USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907-1957 with family genealogies > Part 16
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In many organizations, church or hospital, it is the women who work to keep the money coming in, who hold food sales and card parties, who buy the necessary articles year in and year out. The new hospital has its women, too, in the Rock- ingham Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. But back in 1915, when this organization was formed, the group of eager women-and quite a few men-called themselves simply the Rockingham Hospital Aid Society and until the new hospital opened in 1954, that was what it was called.
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On December 10, 1915, these women-and a number of brave men-met to accept the by-laws as submitted by the president, Miss Caroline Arms. A Mr. Hale moved that cards be printed for heads of teams who would go to work on Hospital Sunday soliciting money for evidently the Aid's first intention and reason for being, was to keep its little hospital on its unstable feet. There were 65 people there including the men and the first officers were president, Miss Caroline Arms; first vice president, Mrs. T. E. O'Brien; second vice president, Mrs. A. P. Pratt; secretary, Mrs. G. M. Welch; treasurer, Mrs. H. J. Searles; auditor, Mrs. N. G. Williams. The 1915 direc- tors were Mrs. H. J. Searles, Mrs. N. G. Williams, Mrs. Anna Boland, Mrs. R. J. Patterson, Mrs. A. M. Richards, Mrs. P. D. Stevens, Mrs. W. J. Wright, Mrs. G. E. B. Ward.
Today this organization consists of 690 members plus other societies and businesses. At the annual meeting in December, 1954, $1,471.86 had been collected through various fund-raising endeavors. The R.M.H.A. meets each month with the follow- ing officers as of that year: president, Mrs. John J. Connelly, Jr .; first vice president, Mrs. Patrick Harty; second vice presi- dent, Mrs. Paul Genter; secretary, Mrs. Howe Davis; treasurer, Mrs. Roland O'Dette. Directors for one year were Mrs. John Stewart, Mrs. Charles Crotty, Mrs. Frank Whitcomb; for two years, Mrs. Donald Kellogg, Mrs. Fred Pratt, Mrs. Elmer Pierce. Out-of-town directors: Drewsville, N. H., Mrs. H. Booth Wood; Walpole, N. H., Mrs. G. Leighton Bridges; North Walpole, N. H., Mrs. Edward Reardon; Saxtons River, Mrs. Kenneth Morrison; Westminster, Mrs. Alfred Farrell.
There are new duties today, new committees never dreamed of in 1912 such as the women who take turns working in the coffee shop and gift shop at the hospital, all volunteers, and aside from the regular duties of the Hospital Aides. Besides the old Requisitions department, which keeps the hospital sup- plied with the necessities which wear out, and the departments of membership, finance and hospitality, are the many new ones today. The aim and purpose of the R.M.H.A. is "to promote and advance the welfare of the Rockingham Memorial Hospital through ways approved by the governing board of the Hospital. Its purpose shall be accomplished by interpretation of the Hospital to the public through service to the Hospital and its patients and through fund raising in a manner satisfactory to the Hospital Governing Board." This society also furnished a semi-private room in the Hospital; all private rooms were furnished by individuals and businesses.
