No Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, but plenty of nuts

I know, many of you may be thinking what is there in Vermont besides Ben & Jerry’s? And, how could you go to Vermont and not make the trek to B&J, the ice cream Mecca? Well, it is much the same as how we could go to NY and visit the Finger Lakes district and bypass Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame? Here’s the deal. We are complicated. We love history, art, food, wine, people...and this is our journey, so we make the rules! Plus, sacrilege, there is plenty of great ice cream in Vermont that is not Ben & Jerry’s! (The pumpkin ice cream and the maple walnut ice cream at the Mountain Creamery in Woodstock for example...)

Vermont was a pleasure from beginning to end. How could you not love a state that has signs saying “Evacuation route” and written below on another sign, the mileage to Canada. Is this a leftover front the 60s? Or, a current day reminder? Or, is there really an evacuation route to Canada? Home to quaint villages, great cheese, apple cider, beer, beautiful Fall foliage, and most importantly the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, only serving child of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, and the town where the 30th President of the US, Calvin Coolidge, was born, raised and buried.

Hildene House is a beautiful, yet not ostentatious home, that served as Robert Todd Lincoln’s summer home for over 20 years, and where he peacefully died in his sleep. The house was last inhabited by his granddaughter Peggy who died in 1975. Most of the furnishings and paintings are original to the house, and the gardens are stunningly maintained by the generosity of a local donor. How sad that President Lincoln only had one surviving child, and his line ended with his great grandchildren, as none of Robert Todd Lincoln’s grandchildren had any children. A few questions I should have asked the docent. Who is Jack Snowflake, and why is he buried in the garden? Who is M W and why is s(he) buried near the observatory? Were these special family pets? Family pests? Inquiring minds want to know!

The Friends of Hildene House are a non-profit dedicated to preserving this beautiful site, and access to it. The house was originally left to a church, with substantial sums of money by “Peggy” Beckworth, the granddaughter of Robert Todd Lincoln. The good news is the church sold it to the Friends, the bad news being they kept all the money. Thanks to the dedicated non-profit, the public has access to this beautiful home and history.

A life long Abe groupie, I came to admire Calvin Coolidge rather late in life, like yesterday! He shared many traits with Lincoln. They both came from humble beginnings. Calvin was born and raised in a very small village in Vermont. His father owned the general store, started the Plymouth Vermont Cheese Factory( the second oldest in the US), farmed and made sugar every season from maple sap. Calvin as a young boy worked in all these ventures, before going off to boarding school 11 miles away to complete high school. He was encouraged to go to college, and after graduating from Amherst, he ended up being a lawyer, just like Honest Abe. He held state offices and had been governor of Massachusetts twice before being tapped as the VP for Harding.

There are no accidents. Once Harding died in office, Calvin brought some small town sensibility to D.C. He was a simple man, and when you travel to the cemetery just down the road, the only reason you spot his grave is because his father’s tomb is very large and says Coolidge. Calvin’s is very unassuming. It does not even say he was President of the US. Ah, the good old days when public servants were about serving the public! If you love history, and remember fondly your days in elementary school watching reel to reel films about the Colonies, you can’t miss these stops!