USA > Vermont > Windham County > Guilford > Official history of Guilford, Vermont, 1678-1961. With genealogies and biographical sketches > Part 22
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Mary Louise Beaty first came to Guilford in 1927, when she bought her place on Lee road. Born in Brooklyn in 1876, she was educated in New York City and Philadelphia, graduating from Presbyterian Hospital, Philadelphia in 1904. She was night supervisor in Manhat- tan Maternity Hospital, N. Y. until she went to Puerto Rico in 1907 as a Medical Missionary, where she was superintendent of nurses until 1917. She joined the Army in 1918, was in charge of nurses at Louis- ville, Ky., and Atlantic City. After she was separated from the Army as Ist Lieut. she joined the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation and taught nursing at Peking Medical College for five years. After her return from China she was Superintendent of Nurses School at St. Lukes Hospital, N. Y. City until she retired in 1939 and came to Guilford.
You might think that a woman who had done all this, had seen the Ganges and Jordan Rivers, watched the Panama Canal being dug, and had traveled to the Northern Plains of China with only two Chinese Coolies, would be ready to really retire. However, during World War II she was in charge of nursing at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, and taught the last class of nurses to graduate from that hospital.
Dr. C. C. Sweet bought his place on October 3, 1928. Mrs. Sweet was born in Vermont and she always had a desire to have a summer home there. They found that the Jaqueth place was for sale but that a fellow by the name of Vrest Orton had an option on the place. "Har- old White, our real estate agent informed me that if his option 'ran out', if he did not follow through with his option that he, Mr. White, would notify me which he did by phone and I went up the following day and completed the transaction. It was reported by Vrest Orton who now owns the Country Store at Weston, Vt .- claimed that I had outbidden him on the place. This of course is not true. The simple fact is that he didn't exercise his option."
Dr. Sweet was born at Petersburg, N. Y., Sept. 19, 1880. Attended Hoosick Falls High School and Union Univ. Medical College. Gradu- ated in 1905. 1905 and 1906 was intern at the Samaritan Hospital at Troy. Located in Ossining in 1906 and became Chief Physician and Surgeon at Sing Sing Prison in 1925 where he spent twenty-five years. In Jan. 1951 he resigned because he had reached the age limit of Civil Service Employment. Through his efforts Sing Sing Prison was the first prison hospital in the United States to be recognized by the American College of Surgeons. They carried on many investigative studies at Sing Sing during that time among which the treatment of Syphilis with penicillin, the use of atabrine for malaria, the use of anti-histaminic drugs like Anahist for colds were best known. Prac-
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tically all major surgical cases from the various penal institutions of New York State were sent to Sing Sing Prison for surgery. While he did much work at Sing Sing the greater part of his surgical practice was at the Ossining Hospital where he was chief of staff for many years, and was Chairman of the Medical Board and Director of Sur- gery of the Phelps Memorial Hospital in 1955 when the Ossining Hos- pital and the Tarrytown Hospital merged to form the Phelps Me- morial Hospital.
In 1907 he married Susan Dyer Monroe, born April 14, 1880 at South Shaftsbury, Vermont and they have had four children, two now living-Monroe who is a Physicist and Manufacturer at Binghamton, N. Y. and Tirzah Jane who is Instructor in Public Health Nursing at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mr. and Mrs. Elmer D. Graper have owned the Carpenter place in Guilford since 1930. Mr. Graper was born in southern Indiana and Mrs. Graper in northern Illinois. They were married shortly after their college graduation and have lived in Peoria, Illinois where Mr. Graper taught at Bradley University; in New York City where he did his graduate work at Columbia University; and since 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where from that date to his retirement in 1955 he was professor and head of the Department of Political Science. Since 1956 Mr. Graper has been Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Civil Service Commission.
The Grapers have spent every summer since 1930 at their Vermont farm, accompanied during the earlier years by their daughters Marian and Nancy (Mrs. R. H. Voelker). Their chief summer occupation has been the restoration of their colonial house to the original beauty it had when owned by Col. Benjamin Carpenter, the second Lieut. Gov- ernor of Vermont.
Rudolf Serkin: In 1946 Guilford became the home of two world famous musicians. Rudolf Serkin and his family bought the home south of Guilford Center which was built in 1935 for Forrest Figsby, former Lieut. Gov. of New York who, because of his health, had come to be near Dr. Sweet.
