Our warm and welcoming General Store is never warmer and more welcoming than during the holidays, when this venerable institution invites visitors on a nostalgic journey. Along with the rocking chairs, wooden carolers greet us on the porch, Snoopy waves to us from the roof, and Santa Claus joins Brutus in meeting us at the door. Inside, every nook and cranny of this country store is adorned with holiday decorations we’ll recall from our childhoods, vintage Santas, wreaths, snowmen, gingerbread men, reindeer, nutcrackers. Among the children’s books, there is even “Dick and Jane – a Christmas Story”! Also for sale are Christmas kitchen items, vintage and antique tree ornaments and miniature trees, toys and gifts and jewelry, as well as the regular assortment of delicious baked goods, bake-and-take dinners, and a variety of merchandise. Perfect for the stocking – gift certificates. Children will especially appreciate these; there’s nothing as thrilling to the little ones as permission to spend time perusing and selecting something from all those fascinating items – they already know precisely where to find them!

Treat yourself and your family to this town treasure this season!

On December 1, the Historical Society will hold its annual Open House at the Burnham Hibbard Museum from 1 to 4PM, with refreshments, musical entertainment compliments of Mark and Beverly Davis, and Santa Claus, who is ready to receive children’s wish lists and the evidence of their good behavior.

Following the Open House, children and their families are invited to the Community Center at 3:45 to make ornaments, and then at 4:30, Santa will join us and light the Christmas Tree at Town Hall as we gather in the Pavilion to sing carols.

On December 8, from 9AM to 2PM, Holt Hall will host the annual Holiday Bazaar, with local artists sharing their artistry, crafts and conversation.

And on December 15, families are invited to join members of the Believers Mennonite Church to carol to some of our elderly neighbors at their homes here in Hampton, starting at Town Hall at 5PM.

Music in the rural New England colonies was mostly relegated to the psalms of the Church, with the congregation repeating what the minister read, chanting “in any tune or key that might come to mind”. The result, as recorded in Susan Jewett Grigg’s Folklore and Firesides was described by one New England rhymester:

“Could poor King David but for once
To Salem church repair,
and hear his Psalms thus warbled out Good Lord,
how he would swear.”

Dancing, however, as recorded by Griggs and in Janice Trecker’s account of colonial life in Discovering Hampton, was a popular pastime accompanied, in all probability, by a fiddler.

Eventually music, the sacred and the secular alike, would play an important role in the communal life of the town. The Dennison-Smith organ, on which a concert still entertains residents once a year, would be installed in the balcony of the Congregational Church, and types of string instruments would expand to accompany country dancing, which involved formations of lines or circles. Alison Davis’s Hampton Remembers chronicles the importance of music and dance at the turn of the century, which, along with community dinners, was the most popular form of entertainment. A number of venues hosted these events.

When anyone went as representative of the town to the legislature, whoever was chosen always gave an oyster supper – and a dance afterwards…They used to hold the dance upstairs over the Center Schools. They cooked the oysters downstairs and you had the tables and that down there and then you went upstairs and had the dance.
Bertha Burnham

I used to go to dances down at the Curtis Tavern. Who was that fiddler they had there – he’d fiddle and all the time his foot was a goin’ up’n down…We danced the old-fashioned dances, the square dances, two-step and waltzes – none of that hooperah they have today!
Gertrude Pearl

For quite a number of years I used to go to dances every Sat’dy night up to the Grange Hall. They always used to serve cake and coffee. Mother’d bake me a cake and I’d take the cake up and that’s how I got into the dance – by taking the cake for them to have with their coffee. I got my admission for the cake.
Robert Fitts

At the Grange dances in the early days the string dances like the Money Musk and the French Four were much more popular than the square-dances that we did later.
Ethel Jaworski

The barber shop quartet, which lasted through several years and members, was born at the Little River Grange.

