Many towns have what is known as “the village idiot”. Hampton is not one of them. We have no idiots here, in the village or elsewhere. We have, however, “colorful” people who we lovingly refer to as “characters”, those unique individuals who fearlessly insist on simply being themselves. We have plenty of them. Our history is rich in characters, and they are among the most beloved and remembered of our neighbors.
The character most familiar to many of us is Paulie Tumel who lived all his life in the center of town but was visible everywhere.
When “Dr. Dirt”, as he was fondly called, rode his trusty bulldozer into his last sunset, seventeen residents contributed to the Gazette’s front page tribute. They shared: Paulie’s words of wisdom, “Don’t go into a hole that you can’t back out of!”; ‘Paulisms’, such as “I got two permits – one for me to mind my own business and another one for you to mind yours!”, and “If I ever shoot a deer with your name on it, I’ll bring it right up to your house!”; and stories, like the time an FBI Agent solicited Paulie’s help to investigate a suspicion of Communist activity in the area. Handing him a pitchfork, Paulie said, “you’ll need this,” explaining when the agent asked why, “to clean my barn”.
“I’m not doing your work,” the Agent objected, to which Paulie replied, “then don’t ask me to do yours.”
Apples don’t fall too far from trees in Hampton, so it should come as no surprise that Paulie’s mother was a character, too. Paulie said she had a “swear jar”, claiming, “it’s getting so I can’t afford to go home!” It proved less than adequate; as P. J. Navin pointed out, “Paulie always had the last word, but his first words were always “J**** C*****!” Her mode of transportation to Willimantic, almost daily, was much more effective. She simply stood in the middle of the road so everyone was forced to stop. Many of us remember the formidable bearing and no-nonsense expression which no one refused. She used the same method to return home.
More recently there was Don Ladd, who completed restoration projects on two famous Main Street Homes, Governor Cleveland’s and Reverend Moseley’s. But he not only beautified the village, he spiced things up a bit every once in a while, like the time he drove his vehicle through his competitors’ yard sales, or the cars he impaled with a spiked wrecking ball when he caught teenagers parking in his driveway. Good times.
Many of us remember Barney Pawlikowski who lived in the village all his life. He was such a celebrity that we declared a holiday, “Barney Day”, to honor him when he retired. From the humble beginnings of making cabbage crates, Barney eventually learned plumbing, heating, carpentry, mechanic, and electrical work, passing all examinations in 1970 when the State required licenses. The quintessential “Jack-of-all-Trades”, the town counted on him for everything. “You could always tell what work he did on a given day”, his daughter, June Miller, relayed.” If he came home covered with cobwebs, he was in someone’s cellar.” He always considered what his customers could afford, and responded immediately to their needs. Frozen pipes in the middle of the night? Furnace breaks during a blizzard? No problem. As June confirmed, “He thrived on emergencies.”
Eunice Fuller was a memorable Main Street character who served as our librarian for 40 years. In “One Proud Yankee Who Kept Her Sox On”, the Willimantic Chronicle described our “crusty, yet loving” librarian and “dispenser of literary taste” as a “tree trunk of a Yankee woman whose feet were planted firmly in the Hampton soil.” They were also firmly planted in the Fletcher Memorial Library, where she knew where every book was without use of the card catalogue, disapproved of certain selections with “an askance look or a click of her tongue”, and if she disliked someone on a magazine cover, she would “give them a mustache with her date stamp.” An avid Red Sox fan, she listened to every one of their games on the radio, refusing to watch them play on television or at Fenway Park despite several invitations, and recorded their scores in a journal only if they won.
Some of us still remember Harold Stone. In Alison Davis’s Hampton Remembers, Harold recalled swimming in Bigelow Pond daily, including in winter, when he cut through the ice to bathe there because it “wasn’t as bad as taking sponge baths with cold water in a cold room.” His was one of the first motorcycles in town, which he purchased “in gold.” He brought his bride, Hazel, all the way from New Jersey in its side car, and during the Depression, the couple ran a Bed and Breakfast, the Yankee Tourist Home, after tired travelers on two consecutive evenings stopped and asked to spend the night. What Harold remembered of Hampton was this: “You stopped as you were going along the road, stopped at your neighbor’s, chinned with him a few minutes. Everybody knew one another. You never sent any bills. You never had any contracts. Everything was word o’ mouth and it was worth something’!”
