Rachel Cushing, (1807-1885), ran a school for girls in the Tolman house on the southeast corner of Washington and Cypress Streets (The Peabody sisters had run a school in the same house in the 1820s and 1830s. The Brookline V.F.W. building now occupies the site.). At the time of the diary she was living in Brookline with her widowed mother and two younger women. She later boarded with the family of Dr. Charles Wild and is mentioned frequently in the diary of Mary Wild.
Harriet Woods in her 1874 Historical Sketches of Brookline writes:
Isaac Dana (1835-1897), age 15, was the son of Charles Dana and Esther Deming, older sister of Adeline's mother. Esther Dana was widowed and they lived with her grandmother in Brighton.
This is most likely Charles Deming (1799-1857), older brother of Adeline's mother and uncle to the just-mnetioned Isaac Dana. He lived in Michigan and had just married Rhoda Gage on March 6, 1851.
The Ladds lived across the street on the northeast corner of Linden Place.
Mary Barnett, age 13, lived on the southeast corner of Boylston and Heath St.
