While Olive Winslow belonged to more than one town organization, she is no doubt best known for her many years as the town Librarian, now known as the Library Director. Serving in this position from 1941-1983, her 42 years holds the record for longevity. Over those years, she saw her salary increase in 1969 to $2.00 an hour for a 10-hour work week. (In 1983, after her tenure ended, the salary went up to $4.00 an hour for 15 hours.) In 1976, she saw her work area move from the library in the Rochester Town Hall to the brand-new Joseph H. Plumb Memorial Library.
Two interesting facts connected to Rochester libraries, 1) they were made possible by the generosity of two women. The first was Mrs. Charles H. Leonard who provided money twice to establish a library in first, the Academy building in 1876 and second in Town Hall in 1891. The second woman was Mrs. Dorothy B. Plumb who provided the money in 1976 for the creation of the Joseph H. Plumb Memorial Library in memory of her late husband.
The interesting fact #2 is that the almost 10,000 books and other items in the library collection were transported from the old Town Hall library to the new one by Donald and Eunice Jenkins, Roland Chevier and Barbara Besse.
But back to Olive. She died in 1983, and a moment of silence was held in her memory at a meeting of the newly created Library Trustees. In addition, books and other memorial gifts were presented to the library, and a golden chain tree was planted on the library grounds in her honor.
By now, you’re scratching your head and wondering what the picture of the stonewall being built has to do with all of this. Well, Olive was a descendant of Zebulon Thompson and she lived in his old home on New Bedford Rd. Thompson was known for many things which included giving the town $2000.00 to build a Macadam road from the Marion town line to the center of town.
When Zebulon, a stone cutter by trade, built his house, he built a stonewall in front of the property, closing in the fields up to the Sturtevant property. Stonewall building in general is a laborious task, but in the 1880s, it bordered on herculean. All the work of cutting the stones, digging the ditches and placing the stones was done more or less by hand.
Now once again back to Olive. New Bedford Road needed to be widened and that meant removing the wall in front of what was now her home. This did not suit her at all, especially considering the historic nature of the wall. She insisted that if the old wall had to be removed, it should be rebuilt closer in on her property, and she got the town to agree. The craftsmen shown in the picture are constructing that wall.
Olive was definitely onto something. According to General law Part IV Title 1 Chapter 266 Title 105, “whoever willfully and without right pulls down or removes any portion of a stonewall or fence which is erected or maintained for the purpose of enclosing land shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten dollars”.
Also, “Natural Resource officers and deputy Natural Resource officers of the office of the Secretaries of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs may arrest without a warrant any person violating this section.”
I don’t suppose that would apply to the town widening the road. I wonder if it was widened again as I went looking for the second wall and couldn’t find it.
By Connie Eshbach