Country auctions as I knew them are now a thing of the past. Vermont was a different place in the 1960s and ’70s. In those days there wasn’t a great demand for antiques. I remember paying $400 for the contents … Continued
Lyle C. Stoddard lived in the stone village one house north of Chris Curran. Here he bred registered Jerseys and peddled milk from his dairy. Flamstead Mountain in those days was mostly open pasture. The photo with this article is … Continued
I usually write my weekly column Saturday mornings. When I lay my head on my pillow Friday night, I usually know what I’ll write about the next morning. Not so this week. Saturday morning, May 1, was a sunny but … Continued
Lee Decatur and I are good friends. We often go fishing or pal around together. Lee is 10 years older than me. His childhood memories are a hoot. This is a story Lee recently told me. I asked him … Continued
For 50 years I’ve bought, sold, and collected a category of early paper artifacts known as ephemera. This includes old letters and documents. A number of years ago, I bought a large lot of old documents and letters. The family … Continued
One of my favorite books is “A Book of Country Things.” Walter Needham told his stories to Barrows Mussey who recorded them in book form. Needham was born in 1896 in Vernon, Vt. His Gramp was born in a log … Continued
Kim Kendall is a classmate and friend of mine. This past January I paid him a visit. When I walked in, Kim said, “The eagles are out there today.” I got up to look. Sure enough there was a bald … Continued
The icebox When I was young, old-timers called a refrigerator an icebox. In their day they had wooden iceboxes. When the electric refrigerator came along, old-timers continued to call them iceboxes. The refrigerator that I grew up with was … Continued
Growing up on High Street in the 1950s and ’60s we had a party line. Party lines were the opposite of a private line. In our neighborhood, as I remember now, there were three households on our party line. Ted … Continued
A short chapter in our upcoming book, “History of Chester’s Fire Departments,” will cover firemen’s parades in Chester in the early 1900s. We have a few photos of both Yosemite firemen and the School Street firemen participating in these parades. … Continued