What often goes unnoticed about a good book is that the book’s origin story is often as interesting as the story within the book itself. Understanding the author’s own life journey adds perspective and inspiration to the reader’s experience.

That’s why, if you attended Norwich-based author Ken Cadow’s talk at the Norwich Public Library earlier in April, you might have a new window into his recent novel, Gather – a coming-of-age story set in present day Vermont, that explores themes of youth, education, family, struggles with addiction, and resilience – told through the eyes of a teenager named Ian.

Ken Cadow grew up in Rhode Island and spent his summers on Block Island. He later graduated from Rhode Island College with a focus on computer science and English and ended up jumping around in professions and interests.

“I would describe myself as an avid lifelong learner, always wanting to know more, but I really don’t care about formal credentials,” he says. Realizing this, Cadow opted to drive a taxi cab after graduating college instead of putting his degrees to ‘logical’ use. He joined the Navy where he was an officer for four years, then opened up a grocery store and wholesale business in Rhode Island, then he met his wife and started a family before landing in Norwich in 1997, where they have lived ever since. This is where the writing comes in.

For Cadow, writing and publishing Gather was a process spanning years, full of starts and stops, re-routing and re-writing, and lots and lots of thinking. In 1999, Cadow was inspired by an encounter he had while interviewing local hunters for an oral history project through the MALS (Master of Arts in Liberal Studies) program at Dartmouth College. “I was really struck by how, typically, you put a bunch of teenagers with a bunch of people who are older than they are, and they don’t say much, but I found that in the hunting camps, they were really leaning into the whole experience and part of the conversations.” A big parcel of nearby land had just been posted, and the hunters were sharing their disdain for this newfound situation. “They were talking about how it was harder and harder to find places to hunt,” Cadow says. “I thought, it would be really interesting if one of the kids in this hunting camp fell in love with the daughter of the family who just bought this land and moved into town…that would be an interesting dynamic to explore in a book.”

Where Ken has spent countless hours contemplating,
curating, developing, writing.

Cadow had been jotting down notes to develop a plot, “But I could never find the character that I wanted to stick with to tell that story,” he says. Twenty years later, “Ian walked onto the page.”

With another two decades of Vermont living under his belt and having worked with local kids in various educational roles, Cadow felt better equipped to bring this story to life. From the winter of 2019 when Cadow picked his pencil back up, it took him about eight months to finish the first draft. “After a while, I stopped paying attention to who the audience was and paid a lot more attention to who the narrator was,” he says. “My whole focus really became owing it to the character to get the story out.”

Inspired by some of Cadow’s real-life observations and experiences, but completely fictional, Gather takes a thoughtful approach to define learning, battling the notion that a “one size fits all” education isn’t the answer, or even close to it. In Cadow’s experience, he learned how to do things in school, but later learned how to use those things outside of school. “For me, that’s the ideal learning environment – through application,” he says. “The most important thing for me was always not necessarily utility, but the satisfaction of putting knowledge to work…[Things] have come a really long way since I was in school in terms of how we reach kids and have more opportunities than just desk learning,” he adds. “But I think we still have a long way to go.”

Gather’s main character, Ian, exemplifies an all-too-common struggle between student and the “system” – an educational model that’s outdated, inefficient, and “top down”, as Cadow describes. “The creativity is happening at the ground floor,” he explains, with passionate teachers who want to meet students where they are. “I wish we didn’t make such a huge distinction between learning by doing and desk learning that we do in our system,” Cadow says. “Everybody needs the exposure [to both types] to figure out what they might want to do next; figure out where their strengths are.”

“One of the things that drives education to be so expensive is that we’re trying to make something that’s busted work for too many people,” Cadow adds. “Instead of simplifying the system, we’re trying to simplify how we pay for it.”

As a former educator at various schools in Vermont and as the current administrator at Oxbow High School in Bradford, VT, Cadow witnesses the educational lives of his students daily, celebrating their wins and coping with their struggles alongside them. The shift in recent years has prioritized testing – especially since Covid-19, which focused more on learning lost than the potential for learning gained, Cadow says. Instead, Cadow raises the questions: “Why have kids stopped associating what they do at home with learning?” and “How can students see themselves as learners 24/7?”

