Eastman Living Online Magazine

By Tom Rockett Photos by Cathy Lacombe or those who love gardening, the Community Garden is one of the treasures of Eastman. During the early years, most gardens at Eastman consisted of flowerpots on porches or small plots in the back of homes, strategically placed between trees to get the maximum sun needed for adequate [...]

By Amy Hoffman Photos by Janice Vien  “Garden in the Woods” is what we might call Janice Vien’s garden. It is not a traditional garden with evenly placed rows. Her garden landscape has both wet and dry areas, many different kinds of trees, differing habitats, and lots of rocks, planted with native plants. As with [...]

By Gale Schmidt Photos by Liz Knox ust imagine growing flowers in a garden with plenty of sunlight, plenty of rain, plenty of compost and plenty of warm days throughout the year. Now, add to these perfect growing conditions a person with the expertise, energy, diligence and vision of a serious gardener, such as Liz [...]

By Adele Furdyna Photos by Garden Club Members pring! Gentle breezes, longer days, daffodils and tulips blooming. We gardeners have longed and waited patiently for this time all winter. Spurred by the desire to be ready for spring, the Grantham Garden Club was started in 1999 by local gardeners, ranging in experience from accomplished to [...]

 By Kristina Burgard ** Information in this article about medicinal uses of herbs is provided for educational purposes only. It should not be used for self-diagnosis or treatment and is not a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a health care professional. he term “herb” in this article refers to a plant that has actions [...]

By Gale Schmidt e can have rewarding flower gardens at Eastman in spite of having to garden in spaces where there is not much sunshine. Our plants will need to be hardy to minus-20 degrees and will do best from nursery stock grown in a similar climate. Our soil here is quite acidic, which is [...]

By Susan Kessler Question: What happened when Susan Wren, the chairperson of the Friends of the Dunbar Free Library, and the library programming assistant Lisette Scott got together with Beverly Goring and Sandy Besas of the Eastman Wednesday night programs to do some brainstorming?  Answer: A beneficial partnership was born. Prior to that first meeting, [...]

Article and Photos by Tom Rockett   Since the first settlers hacked a trail past Eastman Pond over 200 years ago, the decision to stop and start a settlement at a given site was based largely on the availability of water. Before the painstaking work of cutting down trees and removing root systems and hauling [...]

By Caroline Hoen astman seems such a quiet place. Driving its winding roads on an average day, you get the distinct impression there is not much going on here, especially from September to May. But spend a little time and you discover very quickly that those who live here are every bit as busy as [...]

Story and Photos By Richard Sachs ach year in America, nearly 1.7 million children get their education at home. Why spend so much time and energy doing this when public school is available for everyone in this country?Many home-schooling families cite the poor quality of available local schools as their main reason. Others point to [...]

By Barbara Jones • Photos by Dale and Dale Eckert uilts came into my life in an unexpected way. When my mother died and my brother and I were clearing out the house, I was amazed to discover beautiful quilts hidden away in the attic. In our house most nice things were put away and [...]

Story and Photos by Tom Rockett ne of the true heroes of World War II, General Frank Dow Merrill, was responsible for planning the major highway leading to Eastman: US Interstate 89. After the war, this great field commander became the New Hampshire Highway Commissioner under Governor Sherman Adams. His vision and engineering expertise were [...]

Story and photos by Richard Hocker ach year, usually in mid-April to early May, an event takes place in Eastman that is a true indicator of spring’s arrival. Around the same time as the forsythia begin to bloom, hundreds of fish come from all over Eastman Lake to the mouth of Mill Pond Brook at [...]

he South Cove Activity Center has featured a number of exhibits that have attracted positive attention over the past two years. The initiative to have exhibits began as an effort proposed by the ECA Board to “warm up” the lobby of the newly constructed building. It has become more than that – it is what [...]

 Story and Photos By Jane Verdrager f you’ve ever played the game of bridge, you know that a “grand slam” is the ultimate success in bidding and playing a hand. It means that you claim (bid) to be able to take every trick in the hand (13) and doing so, especially if you have bid [...]

By Victoria Hall Smith Like a good many Eastman residents, Bill Martin fell in love with wild New Hampshire while at Dartmouth and eventually retired here, drawn by small town living and the opportunity to live with nature, not just visit with it on vacations and weekends. “When I drove here with my parents the [...]

