Full moon, by Susanne Pacilio
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
Want to submit your own Dear Daybreak item? Just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
I bought an old decrepit house with my then-husband in 1978 in West Norwich when I was 22. Young and full of hope. I had no idea we were moving into a close community. At that age, I wanted to avoid older people who might be like my relatives or the conservative town I grew up in.
A few weeks after the papers were signed, there was an item in one of the community columns in the White River Valley Herald about us moving into the old house. As if that were not enough unwanted attention, an older gal (probably younger than I am now) stopped by the store where I worked in Hanover “to welcome Sonia to Beaver Meadow!” I was on my lunch break and never found out who it was, this well-meaning and kind person who gave me a further shock to my need for anonymity.
I’ve gotten over that feeling.
They won me over, this community. A Christmas stocking and presents left at the door after my first child: no note, no card. Random people showing up who were related to the previous owners over the years. There’s always help when I need it—a car stuck in the ditch, a downed apple tree across the driveway after an October snowstorm, a large dead tree near the house. So many times I have been rescued by my neighbors! Without them life would not be as rich.
— Sonia Swierczynski, Norwich
Dear Daybreak:
Dark blue winter sky
The maple making black lace
A fine winter dress
— Jane Masters, Hanover
Dear Daybreak:
There is a mysterious, historical, and beautiful piece of land north of Norwich, bordered by the Ompompanoosuc River, the Connecticut River, and Route 5. I was lucky enough to grow up there. In the 1700’s it was known to the local early settlers and Native Americans as Booming Point. For centuries that land has emitted loud rolling, cracking sounds. Before white settlers ruined it for the Native people it was quite clear that it was a place for Natives to gather, perhaps for salmon fishing. We found numerous campfire rings, pottery shards, and arrowheads, along with other tools.
In about 1760, Jacob Fenton and his brother came from their home in Lebanon, NH, to tend their corn on that land. When they swam their horses across the Connecticut, Jacob’s horse came up quickly under a low-hanging tree and Jacob was crushed and died. He was buried there on the point. At some point a marker was put on the grave and at some later point (1940’s) his Connecticut family removed the marker and took it back to their family’s cemetery. In later years, when we heard the ground crack and grumble we would say that Jacob was rolling over in his grave.
If you want to check some of these facts, find a copy of Zadock Thompson’s 1842 History of Vermont, a Natural, Civil and Statistical. This is a fascinating book for historians, professional and amateur.
— Cia Rising, Etna
