This photograph from 1966 shows Johnson’s farm. The cow-barn once stood on the corner of Range Road and Sawtelle Road. The herd was often seen, stopping traffic, as they were being waved across Route 111A. https://vintageaerial.com/photos/new-hampshire/rockingham/1966/PRO/78/8
This photograph shows the American Legion Hall when it was located on Indian Rock Road where the “The Commons” center is located today. “The Wilbur E. Tarbell Post #109 was organized after the Second World War, and its charter meeting held on March 15, 1951. On May 7, 1956, the post was officially incorporated and the name chosen in memory of Wilbur E. Tarbell. Mr. Tarbell, son of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Tarbell, was the Town of Windham’s only casualty of WWII.” Mr. Tarbell served on board the USS Scorpion, a submarine that was sunk in the Pacific. https://vintageaerial.com/photos/new-hampshire/rockingham/1966/PRO/76/18
Before I read the poem, I want to say a few words about my dad.
One day, near the end of his life, my dad was insistent on telling me a story; … a story that he had told me many times before. It was an old memory of his own dad: He said, “Can you imagine? My dad had a spot picked out to build a house overlooking Cobbetts Pond. So, he just went out and started to build it. He dug the whole basement by hand, with just a shovel.” You could tell he was really impressed by the prowess and fortitude of his own Dad.
Well, when you are digging by hand, you have lots of time to think and plan. “So, my grandfather decided to build his home of stone rather than of wood.” He had never built a house of stone before; but that didn’t matter to him…… He just started gathering field-stone until it stood in big piles on his property. He then began laying up the stone and soon the dream that had formed in his mind, became a reality. That was the home my father grew up in.
I think the point of that story, is that it reflected my dad’s outlook on life. If you have a job or a dream, you just start pursuing it. It doesn’t matter whether you have the experience or knowledge, or not. You just start………….you just start digging, gathering and sweating. You just figure it out as you go. Soon the thing that is only a vision in your mind, becomes a physical reality staring you straight in the face.
The point was to just start…to just try!
My grandfather, was always quick witted, and used to say sarcastically about my father: His Name is George Dinsmore, Junior. The JR stands for Just Retired! Which was ironic since my dad never really retired and ended up being one of the hardest working men I have ever known.
The relationship between fathers and sons is often fraught with conflicting feelings and emotions. Many of us have contentious relationships with our fathers. When they are gone, its not the sadness that is so hard, but rather the deep sense of emptiness, that can never be filled by another person. They are like a fortress that has surrounded you, for good and bad, your entire life.
Recently, my Dad was in a really animated mood and told me with a smile on his face; “My father has come and is sitting in the room with me.” I asked, “Did he say anything? What’s he doing? “No. he is just sitting over there waiting on me.” You can say it was the drugs or fading consciousness that brought about the presence of my dad’s dad. However, I will always believe, that my grandfather came to help lead his son home.
Happy Sailing Dad!
I just came across these incredible aerial photos of Windham at: VintageAerial.com photo 77-PRO-17 from 1966 in Rockingham County, NH. Copyright © Vintage Aerial.
They are allowing me to publish them under their copyright. There are many images of Windham available to purchase. What is great about these images is that they are from the 1960’s, which was just before the major development hit the town. This photograph shows the Windham Plaza Shopping Center that was developed by Paul Clancy in 1965. It included the Windham Dipper Super Market, the town’s first pharmacy, and the Plaza Coffee Shop and Bakery. Later, Tony’s Barber Shop opened in the plaza. There is a Turner Dairy Truck delivering milk in the parking lot. The cemetery wall would later become a hang-out with 100’s of youths loitering there.
Before I read the poem, I want to say a few words about my dad. (Off Script)
One day, near the end of his life, my dad was insistent on telling me a story; … a story that he had told me many times before. It was an old memory of his own dad: He said, “Can you imagine? My dad had a spot picked out to build a house overlooking Cobbetts Pond. So, he just went out and started to build it. He dug the whole basement by hand, with just a shovel.” You could tell he was really impressed by the prowess and fortitude of his own Dad.
