Katharine Flint DuClos was born in Braintree, Vermont, in 1906. She passed away on January 1, 2010 at 103 years old.
Katharine was raised on a hill farm above West Braintree. As a young woman
she loved the out-of-doors and was her father's "right hand man," helping
with crops and the animals. She attended the Flint School on Braintree Hill
and graduated from Randolph High School; after completing a teacher
training course she taught in Braintree's one-room schools for thirty-one
years. She and her husband, Gene, raised seven children. Katharine's
great-great-great grandfather, William Flint, was one of the first settlers
in Braintree. Her father, Perkins Flint, had an encyclopedic knowledge of
the history of the town and was well known as an extraordinary storyteller.
Katharine shared her father's historical sensibility and his gift for
language. Her History of Braintree II , which chronicles the town from the
1880s through the 1970s, is chock full of delightful anecdotes that mirror
the fabric of everyday life. Katharine's many recordings with the Vermont
Folklife Center offer an extraordinary resource for understanding life on
Central Vermont farms in the early twentieth century.
Hard Cider (listen online | download audio)
In this account of her childhood in Braintree, VT, Katharine elaborates on the many roles held by apple cider.