Rudolf Serkin was born Mar. 28, 1903 in Eger, Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia). His father a Russian basso, abandoned a singing ca- reer and became a merchant to support his family of eight children. Although "Rudi" started to play piano music at sight at the age of four his father refused to exploit him and he was sent to Vienna for tutoring. Taken under the wing of Adolf Busch he later married Busch's daughter Irene in 1935. He made his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1915 and his American concert debut in 1936 under Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Life
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Magazine once described Mr. Serkin as a man who "looks like a scholar and plays like an angel." Van Cliburn is one of his pupils who has been much in the news in recent months.
Shortly after the Serkins came to Guilford, her father also bought a home nearby. His wife Freida lived only a short time after moving here.
Adolf (Wilhelm Georg) Busch was born in Siegen, Germany, Aug. 8, 1891. He studied at Cologne University and played first violin with the Vienna Orchestra. He was widely known as a soloist in European cities, for his joint performances with Mr. Serkin in Sonata recitals, and in trio with Mr. Serkin and with his brother the well-known 'cellist Hermann Busch. In 1919 he was appointed head of the violin depart- ment at the Royal Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin and it was there he founded the Busch String Quartet which won acclaim in the music capitals of Europe and this country. He was also known as composer of orchestral and chamber works and songs. He was instrumental in establishing the Marlboro School of Music in 1950.
Mr. Busch married Dr. Hedwig Vischer in 1947 and the couple had two sons Nicholas and Thomas. Adolf Busch died in Guilford June 9,1952.
R. L. Dothard Associates: Robert L. Dothard and Kenneth G. Greenleaf, as president and designer respectively, were with E. L. Hildreth & Company, printers of specialized books and journals, in Brattleboro until that firm left town in 1950.
Late in 1950 they opened a designing service on Lee Road in Guilford, in the field of book and magazine planning and production. Their clients have been trade and specialized publishers of books, and colleges and independent schools-throughout New England and in New York City. They have been art directors of Vermont Life Maga- zine since 1957.
Alcoholics Anonymous: Soon after the 1929 stock market crash, Bill W. and his wife Lois began to spend their vacation in Guilford. Friends in and around Green River know his name but in deference to the policy set up by Alcoholics Anonymous of which he was co- founder he will be called simply "Bill". For a while after A.A. be- came well known names were used, pictures spread over the papers, and publicity almost courted as a way of getting the public to recog- nize the great work being done by A.A. They were showered with publicity mainly because the members were anonymous however, in consequence A.A. has returned to its original stand, no pictures, only first names.
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Quoting from the book "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age," Bill said in a speech at St. Louis, that he must pay grateful tribute to those who made the world services possible, the early pioneers of the Alcoholic Foundation.
"First in order of appearance was Dr. Leonard V. Strong, Jr., my brother-in-law. When Lois and I were alone and deserted, he, to- gether with my mother, saw us through the worst of my drinking. It was Dr. Strong who introduced me to Mr. Willard Richardson. . . . With selfless care and devotion Dr. Strong served as secretary to our Board of Trustees from its beginning in 1938 until his own retirement in 1955."
In 1957 the A.A., started by Bill W. and "Dr. Bob", had a mem- bership of over 200,000 in 7000 groups in 70 U.S. possessions and for- eign countries.
Guilford in World War I: In 1917 Guilford was again called upon to show its patriotism. Garden and canning clubs were stressed; meat- less, wheatless and sweetless days were observed; substitutes for every- thing were accepted (anyone else remember those pie-crusts made of cornmeal? Or those awful looking black stockings that turned green because German dyes were not available? or even the "Liberty" mea- sles?); peach stones were collected through the schools for use in gas masks.
Financially the town "came through" as each of the Liberty Loans was over-subscribed by Guilford residents.
These are the men listed as entering Federal Service from the town of Guilford during World War I:
Coombs, Robert G.
Ambulance Corps.
Falby, Clyde
Tank Service
Falby, Earl
Camp Colt
Gates, Ray E.
Navy
Henry, Frank E.
Field Artillery
Kent, Robert Lewis
Aviation
Messier, Joseph Alfred
Camp Slocum
Spencer, Ashley L.
Camp Devens
Shaw, Fred Merritt
Camp Upton
*Thompson, Elwin S.
Camp Devens, 29th Co. 8th B.N.D.B.
Wright, Andrew C.
Transportation
Winchester, Gerald H.
Camp Devens
* Died in camp, buried in Guilford.
