By Liz Cyran
I have a box from my childhood that holds things like the ‘baby book’ my mom made with cards sent when I was born, the exact time I was born at Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, and other sweet things. In that box is a certificate from the Town of Hardwick welcoming me to the Town and for becoming a ‘new’ resident. I don’t know what year this tradition ended, in today’s world where we won’t let out information due to privacy, we lost little joys such as this.
I grew up on a 100 acre family farm in the West part of Hardwick, the youngest of three daughters. We had cows, pigs, chickens, a large garden, and dogs. My sister still lives there.
My dad worked in the paper mill in Ware, and later at the mill in Gilbertville. Mom was a stay at home mom, which I really liked since I had her all to myself after my sisters were in school. I ran our fields with dogs and wished we could afford a pony. Looking back, I guess we were poor, but we always had two cars, never lacked for food, and although we didn’t get a ton of toys at Christmas, mom always seemed to find money to buy us new shoes or anything else we really needed. I never understood how she did it.
Hardwick in the 1950’s. Ahhh. The Dorman brothers had their gas station on Church Street in Gilbertville and drove our school buses. Clyde drove our route the entire 12 years I was in school. I remember few no school days due to snow, but I do remember one time Clyde pulled that bus out of a sideways slide on that bad hill on Turkey Street. I started school at the white school on Ruggles Hill Road. At that time, we had two classes in each room. That first year I was in one classroom in the first grade, my sister Evelyn was in the next in the 4th, and my oldest sister Emily in the third in 6th. I disliked our first grade teacher, and yes, the story of me kicking her is true. Many decades later, Mrs. Day, who always sat at the Town House during the Hardwick Fair collecting donations, remembered the incident. I still say she deserved it.
When I entered second grade, there were no longer two classes in each room, so only grades 1-3 were in the Center school. I loved that school house. Not that I loved school, but I loved that building. I recall Mrs. Blackmer who cooked our lunches from scratch every day, I still have a love for turkey a-la-king over mashed potatoes and fried hamburg (shepherd’s pie) because of her cooking! When we were forced to stay for not eating our lunch (it was hash - I hated it then, still hate it now!), she would let me sit while she finished her cleaning, then take the dreaded hash, throw it away, hand me another pudding, and tell me to tell the teacher I ate it. Ah, conspiracy with adults is so great when you are 6!
Did I say I LOVED that building? To this day I am still in love with the Ruggles Hill Road school. I have tried to purchase it from the Town of Hardwick for over 30 years. I have an extensive proposal to turn that building into something to benefit and be used by everyone in town. My proposal is something this town needs, would NOT change the outside of the building, nor most of the inside either. Around the building would be beautiful gardens, raised beds anyone in town could plant in, and a gazebo to rest on a warm summer day. When people say no one wants to do anything with the ‘abandoned’ buildings in town, that is not true. Maybe I would spread myself thin, but I also have a great idea for the Paige Building, fitting with the character of the common and, again, make the building accessible to everyone.
4th grade took me into the ‘big white school’ in Gilbertville through the 8th grade. 9th grade was in high school up the street, now the municipal building. On hot days towards the end of the school year, Clyde Dorman would drop a couple of us ‘older’ kids off at Goddard’s General Store to pick up an ice cream order for anyone on the bus who wanted one, and pick us up after he got the ‘little kids’ from the center school. One of those ice creams was always for Clyde.
Hardwick teachers expected us to actually learn things. When other schools sports teams and gym classes, we had reading, writing and arithmetic. No fluff. To this day, I never felt I missed anything. When I hit high school, the beginning of the regional school was happening. Hardwick was the one town who resisted going into it, because we had a GREAT school system, we always tested in the top 10% in the state. But, it was all about finances, and I started my Junior year in the new Quabbin Regional School. To show you how great the Hardwick system had been, I had enough credits to graduate when I walked in the door, I just did not have 4 years of English.
Even with working long hours at a factory job, my dad still had time to give back to the town he moved into in the 1930’s by buying an old farm in tax title. He was part of several civic groups centered in Gilbertville, which was the big commerce part of town. The factories were booming back then. I recall one night he took me with him to a business that used to be a soda fountain in the building that housed an antique store for a while, across from the Windsor and the parking lot, right at the start of Church Street. I had a rare vanilla frappe (extra syrup) and got to read all the comic books I wanted out of the spinning rack while they talked business. Later on, I tried very hard to buy that building, because I wanted that soda fountain. I heard it was sold and shipped out west. I admit I cried when I heard that.
But Dad did more for this town. He was one of the first police officers in town. They were all part time, with the chief being the only full time officer in town. I don't remember the one before him, but I do remember Earl Sawyer, a booming man that scared everyone like the ‘hoodlums’ who street raced the main drags of Gilbertville, but I knew him as a kind man who played Santa every year, gave us gifts (he and his wife had no kids), and always had a laugh and a joke for us.
In small towns everyone knows everyone else, and if your father is a cop, you can’t get away with anything. I’m cruising down Main Street in Gilbertville in daddy’s Pontiac, when full lights and siren pull me over. Earl Sawyer walks up to the drivers window, I’m in deep trouble, and in a panic. He says hello, he asks what I am up to. I’m responding - “Ah, Earl, what’s up, did I do something?” He says with a smile, “no, I just saw you and figured I would pull you over and tell you to tell your dad I want to talk to him.” HUH? The chief of police pulled me over with full lights and sirens to tell me you want to talk to my dad? As several people I know drive by, seeing me pulled over by the chief. Childhood humiliation. Funny story now.
