“Windham Village”, or “Canada Parish”, as Hampton was called, was initially divided into districts. The villages of Appaquag, Goshen, Rawson, Boston Hollow, Bigelow, Howard Valley, and Hampton Hill maintained their own one-room schoolhouses to serve students in grades one through eight. Though the town itself was incorporated in 1786, district education wouldn’t unify for another 150 years, when the seven separate schools were reduced to three: Boston Hollow’s Bell School for the primary grades, grades four, five and six in the village Center School, and the Clark’s Corner’s School in Goshen for seventh and eighth graders.

A school in the town’s center is the only location in continual use. The Elementary School, the brick building north of the village, has served students in pre-school through grade six for the last 30 years. Due to decreasing enrollment, its continued existence was called into question last fall when voters rejected a proposal to form a cooperative school with Scotland. Prior to its construction, the Consolidated School, south of the village, initially for first through eighth grade, then kindergarten through sixth, served the town’s students for forty years. The “Center School” was the third one-room schoolhouse in the village. Evidence of the first is found in an 1802 deed for the property at 237 Main Street, which stipulated the preservation of the section which contained the school. An 1832 map shows the one-room schoolhouse across the street, on the property north of the post office. And an 1869 map of the districts shows the “School” at its last location, behind Fletcher Memorial Library on Cedar Swamp, where Hampton students were educated for almost 100 years.

Center School also housed the Town Hall; Jane Marrotte relayed, “The Town Hall was upstairs and sometimes the teacher brought us up to learn about the roles of government.” And the library. Ethel Jaworski recalled, “When the library moved from upstairs over the Center School to the present site, the pupils carried armfuls down, making several trips to complete the job.”

The history of Center School is best remembered, or at least most colorfully, through the eyes of the students who attended, and we are fortunate in the wealth of information we have from them, in recorded interviews and in Alison Davis’ “Hampton Remembers”.

When I was in the fourth grade at the Center School I was the fourth grade, lock, stock and barrel. So I got promoted so there were three in the fifth grade, my bother Merriam, Barney Pawlikowski and me…We had one book and w’ed open it up, y’know. Barney’d run his eyes down one page and down the other, turn to Merriam and say “Shall I turn?” and Merriam would say, “No, I’m still there,” and pretty soon he’d finish and they’d say to me “Where are you?” and I’d point at the top of the first page. So finally Barney’d say “Listen, get your heads in here, I’ll read it to ya’.” Very soon I was demoted to the third grade.

Wendell Davis, from “Hampton Remembers”

We went to the Center School near the library. In good weather we walked, but if the weather was bad, Grandpa would take us in whatever motor vehicle he had at the time. We farm kids had special clothing in the winter—heavy underwear with a buttoned pocket in the back which we sometimes forgot to re-button. What a joke to see someone at the blackboard with their flap hanging down. This underwear also had long legs and we wore long heavy stockings, so the underwear legs had to be folded before putting on the stockings. No matter how hard we tried, we could never smooth away the lumps.

Marion Halbach

I went up the hill every day to the Center School. I can’t ever remember startin’ out without a dinner pail. There were maybe a dozen to twenty-five at the Center School depending on the season. When there was farm work to do there weren’t so many. There were two doors, one was the boys’ entry and one was the girls’ entry. You could go in either just ‘slong as you didn’t slam the door – or you got the ruler!

Russell Thompson from “Hampton Remembers”

When I went to the Center School we didn’t have very much in the way of supplies and least of all books. We had window boards to hold the windows open in the hot weather and if we didn’t have enough books to go around we had to take the window board and put it across the seat — it was narrow, about six or eight inches but fairly long and that would allow us to share a book so one book would do for two pupils. Well, if someone wanted to liven things up a little he’d raise up a little on his end and of course the person on the other end would fall into the aisle. Then, of course, there’d be no decorum at all and there’d be great hilarity and by then we’d hope the lesson would be over and we’d have to go on to some other subject….At school we had swings and a see-saw but no kind of a physical education program and we thought we were really making progress when the school board brought in a beam, a sort of a balance beam to walk along on. And bean bags — we could play with those indoors on a rainy day. Another game we liked at the Center School was called “Haley Over”, a type of a catch-ball game. “Red Light” was a favorite. The one who was “it” counted fast “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 — red light!” and then everyone who was moving toward him had to stop and if he saw anyone moving, that one had to go back to the starting line. He counted over and over until someone reached him and got to be “it”.

