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Here in New England: Egg Deliveries
Fridays with Bert are a trip back in time
by Mel Allen
There can't be many farmers in New England more well known or loved by neighbors than Bert Southwick, who lives in the same farmhouse his parents found in 1918 on a ridge set back from Zion Hill Road in Northfield, New Hampshire. Except for a stint with the National Guard in the late 1940s, he has spent nearly every night of his 84 years on this ridge.
The house needs work. His parents papered the walls some 60 years ago, but there's no time for cosmetics. He never married, his parents died, his brother left for upstate New York, and not long ago his sister moved across the river to assisted living, leaving Bert to move relentlessly from one chore to the next until daylight is gone. "I have to do what five of us did," he says.
Some of the outbuildings that sprawl across Bert's 250 acres seem to be hanging on for dear life, but each has a purpose: a henhouse, a slaughterhouse, a sugaring shack, buildings to store machinery and the old tractor and plow he uses to clear his neighbors' driveways, a shed for an ancient green milk cart with red wooden wheels that he bought as a teenager for $25, a barn filled with horses and pigs. Sheds filled with so many bits and pieces and scraps of a farm family's life it seems that little that wasn't edible has ever left the land.
Bert ended his formal education at age 14 so that he could help full-time on the farm. "The only place I ever did work," he says, counting off what seems like a thousand ways he and his father made money here: growing vegetables, spreading manure, selling firewood, haying, selling homemade pork sausage, selling horses, pigs, pumpkins. He's the most famous man in town -- two towns actually, since only the Winnipesaukee River separates Northfield from Tilton, and Bert belongs to both. Over the years reporters and TV people from near and far have found his farm, always on Fridays. They come on Fridays because that's when he hitches his horse to the boxy green cart with red wooden wheels and takes his eggs and vegetables to town, winding through the streets of Northfield, across the river, and through downtown Tilton, stopping at houses, apartments, fire stations, post offices, a nursing home, libraries, a beauty salon … door after door, carrying cartons of eggs he's collected, sorted, and cleaned from his dutiful hens. They come because he may well be the only horse-and-buggy egg man left in the nation, but also because in a world of change, he's now into his 71st year of bringing eggs to his neighbors.
Since he began in 1937, seven horses have pulled Bert's cart: Ned, Dinah, Dolly, Misty, Miss Gray, Bob, and Mischief. "I like horses that like to sleep and ain't too anxious to get to some other place," Burt says. "The first day I took Dolly alone was the day President Kennedy was shot," he remembers. "Dolly went with her mother, Dinah, and when her mother was over 30 and failing, I took the harness off her and gave it to Dolly. Then when she was 14, she died with no warning in the heat of summer. So I had to educate another. Misty was three colors. Pretty wide awake. First couple years, had to make sure she was tied. After three or four years, she got used to it. Hard to get any better by the time she stopped." Bert's customers remember when Misty died; tears rolled down his cheeks whenever he'd talk about her. Now Mischief, Misty's daughter, is into her 14th year.
For years Bert's egg route covered some 200 stops, scattered over a six- to eight-mile route that would take him all day, what with kids feeding apples to his horse and small talk with customers. In time, a lot of them moved away, or died, but he still delivers at least 100 dozen eggs a week. He figures he's sold close to six million eggs. If you add up the miles he's clip-clopped down these roads, he's crossed America eight times.
Reader Comments
Comment from robert clogston on May 23, 2008
Oh what a blessing to have Bert.We get use to seeing him on fridays and you forget how much of a part of our towns he is .It brings us back to a time when mother was home with the kids and they were playing in the yard with no worry.Oh how I long for that simple time.Thank you Bert for showing us life don't have to be so fast.And the people are proud to have you .
Comment from Jeanette Bruno on June 5, 2008
I have known Bert since I moved to town with my family in 1966. He would drive up Park Street and make his stops. My little ones would wait on the porch for him on Friday morning. He was the kindest, most soft-spoken man I had ever met. To this day I still get my eggs from him. In the old days I would get veggies and his home-made sausage when he had it. He is a legend in our community. God bless him. We could do with more people like him.
Comment from Sandra Sawyer on October 27, 2008
I worked for Bert for three summers and two winters starting in the summer of 1984 at the age of 14 and continued till the Summer of 1986. He got up each morning and his mother would cook him breakfast. I would come at 9a and work with him till he would break at noon. His mom (90+yrs. old long, long gray hair tied up in a bun.) would fix us lunch and always serve her home made deserts. ( strawberry-rhubarb pie, or honey and biscuits. Then he would retire each night at dark. It was my first job. My sister Bobbie was notorious for her keen ability to talk and get in trouble by doing so. Bobbie was a talking point by Bert and I on occasion. Each time I'd come home to visit him and due to my looks changing, all I'd have to do is say, "I am Bobbie's sister Sandra that worked for you." Then He'd remember and we'd talk about Bobbie again. I worked with him year round, cleaning stalls , collecting his eggs, helping him hay, sap, hoe, and best of all for someone my age- run his tractors. Out in the fields we'd share the same water jug, it was just the way it was. I loved working for him, and he loved me working for him. At the age of 16 we moved to Florida. I still call and come to see him as I can. I do miss him. I recall when his mom died and Edna his sister came to fill in. Edna and I rarely saw each other and the only conversation I remember having with her was in ref to striped pants and how that was one style she remembered and she thought it was amazing how styles go around and come around. Bert will always have a dear place in my heart. I pray he lives long enough for me to be to see him again. I love you Bert- Sandra "Bobbies" Sister 863-224-5804
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