MIDDLEBURY — EastView at Middlebury is a retirement community serving those whom my late grandparents would self-describe as “oldsters” or “cotton-tops” — folks who’ve earned their gray hair and furrows through years of hard work, joy, occasional anguish and a lot of lessons learned.

Many of those residents are happy to share those lessons; just pull up a chair.

You’ll bear witness, through their eyes, to what it was like to go through food rationing during World War II, to crawl under a school desk to train for a potential nuclear attack, to work three jobs to get through college, to march during the Civil Rights movement, to protest the Vietnam War, or to join a lawsuit in the fight for marriage equality.

Books, videos and digital references are great, but they’re a distant second to fellow humans with lived experiences.

Tara Martin, a social studies educator at Middlebury Union High School, knows the value older folks can bring to learning. So when she and her colleagues began planning a 20th Century History course for last fall, they quickly realized there was a solid contingent of history witnesses — and indeed some history makers — just a couple miles from MUHS.

“I was thinking about how I was going to make the learning meaningful for my juniors and seniors who were about to embark on the next step if their careers,” Martin said during a recent interview.

“I had this spark of an idea, this ‘lightbulb’ moment’: What if I connected my students with people who lived (a large part) of their lives during the 20th century?” she asked.

Martin already had a connection to EastView through Lindsey Hescock. She’s EastView’s residential community life coordinator. Hescock is also a former member of the Addison Central School District board.

The duo last summer mapped out the MUHS-EastView collaboration, which last fall paved the way for a series of initial pairings of what this reporter’s grandfather Max (born 1908) used to call “mods” and “pods.”

MIDDLEBURY UNION HIGH School teacher Tara Martin addresses the crowd of seniors and teens at Eastview last Thursday.
Photo by Emily Blistein

EastView residents and their new MUHS pals met three times for congenial, informative interviews. Students asked their elders about their lives, including what they had done professionally, their interests, their exposure to world events and their recipe for living long, happy and productive lives.

It proved a smashing success, leading to new pairings this spring. On Thursday, May 22, more than a dozen of Martin’s students shared highlights of their interactions with their elder mentors. Lea Stannard, also an MUHS social studies educator, took her students to EastView on May 27 to share their observations.

Students Maggie Klingensmith and Sarah Tolgyesi were paired with 97-year-old Max Kraus, who deftly condensed the reason he has lived so long to three things: “Good genes, good luck, good wife.”

Kraus, still amazingly vital as he ascends life’s ladder to the century mark, captivated his young inquisitors with World War II-era accounts.

“You could only get extra sugar if you were friends with the grocer — but everything was rationed,” he told them. “Toilet paper rolls were sold individually, and the wrapper was used first. Pencils were sharpened down to nothing.”

MUHS STUDENTS THOMAS Bishop and Dylan Kolesnik chat with Eastview’s Paul Seward about life in the 20th century during a May 22 gathering at the retirement community.
Photo by Emily Blistein

Klingensmith’s takeaway: “Max’s attitude towards life, despite the countless things he’s been through, reminds me of a lighthouse. Throughout our interview, he persisted with a smile.

“Max embodies the power of gratitude, the importance of family and compassion. I hope to carry that with me until I — hopefully — am 97,” Klingensmith concluded.

Students Dylan Kolesnik and Thomas Bishop were paired with EastView residents Paul and Linda Seward.

The Sewards imparted an ageless message.

“You’ve made happy by how you make others happy,” Paul Seward told them.

Kolesnik was struck by the couple’s gratitude for how their lives have turned out.

“They had a lot of unique experiences in their lives that they told me and Thomas about, but they made sure to say that they were grateful for all of the things that went right for them and all of the times they got lucky in life,” he said.

Bishop noted the Sewards weren’t afraid to take a stand on a variety of social justice issues during the turbulent 1960s.

“Paul and Linda told us a lot about what life was like during the Vietnam War, when they were young adults,” Bishop said. “Linda told me and Dylan about the protests she saw on her college campus, and about how the war was on people’s minds all the time… One thing Paul and Linda told us was that war is a common thing throughout history — even today.”

Indeed, most EastView residents had a lot to share about war — either on the front lines or the home front. Reg Spooner told students Cal Boulanger and Alex Sperry about the challenges of getting enough to eat during the World War II years (1941-1945). “Most days we didn’t have meat, except for Sunday dinner,” he said.

Sacrifice for the war effort was paramount.

Boulanger’s takeaway: “Hearing Reg’s stories of rationing during wartime helped me appreciate the overall effort and sacrifices not only made by soldiers during World War II, but the ones made on the home front, no matter how small. It helped me to avoid taking things for granted and appreciating what I have.”

CIVIL RIGHTS

Carol Spooner talked to Sperry about participating, with a group of nuns, in New York City civil rights march during the 1960s.

“Hearing Mrs. Spooner’s story was nothing short of inspiring,” Sperry said. “Her stories work to show how anyone can make a difference in the world we live in today. Mrs. Spooner, despite growing up in a ‘privileged’ community, fought for what she knew was right as she stepped up to make a difference. As I continue forward in life, I wish to learn from these lessons and follow in Carol’s footsteps.”

While the 1960s are now more than a half-century in the rearview mirror, the current MUHS students’ parents can probably recall Vermont’s effort 25 years ago to establish a civil unions law that ultimately led to marriage rights for same-sex couples. As recently noted in the Addison Independent, EastView residents Lois Farnham and Holly Puterbaugh were leaders in the civil unions effort.

Students Amelia Roussell and Natalie Gillett listened intently to Farnham and Puterbaugh’s stories of perseverance during a 52-year relationship that has stood the test of time.

“We had a long engagement period, 38 years before we got married,” the couple told the students.

Gillet’s takeaway: “You can do anything that you believe you can. Regardless of age or class, what seems impossible is something you can make happen. Work hard.”

Student Grace Charbonneau spent time with EastView’s Mary Burchard — who, among many other things, for years served as the Independent’s Salisbury correspondent.

MARY BURCHARD SHARES recollections with her MUHS partner Grace Charbonneau at a gathering last week at Eastview. They were paired as part of a history class.
Photo by Emily Blistein

Burchard, now into her 80s, put the word “poverty” in perspective.

“We were so happy to have that little piece of land for food during that time. We would have starved if not,” she said.

Charbonneau’s takeaway: “You need to be kind and find something that makes you happy and hold onto it for dear life. Everything can change and flip upside down in a minute but the stability you can find in loving a person, hobby, activity and other things can help so much.”

Sadly, EastView’s Alice Perine passed away within days of the May 22 student presentations. The Independent had recently interviewed Perine to mark her 100th birthday. MUHS students Alice Livesay and Julia Morrissey had been assigned to Perine as part of the 20th Century History class.

Members of the Perine family — including Alice’s daughter Sue and son Ken and her great-granddaughter Alice Livesay — were there to represent their mom.

“She showed me the importance of family and the people you surround yourself with, and how connections you make when you’re younger can stick with you decades later,” Livesay said of Alice Perine.

“After meeting with Alice, I quickly took away from our meetings how important it is to be a part of a community, and to have a deep bond with your family,” Morrissey said of her recollection of the late centenarian.

Martin wants to see the MUHS-EastView collaboration continue for generations to come. The elders will always come to the table with more banked memories, but the younger folks always seem to leave with a common sentiment, according to Martin:

“We’re not as different as we thought.”

John Flowers is at [email protected].