Old Barns: Restoration, Vermont’s Past and Future

Old Barns: Restoration, Vermont’s Past and Future

Susan Cloke, Columnist

Journal Opinion

September 3, 2017

Silas Treadway
photo credit John Keefe

“Preserving old barns keeps us in touch with our agricultural past.  They sit beautifully on the landscape and the actual act of working on them keeps alive an ancient way of building with wood.”  Silas Treadway 

Silas Treadway, a builder in the Upper Valley,  is currently at work on the restoration of an old barn off the Tunbridge Road.  Originally built circa 1790 and then rebuilt in the 1830’s, the existing barn is structurally unstable and is not usable in its current condition.  In order to rebuild the barn, it had to be substantially deconstructed.

Treadway sees every barn as a puzzle and will recreate a deck, as was done in the building of the original barn, where each timber is laid out in the way it would be placed in the finished barn.  Each piece is unique and each piece of timber has a scribed mark - a roman numeral - to mark the fit of the timbers.  Empty peg holes where the timbers from the earlier barns were joined are still visible.  Treadway notes, “There were no tape measures when they built the original barn.”

This method of building was called scribe rule because each piece of timber was given an identification mark.  As described in Thomas Durant Visser’s Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, an opening, called a mortise, was cut into a specific timber.  Then another timber was shaped to have a piece, called a tenon, that would fit that specific mortise.  These timbers were then joined.

Scribe rule is important to Treadway.  Understanding how scribe rule was used makes it possible to solve the puzzle of how to put the timbers together when reconstructing the barn.

The restoration will reuse as much of the original hand-hewn timber as possible.  The disassembled barn pieces have been sorted into piles that are now waiting on the land for reuse.  

Rosehead spikes
photo credit John Keefe

Hand-forged iron nails, called rosehead spikes, were used in the original barns. They are large, wrought-iron nails made precious by the fact that they were made one by one and by hand.  The rosehead spikes were used to attach vertical sheeting boards in both of the earlier barns.

“It would be possible for me to try and restore the barn to its original 1790’s scheme, however some decisions would be speculative.  I have more evidence and good material for the modified structure (circa 1830),” explained Treadway, speaking of the decision to model the restoration on the 1830’s barn.

The 1830’s barn also used a building technique which started in the early 1800’s, called square rule.  In Visser’s Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings  he writes, “Rather than custom crafting each joint by scribing each timber to another, square rule allowed framing parts to be cut to predetermined dimensions with the aid of patterns and measurements marked with a framing square allowing each mortise to be cut to precise dimensions.” 

Deconstructed Barn
photo credit John Keefe

Like both old barns, the restored barn will be two stories and have the same 30’ x 40’ footprint.  The understory is intended for horses and has a dirt floor.  The upper story has a wood floor and is divided into three bays, two for hay storage on the gable ends and a threshing floor in the center.

Where new timber is needed, Treadway will use hemlock and ash cut from near-by woods.  Some of the new timber will be pulled down to the barn site by horses.  Treadway noted that use of horses “is generally less impactful on the forest and there is less soil compaction.”  Much of the old timber was also hemlock, mixed with chestnut, which is no longer readily available.  The new timbers will be both hand-hewn and sawn.

“The practice of restoration preserves historical fabric to a reasonable level, keeping as much evidence of the building's history intact while making it useful again,” said Treadway.

Treadway plans on completing the barn restoration by the end of 2017.  Overall, the barn will take about six months to build.  In part, the completion date is determined by the rules set in the State grant awarded to this barn restoration. Historic Preservation Barn Grants is a State program, started in 1992.  To date, it

has provided financial help of $3 million, helping to preserve over 360 historic barns. 

