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We have moved the blog to a new website, one that will include web pages as well as our stories. Please bookmark danvillevthistorical.org

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Photos: Mary's First Annual Memorial Tea

We felt Mary's presence all day long.

I've written a small piece for the March issue of the North Star, but thought some might like to see the photos of the tea sooner than that. Picasa hasn't let me edit them at all, so no captions are available. To see the photo album, click here.

A Leap Year Proposal I Send by Mail

Florence and Herbert Stanton of North Danville

By Mark R. Moore

We tend to think of people whose writings date from the early 1900s as “old” folks--ossified citizens of Danville who were “set in their ways” and as personable, humorous and emotional as a marble statue that we touched as a child. Frequently, in the course the course of classifying family documents for the Danville Historical Society, I come across one that offers insight that shows that they were not much different that teenagers are today.  Had I read only Florence Johnson’s 1907  letters to Herbert Stanton (her husband only a year later) I would been confirmed in a straitlaced controlling stereotype of an all-knowing spouse-to-be. In the following letter, Herbert was confined to home with mumps.

March 14, ‘07
My dear Herbert:
I have just been down street and sent a diet card and sent you a diet card just  to remind you that you were dieting…Now don’t eat too much or the wrong things.
With Love- Florence

Of course, I found that I was wrong. The letter entitled “Leap Year Proposal 1904” had no envelope and bore no address or name of sender. Only handwriting comparison revealed the writer. Definitely Florence. Reproduced below, it shows a fun-loving, teasing woman, full of life and spirit, which no man could lightly refuse.

[

All the bows are attached with two stitches except the last, which is gone. It is not torn but is missing, obviously carefully removed.

The historian in me fades. Though I have no proof, the romantic in me speculates young Herbert removed the rope and told Florence that his love wasn’t dead as the red bow’s return would have signified. Instead, his love would grow and flourish in Danville, his home with his beloved Florence.

A Leap Year Proposal 1904, transcribed

A Leap Year Proposal I send by mail
And hope you will guess from whom it hails [sic]
And send back the bow you think is accepted
And know with best wishes that it is accepted
If you want to be my fellow
Send me back my bow of Yellow
If for me your love is true
Send me back my bow of Blue
If you want me for your wife
Send me back my bow of white
If of me you sometimes think
Send me back me bow of Pink
If of me you sometimes dream
Send me back my bow of Green
If you wish me to elope
Send me back my Hellitrope
If for me your love is dead
Send me back my bow of Red
If for me there is no hope
Send me back my bow of Rope
If the writers name you guess
Send the bow to her Address

A Dear Couple for Dear Acres

Kenneth and Florence Ward, a Valentine Story

Kenneth and Florence's wedding picture, February 15, 1941

By Sharon Lakey

“Never a child born that bawled as much as Andy. I tried to tell Florence that the boy was hungry, but she was following the latest doctors’ books and using their recommendations. I raised calves all my life, and when they bawled, I fed them! That’s what he needed as far as I was concerned.”

What a way for Ken Ward, one of Danville’s premiere farmers, Town Lister for 35 years, Vice President of Vermont’s Soil Conservation Service, father of three and husband of one to start our interview. We sat in the living room of what used to be the Pumpkin Hill School, nestled at the foot of the farm that has been in his family for five generations. Ken will be 92 on his next birthday in March. With that many years behind him, there were many stories told in the ensuing hours, one for every photo that filled the small box in front of us. But this is a Valentine story, and that will be our rudder.

We’ll start with the boy Kenneth, who went to Pumpkin Hill School. He and his buddy walked the tracks of the St. J and LC trestle above the school where each placed a nickel on the tracks, then waited for the train to smash them. Late for school, they became swingers of birches, grabbing a sapling and riding it down to the next sapling, Tarzan-like, until they reached the bottom and raced to school. Late, they had to “run the gauntlet,” said Ken. Directed by the teacher, the children held switches and made two lines. “Like the Indians used to do. Sometimes I went home with tender shins.”

In the town of Kirby lived a girl, one of ten children in the Stuart family. Her name was Florence. “She was bullied,” said Ken, sitting forward, animated, still incensed at the injustice. “She had a way of walking that most girls don’t come by naturally. The other girls thought she was showing off, and they made fun of her walk and her clothes. She became shy of people and wouldn’t go to school. She gave it right back to them, though.” But the effect of the bullying was to shadow her for life.

Kenneth graduated from Danville High School in 1937. In 1938, he and five other boys from his class attended Vermont Ag (now Vermont Tech) in Randolph Center. “I went to learn better ways of farming,” said Ken. “They ran a farm there, and we were put to work as well as learning.”