So the old hospital building was razed as soon as the new one was opened and the cleared space used for much needed parking room. In the new clean lines of the Rockingham Memorial Hospital, in its immaculate and up-to-the-minute equipment, in its fireproof construction, its efficient and smooth,
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working regime, there is no remotest suggestion of the modest little house on Williams Terrace of 40 years ago. There is space for 53 beds in bright, sunny rooms; an Administration, Admitting and business office; a solarium which can be used as bed space; pediatrics department, cystoscopy room, autopsy room, recovery and shock beds besides the usual departments. The kitchen is done in stainless steel with a walk-in refrigerator and deep-freeze. Rockingham, through its benefactors, now has as fine a modern hospital as any town of its size. And in 1955, the new hospital received from the Ford Foundation $20,100 as its share of a half billion appropriation for privately supported institutions in the United States. It even has its own newspaper, first published in June, 1955, called THE CLEAN SHEET and giving Dr. Hebb recognition for 23 years of service to the hospital
The old Board of Directors is now the Board of Trustees and the new hospital opened with the following members: president, C. L. Bodine; vice president, John Connelly, Jr .; secretary, Albert T. Bolles; treasurer, Sam Hutchins. Other members are David Costin, Frank Whitcomb, Stanley Merrill, Roger Hammond, Mrs. George L. Bridges, Mrs. Blanche Mac- Donald. The Medical Staff consists of Richard C. Fuller, M.D., president of staff; John A. Stewart, M.D., secretary; Edwin G. Hebb, M.D., Michael F. Powers, M.D., William H. Tatem, M.D., F. L. Osgood, M.D., Edith F. Woodelton, M.D., Fred Pratt, M.D., Raymond W. Lawrence, M.D., A. C. Johns- ston, M.D. Doctor Walter Buttrick and Dr. David Stewart joined the staff in June, 1955, with offices in what was once the Nurses' home. In 1950 Clarence Coleman of Saxtons River was hired as administrator but the new hospital is in charge of administrator, Rocco C. Mittica.
Superintendents of the Rockingham Hospital have been, Miss Harriet Morris, 1912-1913; Miss Anna Richardson, 1913 (4 months); Miss Mildred McKee, 1913-1921; Mrs. Grace Shaman, 1921 (died); Miss Josephine Loveland (acting), 1921- 1922; Miss Carleton, 1922-1923; Miss Anna Richardson, 1923 -- 1938; Miss Helen Morey (acting), November, 1938-July, 1939; Miss Caroline Hatch, August, 1939-September, 1943; Miss Beatrice Hack (acting), October, 1943-December, 1943; Miss Rose Zellar, January, 1943-June 1945,; Miss Beatrice Hack (acting), July, 1945-November, 1945; Miss Frances West, November, 1945-September, 1950; Miss Helen Reynolds, Octo- ber, 1950; Clarence Coleman, 1950-July, 1954; Rocco Mittica, July 1954.
Among the personnel at the hospital, the following have given long and faithful service: Miss Mary Drislane, 30 years; Mrs. Rose Szuch, 27 years; Mrs. Agnes Cobb, 27 years; Andrew Woynar, 25 years; Mrs. Ora Campbell, office, 24 years.
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Supplementing the hospital for convalescents and chronic cases, is the Bellows Falls Inn, opened in 1926 by Mr. and Mrs. Jay Graves (nee Mildred McKee.) this was sold in December of 1955 to Dr. Frank C. Romano of Wellesley, Mass. who owns and operates nine other such homes in Massachusetts including the Roslindale General Hospital of Boston with 100 beds. There were 50 patients at the Inn at the time of the transfer which will occasion no change in the operation of the home. On April 11, 1955, the Terrace Convalescent Home was opened in the old Wales home by Mr. Chauncey Markham.
Today most "poorhouses" are extinct in Vermont as Social Security and public assistance programs run them out of busi- ness. Of the once popular "town farms" in Vermont, there were only 12 remaining in 1955 including Rockingham. Ten years ago there were 28 of these institutions for the care of the indigent, several often serving adjacent towns. (RUTLAND HERALD January 19, 1955). In 1918 it cost $9,328.55 to care for the needy in Rockingham, conduct and maintain the town farm in Bartonsville, purchased about 60 years ago and still in use. In 1954 the gross expense for the farm and out- side welfare was $50,702.88 but farm expense was much higher as there were 16 people at the Farm to be fed and much new machinery had to be acquired, implements undreamed of thirty years before. Inmates were boarded at a cost of $12.85 a week whereas outside board was figured to have cost from $25.00 per week upward. From time to time over the years, the prac- ticability of maintaining the Farm has been discussed, pro and con. In 1906, some people thought that the "poor lived too easily," inducing others to prefer the same life at the same place. Recently the question has been agitated again but the Board of Selectmen and the Town Manager, now also the Overseer of the Poor, feel that there should be no move to do away with Rockingham's Town Farm. There are 120 acres of town farm land in Grafton and 160 in Rockingham. An agreement was made with Thomas Hanifin, lumber dealer, to cut the timber on the land at the approximate rate of 50,000 feet per week. 7
THE NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONE AND TELE- GRAPH COMPANY has come a long way from its first crude beginnings in 1879 when the first phone in Bellows Falls was installed with fear and trembling by the Fall Mountain Paper Co., pioneers also in Mr. Edison's electric lights. It ran from Mr. Moody's office on Bridge St., to Mr. Fisher's office near the river and was regarded as fanciful and unnecessary, even as people later regarded the first "aeroplanes" which rose clumsily from local meadows forty years later.