With that in mind, Gather is more than a book – it’s a testament to the very real experiences of learners and educators everywhere – rural and urban, young and old, those concerned with tradition and those who desire to stray from the norm. Ian’s story represents that of “good kids who struggle with a system that’s not as flexible as we need it to be,” when “the systems that are intended to support him don’t.”

“I would love to challenge every person who’s looking at public education to ask themselves a couple of things,” Cadow says. “One is, ‘if it’s all this race to the top, what are we doing with everybody else and why do we have to define it that way?’” And, “Another thing that I wish we paid more attention to is – when the supply chain got really tight – how much we need our people who are capable of producing that which literally sustains us…I think Norwich is pretty great about that, but it’s a little bit of a bubble economy. How do we make it less of a bubble?”

Now, Cadow has been spending time on another book that’s been in the works since 2002 (he points out that with a full-time job as a principal, he only has time to work on his book over school vacations and for a few hours at a time on the weekends). He’s always keeping notes on a potential sequel to Gather, but for now, it’s one book against the world – a world that could use some added perspective.

A  great community is made up of great people. We’ve profiled a lot of great people in the Norwich Times over the years, each one remarkable in their own right, and it’s a great honor when I get the chance to interview and tackle the process of trying to put words to a Norwichian’s life and commitment to this special town in such a small way. It’s equally daunting that, being an “outsider” as it stands, I’m writing about someone that everyone already knows, and I’ve only just begun to get to know.

This signed picture frame was gifted to Demo Sofronas at a
community potluck in December to commemorate his service as
a crossing guard in Norwich. Photo by Kata Sasvari.

You may know him as a former postmaster or crossing guard, or 30 year Lions Club and 30+ years American Legion member, or a veteran of 26 years of service in the U.S. Army National Guard, or by one of the many other hats he’s worn in life so far…

Demo Sofronas, who arrived in Norwich in 1993 to be the town’s postmaster, quickly melded with his surroundings and felt right at home.

“That’s how I got involved with the community,” he says. “Every postmaster is given an assignment to go out and meet the community and interact with them to improve postal operations.”

Through his job, Demo was encouraged to get involved with local organizations, which has stuck with him even after he moved on from the Norwich Post Office after 9 years, and after his retirement from the postal service in 2007. “I’ve served on many committees and boards,” but listing them wouldn’t be telling the real story about what’s important to him about Norwich, he says.

An article from the winter/spring issue of the Norwich Times in 2019, after being named Norwich’s “Citizen of the Year”, details Demo’s rich history of his many involvements in Norwich over the years, but there’s one thing that keeps Demo the busiest these days.

Demo receiving an award as a 30+ years American Legion member

Now, in his “semi-retirement phase,” as he calls it, Demo has turned his focus to his well-loved community newsletter, About Norwich, which has gained much traction and support since its inception in the winter of 2019.

While working part-time for CATV (now JAM (Junction Arts & Media) in White River Junction), Demo was primarily responsible for filming coverage of selectboard meetings in Norwich. “Seeing people come together in a political setting,” he says, “you see a lot of different things, you learn a lot. I felt inspired.”

Fourteen years of filming selectboard meetings in Norwich “inspired me to want to see if I can bring the community together,” Demo says. After branching out to film other local events in town like pumpkin carving in front of the Town Hall at Halloween, Homecoming parades, and the Norwich Fair, “that inspired me even more,” Demo adds, “because I saw another sign of community; I saw people coming together.”

About Norwich captures the spirit of the Norwich community in a neat little package, with stories spanning everywhere from town-wide updates, school news, and event coverage, to heartfelt tales of some of Norwich’s best – heroes, helpers, and the good stuff that makes Norwich the amazing place that it is.

“It’s a mix between events that are happening and then every now and again, a ‘Day in the Life’ of someone,” Demo explains. The About Norwich mission statement sums up Demo’s goals well: “My stories are about people and events in Norwich, and sometimes out and about in the Upper Valley. The stories are meant to inspire and bring the community together. I will do my best to write positive stories and offer you some informational topics, also.”