Right away, the boss, who was the principal of the school, took a group of students to the barn. “Who among you can drive horses?” he asked.

“I’d been driving horses since the age of 12,” said Kenneth, “so I raised my hand.”

“Harness those horses,” said the principal, pointing to the team and then the harnesses hanging on the wall.

“I went to work. You see, the reins are done up differently for each horse,” said Ken. “The nigh horse harness is different than the off horse. I asked which horse was which and harnessed them accordingly. I guess he thought I did a good job. From that point on, I got to drive the team.” Kenneth smiled. “That was a benefit,” he explained. While the other boys had their hands on shovels, he had hold of the reins.

America was just coming out of the Great Depression when he graduated in 1938. According to Kenneth, President Roosevelt was trying to improve the lives of farmers, helping them make a living on the land. “Farmers were good spenders, and he wanted to encourage new ways of doing things. The thinking then was to remove the stone walls and hedges and increase the size of the fields so you could use a tractor to do the cultivating.” He listened carefully to the college president’s final address. “He told us that we should go out into the world, run our farms and take jobs in the associations. It was our duty!” Ken looks over. “I took that to heart.”

That summer, back at the farm, Kenneth met Florence for the first time. A man up the road (the Chapman farm as we might know it) got married at home and intended it to be a quiet affair. “The neighbors decided otherwise and got together a cheverie. We brought the party to them,” said Ken. “Florence was doing housework for a family on Route 2 and she showed up at the party. I was fresh out of college and didn’t know who she was.

“So I sidled up to her and introduced myself. Later, I asked how she was getting home and offered to take her in my Model-A Ford. She agreed and when we got to the house, I asked her if I could give her a kiss goodnight. She thought that would be okay as that was the custom then,” said Ken. One can tell this is a story he has remembered often. “They say you’ve got a mate that’s made for you, and when you think you’ve found them, you can’t be shy.”

After going together for about a year, he was invited to her house in Kirby for dinner. Her uncle ran the farm, and he was behind on his haying. “It was August, and they needed to get it done,” said Ken. “I grabbed a fork and offered to help.” Since Kenneth was in his good clothes, he reports he removed his shirt. “I think she liked what she saw,” he added.

Later, a job well done, her Uncle Irish told her in front of all present, “If that young man ever asks you to marry him, you’d have to have your head examined if you refused. Anyone who can come back from college and still use an old pitchfork like that shows he’s a good man.”

Kenneth asked her that very night. Florence said she’d think it over. “I guess she wanted to find out if I really meant it.” That winter, she took a good job in Newport, VT, doing housekeeping. One time when Kenneth was visiting, she asked, “Does your offer still stand?”

They were married in the Danville Congregational parsonage on February 15, 1941. “It was a simple affair,” said Kenneth. Florence had sewn her own dress, made of a deep, blue velvet material with soft gathers in the front, two shining rhinestones on the bodice. “She would never let anyone else touch that dress,” said Kenneth.

The couple joined his father, Wesley (known as Gene), and mother, Ruth, in the brick farm house. In 1942, little Barbara came along, named after Kenneth’s first girlfriend. “My grandfather took me aside and asked if something was wrong with her,” said Kenneth. “She never cried; she was always happy.” In 1944, Andy was brought into the world, named after Kenneth’s Uncle Andy, who was blind but a great man with children. In 1948, one year after the Wards got their first tractor, Ida was added to the family, named after Kenneth’s grandmother.

Andy remembers that first tractor well. He had the measles when they brought it into the yard to try it out. Florence came into his darkened room and said he could get one peek of it before going back to bed. He stood at the front window with his mother behind him watching the marvelous machine pushing snow out of the driveway before she shepherded him back to bed. It still upsets him when he thinks about it. Tractors were rationed after WWII and the Wards applied for all kinds. The first one available was a ’47 Ford N.

Kenneth and Florence bought the farm, half at a time. “I did my share of the work for my half interest,” he said. “Then when we paid that off, we bought the other half.” Florence, like many farm wives, could milk if she had to, but she tried to stay out of the barn. “Her part of the business was the calf barn,” said Kenneth. “For those who know Jerseys, it is no small task to keep them healthy. She used to be good at running the dump-rake, too. I can still see her out there with Dick, her Morgan, hitched up, cleaning up the droppings.”

Eventually, after the Pumpkin Hill School closed, the Wards bought it. The schoolhouse was sitting on land that was originally part of the farm. “There was an option to buy the school back should the school ever be closed,” said Kenneth. Gene and Ruth remodeled it, adding on where needed, and moved there, giving the family full ownership of the space at the farmhouse.

