The latest Downton Abbey movie was a box of bonbons for fans. Each person’s story was happily wrapped up. Even the Wall Street bust and the beginning of the Great Depression just meant the family would have to sell the London House. Oh dear.

The bells that rang in the servant’s room in the basement had special resonance for me.

My Great-Aunt Olga emigrated from Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century. Like other immigrants, she found employment as a servant in the great houses of New York City.

Emily Post signed a note of recommendation for her, which I have. My Aunt Olga also worked for the Woolworth family, one of the wealthy families of that age. After watching Downton Abbey, I realize the head cook, my aunt’s position, was an authority “downstairs.”

The mansions

The old Woolworth mansions were incredible grand houses built in Manhattan and on Long Island. The house on the north corner of Fifth Avenue at 80th Street was built in 1900. The house’s large excess — bedrooms, servants’ room, parlors — was razed in 1920 to be rebuilt as apartments. That apartment building is now a co-op with six residences in a 12-story building.

The Woolworth mansion had a large kitchen and servants’ sitting quarters on the first floor, along with a billiard room and smoking room. The music room, with an organ, was on the second floor, as was the conservatory and dining room, along with the daughters’ bedrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Woolworth used the third floor, and the fourth floor was the servants’ bedrooms.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, across the street on Fifth Avenue at 80th Street, which was 10 years old in 1900, was undergoing the construction of its first addition.

Emily Post built a cooperative for herself and her acquaintances on the social register at East 79th Street.

Etiquette and the Social Register

Emily Post famously became the writer and arbiter of taste and behavior through various editions of her books on etiquette. Mrs. Post was divorced in 1905, scandalous for the time, and needed to bring in her own income. Her fiction was only moderately successful, but like Edith Wharton, another author and member of society, she capitalized on her knowledge of the inner workings of the well-oiled social machine. Her name became synonymous with etiquette.

Frank Winfield Woolworth built three adjoining townhouses at 2, 4, and 6 East 80th Street for his daughters (including the mother of Barbara Hutton, famously the poor little rich girl). The three townhomes still stand, an unusual occurrence for a suite of houses over a century old in New York City. One of the townhomes was recently rented at $80,000/month. Interested readers can view the fantastic Gilded Age interiors and floor plans from the realtor’s listing.

The Woolworth Building, the office headquarters, was designed by Cass Gilbert and was sixty stories tall. In 1915, it was the world’s tallest building. It held that title from 1915 until 1930 and helped define New York City’s skyline. Today, it has been renovated into luxury apartments.

Knowing little about my Aunt Olga’s life

My Aunt Olga journeyed by ship to New York City. She lived first in Brooklyn, and then got her jobs among the wealthiest people of the day. My 14-year-old grandmother followed.

I wish I knew how it felt to go from the stately mansions with dining rooms that could seat 50 to a small working-class apartment, or her sister’s family in a crowded duplex.

She would have been in her 60s in 1950 when the Social Security Act was extended to cover domestic workers. Was she eligible?

I remember my mother saying my great-aunt and my grandmother always set a fine table, a point of pride. I wonder what pieces of history my aunt saw or overheard. I am linked to many well-known people of the Gilded Age. It is part of who I am — who you are — that we are part of the world of the past, and can influence the future. It’s a bit like being a time traveler.

I have sketchy, early memories of Aunt Olga: ram-rod straight comportment, hair piled on top of her head, rimless glasses. I can’t remember her voice. Early pictures show her Gibson-girl-like. That’s how I remember her, though her hair had grayed.

It’s partly what keeps me reading and writing. What were their stories? How am I part of their stories? What is your story? Suddenly, pieces of history are not far away, but part of what we, our ancestors, and ourselves experienced.

How cool is that?

Parts of this post were originally published under a different title and substantially different story on Medium in 2023.

Downton Abbey’s Resonance for Me in Those Bells was originally published in Recycled on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.