Born under last eclipse, Waterville man readies for second

The nonagenarian was told that the sky did indeed turn dark in the middle of the day and that the chickens returned to their roosts in confusion, a phenomenon he’s interested to see if they’ll repeat during this year’s total eclipse of the sun on Monday, April 8.

Back in 1932 at the family home in the hills of South Cambridge, as they waited for the eclipse, the Gillespies had something more important on their mind. All through that peculiar day, their nearest neighbors called over to them from the valley, “Is the brat born yet?”

Gillespie is the son of a laborer, born into a Vermont where the average family ran a diversified farm with a few cows, chickens and maybe some pigs, when the road south of Jeffersonville led into a community of one-room schoolhouses and scattered hilltop farms, not yet dominated by the ski industry.

He was educated in one such school, and spent winters sledding down Gristmill Hill, where the road winds up out of the village. His father, Aloysius Gillespie, was born in 1884 and served on the Western Front in World War I while his brother, Maurice, served in World War II. Gillespie enlisted and was stationed in Iceland, where he oversaw an army hospital.

Upon his return home, he met a young woman named Lois at a barn dance.

“That’s where things happened,” Gillespie said.

Sixty-eight years later, they’re still married.

Their family quickly expanded to five children as Gillespie developed his trade as a carpenter. He renovated another one-room schoolhouse — not the one he attended as a child, but another one in South Cambridge next to the former community hall that became the Red Fox Inn — to house the growing family.

In his carpentry career, Gillespie built countless structures across Vermont. He even had a hand in the buildup of Smugglers’ Notch Resort, where he helped construct the early rope tows. In 1972, after the Madonna Lodge burned, he rebuilt it, even dragging his family up to the mountain one memorable night to keep the unfinished structure in place during a torrential windstorm.

The Gillespie family lost their renovated schoolhouse to fire in 1971. A Cambridge fire chief was hospitalized due to smoke inhalation and the family lost all its worldly belongings, though fortunately no one was home when it burned down. In the aftermath, the Cambridge community rallied to help the family, hosting a party at the Eagles Hall to raise funds and provide other assistance, and students at Johnson State College donated clothing.

“Everybody was so good to us you wouldn’t believe it,” Lois said.

The Gillespies resettled in Waterville, in a home Hubert built, where they still live today beside a babbling stream. For 30 years, Gillespie sugared in the hill above his property in a wood-fired operation. Though he recently had to step away from sugaring, his son John, who also followed him into the carpentry trade, continues the work under Vermont Mapleworks.

Though not much for talking about himself, it’s clear from one visit to his property that Gillespie has a particular affection for the natural world he’s surrounded by — the birds in particular. He has recorded countless bucks during hunting season over the years and birdfeeders hang all around, while a boisterous flock of turkeys makes frequent visits hoping to be fed.

Decades ago, when a bird’s nest was knocked from its perch at Wolcott Elementary School during a construction project, Gillespie rebuilt the foundational support and replaced the nest, and the family of birds returned.

He recalled that after the two world wars there was an expectation of a lasting peace. Instead, he lived through the long Cold War, the ambient threats of the atomic age and into the turmoil of the present. He expressed a concern for the youth of today.

“Things weren’t easy back then, but they were simple. No big threats around the world,” Gillespie said. “I hate to think all these little kids come along with the climate warming and all other problems and changes.”

In a way, his concern for the present reflected the breadth of change Gillespie himself has lived through, successfully navigating a changing and turbulent world. Born under a strange sky, he’s lived a long life, as unique as any other.

And now he’ll be among a rare class of people who can say they’ve lived through a once-in-a-lifetime event twice.