Becket Stories

Linda Bacon

I mean, I do feel such a community here. And, uh, I mean, that community feeling started a long time ago. Yeah. Uh, so it was difficult for me to figure out, you know, what to say, um, 'cause there were so many great memories here. But I thought, "Well, maybe I'll just start at the beginning." But don't worry, I'm not going all 72 years.

So, yeah. Uh, the beginning was when my parents bought Canterbury Farm. It was just The Farm to us. Um, I'm just gonna check my notes here.

It wasn't called Canterbury Farm back

then. No. Actually, it was st- uh, called Timberlake Farm because there was a lake on the farm- Oh ... uh, between Robinson's property and ours.

Mm. And when the dam broke in 1927, which washed out the whole town of Beckett- Yeah. Oh, yeah ... the little lake went away too. Oh. Oh. And right now it's a beaver pond. Beautiful, you know, we have our trails going along there and, you know, it's just even more, uh... You know, uh, there, there's a lot that my father did, and they were gonna put the, um, lake back in, but there was a lot of local, uh, uh, disagreement with doing that.

And so- Oh ... anyway, that, that's a little side story. I better... I've... If I'm sticking to five minutes- ... I better stick with the plan.

We'll leave the interjecting for later. Okay. Yeah,

yeah, we could add to it. Uh, so my mom and dad, Ralph and Adele Burgess, and there are a couple people here that knew them, and, um, sitting right in the front row, the three of you, I think, did.

And, um, they were, um, they, they came from different backgrounds. Um, my dad went to Williams College. Um, he grew up in Washington, DC, so he was a city guy, but he always wanted a country home. Uh, my mom came from a rural, uh, area in Virginia. And, uh, they met in Washington and they got married. And, uh, they- They loved the country, and they were hard workers.

They had lots of energy. And in 1941, they discovered this rundown farmhouse with a barn, with 200 acres of land for $2,600. So Holly, you, you missed it by a long time. But, uh, anyway, um, but it wasn't that great of a house, let me tell you. It had ha- it endured a chimney fire. It had rotten sills, uh, broken windows.

The land was totally stripped of its lumber. Um, they, they did that back then, you know, to get as much profit out of the land before they sold it. Um, but When they moved there, 1941, they had no electricity, no running water. They had to go out and pump. There was a dug well. They pumped it. The well is still there.

Uh, but we-- Don't worry. After they retired, they put in a, um, a drilled well and stuff like that, but it was a real fixer-upper. Um, but they were, um... They had a lot to do, but every weekend, they would come up from Connecticut. That's where we, uh, lived. And, you know, my brother and sister, we all played and spent the whole summer up in Beckett from 1953 when I was born.

So every summer, I mean, uh, just some of the things that we would do

I'd horseback ride with the Mulhollands. Mm. They're a long time family here. Mm. I'd pick blueberries with the McEwans- Yeah ... her and her brother Peter. Um, we visited Happy Land, which was- Oh, yeah ... kind of a, like a- Happy. Yeah, it was happy. That was a good place to be. There, there was a little ski area, but there was...

I mean, you guys remember it, I betcha. Vaguely. Yeah. I mean, they had a big pumpkin. Yeah, Mark, you remember Happy Land. And, um, a- and, oh, the-

Uh, all right. Oh, the Deers Inn had a tower. Uh, you know where the bronze deer is at the end of Fred Snow Road? Well, there was, uh, an inn there and, uh, there was music there. Actually, you could feed the deer. They gave you, you know, a little stuff you'd put in your hands and, you know, you could feed the deer.

And, um, you know, those were the t- types of things that we did. The Lenharts had land around the Yocum Pond, and we loved the sandy beach at the end of Yocum Pond, and they... We had to go down and get the key from Sauerwinds, which was, is now Cripple Creek. So C- Sauerwinds was a great place. You could get penny candy.

You could get gas back then, uh, liquor, I mean, bread and milk probably. And, but we would get the key and go to Yocum Pond. We would swim. Um, my dad was a, a, a swimmer at Williams College, and in order for us to go out on a boat alone, we had to swim across the lake. So every one of the kids had to swim across the lake.

You know, the rowboat's going, we're swimming along. But, you know, we did fine. We were all pretty athletic, but- ... he, he, he... We had to do that. And, uh, you know, but that happened at Yocum Pond. Um, we also, um, we square danced at the Maple View- Oh ... Ballroom. Oh,

oh.

Now, I know that's Washington, but there wasn't a whole lot to do in Beckett.

So, uh, we... The music we would listen to was Bob Sweet Sr.- Oh. ... at this... They were called the Sweet Country Wine, Sweet Country Wine. It was a great time. And of course, we had dinner at the Dream Away. Uh, Mama's guitar and her singing, um, we listened to her. She'd sit right next to our table- Wow ... as we eat these hot potatoes and Italian food.

She's always asking us to buy her 45s- ... and drink more wine. But it was always fun. We went to Chimney's Corners Camp and, um, my brother went to Camp Beckett. So it was summers, they were just fabulous times and, um, you know, I'll, I'll never forget those. Um- My dad, he broke down everything, so he has diaries of when they were, um, coming up in the wintertime, um, such as, um, uh, "We went down the road.

Um, we had two failed attempts to get up the hill on Fred Snow Road." "This was 1955." Whoa. "And we walked to the farm. We walked to Tyne Road to cut the Christmas tree, which we hauled home. The ground was covered with two to six inches of snow and ice. Lots of deer hunters."

Mm. "

Children played..." Um, children, I guess that's us.

We were the children. "Uh, played on ice near the beaver pond. The house was in good shape, um, considering we had a lot of animals that would come visit in the winter." Like, I remember my mom actually having to kill a raccoon family 'cause they were living in the back part of the house. Oh. Yeah. Um, the temperature was 20 degrees inside the house, um, and only 44 degrees, uh, one foot from the fireplace.

Um, so it... We, we got tough back then, didn't we? Yeah. Um, my parents, Ralph and Adele, they retired in, in 1975, and they permanently lived in Beckett. Um, Dad was a town treasurer, and Mom, uh, was active in the Beckett Arts Center and the Pittsfield Figure Skating Club. Mm-hmm. At that time, they had installed electricity heat.

They drilled the well. Uh, they repaired things. Um, they got all cozy up there. And, uh, I was in college traveling around, but I always came back at least twice a year. In the summer of 1982, I returned to Beckett full time. I just knew that was the place I wanted to be forever. Uh, the farm was on the market being sold because my parents wanted to go south.

I met Dave Bacon. Ooh. We married on the farm in 1985. Mm-hmm. We submitted a business plan to my parents for a ski touring and bed and breakfast lodge to prevent them from selling the property. They were happy to let us try. Each year, they were able to come back to Beckett and visit us, and they seemed to be so proud about what we had accomplished, and I miss them.

Aw. Oh,

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