By Shawn Phelps It was a bright, crisp, fall morning in 2004 when a gray SUV turned into the Eastman entrance, carrying precious cargo. I was sitting anxiously on the front step of our home as the van eased to a stop in our driveway. The driver’s door swung open and out popped Eric Loory, [...]

Article and Photos By Craig McArt Stone walls course throughout Eastman, many crossing residents’ properties. Eastman’s property grid overlays former farmsteads whose fields and pastures were lined with stones heaved up by the frost and, with backbreaking effort, stacked to form walls. Some of the walls marked boundaries, others enclosed livestock, and still others bordered [...]

Story and Photos By Richard Sachs Stone arch, a wall that looks a bit like a dragon, two five-foot tall stone figures: Where did those come from? Seemingly overnight, a front yard nearby was dominated by rock constructions, a little bit Stonehenge, a little bit Frankenstein. It seems that they are the creations of Jack [...]

The younger of the two, a New Hampshire native with strong ties to the state, works fulltime as a firefighter in Hanover. An avid outdoorsman, he also works part time in the summer months as a fishing guide for a local business. Typical of hisgeneration, he is technically savvy and keeps abreast of news via [...]

Article and photos by Richard Sachs You think New Hampshire maple syrup is local? How about the real thing from your own backyard? When we moved to Eastman full-time in 2007, I quickly learned that I had better find a way to make some of the harder months up here more interesting. We’re on nearly [...]

By David Berlew When I was growing up in Orono, Maine, eight miles north of the mini-metropolis of Bangor, I drew comfort from the idea that Superman, Batman or some other super-hero protected my family and friends from villains. In the 1930s and early 40s I listened to the Green Lantern and the Shadow on [...]

By Victoria Hall Smith How often do we hear about organizations that start out small with a fairly narrow focus that, over time, morph to become much more, inviting greater participation and opportunities for residents to become more involved in their local communities? The Blue Mountain Snow Dusters Outdoor Recreation Club, which today includes walkers, [...]

Article by David Berlew • Photos by Richard Sachs When we first moved to Eastman, it surprised me that people had so many hobbies. When I asked friends or neighbors how they spent their time, they rattled off half a dozen things: quilting, painting, volunteering, kayaking, fishing, playing tennis or golf….you name it. Recently I’ve [...]

By Judy McCarthy Sometimes the most obviously sensible practices seem to elude us, and then, suddenly, a wonderful idea is born. Just about 50 years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics had one of those “aha” moments, developed out of the need to design a central location for archiving a child’s medical records. With this [...]

By Martha Parker-Magagna PHOTOS COURTESY OF IEEW   “Please do not think of us as victims. Think of us as women who aspire to lead.”   When my mother told me that there was a silver lining in eve ry cloud, like any cheeky teen, I smirked at such nonsense. However, in the past five [...]

By Charlie Taber What a task: write an article about ice cream for Eastman Living. Somebody should do it, might as well be me! In New England, eating ice cream is a year-round treat that becomes enhanced during the summer months as we all try to beat the heat by heading to the nearest ice [...]

By Craig McArt Photos courtesy Grantham Historical Society Eastman Pond and its surrounding 2,733 acres were purchased on A ugust 27, 1969 by the Controlled Environment Corporation (CEC), formed just a couple of weeks earlier. In December of that year, Emil Hanslin was hired to develop a master plan for a four-season, second-home, vacation community. [...]

Article by Andy Eastman Photos courtesy Recreation Eastman’s first Ski Center was located at The Barn at South Cove. Cross-country races run on the golf course would start and finish at South Cove. In fact, in 1975, Eastman hosted the Eastern Cross- Country Championships and Bill Koch, from Guilford, Vermont, won first place in the [...]

In 1907 the Draper Company, the world’s largest maker of bobbins, purchased a large tractor land that included two ponds. Most of the land was in Grantham; the rest spilled over into Springfield and Enfield. The company logged the land from 1916 to 1925 and then moved its operations north after removing all of the [...]

By Kathi Osgood   Kathi Osgood at Pioneer Point, 1968 Growing up on Howe Hill Road in Grantham in the 1950’s and 60’s was a perfect place to be for a country boy named Paul Osgood. From his back door, it was about a mile into the forest for him and his buddies, the Wallace [...]

By Judy McCarthy Road sign photos by Bob McCarthy   Jean and George Sutherland The birds – chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows, warblers, woodpeckers, wrens and the like, which fly and forage and flit about through our woods and yards – have a sense of place. like the squirrels and the chipmunks, they are busy checking out [...]