Topics range from short stories to longer pieces and photo essays, depending on what strikes Demo in the moment. “I kind of wing it,” he says. “If I’m walking down the street and I see something and I take a picture of it and I say ‘that would make a good story’, I do that.”

Demo the crossing guard.

The story of About Norwich began around 2017, when Demo was writing for Daily UV (a local roundup of community news) and working alongside Rob Gurwit (now the publisher of Daybreak Upper Valley). “Rob served as a mentor to me, which prompted me to start my own blog when Daily UV shut down,” rolling with the name he had coined, “About Norwich”, and keeping his inspirational momentum going.

“I started to get a following,” Demo recounts. “I just kept at it…It’s done well.” Over the past five years, About Norwich has grown to have over 900 subscribers, which is close to 52% of postal addresses in Norwich.

In 2023, Demo’s most read story on About Norwich was “This little squirrel just might kneed the dough”, a short and sweet photo essay depicting a local squirrel that had gotten ahold of someone’s baguette and embarked on a steady ascent up a tree with its prized possession. Many of Demo’s best stories transpire this way – coming from neighbors in Norwich who submit photos and anecdotes, which Demo takes and turns into a fun and compelling story to share with the greater community, inducing lots of smiles from readers along the way.

“I’m not a writer,” Demo admits,” but people have told me [I] have the ability to look at a photo and come up with a caption that is totally relative yet kind of corny; I guess that’s my style.”

Demo cutting a cake made by the Norwich Rec kids’ culinary
camp at a community potluck in December.
Photo by Kata Sasvar.

Last year, Demo published a total of 91 stories, his most read this time being “The USS Constitution – a 14-month project – and a photo essay step by step”, a story about a ship model built by Lebanon’s Arthur Sauvigne. Other top contenders included stories about the Norwich Kids Bridge, the Norwich Christmas Pageant, Valentines for Veterans, and a couple stories with photos of puppies so enticing, I can see why they got over one thousand clicks.

Demo’s involvement in the community of Norwich has fed his soul, and About Norwich is his way to keep the train going, continuing to have a foothold in his town and bring joy to his neighbors.

“It’s hard to scale down,” he admits, referring to the various positions he’s had to cut back on in his retirement and to focus on his newsletter. “I’ve enjoyed it immensely,” and “I never could have done any of this without the support of my wife and family,” he adds.

In December, Demo retired from his post as a crossing guard for families and students at Marion Cross Elementary School (MCS). “Being a crossing guard just [increased] my community involvement,” he says, so much so that he’s created some lifetime memories for kids in Norwich. “I [saw] parents and kids coming to school every day, and these are the same people that I’ve seen out and about in the community through these different organizations that I’ve served.”

“It makes me smile every time my daughter crosses the road,” says Becky Munsterer Sabky. “To this day,” when Polly, a first grader at MCS, crosses the road, “she says ‘listen to Demo when crossing the road’, because he taught [her] to cross the road safely.”

Another MCS student dressed up as Demo in his crossing guard uniform (bright vest and red stop sign) for Halloween one year. The Norwich Recreation Department’s holiday community potluck honored Demo, and the kids’ culinary camp created a special cake for him.

Demo in a dunk tank during an outdoor activity day that the Marion Cross School was holding for their students.

Rest assured, Demo doesn’t plan to stop writing and sharing the best tid-bits of Norwich life anytime soon. Two months into another year of About Norwich, with nine or ten stories hot off the press, he’s already on track to beat his record from last year – not that that’s the goal, of course. You can catch up with Demo around town as he’s out and about finding stories, and you can look forward to Demo’s contributions in future issues of the Norwich Times.

“I don’t know how you’re going to put this all together,” Demo told me during our interview (the age old question for any writer, I’d imagine). “But I can tell you what my favorite movie is.” I assured Demo I’d find some way of weeding through the density of his many ties to Norwich (a mighty task that was becoming clearer with every second of our conversation), while we traded our reviews of The Notebook across a table at the Norwich Inn, talked about our tactics for beating writer’s block, and discussed favorite music – Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones coming to the top of the list for Demo. “This is going to date me,” he realized, then shrugged it off, “but tell the world, I don’t care!”

