Photo Northfield High School Rambler, 1938 Louise Davis, Rambler, 1938 By MARY DENNY WHEN BARBARA Neal was four years old and lived across the street on Highland Avenue in the house now owned by Philo Hall she would cross the street to Louise's. Louise would entertain her and they would have wonderful visits. The Neals then bought John Davis' house at the top of Highland and Barbara grew up using Louise's childhood bedroom including its furniture and that has always been a special connection for her. Years and years later Barbara then rented a house out at Potato Hill.

Barbara and I also reminisced about the Girl Scout summer camp which was held at Potato Hill. My daughter Heather went to camp out there every summer she was in Scouts and had a wonderful time.

My first connection with Louise was as a novice teacher at the South Village School back in 1967. She drove the blue school bus that the Jaycees had outfitted as a mobile reading classroom. She was such a supportive colleague and encouraged me even when the job seemed a little daunting. She was a dedicated teacher and then K - 8 principal. Her office was in the old brick building.

Louise was one who always greeted everyone warmly, remembered everyone's name, and made one feel as if meeting you at that moment was something special.

By KELLY TUCKER LEONARD MRS. HALSTED came into my life in 1968-69 when I was in the 4th grade at the Northfield Falls Elementary School. She would visit us with a big blue library bus each week. I can still see her behind the wheel with her beautiful white hair and her great smile. Her bus was the only library we had and all the children looked forward to seeing her.

I was having a particularly difficult time that year. Apparently, Mrs. Halsted's job was also to help children who were struggling with their reading. Each week I would go to her bus and she would help me with whatever assignment needed to be caught up on. Sometimes we would read together and she would always help me find a book. I loved going to see her on that bus. She made me feel cared for, safe, and encouraged. I hated to leave her to go back into a classroom filled with all the opposites I felt when I was with her.

One day Mrs. Halsted came to our house to give my parents an update on how I was doing. My mother spoke with Mrs. Halsted about her concerns because my sister, Terry, would be entering the 4th grade the next year with the same teacher. We lived in Northfield Falls and parents didn't have a choice as to where their children would attend school. If you lived in the Falls, you were pretty much designated to attend that school. Mrs. Halsted said she would see what she could do. Within a month she called my mother to say she had worked it out and my sister would be attending the South Village 4th grade with Mr. Boardman. My sister excelled that year and says it was the best school year she can ever remember.

So as you can see, Mrs. Halsted was a child advocate before the word ever existed. She was there to help parents when they thought there was no other place to turn. She was a woman who cared for her community and loved the children and people in it. Northfield has lost a bright star. God brings people into our lives for a reason. I will always hold Mrs. Halsted so dearly in my heart and remember how she made one little girl feel important and special so many, many years ago.

THE 1938 NHS CLASS

SONG

Class Song by LOUISE

DAVIS

Northfield High School

Class of 1938

EXCELSIOR "Excelsior is the word, O friends, And not a word more true; Let's pledge ourselves to follow it, To keep it all life through. A long hard battle we must fight, And look to God we must; For He is always near, dear friends, In Him we'll place our trust. And now we leave dear N.H.S. For higher things in sight; Always Excelsior keep in mind To gain that greater height.

• with fervor

By DIANA WEGGLER

Norwich University LOUISE HALSTED was a great friend to Norwich University, and took a special interest in the carillon. Many summer Saturdays would find her relaxing in the sun on the Upper Parade Ground, sporting her signature red sneakers, and listening with rapt attention to the bell concerts. Her interest in the carillon was not limited to performances, however. Because of Louise's lifelong interest in education, faculty, staff and students at Norwich were able to take instruction on the carillon at no cost to themselves. In recent years she provided funding not only for weekly lessons, but also underwrote travel costs for Norwich students to visit and play other carillons throughout New England. This was her chosen legacy to the University. Louise attended her last concert on June 27 of this year, only eight days before her death. Her smiling face and kind words will be sorely missed by those of us at Norwich who knew and loved her.