“Preservation of these buildings not only protects Vermont's agricultural and architectural legacies, but it also generates jobs, supports independent businesses, increase civic participation, and bolsters a community's sense of place while enhancing the experience of visitors.”  (Vermont Official State Website http://accd.vermont.gov/historic-preservation/funding/barn-grants)

Understory of the deconstructed barn
photo credit John Keefe

The historical purpose of a barn is to provide shelter and comfort for farm animals as well as a place to protect and store the harvest.   But barns also carry great symbolic meaning.  A barn in a rural landscape is an evocative image of our American history.  A barn restoration, done with the care and thought of a builder like Silas Treadway,  makes possible a connection to the past, a way to learn about the making of buildings, the life of Vermonters since the beginning of the state and a guide to the future.

Good Fishing. Good Company. Ice Fishing On Lake Fairlee

Ice Fishing

Susan Cloke

Winter Columnist

Journal Opinion

January 31, 2017

A little past 5 a.m on January 21, 2017 Lake Fairlee was a busy place.  People wearing head lamps were walking on the frozen lake and setting out their flags to mark their fishing holes.  It was Opening Day of the Ice Fishing Season, and the early morning feeling was one of celebration.

Nick Dubuque

Nick Dubuque, an experienced, local fisherman, used a power auger to drill the fishing holes for his family and friends.  “We set a few tips and jigs,” said Dubuque referring to the ‘tip ups’ and the jigging holes for the larger and smaller fish and the different fishing methods.

“It was good trout bite,” said Dubuque. “Our group caught 10 trout, most of which we threw back.”

Jacob Dubuque
photo by Nick Dubuque

Dubuque’s 4 year old son, Jacob, caught a 3.75 lb. large mouth bass.  Jut about the same age as Dubuque was when his Sheldon VT grandfather started to teach him to ice fish.  Growing up, his mother took the whole family fishing all over VT and NY.  Now he plans to do the same for his children.

Dubuque is a software engineer.  “I like my work and I like to ski, fish, hunt, mountain bike.  Anytime I can be outside it’s a good thing.”

Lake Fairlee had hundreds of tip ups by the time the sky was light and the clouds brushed the tops of the nearby hills.  

Dan Guertin works at the White River Vet Center, a VA Center for returning veterans and their families, to help in their return to civilian life.  He had been in the Army from 1976 - 1980 and then studied to become a social worker.

“As part of what we do, we offer our Vets a lot of healthy activities and opportunities to  re- engage with the community. That was the goal that started the idea of going ice fishing.”

Guertin has been ice fishing since he was young, going out on the Richelieu River as a young boy, and out on Lake Champlain, one of Vermont’s premier ice fishing lakes. “now I’m here on Lake Fairlee.  It’s close to home and it’s good fishing”, said Guertin

“Opening day was quite an event.  There were six vets, some had experience, some were new to ice fishing.  Everyone pitched in to drill holes and set up bait hooks. and we caught on fish after another - all six of us.   

The Vets fished and shared homemade pumpkin bread and drank coffee and visited with each other and with neighboring fishermen.   This time we were all men.  But all vets are invited and the ones who can come do.

The Vets caught 18 bass.  Some at 4 lbs.  and about 15 perch at 1 to 1½  lbs.  One of the Vets showed how to filet a fish.  Injured fish and left over minnow bait was left on the surface of the frozen lake for the eagles.

“There’s a ‘minnow rule’ requiring left over minnow bait to be dumped on the surface.  It’s for the protection of the lake and all serious sportsmen follow the environmental rules,”  said Guertin.

The Vets were there from about 8 in the morning to about 3:30 in the afternoon. “It was all so busy.  I can’t stress enough what an exceptional day for catching fish - the fish were hungry - and for camaraderie,” said Guertin.  “2017 is looking like it’s a good year for fishing.”  

“ You have to have a fishing license to fish in Vermont.  My license was $26.  It gives me the right to fish, limits the number of fishing holes, and lets you know the rules.”

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department is the place to get a license, learn about the best places to ice fish, find out about the rules.  

Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department

1 National Life Drive, Davis 2, Montpelier, VT 05620-3702

Phone: 802-828-1000 

Vermont Ice Fishing Opportunities

http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/cms/one.aspx?portalid=73163&pageid=132427

Vermont Fishing Guide

http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_73079/File/Fish/VTFishing_guide-2016.pdf

Vermont Fishing License

http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/licenses_and_lotteries/license_center

The Prouty 2015

Bruce and Marikim Bunnell of Team Fairlee Friends
Fairlee Vermont and Boston Massachusettts
courtesy photo 2014 Prouty Event

Betty Waterman of Team Better
 Thetford Vermont
courtesy photo

“The Prouty is an event where the community comes together to honor their loved ones and to raise money for cancer research.” said Yolanda Sanchez, Ph.D.  Associate Director of Basic Sciences at Norris Cotton Cancer Center. (NCCC)

Yoli, as everyone calls her, spoke on June 25th to an interested audience at Kendal at Hanover about cancer research.

“The Prouty provides seed money for our independent research.   It enables us to develop a research concept to the point where we can take it the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and demonstrate it merits funding for further research and development.

“We work as teams composed of scientists, engineers, oncologists and surgeons as we actively investigate and develop new cancer treatments.” 

Sanchez described five different, current research studies. One on brain tumors; another using iron nano particles; the third using the patient’s own immune system; the fourth creating personalized medicine treatments; and the fifth, finding drugs that kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

Study 1. “Brain tumors become brilliant pink,” Sanchez said when speaking about their work to find ways to more clearly define the line between healthy brain cells and tumor cells, a mechanism which allows resection of the tumor with greater success.”

Study 2. “We are in the process of getting approval for a breast cancer clinical trial to study injecting iron nano particles into a tumor and then vibrating the nano particles with a magnet.  The magnet makes the iron nano particles produce heat which then works to eradicates the tumor.”

Study 3. “Researchers are studying how to turn off the cloaking mechanisms that cancer cells use to protect themselves from the body’s own immune system.  Then, when the cloaking mechanism is off we can use the patient’s own immune cells and a tracking system to find and kill tumor cells.”

Study 4.  “Personalized medicine is being studied and talked about by scientists and physicians everywhere cancer is studied.  It is made possible by testing multiple drugs on cells from a patient’s tumor using mice as avatars for patients.  It allows us to quickly learn what works and what doesn’t and to only use what works on the patient.”

Study 5.  “Finding the Achilles heel of cancer.  Chemotherapy drugs kill tumor cells and kill normal cells.  We need a drug that only targets cancer cells.  To date our researchers have found 10 molecules that kill tumor cells and don’t harm normal cells.”

“The Prouty is the heart and soul of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center,” said Sanchez as she thanked the audience.

The first Prouty was held in 1982 when 4 nurses decided to bike 100 miles to honor Audrey Prouty; the namesake of the event and a beloved patient who had died of ovarian cancer.  The nurses raised $4000.00.

The Prouty in now in it 34^th year.  Organizers expect over 5000 participants this year and they expect to raise more than $3 million.

“Team Fairlee Friends” raised $6000.00 in 2014.  This year they hope to raise more.  Marikim Bunnell, a physician with an obstetrics practice in Boston, her husband, Bruce Bunnell, a physician with a pediatrics practice in Boston, their daughter, Megan Bunnell, a beginning medical student at Dartmouth and Eric Schlobohm, Megan Bunnell’s boyfriend and a Dartmouth graduate, will be the core of their team of 10.

“Coming up the last hill, thinking of how miserable I feel and then I think of Kim’s dad and my mom and their putting up with their cancer treatments – they were both treated at Norris – and the memory of them gets me up that hill. When we’re finally up the hill to Kendal the seniors are there and their slogan is “we’re over the hill and so are you!”  It makes me so happy to see them. In our family the Prouty is an annual tradition,” said Bruce Bunnell.

“Usually we start in fog and the sun comes out about 9:30 and we ride until early afternoon.  It’s really fun because there’s hundreds of people doing this together and at the finish there’s a huge party,” said Bunnell. 

There are many ways to participate in the Prouty – biking, walking, rowing, golfing.   Betty Waterman of Thetford first walked the Prouty in 2013, shortly after she completed her treatment for cancer at NCCC.

