Night of the Living Dead VI in North Cemetery

 

By Diane Brenner and Pat Kennedy

The curious phenomenon of ghosts sounding off in Worthington cemeteries began in 2014, when some occupants of Center Cemetery on Sam Hill Road rose from the earth to address the public. The sixth visitation, anticipated by the historical society’s electromagnetic field detectors, took place on September 11, 2021, at North Cemetery on Cold Street.

Holding forth were the specters of Samuel Buffington (1758-1830), with a humbled take on his previous declarations in 2015; paragon business manager Betsey Gove Ward (1784-1851); the ingenious Arunah Bartlett (1797-1894); fabric whiz Amanda Higgins Tower (1815-1899); the very busy Flora Belle Stevens (1863-1944); and proud farmer Perley Skelton (1868-1909). Their stirring testimony is recorded below.

 

 

SAMUEL BUFFINGTON (1758–1830)

This yard is looking good — you are to be commended. Here I am again, Samuel Buffington, Esquire. Some while ago I stood on this spot and described for you my esteemed position in Worthington: my distinguished military career, my expensive house, my courage in protecting my new country during Shays’s Rebellion. I spoke of my wife, Lucy Malkin from Cummington, and our lovely daughter, Laura. I served as a Justice of the Peace and left my house to my grandson, Samuel, Jr. I understand that speech of mine was spread far and wide in an article called “Night of the Living Dead II.”

Like so many during this year of isolation and solitude, I’ve had time to humbly reflect. And perhaps I embellished the truth a bit.

For a start, my military career wasn’t all that distinguished. I served many years, and was often called “Major” by the good folks of Worthington, but never achieved a rank higher than lieutenant. Some said I joined not for the cause of liberty, but to avoid trouble for my Tory sympathies.

I had a taste for the finer things, but few skills other than soldiering, and fewer sources of income. I did have experience buying and selling property in Cummington before the War. Today you would call this “flipping.”

Another confession: the land on which I built my home was obtained cheaply through the misfortunes of the previous owner, a prominent innkeeper named Alexander Miller. He was not a popular figure, since he was both the tax collector and a Tory who poorly concealed his allegiance to England. He failed to collect all the taxes he promised the town, and the legal conundrum was settled through seizure of his land, which I purchased at a discount.

 

 

Money was always an issue for me. Sometimes it was plentiful, and I could provide mortgage loans for others less financially blessed. My interest rates were reasonable, and the loans provided me with much-needed income, as long as people could pay.

I also invested, along with several town worthies, in the Third Turnpike, a toll road (25 cents per stagecoach, less for smaller vehicles) directly between Pittsfield and Northampton. We arranged to route it through Nathan Eager’s land, and it eventually became the postal route.

I also bought land on the Western frontier from the Ohio Company, thinking I might go there eventually. This was possible thanks to the providential Northwest Ordinance, adopted in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation to provide legal coverage for those of us, mostly of Anglo-Saxon heritage, who wanted to expand the United States west of the Ohio River. These investments provided more promise than actual income, and the taxes for maintaining ownership proved onerous.

Fortunately I married well, in every sense. Lucy Parlin Malkin Buffington, the daughter of Cummington pioneer Jeremy Malkin, stood to inherit significant wealth and land. Well, I did love her, and she did inherit a large tract of land after her father died in 1807. I put this land to good use, farming potatoes and flax, raising stud horses and cattle, and winning some prize money for these efforts.

Of course when I say “I,” I really mean my servant, Ezekiel Gomer Jr., and his family. Zeco’s people had Ethiopian skin, and it is said they also had Indian blood, but he was devoted and loyal. I had known of Zeco’s father’s military service, and when they were forced to leave Pittsfield for financial reasons, I offered to take them in if they worked hard. Ezekiel Jr. was only eight when he arrived, but over the years, with my and Lucy’s help, he turned into a fine, disciplined, and productive man, a credit to his race.

My last years were especially difficult. I developed epilepsy, a fearsome disease that kept me indisposed and isolated lest others see my shame. I grew unable to pay my taxes and sold my shares in the Turnpike. In 1823 I deeded my land in the Ohio Territory to Zeco, though, out of loyalty to me, he didn’t move there or marry until after I died in 1830. I hear he raised a fine family.

I sought a pension for disabled survivors of the War of Independence, but needed help from my young neighbors and friends, William and Betsey Ward, to secure it. I received a thousand dollars in total and that helped some.