Dad was instrumental in starting the first ambulance in Town. Again, all volunteer. I recall the first ambulance we had, a used Pontiac parked at Scoops garage (now Rose 32). I recall the day it was delivered, dad and I went down to out fit it, and he and one of his buddies decided to do a ‘test run.’ But they needed a patient! That was me. They gave me candy. I laid in the back. I loved it. They loved it too, they turned on the lights and sirens. Boys never grow up, the toys just change.
That same civic group had a Halloween Children’s parade every year, where they stopped traffic in front of the white school and we paraded down the street. We had school dances, and we had school plays. One year we had a big show where every class got to portray a month. First grade did January, and so on. That year I was in the third grade and I remember my mom making paper kilts for our class, and we danced the Irish jig for March. Later as a young adult I actually became a pretty good Irish clog dancer.
Every year we planned for the Hardwick Fair, a highlight of our summer. Exhibiting what we made was a big deal back then. The competition for the rosettes and the high point 4-H winner was fierce! Since we didn’t show cows, we had to be extra good and extra busy with baking, canning, sewing, and crafts to beat the ‘cow people.’! I’m proud to say each of the three of us did win top 4-H girl at least once. Now I judge when needed.
I left home at 17 after high school, and went to live in Boston. It would take me 8 years and the loss of my beloved mother to come back to the area. I bought mom’s family home in Ware, I ran a property management company, I sold real estate, I bought that horse I always wanted and kept it up at the family farm in the West part. Every day (unless it rained) Sach and I explored areas I remembered from my youth, and some I wanted to explore, like the restricted Quabbin gates. Heck, we were seen on the Hardwick Common and at McDonalds’ in Ware!
Even before I met my hubby, I was trying to come back to Hardwick. Either nothing was available, or I couldn’t afford it. After Franklyn and I got married, we were living two miles down the road in Ware, I was still trying to get back to Hardwick. Franklyn didn’t understand my obsession with getting back here. All I could tell him is that Hardwick was where you were allowed to ‘be yourself’ and as eccentric as you wished.
I accidentally picked up the Ware River News one day, to find a ‘waterfront’ property for sale in Hardwick. It could only be one place - “The Pond’ in West Hardwick. We took a ride, found a for sale sign across for the boat ramp, went home, called the real estate broker and gave them a full price offer. To be told someone else had bought it first! They would call us if these buyers rejected the perk. There went my dream.
The next day, the phone rang, the buyer had rejected the perk. Don’t get why they did that, but the lot was ours if we wanted it. I got in my car, drove to the real estate office in Ware, and handed them a deposit check. We had bought a 13 acre grandfathered lot on Hardwick Pond, surrounded by wetlands. We completed the build on a custom contemporary in 2002.
One of the first things we did once we had moved into our new home was buy that black and white Paint horse I wanted so much as a kid, watching way too many hours of Bonanza. She came with a surprise. 5 beautiful paints have been born on this property. Today we have the two older mares, and that first guy that come tucked inside his mom. Every spring they go to ‘summer camp’ up the road at the family farm and mow the fields.
I am sure there are other people who can tell a story such as mine about their home town. I know there are several people in Hardwick that grew up just like I did.
I am sure there are people who think my childhood was missing things that city kids get. Maybe so, but we didn’t just live on the farm under a rock. We had school trips to Boston, we saw the New York World’s Fair, we went to the beach, we had a well rounded childhood, but we also has a nice, safe childhood. Heck, as kids we walked from the West part down to Ware to go bowling!
What is different between the Hardwick I grew up in and the Hardwick of today? Really not much. We still do not have any stop lights, a fact that I personally think is something we should be proud of. We should put it on a sign at the town lines. We still don’t have fast food restaurants, strip malls, a highway or a hotel. More positives. If you want them, you can get them down the road a bit. We DO still have one of the few covered bridges in the state, under 3,000 people, black night skies, bears in our back yard, dairy cows, 4-H, a small but wonderful Farmer’s Market on the common in the summer, and a sense of community.
My hubby Franklyn now understands why I wanted to come home. He’s a recent transplant, but he gets it. He’s a pretty incredible guitar player and a pretty decent songwriter. He and I want to have an open Mic night if we ever get to fulfill that plan for the Ruggles Hill Road school. He wrote a song about living in Hardwick. He’s going to roll his eyes, and say ‘why did you do that?’ But I am going to publish the lyrics here - because maybe Hardwick needs a town song. Yeah, he gets it.
HARDWICK TOWN (Lyrics & Music by Franklyn Cyran)
Some call it Green Wich, some call it Gren Itch
You should hear the local moan
But its a road that really hugs you
And will always take you home
Home is where she plays banjo
She’s my lady and my best friend
She can drive a tractor and shoot a gun
And will love me til the end
In Hardwicktown there are no lights that change from green to red
In Hardwicktown the farm still rules, make sure the horse is fed
In Hardwicktown we have a garden, and really like it when it rains
In Hardwicktown we love our parents and still point at aeroplanes
We put aside Sundays for Jesus and a food word for me and you
But make time for the farmer’s market, which runs form 11 to 2
Besides the fresh fruit and veggies, you’ll find them all abound
You’ll hear the guitars pickin’ that good ‘ol bluegrass sound
In Hardwicktown there are no lights that change from green to red
In Hardwicktown the farm still rules, make sure the horse is fed
In Hardwicktown we have a garden, and really like it when it rains
In Hardwicktown we love our parents and still point at aeroplanes
You might say we’re New England’s finest example of small town life
We try too keep it simple, free of stress and free of strife
So come and visit and relax, and stay a little while
For every inch that you may want, we’ll give you a country mile
In Hardwicktown there are no lights that change from green to red
In Hardwicktown the farm still rules, make sure the horse is fed
In Hardwicktown we have a garden, and really like it when it rains
In Hardwicktown we love our parents and still point at aeroplanes
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