This year Waterman will be walking with her daughter-in-law, Alicia Cloud and granddaughters Jessica Cloud and Joslin Wainwright.  They are “Team Better.”

Wainwright said,  “My grandma wanted our family to do the Prouty together and I wanted to do it with her.”

Waterman said, “The Prouty is fun.  Last year I walked the 5k.  It was beautiful, the trails went up and down hills and through woods.  I talked to a lot of people on the trail.  I wore a hot pink hat so my husband could spot me!

“On the night before the Prouty tents will go up at the Richmond Middle School in Hanover.  Local restaurants serve a meal – free to participants, and we plan to go,” said Waterman.

Waterman was impressed with her care at the cancer center.  With praise for her medical care and with praise for the way patients are helped as they go through cancer treatment.  “The waiting room is huge and there’s a person who does massage, there is a lending library and just so many ways they help you to feel good,” said Waterman.

Richard Lucius, Director of Finance at the NCCC said, “87 cents of every dollar raised at the Prouty event goes directly to cancer research and to support services that provide comfort and help to patients and their families.”

“For us to be able to use 87 cents of every dollar raised by the Prouty is remarkable.” said Jean Brown, Director of Friends of the Norton Cotton Cancer Center, “What makes it possible is over 1300 people volunteer their services for the Prouty and over $356,000 worth of in kind services are donated – food, music, trucks, signage, printing and more.”

The 2015 Prouty Honorary Chair Marc Milowsky said, “”We see the effects of the money straying right here in the community… And the community really embraces not only the event but especially the cause.”

For more information    www.TheProuty.org

Erik Goodling Strafford Vermont

HW Breadworks.  Erik Goodling

Teacher, Baker, Adventurer  

Susan Cloke

Journal Opinion Winter Columnist

April 2, 2014

 “My mom taught me to bake as a kid.  Now I make Old World European breads, French sourdoughs and whole grain breads,” said Erik Goodling of HW Breadworks in Strafford.

“I make a bread called Jed’s sourdough.  The starter for that bread comes from the famous, and now closed, Jedediah’s House of Sourdough in Jackson Wyoming.  I’ve been making that bread for 20 years.

“In 2010 I was getting ready to get on a plane and go on vacation when the volcano erupted in Iceland.  Because of the volcano, air traffic was shut down and I ended up with 10 days vacation and nothing to do.  So I built a brick oven for making bread.”

Goodling makes a Maple Anadama – traditional New England bread made with cornmeal and molasses.

The Anadama from HW Breadworks is made with maple syrup from Kendall Farm and local organic cornmeal.

“There’s a story behind the Anadama,” said Goodling.  “The story is that a farmer’s wife left him and she left cornmeal and molasses in the kitchen for him. And he made bread all the while saying ‘Anna damn her’ thus Anadama.”

“I collect bread cookbooks and love using the book “Bread” by Jeffrey Hamelman, the head baker at King Arthur.”

Goodling sells his breads on Sundays out of the house.  In bad weather he brings bread to Café 232 in South Strafford.

To see what is being offered or to order bread for pick up, email hwbreadworks@gmail.com

He didn’t plan on being a breadmaker.  He studied literature at Bennington with a focus on Russian literature.  Goodling says, “If you put “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” side by side you’ve got enough to think about for the rest of your life.”

“I went to Bennington to study philosophy and literature.  19^th century literature and ethics and I let my hair grow long.  Bennington was the most intensely creative place I have ever been.  We lived in a free for all of creativity.  Finding that place was awesome for me,” said Goodling.

Goodling started college at the University of Cincinnati studying electrical and computer engineering.  One day, walking through the hallway and talking about artificial intelligence with a fellow frat member he was asked, “So you’ve built a thinking, feeling thing – can you turn it off?”   He realized then and there that he would switch to study philosophy.

After graduation from Bennington there was the question of what to do with a degree that shows you’ve studied Tolstoy and Plato and Socrates.

He was being a ski bum and cooking in a pizza place in Killington when he met his wife to be and they married on her grandparents’ farm on Caper Hill in Redding.