The first telephone line was 1,000 feet long and "worked admirably as well as curiously." A. N. Swain, editor of the TIMES, himself coped bravely with it from the Moody end 7 See Addendum
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as he listened to Mr. Fisher whose part consisted mainly of singing by various parties, at his end, with the aid of a paper funnel inserted in the mouthpiece. "The apparatus includes bells for signals operated as a telegraph and the wire is bound with silk," he reported. "And," he added, "it must be very useful in many ways and could easily be arranged for fire alarms in parts of the village." The town's first phone was interesting to play with but outside of a possible fire alarm value, it was not very practical.
Not until the Green Mountain Telephone Co. came over the mountain from Manchester, Vt. in May of 1882, was there any real service. There was then a population of 2,229 and 63 of them became subscribers at the old magneto battery office on Bridge St., on the third floor in the Howard Hardware block, later moved down to the second floor. In 1901 this was replaced with the common battery although some say that the magneto was in use until 1912. Miss Alberta Smith who was chief operator when she left in 1924 after 40 years with the company in this town and in Cavendish, Vt., said that her first switchboard was a two-position board which later blos- somed into a four-position. She remembers that one of the things which helped to pass the time when business dragged, which was much of the time, were the friendly cockroaches which came to call from the family upstairs, playing tag on the switchboard and getting into the "jack" so that you couldn't "plug in."
Miss Smith remembers vividly the excitement of March 8, 1916 when the first transcontinental consersation from Vermont, also the longest paid telephone talk which ever took place any- where, went through her office. H. L. Coe of Green St., called up his mother in Seattle on her birthday, 4,500 miles away. Today we call Siberia or Japan. Forty years ago a coast-to- coast message was a world shaking event.
In 1912 Bellows Falls had 600 subscribers with 4,600 calls a day, an increase of 800 over the previous year. In 1903 there were only 203 phones in town and in 1906, there were 787, Bellows Falls having 423 of them. The exchange moved from the Howard block to the top floor of the Arms block, into the new quarters built for it, on January 17, 1914 and a public reception was held there the next year. Today 53 employees handle, on 10-position boards, about 9,000 calls a day from 1,659 phones in Bellows Falls alone. Toll calls, once as fabulous as jet planes today, now run to about 2,000 a day with a weekend rate of approximately 1,700. In the town of Rockingham there are about 1,800 phones.
Besides Miss Smith there have been a number of other longtime employees. In 1934 Mrs. Ada Blood, for 30 years a familiar voice to anyone lifting the receiver on the lonely night hours, retired. Miss Azilda Dionne, chief operator from April
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28, 1929 to July, 1943, has been connected with the company for over 40 years. She began work as an operator in July, 1913, working up to junior supervisor on June 20, 1924 and senior supervisor on July 5, 1925, Mrs. Mary MacNeil retired on December 1, 1954 after 38 years of service and Miss Charlotte Rice received her 30-year pin at the same time. Miss Dorothy Ladd and Mrs. Anna Brown received their 25-year pins in 1954 'also. The first operators in town were Miss Emma Had- ley and Miss Jennie Church, in the days when one operator carried on alone. Others who were employed there were Gertrude Webber, Anna Gorman, Florence Smith and Madeline Long. Behind her desk in the business office, Mrs. Leona Provost worked as service representative for 25 years until her death in 1955. John "Jack" Finck, jovial repair man and installer, has been fixing and installing phones, hunting down trouble spots for 40 years and is still on the job. A. B. Anderson, "Andy" to everyone, was central office repair and test man from August 1912 to June, 1953 when he retired. Thereon "Ted" Parker was line foreman of construction for 30 years with headquarters in Brattleboro until his retirement in 1946 passing away in January, 1955.