D.A.R. Marker: When, in the early morning of Aug. 3, 1923, upon death of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge became the thirtieth
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president of the United States, folks in Guilford and elsewhere who were family-conscious began to look up their family Bibles. There in black and white, or more likely faded brown they found the record:
Philip Franklin m. Rachel Horton Aaron Franklin m. Margaret - Jabez Franklin m. Sarah Starr Luther Franklin m. Pricilla Pinney Abigail Franklin m. Hiram D. Moor Victoria Josephine Moor m. John C. Coolidge Calvin Coolidge m. Grace Goodhue
By judicious reckoning they came up with the exact relationship. Cousin Calvin was not too far removed, in Vermont a third or fourth cousin is fairly close especially if he happens to be U. S. president!
In 1939 a bronze tablet was erected by the D.A.R. in honor of the first Philip Franklin.
PHILIP FRANKLIN 1707-1797
Ancestor of Hon. Calvin Coolidge's mother Served as private in Capt. David Stowell's company, Vermont Militia 1777 Settled near this Junction of the old county road.
CHAPTER VIII Guilford to the Present
Floods and Hurricanes: 1927-Guilford suffered small losses from this storm of Nov. 3 & 4. A landslide on the Center road and washouts on Green River hill comprised the most damage to roads. About one- third of the eastern end of the wooden dam at Brasor & Barber's grist mill was taken out.
1938, September 21-Guilford remembers the great storm chiefly for the tragedy that came to the West Guilford home of Sidney H. Coleman where Roger Miller, about two years of age, lost his life in the swirling waters of Hinesburg branch of Green River.
The tiny tot, carried in the arms of Walter Petrie, a neighbor of the Coleman family with whom the child had been staying, disap- peared in the swollen stream when Petrie, assisting the family to es- cape their threatened home, slipped and fell into the water.
The child, son of Jack Miller of Greenfield, formerly of Brattle- boro, and Flora (Weatherhead) Miller of Guilford, was instantly swept downstream.
Mr. and Mrs. Coleman and three children, their lives endangered when they were caught in the swiftly moving stream which left its banks to inundate a large part of the Coleman property, were finally assisted to safety by Petrie. During their two hours of terror when they expected momentarily to be carried to almost certain death the father, his determination overcoming tired muscles, held the youngest child on his back out of reach of the rising floor waters. They stood on a rise near their house in water to their knees.
Daylight and receding waters revealed that land around the home of Mr. Coleman, heaviest individual loser in the town, had been badly ravaged by the flood, that roads throughout the town had suffered heavily from washouts and that several bridges had been washed away.
The next town report noted that "Much of the flood damage has been repaired on town and state aid roads and some bridge work has been done with W.P.A. paying all labor cost, $6979.78, and the town and state furnishing material and equipment." The balance of flood work was reported the next year with the cost $822.17.
The Aurelia D. Taft Fund, a permanent fund of $10,800, was set up after the death of Miss Taft Apr. 21, 1934. "Rilla", as she was known to her neighbors, and her brother Fred decided they would will their entire estate to the town. John E. Gale drew up the will
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which was witnessed by Mr. and Mrs. Everett Thayer. The will speci- fied that the income from the fund should be used, first to keep the road to the Center Cemetery in repair, and any balance left for what- ever the town officials decided upon.
The Tafts were frugal yet in many ways generous. They definitely knew the value of money. When "Rilla" gave up her teaching to care for her mother and the house, she wanted some money of her own meaning a share of the "butter" money. Fred generously told her she could keep the money when she sold stamps to a neighbor. Fred with- drew his offer when he found "Rilla" soliciting the stamp business of the neighborhood. She would never wash on Monday, that would be too common! Instead she cleaned the cellar and sprouted the seven bins of potatoes when necessary. Those bins contained different as- sortments of potatoes, one for the time the minister called, one for other visitors, another for baking, one for the hens and so on. "Rilla" used to say that she had the only cook stove in town, the rest of us had a range which backed up to a wall. Her stove was set in the middle of the room with a door on both front and back of the oven. Shortly before she died she had a neighbor make up a piece of woolen cloth that was purchased at the time of the Civil War!
A neighbor said of Fred, "He was a good blacksmith and horse shoer, always wanted his haying done the first days of July and was not happy if the weather wasn't good. I have seen water run out the bottom of the wagon when it went up the hill to the barn with hay that was showered on after it was tumbled and ready to go in. One year there was so much of it put in that the top molded and toad stools grew all over it."