By DURWOOD PHILLIPS IREMEMBER when first visiting Northfield in 1970 walking around looking at houses and stopped to take a look at the C.M. Davis house on Prospect Street. Someone was standing out on the porch and she asked me what I was doing.

That was the first time I met Louise Halsted. She invited me in and showed me her house. She was gracious and most kind to a complete stranger and then visitor to Northfield.

Over the years as I continued to visit here, then move here in 2006, I have always remembered her extreme kindness on that day.

She will be sorely missed by a town that has been her life for so many years.

By JEANNE COOK OVER HALF A century ago I moved to Northfield and my family joined the Methodist Church, where we were very active in the music of the church. I remember sitting in the junior choir section of the church, down on the floor, and looking up into the senior choir loft, where there was the most beautiful face I thought I had ever seen up there in the alto section. Louise made an impression on me from the beginning, and I watched her incessantly on Sunday mornings: singing, laughing, thoughtful. She has been a figure in my life for all these years; not seeing much of each other but always there as one who you thought would always be there. She wove in and out of my life as a church friend of my mother; with her father hosting skating parties on Sunday nights for the teens in town; welcoming my husband and I back to Northfield in 1971 with

hayride; Girl Scout leader for my daughters; concert goer; and of course a generous supporter of Paine Mountain Arts when I was chair, not only in gifts but in attendance at every single program. My last moments with her were at a dinner this May at the Three Stallion Inn. She sat at our table; she was funny, witty and on top of her game, and she invited us back to her house for apricot brandy. Cheers, Louise! You lived life to the fullest and enriched my own.

By SUSAN BARNARD AS SOON AS I arrived in Northfield in the year 1974, I became very aware of Louise Halsted. Instantly she became my friend. We both loved to do things outdoors. We played tennis together, cross country skied for years together Tuesday mornings, attended the Methodist Church, made crafts for the Methodist Church Bazaar with Ruth Elmer, Bertha Pierce, Nancy Bothfeld, and went to Lake Champlain together. But our real joining together was when we worked for several years at Potato Hill, which is near the Roxbury- Northfield boundary line. Louise was the director of the Girl Scout Camp, and I became the assistant director. The year was 1977 and the camp continued for several years.

Louise loved the camp rituals: putting up the flag, taking the flag down, folding the flag, singing camp songs, teaching children how to go out in the fields and make center pieces for the lunch cook-out, preparing food, and learning how to be kind to one another. We loved to take the children up to the desert, a piece of land on John Evans' property, adjoining Potato Hill,. The desert was a very special secret place in Roxbury Northfield that has pure sand, high up on this property. She had many other people helping her at Potato Hill, including Bertha Pierce, Nancy Bothfeld, Pat Bryan, and Sunja Hayden, to name a few. Louise put her heart and soul into making the camp a success.

Potato Hill became the special place to go for many outings for her friends. Louise would say, "All you need is popcorn and hot chocolate and you have a party!" I recall on New Years Day in 1980 when we had no snow at all. The Norwich University Ski Area was closed and we all wanted to do something with our families. Louise suggested that it was time for us to come out to the pond at Potato Hill where we could ice skate. The families of the Hockenburys, the Mynters and the Barnards went ice skating with Louise and, of course, we had pop corn and hot chocolate.

Louise loved to be with people. She thrived on being able to help people. Her last day in Northfield indicates the kind of person she was. Louise went to hear the Carillon Chimes at Norwich University, sent Chris Bell in for strawberry shortcake at the United Church, and then went on to attend the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in Randolph with her beloved friends.

I feel honored and humbled to have had Louise Davis Halsted as my dear friend for thirty-five years. Our family and the town of Northfield have lost an irreplaceable treasure. Louise was a friend to many people, always helping them, and ready to pitch in no matter what the cause. She gave 100 per cent of herself to her family, to her friends, and to Northfield.

Louise Halsted wrote the following in the Northfield Historical Society's Crier a few years back about her grandfather, Charles M. Davis, always known as 'CM,' a prominent Northfield attorney and industrialist in the early 20th Century.