Harold also recorded stories of other characters, of a classmate who called out, “I was put together wrong. Here it says you smell with your nose and run with your feet, but my nose runs and my feet smell.” Or the woman who tied herself to the railroad tracks for “publicity”, knowing the train would notice her “cause she wore her red outin’ flannel petticoat”. Or the “awful swearer” who worked at the Chelsea Inn, explaining “There’s no harm in swearing when you’re so god-damned mad you can’t help it!”
One of the characters Harold described was Main Street resident Ella Sharpe:
One April first Ray Baker and Herb Copeland, they had soldered a quarter to a spike and then drove it in the sidewalk that used to be right out in front of the house. They were working upon the roof and keeping track of the people that was coming along, and by and by Ella came along. And she spotted that quarter. Of course she stooped down to pick it up and she couldn’t get it. But she worked on it, with her shoe, until she got it loose. And then they hollered “April fool!” She says, “I got the quarter – I don’t know who the fool was!”
“She was a woman who liked to have her way,” Gertrude Pearl relayed. “She had a whole bunch of keys tied to her belt. She was a great one for locking up things.”
She also made, and donated the proceeds for, a thousand walnut-faced granny pen-wipers. “One thousand dollars for the church,” Helen Matthews recalled, “That’s a lot of little walnut dolls!”
Andrew Rindge didn’t live in the village, but his presence was certainly felt there. In A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm, Edwin Way Teale wrote of Rindge’s poems, “usually dealing with local happenings and the foibles and misdeeds of his neighbors” which he posted on the bulletin board in front of the store. Margaret Marcus, in Hampton Remembers, was more elaborative:
One time he wrote about a certain lady who was very nice to all the gentlemen. Then she decided she’d settle for just one, and all the others weren’t welcome so all those others caught her lover and tarred and feathered him. Well when this poem came out, there were the names of all the men who patronized this lady, you see, and they didn’t want to be there at all – it was all very hush-hush, of course – and to have it come out and tell who they were – ‘cause most of them were married men – a scandal in Hampton!
Rindge lived at Trailwood, where his chickens roosted in his bed, and his pig, who ate potatoes with him from the same pot, lived in the hallway. His method of heating the home was, shall we say, minimalist as well. When the weather cooled, he simply put a large log through the window and sawed off pieces for the fire.
The center of town wasn’t the only “hot spot” for characters. Those who met Vic Postemski could never forget him. A hard-working farmer from the North end of Town, he taught his kids and any others how to swim by chucking them in the pond. A salty character, usually chomping on a cigar, he also had a softer side. To cheer a friend one weekend, he drove into the yard with an enormous armful of daffodils just picked. Neighbor Roma Dupuis happened to be there, and couldn’t get over their beauty. “They look just like the ones in my yard,” said Roma. “Well,” laughed Vic, “that’s ‘cause they are!”
There was “The Farmer Poet of Hampton”, “Thunderstorm Bill”, so named for the force of his spit whenever he spoke, “The White Tornado”, a whirlwind of a welcome wagon, Charlie Baker, who bathed in the rivers because soap and water were “pieson, “Uncle Gene” Darrow, the tin peddler, who also dispensed advice on revenge, “You don’t want to do nawthing right aways. Even if it takes ten years, get even,” and “Aunt Josie”, who was so superstitious that when it “wasn’t the right time of the moon”, Helen Mathews relayed in Hampton Remembers, “she put on an old coat that had a hole in the pocket and put the seeds in the pocket and went out and jumped around on the ground. And that’s the way she planted her seeds at the wrong time of the moon!”
And, of course, there was Stanley Gula, who earned national recognition when Charles Kurault interviewed him for the CBS News show, “On the Road”. A Polish immigrant, he provided Dickinson’s with the witch hazel he found and cut in the woods, delivering it in his Model A. He built a house that he never inhabited, preferring to live with his antique vehicles in his garage. He took excellent care of his animals – pigeons, roosters, rabbits, horses and a cat, and the strawberries he cultivated, never letting anyone with large feet pick in his patch. He distributed “magic” eggs wrapped in handkerchiefs to children, which reportedly would hatch “little Stanley Gulas”. Maybe, but like all of these other individuals, Stanley was one of a kind.
Dayna McDermott