Ethel Jaworski from “Hampton Remembers”

I remember at recess playing hop scotch in the road. Lillian Vida was our teacher. For a while it was Dorothy Horowitz, but the boys gave her trouble. I remember Frank Postemski telling her his name was “Francisco”, and another boy named John said he was “Johann”.

Jane Marrotte

I went to Center School for grades four, five and six. There was no homework, but we were all responsible for chores, sweeping the entries, separate for girls and boys, erasing the blackboards and clapping the erasers. The boys were in charge of the wood stove. I think it did us all good.
Peggy Fox

The remainder of my elementary years was at Center School which had a hand pump outside for water and a wood furnace. The most outstanding event was a multi-town trip to Boston on a steam engine. Students from surrounding towns gathered at Hampton Station. It was a wonderful trip, visiting the U.S.S Constitution ship, the North Church, Breeds and Bunker Hill. That was my first trip on the Airline Trail on the steam train.

George Miller

Seventy years ago, the last six students graduated from Center School –Arthur Fitts, Jimmy Rodriguez, Herbert Kemp, Nancy and Sue Macmillan, and me. We had a ceremony at the Grange Hall. We were the last ones to use that venue for graduation. It took two men and an army to roll up the curtains on that stage.

John Russell

The era of the one room schoolhouse in our town ended in 1950 when the Consolidated School was constructed and merged students in the Bell, Center, and Clarks’ Corners schools. Other significant changes included an auditorium, cafeteria, playground, and plumbing. Initially there were not enough students to warrant separate classrooms for individual grades, and students in grades one and two, three through five, and six through eight continued to be combined, yet shortly after the school’s construction, the population grew rapidly and exponentially, with classes of twenty to thirty students. Programs expanded as well. Special education, remedial reading, music and art class, a library, and kindergarten necessitated extra space, and in 1991, the new building was completed. The population continued to increase to nearly 200 students, with most grades separated into two classrooms; however in the last several years, the population has continued to decrease drastically, with grades, once again, combined as they were in the one room schoolhouses.

The Center School building was a multipurpose building. It was the school and meeting hall. It served as the town’s book deposit of the town’s five schools. The school’s layout was a girls’ entrance on the right side and the boys’ entrance on the left. A large stone step was in front of each entrance. Upon entering either door was a cloak room. These rooms had shelves for lunch boxes, paper bags, and many hooks for clothing. When entering the Girls’ cloak room on the left, there was a double door to go upstairs to a large Town Meeting Hall. All town business was conducted there. Also court was held there, and the big hall was also a place for voting.

Just beyond the double door was a single door for book storage. The books were for the five schools in town. The book storage room was a narrow space with shelves that went back under the stairs that went to the meeting hall. Before school started each teacher from each school would come to the book storage and get the number of books they needed for each grade. At the end of the school year they returned the books. Across the room from the book storage on the outer wall was a small sink with a shelf. That shelf had a water container with a spigot and on the wall was a flat paper cup holder. From the sink was a small lead drain pipe that went through the floor and out over the top of the stone foundation and the water ran over the stones. That was the only plumbing in the building.

