Looking for Danville’s oldest citizens

By Sharon Lakey

Direc­tor, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

I always look for­ward to get­ting my hair cut once a month at Janet Carson’s Coun­try Styles across the street from my house. We share sto­ries and laugh, and I enjoy look­ing at the newest pho­tos she’s tak­en since the last time I took the seat. This month, I spied on the wall a love­ly pho­to of Eve­lyn McReynolds of North Danville. I remarked how pret­ty she looked in it.

“ At 104!” Janet exclaimed.

“No! ” I replied, mar­veling at the woman in the photo.

“I was won­der­ing how we would know who the old­est per­son in Danville is?” Janet asked. We mean­dered around on that ques­tion for awhile. I thought a good place to start would be the Town Clerk’s office. But no, Janet was pret­ty cer­tain that the Town Clerk might pro­vide infor­ma­tion, but no defin­i­tive answer.

Remem­ber­ing a for­mer col­league of mine in the Brad­ford Ver­mont His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, who had spo­ken of iden­ti­fy­ing and hon­or­ing the old­est peo­ple in Brad­ford, I decid­ed to write him an email. He wrote back, detail­ing the way Brad­ford has car­ried out its tra­di­tion, and we are think­ing of adopt­ing some­thing sim­i­lar in Danville. Until the board irons out the wrin­kles, I won’t share the details, but we are def­i­nite­ly inter­est­ed in find­ing out, and hon­or­ing in some way, Danville’s old­est man and woman.

Here is the criteria:

1) The per­son must have lived in Danville for 25 years

2) And must be a reg­is­tered voter

Please noti­fy us and let us know who you believe should be on our list, pro­vid­ing us with their birth date and years in Danville. Our phone num­ber is 802 684 2055, or stop in on Tues­days or Thurs­days when we are open from noon to 7:00.

Eve­lyn’s pho­to tak­en by Janet Carson