned to her father's home; in 1840 she was married to her cousin David Larcom the younger, and they lived in the Larcom House at the Farms. As his father, the first "Uncle David" died, in the same year, his widow, "Aunt Betsey", moved upstairs. David and his wife with her children Abby and Mary lived below; four children were born to them David, Lydia, Joseph and Theodore.
From Mingo Beach Hill and the homestead the West Farms school was nearer, so Mary must first have gone to school in the little square building which was later for one year the High School, now since many years a dwelling house near Pride's Crossing. After the family moved to the Farms she probably went to the East Farms school, which was nearly opposite the church. She spent some time at the Francestown Academy, Hillsboro County, New Hampshire, and finished her education at the State Normal School in Salem where she was graduated with the second class after its foundation. She with her sister Abby worked their way through this school by binding shoes. This was the women's share of the hand-made shoe described in Lucy Larcom's "Hannah binding shoes."
Soon after graduation, Mary was appointed teacher in a grammar school at Brewster on Cape Cod. The next year she was engaged for a school in Castine, Maine. Here she found the pupils were big boys, almost men grown, and she feared she would not be able to manage them. However, when they found that she was a good teacher who could give them what they wanted to learn, there was no trouble.
Then in 1858 and 1859 our Miss Ober began to teach the Farms School (the two schools being united) on Indian Hill just above Pride's Crossing station; the building was remodelled later and is now the house of Mrs. James F. Curtis. Grades were unknown, she had some twenty to thirty pupils of all ages, but she managed to keep them in order and to teach them so well that they always remembered what they learned. She stimulated the bright children to greater effort and she encouraged the dull ones so that they were surprised into understanding. One of her old girls told me how they loved her but feared her in school, and enjoyed her when out. She especially liked boiled lobster and dandelion greens served together; whenever these viands were for dinner the child was told by her mother to bring the teacher home to share them, and "then what a good time we had." She smiled as she said it, but there was a tear in her eye.
At about this time Miss Ober was engaged to an attractive young man, a teacher in the Beverly Farms school. There was every promise of a happy life, but unfortunately he died. Miss Ober went on with her school until 1870, except during 1862 and 1865, but she was not strong and her health was impaired.
In a much loved and worn volume of Whittier's poems, given to Mary Ober in 1858-1859 is written in her own hand, "the happiest winter of my life." Pinned to a leaf is a cutting, with the following epitaph from an old English burial ground:
"I will not bind myself to grief:
'Tis but as if the roses that climbed