 

 

I remained estranged from my only child, Laura. She married Gideon Lee, a mere leather tanner and shoemaker, against my wishes. They moved to New York City, where Lee established a thriving leather trade. They had three children, and thanks to Betsey Ward, a relative of the Lees, I did get to hear of them from time to time.

My final confession involves my grandson, Samuel Buffington Lee. Laura died young at 28. Gideon remarried and continued to prosper, becoming Mayor of New York City and a U.S. Representative. He passed wealth on to his children. I told you I willed my house to my namesake grandson, but I actually died intestate, leaving William Ward and others to clean up my finances. However, right after my wife died, I sold our Buffington Hill house to my namesake grandson for $5,000, a goodly sum, with the provision that I live there until my death. After my demise, just two years later, he sold it as quickly as he was able, and the Buffington name in Worthington became history.

Thanks for listening, I feel so much better now. Uh oh! Betsey is looking daggers at me. Better go see what she has to say.

 

 

ELIZABETH (BETSEY) GOVE WARD (1784–1851)

Greetings. I am Elizabeth Gove Ward — Betsey to you. Listen to what that James Clay Rice wrote about me and my husband William Ward in his Yale dissertation in 1853:

 

 

Young James was smitten, I think. Will and I did have a loving partnership, but you’d think I’d spent my forty-six married years in his shadow, ministering to him constantly. He was indeed a busy and accomplished man, constantly taking on new enterprises, but I really ran things.

I kept our businesses going, handled the store and account books, and managed the post office, not to mention raising our children and keeping our house from falling down. And I still won prizes for my embroidery at the agricultural fairs. But I am running ahead.

I was born in 1784, in Hartford, the daughter of Lucy and William Gove. He was a merchant. Upon learning of that new turnpike planned between Pittsfield and Northampton, my father purchased 27 acres from Nahum Eager where the turnpike intersected with what is now Radiker Road, about a mile from the meeting house. He paid the lordly sum of 100 pounds sterling and built a general store.

At first we sold only the bare necessities: spirits and tobacco, mainly, and finished fabric and buttons, salt and sugar and spices, tea and coffee. We also provided dishes, books, farm equipment, and other things people couldn’t make or produce on their own. I helped out where I could, more as I got older.

At that time cash money was scarce. Mostly we bartered, selling our goods in exchange for wood, butter, and produce. You can see our first account book at the Worthington Historical Society. As more goods became available, the store flourished. By law, and reluctantly, we gave up the pounds and shillings we had always used and adopted the new U.S. currency of dollars and cents. It was confusing at first.

When I was 12, William Ward arrived seeking employment. His father had died, and at 14 he was sent off from school to seek work. He was smart and ambitious. Pretty soon my father was dependent on William, and regularly sent him to Northampton and Boston to buy stock and negotiate prices.

Will and I were taken with each other, and it wasn’t just the imagined love of children. We had to wait ten long years, until 1805, to marry. Will and his brother, Trowbridge, purchased Mr. Bigelow’s store and post office next to the large house being built by Mr. Woodbridge at Worthington Corners. We rebuilt the store, and it was later named “The Heritage.” I lived there the rest of my life, and you can still see it on Buffington Hill Road.

 

 

In 1807 Will became Worthington’s second postmaster, a big job since ours was the only post office between Northampton and Pittsfield. Mail came by stagecoach and people would pick it up from all over the area. William was often busy elsewhere, so I ended up running things.

Until the 1830s there were no stamps. People were charged by the number of pages and the distance the letter had to travel. Most letters were just one sheet with no envelope. This cost 6 cents for up to 30 miles, 10 cents for up to 80 miles, and 25 cents for 400 miles or more. People could pay when they mailed the letter or when they picked it up. As you can imagine, a lot of mail was never picked up. I regularly sent a list of unclaimed letters to the Northampton Gazette. I admit I took advantage of this system a little and corresponded freely with my friend Laura Buffington Lee after she moved to New York.

Will and I ran the Worthington post office for 40 years with our store at the same location. I hear you still do that today.

Of course one business didn’t provide enough to live on. Another of William’s projects, which he started with his brother, Trowbridge, was a tannery and potash manufactury on Ward’s Brook, behind the Rice house at the Corners. You all know what potash is, don’t you? It’s made by burning wood and soaking the ashes in barrels or pots of water. That makes lye, which has its uses, but if you boil the lye you get potash, a different material used for finer soaps, dyes, glass, and, most desirable, gunpowder. We exported quite a lot of potash, some, ironically, to England.

