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Norm
O’Halloran’s Respite from the Rush
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Forty years
after Norman O’Halloran first took the title of town
sextant, he still is looking after all the graves on the
hill high over town. |
If you’re
looking for 86-year-old Norman O’Halloran, you need to head for
one place only: the cemetery.
But he’s not
dead yet.
Forty years
after he first clipped the weeds at the old Tannery Loop
Cemetery up on the hill, O’Halloran is still thriving in his
role as town sextant.
A modest man of
few words, O’Halloran hesitates to reveal his years on the job.
“Too many years,” he jokes. “I wouldn’t ask to say.”
But three years
ago, the town took up a collection to present him with an
engraved clock to mark his 37 years in charge of cemetery care.
Thanks for
everything, the town told him.
No need for
such a fuss, round number or not, he replied at the time.
But pride in
what this lifelong resident of Amherst does is as evident as
ever.
“If I put as
much into my own life as I have into this cemetery,” he said as
he escorted a guest around the graves, “I’d have a mansion for a
home.”
O’Halloran
actually lives on another of the Amherst hills. There, deer
linger in his backyard while out front, trucks whiz along Route
9 at 70 miles per hour. Once the state Department of
Transportation finishes the Amherst end of the Route 9
reconstruction, straightening out the curves, 20 percent more
truck traffic is expected to travel through the tiny town.
O’Halloran’s
respite from the rush is the cemetery. There, he rakes, mows,
weeds, clips and trims. He helps the flowers bloom, and each
spring he orders four dozen new flags for the veterans in time
for Memorial Day. He props up the oldest stones that crack when
their iron pegs rust and freeze.
He can’t walk a
few steps without leaning down to pick up even the smallest bit
of litter or errant brush.
When winter
breaks and the road up to the gate is free of snow again,
O’Halloran heads back for another three seasons. He spends many
hours there alone, although if someone wanders in trying to
trace a family tree, he is happy to break from his tasks and
help them find their way.
The cemetery
came into use about 1866 when many of the graves were moved from
the Town Hall Cemetery to the hilltop site.
Black flies
don’t bother him when he works. At least, he pretends they
don’t.
“It’s quiet and
peaceful,” he said. “I’ll tell you, this old cemetery could tell
you a lot of good stories.”
But it’s
O’Halloran who passes on the tidbits for every family plot. Not
only does he know where every
Amherst
resident is buried, he knows where and how they lived, too.
For example:
Buzzle: “That’s
the family that donated the land for the cemetery.”
Hanscomb:
“They’re from right across the river. They married into the
Robinsons.”
Dunham: “They
used to have that store on the corner. And that boarding home.”
Kimball: “They
lived right up the road, where that elderly fellow built that
nice place.”
Mundy: “He’s
the fellow who started a restaurant. He came from Canada.”
O’Halloran’s
own family plot is there, too. His wife, Norma, died in 1985.
There’s a marker waiting for him (“Born 1916,” it reads), but
he’s still with us.
Fortunately for
the town, the cemetery has been Norm O’Halloran’s life.
Says Neil
Butler,
Amherst’s first selectman: “Replacing him would be an impossible
task. Impossible.”
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