Day 118, Monday July 22, 2024: Addison, Vermont to St. Johnsbury, Vermont
- Mark Carl Rom
- 3 days ago
- 9 min read
Carnegie libraries visited: Fletcher Free Library in Burlington and Morristown, Vermont
Days sober: 396
Each time I go off the road for a few days it becomes harder to get back on it. On July 15 my friend Ian, who lives in Addison, Vermont, and I flew to Arkansas for my father’s memorial service. We returned to the “Freedom and Unity” (two concepts that don’t always work well together) state on Saturday night. By Sunday morning, Ian had Covid. I thought about leaving then, as I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with Ian because he would feel like sleeping most of the day, not because I was worried about infection. I decided instead to stay another night and, instead of writing, I watched Netflix. It was a low biorhythm day.
My route through Vermont was maplicious. Although I visited only two of Vermont’s four Carnegie libraries, I stopped by many other libraries – it seems that almost every village has one – including the majestic Kellogg-Hubbard library in Montpelier, where I wrote these words. Don’t tell my MD that I also stopped for two maple Creemees, Vermont’s unofficial state soft-serve dessert. Want to go on a Creemee tour? Then head on over to the Creemee Locator, and official website of the state government. Binging on Creemees was far better than other binges I have been on.
The Fletcher Free (Carnegie) Library in Burlington was established in 1873 through the endowment of Mary Martha Fletcher and her mother Mary Laurence (Peasley) Fletcher. Born in 1830, Mary Martha was a member of a prominent Vermont family. Her father was a Vermont state senator, as well as a successful merchant and investor; her brother was a Congressman. One of five children – only two lived to adulthood, and two of them died in the same year, when Mary was only 14 – Mary suffered from tuberculosis most of her life before dying from it in 1885 at age 55. She never married or had children. After her father died, “the Fletcher family consisted only of the two women [Mary and her mother], both sickly and confined to their home. They shunned society, lived frugally and became near recluses.” By the time she was 46, her mother had also passed, and she was the sole surviving member of her family, with a fortune estimated to be $400,000, according to Lilian Baker Carlisle in her article, “Humanities’ Needs Deserve Our Fortune: Mary Martha Fletcher and the Fletcher Family Benevolences.”
Fletcher did use her fortune in a most benevolent way. In 1876 she donated $185,000 (roughly $5.5 million in 2025 dollars), reportedly the largest gift made in Vermont to that time, to build a hospital in Burlington. It was the first public hospital in the state, and she named it after her mother, Mary L. Fletcher. When the hospital opened in 1879, she did not attend the ceremony “as the condition of her health prevents her presence on this occasion.” Indeed, only one record of Mary Martha ever attending any community event exists.
William Carpenter, Mary’s doctor, told this story about Mary’s final day.
Sensing the severity of her illness from the demeanor of Dr. Carpenter, Mary asked him:
“Doctor, am I near the end?”
“Yes.”
“Will I live until night?”
“I am afraid not.”
Then she said, “I want to die in the hospital."
It was a cold day, snowing hard and the doctor had only his one-seated sleigh. Mary was a woman of iron will, though wasted body, and she said:
"Doctor, you must take me to the hospital at once. I am determined not to die until I get there."
The doctor called Michael Kelley; they wrapped her in blankets; Kelley carried her in his arms from her bed to the sleigh. The doctor knelt on the running board and Michael drove the horse, "Whiteface" as fast as he could through the driving snowstorm to the hospital. They carried her to a room, and she died two hours later, surrounded by all the ministries she herself had created.
At the time of her death, Matthew Buckham, the President of the University of Vermont, who knew her well, noted that she would not have wanted her eulogy to say much about her, but
Give to my father and mother the honor of endowing the Hospital. It was their money, not mine that I gave. I wish to be remembered hereafter simply as one who had an obligation and tried to fulfil it; as one who had a work to do and tried to do it as well as a poor sick woman could.
Ian had given me a detailed roadmap of Vermont, and I thought I might use it today instead of Google maps. The interwebs is full of stories of individuals who blindly followed Google’s instructions, even when it took them to dead ends or over the edge of cliffs. I trust, and sometimes verify, Google’s directions yet I have become too dependent on it. Following the paper map led me astray, as I missed a turn and only discovered it after I finally began thinking “I’ve been driving south for far longer than I should have been.” Neither maps nor apps are infallible. It helps to stay alert.
Most days I do the New York Times “Connections” puzzle. In this game, you are given 16 words that you are to cluster in groups of four that share some common characteristic, which often is not immediately obvious. The four groups are color-coded by their difficulty, with yellow being the easiest category, then green, then blue, and purple reigning as the most difficult one to identify. In general, puzzle takers complete the easiest groups first, with the final set automatically solved after you complete the first three. I rarely “solve” the purple category except by default when it contains the only four remaining words. Not today: I completed the purple category first! The words were pint, liter, fifth, and handle. Hmm, I wonder why I picked out those words so easily….
During the month I spent in Stowe in 2023 I often visited what I thought was the “Helen Day Memorial Library and Art Center,” a most New Englandy white frame building with what looks to be a mini-Parthenon perched on top (the Greek Revival building was erected in 1861). Even though Day’s name remains above the front porch, the library has been renamed the Stowe Free Library and the arts center The Current.
Helen Day Montanari was a patient, friend, companion, and partner of Dr. Marguerite Lichtenthaeler. The doctor persuaded Day to leave $40,000 in her will for “the establishment of a Library and Art Center for the town of Stowe.” Day died in 1955, while the center in her name did not open until 1981. (That the Greek Revival building, the former home of the town’s high school, was still standing at all can be attributed to the diligent work of Anne Lusk and other locals who saw the benefits of historical preservation, as Cynthia Close’s article “How Stowe’s Women Saved the Helen Day Art Center” points out.)