Who was the first one? It would have been Don Hoffman, myself, (Donald) Oliver, Rad (Ostby). I think they almost gave us the choice do you want to work in the kitchen or do you fellas want to try and have a quartet? That was enough…We called ourselves the Party-Liners. The grange had a statewide contest for singing groups so the grange wanted to know if we would represent Little River Grange. You had a contest at the local level and Pomona level and so forth into Hartford. We won hands down at Little River – we didn’t have any competition! At the Pomona level there was mixed quartets – we won hands down there too, and from there we went to Hartford and won there. But they wouldn’t pay our way to national so we never went.
George Fuller

When the Little River Grange was renovated in 2008 to become our Community Center, it retained its rural feel, its welcoming atmosphere, and its fantastic acoustics. Programs have featured a variety of musical performances, from the exhilaration of the Coast Guard Band to the gentle flute of Native American Grammy winner, Joseph Firecrow. The Little River Music Series also originated at the Community Center, offering entertainment from throughout New England, and its stage hosted local talent when we danced to Big Jump and Gary and the Pineapples. Other music venues include the lawn of Fletcher Memorial Library which sponsors summer concerts and the Burnham-Hibbard House every Christmastime where we listen to the sublime instrumental music of Mark and Beverly Davis.

While the stage of the consolidated school was used for student performances, the Little River Grange hosted the concerts for the students in our one-room school houses. A 1940 program featured thirty-six students performing duets and solos on piano, violin, flute, clarinet, guitar, trumpet, and cornet, as well as an eight member ensemble for the strings and an orchestra to include all of the instruments. Music was important in those schools. From a 1948 diary entry in Hampton Remembers:

Tonight we went to the Hampton school music program in the Grange Hall which was all decorated with lilacs and smelled sweet. All the little boys had shiny faces and wore white shirts and black bow-ties and the little girls wore long dresses…The children did amazingly well! There were piano and violin solos, trumpet and clarinet duets, a piano trio (three little girls), and the full orchestra. In a clarinet piece a boy went beep, beep, very high, which brought down the house. One girl made lots of mistakes on her violin and another had to restart her piano piece. But the orchestra was good!…The proud parents clapped and clapped at the end and one of the boys dropped the old roll-up curtain too soon and conked the girl announcer on the head.

People, as well as places, have influenced our love of music. Our neighbor David Foster — most of us still remember the Shaboo Inn, and all of the famous musicians we heard there. “Lefty” Foster has inspired us not only with his music, but with his charitable contributions. Lois Woodward, who taught music to her students in a one-room school house and to her seven sons – some of us will remember them at Christmas concerts, lined up like a step ladder, signing “We Three Kings of Orient Are”. And Catherine Wade. Catherine’s legacy as a music teacher started in the one-room school houses here and in her own home where she offered instrumental music lessons to four generations of children. The front page of our December 2014 Gazette celebrated her life and her legacy, with fourteen of her former students, most of whom continued with careers in music, paying tribute to her.

Christmas in our town has been celebrated with music in several ways. The Hampton Community Players performed parts of Handel’s Messiah in the Congregational Church one year, and last year, colonial Christmas songs were presented in Holt Hall after Sunday Services. Our Lady of Lourdes Church hosted a beautiful carol sing a few years ago, with people from Hampton and neighboring towns filling the Church with music, and the annual Christmas Eve Mass which once took place in the Howard Valley Church interspersed Gospel readings with religious carols. Caroling has been a tradition for at least a century.

When I was a teenager, the Young People’s Group set aside a week or ten days before Christmas to go caroling. We went out every evening until we had visited every home in the town. Does anybody remember being greeted at one house by an elderly gentleman clad only in long johns, brandishing a shot gun? Some fast talking by one member of our group convinced him that our intentions were harmless. He did allow us to sing, and he seemed to enjoy the carols as much as anyone ever did.
Pearl Scarpino, the Hampton Gazette, 1978

A couple of decades ago, caroling to residents, our elderly neighbors, resumed, first with school buses transporting families from house to house, and then with the members of the Believers Mennonite Church who invited neighbors to join them after singing carols at the annual tree lighting at Town Hall.

Make time for music this Christmas. Join the carolers at the tree lighting and later at the homes of our elderly residents, treat your family to a performance of the Messiah, or the Nutcracker Suite, play Christmas carols while decorating the tree, dance to Feliz Navidad and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, sing Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town with your children and grandchildren, and have yourselves a merry little Christmas!