Another long-term man was C. R. Burr, manager in 1890 and still working in 1907. Cedric Reynolds, Sr. of Brattle- boro, was a veteran in the business. He was wire chief and manager for 40 years until he retired in 1945 after being in at the birth throes of the new industry. Still hale and hearty, he relives with vigor the old days back in 1906 when he went to work and they used horses and wagons with which to do their trouble shooting. For five years he worked in St. Johnsbury, transferring to Brattleboro where he finished his service.
But he started out in Bellows Falls and remembers the first toll line out of town in 1911 when he worked with Ted Parker and Steve Donahue of Keene. They left Bellows Falls at 4 a. m. many a day, he says, for the Brattleboro area which, as today, was headquarters getting home at 7 p. m., often after a 14-hour day and no unions involved. Or they would leave for the long 27-mile drive to Ludlow on a winter morning with the mercury at a very mean 30-below, hiring teams at the Rand or Lovell stable for $1.50 or $2.00 a day
In 1906 telephone poles were non-existent. That first toll line was hung on trees, barns, anything that would hold it up and keep it moving. Not until 1908 did the first poles begin to stab the roadsides and climb the hills and bridge the rivers. In 1906, Rockingham was the only town in the state with three rural lines, the old 61, 62 and 63 lines, each with more than a baker's dozen of subscribers, the same lines which still serve patrons in rural Rockingham and still with a full quota of phones per line. When the crew was setting up poles towards Parker Hill, they promised Pat O'Brien that he would
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have his phone by Christmas and he did, on Christmas Eve. Pat was so grateful and filled with the Christmas spirit, that he sat them down at the kitchen table, all 16 or 18 of them, and regaled them with pitchers of cider with eggs broken into it, country champagne. The first phone north of town was in- stalled at the home of Lewis Lovell who lived just south of Brooks' Stable.
The area served the outlying towns of Charlestown, N. H., Grafton and Alstead, N. H. where the men left at 6 a. m. with horses. For trouble between here and Putney, they swung onto the back of the down train, watching for fallen poles and hanging wires along the way. They returned on their own time, any way they could. Mr. Reynolds says that he often snowshoed to Claremont, N. H. when a line was out of order and later he got a motorcycle. He was probably glad to return to the snowshoes, come winter.
In those early days there was just one line into New Hamp- shire, going to Drewsville, Alstead, Acworth and South Acworth; one to Ludlow, Proctorsville and Cavendish and one to Bowen's Mill, Charlestown, N. H., Springfield and Perkinsville. Saxtons River had its own exchange in 1908 under different ownerships.
To get business, the first phones were installed free for a three-month period. But they often had to bring back a load of as many as 30 phones a day for people were not convinced yet, especially when they had to pay for them! This crew was called the Flying Squadron. Often there were as many as 27 phones on a country line and each village line had six phones-no private lines.
They had quite a time getting across the Walpole-West- minster bridge with their cables when it burned in 1910. A colored gentleman in Westminster decided to forestall the visits of a Walpole, N. H. gentleman on his wife by pouring a gallon of alcohol on his end of the bridge and touching a match to it. It worked fine but cost everyone a lot of time and money. The phone men were especially wroth as they had to fire rockets, with ropes attached, over the river. They floated all over the meadows on rafts made of railroad ties loaded with new cable, brought up by teams, until they got hauled to the other side by the rocket ropes. The saddest part was that it happened in the midst of Mrs. Reynolds' bridge party and since most of the men were telephone men, she was left with a purely female party on her hands.
