by A. Donald Kennedy
Editors note "Don" Kennedy was born in Dunstable in 1912, and lived here until his death in 1988. For many years, Don raised dairy cattle on his farm at the top of High Street, where he lived with his wife, Lucy. He was the state’s youngest selectman in 1934 at the age of 22, and remained active in town politics throughout most of his life. He was dedicated to protecting Dunstable farmlands from development. In the last installment, Don described Admiral Richard Byrd's stay at Dunstable's Idlewild Hotel. Here, he describes the town's loss of the hotel at the hands of a vengeful and arsonous ex-chef. --di
[0]I remember Bill Clark who lived in the house on the road to Pepperell, now occupied by Mr. Parkin. He had a number of sons. There was Guy, who had served in the U.S. Cavalry on the Mexican Border. My father always liked to visit with Guy about the Cavalry. Harold who had been quite badly hurt in a Railroad accident. Then there was Chester, who with his wife Dorothy, lived in Harold Goldthwaite's apartment. Dot, for the years that the school made an effort to serve a hot lunch; corn chowder on two or three days of the week, and hot cocoa the other days, prepared this lunch. I remember going over to Mary Proctor's house, now owned by Peter Georges, to get milk for the hot lunch. In return for this I was rewarded with a free bowl of corn chowder, which otherwise would have cost me a nickle.Then there was Granville, known as "Granny". I was eighteen when I acquired a driver's license. Most young fellows had a license as soon as they were sixteen, but I guess I was always backward. I worked on the road with "Granny" and became quite friendly with him. "Granny" had no driver's license, so when he bought a little "whippet" he asked me to teach him to drive.
[0]About that time Granny took a job with the Idlewild Hotel, taking care of the cattle and generally looking after the farm. His living quarters were in the "Auto-Labri" across the street, which still stands. This was a fancy garage, having a turntable in it. I would pick Granny up at the Idlewild and we would drive around town. As he became more accomplished with the whippet, we would drive into Nashua or Lowell to get him acquainted with the traffic.During all this time Granny had told me of the maid, whose husband was the chef at the hotel, being involved in a dangerous situation. One night Granny said, "Let's pick up Maud Hingley and Jane Duggan and go parking." So, we went over on the Groton Road and parked under a pine tree. I no sooner shut the switch off when a lightning bolt hit the pine tree. and scared the daylights out of all of us. We took the girls home, and Granny told me that the volatile situation at the Idlewild had gotten much worse. The chef had been fired, but the maid had not been fired.
So a few days later around 4:00 a.m. that morning in May 1933, we were all awakened by the blazing buildings at the Idlewild. You could read a newspaper in our front yard. My brother and I drove over to the scene. Twenty-five head of cattle and a nice team of work horses were bellowing, screaming and crying out to God for help that could not come. Nashua sent a fire engine down, but quickly exhausted all water supplies. John Kelly brought two truck loads of water in milk cans, which helped to save the garage, the ice house, and the maid's quarters across the street. I recall that the wind that morning was from the south east, and I was worried about sparks coming over and landing on our barn roof.
Walter H. Savill, who was fire chief, with the State Fire Marshall, had apprehended the suspect in less than two hours. He had come down the road and parked his car a little north of the James Kendall residence, and with a five gallon can of gasoline to kindle the fire, he had sealed the fate of the cattle and horses. He admitted that he wanted to burn the residents also.
The loss of the Idlewild Hotel was a severe blow to the town of Dunstable.