My grandmother was organist at church, and also taught organ. I’ve heard say she taught at Boston Conservatory now and then – I guess maybe she did before she was married. And of course my grandfather toured through the south playing banjo and singin’. It was minstrel and the like he put on all over the place and he had a singing school up here in Hampton, too. He was in charge of the choir in the church and I’ve heard tell church couldn’t start because there’d be gram and grampa and nine kids and they were just about the choir and the organist and everything else! They’d come up Hammond Hill with the surreys about two minutes before time to go… They played minstrel shows. Apparently my grandfather and two girls and two boys, two four five of ‘em, They would go on occasion and be called into a show and do it. Some of the girls played mandolins and Millie, she played violin. Of course she played in — guess you’d call it vaudeville today but it was in the theater. She never made her living as a concert violinist but that was her work. Uncle Jim was a singer and when he grew up he sang in the opera – that was his profession. …We used to have hymn sings down here every Sunday night. In those days there was the Christian Endeavor which was basically sixty percent gospel singing. And then I can remember about once a month the crowd would come in and we’d just sing. And all you’d do – the old Victory songbook. I guess those are long out of print – we’ve still got ‘em…We used to sing here every night, just the family. Every night. We went in the front room there after supper and we sang. You couldn’t go to bed till you’d had some singing. My mother played the piano and she sang soprano and my father bass and then my brother and I swapped tenor and alto after we learned.

George Fuller from “Hampton Remembers”

They decorate (some would say clutter) my tiny home. ‘They’ are four wood works clocks, all nearly 200 years old. Each has its own personality, with which I identify them as they strike. There’s Seth and The Groaner, The Diva and The Pillar and Splat.

Each hour, I listen intently as they strike to make sure they are all still working. Time kept with a wood works clock is hardly precision; if they all strike the same number, and within a five-minute time frame, I consider myself to have done most adequately in regulating the pendulum bobs.

As a child, I had the privilege of exploring my family’s two-floor barn. Converted decades ago from livestock housing to a garage bay, a wood shop for my father, copious upstairs storage bays, and the ‘clock shop’, I spent countless happy hours exploring as much as I could.

My final and longest-lingered destination was the clock shop. My father was a consummate handyman, able and willing to fix anything with anything, excepting toasters and refrigerators. My father had a special fascination for clocks, his ‘shop’ at one time housing many, his favorites displayed on the various mantels in our home.

No, I don’t recall that he ever repaired any of the clocks, but more admired and collected them. One old, wood works clock kept its disassembled state long after my father passed away. It was a tall OG-case shelf clock. I have learned so very much since those early days. That clock’s maker, as the clock, have long since passed into obscurity. No, neither dad nor I were ever able to get it running.

In the barn, the endless motes would float in the light from a western window, filling the air with gold dust. The barn, through its long years, had housed leather and wood, ceramics and fabrics, metals and books, oils and chemicals, appliances and family heirlooms. Time had melded these scents, along with the dust and dirt, into a distinctive odor, as sweet to me as the recollections of my time spent there.

When eight o’clock each morning rolls around, it’s time for me to wind the wood works clocks. As I open the door to each, their own melded scent of dust, and dirt, metal and wood, and time, escapes quickly into the room. I am taken back to my home, the barn, my family each time.

I love the smell of old clocks.

June Pawlikowski Miller

Those of us who are mothers, grandmothers, matriarchs of active families will know that reading, like everything else, requires scheduling. Time must be reserved for Dr. Seuss and E. B. White; but Kingsolver’s and Ehrlich’s latest novels, which were difficult to set aside, took me months to finish. However prioritized, recreational reading is realistically seasonal, with spring consumed with gardening and other cleaning tasks, and fall with one holiday after another. Summer and winter afford a little more time.

This summer I treated myself to Janet Robertson’s memoir, It Looked This Way to Me. This is the third of Janet’s books that I’ve read. I fell into the first, the coming-of-age novel Journey Home, “a bittersweet saga of the immigrant experience”. My copy remains on one of our shelves, yellowed with age. The second, All Our Yesterdays, “A Century of Family Life in an American Small Town”, which I read cover to cover, is now book-marked for the several references I’ve used throughout the series “Our Rural Heritage”.

