Hester and Sally

When we look across the valley one farm north we see the beautiful old barns of the Phelps farm which they called Valley Ridge. For the first time in at least 150 years there are no sheep there. Like all these farms I can tell you at least something about the line of people who cared for those buildings, those sheep and that land. When I was young Hester Phelps had the only sheep in the valley. Her flock descended from the purebred Merinos whose offspring, sold as breeding stock to the Midwest, paid for those beautiful buildings. One of the unusual features of the Valley Ridge barns is a half-round shelter barn. It is post and beam, slate roof, like all the buildings. It is an example of how particular and “money is no object” Mr. Buell was. (That’s how Hester referred to him. Don’t know that I ever heard his first name.) Before leaving on one of his breeding stock sales trips to Ohio in the 1850’s, he ordered his workmen to build a conventional square cornered shelter. When he returned he said, “That looks terrible. Tear it down and build it round.”

But I mostly set out to tell Hester and Sally’s story so maybe I’ll come back to the barns and house. My earliest memory of Hester would be her playing the old pump organ in the Sudbury Congregational Church upstairs in the Sudbury Meeting House. She was single, already middle- aged, slim, wore print long dresses and her hair in a bun. She was kind but no nonsense with children. Actually she was that way her whole life with everyone. Josie recalls walking into her kitchen as Hester pulled bread out of the oven. Josie said “That smells wonderful!” Hester said “Well, of course.”

Every year she would hire a couple of boys to skirt and bag wool on shearing day. I became one of those boys when I was about 12. Years later I would have my own flock and learned to shear, so for several years I was the shearer. But I was so slow that no one would have the

patience to stand around and wait for a fleece, so I was the shearer and the bag boy. For those years Hester had shearing week instead of shearing day. Then for a while, sheep had a resurgence around here, mostly with transplanted back-to-the-land types. I would joke with Hester that we had sheep when sheep weren’t cool. We became acquainted with Dave Hinman, a professional shearer from New Hampshire who was making the rounds shearing local flocks. Dave had two of the characteristics that Hester prized: smart and funny. So I gladly got bumped. That began several years of Josie skirting and bagging, me trimming hooves and worming while Dave sheared and kept us laughing. Wherever sheep are, if they are well cared for, is a pleasant place to be and Hester’s sheep were like her children so they had it pretty good. The bottom level of the sheep barn is earth set with stone walls on the north and west and dutch doors on the south and east to let in the sun. There were hay mangers, always full, down the center with plenty of hay strewn for bedding. After the Civil War the bottom dropped out of the wool market, partly because Mr. Buell and his contemporaries had set up all these competing Merino farms in the West. So by my time, Hester was raising a combination meat and wool breed, North Country Cheviot. A beautiful mid- size sheep with clean face and legs. She kept about 40 ewes and at shearing time there would be at least that many lambs. Hester trusted us to be as gentle as possible with her pets. (I once asked her if she ever ate lamb and she said “Would you eat your dog?”) But seeing them caught and stood on their butt to be shorn and have their hooves trimmed wasn’t easy so she wouldn’t come in while we worked. But she would bring us sweet cider she had canned the fall before and stand, backlit, with her arms folded on the dutch door, smiling at Dave’s gentle teasing. Often about her refusal to dock her sheeps’ tails. When he paused she would smile and say “If God had intended for them to have short tails they would have short tails.” then turn and go back to the house to finish preparing a multi-course lunch for us all.

Entering that house was like stepping back in time. They still used the slate sink which supplied water from the stone cistern in the cellar which was filled by the water off the roof. There was a pail and a dipper for drinking water which came from a hand dug well in the yard and was retrieved by cranking the bucket up with a rope. The house was full of books and whenever I stopped in, Hester (and later Sally, who I will get to in a minute) was apt to hand me two or three she had come across and put aside because “I saw these and thought of you.” Josie has a sweet memory of visiting on a summer day and as she approached could hear through the screen door Hester reading to her parents, Frank and Jennie.