After marriage, they lived in South Strafford and Goodling worked as a chef at Simon Pearce, at the Prince and the Pauper, and at the Norwich Inn.

He loved cooking but he also loved talking about books and literature and philosophy.  He left the kitchen and went to Newton Elementary School to teach 8^th grade English, Social Studies and to take on the very fun task of directing the school play.  His children still go to Newton School.

After a year at Newton he was offered a job at Richmond School in Hanover where he taught 9^th grade English for 13 years. 

Those same questions of philosophy that he’s been asking himself about life made him decide to take a leave of absence last year.

Now Goodling is teaching at the Okemo Mountain School in Ludlow.   His students are in the 6^th to 12^th grades.  They spend the morning on athletics and then come to him to in the afternoon to study English, Social Studies and History.

Goodling is also an adventurer.  In 2009 he set out on a quest to see Mt. Everest.  “I was trekking, not mountain climbing,” said Goodling.  “I’ve been hiking all my life and seeing Mt. Everest was a lifetime goal.

“I spent three weeks in Nepal.  Once we were out of monastery country we were on a windy, narrow trail next to a 2000’ chasm and you really understood how mankind could develop a spiritual sense of connection,” said Goodling.  “We climbed to Kala Patthar (18,500’) and we had the greatest view, the view of Mt. Everest.”

Goodling has also traveled in Africa. He was on a trip to Kenya when there was an attempted government coup. 

“We were in a hostel and could see fighting and it got put down.  We were living with the Maasai at the time and they were our only protection.  When I got home there was a picture on the cover of Time Magazine of a woman who had been killed in the attempted coup,” said Goodling.

“I can’t say that there is one image that defines me.  So many pieces contributed to who I am,” said Goodling.

Born in Chicago in 1967, Goodling’s family moved to Weston Connecticut when he was young.  He remembers his dad, a graphic designer, sitting at the drafting table and smoking a pipe.  He has memories of his parent’s friends and how it felt to be with that circle of close and tight friends.

Goodling’s mom now lives in Randolph and “she’s my inspiration,” said Goodling.  “I plan to expand the Breadworks.  The future is also a bit scary but the process of making bread allows me to get lost in my own brain and making bread is calming.

“I also want to also make cheese.  I was on this Iberian Island eating incredible cheese.  It’s the classic story of cheese made in one place for centuries and the younger generation is leaving the Island and the way of making this cheese is getting lost.  I would love to go there and learn how to make this cheese and start making it back home in Vermont.”

Peabody Library Post Mills Thetford Vermont

Peabody Library
Post Mills Thetford Vermont

The Peabody Library

Susan Cloke

Journal Opinion Winter Columnist

March 19, 2014

The Peabody library, given to the people of Thetford by George Peabody, is well cared for and well loved.  You are invited to join Librarians Peter Blodgett and Emily Zollo for a fun-filled evening of Celtic music at the Peabody Library in Post Mills on Wednesday, March 26, at 7:00 pm.

Peabody has been called “America’s First Philanthropist” said Blodgett, Library Director at Peabody and Latham Libraries.  "In 1866, when the Peabody Library opened it was the 6^th largest library in Vermont. It is the oldest library building in the State that is in continuous usage as a library and it has the most elegant public room in Thetford.”

Emily Zollo reading "Lemonade in Winter" and making
lemonade with Sadie, Maggie, Max and Garrett

Zollo, Children’s Librarian at Peabody, talked about the library and how well used it is by the community. “The Library is open weekly, on Tuesday evenings and Wednesdays from 2 – 8 pm.  It has an active after school program, well attended by Thetford Elementary School students and an adult book discussion series.

“The Library also hosts annual events: the Celtic Concert, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day; Chocolate Indulgence for Valentine’s Day, the summer Penny Carnival and our Winter Solstice Readings,” said Zollo.

“At the Valentine’s Day event the long, original, central table is loaded with chocolate cakes, mousses, handmade chocolates, chocolate cookies and chocolate pies.