"Charles M. Davis, as I recall him, was a dignified country lawyer with the added distinction of being a successful businessman. He was always impeccably dressed, complete with a watch chain and a cane which he carried for effect.

"He worked very hard to attain his status in life. At the age of forty he was told that his life would be shortened if he didn't slow down. He proceeded to take care of himself and lived until the age of eighty one.

"Charles Davis was interested in community affairs. He was a pillar of the Congregational Church and a trustee of the Brown Public Library where he had much to do with its early growth. In politics he was a dedicated democrat but on the local scene he could be antagonistic to change. In spite of that he commanded a great deal of respect when he rose to speak at town meeting.

"The woolen mill, which was C.M.'s chief interest in his early career, was located in Northfield Falls. (He purchased the Gould Mill in 1906). He must have been a colorful figure at the turn of the century as he rode through the village in his sleigh on snowy days, wearing a raccoon coat trimmed with beaver. He came home for dinner at noon and stretched out on the living room couch to rest before returning to work. His feet were carefully planted on a newspaper for this ritual. There were no martini lunches in those days. C.M. was a temperate man but confesses in his diaries that he enjoyed a fine cigar on occasion.

"In his later years when he maintained a law office in the Mayo Block, he had the time to enjoy his grandchildren. I was the oldest and would occasionally be invited to the noon dinner when my grandmother went to one of her bridge luncheons. Even in her absence there was a good meal. Grandpa's eyes always seemed to sparkle with fun. Perhaps he knew that I was having fun, too, knowing I didn't have to worry so much about spilling on Grandma's white table-cloth.

"Those turn of the century days at the Davis house still had many Victorian virtues but I was blessed to have inherited the privilege of knowing a grand-parent so well in my formative years."

By MELANIE MENAGH

The Northfield News

December 21, 2000

Tree trimming was a special event, said Louise Halsted who remembered Christmas in the 1920's.

"My father was interested in the outdoors so he wanted to make a skating rink on the back lawn," she recalled. "He tramped down the snow with snowshoes, then when it got to be too much, he brought out the cow and got her to tramp it down.

"He would sit in a rocking chair on a moonlit night and run the hose on it; and we would dream and hope that the rink would be finished by Christmas."

Christmas day was awash in family, two sets of grandparents and an aunt and uncle came to the Davis homestead.

"In those days, most kids opened their presents in the morning," said Mrs. Halsted, "but my father was strict. We could only open stockings in the morning, maybe there would be a tangerine at the bottom.

"Our Christmas dinner was stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, squash and mince pie with whipped cream - you could get the cream right off the top of the milk and whip it. That was a special treat around the holidays, Mrs. Halsted said.

Finally, the children could open their presents after dinner. Afterward, she and her sister would play the violin and cello for the grandparents.

"Then we'd be able to skate. Our grandmothers would be sitting in the windor and we would show off, 'look at me.'"

She remembered one Christmas that was more like April Fools Day for an unsuspecting cousin. "That year, my father sent away for joke presents," she remembered. "He got a housefly on a little pin.

"We had a cousin who later became treasurer of Norwich. My mother made up[ a scrumptious cake filled with whipped cream. When my cousin came over, we put the fly on the cake. We all watched him eat the cake, trying not to get the fly but he didn't say anything to be polite. We were about to scream with laughter. Finally, he realized he was being taken."

By REV. RALPH W. HOWE LOUISE HALSTED was a woman of enormous generativity.

While she did not bear children, she was a source of life, encouragement and renewal to generations of people.

She was deeply committed to her teaching of children, her adult learning companions, support of UVM, the Gray School restoration, the Library expansion, her church, the Northfield United Methodist Church, and the church of her family, the Northfield United Church.

She supported the arts and music, and countless civic improvements. She was a generative woman.

The words of the prophet Isaiah 54 speak of the rare likes of Louise:

"Sing o barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide. do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendents will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."

So it has been with Louise Halsted.