| | Our 2022 Community Partner
While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2022 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero Today. |
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| | Hometown Hero: Hillsborough woman a keeper of town’s history, sense of community
By RAY DUCKLER Monitor columnist
Bonnie Morse said she was surprised to learn that someone from her hometown had nominated her for the Monitor’s Hometown Hero series.
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| Then, like most of the others who were recognized in previous months, Morse did her best to deflect the praise submitted by someone with first-hand knowledge, in this case Laura Jutzi, a neighbor who apparently appreciated what this 80-year-old lifelong resident of Hillsborough has meant to people.
"A national treasure," was how Jutzi described Morse.
"No," Morse said by phone. "I am not a national treasure."
Jutzi and others beg to differ. They noticed all the volunteer work Morse has done, the groups she’s organized and continues to organize, the love she’s felt for her birthplace, going back to the time when Germany surrendered to the Allies during World War II.
Morse, you see, enjoys the simpler things that New England has to offer. She promotes the town’s history, organizing reenactments of the town’s roles in events such as the Civil and Revolutionary Wars.
She helped create the interactive Living History Event (now called History Alive) about 15 years ago. The organization is at the center of Hillsborough’s 250th birthday celebration, scheduled for Aug. 20-21 at three sites around town: Kemp Park, Jones Road and the Hillsborough Center.
It all connects to a need that some people in villages and towns feel, a nostalgic view and a teaching tool, rolled into one.
Morse is an unofficial ambassador for Hillsborough, the lifelong resident who knows all the people in town, knows the gossip, knows the small details that need attention to make the town even better.
"Hillsborough has stonewall bridges," Morse said. "It has pretty brooks and lakes and an old house, antique places and old mills, a lot of stores and restaurants, and it’s the birthplace of Franklin Pierce."
Jutzi’s email nominating Morse mentioned the various contributions her neighbor has made to Hillsborough, calling her a "teacher, motivator, business owner, indomitable spirit, ardent supporter of the town."
She laughs easily, especially when you poke fun at her Boston-area accent. The one that has no use for the letter ‘R.’
She’s used her homemade community platforms to show her appreciation for life in small-town America. She met Jutzi five or six years ago, after Jutzi had moved to the Granite State from the West Coast.
A neighbor explained to the neighborhood’s new matriarch, "If you want news, get a hold of Bonnie."
Hillsborough is in her blood. She remembers bringing her father dinner about 75 years ago, while he worked the night shift at one of the town mills that was open back then. A rough-looking crowd of people, perhaps homeless, greeted Morse each night on the bridge leading to the mill.
"They always wanted to talk to me, ‘Oh, little girl, you’re so cute,’ " said Morse, who was 5 at the time. "I was scared. I thought they would throw me over the bridge."
She remembers working the cash register at the grocery store her father and grandfather had opened in town. Morse said things were different then.
"The meat did not come in a package," she said. "They’d bring in half a cow, half a pig. They had to cut it up."
The family opened two more stores in Henniker. That’s where Bonnie met her future husband, Walter. Bonnie was on the steps in front of one of the family’s grocery stores when Walter, a longtime State Trooper who also worked on the local force, was walking his beat.
"He asked me to go to the Deering dance at the Town Hall," Bonnie said. "Sixty-two years ago."
She recalls the Thanksgiving turkey being plucked and hung up at the cold storage facility in New Boston. She delivered mail and worked the window at the local post office for 22 years. She and Walter opened a sporting goods store in their home in Hillsborough.
Plus, she’s belonged to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Aux since 1965. Jutzi noted that Morse has "a memory like a steel trap."
"I can remember the old days, I’m pretty good at that," Morse said. "With things more current, I might be slipping."
She remembers working at the hosiery mill in town, and she recreated her role there at the History Alive presentation this weekend.
"I’ll have photos and I’ll answer questions," Morse said.
As for the praise from Jutzi, Morse’s modesty remained firm. She laughed nervously when told about her friend’s kind words.
Indomitable spirit? Motivator?
"I don’t know about that," Morse said. "I’ve been here a long time. I am involved, let’s put it that way."
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