Kenneth, true to the duty spoken of by his college president on graduation day, accepted leadership roles in the Soil Conservation Service. The organization was created in 1935, after the tragedy of the dust bowl, when the U.S. government realized the value of good farming methods and the dissemination of those methods through education to farmers all over the country. He dutifully attended meetings and conventions, learning from others and sharing his knowledge. “I learned the most from Soil Conservation meetings. I would always find a stranger to sit next to, ask them what their problems were and how they solved them. Florence went along to these meetings, even though I don’t think she liked them much,” said Kenneth.

This necessitated managing work on the farm while he was away at these meetings in and out of state. “I had two full-time hired men working with me.” At the peak of the farm, the Wards milked 80, with a herd of 150. By that time, they had decided to go with a registered herd, choosing Jerseys because of their milk, which is high in butterfat. “Hood was paying a better price for Jersey milk, shipping it all over the Northeast.” That’s when they had to upgrade the facilities to include the bulk tank and a cement-floored barn. At that time, he and Florence were asked to come up with a legal name for their registered farm. “We tried to get Deer Acres,” said Kenneth, “but that was taken. So, we changed it to Dear Acres.”

The farm changed hands again in 1983 when their daughter Barbara and her husband David Machell bought it, and he Florence moved into the old schoolhouse. Farming went into decline shortly thereafter with rising costs and falling milk prices. Kenneth shakes his head in sadness, “We had no intention of that happening to them.” Barbara and David eventually sold off the herd, but they still keep beef cattle. They do a business in the raising and selling of beefalo. The bulk tank was removed and a large freezer installed where they sell the beef they have raised and butchered. The Machell’s renamed the farm “Pumpkin Hill Farm.”

In 2008, Florence passed. She and Kenneth had been married for 67 years. He still enjoys life in the snug, little house at the foot of farm, but every day he misses his dear mate, who so long ago accepted his offer to share a life together. 


This article was first published in the February, 2011, issue of The North Star Monthly.


For the photo album that relates to this article click here.

Keep Your Story Alive

It Has Been a Good Day

Diary entries of Homer Stanton circa 1900

By Mark R. Moore

Life in rural Danville was very active and exciting for young boys at the turn of the century. Herbert and Homer Stanton were the robust sons of William Henry Stanton who, in turn, was one of the many offshoots of the Stanton family who came to Danville in the early 1800s.

At Historical House, we have received and are cataloging a large collection of artifacts, photos and archival information that William J. Stanton of North Danville saved during his lifetime.  Many of these pieces are unsorted, unlabeled and present both a difficult and interesting puzzle. Sometimes, though, we are blessed with a clear record that reveals the ebb and flow of life in a time gone by. Such is the luck we had with the three journals of Homer Stanton of North Danville, written in 1900, 1903 and 1904.

One of Homer’s entries from the diary of 1904 gives us his age: July 17, 1904. “Uncle Jim and Aunt Eva have been here today. I went out of doors. It is my birthday. I am 18 years old.” So, in the 1900 diary, he is a young man of 14. Young Homer’s diary gives us the texture of daily life through which the history of Danville during the early 1900s can be seen:
“March 7, 1900. Mama, Herbert and I went to singing school. It has snowed and blowed some. Herbert drawed (sic) slabs and phosphate. Read in the Bible.”

There is even some mystery as to road repair:

“March 9, 1900. Read in the Bible. Mama and Herbert and I went to the singing. Papa has been cutting out cradle [?] holes on the St. Johnsbury road. Herbert went with slabs and phosphate.”

But there are also activities that we understand well:

“April 6, 1900. Read in Bible. Papa has been up helping tap trees to Grandpa’s. Herbert has been drawing manure. The singing is finished tonight.”

And we can understand the holiday food traditions:

“December 9, 1900. Herbert and I went to meeting. The wind has blowed  (sic) all day. Grandma and I popped some corn and made some corn balls.”

What is amazing to me, having read the diaries of Homer, is the number of daily activities that revolve around a large network of church, family, friends and community. Card games occupied the family at night:

“May 16, 1903 …Alice, Helen, Chauncey and Bert Massey were here tonight. We played Younker [?]

and whist.  It has been a good day.”

At least that is true until Thomas Edison’s invention makes its appearance:

“June 20, 1903 …Grandma has been down to Uncle George Sanborn’s tonight hearing the phonograph.

“July 29, 1903… We all went down to George Sanborn’s to hear a graphaphone [sic] tonight.”

It’s nice to find out that even audio advancement couldn’t beat old time fun of a good dance.

“August 5, 1903 Herbert went to St. J. this afternoon after meal. Papa and myself chopped. We all went to a promenade and dance at the hall.”