You can subscribe to Demo’s newsletter, “About Norwich”, and read past articles on Substack at aboutnorwich.substack.com.

Each February just before Valentine’s Day, a group of women  get together in the wine cellar at the Norwich Inn with a mission: to craft as many valentines cards as they can for Veterans at the VA Medical Center in White River Junction.

Around 15 years ago, Norwich resident Becky Munsterer Sabky read a newspaper column about Veterans hospitals welcoming valentines from strangers for Valentine’s Day – a holiday that is sometimes cautiously celebrated, especially by those who have experienced loss or other traumas throughout their life.

Becky reached out to the VA Medical Center in White River Junction to inquire about getting involved. At first, “It was just a couple friends and me getting together,” she says. Now, the group has grown to involve lots of local women (20 participated this year); as they grew, they dubbed themselves first “The Ladies of the Upper Valley”, and then as the group evolved to be mostly women from Norwich, they became “The Ladies of Norwich”, and they sign their homemade valentines as such. “It became a social and community event that took off,” Becky adds. “It’s an invitation to friends and family to get together, craft valentines, and then deliver them to the VA hospital.”

Norwich residents and honorary “Ladies of Norwich”,
Laura Brown and Helena Gardner, show their
Valentines creations before they get delivered to the
VA medical center in White River Junction.

When the Ladies of Norwich first started making and delivering valentines to Veterans, they were able to visit the hospital and deliver the cards door-to-door. Post-Covid, some rules have changed, and now their valentines cards are delivered to the hospital and placed on patients’ lunch trays as a nice surprise. The number one rule that the Ladies of Norwich and other area Valentines-for-Veterans card-makers have to abide by is “no glitter!”. For anyone who has crafted with glitter before, you probably understand why.

But that doesn’t limit The Ladies of Norwich. From stickers and markers to crayons and cutouts, their valentines make a statement in pretty pinks, purples, and reds. For Becky and her friends, it’s as fun as it is charitable, to get together and mingle while crafting, sharing appetizers and wine. “We feel like kindergarteners again,” Becky remarks.

This year, the Ladies of Norwich made 80 valentines cards to distribute to patients at the VA Medical Center. Becky sees it as a small contribution in the grand scheme of things, but, “You do something so little, and yet it really inspires people to think about how they can think of others on Valentine’s Day,” she says. “It was hard to deliver cards to people who were inpatients at the hospital, but I felt like they were so inspirational, and it was such a little thing that seemed to brighten their day.”

The Ladies of Norwich plan to get together again soon to craft cards for Veterans for Memorial Day. In the meantime, the VA is always welcoming volunteers to interact with Veterans in a variety of ways.

During National Salute to Veteran Patients Week (Valentine’s week: February 9-15), “The community is encouraged to send in valentines for the patients,” says Karen Campbell, VHA-CM, Chief of Center for Development and Civic Engagement at the White River Junction VA Medical Center. For local information regarding this activity or opportunities to engage with Veterans, you can contact the medical center at:

White River Junction VA HCS
215 North Main Street
White River Junction, VT  05009
802-295-9363 x5392

The positive impact of music couldn’t be clearer to 17-year-old Norwood Davis.

Davis, who moved to Norwich in 2013, started playing the classical piano when he was four years old. Since then, he’s kept playing, most recently in front of an unsuspecting audience.

Davis’ grandmother, Norma Butters, has been living at Wheelock Terrace Senior Living Center in Hanover since 2020. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about ten years ago.

“For a long time, I’ve watched her decline in what she can say and do,” Davis says. “Back [when I was] in 7th grade, she lived in this place in Cincinnati; we would go [visit] probably once a year, and when we would go I would play the piano there.”

Norma is among many seniors in assisted living centers who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and experience severe symptoms, such as memory loss, confusion, the inability to communicate, emotional outbursts and impulsive behavior, and lack of awareness. Victims of this unfortunate disease have difficulty performing and experiencing normal, everyday tasks. With that in mind, it’s not uncommon for Alzheimer’s patients to be unreceptive to visitors.

“They sit still for most of the day in front of the TV…there’s not a whole lot of stimulation [for them],” Davis says. “These people, they don’t get to see kids that are so young that often. Those who are like my mom’s Mom, they need this stimulation.”

