Artie Aiken turns 100 years old June 10, and everybody is
asking him about his longevity. “I don’t really know,” he shrugs. “All I can
lay it to is work, really hard work.”
He has worked hard, all his life. As a young man, he was
hired on by many of the farmers in town. First by W.H. Bent at the present
Kestrel Farm and later by Charlie Holton, helping him grow potatoes, and
Artie has this story about working for my grandfather, Paul G. Harlow, during
the floods after the 1938 hurricane. Artie was milking cows. “The wind blew the
silo roof off,” Artie says. “It was pitch dark, no light out there; I kept
right on milking by hand until I got them done.”
Starting in 1946, after he got back from the service, Artie
went to work for the Boston and Maine Railroad for twenty years, at a beginning
wage of 40 cents an hour. He still often did farm work. “I’d get home from the
railroad, and there would always be someone waiting in my yard—‘can you come do
some work for me?’”
In the 1960s, he joined the crew that built I-91from
Brattleboro to Hartland, and after that, he built houses for Sam Streeter for
ten years. He still works, you could say – he keeps Pete Harrison company on
his Meals on Wheels rounds.
Artie was born on Acton Hill in Townshend and his family
moved to Hartley Hill in Westminster when he was five years old. In 1942, he
moved to School Street, next door to his present house, then sold that and
moved to where he lives now. Artie’s wife, Mary, born a Parda in Westminster,
died in 2007.
This will be the first year that Artie isn’t planting a
garden, he says. “It’s too much for me. Just old age got against me.” Except
maybe he’ll put in a couple of plants so he can pick tomatoes for a fresh
sandwich: untoasted bread, mayo, tomato. No salt, no pepper. “It makes a good
sandwich,” he says. And sure enough, come May 19, Artie was planting a couple
of tomato plants.
Artie is a well-known local dowser, and this is how he
started: He was working on the railroad, watching for trains while a co-worker
welded, down in Dummerston. “We were getting kind of dry, and I said ‘If I only
had a drink.’” His buddy bent each of his welding rods at one end and handed
them to Artie. Artie started walking. He didn’t have to go far before the
moving rods told him where to dig. “I dug down with my hands and water come
right up out of the ground,” he said. “I’ve still got those rods and I’ve found
water everywhere.”
“To get to 100,” he
says, “it seems like it’s five years.
But the days come and go….I’ll keep going as far as I can go.”
Everyone is invited to celebrate Artie’s 36,500 days, at his
house, 79 School Street, Sunday, June 9, from noon to 4 p.m. Bring a side dish
or dessert, if you can.
And if you haven’t already, wish Dick Morse a Happy Century,
too. He turned 100 this year, along with Louise Morse.
Susan Harlow is a member of the Westminster Cares Board of
Directors.