The Tafts didn't live in the age of high wages but by their thrift they left a sizeable fund to their home town, a fund which is a per- petual memorial to the Taft name.
Cannon Balls: An interesting relic in the shape of a two pound cannon ball was unearthed on the plow land of Walter D. Thayer in Guilford on May 11, 1935. The location is about one half mile south westerly from East Guilford village (Algiers) on the east side of the stage road leading toward Guilford Center. The ball is of iron, about 21/2 inches in diameter, badly rusted and pitted, and has the appear- ance of having been in the ground for many years.
Its discovery has excited some speculation as to whence it came, as history recorded but little concerning artillery practice in or near the town. The airline distance from old Fort Dummer is only approxi- mately one and one-half miles, and it is known that several cannon of small caliber were mounted there, as well as one "great gun" for long distance signalling. If it came from there, the relic is two hun- dred years old, but if it came in 1784, when Guilford was raided by
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300 horse, foot and artillery it is possible that it was fired from the sole piece of ordnance, in charge of Isaac Miller of Dummerston. The ball is of almost exactly the caliber of the ancient cannon exhumed in 1920 by John E. Gale on his farm, the origin of which has never been clearly ascertained. Another ball of similar dimensions and appearance was found upon the northeast corner lot of the town when owned by Edward Bushnell, about 1900. Smaller iron balls have been found in the easterly part of the town, presumably canister from the guns of Fort Dummer.
Guilford Men's Club: Their first club meeting was held on Febru- ary 25th, 1937. Mr. John E. Gale was at the first meeting, and helped form the club.
The first slate of officers' were: Mr. Herbert Ingram, President; Mr. John E. Gale, Vice President; Mr. C. Kenneth Farnum, Secretary, Treasurer.
Within one months time, there were twenty-six members.
Their annual year begins on March first. At that time, they have their annual Oyster Stew Supper. Their membership steadily climbed.
After their first year, the following officers were elected to one year terms: Mr. John E. Gale, President; Mr. Richard C. Gallup, Vice President; Mr. Emery Evans, Secretary, Treasurer; Mr. Frank Brasor, Auditor.
The club through the years has donated to many community causes. For many years the club put on the annual Clam Bake at Evans' Grove.
The following have been named Honorary Members: Mr. Louis J. Allen; Mr. Charles A. Mellen; Mr. Clifford Baker; Mr. Norris Drury; Mr. Charles Evans; Mr. Owen Washburn; Mr. C. Kenneth Farnum; Mr. Bert Whittemore; Mr. James Whittemore; Mr. Frank Brasor.
For many years their meetings were held in the social rooms in the basement of the Guilford Community Church.
In the fall of 1960, the Men's Club began to hold their meetings in the new firehouse of Guilford, that was built jointly by the Men's Club and the Guilford Fire Department. It is large enough for all their social affairs and suppers; of which their "Sugar-on-Snow" and "Chicken-pie" suppers are looked forward to each year.
The Guilford Fair Association was organized July 15, 1942 and plans made for an Old Home Day and Fair. The first fair was held on Labor Day in 1942 and has been held annually since that date with the exception of 1945. During that first fair any mislaid children and a good number of the adults could be found at the brook watching Roy Thurber's family of baby ducks.
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The Fair Association was incorporated on Sept. 2, 1946 to be called Guilford Fair Inc. From 1942 through 1953 the fair was held on land owned by Emery and Hugh Evans. In 1954 it acquired, from the late Bert A. Whittemore, land which adjoins the Guilford Recreation Grounds known as Whittemore Park, and since that time has been held there. Floral Hall, approximately 32' x 60' was built that year and has added much to the ease of setting up exhibits.
The fair has grown each year so that more land had to be pur- chased before the 1960 event could be held. The fair has changed, some things have been added, others dropped, but the one thing remains the same, the person to purchase ticket number one is always Lucius Weatherhead.
World War II: As is no doubt the case in many another small town anywhere in the United States, a list of those who took a more or less conspicuous part in the war time activities of World War II would not be inclusive enough to give due credit to those efforts that were equally meritorious, but in fields where that sort of unsung heroism and scrupulous performance of duty is often overlooked. Of necessity, we shall mention names in this report, but at the outset word must be recorded to give credit to those whose parts to play were "routine", but sorely demanding, and patently necessary.