After seeing how much joy music brought his grandmother, Davis decided to organize a Recital for Young Musicians to share the joy of music with other seniors in assisted living.

During visits to Norma in Cincinnati, Davis would play favorites like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for residents of the assisted living center. “I would start to play,” Davis recounts. “You could see a change across the whole space: in their eyes, in the ways they sat or stood, and some would begin to sing or hum along.”

“Some who didn’t know their kids’ names, didn’t know how to walk…they would start to sing along word for word,” Davis adds.

In August, Davis organized his first music recital at Wheelock Terrace and advertised on the Norwich Listserv to young musicians in the area.

The first recital was a huge success: “You could tell that everyone was so uplifted,” Davis says. “Not just [by] the songs that were played and sung, but also just the connection to kids that are young.”

Davis planned another music recital, this time Halloween-themed, at The Greens at Hanover – an independent senior living community. Davis advertised on the Norwich Listserv and Hanover Listserv and ended up with nine young musicians who participated.

Mostly from Norwich and Hanover, the participating young musicians wore their Halloween costumes to the recital at The Greens in October and played some spooky classical tracks to set the autumnal mood. Musicians ranged in age from five years old to teenagers under 18.

Davis says that the biggest impact of his recitals is the connection that music brings for seniors, those with and without Alzheimer’s.

“Both my grandma on my mom’s side and my grandad on my dad’s side, they both suffer pretty severely from Alzheimer’s, and I’ve spent a lot of time in these places,” Davis says. “I’ve seen firsthand how big of an impact the sound of music and how it can bring joy to them.”

As a junior at Kimball Union Academy, Davis will graduate soon, but in the meantime, he plans to continue the tradition of music recitals at area senior centers every two or three months. He also hopes to expand to more locations.

The sound of music touches the mind, body, and soul of all those who hear it, and Davis has seen it work its magic over and over again.

Not only does music spread joy and bring people together; Davis says, “Music has been shown to bring back memories.”

There’s a lot to learn about a place by its history. For Sarah Rooker, this means digging into the rich history of Norwich – to appreciate the past, and also to better serve the future.

“Citizen historians” – or residents who are taking an interest in learning about and investigating their local history – are on the rise in Norwich, Rooker says, who became the director of the Norwich Historical Society (NHS) in 2016. “We need to continue to tell the story of Norwich and help people understand what makes a strong community and what the aspects are that make them love it so much.”

Norwich, chartered in 1761 by Benning Wentworth – the Royal Governor of New Hampshire – is a town with a rich history and a strong community that continues to thrive. When Rooker moved to Norwich in 1994, she learned this quickly.

As the director at NHS, Rooker’s main responsibility is to fulfill the society’s mission of preserving local history and promoting community engagement in local history education. Depending on the day, this could mean working with trustees and volunteers, curating new exhibits, organizing community projects and school programs, or caring for the artifacts in the society’s collections.

When it comes to history, “I really like all of it,” Rooker says, though architecture and landscape history are some of her favorite topics. Growing up in a family who appreciated local history played a big role in Rooker’s interest in New England culture. Rooker spent much of her childhood reenacting at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, where her mother was the museum curator. “I learned a lot there about history,” Rooker says. “I would spin and weave and do hearth cooking… I just really connected deeply to it.”

As an undergrad student at the College of William & Mary, Rooker completed a degree in American Studies and worked at the nearby Colonial Williamsburg settlement where she trained to become a museum educator. Since then, Rooker’s career focus has always been on history education. Over the years, Rooker has worked as an educator for the Vermont Historical Society and as the director of the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance. Along with working at NHS, she also leads the local non-profit “The Flow of History” – a place-based history professional development resource for grade school teachers in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Now, Rooker has just finished putting the final touches on NHS’s “Becoming Norwich” exhibit – a collaboration with Norwich cartoonist Emily Zea, featuring a series of illustrated histories of Norwich, which just opened in May. Between Zea’s artistic contributions and Rooker’s writing, the exhibit covers Norwich’s history from its early years to today, with an emphasis on the importance of small-town government. The exhibit will run through 2023.