In October, 1937, Tel. & Tel. began construction of a new repeater station on Henry St. at a cost of $21,000 plus $90,000 for material, making this town one of the most important tele- phone links between northern Vermont and the rest of the world. Using a cable system, this station provides service to the northern communities at all times of floods in the valleys by boosting messages so that voice currents are amplified.
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This is the third building in a series to keep messages moving in emergencies, the others being at Greenfield, Mass. and White River Jct., Vt. Today Bellows Falls and St. Albans are the only two larger places in the state without the dial system and this can probably be expected in about two years.
CHAPTER VI
ORGANIZATIONS
Among the social organizations of 50 years ago were the Canoe Club, the Boat Club, the Bicycle Club, a Pingpong Club, the Bonheur Club organized in 1902 whose president in 1910 was T. E. O'Brien; the Olympia Tennis Club, the "Ten of Clubs" which held dances at the Boat Club about 1916 and the Westminster Club. Of these the latter outlived the rest, starting about 1890 in rooms on top of the old Times building and was purely a social center for local business men. Five years later they moved to new quarters in the Arms block where many card tournaments and dances were held the latter necessi- tating a constant stream of hacks, early and late. To belong to the Westminster Club meant belonging to the "400" of town. The club remained there for many years until the mem- bership grew so small that it was impossible to pay their rent and Mr. James MacLennan allowed them the use of rooms in his block, rent free. Forty-five years ago the officers were President, Arthur P. Williams; Secretary, W. F. Perley; Treas- urer, A. H. Chandler. It disbanded about 1935. The Olympia Tennis Club played on courts behind the M. H. Ray residence in Morgan's Field. In 1910 there were 30 members and the officers were President, Flora Frost; Vice President, Charlotte Ryder and Secretary-Treasurer, Marian Hadley and they met in Dr. Elmer's office. The "Ten of Clubs" held dances at the Boat Club about the same time when the famous Twin State Motor Cycle Club was also in its heyday. The Bicycle Club began its sojourn back in the '80's but increased in membership and enthusiasm over the years until it ran a close second, so- cially, to the Westminster Club. A younger and more "sporty" crowd, it traveled on wheels for its outings and its first club- rooms were upstairs in the old building later replaced by the Trust Company. When they moved to the Arms block, they carried with them the mantel over the fireplace with its carved inscription, which is said to be still in one of the offices there. H. D. Ryder and Harry Elliott were among the early members who held races each spring around the north end of town, the riders in jerseys and shorts and each wearing a number on his back. The Grignons were a well-known bicycle family in town. Lady riders also took trips, and possibly some courageous female adopted the short skirt and loose trousers gathered at the ankle, recommended by Mrs. Bloomer. There was a Bellows Falls Rifle Club formed in 1915 with 50 members, a branch of the
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National Rifle Association with ammunition furnished by the government and George Lovell as its first president.
