FLOSSIE'S LEGACY
BY STEVE SHEPPARD
According to the records, the house at 31 India Street was built in the late-1700s by a whaling captain, but it wasn't until 150 years later that the ninth owner of the property transformed it into an enduring island legacy.

The rooming house at 31 India Street was lovingly known as "Flossie's Flophouse." The inimitable Flossie plays cards with her grandson, Robert A. Francis in the late 1970s.

Florence "Flossie" Francis, the house's longest inhabitant, created a home not only for her family but for the hundreds she welcomed through her doors. To many, the '60s did not end in 1970, but on January 3, 1985 when Flossie passed away. The

days of 31 India St. as a haven for weary travelers

and young adults seeking a place to stay passed with her. To those who knew her, Flossie and her rooming house symbolized Nantucket at its best. Here, summer workers mingled with budget-conscious vacationers, and both shared space with islanders who simply needed a room.

"She was just incredible," George Davis recalls, "a remarkable woman. I've never known anyone with her work ethic."

"I knew so many people in the '60s who stayed there," said Reggie Levine. "It was a legend in its time. It was a byword, a password, almost an icon; a true symbol of the times."

"It was a one-of-a-kind place," notes Steve Marcoux. "It was THE place."

Flossie's represented a more relaxed Nantucket, when newcomers to the island could get off the boat, ask where they could find housing and be directed to the house on India Street. Some would stay for a night or two, some for a couple of weeks, and others for the summer, or longer. As Davis remembers: "People came year after year; you wanted to keep your spot."

The reason for this was simple: the rooms were inexpensive and clean, and there were the intangibles that made the place the embodiment of a still idyllic island. It wasn't just the nest of lightship baskets she treasured that were yet to be seen as a status symbol, or the paintings by Tuttle and Chase on the walls Flossie's was an outpost on the Faraway Island where pretense did not enter. It was also her home. When islanders dropped off fish, Flossie would inevitably cook it up for her guests as well as her family. Friends and co-workers from Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where Flossie worked full-time as a nurse until 1981, regularly stopped by. She would bake a cake for those whose stays coincided with their birthdays.

The cost for this largesse? Most remember paying $20 a week; Davis said he originally paid $10 a week when he first stayed in the '60s, and that included fresh linens and madeup beds.

The atmosphere at Flossie's was perhaps an outward sign of her upbringing. Her cousin, Ruth Grieder, notes that Flossie's grandparents were hearty Tuckernuckers Marcus and Flora Dunham. Flossie's mother, Ethel Barrett, was a school teacher on Tuckernuck. The lessons learned from these islanders gave Flossie a resourcefulness - and a love of her Tuckernuck heritage - that remained throughout her life. "She was tough," Grieder said. "I remember her putting her kids in a dory and sailing to Tuckernuck; she was a marvelous sailor."

Grieder also recalled that when Flossie was in high school and wanted a fur coat she went eeling to earn the money to buy it. She remembers, too, that when her own mother was ill, Flossie sat up with her all night.

Her kindness carried over to her boarders. "If people were down and out, she would allow them to eat in her kitchen," Grieder noted.

"People called it Flossie's Flophouse," Davis says. "I'd think, 'flophouse?' Little did they know how pampered we were."

People may have come and gone at Flossie's but there were rules to obey. "She ran a very tight ship," Davis notes, "but she always tried to make it nice for everyone."

He recalled this image: "The most amazing thing was going upstairs to the kitchen and seeing her old-fashioned, hand wringer washing machine rolled up to the sink. She hung the sheets on a line outside her kitchen window and they always smelled like a fresh sea breeze. ... I can still hear that chugging washing machine and her humming away; she loved music."

Although it was understandably busiest during the summer months, Flossie's was open year-round, or open to anyone who needed lodging. "She had a hard time turning anybody away," Davis says.

Flossie kept the rooming house open after her retirement from nursing, and even after she suffered a stroke. "I helped her run the boarding house until she died," her daughter-inlaw Ingrid Francis said. "There were people there until the end."

She, too, remembers Flossie's kindness. "As far as I was concerned, she was a very good friend. When she worked at the hospital she would never come home with any gossip - I always admired her for that.

"She would have been 102 now. Her birthday was the ninth of January."

The house, originally built by whaling captain Eliab Hussey, still takes in boarders today as an in-town property of the Summer House. In this way, Flossie's legacy remains, and her spirit undoubtedly lingers within the walls of 31 India St.

And as a new era takes hold on Nantucket, it is comforting to recall the openness of Flossie's.

"It all seemed to work," says Davis. "All of us loved spending time in the house.

"It was just a great, great time." I