The historical society’s last exhibit showcased an old pulpit Bible from Norwich which had been vandalized by “rogues” in 1848. The Bible had been in NHS’s collections, and when Rooker opened it, she discovered that “it had been cut all the way through almost like a book safe,” to reveal a note written by the church deacon exposing the vandals “for all generations yet to come.” “It gave me the shivers,” Rooker remembers. “I [had] just got a note from the past. He wanted us to know what had happened.”

This exhibit and all NHS offerings aim to engage community members in learning about their own history. Rooker sees it as a way of “taking the history and thinking about ways to make it connect to the present,” she says. For the vandalized bible project, Rooker invited community artists and poets to respond to the exhibit with their own interpretations of the story. This blend of curiosity and creativity is at the heart of NHS and Rooker’s mission.

A current NHS project – “The Weather Diaries” – presents monthly reports from two Norwich diaries written 150 years apart – one in 1873 and one in 2023. The diary entries focus on the weather, and when viewed in comparison, “[It’s] really interesting – especially with climate change – to look at the differences in snow cover, frost dates, planting dates, and sugaring,” Rooker says.

After spending the past few months bringing “Becoming Norwich” to life, Rooker will soon turn her attention to the busy summer season at NHS. Now that the warmer weather has kicked in, history walking tours and other community events are just on the horizon. Most of these NHS-sponsored events are fundraisers to support the continued success of the historical society, which “[raises] everything that [it spends] every year,” Rooker says.

Walking and bicycle tours are some of the most popular event fundraisers, which cover all time periods of Norwich history, generally anywhere from 1700-1960. “People in Norwich, they’re active; they like to bike and hike and get out,” Rooker says, who plans to continue developing NHS programming that incorporates nature and exercise. “We want to meet them where they’re at.”

Walking tour offerings include mid-century modern house tours, home and garden tours, stone wall and cellar hole walking tours, a Union Village tour, and a Civil War and slavery history tour at the center of Norwich. “Any kind of fundraising thing we do, I like to have it have a history piece to it,” Rooker says. “Those walking tours are an incredible way to connect to the Town.” Pre-recorded podcast driving tours are also available year-round and can be accessed for free through the NHS website.

Tour participants receive a laminated packet of documents and resources specific to the tour (these might include things like historic photos, diary entries, or other archival materials), and they’re encouraged to make observations and comparisons and to ask questions. “When you walk up and down a street and you can look at a house and imagine who lived there and how it was built and know stories, you feel so grounded, and it makes you happier,” Rooker says. “I see that over and over again, and it just brings me great joy to help people discover that.”

An Antique show in September is another annual fundraiser that supports NHS, and through the winter, a series of Zoom lectures – “Discover Norwich” – helps bring donations in during the colder months. Between these fundraisers and volunteer support, NHS would not be possible without support from the community of Norwich that it serves.

With an influx of people moving to the Upper Valley, Rooker takes special care to welcome any new Norwich neighbors to learn about the community using NHS as a guide. “We have constant work to do to help people learn about and value the historic houses and their historic barns and their historic landscape,” Rooker says. “And [to] understand that all those pieces come together to make this beautiful town what it is.”

Finding a balance between historic preservation and modernization can prove tricky sometimes, but Rooker is determined that Norwich can keep up with the times while still “[retaining] the historic character [of Norwich] that we all love,” she says. For the historical society, part of finding this balance is keeping records to help preserve history (like photographs, diary entries, or other artifacts), while also embracing progressive attitudes and a growing population. For example, NHS offers educational resources for homeowners on the care and maintenance of old buildings, so that their history can be honored while also accommodating concerns about energy efficiency – an increasingly common focus of modern construction.

Another way NHS connects with the community is by providing an interactive and easily accessible array of digital history resources, which can be found on the historical society’s website, norwichhistory.org. The website contains updates on NHS news and events, along with information on historical society exhibits, an online collections catalog, resources for historical research, and even a list of activities for families with children. NHS also connects with patrons and community members via a mailing list and the local listserv.

