When I reminisce about Simpson Spring, many, many thoughts come flooding back. Just reading this over, I recall the flood caused by Hurricane Diane in 1955. Later, I’ll explain that catastrophic event. I’ll start with my earliest memories and try to keep things in a chronological order.

My dad, Leslie White, was a chemist at the company in South Easton. My earliest memories were hugging Dad when he arrived home from work late in the afternoon (most everyone worked the 6 day week back in the early ‘30s). My sister Wanda was less than a year older than I, and we were very close. We were able to see Dad arrive by stretching to look over the windowsill from the kitchen by the radiator, which was always hot in the winter. We often found something interesting in his pockets that he brought home for us. His clothing had always smelled so nice, the soda factory smell.

Later, when Wanda and I were old enough, we visited Dad’s grand laboratory at Simpson Spring. That same delightful smell grew stronger as we approached the lab door. There we entered and felt a splendid awakening of our sense. The various aromas accompanied our sights to the towering ornate metal ceiling with the massive hanging light globes shining down on the long central lab bench of dark walnut cabinets and white marble surfaces. But our childish main interest was just inside the lab’s door, next to where visitors signed the book on a walnut podium. For here was a massive metal drum filled with ice cold small bottles of various flavored ‘tonics’, the term for soft drinks in those times. You did not need a coin for the slot to operate this vending device. A large wooden handle extended from the center of the drum like a crank to start an old car. Wanda could reach that crank. I could not, but I could reach the small spring-loaded door handle that allowed me to see the interior of the contraption and observe the passing shiny bottles below as Wanda turned the crank. As the crank turned, I would watch the bottle crowns colorfully identifying each bottle’s flavor. Seeing a flavor I liked, I would shout out for Wanda to stop. Then I could pull the selected bottle out of the ice cold water up through the small door. The bottle opener was attached to the lower side of the massive drum. That I could easily reach!

We would then wander about the lab, looking with wide eyes at all that was new to see. The myriad of laboratory equipment on the white marble shelves stretched along the outside wall beneath enormous windows. Just outside, we could see the main cypress spring water tank on a nearby hill at the edge of the forest. Then, while drinking our yummy soda pop, we would sneak a look into the vast syrup room behind us. Many men wearing white aprons hustled about inside carrying pails, stirring tanks or immersing dippers in a boiling kettle. It looked so exciting, and the smells were grand!

Wanda and I, with someone to accompany us, would visit the spring room. The room was just below the laboratory, and we had to pass through the production area to reach it. That interval exposed us to the sounds of all the bottling machinery shrieking with the high pitched clamor of the glass bottles, the whirring of the overhead belting, and roaring of the steel wheeled wagons pushed along the cement floors. Noisy! Wanda and I would then be hustled into the quiet refuge of the spring room. The door was closed, and we would be enveloped in shrine surroundings with stained glass windows on the outside walls. White marble lined the sides and floor, and we would look down from an elevated balcony to observe a 5 foot casing where the clear spring water bubbled forth through the fine, white sandy bottom. A shiny pipe pumped the water from just above this sandy bottom. When not being pumped, the water ran out of the spring at an opening at the top of the casing, just below the protective glass. Our visits to Simpson Spring never felt completed until the viewing of the spring. Grandfather, Edwin H. White, was just 16 years old when he went to work for F. A. Howard, the proprietor of Simpson Spring, in 1886. Within a few years he became the plant’s manager, and successfully maintained that position through the F. A. Howard, Andrew Preston, and Fred Field years of the control of Simpson Spring. Grandpa told me stories about Andrew Preston and his close friend, Guy Gillette, who was trying to get his razor established in the market place. Grandpa would listen to the two men talking. But, that’s another story! Grandfather was 58 years old in 1928, the year I was born, when he and his partner, Fred A. Howard, borrowed $50,000 to buy out Fred Field of Brockton, who owned the controlling interest in Simpson Spring. (Fred A. Howard was a distant relative of F. A. Howard, the original Simpson Spring proprietor mentioned above.) The ’29 crash and the Great Depression following must have been quite a shock for these men.

I have few memories of the grand old soda company through the ‘30s. In 1936, all the workers assembled in the yard for the passage of the giant airship Hindenburg. An old photo shows the event quite clearly. That day, all the Whites were assembled on Grandpa White’s east lawn on Hill Street when the great ship passed over. I will always remember the event. The hum of the engines was so impressive that the recall of them lasted for many years. This event, and the aviation career that my brother Lloyd chose, influenced me greatly.

The September ’30 hurricane really blocked the main road into Simpson Spring with fallen trees. The rear, narrow access road onto Church Street allowed departure, and men with saws went into action to clear the many fallen trees across the main road to Route 138. I recall the storm coming late in the afternoon that infamous day. I was just 10 years old, and while struggling against the wind on bicycle, I was blown off the street into a neighbor’s yard. I had to walk the bike home, and I was most embarrassed at the time. My mother pulled me inside as she listened to the excited comments of the storm on the radio. Brother Lloyd was out and about enjoying the whole thing, watching the trees fall. Brother Lloyd was 15!

The war years came and affected us all, but Simpson continued on with a lack of raw materials for most of the flavor line, and without its young working men who were in military service. Club soda and the ginger ales were sometimes the only products made available. Sugar was extremely scarce. Soft drinks were not essential to the war effort. I began part time work at the rear platform of the vast old plant at the end of the war in 1945. There, sorting glass by size and color was the task. There were many students hired in the busy summer months at Simpson. The plant was Teamster unionized by the drivers and inside with the production workers just before the war began. The Teamsters fortunately let the local students come in without joining.

BIOGRAPHIES
Edwin C. White, following in the tradition of his grandfather and father, was President of Simpson Spring Company in 1967 until his retirement in 1988. For decades, Ed and his wife Evelyn (Lyn) lived in the second oldest house in Easton, the Benjamin Williams home at 539 Bay Road, which they totally restored.

Ed and Lyn have been extremely active in the Easton community. Ed was the first president of the restored Easton Historical Society (1967-69), and facilitated many Antique Auto Meets at the Station. He was also the first Ames Free Library president to come from outside the Ames family, and was a trustee of the North Easton Savings Bank for 46 years, retiring as Chairman of the Board in 2010. Lyn was on e of the major spokespeople for “saving” Wheaton Farm, and provided the leadership for the creation for the Natural Resources Trust of Easton. (See History of Easton, Massachusetts: Volume Two, page 271.) She was also Executive Director of the Neponset River Watershed Association. Both Ed and Lyn have been active in Unity Church for many years.

In 2001 the Lions Club presented the Whites the Outstanding Service Award, the highest award given. In addition, several years ago the Natural resources Trust of Easton dedicated a bench on the foundation of the mansion of “Sheep Pasture” to “Lyn and Ed White – Stewards of the Land.”