Well, when you are digging by hand, you have lots of time to think and plan. “So, my grandfather decided to build his home of stone rather than of wood.” He had never built a house of stone before; but that didn’t matter to him…… He just started gathering field-stone until it stood in big piles on his property. He then began laying up the stone and soon the dream that had formed in his mind, became a reality. That was the home my father grew up in.
I think the point of that story is that it reflected my dad’s outlook on life. If you have a job or a dream, you just start pursuing it. It doesn’t matter whether you have the experience or knowledge, or not. You just start………….you just start digging, gathering and sweating. You just figure it out as you go. Soon the thing that is only a vision in your mind, becomes a physical reality staring you straight in the face.
The point was to just start…to just try!
My grandfather, was always quick witted, and used to say sarcastically about my father: His Name is George Dinsmore, Junior. The JR stands for Just Retired! Which was ironic since my dad never really retired and ended up being one of the hardest working men I have ever known.
The relationship between fathers and sons is often fraught with conflicting feelings and emotions. Many of us have contentious relationships with our fathers. When they are gone, its not the sadness that is so hard, but rather the deep sense of emptiness, that can never be filled by another person.
Recently, my Dad was in a really animated mood and told me with a smile on his face; “My father has come and is sitting in the room with me.” I asked, “Did he say anything? What’s he doing? “No. he is just sitting over there waiting on me.” You can say it was the drugs or fading consciousness that brought about the presence of my dad’s dad. However, I will always believe, that my grandfather came to help lead his son home.
I just came across these incredible aerial photos of Windham at: VintageAerial.com photo 77-PRO-17 from 1966 in Rockingham County, NH. Copyright © Vintage Aerial.
There are many images of Windham available to purchase. What is great about these images is that they are from the 1960’s, which was just before the major development hit the town. This photograph shows the Windham Plaza Shopping Center that was developed by Paul Clancy in 1965. It included the Windham Dipper Super Market, the town’s first pharmacy, and the Plaza Coffee Shop and Bakery. Later, Tony’s Barber Shop opened in the plaza. The whole shopping center became affectionally known as “The Dipper.”
There is a Turner Dairy Truck delivering milk in the parking lot. The cemetery wall would later become a local hang-out with 100’s of youths loitering there.
10/4/1993
…As a little girl (now 88) I used to visit my Uncle Charles Boyd of Windham Depot at his farm (the former Hughes Farm) and watch the trains go by, and walk down the road to the train station… The Nashua and Rochester railroad used to pass in front of this house, which is still standing, on North Lowell Road, before meeting the Boston & Maine at the Junction
George Dunkley owned this beach until the 1960’s, one of five beaches on Cobbett’s Pond. Apparently, the name was supposed to be Dunk-In Beach but the sign painter made a mistake spelling it instead, Dunkan Beach. This place was packed in the sixties. What seemed like hundreds of black and white rowboats loaded with people covered the small pond
1901 and today, its good fishing but I can’t tell you where!
As the world stumbles blindly toward a new World War, led by the bankers, the Military Industrial Complex, world organizations, and alliances, it might do well to remember the slaughtered bodies and minds that come with such a senseless conflict. Most wars are seen as madness when looked back upon from a future vantage point. It is always best to step back and think before sending the best and brightest of your population into the bloody killing fields. (Just look at the murdered youth of Ukraine.) World War I began 110 years ago on July 28, 1914. A most senseless and devastating war.
Unfortunately most wars are fought against the wishes of the citizens of the nations that fight them. Woodrow Wilson campaigned and won as the anti-war candidate, and within months of election, was sending American boys to Europe; continuing a war where both sides were exhausted and that was about to end. The entrance of America and the “victory” of the allies, laid the seeds for World War II. In this column published in Windham, on January 21, 1916 by William S. Harris, he questions how Christianity can support war and still be the religion of the Prince of Peace.
“A clergyman of some prominence in the state, in an address after defining Militarism as ‘the policy of government by which the nation trusts in force for the achievement of its ambitions in disregard of its claims of justice, humanity, and international morals,’ apparently endorses this policy by avowing: ‘There is only one way to meet the militarist that history records: that is with his own weapons on the field of battle.’ ”
“From some other statements in the same strain some of which I myself heard the preacher make, I think I do not misapprehend and misrepresent his position., and I cannot refrain from recording a protest against such teaching by those called to interpret and apply the principles of religion and to be leaders in public opinion. It is their place to give us not only warning from the past, but inspiration for the future. Those who believe that humanity should make progress upward and onward need to look ahead as well as back.”
