BRATTLEBORO — Although businesses and people have come and gone, streets have changed, and buildings have been erected and torn down, Fran Lynggaard-Hansen's new book, Brattleboro: Historically Speaking gives plentiful evidence that the town has always attracted unusual characters and has never been a dull place to live or visit.
The book, published by History Press as part of its American Chronicles series, features a short selection of true stories and reports of goings-on and editorial pieces about Brattleboro from 1805 to the 1970s.
Rather than a linear narrative, Historically Speaking offers vignettes such as “Elm Street Bridge Is Falling Down,” “Blaze of Glory,” “Eccentric People in Brattleboro Are Nothing New,” and “How Living Memorial Park was Born.”
Before she wrote Historically Speaking, Lynggaard-Hansen was best known for her weekly 700-word column in the Brattleboro Reformer, “Downstreet.”
It was difficult at first for her to switch to writing more than just 700 words per segment, but “the History Press asked me to make the book about 35,000 words,” Lynggaard-Hansen says.
Remembering a quote by her former fifth-grade teacher - “Someday you will wish that you had read the directions first, and then you'll always remember to do that”- Lynggaard was able to write a first draft of over 96,000 words.
As with any project involving local history, a substantial amount of research was needed for Lynggaard-Hansen to get all the material she desired. She started by asking her friends and family for any historical information.
“This is a book that virtually wrote itself,” she says. “Since I was writing the column 'Downstreet' and I was born and raised in Brattleboro, I know lots of interesting people in the area. Whenever I had a thought about a story, all it took to find the person was the telephone book."
Lynggaard-Hansen calls her mother, Cynthia Fairchild, “a tremendous help,” helping the author to network her way to a source.
“She often knew who the go-to person would be,” Lynggaard-Hansen says. “She also has several copies of the Brattleboro Town Reports and directories that belonged to my grandfather, A. Chapin Wright, from the 1920s and the 1950s - excellent resource materials.”
Lifelong passion
From her early childhood, the study of her hometown has been a passion for Lynggaard-Hansen. Her grandparents and her father indulged her the most in this respect, she says.
“I spent long hours as a child begging all my grandparents for stories of their past,” she says. All grew up in Vermont.
“Even as a student in elementary through high school, I interviewed local people for social studies projects,” Lynggaard-Hansen recalls. “Most of those folks are gone now, but in a box of keepsakes from my childhood, I found several interviews that didn't need a whole lot of polishing, [interviews] that I included in the book.
“My father, Clarence Fairchild, was a master storyteller; a couple of his antics are in this book,” she says. “If I could get him going on a long trip in our Ford Falcon - say, to Canada - and the weather was good and he didn't get hungry, I could encourage him to tell me stories of his days in the South Pacific in World War II or his childhood on Reed Street in Brattleboro until we made it through the Northeast Kingdom and over the Canadian border.”
Having grown up in Brattleboro, listening to stories told to her by her family about their own past in the same place, it only follows that the town offers a special significance for Lynggaard-Hansen.
“It was inevitable that my first book would be one about Brattleboro's history,” she says. “While I have devoured every book on Brattleboro that's been published, I craved the stories, even more than the pictures, of those who lived before us. I don't believe there has been another book done on this topic written in this way.”
A lost world
Lynggaard-Hansen was intrigued by people's stories of Brattleboro in its earliest days, when horses and buggies were the mode of transportation and dairy farms still used butter churns to make their products. She includes several stories concerning the early-1800s Brattleboro in her book.
“How many people do you know who could tell you how to use a buggy whip or a butter churn at this point in time? One hundred, even fifty, years ago, in any small group of people, someone would likely know.
“That's why I included stories from local people whose experiences reflect our changing times,” she says. “It's hard to imagine leaving a home unlocked in Brattleboro these days so that the egg man, the bread man, and the milk man could all have access to your refrigerator throughout the day.”
Lynggaard-Hansen admits to being constantly surprised by the stories she hears and the facts that are uncovered in the process of researching an area of local history.
“History always surprises me,” she says. “When I am interviewing someone for a story, I never know where it is going to lead."
Lynggaard-Hansen likes to let people talk “because often the conversation goes to far richer places than I ever intended. I always find these conversations fascinating, especially with older folks.
“They know so much, and we all have so much we can learn from their collective wisdom,” she says. “It's pretty humbling.”
Lynggaard-Hansen was also fascinated by accounts of the days in which Brattleboro, like many towns, still had “Irish need not apply” signs in store windows, and Swedish immigrants who earned money painting what is now The Church on Main Street.
“What I would give for a meeting of, say, the first-generation Irish who lived mostly around Elliot Street, telling me how they came here, and the indignities of “Irish need not apply” signs that hung in some of our local shops,” she says.
“I'd like to have been around to listen to the Swedish men and women who lived around 'Swedeville' in the area of Strand Avenue tell me about where they learned their painting skills as they painted the borders under the windows on the inside of The Church, the former All Souls Universalist Unitarian Church on Main Street,” she adds.
“The everyday life of a town has a certain song that will never be heard unless it's recorded,” she says. “The importance of recording everything and not just the wealthy is a lesson I learned from looking back at our written history. We're missing so much of it.
“For me, understanding where I come from, what my town was like, knowing that when I walk on the foot of Main Street that there are granite cobblestones underneath me that I saw during the repaving in the 1960s, give[s] me literally a stronger foundation,” she notes.
Lynggaard-Hansen has strong feelings about keeping that past alive for the citizens of Brattleboro today.
“If these stories aren't written down, we'll miss significant information that has determined the course of our local culture from a rural farming community to the town we have become,” she says. “And, I've just made a small dent in the material. There are many interesting and amazing folks living in our area who still have stories to tell.”
In addition to being fascinated with Brattleboro, Lynggaard-Hansen is also interested in stories of war and conflict, and her next book will deal with these themes from her own personal history.
“My next book will involve a series of letters written between A. Chapin Wright, my mother's father who lived with his mother and brother on Abbot Road in West Brattleboro. He was an 18-year-old soldier in World War I, a driver for General Pershing, and he was writing to his mother,a former woman of means who lost everything in the stock market crash and ended up on this small farm. They paint a marvelous picture of life in France and rural Vermont at the time of the Great War.”
As a member of the local Historical Society, Lynggaard-Hansen had easy access to stories and resources that helped her construct her book. She has plenty of positive things to say about the Society and encourages people to join.
“I have been a member for several years, but have been on the board of trustees only for a couple of years. I can't say enough about the Brattleboro Historical Society,” she says.
Lynggaard-Hansen calls the society members “active, wise, hard working and one of the best run boards I've ever served on,” she says. “I would encourage anyone who is interested to join the Society to assist us in preservation. Membership is inexpensive and our main source of income. Joining the board is easy, fun, and essential. There is always plenty to do, but many hands make light work.”
Lynggaard-Hansen has a strong sense of connection to past citizens of Brattleboro, and nostalgia for the ones who were part of her own childhood.
“When all those who came before us are living within us, we're never alone. I think of the people that I never had the opportunity to meet, and the wonderful memories of those that I did know who are no longer with us. I pass the houses of well-known Brattleborians of the past and the cast of characters that were a part of my upbringing that are now gone.”