Page 6 - JUNE 2022

Page 6
Community
By William nieman
Marion Caldwell, the mother of our story’s heroines, was a Green Mountain native. She was born in Danville, Vermont, the oldest of nine Caldwell children. Her family moved often. Marion moved to the Bristol area as a young adult and began working at the Hillside Inn in Hebron. To his great luck, Herbert George Robie was working there as well. They fell in love, and despite the hard times and challenges of the Depression of the 1930s, they decided to risk marriage and a life together. Bristol and many nearby towns have been blessed with the bequest of four daugh- ters born of that marriage. They are the “Robie Sisters” of our story.
The firstborn Robie sister was Sylvia. She was born in 1938 and died just a year ago. Although, as an adult, she was not a Bristol resident, we include her in our story as she was an important inspiration to her younger sisters, all of whom have contributed greatly to Bristol and beyond. Sylvia loved camping and nature in general. She enjoyed children
NEWFOUNDLAKELIFE.COM
June 2022
The Robie Sisters:
Planting Seeds, Cultivating a Community
and gave birth to three of her own, Deborah, John, and Patri- cia. Her youngest sister, Joanne, recalls how her elder sister came to help care for her two young children while Joanne was busy giving birth to a third child. Syl- via was a teacher for twenty-five years, and her experiences and joy of teaching inspired the other Robie sisters to enter that profes- sion. The Robie sisters have la- bored in area classrooms for 125 years, nurturing thousands of children.
These four sisters have an an- cestry that includes both Robies and Nelsons (Sarah Nelson, the sisters’ great-grandmother, mar- ried George A. Robie in July of 1864.). Through the Nelsons’, the sisters’ lineage can be traced back to the arrival of Thomas and Joan Nelson at Salem, Mas- sachusetts, in 1638. However, George Robie is perhaps the most noteworthy of the sisters’ ancestors. In addition to linking the Robie’s bloodline to that of the Nelsons, he was a prolific investor in Bristol real estate, a renowned furniture maker, the inspiration and developer of
Left to Right: Lucille Keegan, Sylvia Carrigan, Joanne Robie, Hilda Bruno.
Bristol’s first telephone exchange, and an overseer of the town cem- etery.
Like many farmwives, the an- cestral women labored to bear many children. A couple with seven, eight, or nine children was not unusual. Marion, the Robie sisters’ Mom, was one of nine children in that tradition. Sadly, two of Marion’s siblings died young of Diptheria. Per-
haps that tragedy explains her empathic nature. She cared for the sick as a nurse’s aid and com- forted the infirm as a volunteer for NANA. Her love of nurtur- ing those in need and people, in general, made a lasting impres- sion on her daughters, each of whom has chosen her own way to bring special nourishment to Bristol and beyond. The New- found Area’s Mid State Health Center, built on what was once Robie land, appropriately ac- knowledges Marion’s support of the community’s health care with a plaque dedicating a hallway at
that facility in her name.
Marion gave birth to the sec-
ond of the Robie sisters in 1940. Readers may know her by her married name, Hilda Bruno. Hilda loves plants and animals. Visitors to downtown Bristol from May through December can see the expression of Hilda’s love of plants as they witness the abundance of flowers growing in the town square and along Pleasant Street in the summer season. In the Fall and during the December holidays, Hilda
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