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Walter Hard Sr. (1882-1966)

Carl Sandburg said of Walter Hard's poems: "I find his Yankees more fascinating than most of the Greeks in Greek mythology. He and I are of the same school in believing that an anecdote of sufficient pith and portent is in essence a true poem. I treasure and reread his volumes."

Hard, born in Manchester, took over the family drug store upon the death of his father, a temporary move that lasted 31 years. He operated a bookstore, served five terms in the Legislature and wrote a weekly newspaper column for 40 years.

It was in those columns that Hard told the tales that prompted Holiday Magazine to call him "a 120-pound, leather-bound compendium of Vermontiana, a genuine, ear-to-the-ground listener who has recorded the rural wit, homespun wisdom, and often enough the stoic melancholy of his people."

Hard's poems depicted life in a small community not unlike his own Manchester. His writings detailed the stories of people who "were big enough not to amount to much" and captured the forces of change that were moving into the community his family had lived for five generations.