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| The Rabbit Hill Motor Inn, circa 1960. |
Please do mark your calendar! And to get you in the mood, here is the story of Alden "Tony" Hull's daughters:
The Innkeeper's Daughters
That's what Judy, Margot, and Deb
Hull were nicknamed by their cousin Susie, because this local trio of sisters
grew up with a dad who managed two major Northeast Kingdom inns during the
1950s and 1960s. Their father, Alden "Tony" Hull, ran both the Rabbit
Hill Inn in Waterford and the St. Johnsbury House on Main Street in St.
Johnsbury.
Alden was the youngest of five children, born in 1907, growing up in Leominster, Mass. He and his brother entered the U.S. military service when they grew up, and when their service years were over, the two found themselves talking in a bar in Massachusetts about what they might do next. A man named George Nicholas overheard them and offered them work. He said he had just purchased a hotel in St. Johnsbury and needed a manager. Tony took him up on the offer. Tony would have liked to purchase a place for his own hotel, and had an eye on a place in Lower Waterford that had been an inn in the past – but at that point was the private home of Mr. and Mrs. John Wesley Davies. Mrs. Davies had named her home Rabbit Hill. Tony couldn’t afford to purchase it, so George Nicholas did, instead! The purchase took place in the mid 1950s and by 1957 to Rabbit Hill Motor Inn had opened. Tony Hull then managed both of these Vermont inns full-time. His brother Raymond, nicknamed Ted, followed a similar path, buying his own inn to run in Colebrook, New Hampshire (Colebrook House).
Alden was the youngest of five children, born in 1907, growing up in Leominster, Mass. He and his brother entered the U.S. military service when they grew up, and when their service years were over, the two found themselves talking in a bar in Massachusetts about what they might do next. A man named George Nicholas overheard them and offered them work. He said he had just purchased a hotel in St. Johnsbury and needed a manager. Tony took him up on the offer. Tony would have liked to purchase a place for his own hotel, and had an eye on a place in Lower Waterford that had been an inn in the past – but at that point was the private home of Mr. and Mrs. John Wesley Davies. Mrs. Davies had named her home Rabbit Hill. Tony couldn’t afford to purchase it, so George Nicholas did, instead! The purchase took place in the mid 1950s and by 1957 to Rabbit Hill Motor Inn had opened. Tony Hull then managed both of these Vermont inns full-time. His brother Raymond, nicknamed Ted, followed a similar path, buying his own inn to run in Colebrook, New Hampshire (Colebrook House).
At home on Cliff Street in St.
Johnsbury, his daughters grew up knowing that many family meals would happen at
the St. Johnsbury House: their Sunday dinners (after church, at North
Congregational), and their birthday dinners as well. Summer dinners might be at
the Rabbit Hill for the family, if Tony needed to check on things with Anita
Oakes, who rain the day-to-day Rabbit Hill routines. Most especially, the
family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners happened at these inns, because
Tony Hull had to work then! Judy says this turned out to be mostly very
enjoyable for her mother, Margaret. When the girls became teens, they pitched
in: Deb worked at whichever inn was short of staff, mostly waiting on tables,
and worked two summers at the Rabbit Hill Inn. Judy worked some at the St.
Johnsbury House, and maybe twice at the Rabbit Hill Inn, but she also has
memories from age five of going with her father and exploring Lower Waterford
village while he worked at the inn nearby. As a teen, she spent her working
summers in Maine, instead.
The
third sister, Margot, became a telephone operator in St. Johnsbury (eventually
she would become a nurse), and Deb joined her at the switchboard until finding
a career in education. Judy had a very different path ahead: While visiting her
sister Deb and Deb’s husband Gary in Ft. Polk, Louisiana, she met Ron Groskopf,
and soon the pair married and relocated eventually to Ron's hometown of Sonoma,
California, in the famous "wine country." Ron created a business
shipping the beverage, and after their three children grew up, Judy joined him
in the business -- which they brought to Vermont with them when they decided to
change locations to Judy's home region instead, after Tony Hull's death and
that of Margaret, who lived her later years in East Burke and then St.
Johnsbury again.
Altogether, Tony spent 25 years running hotels, a rewarding but very different career from his own father, who'd been a headmaster, an attorney, and then Speaker of the House in Massachusetts. Tony’s college years were spent at Bowdoin College in Maine (his sister and three brothers also pursued more education, including Raymond’s time at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy – when Judy reflects on them, she notes that such ambition and achievement were unusual and even amazing within one family in those years). Her father’s early passing at age 71, in 1979, meant his daughters didn't get to watch him enjoy retirement for very long. (Even in retirement, he kept busy, as a side judge for Caledonia County.) But the three daughters have good memories of their dad’s 25 years of managing the St. Johnsbury House, as well as the years in the 1950s and 1960s as manager of the Rabbit Hill Motor Inn. Tony’s kitchen was famous for Sunday morning after-Mass popovers, and he was an ardent booster of St. Johnsbury. Regional historian Christopher Ryan (writing from California) recalls a day in 1951 when the St. Johnsbury Academy homemaking students (all girls) were invited to “run” the hotel and learn about the lodging industry; Tony also hosted sports banquets at his St. Johnsbury inn.
The
“innkeeper’s daughters” all live in Vermont now -- two within half an hour of
each other, and the third a couple of hours away.
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