The Boat Club started out in life around the turn of the century, in a clubhouse called the Crow's Nest above the ice house on the river which was just above the Arch Bridge. Here several ambitious youths including Herbert Bancroft and Arthur Williams, formed the Canoe Club, the Crow's Nest having formerly been the golf club building on the Drislane farm whose owners had deserted it and joined the Walpole golfers. Moved upstream, it served until the Boat Club came into being a few years later about which some wag remarked that "there would be a lot more going on there besides boating !" For years the club held regattas, motor boats decked out with flags and banners. The regatta of 1910 had for officials, Herbert Bancroft, Arthur Williams, C. S. Hoard, judges; W. J. Eaton, timekeeper and Gerald King, announcer. The river was alive with craft and the banks lined with people as well as the long porch of the Boat Club. Occasionally the regattas ran into trouble in the form of logs from the drives down the Connecti- cut. In 1908 the club secured an injunction against the Van Dyke Co. to prevent their logs filling the river and spoiling their fun. There seems to have been a controversy for some years on logs versus boats. A law had once been enacted that nothing but sawed lumber would be floated down farther than White River Junction for since the days of the canal and flat- boats, Bellows Falls had confidently expected big business via steamboats on the river. Many dances and good times were held at the Boat Club but in 1908 it voted to disband and whether or not the logs were a contributing cause, is not on record. For a while it became the Bellows Falls Boat Club, Inc. with new by-laws and some members said that "it had found its moorings at last." Some wanted to build a new boathouse to store the river craft but it was decided to save their money and store the boats on the second floor of the clubhouse, "methods of getting boats up there to be left with the directors."-and expenses borne by the owners. Which might be said to have left the problem hanging in the air. For many years the old Boat Clubhouse stood on the bank, long after regattas and dances were but history, until it was de- molished in 1917. In 1920 it was sold to A. F. "Ad" Farns- worth by E. C. Bolles and E. J. Plantier, who, in turn sold it to a resident of North Walpole who wrecked it to build a dwell- ing house. So ended the brave, bright days of the Boat Club which initiated an era of boating for health and pleasure. To- day boats still go out on the river, flat-bottomed fishing boats and speeding power boats but there are no boat clubs on the bank.
Of the service clubs there have always been many. There was the A.O.H., the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division
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No. 2, President, H. A. Shaughnessy, in 1910 with a Ladies Auxiliary and meeting above the Trust Company. The Fores- ters of America, Court William French No. 4, C.R., Michael J. Barrett, other officers Angus McKinnon, P. J. Keane and J. E. Byrnes. The I.O.R.M. or Independent Order of Red Men, Miantonoma Tribe, Sachem, Archie Gammon, and other officers L. L. Reed, Gardell Mandigo and Charles Hannah. The Modern Woodmen of America, Rockingham Camp No. 9440, Consul, L. M. Palmer; Clerk, J. E. Byrnes; Banker, P. H. Flem- ing. None of these organizations function today.
In 1926 there were listed 93 organizations and churches in town. Today they are as follows:
The LION'S CLUB was formed September, 1941 at the Hotel Windham with Willard Hanson as its first President or King Lion. They met each Tuesday at noon at the hotel but during the war, interest slackened and a new club was formed in June, 1955 with King Lion, Robert O'Connor and Secretary, Ralph Boynton.
The BELLOWS FALLS LODGE OF ELKS was insti- tuted in 1939 with George Elliott the first Exalted Grand Ruler and 28 candidates, all local men, were initiated. They met in the Odd Fellows Hall, furnishing it with equipment bought from the old Westminster Club. Other early members con- sisted of Dr. M. F. Powers, Dr. Charles Houghton, Dr. E. G. Hebb, Austin Chandler, Edward G. Vayo, Raymond Kiniry, Arthur O. Bixby, John P. Wasklewicz, Kenneth Rhicard, Antonio Andosca, Joseph Murray and Edward Zeno. In 1946 the present block was purchased from the L. S. King estate for $80,000, housing 15 offices and six stores, The rooms used as clubrooms, meeting room and dance hall were remodeled in 1955. Among the many charitable and community service projects which the Elks have carried out was the Youth Center which operated for two years in its rooms and which was open three nights a week from seven to ten and chaperoned by adults where young people could enjoy soft drinks, games and dances. It closed in April, 1946 as both local youth and chaperones appeared to lose interest. Present officers of the Elks are William J. Frey, Exalted Ruler; Robert Siano, Esteemed Lead- ing Knight; James Tolaro, Secretary; Harold Vosburgh, Treas- urer. Membership in the lodge is 350. In 1955, John B. Finck, of the local lodge, was President of the Vermont State Elks.
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