This year, the Grafton Public Library has begun an ambitious
program of renovation and improvement. From the genealogy file of the GHS, here is a warm
and charming remembrance of the person who in 1949, through
the bequest of $75,000, made possible
the library’s first major expansion.
"A Tribute to my Great Aunt Lou – Ms. L.J.C. Daniels”
“In 1922, Aunt Lou was 65 and I was a little lad of
five when she took care of me for several weeks. We lived in “Overbrook”, her village house on the
Houghtonville Road, on the side of which was painted, “A
Square Deal – Voices for Vermont Women”. She was a strong feminist and suffragette – one of
the women who chained themselves to the iron fence around
the White House. However I knew little about that.
What caught my attention was her good cooking!
She baked cornsticks in her woodstove, which we’d eat hot
from the oven with yellow country butter – delicious!
A memorable salad of hers featured orange nasturtiums and
their peppery leaves, both very tasty.
She was a true Yankee – of serious demeanor, rarely
smiled, yet a woman of wit and sense of humor.
She was laconic – wasted no words. Considering that she was 65 (a very ancient person to
my young eyes), as well as a maiden lady, even so I liked
her as a baby sitter. She treated me as a person, not as a little boy.
Behind her dour looks and undemonstrative ways, there was a kind and thoughtful woman.
Aunt Lou was frugal. She invested wisely a comfortable inheritance, but
she was very sparing in her spending money on herself.
Witness her never owning a car and always traveling by bus.
When I visited her in Grafton for a month in 1933,
she invited a struggling woman artist to stay for several
weeks in “Little Brick” (also called “Old Ken-Den), her
cottage across the road from the Congregational Church.
At another time she asked a poor Armenian family to
stay for several weeks in “Little Brick”.
Aunt Lou made generous donations to village projects,
and in her will she was even more generous in her bequests
for enriching Grafton as a community of friends and
neighbors.
In both her frugality and generosity, Aunt Lou has
been a role model for me and a strong and lasting influence
on the way my wife Louise and I have led our lives for the
last 56 years. We count this as a blessing in an era of society
largely driven by consumerism and greed."
John Daniels, Cobleskill, N.Y. Feb. 23, 1995
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