Geneva (Powers) Wright, Growing Up in Waterford

Geneva (Powers) Wright and her daughter Glenna W. Pasho.

On May 25, 2016, Geneva (Powers) Wright, with her daughter Glenna (Wright) Pasho, told the Waterford Historical Society about growing up in Waterford. These notes (written by Donna Heath and Beth Kanell) are supplemented with added details from Geneva’s written history of the family and from Glenna afterward.

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The Powers history in Waterford began at the intersection of Shadow Lake Road and County Road South at the farm purchased by Glenn Gilbert Powers and Eva Belle (Page) Powers on April 19, 1919 according to Geneva Ella (Powers) Wright, the eldest of Glenn’s seven children.  There were three boys and four girls. Glenn and Eva moved from Kirby to the farm in May 1919.

The farm was one of the earliest settled in Waterford; in 1792 when Daniel Pike came from Royalston, Mass., he settled on 125 acres there. Daniel Pike’s companions in his move to Waterford were his brother Nathan, and Jonathan Hutchinson and Luther Knight.* Daniels’s son Luther (who would become known as Deacon Luther Pike) took ownership, marrying Anna Caswell. Their daughter Carolina married Nathan W. Millen, who eventually owned the farm, followed by the Millen daughter Laura Jane (Jennie), who married Frank W. Brown of Bethlehem, NH; Frank Brown became a successful dairyman, in 1886 building a modern barn and in 1904 rebuilding and modernizing the house. Frank and Jennie Brown were the owners who sold the farm to Glenn Powers. In addition to farming, Glenn was a Vermont state representative for Waterford in the 1940s.

Geneva (the first child in the family, born September 22, 1919, at the Littleton NH hospital) went to a small (“one-room”) district elementary school in Waterford, the Woods School, and attended high school in Littleton.  During the first year of high school, she travelled to school in the truck that carried the milk cans.  The truck driver would be either Geneva’s father Glenn or his hired man Percy Kezar. For her other three high school years, she and her sister Theresa stayed with a Littleton family during the week, “self-boarding,” and went home on weekends.  The girls had to provide their own food and firewood at the house where they boarded. It was so cold in the winter there, that the girls were able to keep their perishable food supply in the very cold hallway.  Going home on weekends was a time to do laundry (skirts were below the knee), and to bring back more food, assisted by their mother. Geneva graduated from high school in 1937.

The family raised sheep and sent the wool to Maine to be made into wool blankets.  Glenn raised Jersey cattle.  Milk was kept in milk cans placed in a cooler until being picked up by the milk truck and delivered to creameries in Barnet and Concord and Littleton.  The milk cooler was kept cold with ice from Stiles Pond and from the pond at Pattenville, NH (across the river).  Sawdust was used to pack the ice in the ice shed to preserve it. The family made its own butter. It was packed into wooden butter molds and pressed out, and then wrapped in paper, which Geneva recalls doing.

Although Geneva’s high school years were during the Great Depression, her family did not discuss the Depression and the farm provided much of their needs. They milked cows, sugared, raised sheep and poultry, owned horses, made their own ice cream and sold butter. 

One of Geneva’s chores was to take care of house chores (sweeping, washing dishes) when a “hurricane” baby was born in during Vermont’s devastating Hurricane of 1938; her mother assisted at the birth, and often helped other women as needed.  Today, the baby lives in Gilman.

Geneva married Gilbert Augustus Wright (born March 26, 1912, in Lower Waterford) on March 1, 1938.  In addition to several kinds of work, Gilbert also was a road commissioner for Waterford, Barnet, and Kirby at different times, and later in life served as a lister for Waterford.

Geneva and Gilbert Wright would have three children. Their names now are, daughter Jean Wright Hagan, born 1939; son Merle G. Wright, born 1940; and daughter Glenna W. Pasho, born 1950. When the youngest, Glenna, was 3 years old, Geneva told Gilbert that she wasn’t milking cows any longer, so the family moved to St. Johnsbury, ideal for the children to attend St. Johnsbury Academy. When Glenna was 19 and attending college in New York State, her parents decided to sell the house in St. Johnsbury and move back to an acre of land reserved for them at the home farm.

Glenn’s grandson, Keith, now resides at the farm. 

[*Correction to Pike reference, from Pike descendant Helen Chantal Pike, Aug. 30, 2017: Daniel Pike moved with his 2 sons, Nathan and Luther (and at least 2 daughters). I'm descended from Nathan, the river farmer. Deacon Luther became the hill farmer.]