“At the heart, historical societies are community institutions,” Rooker says. “It’s a busy hive of activity all the time.” Even though the historical society’s official hours are Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, students, volunteers, and community members stop by daily for one reason or another. Community members – typically high school students and elders – are drawn to volunteering at NHS and are involved in a variety of ways, anywhere from setting up exhibits to putting on fundraisers.

NHS memberships, which renew every summer and start at $15, are another large piece of the support that makes the historical society possible. NHS members directly support the programming that the society provides to the community, most of which is offered for free. “Really, what you get by being a member is knowing that you’re a steward of your community,” Rooker says.

For the community of Norwich, the historical society is a vital resource for keeping the Town’s history alive – helping people answer questions about their past and learn from history as they make decisions for the future. For Rooker, some of her most important work is giving citizens the tools they need to stay engaged in their own history.

“I like seeing how history can connect people to where they live,” she says. “If a town is going to have a strong identity, it needs to know where it comes from.”

Upon entering Tammy Heesakker and Greg Russo’s circa-1961 mid-century modern Norwich home, it’s no surprise that it won a national Design Award of Excellence in November last year.

The Walter and Sylvia Stockmayer House, poised discreetly and elegantly atop a hill on Overlook Drive in Norwich, is an example of a “Usonian” style home, a design term coined by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to describe what was originally intended to be simple and organic design that warranted an affordable price point for families. The same mid-century modern homes that are widely sought-after today were at one time – in the not so distant past – built by the dozen to address the post-war need for affordable housing. 

Now, in 2022, this delicately renovated residence pays beautiful homage to mid-century era design and architecture, enough so that it caught the attention of State Architectural Historian Devin Colman, who nominated the Stockmayer House for a Docomomo US ‘Modernism in America’ award several months ago.

Colman, who calls the home “very forward thinking for its time,” says Heesakker and Russo’s efforts to restore the home to its original architectural glory “really stood out to (him) as being exceptional.”

The Stockmayer House, which is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of only twelve projects receiving a Modernism in America Award in 2022. According to Docomomo US, (a nonprofit organization whose name stands for “Documentation and Conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement”), this particular award recognizes preservation work ranging from “the transformation of large-scale projects into beacons of sustainability” to “modest home revitalizations.”

Designed by Allan J. Gelbin – an apprentice of  Frank Lloyd Wright – the home was commissioned by Walter Stockmayer (a former professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College) and his wife, Sylvia. Since then, the home has been rented and then sat on the market for a summer before Heesakker and Russo purchased it in a near tear-down state in 2015.

With a caving-in roof and other structural issues posing challenges by the mid-2010s, the only hope for the Stockmayer House was “very sensitive, thoughtful interventions” by its new owners, Colman says. “It’s a great example of taking an existing building that needs a little love and bringing it back to life.”

“The house was in bad shape,” Heesakker remembers, though “the bones were good.”

“You could tell right off the bat that the house needed a roof,” Russo adds. “That was for starters. Once you took the roof off, there were lots of surprises under (it).”

Despite being first-time homebuyers and unfamiliar with the surrounding community, Heesakker and Russo made the confident, yet daunting decision to become the next generation of owners for the Stockmayer House just over seven years ago.

Besides being one of the few local properties on the market at the time, the pair chose the Norwich home because they appreciated its style and saw its potential, even in its rough state.

“For better or for worse, we thought, ‘well, if we could fix it up we’d be happy here’,” Russo says, whose appreciation for mid-century modern architecture and design first emerged during his childhood.

A poster of Fallingwater – a famous architectural feat of Frank Lloyd Wright located in Pennsylvania – started it all.

“I just became interested in him… his philosophy and the style,” Russo says.

“When we walked in (to the Stockmayer House), I recognized the style right away,” Russo says. “I knew there was some sort of connection to Frank Lloyd Wright; I didn’t know anything more than that.”

The Stockmayer House features Usonian design concepts like one-story living, no basement or attic, an open carport, concrete slab flooring, natural wood materials, built-in furniture, and simple and sleek rooflines. The tucked-away front door, tight and cozy entryway and dimly lit narrow hallways give way to an open and bright living room, with high ceilings, skylights and large windows, and plenty of space to move around.