 

 

Will had a busy public life, including command as a colonel during the War of 1812. He served at the Massachusetts General Court and the State Senate and was on the committee to revise the State Constitution. Since he had to leave school early, he was self-taught and very interested in education. He was one of the founders of the Mountain Seminary, which was located at the Corners and allowed children from the area to continue their education beyond the mandated sixth grade. It lasted quite a few years, and I made sure that girls were taught alongside the boys.

Together we had four children, and two survived. Daniel lived in Worthington his whole life. Louisa, at 16, married Chauncey Rising, a lawyer. William and I gave them the house next door, which we had bought at a foreclosure sale. It was the grand house Mr. Woodbridge had built, where the lawyer Samuel Howe had taught William Cullen Bryant. Louisa and Chauncey lived there for many years before moving to Ohio.

In his will William left everything to his “beloved wife, Elizabeth,” but I died just six days before he did, in 1851. Both of us were tired out and ready to rest together.

Well, I see the usually taciturn Arunah Bartlett over there wants to say a few words. Thank you for listening to me ramble on.

 

 

ARUNAH  BARTLETT (1797–1894)

They call me a Yankee, and I guess I’ve been called worse. I like to speak truth when called on. Arunah Bartlett, at your service. Born 1797, died 1894, nearly a hundred years old. A good life and a long one.

I lived in Cummington not far from the Worthington border on the Windsor Road, but borders don’t mean much around these parts, and I’ve lain here in Worthington for many a year.

I am of pilgrim stock. My mother’s kin descended from Mayflower arrivals, my father’s from people who came to Plymouth Colony aboard the good ship Ann in 1623. A legacy of hardy workers.

It is said I had a genius for getting along in the “wilderness” that was West Worthington, but I just had common sense and a respect for nature. It doesn’t take genius to site a house facing east and south, or to dam running water for the wheel in my workshop, or to plant trees for a wind break. Or to recognize that animals need air, clean water, and shelter in a well-built barn. Or to use the stones you dig up while plowing to build walls.

But I did like to invent and make things. Even as a young lad of eight, I devised a chute to roll potatoes into the cellar, instead of carrying 300 bushels down the stairs in heavy baskets.

I was born in Cummington, son of Edward and Mary Farr Bartlett. I was the oldest of seven and took to farming young. When I was ten I lived with Perley Skelton’s grandparents in their old farmhouse on the Dingle, while they built their new one.

It was my great fortune to meet and marry Amanda Tower in 1824. I was 27, she was 24, daughter of Nathaniel Tower and Hannah Ball Reed. Through her family we acquired 100 acres of meadow, 30 of woodland and a half-acre tilled, where we lived for 52 years. Amanda died in 1892; she only made it to 92.

I explored the area and knew it well. We discovered the encampment at the top of Bashan Hill used by prisoners from General Burgoyne’s army as they were marched to Boston. There I found an old ax still stuck in a wood log. Waste not want not, as the saying goes. Brought it home, flattened the top, and used it in my blacksmith shop to hammer metal. Amanda and I lived frugally and healthfully, mostly on bread and milk and baked apples, especially in our later years.

 

 

 

I built my barn on an old stone foundation that was already there. During the blizzard of 1888, the snow was so high that I couldn’t get to the barn for three days. But my sheep and cows had fresh air, some freedom to move, a rack full of hay, and snow to drink, so they survived just fine.

 

 

All was not hard and heavy work. We were very fond of music and could play by ear. I made several musical instruments including a violin, and Amanda had a small accordion called a melodeon. We would play music together and dance around our parlor.

I built and equipped our carriage for camping, and one year we traveled out to Lansing, Michigan, to see the West, leaving in spring and returning in the fall. Sadly Amanda got sick, delaying our return, and her cough lingered the rest of her life. We carried back roots for a rose bush that flourished here and reminded us often of that trip.

I was a churchgoing man. I preferred the Church in Worthington, while Amanda preferred the one in Cummington. We agreed to join the Worthington Church, and when it was rebuilt after that awful fire in 1887, I paid $300 for the bell that Mr. Rice arranged to have made in New York. You can still hear it rung today. We also left a small behest.