There were times when even the stalwart Stantons needed medical assistance. Medical practitioners were located in Danville, which was identified by Homer as “the Green.”  Dr. Brown had to come to North Danville to see Homer’s father, William, who was in his early fifties at the time.

“March 24, 1904. Papa fell into the silo this morning and stuck a pitchfork into his leg two times, one clear to the bone. The other all most to the bone. We had Dr. Brown from the Green. Herbert, Win and I have been sawing wood with Win horses.”

March 28, March 30 and April 1^st 1904. Homer noted his last visit laconically:

“April 1^st 1904…Dr. Brown was here today and he is finished coming.”

One assumes William was getting better although there is no mention of the charge for a house call or Dr. Brown’s treatment. Less than a month later, William was splitting wood.

“April 14, 1904: Papa and I split some wood today. Herbert has been doing odd jobs. Net Langmaid has been here cleaning house today. It snowed a little today.”

The attitude about oral health was shocking to me.  My research into the diaries began innocently enough, but things rapidly accelerated in the Stanton family, especially for his brother Herbert, who was in his twenties.

“June 11, 1904: Herbert went to the Green and had 21 teeth pulled. Papa and I cultivated corn and potato[s]. Bee [s] swarmed today.”

Then it was 18-year-old Homer’s turn.

“June 18, 1904: I went to the Green and had two teeth filed [does he mean filled] and three pulled. Ira has been hoeing.  Papa and I put some fire out.”

Finally on June 23, 1904:

“June 23, 1904 Herbert went to the Green and had the rest of his teeth pulled. I have been to school.”

There is no given reason in any of the diaries as to why a young man like Herbert should have all of his teeth pulled out. Surprisingly, there is no mention by either Stanton of the existence of false teeth!

The diaries and records of the Stanton family in North Danville,Vermont, are multifaceted beyond these excerpts quoted here. There were several Stantons with many male and female children who, perhaps, had experiences similar to these which the Historical Society is yet to discover. Even more interesting are the known historical figures who appear momentarily in the family and public records i.e. Langmaids, Siases, Sanborns and Beckwiths, whose history waits to be fleshed out.

The habits and customs of the 1900s as revealed in the diaries are, to me, stories of hard, determined work but also of the joy of companionship which give us the tapestry of life.

This article was first published in the January, 2011, issue of the North Star Monthly.
To see the complete photo album associated with this article click here.

Voices of Our Elders

Life in Caledonia County documentary is living, breathing history

By Sharon Lakey

On a rainy night in December a good-sized crowd gathered in a downstairs room at Catamount Arts. The audience had made the somewhat treacherous journey to watch a 43-minute documentary entitled Life in Caledonia County. Some in the audience were interview subjects in the video, but others had braved the elements just to get a glimpse of what life was like in earlier times in our part of the state.

Before the video rolled, Senator Bill Doyle stood before the group and gave a short introduction of the project. “The idea for this came from a documentary I saw at Harwood High School by students who had interviewed elders in their community. I thought, ‘If high school students can do this, my students should be able to as well.’” That was ten years or so ago, and Bill, who teaches history at Johnson State College, and his students in his Vermont History and Government Class have unveiled their ninth in a planned series of 14 videos—one for each of the counties in Vermont.

The process he came up with is not an easy one. Students entering the class have just one semester to complete the project from beginning to end. Luckily for them, Johnson State hires a videographer to put everything together. Vince Franke, of Peregrine Productions, handles the camera and sound work of the interviews and cuts the piece together. After sharing the first draft with the class, seeking input from them and making necessary changes, he travels to area historical societies photographing photos that illustrate the information in the video.  Add music, smooth out all the bumps, produce the physical copies and there—deep breath—it is show time!

That brings us back to the room downstairs at Catamount Arts. The lights are dimmed and we are taken back in time by the sound of a guitar and fiddle and old photos. Our neighbors from around the county, fifteen of them in all, agreed to speak of the time in which they grew up. A narrator’s voice moves the script from one topic to another. It is reminiscent of a Ken Burns documentary, except, as one audience member pointed out afterward, “Thanks for not showing the same photo over and over again.” Nearly 250 photos illustrate the story, not a one of them repeated. This collection of images represents life in our county in the first half of the 20^th century.

In order of appearance, some of which appear more than once, here is a sampling of the voices:

Catherine Beattie, Danville, on the importance of farming:  “I made a list of the farms that were in operation here in the late 40s and there were over a hundred farms.”

Alice Hafner, Danville, on wages earned on the farm: “Well, a lot of the men around here worked for a dollar a day, room and board. Those would be the hired men who worked here on the farm. And they were happy to get that kind of money.”