A Productive Memorial Day Challenge: The Hill Cemetery

At the Charles Hill Cemetery: Cross-checking stones and name with 1980 listing.

A small but hard-working contingent met at Waterford's Charles Hill Cemetery this morning to trim, prune, and tug at blackberry canes and overgrown honeysuckle, to reveal the wonderful stones in the far corner of the burying ground. Another round of volunteer labor is planned to trim the bushes around the Hill cenotaph. We were glad to cross-check the stones against the 1980 listing created by Eugenia Powers and find that no further damage or losses have taken place. A lot of stories must belong with the lives remembered here, and we'll keep looking for them, for the pleasure and honor of saluting those who've gone before us.

Vines and brambles grabbed at us.

This stone had almost vanished ...

Without the "brush" in the way, look how lovely it is!

Lines at the base of the stone. Best seen in person ... when do you plan to visit?

Honoring Waterford's Cemeteries: The WHS Tackles Two

On Monday May 30, 2016, Memorial Day, volunteers are invited to gather with some members of the Waterford Historical Society at 10 a.m. at the Hill Cemetery (on the Gingue dairy farm, Higgins Hill Rd) to prune, rake, and explore the Charles Hill Cemetery. Be sure to wear a hat and insect repellent? Gloves are helpful.

For a little inspiration, here are some photos of the newly visible and nicely pruned Stiles Cemetery, from earlier in May. The workers in the photos are Donna Heath, Roberta Smith, and Helen Pike; in addition, the local DAV (Disabled American Veterans) pruned the roadside hedge at another date.

And 15 years ago:

This final photo, taken by Brother Xavier Werneth of Baton Rouge, LA, in 2001, was shared on the FindAGrave site.

Hill Cemetery, Waterford, Vermont

A few spring photos of the Hill Cemetery, with a rainstorm moving in.

Waterford Hollow: The Stiles Farm and Cemetery

The Waterford Historical Society's "Green-Up" project this year focused on the Stiles Cemetery on Route 18, across the road from the water filtration plant for Stiles Pond Reservoir.

So here's the background on the area, with a photo (above) from the 1983 Waterford Town Report, taken from a C. H. Clark photo postcard. Look closely to see today's Route 18 between the barn and the pond; a high-rise entrance to the side of the barn farther from the pond; and the Stiles home, to the left of the barn in this photo. The three round structures are the earlier water filtration beds.

Here is the version of Waterford Hollow history (in which both the Stiles and Hill families play significant roles), as printed in that Town Report, written by the town's dedicated historian, Eugenia Powers. At the end are some photos showing the house foundation, not far from today's Stiles Cemetery, as WHS President Donna Heath explored it this month.

An Upper Waterford Home and Family at "Trout Brook Farm"

Postcards sent and treasured can offer unexpected insight into families and their lives in the past 150 years. It was a delight yesterday to find this card, which must have been included inside an envelope, since it had no address or postmark. It is a Velox postcard, according to postcard expert Dave Kanell, who says the card was thus printed between 1907 and 1914. On the back in browned ink, in neat but not fussy script, it says "Compliments of / S/ F. Cutting / Trout Brook Farm / Waterford Vt."

S. F. Cutting was Stillman Franklin Cutting, a longtime resident of Upper Waterford. He was born in Concord, VT, on September 17, 1846, to parents Franklin H. Cutting and Prudence Isham Cutting. In 1910 he served as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

It's poignant to know this homestead vanished with the construction of the Connecticut River hydro dams. Mr. Cutting would have seen Comerford Dam built (1930-31), but he died in 1940, before the Moore Dam's reservoir would fill the scraped-bare landscape where his home once stood. His death was recorded in Gilman, Vermont, but he is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Waterford.

An extra pleasure in exploring Mr. Cutting's life in Waterford was discovering his Valentine's Day 1841 marriage to Martha Woodward Carpenter, daughter of Amos Bugbee Carpenter -- some of whose family letters, perhaps due to his role as West Waterford postmaster, have also survived the years. In fact, we have a note that Martha, nicknamed May, sent as a child to her brother in college at Dartmouth, which can be seen here.

"Early Town Government in Waterford" by Eugenia Powers

Eugenia Powers (1913-1985) grew up in a Waterford family where everyone contributed to town government in some way. She gave her own historic research and writing to Waterford, Vermont, for decades. We will use her map and description of the Stiles Cemetery on Green-Up Day this year; we treasure the narratives she inserted in town reports (more on this next week with notes about the Stiles farm). And at the time of the town's bicentennial, she contributed longer work, like this essay.