Amanda and I strongly believed in the Golden Rule. We saw all God’s people as the same underneath, as anyone with sense should know. We particularly despised the idea that some should be enslaved because of the color of their skin. I worked hard to prevent the entry of Texas into the Union as a slave state — an effort that sadly failed — and was loudly opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. In 1859 I helped petition the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a law prohibiting the return of any captured slave by any state or federal court. More than 200 people signed from Worthington and Cummington.

 

 

Amanda and I were proud to provide a stop on the Underground Railroad. Our busy section in Cummington was at the confluence of three roads to freedom from the south, east and west. I carved out a space beneath my chimney in the cellar, where those on that arduous journey could find safe respite.

Much later our property was purchased by the Zuraws. They rebuilt the barn, and though the house is gone, people still come to Arunah Hill to view the stars and hike the many trails.

Amanda and I were never blessed with children, but my brother Tilson’s many offspring made our life rich, and their Bartlett descendants are still active in Worthington. And now go and meet a different Amanda Tower.

 

 

AMANDA HIGGINS TOWER (1815–1899)

Good evening, neighbors. I’m Amanda Higgins Tower, daughter of Lydia Ring and Luther Higgins. I was born in Cummington in 1815, but spent most of my life in Worthington after marrying Calvin Tower in 1835. He was part of the large Tower family of Worthington. Those of us who lived on the borders with Cummington and Chesterfield often went to school with our Worthington neighbors, and we sometimes married them!

So much has changed since then. Farmwomen spent much of their time making clothing, towels, bedding, and rugs. The Tower women were famous for their sewing skills, especially quilts, and some of their work is still around! One of the young Tower women taught needle arts to the girls in Cummington, and another, Mary Trow Tower, worked in a textile mill in Dalton.

Most of our textiles came from sheep that we raised and flax that we harvested. We had to shear the sheep, clean and card the wool, spin it into thread, then loom or knit the wool into shawls, stockings, mittens, and blankets. The flax had to be picked, beaten, and soaked in a trough or pond. Then the softer threads were removed from the husk.

 

 

Thread was precious, and we used every bit we could tie together. As young girls we practiced stitchery by making samplers. We were quite good at this by the age of eight or nine.

 

 

Soon after I was married in 1835, fabric started being made in factories, with reasonable prices. We still made our own dyes, mostly from nuts and plants, until the 1860s, when a chemist in France discovered how to produce a mauve dye. After that we could buy dyes of all colors ready-made.

We used fabric scraps to make hooked rugs, many of which survive today. A descendent of the Tower family, Alice Steele, has become famous for constructing miniature glass boxes showing the domestic scenes she remembered from childhood. Many include miniatures of those hooked rugs!

 

 

During the War Between the States we sewed anything we could sell to raise money for the local sanitary commission to purchase much-needed supplies for our troops. At the start of the war there were no real plans to care for the wounded, so we women, led by Clara Barton, stepped into the breach. We made bedroll quilts as fast as we could for the poor boys, many of whom didn’t survive the war.

One of the biggest moments in my life was getting a sewing machine! It was shiny and beautiful, made of dark wood. We bought them on installment, paying a bit each month until we owned them outright. As the mother of four daughters who needed dresses, underskirts, shifts, bonnets, and aprons, I kept very busy. We started their quilts years before they married, and held quilting parties with lots of other women when the time was near. In wintertime the quilting parties were three days long — a day for travel each way, and a day to quilt.

For almost 55 years my husband Calvin and I lived in our house just down the road from here. It was built in the 1770s by Jeremiah Kinne and added on to for years until it had two wings. It was owned by various people and known by various names, such as Singing Pines and the Rice Farm. Those nice young men Jim Downey and Kevin O’Connor have really spruced it up lately!

You might not know that there was a granite quarry on the property. When the church burned down in 1887, that’s where they quarried stone for the foundation of the new building.

Later the town took some of our land to create a town reservoir. We had a plentiful spring on the west side of the house that offered water to passersby on the main road. Sometimes people high up on the hills sold their water to people further downhill, and it traveled through wooden pipes!

We farmed most of those years, until we no longer could, and then the neighbors and family helped us out. My poor Calvin died of a stomach cancer in 1885. I stayed until my death in 1889, when I came here to be with him.

 

 

My four lovely daughters grew up here, but two of them, Grace and Angelina, moved to Los Angeles, California! Imagine that! I remember when taking the stage down to Williamsburg was an adventure!