“The Winter Solstice is celebrated with holiday stories from around the world read aloud.  The Library is decorated with boughs and lit with historic candelabra,” said Zollo.

Dalia Panani, a volunteer librarian described the Penny Carnival saying, “It’s great because the 10 -13 year olds set up the carnival for children under 6.  The price is one cent per game and everyone wins.”

Peabody was born in 1795, one of eight children, to a family that struggled to get by.  He went on to be one of the most successful American businessmen in London. Peabody’s fortune came from his merchant and banking companies.

“He never gave up his loyalty to America,” said Blodgett. He was famous for hosting an elaborate yearly dinner in London to celebrate the 4^th of July.  When Queen Victoria wanted to bestow a knighthood on him for promoting Anglo-American harmony he refused because he wanted to remain an American Citizen.”

Local lore tells of George Peabody, when he was a fifteen year old teenager, walking the 150 miles from his hometown in Danvers (now Peabody) MA to Post Mills VT.

“He would walk 10 miles in a day and then stop at a local town and ask for meals and a place to sleep in the barn. In exchange he would split wood and do other chores,” said Blodgett.

The young Peabody arrived in Post Mills and lived for a year on the farm of his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Dodge, according to a manuscript published in 1882.

(“THE LIFE of GEORGE PEABODY” By PHEBE A. HANAFORD

Boston, D. Lothrop & Company.  Franklin Street 1882)

Hanaford wrote, “With such grandparents and such surroundings, George Peabody’s year at Post Mills must have been a year of intense quiet, with good examples always before him, and good advice whenever occasion called for it; for Mr. Dodge and his wife were both too shrewd to bore him needlessly.

 “The interest with which Mr. Peabody remembered his visit to Post Mills is shown by his second visit so late in life, and his gift of a library – as large a library as that place needs,” wrote Hanaford.

In a letter, dated 1866, from Peabody to the Library Committee, Peabody writes about the library and speaks of his “…  sense of gratitude for kindness shown to me in my early life by my late revered uncle, Eliphalet Dodge, and his excellent wife, who still lives in your village,” and of his “desire that there shall always be three of their descendants … among the trustees of the library.”

In his lifetime he established The Peabody Trust.  The Trust continues to “provide housing of a decent quality for the artisans and labouring poor of London.”

He is best known for establishing the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University; the Peabody Museums at Harvard and Yale Universities; the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem, MA; the Peabody Room of the DC public library; and the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.  At the end of the Civil War he established the Peabody Education Fund “… to encourage the intellectual, moral, and industrial education of the destitute children of the Southern States.”

The Peabody library in Post Mills is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.  The 850 square foot, one story, white, wood building is an iconic Vermont public building with both Greek Revival and Palladian architectural references.  It sits right on 113 with flags flying from the columns.

Meet the Thetford Walkers

The Thetford Walkers
Houghton Hill
Sue Gault (with snowball), Susan Rump, Lynne Miller
Cathy Newbury, Mary Johnson, Marcia Dunning
photo credit Susan Cloke

Meet the Thetford Walkers              

Susan Cloke

Journal Opinion Winter Columnist

I’m a ‘winterer’ in Vermont.  I longed for freshly fallen, soft snow, gloriously white with sunshine reflected off its surface.  I sought the profound silence of winter.

Sitting in my living room in Santa Monica California friends asked, ‘Won’t you be lonely?’  And I wondered about that. 

My daughter, her husband and their twin boys live close enough for me to go down on most weekends and I have a few friends here, having been to Vermont before.   Still winter can be a long time.

Enter the Thetford Walkers.  A lively, engaging, and kind group of people, they gather at 10:00 every Friday morning at the Latham Library and choose where they want to walk.  Usually covering 2 to 4 miles depending on terrain and weather.  Through the Thetford List Serve they invite anyone who would like to join them.

Inge Tribetz, one of the founders of the Thetford Walkers, serves on the Steering Committee of the Thetford Elder Network (TEN). http://www.thetfordvermont.us/thetford-elder-network/

Answering my question about how she got to Vermont she said,  “In high school I worked as a reporter at a small paper in Germany.  I covered evening meetings of the Goat Herder’s Club and other local events.  I thought it would become my profession.”

