SOUTH HAMPTON — In "Tales from a Very Small Town," Charles Dennett tells a series of anecdotes about his experiences moving from a nice house in Amesbury to an old and extremely rundown house in South Hampton.
Dennett moved with his family to their new home in 1943 at the age of 11, after his parents spotted the house while they were passing by in their horse-drawn carriage. According to Dennett, the house that was built in 1772 was purchased for $1,000 and was a shambles with no running water and no central heating.
The town population in South Hampton at the time was only 190, and Dennett attended the Barmard School with only 25 students.
"The town has totally changed," said Dennett, who now lives in Alamogordo, N.M. "I thought I should just write a history of my family with the way rural South Hampton was like in the '40s."
The life Dennett led while growing up is certainly different from how life is in the town today. Dennett was responsible for taking care of their horse, feeding the chickens, keeping the lawn and bringing in the hay. The area was very open in the '40s with acres of fields for farming. Dennett said once all the chores were done, they would take off and go fishing.
"I loved growing up in a little town. If you weren't needed for work, you were on your own," he said. "We were happy-go-lucky kids, but at the same time it was very unconventional compared to kids now."
The 202-page book is a "memory trail," as Dennett calls it, which goes through all the seasons of the first two years that he lived in South Hampton. Dennett recalled with a chuckle the family's first night in the house when his father spilled water on the floor and it froze, and he also remembered the "joyous occasion" of picking raspberries. Memories of all the freedoms he had are what he loves most about his book, because he said his childhood lifestyle has all but vanished now. His parents continued restoring the house and lived there for 50 years.
"Tales from a Very Small Town," which is Dennett's first book, can be purchased from amazon.com, or from Publishing Works in Exeter, N.H.