Well, I’m happy to stay here in this lovely village of Worthington, which hasn’t really changed that much! If you head over there you’ll meet Miss Flora Belle Stevens. She has a lot to share with you.

 

 

FLORA BELLE STEVENS (1863–1944)

Welcome, everyone, to the Stevens family plot! I’m Flora Belle Stevens, but my family called me Flo. I’m the daughter of Laura Packard Stevens and Lafayette Stevens.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Stevens family of Stevensville. My grandfather, Aaron, came to Worthington in 1812 and built mills along Brunson’s Brook near the Worthington-Chesterfield line. My father, Lafayette, carried on with a grist mill that ground wheat and then corn. When cheaper grain was shipped in from other places, my father turned to producing wooden utensils, like drumsticks, mousetraps, sap spouts, and drum, banjo, tambourine, and embroidery hoops.

 

 

I was born in the Stevens family home in 1863, one of six children. We only lost one of us, Ella, when she was four. My father was a Republican like dear Mr. Lincoln, a believer in the abolitionist cause, and a faithful deacon of the church.

My mother ran the household and knitted items to exchange for household goods when the peddler came by. She was always a friend to those in need, staying with dying neighbors and caring especially for the widows. She went to sit with Mrs. Streeter, whose husband had been dead for eight days. The weather was so bad that no one could get to the poor woman’s house, even though it was just up the long hill.

Our home was originally only one story. When my father inherited the house, he had the first floor raised up to become the second floor, and a new first floor was built underneath. The mill was across the river, and both the house and part of the mill are still standing today.

My father was given the home with the understanding that he would care for his parents until they died. Likewise, I was the only child to stay home with my parents until they died, and I never married. My mother inherited the house when my father died, and I inherited it when she died. Both left me a considerable sum of money, so I’ve never had to worry about supporting myself.

I imagine you’re all thinking what a sad and lonely life I had, but you’d be entirely wrong. I’ve brought along my diary from 1899, and it’s filled with activities! Every week I attended a sewing circle at some lady’s house. In January we visited Mrs. Rena Burritt and helped her tie four quilts. And I began to use a typewriter!

I helped my cousin Margie prepare for her wedding. She and her parents moved to Illinois years before, but she came back to visit and we worked on her wedding linens and trousseau. We made most of our own clothes, so there was a rush of sewing to be done!

One day Margie and I made thirteen calls, and most of the ladies were at home — oh dear! There was the Archery Club, the Women’s Benevolent Society, and lots of card playing, especially whist and cinch. We often took the stagecoach to Williamsburg, where I bought dry goods for sewing. Sometimes we took the train from Williamsburg down into Northampton. In February we attended a performance of a hypnotist!

In the spring of 1899 I went by train to visit my brother, William, his wife, Marie, and their children in Buffalo, New York. My sister-in-law took me to the White Lotus Home, an orphanage for babies and children. We sewed baby clothes, and Marie brought some children home for overnight visits. We attended a meeting of the Universal Brotherhood, a branch of the Theosophical Society, which I joined for two dollars. The leader, Madame Blavatsky, believes that all religions help humanity evolve to greater perfection. I didn’t mention that to Father!

Back here in Worthington we suffered through some harsh, cold weather. On February 9th it was 28 degrees below zero, and I had to make myself two sets of flannelette pantaloons!

I also read various novels, like Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Fanchon the Cricket by George Sand, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hawkins. I also had subscriptions to the New Century and Cosmopolitan magazines.

Of course the Congregational Church was the center of our lives. You can imagine how terrible it was when the church burnt down in 1887. On the Sunday after the fire we gathered in Town Hall, and my father, as a deacon, read this passage from the Book of Isaiah: “Our big and beautiful house where our fathers praised Thee is burned with up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste.” My parents contributed funds to rebuilding the church.

 

After my parents passed on, I lived with my sister in Cummington. I paid rent, though — I wasn’t a needy spinster relative! Later I moved to Westfield, where I lived in lodgings for several years and worked in a doctor’s office. My last few months were spent in a home for the elderly on South Street in Northampton. Finally I went to the home of my brother Lester in Brookline, where I was surrounded by family when I died in 1944.

 

 

I lived a full and happy eighty years, surviving the Spanish flu and two world wars, and seeing women gain many rights. I’m glad to be back here where I belong with my parents in the Stevens plot.

Thank you for listening to my story. If you head over there you’ll meet my friend Perley.