The boys’ and girls’ cloak rooms were the same size, each having one window and one white hanging light globe. In the boys’ room on the right before the door to enter the school room was an open doorway to the wood shed. The back wall met the back wall of the book room. The wood shed held a large amount of wood for the furnace in the school room. We entered the school room from both doors from the cloak rooms. There was a row of windows on each side of the school room. The back of the school room had no windows. Between the two entrance doors in the school room were blackboards, above them were large printed alphabets and written alphabets. There were four round posts holding up the ceiling in the school room. The most notable thing in the school room was a big wood burning furnace. It was located toward the back on the left side of the room.

The furnace was a large pot belly stove on four feet. It was surrounded by a metal jacket. The jacket had legs to keep it off the floor to let the cold air go up around the stove and become heat to warm the room. The teacher would come early in the morning and start the fire in the furnace. During the day she had the boys get wood from the wood shed to keep the fire going. On the top of the furnace was a large scalloped pan for water to get humidity in the air. This pan served an important function. It was used to heat hot drinks and soups. In wintry weather, it was important to make sure the pan was full of water before going home. The reason for having a full pan of hot water in the morning was to get the hot water to prime the large upright hand pump outside of the school building. During the deep snow and wintry weather, this was a big chore. A bigger boy put on his coat and hat and most important he needed heavy duty gloves. Without heavy duty gloves and you got wet hands and grabbed the large steel handle of the pump your hand would freeze to the handle. Then the pump was primed and you were getting extra water. You had to put water in the drinking container and extra water for the pan on top of the furnace. Water evaporates rapidly in the pan over the furnace when you keep a hot fire.

Everyone had to go outside for recess and lunch time for fresh air. We stayed inside when it rained. In the winter we were outside when it snowed with exception during strong winds and freezing temperatures. Children with colds or feeling sick stayed inside with the teacher’s discretion. When coming in from the snow there were many wet coats, hats, gloves or mittens. They were dried by putting them on the metal jacket around the furnace or on the chairs next to the jacket. Sometimes when things were close to the furnace they would start to scorch and were removed. Someone nearby could smell when it was happening.

We had outhouses in the back of the schoolhouse. Girls on the right side and the boys on the left side. They were separated by some distance. Winter time getting there presented several problems. In the winter, getting through deep snow and snow drifts. If the door was blown open and left open the wind would blow the snow in seat high and had to be shoveled out. Most of the time the broom would sweep the snow off the two-holer seat and floor so the door could be closed when the small children had to use the outhouses during deep snow. Some older students had to help them dress for the trip and dress themselves. They would shuffle their feet through the snow to make a path for the small student. If needed the outhouse was swept clear of snow. The smaller student needed help to dress down to use the facility. In the winter weather no one stayed in the outhouse very long.

In the 1930’s there weren’t buses to carry grade school students. Some students walked three or four miles to school. State Road 36 was plowed regularly. Town roads weren’t always plowed. In fact, most town roads were dirt roads. We had an older student who lived on South Bigelow Road. When his younger brother started first grade we had lots of deep snow. To get his little brother to school he carried him on the shoulders through a couple of cow pastures over stone walls with barbed wire up to Route 97 then on to Center School as that time there was only one school bus in town and that was to transport high school students to Willimantic.

George Howell

While Hampton Elementary School starts a new year with many new faces, students and staff are missing many familiar faces with the recent resignations of Jim Shifrin, the school’s special education instructor, Library/Media Consultant Anthony Gervais,and Team A teacher Katherine Schiano, and the retirements of school principal Sam Roberson and classroom teacher, Linda Sanchini.

We welcome new staff members, teachers Heather Hawkinds, Jill Paterson, and principal Patrice Merendina, as well as Valerie Bruneau, who’s assuming the duties of the superintendent during Samantha Sarli’s leave; we wish Mr. Shifrin, Mr. Gervais and Ms. Schiano well in their future careers; and we pay special tribute to those who are retiring after nearly 80 years of collective dedication to our school.

Ms. Roberson, affectionately known to most everyone as “Miss Sam”, served as our elementary school’s counselor for decades, and for the last seven years, as the school’s principal. Although she assumed all of the myriad administrative responsibilities, Sam never forgot her prior role in serving the school community, never lost her ability to view things with an eye, mind, heart and soul of a counselor.