Leeland Simpson, Lyndon, on changes brought about by machine: “When we first came here in 1920 we milked probably about 15 cows. We got the first milking machine about the second year after I was married. My father was against them to begin with, but, of course, soon's we got ‘em in place and so on, you would have thought it was his idea to begin with.”

Roger LeCours, Hardwick, on farm chores: “Even during the school year, at about quarter to six, my mother would say, ‘Your father’s already been in the barn for an hour. You boys better hurry!’”  

David Mitchell, Lyndon, on chores: “Most of kids had chores to do. You had to get wood in for the fire in the kitchen. Had a barn to clean. Kids had to work back then.”

Lorna Field Quimby, Peacham, on chores:  “You had to cut a lot of wood for the furnace and the cook stove. It always seemed to us little girls who had the wood box to fill that my mother burned an awful lot of wood! Because my father had five girls, I was one of his hired men. I did a man’s work when I was 10, 11 and 12. I didn’t wear jeans then. I wore a dress and I had these bloomers. I was barefoot and probably dirty half-way up to my knees, but I was out helping Dad, and I would pick stone with him all day. I’d get a sunburn but feel very important because I was helping Dad.”

Leigh Larocque, Barnet, on haying: I remember that myself and a couple of my sisters had to shake the hay out by hand. Years later they used tedders, but back then they used hand and fork. Farming grew from, you might call it, horse and buggy days to equipment and tractors.

Albert Taylor, Kirby, on the transition to machinery: “Well, I’ll tell you about the transition that we made from horses to tractors. Dad was a man in his 60s. He probably started work when there was no piece of machinery, and so forth. I knew more about that than he did. I was the one that come up with it, you know. We were the lucky ones to come up with the machinery. They had the labor.”

Dave Warden, Barnet, on tractors: “I can remember when you got the first tractor, which would be around ’46 if I remember right. And even then you couldn’t get a starter on it. They were still a part of the military needs. They weren’t building starters, so you had to have one that cranked.”

Duane Smith, Sheffield, on horse pulling: “At the end of the summer there were the county fairs and they were really looked forward to by everybody. You didn’t have all this television and all this other stuff. The horse pullin’ was a lot different than it is now, because all the farmers were using horses. And so there was some real rivalry between my team and your team and his team down there to see who could out-pull the other team.”

Dwight White, Ryegate, on the telephone: “Most everyone had a telephone. There were maybe a few families that didn’t have them--elderly people, for example. We would think now they were the ones who most needed to have a telephone. These would often be the widows of a farmer who had put away a given amount of money. The widow had a home, but she lived very frugally. A telephone was considered a luxury.”

Francese Cochran, Walden, on the telephone: “This fella, when he was just a young kid, had to man the switchboards so his mother could get some work done. So he had a couple of ladies that would ring in and want a certain number, and he’d say, ‘The line’s busy,’ whether it was or not. You see, he’d rather be out playing ball.”

Elizabeth Hatch, Walden, on schools: “Wherever people gathered, they were concerned about education for their children. They would form their own district school. To begin with, their school would be kept in either a room in their house or a room in the barn or shed until they could get organized and build themselves a schoolhouse.”

Russell Reed, St. Johnsbury, on Fairbanks: “We had one of the original major businesses in Vermont in St. Jay, which was Fairbanks. Fairbanks scale was the heart of St. Johnsbury. It was where the money was made.”

Peggy Pearl, St. Johnsbury, on Fairbanks: “Fairbanks came here to St. Johnsbury about 1819. They established themselves on the Sleepers River and made wagons, stoves and at one point were brokers for hemp, which was grown along the Moose River. The farmers would bring their hemp to the Fairbanks’ who would then sell it for rope making. They would have to unload wagons and weigh it then put it back on wagons. That’s when Thaddeus came up with the idea of having a platform scale that you could roll everything onto and not handle it so many times…They didn’t have a clue how really big this was going to be.”

It was a joy to watch the faces and listen to the storytelling voices of these elders. As one of the Johnson State students said in the video, “It was living, breathing history.” After the showing, there was time allotted for audience reaction, which gave its wholehearted approval. Vince explained that each school, library and historical society in Caledonia County will receive free copies of the video. They are also for sale at Catamount Arts, Natural Provisions, Green Mountain Books in Lyndonville and the Danville Historical Society as well as available online at: www.peregrineproductions.com. The cost is $15 and helps support the continuing project at Johnson State. A portion of the proceeds goes to the local historical society. The next planned project is Life in Windham County.  

This article was first published in the January, 2011, issue of the North Star Monthly.
To see the complete photo album related to this article, click here.