Guilford is both a commuters' and a farming town and a complete roster of those contributing to the war effort would include 2/3 of the town's population of 600-odd. Venerable age or extreme youth both served to produce the milk, eggs, fruit products, meat, and syrup frantically needed. Nor did these age groups feel less pressure in the families of those men and women who took on another day's work in the factories of Brattleboro; Greenfield, Massachusetts; Springfield, Vermont and Springfield, Massachusetts. Grandmothers and grand- fathers who had earned the right to a few years of retirement stepped "into the collar" again, and little brothers and sisters, quite too young to understand the why of it all, gave up their play time to help out where fathers were away "at the shop" all day, or mothers, also, were doing a man's work at the machine shops, stores and factories.
Women who had not taught school for from 5 to twenty years found themselves again at a desk and others who had not "worked out" in their lives before found strength and opportunity to do extra. Before we leave this group of inconspicuous loyal workers for the cause of democracy, we should mention those usually harassed indi- viduals, the town officers, their wives and families, who found them- selves absolutely swamped with extra detail work of desk and mind, and who had the task of stretching cramped budgets around increased demands of efficiency and caution. In many cases, it meant working with help sometimes all too inefficient and not always reliable. It
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would be meet to cite at least the work of the town clerk, Charles Evans and his wife, as well as those of the wartime selectmen: Clyde A. Coombs, Ralph Bullock and Ralph Boyd. It would be idle to try to list their efforts.
One of the first war borne tasks, that of rationing, fell largely upon the shoulders of the local teachers, assisted by or assisting the wives of town officers. Four of the teachers, who had already given an aggre- gate of some hundred years of service to the town (and at a top yearly salary of $900) were Miss Jean Campbell, Mrs. Edith Quinn, Mrs. Bertha Franklin and Mrs. Elizabeth Twing. Immediately, too, upon these same women and those who came in as "Emergency Teachers" came the responsibility of teaching the children First Aid, Fire Pre- vention, Air Raid Drill techniques, and urging them to buy bonds and stamps, and to subscribe to Red Cross, Salvation Army, and the many other Relief Drives. The spreading of constructive "propaganda" and the quelling of fear and hysteria among the puzzled children was a responsibility which every teacher felt keenly all those years.
Pearl Harbor was still a word to be mentioned many times a day when the full realization of emergency needs "struck" these little towns. Boys who only yesterday were sweating through their gradua- tion part at the annual ceremony at the Grange Hall at the Center were wearing a uniform, and a look of grown-upness before their fathers and mothers had managed to figure out schedules for short gasoline consumption and ways to regulate trips to town to include shoe-buying, groceries, spare parts for the tractor, and an occasional movie. Everybody recognized that a need existed, but what to do? The selectmen, overwhelmed by information, questions, surveys, and rec- ommendations, had no time left for managing details of Civilian De- fense, First Aid, Evacuation Plans, Alerts, Incendiary Bomb control, et al. They turned over the details of this organizational work to Mrs. Herbert C. Ingram, a former teacher, meanwhile offering her every support and advice needed. It was largely a matter of rationaliz- ing the over elaborate plans beamed to large cities, with the natural skepticism of the small town resident who seemed pretty far away from things. The writer of this report, who is the above mentioned teacher, will be long in forgetting the cooperation her neighbors gave to the tasks requested, and their execution of projects far beyond the expecta- tions of those who formulated them.
It is almost dangerous to use the few names that will appear in this record for exact records were not kept in the rush of events, and the busynesses of the days, and some wholly creditable piece of work may be omitted. However, little that was done in those now-remote days was done for credit, and those who may seem to have been slighted will remember, with a glow in their hearts that outshines any public acclaim, their glory in also serving.
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It was Mrs. Saidee Lazelle, wife of the local mail carrier, who took over the greater share of the burden of making the first aid kits which were made, filled and distributed around the town. Miss Lillie Young, retired Army Nurse, arranged the purchase of supplies, and reduced to the necessaries the long list of musts which came from higher au- thorities. Miss Young, Miss Eleanor Wallace, R.N., Public Health Nurse, together supervised the organization of supplies in the Algiers Church Social Room where emergency conditions might have to be met. The Ladies' Aid, the P.T.A., the Grange, the Men's Club, the Universalist Ladies' Circle all contributed money for purchases, and the Selectmen filled in with money for specific needs. Not too much money was spent, for much material just "came".
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