Arlene Hubbard–Danville’s oldest woman

By Dale Lynaugh

Arlene was born in Kir­by, VT on Sep­tem­ber 20, 1911 to Carl and Maude Ailes. She lived there until she was three years old and then she and her fam­i­ly moved to St. Johns­bury. Arlene lived in St. Johns­bury for five years, attend­ing Grades 1 and 2 at the Port­land Street School. In 1920, her fam­i­ly moved to North Danville. Arlene con­tin­ued with her edu­ca­tion in a three room school house in North Danville. She fin­ished grade school, Grade 3 through Grade 8, at the same school, as well as her Fresh­man and Sopho­more years of high school before going to Phillips Acad­e­my in Danville where she fin­ished her Junior and Senior year and grad­u­at­ed in 1929.

“High school was fun and I enjoyed it very much. I had many friends and want­ed to be with them so I hard­ly missed a day of school. We had six stu­dents in my class….two boys and four girls. I wasn’t involved with many extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties because I had chores to do on the farm and due to the time the activ­i­ties were held. I rode my horse from North Danville to Danville in the Spring and Fall. In the Win­ter I stayed at my grandfather’s farm in Danville (locat­ed on Crys­tal Avenue, now burned down) and walked to school. The only extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ty I got involved in was the operetta (this is a singing play). I had a good singing voice and liked to sing.”

After grad­u­at­ing from high school in 1929, Arlene took a year off to work before attend­ing Lyn­don Teach­ers Col­lege. In 1932, she received her teach­ing degree. Her first teach­ing job was at a small one room school in Tampi­co, VT. She was the only teacher and taught Grade 1 through Grade 8. She taught two years and then stopped so that she could start her family.

In 1934, Arlene gave up teach­ing in order to care for Sylvia, the first of three daugh­ters. Over the years, Car­ol and Glo­ria would join their old­er sis­ter Sylvia. In addi­tion to rais­ing her three chil­dren, Arlene was very active in the North Danville com­mu­ni­ty. She was involved with the 4‑H Will­ing Work­ers Group, Com­mu­ni­ty Club (first Trea­sur­er, chick­en pie sup­pers, dances, basketball/cheerleading), and church (choir, Sun­day school teacher, Super­in­ten­dant of Sun­day School).

In the ear­ly 1940’s, Clarence and Arlene would take over Clarence’s father’s farm in North Danville (next to the North Danville store). They farmed until Clarence’s death in 1983. In 1995, Arlene moved to the Senior Cit­i­zen Cen­ter in Danville where she cur­rent­ly resides.

Arlene feels that she is blessed to live this long. She attrib­ut­es her longevi­ty to good genes, eat­ing healthy, no smok­ing or drink­ing, and just by chance (no acci­dents or seri­ous ill­ness­es she says with a laugh). Arlene’s 100th birth­day mile­stone did­n’t go unno­ticed. She received con­grat­u­la­tions and well wish­es from Pres­i­dent Barack and Mrs. Michelle Oba­ma, Pres­i­dent George and Mrs. Lau­ra Bush, Pres­i­dent George and Mrs. Bar­bara Bush, Pres­i­dent Bill and Mrs. Hillary Clin­ton, Willard Scott (NBC Uni­ver­sal TV), and over 120 fam­i­ly and friends from NH, MA, TN, TX, VA, and VT.

(To read the let­ters dou­ble-click on the thumb­nails; it will enlarge the let­ter enough for you to read it.)