 

 

PERLEY SKELTON (1868–1909)

My name is Perley Skelton, son of Warren and Mary Skelton. I was born in Hollis, New Hampshire, in 1868, but came to Worthington as a young man and settled down at Glenwood Farm, over in the Dingle, on Pleasant Street. It wasn’t much of a street, since it was mostly our 100-acre farm, but it sounds like a nice place, and it was.

In 1892 I married Alice Shipman, a nice girl from Goshen, and we settled in to farm. Our four living children, three girls and a boy, went to the Coon District School on Trouble Street. The school was in Cummington, but nobody there was fussy about which town the children lived in, only that they could get to the school, especially in bad weather. All my children went on to Northampton High School, but of course they had to live away from home and work for their board.

You might think my only son, Gurney, had a funny name, but there’s a story behind it. He was named after the midwife, Alice Gurney, who saved his life when he was born. He came out blue and not really breathing. She worked on him and put him in the barely warm oven to get him going. In honor of her saving his life, we called him Gurney. We lost our very first child, Rachel, at birth, and we couldn’t stand to lose another. Now Alice Gurney is buried near my boy, Gurney, who lived to be 95!

My life was my family and my farm. The big event of the year was the Cummington Fair. My registered Jersey cattle won prizes, and our barred Plymouth Rock poultry always did well too. We sent our cream to the creamery for several years, and I remember the man who gathered the cream coming by in his truck, with red and green insulated cans and a big umbrella to keep off the hot sun. Eventually we bought our own cream separator.

In 1904 I won a prize for my Plymouth Rock hens, and in 1906 I won three hundred dollars from the Society for Promoting Agriculture for having the best-kept farm in Massachusetts. The prize was to “promote clean, progressive, profitable farming.” I also gave a paper at the Hillside Pomona Grange about the cultivation of potatoes.

 

 

In 1908 the newspaper in my old home town of Hollis, New Hampshire, mentioned me as a person who loves farming and “has not become a professional man.” That’s a polite way of saying all I ever could do was farm. But in a little town like Worthington everybody has to volunteer for something, so I was a member of the school committee and also the Sunday school superintendent in 1894.

Our woodlots were as important as our cleared fields. We tapped maple trees in the spring for sap and gathered wood for fuel. We also sold wood to the Stevens Mill, where they made all sorts of wooden tools and household items. In 1892 I sold 75,000 feet of maple to them in one purchase. Others sold them ash, beech, and birch.

My neighbor, Joseph Cudworth, used to say that “a woodlot properly handled would never deteriorate in value, could be a constant yearly source of revenue, and no section should ever be denuded unless it was immediately replanted.” We followed that rule!

When we took grain to be ground, we bartered for some of the flour produced. In haying season farmers depend on each other, and we moved from one farm to the next to get the hay in before it was ruined by bad weather. If a farm had elderly or sickly people, we made sure to get their hay in so their stock wouldn’t go hungry over the winter. I was involved in the Worthington Grange, which was really a cooperative of farmers who helped each other and pooled resources to increase their buying power.

I sold Jersey cows right up until my death. You could get a Jersey bull calf for twenty-five dollars in 1905. Or as I liked to say, “Twenty-five dollars takes him!”

In 1909 I was barely into my forties when I died suddenly of the grippe. (You call it influenza today.) My wife and kids couldn’t keep the farm going, and eventually it was sold. But the Skelton family remembers Worthington, no matter where they are, and they come back for a reunion every few years.

That concludes our reunion, and on behalf of all the wraiths, thank you all for listening to our stories. Be careful as you leave our resting place and, as I’ve heard a lot of people say during your pandemic, “Stay Safe.” No need to join us before your time.

 

 

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Pat Kennedy is retired from teaching English at Holyoke Community College, and is the commissioner for Center Cemetery. She came by her interest in cemetery care and preservation by way of genealogical research. The Worthington Cemetery Commission has undertaken the task of repairing and cleaning stones in our cemeteries, thanks to the generosity of the Rolland Cemetery Fund.

Diane Brenner has lived in Worthington with her spouse, Jan Roby, since 1994. She was a longtime member of the Worthington Historical Society board of directors, and continues to guide WHS in archiving and historical research. In her spare time she works at her day job as a book indexer: www.dianebrenner.com.

Great thanks to Madeleine Cahill, Sheila Kinney, Jim Downey, Emily Trantanella, Judy Babcock, and Kevin O’Connor for serving as avatars of the deceased. They were photographed by Evan Spring.