But then she married and her husband’s work brought them to the United States.  Both are avid skiers and hikers and decided Vermont would be a wonderful place to retire.

“We didn’t know anyone when we moved here but we saw an announcement of a Working Day for the Green Mountain Club.

It was our introduction to the people of Vermont.”

http://www.greenmountainclub.org/

Look for Tribetz in Thetford and look for her at the Ski Marathon in Canada! 

Susan Rump is a Plein Air painter. Right out of high school she almost went to art school.  Instead she decided to prepare for teaching. 

A Thetford Academy teacher for 29 years, she is now retired. Although she still sometimes puts on workshops at Thetford Academy connecting art, writing, reading and thinking - all organized around literature.

A TEN Board Member, she is a co-founder of the Thetford Walkers, this is their 5^th year, and she is also an organizer for the popular Senior Luncheon held at the North Thetford Church.

“It’s a small community and the scale suits me well.  People who come here look around and see the gorgeous countryside and many people come here because it’s possible to live lightly on the land and make a difference in your own world,” said Rump.

Marcia Dunning followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a nurse.  She worked as an orthopedic nurse at Dartmouth for 31 years.  About her work, she says, “It was mostly elective surgery and people mostly got better and so they thought I was great!”

“Now I can spend all the time I want on my big garden.  I grow all the vegetables my family needs – eight varieties of potatoes, tomatoes, beans, lettuces, broccoli, and all colors of peppers,” said Dunning.

In addition to being part of the Thetford Walkers she volunteers at the elementary school to help teach cross-country skiing, is a member of the N. Thetford Library Board and is on the Rivendell Trails Association.   http://www.crossrivendelltrail.org/history.htm

Mary Johnson’s husband spent his childhood summers in Vermont.  It was because of his memories of Vermont that their family came here in 1974.

They both worked at Dartmouth.  When Dartmouth gave her the opportunity to study to become an X-Ray Technologist she took it and, after graduating from that program, stayed at Dartmouth-Hitchcock until 2011.

Now retired, she belongs to a handcrafting group, participates in her Lutheran Church disaster relief program, and exercises at the Thetford Community Center in the old white school building.

‘I saw the walking group on the List Serve and thought, these people have been doing this for so long and I’ll never be able to keep up.  But Sue Rump told me to come and walk and go at my own pace,” said Johnson. “I’m glad I did.”

Sue Gault came to Vermont after a long career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) where she started as a Tech Writer and went on to be Manager of Information.

“My husband and I had always loved Vermont and in 1995, after we retired, we moved up here, eventually ending up on Gove Hill,” she said.

“We both loved antiques and became antique dealers.  We focused on American antiques before 1850.

“When my husband passed away I decided I needed to meet people and got involved with TEN.  I ended up making a flyer for the walking group.  I had a blast when I joined in.”

Gault is also on the Board of Directors of Willing Hands.  They pick up food that would otherwise go to waste and deliver it to organizations for people in need.  It’s a very hard- working, hands-on Board of Directors,” she said.  “We dig potatoes and get dirty.” 

Lynne Miller lived with her parents on her Grandfather’s farm. “Then my dad bought a farm nearby and we lived there and loved it,” she said. “ Life was different then.  Kids had lots of freedom.  We would ride our ponies all over and go swimming in the creek and just run free.”

She studied fine arts and elementary education and got her Master’s Degree in Special Education.  In 2000 she retired from teaching, moved to Vermont and bought a farm in East Thetford.  A place for her two horses.  She trains, she rides, she competes.

Miller has been on horse trips all over the world – including Iceland, Banff Canada, Kenya, Chile and Argentina.

“The walking group has people with a wide range of interests.  We seem to all understand the importance of having a positive attitude and supporting each other,” she said.

I agree.  The Thetford Walkers have been a wonderful part of my winter here in Vermont.  Come join us!