According to Heesakker, what stands out most about Gelbin’s design is the thoughtful “form follows function” architectural approach. Gelbin and other architects of the time held equally high standards for aesthetics and purpose, leaving clients with a finished product both beautiful and functional to call home. Elements like built-in bedroom closet storage and a pass-through connecting the kitchen to the dining area and living room eliminate the need for extra clutter and unnecessary space. Upon moving into the Stockmayer House from Boston, “we had a lot of furniture that we either didn’t have a place for or didn’t need,” Heesakker says.

While performing research for the renovations, Heesakker and Russo stumbled upon Gelbin’s design papers for the Stockmayer House, which had been donated to the Art Institute of Chicago after the architect’s death in 1994. The pair took a trip to see the records in person, where they scoured them for information to help guide their project.

“Some of the stuff that we found in the archives were sort of like the specs: the processes they used to make the floors for instance,” Russo says, explaining that the method which Gelbin employed to create the classic Usonian red slab flooring is not the same as what most contractors would follow today.

Honoring the original design of the home has proved tricky, but not impossible. According to Heesakker, finding knowledgeable and willing tradespeople quickly emerged as one of the most difficult challenges.

“It’s just not what they’re used to doing,” she says.

For such a simple theoretical design, their modernist home doesn’t meld all too well with the efficiency of contemporary construction techniques. For example, in many cases, it would be much less of a hassle to simply replace elements of the home with up-to-date materials, rather than restoring them or remodeling them to preserve their authentic history.

Materials for remodeling and routine maintenance are hard to track down. Many are discontinued or not readily available to consumers since the ’60s.

Though Heesakker and Russo’s top priority throughout the renovations has been to create a comfortable and beautiful living space while also honoring the original design of the space as Gelbin intended it.

“We needed to live here and we wanted it to look nice,” Russo says. “I don’t think I ever thought that we would live in a house that would garner attention.”

Major components of the four-year renovation project included installing a new roof, remodeling the carport, a new septic system, exterior painting, and other updates to old and failing features throughout the home.

A few more intricate projects involved specially-crafted replicas of custom original light fixtures and fragile lamp shades, along with the red Micarta kitchen countertops – a building material that’s harder to come by these days, and not cheap. 

“It was obvious that there were going to be multiple projects; however, I don’t think it was obvious how many there were,” Russo says. “There’s always more to do.”

In the near future, the pair plan to fortify the single-pane windows to improve insulation in the home, and tackle other projects such as a bathroom remodel, solar panel installation, and outdoor landscaping.

The Stockmayer House also bridges the balance between work life and home life, with a short commute to Dartmouth Health where Russo works as a radiation oncologist, and a welcoming atmosphere to relax in after a long day.

When friends and family come to visit, “they come for relaxation,” Russo says, finding it easy to take a restful break in a home whose architecture already exudes that kind of atmosphere. A recent visitor took note of the soundproofing that the solid floors and walls provide. “You can’t hear people walking around,” Heesakker said. “It’s very peaceful for that reason.”

The Norwich Historical Society’s online exhibit, Mad for Mid Century Modern, documents several modern Norwich homes – including the Stockmayer House – as well as the history of modernist architecture throughout the community.

Gelbin even designed and built a house for himself on Norwich’s Hopson Road in 1973 – known as the “Allan Gelbin House” – where he lived until ’77.

Recently, the Norwich Historic Preservation Commission has nominated several homes for National Historic Register status, and has designated fifteen modern homes in the Hopson Road neighborhood as a ‘National Historic District’. Preserving the history of these homes not only serves to appreciate their unique and beautiful design; it also brings people together and provides an opportunity to learn about a rich history right under our noses.

The Stockmayer House’s application for the Docomomo US award was “a chance to showcase on a national level a really great modernist house in Vermont,” Colman says, noting that in other places around the United States, it’s a common misconception that Vermont is all “old” and harbors no modern architecture. “Our benchmark is 50 years or older as a starting point to evaluate a historic property,” Colman reminds. “That comes as a real shock to some people.”

“It’s nice to be recognized for taking care of something,” Heesakker says.

“It’s interesting learning how to live in a house like this,” she adds. “It’s kind of like living in a museum… living in art,” says Russo. “It’s also just home.”