Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, for The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
BARRE – Lee Aura Bonamico and Maureen Healy Morton have lived in Barre for almost all their lives. And in those almost 80 years, they’ve seen the ups and downs of this town.
In the 50s and 60s, Main Street was the place to hang out, where everyone would go.
“Everyone was on Main Street on a Friday night,” Bonamico said.
They describe how people would rush through dinner to get a good spot on Main Street, just to watch people. They would sit in front of the Five and Dime, watching people shop and, usually, running into someone they know.
“There was a different sense of community that exists now. We didn’t have to seek it. It was right there,” Morton said.
Bonamico and Morton still want the legacy of this great time to live on. Bonamico created a list of all the stores that were once on Main Street. That, along with a line of photos from that time, can be seen in the Aldrich Public Library.
Both Bonamico and Morton were born in Barre. They both went to Mathewson Elementary School and Spaulding High School. Through these years, they developed their friendship, which has lasted the next 70 years.
In the Barre of the 50s, they described a lot less surveillance of the kids and more to do around town. Morton remembers playing in the snow on the side of the road after the plows came in, sledding down some treacherous hills, and skiing at Barre’s former community slope.
Despite the dangers kids of this generation faced, as Morton puts it, “Every one of us lives to tell.”
Compared to now, there were more activities and places to go. The women talked about a place called “The Lighthouse” on the third floor of an old warehouse on South Main Street.
In the 60s, this was a place many high school aged kids would go and dance, hang out and just have a good time. You would find it full after high school football or basketball games, or even on a regular Saturday night.
And then, there was Main Street. It was packed with businesses: five and dimes, diners, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and grocery stores.
Main Street had almost anything you could need, they said. People from surrounding towns would come to Barre to do their shopping because of the large number of stores.
Bonamico remembers a last-minute trip to Main Street to buy new shoes. Her father was going to drive her and her friends to Boston to see her high school basketball team play in the championship game.
She was putting on her sneakers in the car, getting ready to get on the road when her father looked down and said, “You can’t wear those.”
He took her down to the shoe store on Main Street, which was being run by the mayor of Barre, and she got a pair of loafers before they hit the road.
As time went on these stores started to fade away. Now the downtown isn’t as exciting and colorful as it used to be, they said.
It’s not just the businesses downtown that are less vibrant. Today, the clubs and churches that were booming when Bonamico and Morton grew up are smaller now.
However, that sense of community still exists in Barre, they said. You just have to seek it out. Something that was so visible before has become more behind the scenes, but not any less strong.