Throughout her tenure, an empathic approach guided Sam’s understanding, and ours — children and parents alike — analyzing what motivates behaviors, encouraging everyone to see one another’s perspectives, validating feelings and emotions, above all, always listening.

We’re certain we’re not the only family who has benefitted from this, but we can speak from our own experience, and here it is: There are some people who we wouldn’t have survived this last, long, traumatic year without – friends, neighbors, relatives, and members of our town and school communities – Sam is one of them. There was never an instance that I didn’t pick up the telephone to apprise her of things that affected our grandson, and his family, as they unfolded. And there was never an instance when she didn’t respond. If the situation warranted immediate attention, she immediately enacted a plan that involved as many staff as necessary, or the whole school. She might not have been able to discuss the situation thoroughly at the time — as principal of a small school where delegating responsibilities is not an option — but she always let me know immediately when we could talk.

And she always took the time to listen. I never felt rushed. Sam always made me feel as though she had all the time in the world – though I knew, as an educator, how far from the truth that was. She always ascertained that I was comfortable with where we left off. Validating, consoling, comforting, with a vast wealth of knowledge — from the aftermath of trauma to the agency we were coping with — offering empathy and pragmatism alike.

School was a safe place in a very precarious world last year. We knew no harm would come to our grandson there. We knew he would encounter warmth and understanding , respect and patience. And that’s attributed to the entire staff at large, for which Sam was the leader, and to Sam in particular. We feel forever blessed, and grateful. Miss Sam – you will be remembered and missed.

Dayna McDermott

Linda Sanchini possessed all the traits that make a phenomenal teacher – creativity, encouragement, imagination, enthusiasm, positivity, compassion and passion.

Always welcoming a challenge, Linda taught multi-aged groups years ago when the school first instituted the model in place today. She witnessed the inclusion of computers for instructional use, from the initiation of technology in the classroom to the virtual learning of the Covid years. Flexible to a fault, many of us are familiar with her smile and her shrug which together translated to the teacher’s expression, “We do what we have to do. For the kids”.

Linda was instrumental in the school’s extracurricular activities, volunteering for summer school, afterschool clubs and programs, establishing a school garden, planning field trips, involving children in their community, from visiting town institutions to researching its history, inviting guest speakers to enhance classroom lessons, and inviting the community at large to witness the lessons learned through classroom projects. Linda also kept the community apprised of student accomplishments through submitting their work for publication to the Hampton Gazette, where their essays and poems and art were illustrative of their knowledge and their creativity in presenting it.

Linda was an inspiration not only to her students, but to other educators as well. I used to take professional time to observe her instruction in math, where her innovative lessons extended to stations that explored every realm of arithmetic instead of the compartmentalized versions our curricula used to prescribe. Math came alive in meaningful ways in Linda’s classroom. She employed a holistic approach to teaching, building on a foundation that branched into different directions, connecting the objective to all areas of the curriculum – reading, writing, math, science, social studies, art — one subject to another, and to the children’s experiences, in order to maximize learning. Perhaps only teachers can appreciate the planning involved in this type of instruction, yet Linda never neglected the teachable moment – understood it, validated it, and was always excited to relay it. She loved to share the children’s projects, always marveling at their intelligence, their curiosity, their accomplishments. Her excitement for learning for the sake of learning was contagious. Linda loved to teach, and that was evident whenever you spoke with her.

Although Linda will be missed, we’re certain that learning for its own sake will continue in her retirement, and that creativity will follow right along.

Dayna McDermott

Hello Residents of Hampton,

It is with a great amount of honor that I introduce myself as principal of Hampton Elementary School. Although this is a new position for me professionally, this is a town that does not feel new at all.