The farm came down to Jennie from the Buells who had adopted her as a child. She married Frank who had not grown up on a farm. One job he held was as a clerk for the Proctor Mar- ble Company and he told me a story from that time I never forgot. During the Depression men would come in regularly looking for work of which there was none. One day a man came in and Frank told him “No, no work.” The man was upset and asked him repeatedly wasn’t there something he could do? He needed money for food for his family. Frank told him again he was sorry but there was nothing. The office was next to the train tracks and Frank said the man walked out of the office and walked right in front of an oncoming train. Forty years later Frank was still upset and said he never knew and always wondered; was the man so distracted by his trouble that he didn’t see or hear the train? Or did he give up in that moment?

Frank learned the farming game and he and Jennie raised three kids, Franklin, Hester, and Sally, with a herd of Guernsey cows, the aforementioned sheep, and a progression of Collie dogs. Franklin was the oldest and much loved, respected and looked up to by the girls and it was a great tragedy when he was killed in World War II. Most of my growing up years the cow barn roof had one slate hanging down a foot further than the rest of the bottom course. The cow barn is three stories to the eaves. This errant slate, facing the farmyard for everyone to see, would be a challenge to reach. The story was that Frank set Franklin the task of repairing a few slates and Franklin left the offending slate long to annoy his father.

Hester with her calf.

Sally, Franklin and cousin Reg (?) on the sled.

Hester and Sally both walked to the Hill School, the stone one-room schoolhouse on the corner of Route 30 and 73. They both attended Goddard college in Plainfield in the years around 1940. They would hitchhike home and they said they would be slightly offended if someone passed without stopping to give them a ride. Sally married Joe Marshall, a black man. I asked her “Where did you find a black man in Vermont in the 40's?” “Goddard” “Were you scared when things happened like the black minister’s house in Irasburg being shot up?” With a sweet smile Sally said “No, I trusted Joe to take care of us and keep us safe.” Joe and Sally moved to Ohio where they raised their two girls, Teresa and Beth, and Sally worked for the Motor Vehicle Department –– a little ironic since she never learned to drive. Hester would pick her up at the bus station every year and she would vacation at Valley Ridge.

Hester’s working life was spent as a proofreader, the last post at a publishing house in Albany, New York. In her 50s they “let her go” because she was approaching enough time that they would have to give her a pension. So she came back to the farm. Took care of her sheep, Frank and Jennie and the Orwell library where she was librarian for thirty some years. Hester was an independent, strong willed woman. She was perfectly willing to debate and we both enjoyed a spirited exchange but often as not she would end it by saying “Well, you know what they say. One convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” After Frank and Jennie passed, Hester lived alone for several years until Sally retired. Sally and Joe had separated and she moved back to Valley Ridge.

Sally and Hester put every bit of what little money they had into keeping the house and barns – and the sheep – going. About the only thing that changed was they downsized from Collies to Shelties. Frank had left a complete line of tools and farm equipment which gradually disappeared over the years, a lot of it through Hester’s generosity and some of it “borrowed” and never returned, and some plain stolen. I had seen this slow hollowing out and was upset by it but kept those feelings to myself. In 1986 Josie and I left my home farm and took a position as caretakers of a 2000 acre farm in Shoreham known as Whiteface Ranch. That summer while visiting, Hester told me, “ _______ asked me about those sleighs in the workshop and I told him I would have to ask you if you want them first.” My frustration boiled over and I said “Hester, I don’t have nothin’! Josie and I are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. But I don’t wanna be one of these buzzards circling around and picking the bones. I don’t want your stuff!” This outburst was followed by stunned silence. On an earlier visit it came up that we had never been upstairs and Hester and Sally gave us the tour. Our last years at the home farm Josie and I had slept in the master bedroom on a very unique bed that had to go back at least to my great grandfather. To our amazement Frank and Jennie’s bedroom set was an identical match – and we expressed our amazement. Shortly after my outburst Hester asked us to come by and when we did Frank and Jennie‘s complete bedroom set was on the back porch. Hester said, “You have to take it. We are not about to drag it back upstairs.” Thirty-five years later we are still sleeping on Frank and Jennie’s bed. It's pictured at the beginning of the post "I Bequeath Myself to the Dirt..."

