Those early days before my 15th birthday were spent in West Wilton where my father grew up in a house in which my grandmother still lived. Her birth name was Cinnamon Delphi but she was baptized in the Catholic Church and her saint’s name was Frances, so she was known as Frances Frye. I know very little of her life. I know that she worked in a factory as a girl and loved to go dancing on Saturday nights. She spoke French growing up but I don’t know where exactly she grew up other than in New Hampshire, maybe Hinsdale, New Hampshire, but it was not in Wilton. I also know her grandmother was a Native American but I know even less about her other than it was an embarrassment in those days to have a Native American as a grandparent and very little was said about it. I always thought my aunt Winona looked like a Native American but pretty much kept that to myself. I did hear that mentioned by other relatives as I grew up; maybe that is why I thought she looked Indian.
Racism was probably as prevalent in New Hampshire as anywhere in the world, but I never heard either of my parents talk negatively about other races or about other people’s religion, or ethnic heritage. They would talk of the strange things people in town did or said or how people interacted with others but race, creed or color did not seem to enter into the conversation. When I was 6 or 7 years old and playing in the driveway, a car drove down the drive, stopped next to me, rolled down the window and asked directions to Nashua, New Hampshire. I was dumbstruck. It was a Black man asking for directions. He obviously saw my surprise because he said, “You ain’t never seen a Negro before, have you?” No, I guessed I hadn’t, but I also had no idea which way Nashua was other than down the road. He laughed and drove off but I think he was right, Wilton was all white except for the migrant Jamaican apple pickers in the fall, but I saw very little of them.
There was plenty of ethnic prejudice in town. There were Italians, Irish and French Canadians, most all of whom were Catholic. My grandmother was of French-Canadian Catholic heritage but, as far as I knew, my family never said anything negative about French Canadians although I did have the sense those groups were thought of as outsiders. There was also a prejudice for Swedes. I remember my aunt Bunny commenting once (probably more than once) that her dad, my grandfather and my dad’s dad, said “Never trust a Swede.” That was a bit surprising to me since my mother was Swedish. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from Sweden at the turn of the 20th century and most of my mother’s relatives were Swedish. I know there was some friction between my dad and Aunt Bunny and her view of Swedes was probably part of it. I don’t think that my grandfather’s leaving his estate to my aunt Bunny helped mend fences between her and Dad either. I never heard Dad complain about his sister although I am sure he must have to my mom. My aunt Bunny, for a reason never clear to me, never liked me. Upon high school graduation my brother and all of my cousins received a wristwatch as a graduation present from her but she skipped the tradition when I graduated. When I asked my mom why, she simply said, “Aunt Bunny doesn’t really like you.” I have the feeling that Bunny’s remarks about the Swedes grated on my mom also. What surprises me, even now, is that I accepted she didn’t really like me but I always tried to do what was right in Aunt Bunny’s eyes.
I don’t know if my grandfather, Orville (Ollie) Frye really had a dislike for the Swedes or it was just something Aunt Bunny made up; in fact, I know little of my grandfather other than he had a taste for hard cider. My father never spoke of it but one of the old-time Wilton residents did mention it to me. That he passed away at the age of 62 of cirrhosis of the liver in 1938 makes me believe he very well could have had a predilection for hard cider. My father was not much of a drinker. He would once in a while have a beer while watching a ball game on TV but that was rare. I remember one Thanksgiving at our house at Grays Corner my uncle Harry brought a pint of whiskey for drinks and offered one to Dad. Later on Dad mentioned to me that Uncle Harry “had a light hand when pouring drinks.” I was more surprised that my dad knew how much liquor should make a real drink than that my uncle skimped on the whiskey. Speaking of Uncle Harry, he was my aunt Cosie’s husband. They lived on Russell Street in downtown Wilton and he worked at one of the mills in town although I never thought to ask which mill (there were three) nor what he did at the mill. I had lunch at Aunt Cosie’s from the second grade through the eighth grade but Uncle Harry was rarely there during lunchtime.
Four of my aunts were married but only my aunt Cosie and Aunt Winona had children. My aunt Bunny was never married and perhaps that is why my grandfather left her the Frye estate when he died. My father and his two sisters, Cosie and Winona, helped with my grandmother’s care but since we lived across the road and my father kept milk cows in her barn we seemed to care for her most.
Speaking of the cows, I remember when I was 4 or 5 going with my father to milk the cows one snowy winter’s evening. As we walked from our house to the barn, father said, as we walked across the road, “Hold my hand.” I took hold of his little finger and he stopped and said, “No, let me hold your hand” and took my hand into his. Why I remember that moment I’m not sure but when I was fortunate to have my own children that memory would always come to mind whenever I asked them to hold my hand.
The barn was my favorite place, always. The smell of the hay, old wood and of the manure was a mixture not everyone could imagine as a good smell, but I loved that place. I was asked, told and warned repeatedly not to play in the barn but those warnings and beseeches were totally ignored. Climbing into the haymow was forbidden because, and I don’t think it true but maybe it was, people climbing into the hay spoiled the hay and the cows wouldn’t eat it. Unbaled hay was slippery and it would be easy to slide right out of the loft onto the barn floor and break an arm or leg or worse. But I would climb up there anyway. It was not always loose hay in the loft but many times the hay was baled and stored there. Baled hay was the best because we could make forts, tunnels and secret hideaways with the bales.
There was also a third-floor loft. Climbing up there was a bit scary because the barn floor seemed so far below. At either end of the upper loft there were windows about 6 feet up in the apex of the barn roof. The northern window had a great view of the pasture beyond where woodchuck could be easily spotted. I remember my brother taking the .22-caliber rifle and climbing up to that window, balancing himself on the pegs that served as a ladder to the window he took pot shots at any woodchucks he might see. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be there so he would threaten to tell mom I was in the barn if I didn’t leave him alone. This, and the fact that it was scary to be in the upper loft kept me from going up there when he was shooting woodchucks. Even when I was older and had access to the .22 I never tried to shoot from that window but I did love to climb up there just to stare at the pasture.
I remember when Phil and I were 17 or 18 we had gotten a six-pack of beer but didn’t know where to hide it so we stashed it in the haymow and planned to retrieve it later. It was winter with temperatures below freezing so when we finally did go back for the beer it was frozen solid.
Raised in Wilton, Bennett built a life rooted in family, hard work, and the quiet values of small-town New England.
