by Jackie Dellicker
In response to Bill Tobin’s request for reasons people came to town I thought I’d share my thoughts of when we first came to town.
Henry and I decided that it was time to look for a house to own rather than continue to rent an apartment. We had hoped to buy in Winchester, where we had both grown up, however we soon discovered that we could not afford anything in Winchester.
Checking the newspapers we saw an ad for a house in Southborough which was in our price range and sounded great. We contacted the Realtor and went to look, but as wonderful as the ad sounded the house required more work than we felt we could tackle.
However the Realtor told us of a house that had just come on the market. It was cape, located in Holliston. Henry and I looked at one another and figured that we would go look, although neither of us had heard of Holliston. As we drove through town, we noticed that the phone poles on Washington St. had signs on them that said “No horses on sidewalk.” That was my first clue that Holliston was in the country.
Now you may find this hard to believe but we drove up in front of the house and it was a house that I had dreamed about (and yes, I do dream in Technicolor); it was brown with coral trim. We went in to look around and fell in love with it.
The lady of the house was there and told us that Holliston has a very good school system. Our children were ages 2 and 6 months so I hadn’t thought much about school as yet, but that was a good piece of information. She also said that there was town water on the street and that the septic system was only 7 years old and working very well. Everyone in Winchester had town water, so that comment was strange to me, and I had never heard of a septic system. When we got out to the car I whispered to Henry, “What is a septic system?” He admitted he didn’t know for sure but we would find out. After the tour we left with the Realtor, put a deposit down on the house and went home to tell our folks.
Very excited with our decision we reported to both sets of parents that we had purchased a house in Holliston. Of course both sets of parents said “Holliston, where is Holliston?” We soon learned that it was shorter to go from Holliston to Winchester, than to go from Winchester to Holliston.
Finally the time came to move, it was October of 1958 and a beautiful time of year.
The next morning I awoke to a very strange sound and when I looked out the window the yard was full of cows. I yelled “Henry, where have you brought me to?” Come to find out the cows were a common occurrence; they liked to break down the fence at the end of Skyview (it is a cul-de-sac you know) and wander over from Arcadian Farms. Probably just to give Farmer Mike something to do.
That was my first experience of living in Holliston, and I have grown to love this community. Henry likes to say we are fortunate because even though we will never be “townies”, we picked Holliston to be our Home Town. I always say, “At first I wasn’t crazy about living in the country and so far from home, (Remember I had never been away from home, and 37 miles seemed like the end of the world at the time), but it will take an act of congress to get out of here now.”
