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Authors: Julien Ayotte
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and to set up various bank accounts and investments as Alice had requested. Alice’s accounts would be held at the First Bank & Trust in Boston. She would have a checking account set up to draw against her funds at will and would receive a monthly accounting statement at Sean’s address in Florida.
The farm and the business had been sold for $150,000. Alice had placed $50,000 in the bank account and had set up a special trust fund for the remaining $100,000, with the provision that the account be in her name until her death or Dick’s twenty-fifth birthday, whichever came first. Alice knew that with modest, conservative interest added to the account each year, Dick would never need worry about money again. She did not tell Dick about the trust account, choosing instead to merely relate to him that she was financially stable enough to afford living very comfortable for the rest of her life and still have enough to allow Dick to complete his college years.
The day finally came that July morning when Dick and his mother were set to leave the Merrill farm for the last time. Dick had already made arrangements to keep his pick-up truck at St. Barnaby’s over the remaining summer months until he returned for his second year at Plymouth Teachers College. By noon, most of the furniture and personal belongings had been packed and loaded in the moving van. Except for the kitchen stoves and refrigerator and some of Charlie’s office furniture, which was included in the sale of the farm, the house resembled any other home in transition. Nashua Foods had decided to convert the farm into a regional office, serving not only the Merrill brand of pastries and eggs, but using the remainder of the property to erect a distribution center for the company’s other line of products.
Alice had insisted that the contract with Nashua include a clause requiring Nashua to preserve and isolate the grave site area where Charlie was buried and to allow the site to also be her own grave site alongside her husband. The plot was particularly special to Dick whose frequent treks up the mountain led him that way. And so it was, that early afternoon, that Alice and Dick stood together for one last time at Charlie’s grave, placing lilacs at the foot of his head stone.
Flight 349 from Boston was to arrive at 6:35 p.m. the operator had informed Sean Merrill. Sean’s wife, Jean, had prepared the spare room for Alice and had set up a folding bed for Dick as a temporary set up, knowing that Dick would be visiting for only a month or less if Alice found her own place before Dick returned to school. Jean Merrill was much younger than Alice and, at fifty-two, had spent most of her life in the warmer climates of the South. She had met Sean in the early ’30s when he moved to Florida and began making deliveries to The Boca Beach Motel, a family business owned by Jean’s father. Sean worked for a towel and linen supply company covering the resorts and businesses from West Palm Beach to Pompano. Boca Raton was in between the two more popular cities and was considered quite unknown in the 1930s. Plush resorts were mostly in the Palm Beach area but more and more retirees were moving into the Boca area where real estate prices were less expensive.
Sean had never liked the cold weather and the New Hampshire climate was one he very seldom talked about. He had made his move to Florida and firmly believed that this part of the country, with its beaches and tropical climate, would someday be the retirement haven for many of the country’s workforce. Jean’s father had seen the growth of the Boca area into the 1940s and had recommended to Sean that he put his money into coastal real estate properties before anything else. “It’s just a matter of time, Sean, my boy, before that waterfront property will turn to gold,” he would tell Sean. Believing that his advice was wise, Sean began by buying a small beach house and, a few years later, an acre of land on the
The farm and the business had been sold for $150,000. Alice had placed $50,000 in the bank account and had set up a special trust fund for the remaining $100,000, with the provision that the account be in her name until her death or Dick’s twenty-fifth birthday, whichever came first. Alice knew that with modest, conservative interest added to the account each year, Dick would never need worry about money again. She did not tell Dick about the trust account, choosing instead to merely relate to him that she was financially stable enough to afford living very comfortable for the rest of her life and still have enough to allow Dick to complete his college years.
The day finally came that July morning when Dick and his mother were set to leave the Merrill farm for the last time. Dick had already made arrangements to keep his pick-up truck at St. Barnaby’s over the remaining summer months until he returned for his second year at Plymouth Teachers College. By noon, most of the furniture and personal belongings had been packed and loaded in the moving van. Except for the kitchen stoves and refrigerator and some of Charlie’s office furniture, which was included in the sale of the farm, the house resembled any other home in transition. Nashua Foods had decided to convert the farm into a regional office, serving not only the Merrill brand of pastries and eggs, but using the remainder of the property to erect a distribution center for the company’s other line of products.
Alice had insisted that the contract with Nashua include a clause requiring Nashua to preserve and isolate the grave site area where Charlie was buried and to allow the site to also be her own grave site alongside her husband. The plot was particularly special to Dick whose frequent treks up the mountain led him that way. And so it was, that early afternoon, that Alice and Dick stood together for one last time at Charlie’s grave, placing lilacs at the foot of his head stone.
Flight 349 from Boston was to arrive at 6:35 p.m. the operator had informed Sean Merrill. Sean’s wife, Jean, had prepared the spare room for Alice and had set up a folding bed for Dick as a temporary set up, knowing that Dick would be visiting for only a month or less if Alice found her own place before Dick returned to school. Jean Merrill was much younger than Alice and, at fifty-two, had spent most of her life in the warmer climates of the South. She had met Sean in the early ’30s when he moved to Florida and began making deliveries to The Boca Beach Motel, a family business owned by Jean’s father. Sean worked for a towel and linen supply company covering the resorts and businesses from West Palm Beach to Pompano. Boca Raton was in between the two more popular cities and was considered quite unknown in the 1930s. Plush resorts were mostly in the Palm Beach area but more and more retirees were moving into the Boca area where real estate prices were less expensive.
Sean had never liked the cold weather and the New Hampshire climate was one he very seldom talked about. He had made his move to Florida and firmly believed that this part of the country, with its beaches and tropical climate, would someday be the retirement haven for many of the country’s workforce. Jean’s father had seen the growth of the Boca area into the 1940s and had recommended to Sean that he put his money into coastal real estate properties before anything else. “It’s just a matter of time, Sean, my boy, before that waterfront property will turn to gold,” he would tell Sean. Believing that his advice was wise, Sean began by buying a small beach house and, a few years later, an acre of land on the
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