The Uncles
There are many stories about them but they all were generous with their time and labor, tolerant of others, and devoid of envy. Those who knew my uncles could tell you of lots of worse people in Kent.
Wild Child
There were quite a few.
Alcoholism took a huge toll on both the Seger and Jennings men of Jim and Lucy’s generation. Hard cider was the beverage of choice at the farms: cheap to put up, easily stored in barrels in the cellar, and with a nasty kick.
I have no answers. Bart and his brother Lew were notorious in town for theatrical antics and excess. Many of the Jennings men were less theatrical and highly functional, but their families were corroded by alcohol as well.
with Duncan Chase and Vera Chase.
Jessie, Jim and Lucy’s eldest daughter, was bright, creative, charismatic, sarcastic and alcoholic. One of her sisters told me she designed her own clothes as a teenager. By the time I knew her I would never have recognized the glamorous, edgy young woman captured in so many family photos. She married a drinking buddy, Frank “Pick” Buchinger, whose German parents ran a guest house at Macedonia Brook Farm, at the junction of Skiff Mountain Road and Macedonia Road.