Two years before our first summer vacation at Highland Lake our family suffered three great losses. Sandy’s mother and father, Eva and Jim, and my father Martin, all passed away in the space of about a year. Our wonderful parents were like safe harbors in our lives, anchoring us to the solid ground of home, family and unconditional love. With three-fourths of them suddenly gone, Sandy and I felt tossed about on a sea of great uncertainty made even more unsettling as my seminary training came to a close. Packing all our life’s belongings into a U-Haul truck we headed south on I-95 toward North Attleboro, MA to serve my first pastorate. I remember feeling extremely lonely and fearful as I drove away that day. I wished I could call my dad for advice. Or assurance. Or just to talk.
North Attleboro was foreign territory to us. Peering out over the small congregation that first Sunday morning I saw a sea of anonymous faces. We knew no one but for the handful of folks who’d served on the Search Committee that called me. But the unfamiliarity didn’t last very long. This humble gathering of people who were the First Congregational Church opened their arms to Sandy and me. Welcoming us into their family they simply loved us, and we found a new home. Many of them became to us like the parents we no longer had.
That’s where Gordon and Priscilla Shaftoe (pictured above with our daughter Bethany) come in.
“Bud” and “Prilly” were actively involved in the church. Bud served as Moderator and Prilly taught Sunday School and sang in the choir. Bud and I used to meet on Saturday mornings at the little one-room schoolhouse across the street from the church. We’d ink up the old AB Dick mimeograph machine and run off the Sunday morning bulletins, laughing when we got more black ink on us than on the bulletins. And Bud was the one who listened to my problems. Once, when I was really discouraged about something that happened, Bud showed up at the parsonage with a big bottle of wine. I had to time some segments for a radio show I was scheduled to record the next morning so knew better than to drink the wine. So Bud drank it for both of us. By the time the bottle was gone I had gotten over whatever it was I’d been upset about and Bud was…well you can imagine!
Bud and Prilly were the ones who generously offered us the use of their lakehouse when we were unable to afford a vacation. They had built the house themselves over a period of years and it was magnificent. Occupying about 150-feet of waterfront on Highland Lake, the house was a beautiful tribute to this couple’s painstaking labor and superb craftsmanship.
Peter on the banjo
Camp Shaftoe was also a lively example of Bud and Prilly’s hospitality. Over the years dozens and dozens of church people and many others were welcomed to enjoy the place. Confirmation classes held sleepovers and retreats there with Bud teaching countless kids to water ski.
At night on the screen porch, Priscilla took out her concertina accordion and led whoever was around in lively songs. Bud often played his banjo, I played guitar, Sandy shook a tambourine and the kids played whatever other instruments could be found.
Bethany on the guitar
Loud laughter echoed all across the lake from Bud and Prilly’s house on Highland Lake. And those of us who experienced it count those times as among the best of our lives.
The week Sandy and I spent there during the summer of 1977 was a watershed moment in our lives. It was there at Bud and Prilly’s house that our baby son Peter stood up for the first time! One moment he was sitting in his playpen and the next he was standing up trying to get out! It was like watching a miracle in motion!
And it was during that week that we fell in love with Highland Lake. We started dreaming about one day having a place of our own on the lake.
Not too far from Bud and Prilly’s place, of course.
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