Waldo Glover was born and raised on the farm situated at the top of the hill on what is now Glover Rd. in Groton. He was educated at the Peacham Academy, and Boston University and returned to his beloved “Fenton’s Store” sometime during the first decade or so of the 20th century to teach and eventually become school superintendent. After many years he moved to Winchester Mass. so that his two children, Helen and Gordon, could attend Boston University as commuting students.
Perhaps the absence from Groton stirred Waldo’s deep fondness for his grandparents, Otis and Esther, his cherished “homeplace” and the already forgotten life of a Vermont hill farm.
He wrote several books about Groton, Mr. Glover’s Groton, The Sleeping Sentinel (about the Groton soldier whose death by firing squad was to serve as an example to the rest of the Union troops who had become lazy while waiting in Washington DC during the Civil War. He was pardoned by Lincoln minutes before the scheduled execution!), and East of Knox Mountain or How Vermont Rural Life in the Eighties and Nineties Looked To A Boy of That Era.
This book was completed 1946 but it was never published.
Waldo’s daughter, Helen, gave me the original manuscript, and it languished in a box for many years before the technology of scanning pages into an editable format became possible. I have been transcribing Waldo’s work into documents that can be edited and shared via the computer and the internet.
Hopefully, these delightfully readable and endearing stories about Waldo’s first years on the Glover Farm at long last will be enjoyed and shared by everyone who may be interested.
DEBORAH JURIST
Note: Although the miracle of OCR scanning makes it possible to reconfigure the typewritten page into editable form, the scanner quite frequently misreads format, spelling and punctuation. Waldo’s antiquated language notwithstanding, I beseech any reader who spots a misspelling, or other editorial mistake to please contact me at debjurist@gmail.com