When a signed copy of It Looked This Way to Me arrived in the mail, what I first felt was inspired. You see, Mrs. Robertson, at least as much, and perhaps more, than anyone else, encouraged me to write. And as I finally begin to pen my novel at the ripe old age of 66, holding a book that the 90-year-old Mrs. Robertson had just published, bestowed me with the belief that she conveyed to me when I was only fifteen.

I can think of many reasons to recommend her memoir to others – but here are three.

If you knew the Robertsons

Some of us grew up at the Robertsons, literally; marks measured our growth from one year to the next on the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. Many took Latin lessons from Mrs. Robertson, and learned a whole lot more. Played basketball in their driveway, relied on their library shelves to supply college required readings. Some of us were fortunate to have traveled with them to Nine Gables, their friends’ magnificent place on Cape Cod, and to their own humble cabin in the New Hampshire woods, and we all vicariously experienced the family’s trip around the world when their son Jonathan presented a narrated slide show at Parish Hill High School upon their return. These, and many other times you will remember, along with many of the neighbors fondly recalled.

If you love Hampton.

Moving here in 1967, the family fell in love with the house that they would eventually write of, co-authoring All Our Yesterdays, in spite of the fact that the “wonderful house on Hampton Hill ate money for its breakfast, lunch and dinner”, a sentiment with which all owners of old houses in Hampton will empathize.

They also “learned to love Hampton and all the people in that small town”. Residents will recognize the way the town welcomed them, especially since, Janet writes, they were neither WASPS, Yankees, Congregationalists, or Republicans. She shares the story of hearing a “Hooooeee” in their home and finding in the living room “a lady in an attractive print dress with grey hair done neatly in a style out of the 1930’s”. Dorothy Holt, recording the newcomers’ birthdays for the town’s calendar and encouraging participation in the Congregational Church, the Republican Party, and the Little River Grange.

Of this last suggestion, Janet writes, “I found myself at the first meeting, after I passed my initiation, sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the circle against the walls extending all around the Grand Hall, counting off to determine attendance, and wondering what on earth I, a Jewish girl from New York City for goodness sake, was doing there, actually enjoying myself in that tiny wooden Little River Grange Hall.” The remarkably warm embrace she encountered here was not lost on her. Hampton, she writes, “is truly the home of my heart”.

If you’re a mother.

I suppose there are some mothers who consider themselves perfect, or nearly so. I’m not one of them, nor have I met any of them yet. Lord knows we try, though, and perhaps this is why we’re so hard on ourselves when we feel we fall short while performing the world’s most difficult of responsibilities. Mrs. Robertson is no exception. To read her words of insecurity, perceived incompetence and failure, from the moment we first hold our newborns, is validating. She wasn’t my mother, but there were some times that she stepped in, and I remember the way she mothered me until my own returned home. She was comforting, as are her words – they’ll make you feel less alone.

In this memoir you’ll find, along with adventures around the world, the warmth of our small town; remembrances of the Robertsons, and no matter how well you knew them, like all families, things you didn’t know, some of which could cause your heart to break – mine did; and women’s themes – their roles in that era, the road to self-actualization with all of its societal obstacles, elements of the “me too” movement, ourselves as daughters, mothers, grandmothers, and as friends to one another.

Pick up a copy of It Looked That Way to Me at Fletcher Memorial Library. Your winter will be warmer for it.

Dayna McDermott

The Gazette takes this annual opportunity to publicly thank our donors, listed here, whose support makes the publication of our town newspaper possible. We have enclosed a self-addressed envelope for future donations; thank you in advance. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

We would also like to recognize those who advertise with us. It is a privilege to promote your goods and services on our pages, and we encourage our readers to patronize your businesses as a way of acknowledging your commitment to our community.

Lastly, thanks to the individuals and organizations who contributed news this year – your articles, columns, notices, photographs, poems, opinions, accomplishments and recipes are what make the Gazette a community newspaper. Thank you!

