A Few Memories from Wayne Lewis

In August 2014, the Scouting award ribbons displayed on the wall of Waterford's town office were taken down in order to archive them out of damaging light. They are now in their own "Scouting" binder in the Waterford Historical Society archive cabinet, which stands in the lobby of the town office.

Examining them led Helen Pike to interview Wayne Lewis, a former Scouting leader, about the ribbons and Scouting in this town, on September 5, 2014.

Wayne began by describing Scouting in the 1960s and early 1970s as connecting to a time and place that was "more Vermont than it is now." He added as an example, "We did a five-mile hike from the race track [that is, the old Northeastern Speedway track on Route 18] to Shadow Lake [in neighboring Concord], through the woods, using only a compass and a topo map."

Another activity he told Helen about was camping: "In the winter we did camp-outs in the snow near a pond off the Cross Road and worked on our merit badges."

In those years, Boy Scout Troop 36 held its meetings in the Community Room on Maple Street, which was the space now occupied by the Waterford town office and Lower Waterford post office. The reason the town office and post office weren't yet in that space reflects a long town tradition of those functions taking place in the home or business of whoever was Town Clerk. At that time, the Town Clerk was Mrs. Dorothy Kimball, and she was the last in that role to have the municipal offices in her home.

However, the Scouts also went to see Mrs. Kimball at her house, which was on Old County Road South, known today as the historic Johnson-Powers farmhouse. [Today it's owned by Roberta and John Gillott, operating as Crooked Mile Farm, producing goat cheese.] Wayne pointed out, "We used to go to Mrs. Kimball's house to get our hunting license."

In those Scouting times, both the Champlain Valley Fairground in Burlington and the Mount Norris Boy Scout Reservation in Eden Mills used to hold annual one-week Scouting events where Boy Scouts could work on their merit badges.

But the ribbons archived in today's Waterford office were identified by Wayne as not related to the merit badges. Instead, they are from three other places and events: (1) There's a 1967 ribbon for "Camping" issued by the Wide World of Scouting. (2) A pair of ribbons from 1969 and 1971 represent participation in Ski-O-Ree, an event held at the Lyndon Outing Club (LOC) on Lily Pond Road, where there are still a ski slope and T-ball field. (3) The 1971 Forest & Stream Camporee took place at today's Caledonia Forest and Stream Club on Field and Stream Road off Route 5 (Memorial Drive) in St. Johnsbury. Today the club property includes a shooting range and clubhouse, with season passes that used to be sold at Caplan's Army Store on Railroad Street in downtown St. Johnsbury (see http://www.caledoniaforestandstream.com for current information on the club). Wayne did not discuss the 1972 Klondike Derby ribbon from the Long Trail Council, but a Klondike Derby is a traditional Boy Scouting event and the Scouts' Green Mountain Council was still announcing such events until the 2020 pandemic cut off such activities.

The Waterford Historical Society greatly appreciates Wayne's time and efforts in giving us this window into Scouting's past in our town.

Voices from an Earlier Time in Waterford, Vermont: Dorothy Morrison, Gordon Fleming

This was once the Fleming home, on their dairy farm.

Dorothy Morrison. Gordon Fleming. If you're a Waterford long-time resident, you may have heard their names; if this is your first time noticing them, welcome to the pleasures of local history, where treasures emerge unexpectedly and there's often someone around to add a good story!

This week, on Wed. October 24, the Waterford Historical Society is excited to share newly rediscovered recordings from Mrs. Morrison and Mr. Fleming, thanks to both Diane Willson and Helen Chantal Pike.

Mrs. Morrison was a long-time postmaster, running the post office on Maple Street. You can read more about her post office here. Her parents were Bertha and Lester Pease, and she was born in Center Strafford, New Hampshire, in 1911. She died at home in 2003.

Mr. Fleming, a farmer and dairyman, owned and operated the Fleming Dairy, from the farm more recently known at the Turek home. He was born in the same year as Mrs. Morrison, 1911, in St. Johnsbury Center, to Matthew and Jessie Fleming; he died in 1989. Read more about the homestead that became the Fleming farm, here.

Although this seems like "recent history," times have changed dramatically since 1911. Listen to these two Waterford residents tell about their lives from recordings, and enjoy the insights of other community members, at the Davies Memorial Library in Lower Waterford on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

Accessible entry; some stairs to restroom. Refreshments will be served.

Google Earth aerial photo of Lower Waterford, Vermont. Can you locate the post office - today's, and the one that Dorothy Morrison ran for so many years?

A Century of Good Food and Cuisine at the Rabbit Hill Inn: Let's Talk About It, July 25

Now that the Fourth of July is over, it's time to focus on the excitement of the Rabbit Hill Reminiscence Reunion -- on Wednesday July 25 at 6:30 pm, in Lower Waterford across the road from the Rabbit Hill Inn.

Did you work there? Have a strong connection because of a wedding or other special event? Do you have one of the inn's old signs or perhaps the mysteriously vanished white rabbits (non-living!) that used to be given to the innkeepers by many guests? Or just curious about the stories and history of Waterford, Vermont's outstanding focus for so many years? Come join us! We'll provide the snacks; you provide the conversation.