I attended the Consolidated School and was a part of the transition to the “New School” in the early 1990s. I graduated from HES in 1993-94. The class portrait is proudly displayed in my office space. My grandfather was a teacher in Hampton in the 1960s and made a lasting impression on some of our community members. I have been told that “Mr. P. was the best,” by a few Hampton residents already. My mother and two of her sisters are educators and I knew that teaching was my calling from an early age.

I was fortunate enough to serve the districts of Hartford, Ashford, Canterbury, and Norwich before finding my place back in Hampton. I have taught grades 3-6 in all content areas with some years of specialization in science and reading and language arts. I was an instructional leader in Norwich and coached teachers, facilitated professional development, and worked with the Central Office on assessment and data analysis.

I hope to use my skills and experience in Hampton by contributing to the already successful educational experiences for our students. I believe in high expectations for all students, teachers as facilitators of learning, and classroom environments that support positive behavior and engagement. HES will have a few updates to the building and its protocols that will get us ready for the school year. I am excited to do some medium and long term planning with the town and school that supports our students, families, and community members.

The people of Hampton have been incredibly supportive and welcoming during my onboarding and I am grateful for every well-wish, smile, and handshake. I hope that I can give back to the town that has given me so much. I have been working with the Superintendent and the Board of Education to ensure a smooth transition into the new school year and I can’t wait to meet all of the children and staff.

Patrice Merendina

A perfect back-to-school recipe that doubles as a healthy snack in the lunch box, and a delicious treat for after school.

2 cups rolled oats
¾ wheat germ
½ cups sunflower seeds
½ cup flax seeds
1 cup crushed nuts

2/3 cups brown sugar
½ cup honey
4 tbs. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
6 oz. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

It is important to do steps in order:
1. Grease and line with wax paper a 9” X 13” glass brownie pan
2. Chop/crush nuts
3. Combine first 5 ingredients and spread on large cookie sheet
4. Bake for 10 minutes
5. While baking, combine next 4 ingredients in large saucepan and heat on stove top, stirring till melted and evenly mixed (do not allow to boil)
6. Mix hot, dry ingredients in with hot sticky ingredients
7. Spread into prepared 9” X 13” pan and flatten
8. Sprinkle top liberally with chocolate
9. Cover with wax paper and flatten down in pan
10. Cover with lid and put in fridge
11. In about an hour, take out and cut into bars
12. Store in fridge, in sealed container, with wax paper between layers

Elaine Duchaineau

Fletcher Memorial Library hosts The Hampton Harvest Festival, September 23, 9AM to 3PM, on the lawn between the community center and the town hall. The festival will feature exclusively hand grown and handmade products from the town of Hampton, as well as a variety of refreshments, activities, and displays by local entrepreneurs and community organizations.

The offerings will include fresh produce and other agricultural products, baked goods, gift baskets, and local crafts and art work. There will be live music, games for the children, the traditional hay rides, and a display of farm animals. Hampton Fire Department will be selling hot dogs and hamburgers, and there will be homemade donuts and ice cream and maple cotton candy.

Admission is free and the site offers plenty of free parking. For more information call 860-455-1086.

Janice Trecker

Certain flowers are symbolic, poinsettias for Christmas, Easter lilies, daffodils heralding spring, chrysanthemums, autumn. Several plants are also associated with places; the “edelweiss”, memorialized in “The Sound of Music”, representing Austria, the “Yellow Rose” of Texas, the magnolias of Louisiana, Hawaiian hibiscus, Ireland’s shamrock. Yet there is no flower with as strong an association as the sunflower, which has become a universal metaphor for Ukraine, and a symbol of strength, perseverance, and hope.

