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GROWING
UP IN HARWINTON
ON HARMONY HILL ROAD
By
Frances (DRAKE) LAWRENCE
Born in 1933 at
the Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, I soon
joined my siblings in the Drake homestead on Harmony
Hill Road, Harwinton. My earliest memory is of riding
in the back seat of my sister Phyllis' boyfriend's car
up Harmony Hill Road. I stood looking out the back window
and the dirt road stretched back to the main road. I
was about 3-1/2 or 4 years old. I also remember the
hurricane of 1938. I was on the second floor looking
out the window watching our catalpa tree in the front
yard bend nearly to the ground from the wind.
Besides my mother and father, our family consisted of
my oldest brother Elmer who was 21 years older than
I, sisters Phyllis and Edna, and brothers Floyd and
Gordon who was 7 years older than I. They are all deceased
except for Floyd (age 85) and myself.
Harwinton was a wonderful town in which to live in the
1930's, 1940's, and 1950's. A small farming community
in the Northwest Hills of Connecticut with one-room
schoolhouses; a beautiful white clapboard Congregational
Church on Center Hill; an old Town Hall-Community House
where the town's Catholics held Church and bingo until
they were able to build their own sanctuary; a small
triangle of a town green; and a beautiful, though small,
town library. Back then the library's resources were
only books and magazines and a museum in the basement
that contained the grave of Theodore Alfred Hungerford,
its benefactor.
The Drake home on Harmony Hill was across the street
and a little north of the town's librarian's home. Laura
(Chamberlain) Reynolds was a girlhood friend of my mother–Laura
Ida (Cables) Drake. She took me under her wing and introduced
me to the library and the wonder of the books it contained
in the Children's Department. Even though our 1700's
saltbox home contained many books, I credit Mrs. Reynolds
for my love of reading.
Mrs. Reynolds' and her husband Robert's home was called
"The Academy" as it was originally an actual
Academy situated on the East corner of Harmony Hill
Road and the main road. Laura and Rob, as he was called,
were the parents of two sons: Spencer and Warren. Warren
was killed in World War II in France and his body was
brought home and buried in the East Cemetery.
I also lived about one-half mile from one of only two
gas station-grocery store businesses in town, and the
owner's daughter Ruth is
still one of my best friends. My memories of Thiemann's
store are still vivid. Anna Thiemann made the best ice
cream. It was a delicious treat on hot, sultry summer
days. Many were the times I'd walk over the meadows
(through rows and rows of young fir trees) or ride my
bicycle to the store just to buy an ice cream cone.
My favorite flavors were rum raisin and orange pineapple.
There was also a self-serve soda machine just outside
the store where my favorite was Orange Crush. It really
had a zing to it in those days. You would drop your
dime, or was it a nickle?, in the slot, open the cover,
slide your selected bottle
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