One of my favorite things about doing library programming all around New England is that I get to travel here and there. One week I’m in a tiny village, the next I’m driving from White Mountains to Green Mountains, the next I’m popping up in a seaside town. Since I’m a lifelong New Englander, I’m lucky enough to locate a friend on nearly any route.
Last time I was headed up to Hanover, I met my friend Cindy for a little writing session. We tucked into a coffee shop and dished about our works-in-progress, publishing, and how life was going in general. Then she pulled out a treasure she had found and stowed away for me. It was the cookbook From the Galleys of Nantucket by the women of the First Congregational Church (First Edition 1969). Oh, I was so excited. I don’t really have any islands represented in my small vintage cookbook collection. This one, I knew, would sport a wide variety of seaside recipes. It didn’t disappoint!
At the jump, this book claims that some recipes come from the distant past–have just been around and are reliable–while others are current favorites contributed by women of the church. They have recipes for grog, blue fish, scallops, and so much more. It’s an excellent regional cookbook.
I wanted to taste the seaside. I wanted Nantucket summer. I wanted sea breeze. You know the deal. My appetite quickly landed on Stuffed Quahaug contributed by Rene Pearl. Her instructions went as follows.
Once the clams were steamed and I’d wrestled the salt pork, spices, crushed saltines etc. together, I did as instructed and stuffed the clams.
Have you ever tried to tie a Quahaug shut? For an untrained hand, it’s a bit of a mess. Literally. I unraveled the twine and laced it forward and back around the shell, often accidentally popping the clam out one side–and was forced to begin again. Once I’d stuffed and wrapped those suckers, I set them in the oven to cook for 45 minutes. It didn’t take long for it to smell like a quintessential seaside summer. I could almost hear the seagulls. When I pulled them from the oven at last, I opened them and tentatively took a taste. It had certainly cooked through in the 45 minutes, but I couldn’t help wanting just a touch of color, so I popped them under the broiler to brown off. Now, that was delightful to pull out of the oven! The onion and salt pork gave them a lovely depth of flavor without adding much in terms of herbs and spices. In fact, even though there weren’t very many ingredients, it was quite rich! I ate two for lunch, made some tea, and hit the archives.
Mrs. Rene Pearl
Rene Pearl was so tricky to track due to her Norwegian heritage, but the paper trail left some clues and I was successful, nevertheless.*
Rene was born on January 26th, 1903 in Oslo, Norway. At that time her name was Ingride Anvreig Flugsrud. Her mother was Klara Kristiansen and her father was Lars Samuelson Flugsrud. They came to America in 1905, when Rene was just two years old, and settled in Manhattan. Her father was a master tailor who began his career, here, working on his own account.
By the time Ingride/Rene was 17, she was already working as a stenographer for a local law firm in Manhattan. Since she was here since she was two, she obviously spoke and wrote English as a primary language. I mean, it’s no surprise that some later census records simply identified her as a New Yorker. Her earliest memories would have been from Manhattan.
I always enjoy these census records of bigger cities because you can easily see the large immigrant population amongst neighbors. Ingride/Rene had neighbors from Austria, Denmark, Italy, Ireland and, of course, New York. They were working as cooks, tailors, milliners, stewards, chauffers and more. What a busy block.
On the 13th of August 1934, Ingride/Rene married a man named Samuel Pastorfields. Her name was listed as Irene Flugsrud on her marriage certificate. Samuel worked as a restaurant proprietor. Maybe his restaurant was too busy because the partnership didn’t last. By 1940, he was single, living in Brooklyn.
I lose Ingride/Rene’s paper trail, here, for a little while. I do see signs of other Norwegians shortening their names from Flug_____ to Flugg and Flagg, so I have tried searching both. I’ve also tried to locate her as Irene, or Rene, or Ingrid, or Ingride Pastorfields, but I haven’t found much luck….until 1948, when she’s clearly in Nantucket.
By the 1940s the island was already a popular tourist destination. The postcard below shows us a golden Nantucket Beach. Can you smell the stuffed clams?
But Rene wasn’t a tourist. By 1950, she had married another fellow. This one was a dentist named Winslow G. Pearl, locally known as Doc Pearl. She worked as a dental assistant, presumably at his office, and lived in a picturesque part of town by the Old Mill. Can you find the mill on this map?
Rene was also quite involved with the Nantucket Community. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, First Congregational Church, The Grange, and the American Legion. She was also a member of the Community Players: a local theater troupe. She had a knack for comedy and a penchant for getting a pie in the face. They often did productions in Straight Wharf Theater which opened in July of 1940 for the Fawcett Players, lead up by Margaret Fawcett and Robert Wilson. The space was shared between groups over time before tragically burning to the ground in 1975.
Rene played an integral part in so many productions of the Community Players it’s impossible to list them all, but I especially loved seeing her give a public shout-out to a necessary but less visible person on the set. In a short letter to the paper, she shares a great glimpse of life backstage:
In between theatrical productions, club meetings, and family life, she worked with the local Girl Scouts, and others, demonstrating First Aid techniques.
It wasn’t all rainbows and sunny days, of course. Is it ever?
Rene was in and out of the hospital a lot in her later years. Also, in 1959, Rene’s second husband, Winslow (who it looks like she had split from) died tragically. The newspapers reported that he was found in a gas-filled apartment and that he had been suffering from diabetes for many years. I took this to mean it was not accidental.
Rene was a very familiar face around town by this time and continued to be as she became the head waitress and hostess at Cy’s Green Coffee Pot in the 1960s.
Rene lived out her days in Madaket–the sleepier side of Nantucket–passing away at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital in 1988. So much of her time was spent within the community, at the counter, and through the stage door. I wonder if it was during these later years that Rene split, mixed, and stuffed Quahaug. It certainly isn’t a Manhattan or Norwegian classic. It’s a recipe that comes from the place she chose as her home, a small New England island town with golden sand and a vibrant art scene.
Rene was there. She was part of it. You can taste it.
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These blog posts would be impossible to accomplish without the amazing work of local repositories. I was delighted to find items pertaining to Rene and her setting at the Nantucket Historical Association and the Nantucket Atheneum.
*Her name changed a lot of times. I had to closely watch her location, her parents names, and her birth date in order to verify I was looking at the right person. At various times in her life she was Ingride Flugsrud, Irene Flugsrud, Irene Flagg, Rene Flagg and so on.