The varieties most familiar to us are the towering annuals, like “American Giant” and “Mammoth”, which soar ten to fifteen feet in height, their equally impressive flowers offering golden daisies surrounding edible seeds. Fields of sunflowers are magnificent summer sights, yet they are also splendid grown singularly in the garden. Along with the familiar yellow flowers, there are varieties with petals as pale as ‘Lemon Queen’ with luminous, flaxen flowers, and those as dark as ‘Black Magic’, with velvet, mahogany rays, and in between, there is every color of the ‘Sunset’, with seed mixtures to include amber, orange, rust, sienna, ochre, crimson, maroon, sometimes all on the same petal.

Perennial sunflowers, though of less stature than the more famous members of the Helianthus family, return to gardens every summer with the same cheeriness as their annual relatives. Though they’re sometimes referred to as “dwarf” sunflowers, they range from two to ten feet. The tallest of these, the ‘Giant Sunflower’, resembles most closely the well-known annual, its seed-filled, brown center surrounded by yellow petals on central stalks reaching to nine feet. ‘Swamp sunflower’, so named for its tolerance of the salty soil and air of shoreline marshes, is another tall perennial, its bright golden flowers soaring to six feet. The ‘Showy Sunflower’, also known colloquially as the “cheerful” sunflower for its fringe of sunny yellow petals circling particularly dark brown centers, bloom on six foot plants in August and September, their seeds ripening late in the season for the benefit of migrating birds.The stature of the ‘Maximilian’ sunflower, also known as the “prairie sunflower” for its location in the wild, is variable. Depending on climate and conditions, this sunflower will remain as small as three feet, or grow as tall as ten. With petals a little paler than most sunflowers, it seeds itself from its prolific crop which attract several species of pollinators. The ‘Western Sunflower’, yellow, star-like flowers circling a darker center, rises from basal foliage to a modest two to three feet. Forming clumps in the garden, this native of mid-western prairies attracts birds and butterflies. Helianthus ‘mollis’, called the “ashy sunflower” for its grayish foliage, sweeps through thickets, fields, rocky glades, woodlands, and along roadsides from the deep south to the Great Lakes. Their yellow flowers, delicate yet sturdy, rise on two to four foot stems. The ‘Willowleaf’ sunflower blooms prolifically on stems with lance-like cascading leaves. ‘First Light, with lemony petals and chocolate centers, and ‘Autumn Gold’ with sunny yellow petals circling amber centers, are more compact varieties for the garden, forming floriferous mounds. The ‘Jerusalem Artichoke’, also known as “sun root” or “earth apple”, has large, leathery leaves, and a branching habit for its plentiful golden flowers. Popular cultivars of helianthus ‘Multiflorous’ are all double flowered, resembling dahlias with their full, frilly petals, ‘Loddon Gold’, with dark gold flowers, ‘Sunshine Daydream’, a sunny yellow, and the butterscotch colored ‘Capenoch Star’.

Plants in the Heliopsis family are closely related to Helianthus and are referred to as “false sunflowers”; helios’ comes from the Greek word for “the sun”, and ‘opsis’, meaning “to resemble in allusion”. Our native Heliopsis helianthoides is colloquially called the “ox-eye daisy”. Neither toxic nor invasive, this wildflower is suitable for inclusion in our gardens where it blooms throughout the summer: branching, glabrous stems with dark green, triangular, toothed leaves, rise three to four feet to bear sprays of cheery orange-yellow blossoms with amber colored center cones. Along with the native of our fields and meadows, there are a few choice cultivars.
‘Bleeding Hearts’ is a spectacular selection with dark purple leaves and bittersweet buds opening to mango colored blossoms which eventually mature to bronze. The sultry foliage and fiery flowers make stunning contributions to the garden. Equally striking is the cultivar ‘Prairie Sunset’ which forms tall, sturdy clumps of yellow flowers surrounding dark red cones. ‘Tuscan Sun’ forms compact mounds smothered with golden flowers circling caramel-colored centers. The cultivar ‘Summer Nights’ is a four-foot, shrubby plant with dark green foliage tinged purple, crested with yellow flowers with mahogany cones. ‘Asahi’, which means “morning sun” in Japanese, is a branching variety, two feet tall and wide, with double blossoms of golden petals resembling pom-poms.

