Lyme
In response, they received several comprehensive letters from people in the Hanover community, many written by young adults with backgrounds in education or child psychology. They also received a letter from Evelyn Currier, a semi-retired mother of six.
“It was a really authentic, sweet letter,” Argenti recalled, “right down to the handwriting.”
Three finalists came to the couple’s home that year, but only one was the clear winner.
“Evelyn came over and played with my daughter, Julia, and that was it; it was really clear that she knew her way around children better than anyone,” Argenti said.
For the next 15 years, Currier acted as a nanny for Argenti and Munter’s two daughters. She’d care for them, go shopping for the family, play games before bedtime, straighten up the dishes, take care of the laundry and even pick up the girls from events when they were of school-age. Currier provided a level of stability and consistency to the family that was unmatchable, Munter said.
“She never missed a day of work in 15 years, not on snow, not on health,” Munter said. “She was perfect.”
At the time, Munter and Argenti were full-time professors at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business.
Their daughters, Julia Dzafic, now 30, and Lauren Argenti, 27, said to this day, they both regard Currier as a third grandmother.
“She loved us as if we were her own family and as adults, we can appreciate that about her now,” Dzafic said.
“We are so lucky to have so many loving and caring people in our lives, but looking back, I would say that Evie served as a role model for me,” Lauren Argenti said. “She was a compassionate, genuine and extremely empathetic person. She prioritized her family above all else, and we were lucky to somehow be included in that.”
Currier, who died on Dec. 20 at Blue Spruce resident home in Bradford, Vt., at age 90, was hardly a rookie at the ins and outs of childcare.
She had six children — four girls and two boys — by age 22, several of whom own businesses in the Twin States, and had grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren.
“She never stopped being a mother, that’s for sure,” one of Currier’s daughters, Roberta Pike, said.
Currier was born in Norwich on June 28, 1925. She was the youngest of five children.
Currier attended a one-room school house in Norwich throughout her elementary, middle and high school days. She’d never graduate though; she married her husband Leonard Estes at age 15, and the couple moved to Lyme shortly after, in 1940.
Together they had six children within 7 years. They lived at Chase Farm off Route 10 in Lyme, where Estes worked as a farmer, before the couple bought a home of their own, also off Route 10, in the early 1950s.
Estes’ farming mentality stuck with him, so the family had a farm of their own at the new home, which Currier would often have a hand in.
Having six kids close in age wasn’t always a walk in the park, her son, Russell Estes, said. But his mother surely handled it better than most, he added.
“When you have six kids sitting around the table, it’s hard to keep everything calm,” said Estes, who with his sons owns the construction and renovation firm Estes and Gallup in Lyme. “But she was always fair.”
In addition, she had a knack for being able to balance working life with young children. In her twenties and thirties, Currier worked as a housekeeper in Hanover, a position she held for about 15 years.
She’d perform housekeeping duties for doctors in Hanover, and “they’d treat her well,” her daughter, Linda Woodward, said.
Not only did her housekeeping position help pay the bills, but it also provided a foot in the door to a job at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, a position she assumed in the 1950s.
A particular doctor, “Dr. Staples,” and his wife, were instrumental in helping Currier get a position in the cafeteria, a job she enjoyed and held for 23 years.
Woodward worked in a nursing capacity at the hospital when her mother was a cashier there, so she’d often get to see her hard at work.
“It was really wonderful,” Woodward said. “She knew most of them by name, and they knew her by name.”
“She worked hard all of her life,” said her son, Thomas Estes, who owns Estes Trucking & Excavation in Barre, Vt.
But she definitely left time for play.
Leonard Estes, her husband of 25 years, died before age 50 from a heart attack in 1966. Though times were hard, Currier ended up meeting her second life partner, Cecil “Danny” Currier, and the two wed in 1968.
Together they enjoyed thrill sports, such as snowmobiling and motorcycle riding. They also went camping often. Currier enjoyed fishing, tending to her flower and vegetable gardens, playing cards and other games, especially Yahtzee, and knitting.
Perhaps one of her favorite pastimes though was horseback riding, something she did throughout her life and into her sixties and seventies.
Her daughter, Pauline Gray, who owns a farm in Orfordville, would often ride alongside her. Gray recalled a 50-mile trail ride in Lyme about 20 years ago.
“She enjoyed that,” Gray said.
If horseback riding wasn’t Currier’s favorite pastime, dancing probably was, her husband of 47 years, Cecil Currier, said. The pair met at a dance in the 1960s, and would often travel to dance halls in Orford, Unity, Bradford, N.H., and Tunbridge.
“She was pretty easy-going,” Currier said. “We hardly had a cross word all the time we were married.”
Evelyn Currier also thoroughly enjoyed reading the newspaperevery morning, her children said.
“She wouldn’t miss reading it,” Woodward said. “And she read it from cover to cover. She knew everything that was going on, and she’d always ask us, ‘Did you read the paper today?’ … and we’d always get informed, everyday.”
In her late fifties, Currier thought about settling down, and retired from her job at the hospital. But her retirement wouldn’t last long.
While flipping through the newspaper one day in 1985, she came across the child care ad posted by Argenti and Munter, who lived in Hanover.
“After a few months of retirement, she realized that she needed something to do,” Woodward said. “So she went and met with them. It was a good match.”
Currier worked for the couple for a decade and a half, watching their children grow up alongside her own grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“She was a good mom and a good grandmother,” Gray said. “She was a giver and she was a strong woman, a very strong woman. She was also very honest; the all-around type.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.