“One hesitates to denounce war to the full extent of his conviction because so many excellent and esteemed men who fought in out Civil War seem to think that arguments for peace are a personal reflection on them. Do they realize that the Civil War ended 50 years ago? If our people have made one-half the progress in the moral realm in these fifty years that they have made in material inventions and scientific knowledge. Who will say that the Civil War could not now be adjusted without bloodshed?”
“The apologies for militarism appear to amount to something like this: So long as we have to del with bad men, there is no use for any one to try to be good. The good need not try to make the bad better, but should descend to their level and overpower them with their own evil weapons.”
We are told that the ‘national honor’ (whatever that may be) can be vindicated only by giving blow for blow. The noble statement of President Wilson that a ‘nation can be too proud to fight,’ I heard ridiculed in a sermon by the clergyman referred to. He should have
He should have lived a hundred years ago, when a high-toned gentleman could not be too proud to fight his personal enemy or friend if differences involving ‘honor’ arose between them. The due then must decide which was right , and one or the other must be killed to uphold somebody’s honor!”
The civilized world has outgrown that barbarous foolishness. We even have laws to forbid individual from arming and avenging their disputes. The time is ripe for nations to discard that primitive way of settling differences and to speedily find some way worthy of intelligent, not to say moral, beings. Is it not a least an idea worth working for? Even though the advocates of force have only derision and the cry of ‘mollycoddle and poltroon for those who believe the Christian world at least after two thousand years, should be approximating the precepts of the great Teacher.”
The attempt is sometimes made to justify war in the present age by an appeal to the Old Testament. If this can be done, certainly other evils such as human slavery and polygamy, can be so justified, institutions which the Christian consciousness of this age has utterly repudiated, but which never caused one half the havoc and misery that war has caused.” (Slaves might disagree) Again, if the Old Testament had been sufficient for the world’s moral needs, why did Christ come and teach and exemplify a morality far in advance of that which the world had previously known? Christ recounted things which had been allowed ‘by them of old time,’ but, he affirmed, ‘I say unto you’— something higher and better.”
Christianity was not needed to teach men courage or patriotism. The Spartans, centuries before Christ, were as courageous and patriotic as any people ever have been or ever need to be. The ‘new commandment’ pf Christianity is love, good-will, brotherhood. There is no place in the teachings , example, or spirit of Christ for the hatred, selfish ambitions, and jealousies from which wars spring and which wars in turn aggravate. Christianity has made men more willing to suffer, to die if need be, in defense of truth and principle, but we can not believe that the spirit of Christ has ever made man more inclined to kill of injure his fellow man.”
We are told that our country’s only safety lies in having an army and navy sufficient to repel any nation that with to attack us; specifically, I presume, Germany and Japan, or both together. But why stop at two nations? Looking at history and human nature one can imagine Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Turkey, Italy and Spain, Japan. China, and a few more banding themselves together to despoil America! Why assume that we can have the privilege of fighting them one or two at a time? If to meet force with force is our only hope, when are we safe? What amount of preparedness will avail?”
“No, our security is in obeying the command of God and of reason ’to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.’ If, as Voltaire said, ‘God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.’ away with such a God. The ally of cruelty and injustice! He is worse than useless in the evolution of humanity. Shame on a so-called Christianity that has nothing better to offer as a principle of action than might makes right, and force can only be overcome by force. The whole diea us far aside from the teachings of Christ. Even the Old Testament is full of the teaching that righteousness and not superior force is the sures defense of a nation as it Is of an individual.”
Politicians do not implement a draft unless that are planning a war; like the one which is happening asymmetrically at this very moment. A war we cannot possibly win, as we have carelessly abandoned or given much of our weaponry away, leaving us totally defenseless, save the outmoded Navy and the nuclear option, which are no options at all. Maybe we should take care of our own massive problems before we tell the world how to live.
Windham NH History 