Biography of Elaine Atkinson (Aunt Elaine). Written by her son, Rick Atkinson in June 2002

Among other things, Elaine worked as a sales girl and model at Filenes during the Depression (she was a petite 5' 3" and had a knockout figure). She also worked as a bookkeeper at various businesses including A&P. Mom commented that only the McKinnon girls could find work during the Depression.

She always worked for Dad doing the books and taxes for his business. She was exceptionally sharp with figures and used a type of adding machine/calculator called a comptometer.

Mom was the frugal one, always saving money, investing and buying property. In addition to owning our home at 24 Pine St. they owned 2 other houses in Brant Rock, the "Jackson" on South St. and 252 Ocean St.

Mom and Dad were full of fun; they loved to laugh and were always having parties in Belmont and Brant Rock. At the Brant Rock Houses we had as many as 15 first cousins staying over at one time, sometimes for several weeks and sometimes for the entire summer. 7 South St was originally called the Sea Breeze - they were a summer cottage and a barn and did not have an address, only names. My first cousins Ronnie, Mary, George and Edna McKinnon, Patsy and Kathleen Conroy, John and Charlie McKinnon and Babe Sullivan were "semi permanent" summer residents. It seemed that they stayed most of the summer. Mom said that she must have been insane to have all the cousins stay at one time. It was a special treat to have anyone of the gang of kids that I grew up with be named an "honorary cousin". I really don't know how she fed us all. We were given pretty free reign on what we did, (we got in some minor trouble like trying to set the Rock itself on fire and one time we tried painting the Rock pink) but in general we spent a wonderful youth in Brant Rock. The most important thing about Brant Rock is that I met my wife Paula there June 30, 1956 one early evening walking on the beach.

My cousin Charlie McKinnon bought the Brant Rock house in 2001 after my mother passed. It is great to still have it in the family.

Mom loved to gamble, any kind of cards, bingo, craps, slots, horses, lottery, scratch tickets, numbers game etc., and she was good at it. She said that the McKinnon's got the gambling bug from Grammy McKinnon who loved to go to play the ponies and play the numbers!

Into his 90's Pa McKinnon would take the subway to Suffolk Downs and after that racetrack closed for the day, he would take the bus to Rockingham NH.

In the 1970's Mom bought a property at 252 Ocean Street, Brant Rock that had an attached building. My brother Randy moved in to the house and had a very large and successful yard sale. Mom had a dream and got an idea and opened Elaine's Consignment Shop (she had a small plaque that read, "I buy junk and sell antiques"). She would go to the auction in the Medfield/Medway area on Wednesday to re-stock the store, which were open spring, summer and fall from 10 to whenever on Thus, Fri, Sat and sometimes Sun. She not only had a ball doing this, she actually made money (and it's a good thing because she had to support my Dad's lobster business which never seemed to make any money-but we had some spectacular lobster feeds). As far as the shop goes I never saw anything in it that I wanted to steal. Mom closed the shop and sold the house when Dad got sick.

When Mom was in her 70's, she developed osteoporosis, and due to brittle bones had numerous spinal fractures, broke her shoulders (one shoulder twice), and broke numerous other bones. She developed colon cancer in 1998, which was successfully operated on, but it came back in 2000 and she died from operation complications and sepsis. Mom was a devout Catholic.