Chelsea
An avid horsewoman — she started showing horses at 9 and did so for almost 60 years — she was an accomplished journalist, writing or editing for publications ranging from The American Horseman to the Christian Science Monitor and Vermont Life.
The author of five books about horses, she was a larger-than-life figure in the world of Saddlebreds and stallions. And she also left her mark on a generation of children in Chelsea, becoming a longtime teacher there in 1964, three years after she and her husband, Harold Lofton Childs, moved to what they called Harolyn Hill Farm in Chelsea.
Separating Marilyn Childs from horses would be foolish and impractical, and Marilyn Childs — who died Dec. 16, 2016, at 93 — had little tolerance for foolishness or impracticality.
“I am not sure …Mom would have settled [in Vermont] had it not been for Figure, the first Morgan horse having been raised, used and buried here,” her son Robert, of Chelsea, said.
The farm off County Road, which she had heard about through colleagues also interested in Morgan horses, needed plenty of work, but Childs convinced her skeptical husband, a noted horse trainer, they should buy it and move to Vermont.
Another son, Carl, of Williston, Vt., added, ”She seemed most happy doing something with or about horses.”
She judged at horse shows across the country, and received many honors, including Woman of the Year of the Morgan Association, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United Professional Horsemen’s Association.
Not one to watch from the sidelines, she was active in political life, serving as chairwoman of the Chelsea Town Republican Committee. Orange County Republican Chairwoman Mary Daly, of Fairlee, knew Childs as a “a consistent and active member” of the local and state committees, and she shared a bond with Gov. Deane Davis, who also was a horse person, her son Carl recalled.
She also joined the Chelsea Woman’s Club and was a justice of the peace.
While juggling these professional and personal occupations, Childs worked on the family farm.
Born and raised in Springfield, Mass., — she was a lifelong fan of the Big E — she was also a religious woman, a member of the First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston and the Christian Science Society of Randolph.
But she was perhaps best known in the Upper Valley as Mrs. Childs, the teacher at Chelsea High School, where she led her students to 10 state championships in forensics, aka the debate team.
Will Gilman, a former student and owner of Will’s Store in Chelsea, said, “She was one of those people who thought that if you sleep more than four hours a day, you’re wasting time.”
Childs taught English, French, journalism, composition and speech. She had stints as assistant principal and guidance counselor.
During her time in the classroom, she penetrated the armor of adolescence and got her students’ attention. “She had a reputation as a stern task master but was not above arm wrestling with the boys in her younger years,” said her son David, of Orange, Vt.
Gilman has many fond memories. “I liked her very much,” said the 1974 graduate. “She expected you to do your work.” He described her as a “hard teacher but fair. She wasn’t one to show favorites.”
Gilman recalled Childs leading students from Chelsea into debate battle with much larger high schools in Burlington, Barre and Montpelier.
“They would tease us about our small school — we still had wooden floors — and then we’d whoop them. When you end up being state champs of debate, you get a lot of pride out of that,” he said.
“You didn’t mess around with Marilyn Childs. She was a forceful woman, like Margaret Thatcher or Eleanor Roosevelt,” added another of her students, Tunbridge filmmaker John O’Brien, class of 1981. “She leaned very far to the right and I leaned very far to the left, but we got along very well. She taught me to look at all sides of issues, ultimately a great lesson. She was a mentor to me, but also a teacher in the best sense.”
When Childs was angry, O’Brien recalled, she looked like “a bull in a bullring before he gored a matador. She was going to flatten you if you had other ideas. But if you could roll with that, you could get so much out that relationship.” He recalled her writing the word “ACCURACY” in giant letters on the chalkboard.
Shelley Lyford began riding lessons with Childs at the age of five. “I was a bit timid,” Lyford wrote in an email. “Mrs. Childs was NOT. She was boisterous and confident — even a little rough. She seemed annoyed when I got things wrong. I grew proud when I got something right and (she) praised me.”
Lyford bathed the horses and cleaned the stalls and washed the tack, and said Childs demanded accuracy and precision.
“My hands would often bleed from the reins rubbing against my fingers — she didn’t allow gloves. She would make me put a dollar bill under my thigh to assure my legs were wrapped tightly around the horse — I never wanted that dollar to fly out!” she said.
Childs “made me practice…debate and oratory” in high school, and during riding lessons, she would speak to Lyford in French so she could practice the language, Lyford recalled.
Lessons carried over from the classroom to the real world, and Childs became “a constant guiding light.”
“She gave me so much confidence — I did the work of a man, which was expected, and all the while she taught me how to be a lady. She taught me how to be poised, how to handle stressful situations, how to negotiate, and how to win. I will be forever grateful for my time with Mrs. Childs,” said Lyford, who now lives in California.
Her sons have vivid memories of and admiration for their mother. David tells “about the time she bought us boys boxing gloves as we were always ‘tussling’ and decided she would give me boxing lessons herself. She had a set of gloves on as did I. We put our hands up and she said hit her. Well of course I couldn’t do that but the next thing I knew she hit me in the nose and gave me a bloody nose. We all got a good laugh out of that.”
Carl remembers that “she did not like modern things like microwave ovens or the internet … I certainly have memories of her complaining about technology.”
Beyond the anecdotes, there is profound respect.
Robert recalled, “Mom was an achiever. She was liberated before women’s lib was even thought of. She believed that the only limitations in life were those that one put on oneself. She was a carpenter, plumber, electrician and mechanic. She could drive a tractor, milk a cow, or gentle a wild horse. After all that she could put on a dress and feel right at home at a theater, grand opening or presidential inaugural ball. But work always came before play.”
Her son David learned more than just self-defense from his mother. “She was fearless and would tackle anything. She instilled in us a sense of hard work and honesty. Deeply religious, she also recognized how all people are just human. So in my own life I try to recognize that and be fair.”
Carl added, “My mother would attempt things that she didn’t have a clue how to do but she did them anyway. And, if you think about it, just because we can’t do something, that shouldn’t be a reason not to try.”
Childs, who was widowed in 2005 when Harold, a native Tennessean, died, was named a “super senior” by WCAX in 2014.
And she summed up her philosophy in an interview with the television station from her Chelsea farm.
“Wasn’t raised to fear things, and I just don’t,” she said.
Mark Lilienthal can be reached at mlilient@gmail.com