Speaking of snacks ... today's delicious recipe taken from the Rabbit Hill Inn's "recipe file" online is for Soba Noodle Summer Vegetable Salad. And check out more of the inn's recipes here, including its traditional oatmeal bread.

Here, from one of the community members who may be telling some tales of earlier years at the July 25 event, are two recipes from John and Ruth Carroll, innkeepers at the Rabbit Hill in 1968. (Come tell us more details ...)

Interested in more about Lower Waterford, the inn, and local history? Here are some other "reports" from the Waterford Historical Society.

The Innkeeper's Daughters: 2018 Rabbit Hill Inn Reunion, July 25

The Rabbit Hill Motor Inn, circa 1960.

Many people have worked at the Rabbit Hill Inn over the years, in Lower Waterford, Vermont. Did YOU? Or a close family member? The Waterford Historical Society invites you to attend the first ever Rabbit Hill Inn Reminiscence Reunion, on Wednesday July 25 at 6:30 pm in Lower Waterford, across the road from the inn.

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).

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.

Waterford's Older Residents Tell Their Stories -- See the Show, June 17

Waterford resident Carol Bonnett shows the photo in her album of herself at age 14, with Lower Waterford's Mrs. Davies, a prominent village resident at the time.

Camera! Lights! Oral Histories! Rhubarb!

 

WATERFORD - Curious about "the who" of the Davies Memorial Library?

Want to know what it was like growing up in the now-gone village of Upper Waterford on the Connecticut River?

Interested in how dairy farming used to be done in a milk house attached to an iconic red barn?

Come find out in the first public reveal of Waterford's videotaped oral histories from such long-time residents as George Bullock, Geneva Powers Wright, her brother, Willard Powers, sister-in-law Patricia Wallace Powers, and Doris Carol Fuller Bonnett. Their stories are, by turns, funny and insightful, and capture an era that started to disappear with the construction of Moore Dam in the early 1950s.

Designed for anyone with a connection to or curiosity about the post-Revolutionary War town chartered in 1780, this benefit event includes a wide variety of delicious rhubarb desserts and refreshments.

Part of the on-going Welcome Home to Waterford series, this is the 3rd annual joint fund raiser between Vermont's youngest historical society and the Congregational Church's Ladies Social Circle.

It is scheduled for Saturday, June 17, in the Fellowship Hall at the corner of Lower Waterford Road and Maple Street. Doors open at 6 p.m.; program begins at 6:30 p.m. The Maple Street door is handicap accessible.

Proceeds help the Waterford Historical Society's associated costs for its on-going videotaping of oral histories and the Ladies' steadfast goal to raise much-needed restoration funds for the historic building that opened for worship in January of 1860.

Seating is limited to 90. Tickets are $10 adults; $5 for children under 12. To reserve a place (or a table for 10), please call WHS treasurer/secretary Roberta Smith: 748-0923 or Ladies' member Carroll Campbell: 748-3455.

Can't attend, but interested in making a tax-deductible financial gift to either worthy organization? You can send a donation to the:

WHS at P.O. Box 56, Lower Waterford, VT 05848 or Congregational Church, P.O. Box 111, Lower Waterford, VT 05848.

Memories of Fifty Years Ago -- and Before ... in Waterford, Vermont

At the small district schoolhouse, when Waterford had one-room and two-room (and even four-room) schools. Courtesy of Vivian Davis, who is one of the students here.

Stories of the "old days" from the people who remember what happened -- these are the treasures that the Waterford Historical Society's spoken history team gathers from area residents, on video, in pictures, and in voice recordings. And now you can watch and listen to Waterford, Vermont, residents share their memories, at the group's channel on YouTube. Hope you can make time to visit really soon -- just click here to see what's available!

"Catching the Stories": Video and Audio Records of Our Oral History

At the Hastings School, 1932, courtesy of Vivian Davis.

The "Oral History Team" of the Waterford Historical Society has been working hard in 2016! Recording interviews with our older residents is a high priority for us, so we can all keep listening and learn more about our town's past.

With the help of a skilled Lyndon State College graduate, this summer the interview files have been placed on YouTube so everyone can watch them. There are already three that show the interviews in action, and a fourth one (of Elizabeth Rudd Knights) that provides the sound, with just a pair of photos. We'll add more photos to this when we can; there is also an interview with Vivian Davis coming soon.

Please take a look-and-listen: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9FgZlEppAaGZwS9pqKg5A

And think about what you might like to share about your own connections with Waterford, Vermont!

School Days! Now and Then ...

The season is turning, and along with a few red leaves (we're nowhere near what this photo shows, yet!), the school buses are tuning up and there are new outfits for school, new books to explore. At the Waterford Historical group, we've enjoyed listening to stories of school days at the district schools -- which stopped being used after the town's central school opened in 1957.

More stories tonight (Wed. Aug. 22, at 6 pm); hope you'll be there.

Meanwhile, just for the record, here's a discovery I made today: Mrs. Vida Nina (Watson) Fitchett's 2009 obituary, in the Caledonian-Record, specifically mentioned the Wood School, one of the last four district schools of the town. Here's the link: http://caledonianrecord.com/Main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=144&ArticleID=43777