Helen and Marguerite were “progressive women for their time, who fought for arts and culture in Stowe,” according to a statement released by the arts center in 2020. The “for their time” phrase is the tell. Rachel Moore, the center’s current director who has been on the staff since 2010, was on a school trip with her daughter in the late ‘10s when they visited a roadhouse owned by Lichtenthaeler together with her brother Frank and partner Helen, who rented rooms out there during winters to some of the first ski tourists coming to the area. On their tour, Rachel picked up a promotional pamphlet from the 1930s describing the property’s amenities and rates. At the bottom of the pamphlet were the words
Gentiles Only
Moore had heard other rumors, and then discovered more evidence, that Helen held animus against Jews. The same press release describing Day and Lichtenthaeler as progressive women noted that “We have discovered, however, that for all their forward-thinking, the women espoused deeply held antisemitic and racist beliefs.” As a result, the center hired a “professional branding specialist” to choose its new name that would make “clear our continued belief in inclusivity, diversity, and equity for all.”
Oh boy, and I say that with a sigh rather than an exclamation mark. The evidence that Moore found included suggestions that they were Nazi sympathizers (a picture of them sitting on a couch with swastika-embroidered pillows) and that Lichtenthaeler supported eugenics. “Clearly [the name is] just not acceptable, if we really, truly want to be an institution that is all-inclusive and reflects our values. We had to change it.”
And yet. Opposition to changing the name was as sensible as it was predictable. In one letter to the Stowe Reporter, a resident wrote that, back then, 90 percent of the area's lodgings – including his father’s – had gentiles-only policies: “It seems to me that this effort to remove her name is trying to create a problem to fix where none exists. Changing the name will not do anything with current racism. Montanari and Lichtenthaeler were simply creatures of their time.” Another writer: “It is nonsensical to judge attitudes of 50 to 100 years ago by current standards.” Anne Lusk, who had done so much to preserve the old high school/arts center, also objected to the name change, asking us to remember that Helen and Marguerite had “given a free gift to anybody who comes to Stowe” and that should be their legacy.
Is there a rule we can devise to resolve these naming controversies. I think so, yes, in general anyway. For me, the main consideration involves the role of what we now see as the evil in the person’s life. Were they advocating for the evil, or merely accepting of it? I would feel differently about Helen and Marguerite if they were traveling the country giving talks about the (alleged) nefariousness of the Jews as compared to adopting the apparently prevailing community “Gentiles only” standard. Another relevant factor for me is the relationship between the evil and the object to be named. If the Helen Day Memorial Library had a sign on it reading “No Jews allowed” then, hell yeah, the name would have to be changed. As there is no evidence, as far as I can ascertain, that the library ever excluded any group category, then renaming it seems less essential.
I remember the impression I got when I first visited the library and read the sign on the front porch. It said something about Day and Lichtenthaeler being long term partners who wanted to support the community through arts and literature. I thought “Wow, bold, two female lovers moved to a rural community in the 1930s and endowed a library. Impressive.” That I know now of their prejudices adds a layer of “oh, shit” to my understanding. Rather than renaming the building, I would add more context to that sign, like “While socially progressive in many ways, Helen and Marguerite, like many in this community, held antisemitic views and discriminated against Jews.”
I write this confident that, in some generation in a not-too-distant future, some (I hope not many) of my views and behaviors will be abhorrent. Veganism is not the dominant view in 2025, although it is hardly fringe. Philosophers have inveighed against killing animals for food as long as philosophers have philosophized. I understand that when I eat meat I am consuming what once was a living, breathing, feeling being. I would not be surprised if 100 years from now (or 50, or 25…) carnivores past and present are shunned in the same way that right-minded people shun racists today. Although my books will be out of print by then, whenever then is, I would hate to think that society’s judgment would be “Don’t read his books about libraries; he ate burgers.”
I wasn’t planning to have yet a third ice cream adjacent dessert today, and yet I couldn’t resist the free mint chocolate chip cups given out at the St. Johnsbury community concert. Music was provided by the St. Johnsbury Band – the third oldest community band in the United States – and it looked and sounded like it had its original members. A music critic might write a scathing review of the performance. Who cares what those snobs think? The audience, consisting mainly of individuals as senior as those in the bands, was in good spirits, if not the alcoholic kind (whether or not drinking was banned, I saw no evidence of it). When the audience stood up, and all the guys removed their baseball caps and the women their bonnets, or whatever, and sang the national anthem for the final number I proudly stood up and sang with them. Ok, I didn’t do this until halfway through because I was distracted by my phone.
Comfort Inn & Suites are typically described as an “understated hotel with pool and gym.” Not the one in St. Johnsbury, which looks more like the kind of four-story white walls and green roof resort you might expect to find in, well, Vermont. A fountain whispered in the middle of the circular drive, ringed with flowers in vibrant yellow and red. All the hotel’s parking was in the front, and I could back Goldfinger under the shading maples. I know enough to check the parking carefully, however. On the side I first parked multiple construction trucks and a few semis were resting for the night. That side would be quiet at night, and it would begin bustling early, so I moved to the other side. Besides, my phone got two bars there, instead of the one by the trucks.
As I lay down on my sleeping bag, I felt a big wet spot. Hmm. I was so tired – I thought I might be getting covid – that I didn’t bother checking it out. In the morning, I discovered why the car had the fragrance of Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena; an entire bottle had leaked out onto my sleeping bag.