Platinum Donors $200 +
Linda & Roger Burten
Kaye Johnson
Peter Witkowski

Gold Donors $100 – $199
Juan & Dayna Arriola
Morris Burr Jr & III
Leon & Tisha Chaine
Deborah Fuller
Jeffery Gordon
Andrea Kaye & Bruce Spaman
Eleanor & Peter Linkkila
Diane Meade
Kathie Moffit
Marjorie Romano
John Russell
Guila Wagner
Leslie White

Silver Donors $50 – $99
William Archer
Jean & Edward Casoni
Paul Cichon
Renee Cuprak
Bethany Desjardin
Dale & David Dimontigny
Brenda & Stephen Dinsmore
Paul & Deborah Fitzgerald
Linda & John Gorman
Marycarol & Francis Horstmann
Debra & Robert Inman
Andrea Quintana

Friends of the Gazette Less Than $50
Anita & Michael Barnard
Richard Bass & Melinda Fields
Cynthia Bezanson
Lula Blocton & Shirley Bernstein
Susan Cook
Paul & Carol Crawford
Regina DeCesare
Deane & John Donahue
Christine Featherstone
Angela Fichter
Calvin & Rebecca Fisher
Lucretica Flammang & Scott Deshong
Duane Gamble
Ruth & David Halbach
Ann Hamlin
Nicolette Letourneau
George & Muriel Miller
Michelle & Martin Mlyniec
Keith & Tina Morin
Penny Newbury
Barbara Petroske & Robert Yungk
Mark & Jessica Samios
Linda Schoenfeld
Karen Sonnabend
Rebecca Swagger-LeBonte
Regis & Kevin Synnott
Doyle & Cynthia Tobin
Jerrold & Janice Trecker
Thomas & Valerie Tucker
Teresa & Dale Warner
Linda Wenner

The Gazette begins its publishing year in February by paying tribute to a resident who personifies the spirit of neighborliness, volunteerism, and good citizenship. We’ve also recognized groups and organizations, such as the Boy Scouts and the Fire Department, and have honored citizens for life-time achievements, as so many recipients seem to have a history of generous contributions of their time and talent toward the betterment of our town.

Our Citizen of the Year is selected from the candidates recommended by our readers, so please send your nominations by January 3, 2025 to: hamptongazette@yahoo.com, or Hampton Gazette, P. O. Box 101, Hampton, CT. 06247, or by contacting any member of the editorial board.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Pauline M. Collette passed away on October 2, 2024 in the 94^th year of her life. Born July 2, 1930, Pauline was born and raised in Hartford and lived most of her life in Andover where she raised her family and worked in the elementary school kitchen before starting a long career in banking. She enjoyed camping with her family and trips to Moose Head Lake in Maine. Her motto: “Just do it, don’t put things off, make time for it.” After retiring, she took lessons in painting with water colors and acrylics. She also enjoyed sewing, knitting, crocheting and cooking. Along with her daughter Dianne Collette, her partner, Paul Scheu, her grandson David Bisson and granddaughter Christian Mayer, she leaves several family members in Hampton, her daughter Louise Bisson, and her grandsons Sean Mayer and Adam Bisson. Our condolences to all.

Josephine Dauphin, known as “Mama” or “Jippy” by those closest to her, passed away on October 23, 2024 at the age of 104. Holding the distinction as our town’s oldest resident for several years, she was born on May 27, 1920 in Providence and attended Windmill school where she studied sewing, a skill that evolved into a job at the American Thread Company, and one she used to show her love, creating blankets, pillows, scarfs, slippers, and anything else that would create comfort.  She also expressed her love through cooking, especially during holidays. Josephine married Fernand Dauphin, who predeceased her, in 1947 and they moved to Sunny Crest Farm in Hampton in 1959. Growing up, Josie lived to explore the beaches in Rhode Island, loved vacationing at Long Lake, Maine with her family, and enjoyed the company of her daughters, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends in a cottage in Bath, Maine. Our condolences to her family, her daughters Shirley Scarpino and Carol Kilburn, her grandchildren Marina and Jeff Scarpino and Jenny and James Kilburn, four great grandchildren, and two sisters. Donations in her honor can be made to the Hampton Fire Department.