PinchPenny Threads
  • PinchPenny Threads Home
  • Bags, Bags, Bags
  • Telling Your Family Stories
Email Jane McLean

Butterfield Blog

Stories about the Butterfields of Antrim NH and around the world.

​Sketch of "The Lane" by Chuck McLean for "Seeking Parmenter: A Memoir of Place" by Charles Butterfield

Get "Seeking Parmenter"

Why Didn't byron use a Piece of Paper?

10/28/2017

6 Comments

 
by Jane Butterfield McLean
Picture

​Butterfield Farm, Clinton Road, Antrim NH. Aerial shot by William Byron Nichols
In the 1970s I found a small wooden cutting board on my late grandfather’s workbench at Butterfield Farm in Antrim NH. This was written in pencil:
Picture
Forrest Cow alright now. I had to go away. Please call your office.

Picture
math calculations including cost/gallon and multiplying by 𝛑
Who wrote this?
Picture
Byron & Vera, Antrim Grange Hall, 1960s. Photo by Barry Proctor.
My grandfather, Byron G. Butterfield (1894-1971, Antrim NH), was a dairy farmer and a carpenter. He kept a small herd of Holsteins, which he had to give up in the mid-1960s when he was diagnosed with asthma. He often wrote with a flat carpenter’s pencil sharpened with a jack knife, a tool he told me I should never be without.
Who was Forrest?
Forrest Tenney, DVM (1910-1986, Antrim native), made barn calls for large animals and saw small animals at his office in Peterborough NH. He and Byron had been neighbors on West Street in Antrim in the early 1920s, which is probably why Byron called him "Forrest" instead of "Dr. Tenney." Most likely Dr. Tenney didn't have a mobile phone or 2-way radio in the 1950s-1960s, so his office left messages for him with his customers.
Picture
Dr. Tenney's story
Mystery solved?
My grandfather was the oldest of 7 farm children who were raised to be responsible and courteous. Even though the cow was "alright" and he had to leave, Byron made sure to leave a note for the vet, politely adding "Please call your office." Although not parsimonious, Byron was a very practical man. Because I knew these people and the times they lived in, I understand everything about this message except WHY? Why did my grandfather write on a little cutting board instead of a piece of paper? 
6 Comments

quilt barn trails 

5/20/2014

0 Comments

 
PicturePhoebe's Spools, barn quilt at Beebe Farm
The family farm on a clear, cold December evening many years ago. My brother and I have finished helping with the barn chores and are playing up in the hayloft. Down below, our grandfather hums tunelessly as he milks the Holsteins. It’s cold up in the loft, and we can see our breath as we smoke pretend cigarettes. The bales of hay make good forts, and we peer through the cracks in the frosty barn board siding to see pinpoints of starlight in the dark sky. The air is a wondrously aromatic mixture of hay, manure, and orange pulp mixed with grain.

Inside the farmhouse, our sister is helping get supper on the table . Our grandmother dishes up applesauce made with Baldwins from the tree down back. We’re happy to come in from our hay fort for roast pork and the promise of pie for dessert. 

After supper we troop upstairs to say “good-night” to our great-grandmother who has just put out a pan full of “orts” for the half-wild barn cats. Back downstairs, we make our plans for the next day. After a breakfast of doughnuts, we’ll try to catch those elusive cats. 

We’ll pull on our rubber boots and slide around on the field ice. Maybe elderly Mr. Hanchett will walk past on his way down to the village store. We’ll say “hello,” then duck behind the stone wall to giggle at his slightly obscene last name.

 My sister and I stand over the floor furnace, our flannel nightgowns ballooning out to capture the heat before we dash into the unheated bedrooms. We all jump quickly into bed and burrow down under woolen blankets and handmade quilts. My grandmother’s quilts, made from scraps of fabric, keep us warm that cold winter night. The quilts also have stories to tell when we study the patterns: “Here’s your Easter dress.” “Oh, here’s the dress I was wearing when I fell off the swing in second grade.” “Didn’t you knock out a tooth?” “It was already loose.” 

Many years have passed since those happy days on the farm, yet time has failed to dim my love of rural buildings and handmade quilts. The growing barn quilt movement tells me that I’m not alone in this fascination. Donna Sue Groves of Adams County, Ohio, wanted to honor her mother and her Appalachian heritage with a painted quilt motif on her barn. The idea was taken up by a committee in 2001, resulting in a series of barn quilts forming a trail for visitors to follow. The quilt barn trail idea spread to neighboring Brown County, then to Tennessee and Kentucky. Within a dozen years, trails have appeared in 45 states, making this the largest grassroots public arts movement in our nation’s history. --by Phoebe Beebe

0 Comments

    Author

    Jane McLean says: I was fortunate to live at Butterfield Farm in the early 1950s and again 1970-1984. I am now retired and living on the rocky coast of Maine.

    Guest Author

    ​Do YOU have a Butterfield Family story? Contact us about adding a blog post.

    Archives

    October 2017
    May 2014

Proudly powered by Weebly