I would stop by occasionally and, as I mentioned before, often as not they would have a book they had put aside for me. On one of those occasions I mentioned I thought they would like Wendell Berry. The next time I visited Sally said, “Oh Teddy!” They had special dispensation to call me Teddy. “I have been reading everything I can find of Wendell Berry.

I love his books!” I asked “What did you think, Hester?” “Oh I tried one, I didn’t care for it.”

I said “You just don’t like him because Sally does.” She said “Oh, that’s not true.” But behind her back Sally was smiling and nodding emphatically. There was a lot of that in their relation to each other.

. Over the years Hester and Sally put everything they had and then some into keeping the old buildings repaired. They obtained a barn grant through the state and hired Sonny Poremski to do repairs. Sonny was only a few years younger and shared their sensibilities. He was, and is, known far and wide for his skill as a carpenter and value as a friend. Oh, and he’s smart and funny. He had a deep appreciation for the barns. He took me around one day and pointed out the amount of detail and said you just don’t see that in barns. To keep the farm going Hester and Sally sold the 100 acre lot which they referred to as “Up North.” They sold the development rights to the Vermont Land Trust, and eventually even borrowed money for repairs. Hester’s commitment to the farm, the buildings and the sheep was total. And Sally’s commitment to Hester was the same.

As she reached her 90's Hester slowly slipped away from us. She became more and more quiet as she sank further into dementia. Thanks to Choices for Care they were able to have help during the day but the time came when it wasn’t safe or practical for them to be alone at night and they moved to Porter Nursing Home. Visiting Hester wasn’t easy for me. Our once spirited conversations were now one-sided. Though every once in a while she would say just a word or two to let you know she was in there somewhere listening. One day I was making conversation about the food and as usual Hester was silent while I rambled until she interrupted and said “It’s edible.” That was quintessential Hester. Sally was much easier for me to converse with. She only needed a prompt to take me back to FDR (“a great man”) or Guernsey cows (“the best”) or my grandmother. (“spoiled your mother”)

. Josie and I were in Georgia the first week of April, 2017 when we got the call from the nursing home that Hester was dying. We drove straight home but we were too late. Hester died on April 4, three days shy of her 99th birthday. Sally was bereft and for the rest of her days when she thought about Hester being gone she would start to weep. But mercifully she began to forget when and where she was. Occasionally we might be talking about a certain book and she would say something like “If I wasn’t so lazy I would go upstairs and look for it." She thought she was home. Though there were occasional tears, and sometimes she might look out the window at the Porter Hospital and think she was looking at the old Brandon high school, Sally never lost her sense of humor. Hester’s obituary was written by Sally’s daughter Teresa and it was spare. A family friend wrote a letter to the editor expressing her belief that the obituary didn’t do Hester justice and expounding on Hester’s long, full life. Sally was very upset by the implication that the family had done wrong by Hester. Through tears she asked me “Why would someone put something so hurtful in the paper?“ I told her I didn’t think the friend knew how hurtful it would be and I said “I’ll speak to her.” A few minutes later an attendant came to take Sally to lunch. As the young lady wheeled her through tight quarters Sally said “Be careful or I’ll have Teddy speak to you!” Sally died on September 15, 2020. She once said “It’s so nice to look across the valley and see the light from your farm and know you are there.” That was a good 10 years ago but one doesn’t forget a sentiment that kind. At the time I felt the same way seeing their light and it’s sad to look across now and see darkness. But sadder still to see those beautiful old barns and house falling into decay. It’s my most fervent hope that someone will come along and care for them the way Hester and Sally did. It’s all the legacy they would have asked or hoped for.