I'll Keep Going as Far as I Can Go: Artie Aiken, Almost 100

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.