Putnam patriot., 1930-07-31
Five Carr Sisters
 Marry In One Room
East woodstoek Landmark Com pleteIy Destroyed-Center of many Traditions Burns-Hsd Interesting History and Associations.

There is nothing in the world so permanently sad as the destruction of an old house whish has stood for centuries and which has seen the sorrows of generations of humanity and has somehow gathered from thousands of little occasions even though they be petty in themselves, an atmosphere which vanishes when it is destroyed. A house is A symbol of human life. It has seen the bride mass in over it's threshold and the coffin pass out In it's rooms the whole course of human existences have had their center. Such a house cannot be replaced. After the first hundred years the house ceas- es to become a thing of bricks and mortar and becomes an intangible tradition, an atmosphere.
 So the passing of the old William F. Paine house in East Woodstock which was destroyed on June 18th is peculiarly depressing to one who remembers it as it used to be. crowning the little hill on which it stood, four-square to the weather. it's solid clapboarding new-painted and the two-hundred year old l. be- hind it looking as much a part of the landscape as the trees around. The house had passed through the hands of many owners before it came in- to the hands of George Foskett who succeeded his father-in-law George Carr as it's owner. He married the youngest of the Carr daughters of which there were five and continued to live in the old house.
 Mary The Oldest
 Mary Carr was the oldest. She was married in the first corner as you enter the room of the northeast corner room on the second story of the house. She did not change her name. as she married Edward Carr and now lives in Midfeld The next corner was taken by Geneva who is now Mrs. Lyman Nj. Paine of Chicago. Then came Mary. Mrs. Foskett. and then Grace who is Mrs. Luther Child Of Woodstock. That used up all four corners of the room and left a problem for Helen. the last to be married who solved 1t by marrying Robert L. Fisher in the middle of the room. She now lives in Pittsfeld. Mass. That one room has seen five of the Carr girls mar ried. How many houses, not rooms, can boast of similar record today. Five girls, all sisters, married in the same room of the same house.
 Mrs. Paine had returned to the room where she was married when the house burned. She had to rush out of the house and was taken in by kindly neighbors. Mrs. Foskett was SO badly burned that she was in bed for over a month afterwards and has just recovered. These are incon- veniences, tragedies if you will But compared to the tragedy which is the burned-out shell in East Wood stock. they are nothing. Somewhere in that writhing pile ef eharred wreckage are the floor beams which once supported five sisters at the moment in their lives which meant most to them. somewhere in that in- distinguishable heap of ruins are the remains of the ceiling up to which they looked: blackened hole is the cellar of that part of the house which had stood as the chief tangible ~s-si .tioR ofwen genera rons of human beings and which had gathered from those human be- ings something more lasting than any individual. Tradition, atmos- phere. almost a living soul went up in smoke when this house burned. Another house can be erected; the old one may even be reconstructed but the northeast corner room can never mean the same: and the soul of this house is gone forever.