BY VICKI DISORDA
BRANDON ─ One year ago this month, Yvonne Daley─ author, mentor, and friend─ passed away. When first moving to Vermont, Yvonne settled in Brandon. Before becoming a reporter for the Rutland Herald and covering the news in town, Yvonne was a substitute teacher at Otter Valley. She knew Brandon and its people well. Much to her credit, Yvonne appreciated the characteristics of the people as well as the land.
Given this era of buzzwords and catch phrases that are all too frequently intended to impress rather than inform, native area residents may be feeling less than confident about projecting their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, particularly working-class (or is it blue-collar?) citizens from the private sector who may not necessarily be hip to the latest trends nor care because their incomes are not reliant on words.
So, in honor of the people and class of folks I grew up with here in Brandon and our freedom of speech, I am re-sharing this article which was originally written and published last year in honor of Yvonne. One of my fondest examples of Vermont-speak was published in her book “Going Up the Country” and reads as follows:
The last comes from Dick McCormack, a folksinger, teacher, radio broadcaster, and longtime Vermont Senator.
McCormack’s family goes back several generations in Bethel, but his father couldn’t wait to get out of Vermont. As soon as possible, he moved to New York, where he worked as a teacher. “We were summer people. We would take turns at the Bethel house, a wonderful time with hiking and berrying and just being outside. One day a man came to pasture the hay. My mother and grandmother, all of us, were out on the verandah with nothing to do. I’m wearing my seersucker and we’re all up there watching him work. He’s looking at us, these little fat kids and these ladies in their wide-brimmed hats and you know what he’s thinking, ‘They’re using me for their entertainment.’
All of the sudden, he yells out, ‘Move your arses, you old goddam bitches,’ and other swears and insults. ‘Salty isn’t he? Rustic,’ Mother says. ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’
I loved it. I loved that freedom he had to say exactly what he was thinking with no regard for how we might react. That’s independence, the kind money can’t buy.”
Yvonne artfully captured the language I grew up with as a native Vermonter and skillfully spun tales of some of Brandon’s most legendary characters into the introduction of her book. As I read the antics of poet Mike Lewis and local plumber Ray Downs, set in LaDuke’s bar and restaurant, I wondered if my grandmother was there. Gram was employed at LaDuke’s, as well as at the Yankee Kitchen and Brandon Inn at different intervals throughout her working career. If they had met, what would Yvonne have penned about her?
Gram had a penchant for telling it like it is as well as any farmer in the land. The freedom to speak one’s mind and the saltiness of the language Dick McCormack admired so much was as likely and natural to hear from someone’s grandmother as it was any man in those days. Or should I say male-gendered person? It was truth telling at its core, and it was raw. Nobody minced words. This freedom of expression is why I love my grandmother’s spirit, Yvonne Daley, and Vermont so much. Even a child can sense the truth, no matter the language it is packaged in.
This freedom seems like it is about to disappear.
In lieu of raising cultural awareness and acceptance, we natives are expected to change, to bend, or to be silent. But thanks to persons like Yvonne, we will not break. No matter how one arranged vowels, syllables, the adjectives used, or the consonants left out, Yvonne caught the truth and the spirit of the Vermonters she wrote about by striving as she always did… to understand. We as a nation and our leaders could stand to learn a lot from her. Most certainly, we could all use a little bit more truth these days…without fear of ridicule or chastisement.
Personally, I am blessed to have known Yvonne, not only as writing mentor, but as friend. While we natives have a unique way of telling-it-like-it-is that may be offensive to some, Yvonne crafted characters her readers could love and possibly even admire. This was done by taking the time to get to know the individuals who inhabited the land upon her arrival. Too bad Columbus didn’t have her as a friend.
Throughout her life and career, Yvonne carried herself in the spirit of love she identified as being a liberal, “as defined as a person who is tolerant, unprejudiced, open-minded and enlightened.” One needs to be specific these days.
Old timers and Vermont natives seem to have a penchant for speaking in a manner which might be downright hard to hear, particularly for those with delicate ears or who have never heard the language before. “That’s independence, the kind money can’t buy.” When my uncle died in February of 2021, it felt like a part of our culture ─and our freedom─ died with him. Thanks to Yvonne and other writers like her, the spirit and customs of those gone shall live on.
What a blessing it has been to our glorious state and to our town (and to me) that a young woman known as “Boston” came to settle here all those years ago “when the hippies, dreamers, freaks, and radicals moved to Vermont.” Yvonne will long be remembered as the angel over our shoulder whenever we communicate the only way we know how…freely. She will always be in the recesses of my mind as I sit and type, journal into notebooks and express myself exploring the gifts she taught so well.
Yvonne will live on because of the patient practice of understanding she believed in. Her work, this community, and the many lives she documented will be known for many generations to come. Yvonne, may you rest in peace knowing your calling has been fulfilled. God blessed us with an angel the moment you arrived. Namaste.
