However, he had free lodging in the hired man's house on his father's
Round Barn Farm on the North Road, all the milk, butter and cream we
could use, vegetables from the garden that were canned for the winter,
and dairy cows that were slaughtered when they got old for hamburger
and stew meat. We did not have chickens, but the Palmers, down the road
(where Fred Messer lives now), had some.
A little bartering for eggs and chicken could be done. My grandparents,
the Walter Moriarty family who lived on Waitsfield's Bridge Street and
ran a saw mill, also kept a few chickens that were slaughtered for
Sunday dinner and for soup. It was always fun to take the chicken feet
and pull the veins and watch the claws expand and contract! A great
lesson in anatomy and physiology!
I never tasted a banana until after WWII and only had oranges when my
aunt shipped them up from Florida. In the winter, ice was cut on the
little pond by Mrs. Goodrich's house (now the Deheer home) and kept in
our icehouse, covered with sawdust, to be used in my grandfather's ice
box and to make ice cream from scratch.
My grandfather, Daniel Ralph Bisbee, kept a huge vegetable garden which
I helped him with, collected honey from his many hives found around the
360-acre farm, and we had maple syrup made in the sugarhouse two miles
up from the farmhouse (now my brother Daniel Drew Bisbee Jr.'s hunting
camp). Unlike some of the hill farms, we had electricity in The Valley
for as long as I can remember. Probably, this was through the rural
electrification program done by Washington Electric Co-op back in the
1930s. (My parents changed houses with my grandparents right before the
birth of my brother in 1939.)
The picture to be identified of old Gerry Stokes' store next door to
his home brought back many memories. Of course, by the 1960s, his
little store had become the Waitsfield Post Office, as shown in the
photo. In my day, the post office was reached by climbing the Bridge
Street steps up to what is now the Joslin Library. In those days, the
library was entered by the current door on the Route 100 side, and what
is now the children's room was the U.S. Post Office, run by Jack
Smith's mother, Irene Smith. I believe that Katherine Bragg Johnson
worked there as well.
Stokes's tiny store housed many treasures for the young! While our
parents filled up with gas next door at Milford Long's gas tank (now
the VG), we went to get "Green Spot," a soft drink that I have not seen
since, at the tiny Stoke's store. We also could buy large candy bars
for five cents and two sticks of red licorice for a penny! These were
my favorites.
The library in those days housed all the Waitsfield Historical Society
treasures, and I never seemed to find very many books that interested
me there. My aunts sent me many more books with pictures, that were a
bit more "modern" than what could be found in Mrs. Chapman's library.
Yes, Ella Chapman was not only the seventh- and eighth-grade teacher on
the third floor of the old Waitsfield School House, but she opened the
library after school! (There was no library in our school, so it is
good that we at least had this as an option.) The only books I
remember reading were the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew mysteries.
Anyway, my thoughts lead me to believe that deflation may not be so bad
after all! As a longtime taxpayer now living on mostly Social Security,
I realize that next year we will not even have a cost-of-living
increase, and with an increase in what we pay out for Medicare, many
seniors like me will experience a net loss of income. Although this
cannot in any way be compared to the hardship of those who have lost
their jobs, it will still hurt.
Wouldn't it be great if all prices go way down, cars, houses, food,
clothing and everything, so that our money would start being worth
something again? The localvores have the right idea, I think, only most
local produce prices are so high that we of little means cannot afford
to buy local. Many new cooperative movements are springing up around
the country in this time of economic hardship, and I believe that is a
very good thing.
We do not need or want to go back to the "good old days" of the 1970s
through the 1990s, but we may be able to learn something from the
generation that lived through the Great Depression and WWII. This new
21st century is offering many challenges as well as great opportunities
for those who keep their eyes open and are creative and want to truly
save our dying planet.
Although I have really rambled on and on, I hope that some of your
readers will enjoy hearing about how things were living in north
Waitsfield years ago.
Mary Alice Bisbee lives Waitsfield.
