Appreciation: Lena Bosworth

Remembering a fine neighbor:

We shall profoundly miss Lena Bosworth, as she was always next door in the old Victorian farmhouse. We did not know Lena well but will remember her with the fondness we have always felt for her; our visits with Lena were special.

But those visits did not happen until Mary Lu and I lived next door. As children and teenagers we — my brothers, sister and I — only knew Lena as the silent lady who lived next door with her father and her aunts, and taught school in Sheffield. I remember walking up to buy fresh-churned butter, and the warm smells of the old country kitchen. I recall Judy, the farm horse, mowing with the sickle bar, Lena’s father at the reins, and the pumpkins among the standing gathered corn stalks in the field just across the stone wall. We still have a dishcloth knit from string by one of Lena’s aunts.    

In more recent times we found that while Lena enjoyed her privacy, she welcomed visits. I especially anticipated visits — always after a phone call — to chat about the old dead elm needing attention or, for my part, with any excuse to listen to her tell of growing up and living her entire life on Undermountain Road.

We invited Lena for tea one warm, summer afternoon. What a moment that was for us. We learned that Lena was born in this house — now 88 years ago.  She told us of her childhood here (seems it’s really her house) and gave us a photograph of the house when she lived here, a catalpa tree in the front yard. I didn’t have the opportunity to tell her that just a week ago we arranged for the Tompkins County King apple tree in our meadow, which she identified as planted by her father, to be grafted in a heritage orchard.

Lena disliked winter — always a light bit of conversation as I was leaving or when I stopped by as she was raking leaves or tending her flowers.  I think spring must have been her favorite season, as she planted all varieties of daffodils along the bank at the roadside in front of her home.  Plants thrived in her parlor window, where she was a voracious reader — especially, I believe, of mysteries. Lena once accepted my invitation to drive her to the Hunt Library for a special mystery book sale — special for me, certainly.

Lena was a precious and fine gem, now having left quietly as a whisper among the ancient maples around her home, peering from beneath the shadows of Canaan Mountain upon sunlit Wangum Valley.

We’ll never forget and will always treasure this dear person, who departed silently and privately, as was her wont, on Nov. 10, 2009.

— Ellery and Mary Lu

Sinclair, Falls Village