These smaller varieties fit more easily into garden schemes where their vibrant rays provide long-lasting splashes of color to cavort with the sunset hues of daylily trumpets, branches of scarlet crocosmia, and the red pom-poms of bee balm. But the large sunflowers can also find inclusion in the garden where their towering forms serve as focal points. In our gardens the magnificent gold sunflower rises along the burgundy branches of smoke tree and ninebark, the sunny yellow discs offering vertical reprieve for the cascading chocolate limbs. ‘Coconut Ice’, a five foot tall column crowned with luminous, white petals, glows in the moon garden, and a mixture of sunset hued cultivars stuns in a garden of the prairie grass, calamogrostis, brightly colored lilies, clumps of black-eyed Susans, and ribbons of yellow coreopsis.

I use sunflowers throughout our gardens now, the annual, perennial, and false varieties, yet my favorite sunflowers were my firsts, forming a wall all the way around a stone patio near the kitchen door. Plants and furniture have encroached upon the space which no longer allows for the same effect. That happens a lot – with the veil of feverfew which never reseeded itself in a garden of deep pastels, with the carpet of Johnny-jump-ups that leapt away and into the lawn — but that first year, with only sunflowers and only one chair, one could rest for a spell in this place where they spilled pure sunshine, and at night, sit in solitude beneath their glowing “lamps”.

Dayna McDermott

Former resident Marie Halbach passed away on March 3, 2023 in Novata, Claifornia. Born on April 30, 1943, she was the daughter of Charles and Marion Halbach and welcomed as the first grandchild of Jesse and Bertha Burnham and of Adolph and Katie Halbach. The Halbachs reclaimed their deep roots here when Charlie was called to duty overseas during World War II; Marie and her sisters, Charlene (Randall) and Kathie (Moffitt), grew up on White Kettle Farm, benefitting from the neighborliness of family and friends, and from the joys and responsibilities of raising chickens, horses, cats and dogs, influences which eventually led to a life of caregiving.

Marie’s academic career began in the Bell School. She graduated from the Consolidated School and Windham High, where she was an accomplished violinist in the school’s and the All-State Orchestra. In 1965, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science — the first of the Burnham and Halbach families to earn a college degree — from the University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing and became a psychiatric nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital.

She continued her career in San Francisco, for a time living near the Haight-Ashbury corner, during the “love and peace” years of the era, affording her the opportunity to see Janis Joplin and other upcoming artists perform in neighborhood coffee shops and free concerts in the city. She worked as a nurse and as part of a medical team which provided health care at West Coast rock festivals, including the infamous Altamont Free Concert in 1969. Over the years, she adopted the name “Marissa” and returned to school, receiving an advanced degree in school counseling and spending her remaining career as a guidance counselor with middle and high school students, retiring in 2011.

Marie/Marissa strongly believed in various issues such as women’s rights, supporting them financially and with her time. Her correspondence reflects a history of the women’s movement in the 1960’s and 70’s, replete with notices of meeting attendance, memberships, contributions, letters to politicians and news from top feminist organizations including NOW, NARAL, and ZPG. She saved a 1975 letter from the ACLU, signed by their General Counsel at the time, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who added the following postscript: In Wiesenfeld, the ACLU’s latest victory for women’s rights, the Supreme Court has ruled that a widowed father is entitled to receive the same social security benefits as a widowed mother. The working mother thus is assured of equal protection for her family.

She was also a strong supporter of animal welfare organizations and rescued numerous cats and dogs over the years. Several times she flew to Hampton with her larger rescue dogs, believing they’d enjoy a happier life on White Kettle Farm. Townspeople may remember her father’s faithful canine companion, Max, who was a “California rescue.” With the plants she cultivated, her gardens also served as a haven for birds and butterflies. Our condolences to her family, her four-legged, and winged friends.