Meriden
From post office clerk to fire department dispatcher to co-owner of the general store, MacLeay had a hand in activities from the time she moved to the heart of the village with her husband, G. Gardiner MacLeay Jr., in 1948, until she died Sept. 21, 2017, at age 90.
Claremont natives, the couple married at age 20 and a year later purchased the Meriden General Store, moving into a colonial home at 27 Main St., abutting the Kimball Union Academy campus. They operated the store until 1975, providing Meriden’s residents with groceries, school supplies and basic hardware.
With Meriden’s post office tucked into the back corner of the store, Kay MacLeay became its clerk, sometimes working both counters concurrently.
All the while, MacLeay became the de facto face of Meriden, a source of friendly conversation — and information — for full-time residents of Meriden and KUA visitors.
“If you wanted to know something, just ask Kay,” said Dan Rogers, the MacLeays’ son-in-law who grew up in Meriden and married their daughter, Laura. “She kept track of everything.”
When her husband helped co-found the Meriden Fire Association and Volunteer Fire Department, Kay became its secretary and dispatcher, fielding calls from both home and the store.
Her community involvement extended to Meriden Town Hall, where she was Plainfield’s tax collector for several years and endeavored to have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Kay’s love of history also showed during her longtime tenure as secretary with the Plainfield Historical Society and her membership with the Daughters of the American Revolution organization.
“She put together the whole history of the town in three-ring binders for the Historical Society,” said Laura Rogers. “I think as an independent small business owner, she had an appreciation for the history of the village and wanted to preserve it. She was an avid scrapbooker. Almost anything about Plainfield and Meriden that made the paper, she would save.”
Though practical in nature, MacLeay was fervently compassionate for those facing plight. She anguished over the bloodshed during the Vietnam War, Laura Rogers recalled, and became involved with Bridges for Peace, a Norwich-based group sponsored by the United Church of Christ.
In 1983, MacLeay joined 14 others on a Bridges for Peace mission to Russia, where they toured cities and spoke to those protesting the deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe under the Reagan administration.
Outside a Leningrad cathedral, MacLeay had an emotional moment with a Russian who asked, “Why does Reagan want to kill us?” as told to MacLeay through an interpreter.
“I told her, ‘Reagan doesn’t want to kill you and no one else in the United States wants to kill you,’ and I took her in my arms and started to cry,” Kay MacLeay told a Valley News reporter in a story published in 1983.
MacLeay also shared her observations of a Communist Party leader who spoke outside a candy factory during the Bridges for Peace trip. “There was snap and fire in her eyes,” MacLeay told the reporter.
Those perceptive qualities were as evident in MacLeay’s personality as her friendliness.
“My mom was very kind, but she could also be shrewd,” Laura Rogers said. “When people came into the store asking for directions to a house, she knew they were probably looking at a house that was on the market. The joke was that if she didn’t like them and didn’t want them to move to the village, she’d give them bad directions on purpose.”
Others, such as Rhode Island native Thom Lappin, were welcomed wholeheartedly. Lappin’s family moved to Meriden in 2003 and now runs Poor Thom’s Tavern on Bean Road.
“We were flatlanders, but Kay and Gardiner both treated us very well,” Lappin said. “I wanted to get involved with the fire department, and they certainly made me feel welcome.”
Lappin was first on the scene after the MacLeays’ wood-fired boiler exploded in April 2007, causing severe structural damage to their 1820 home and nearly sending Kay through the roof. Kay had been sitting on a chair above the boiler, her daughter noted, and was sent flying into the ceiling when it exploded, suffering 11 fractured bones.
She and Gardiner, both 80 at the time, were hospitalized for several weeks.
“There was (an indentation) of her body on the ceiling,” Lappin recalled. “It was a pretty big explosion. The house was rocked right off the foundation.”
The MacLeays subsequently sold the home to Kimball Union Academy, which had it demolished and rebuilt. KUA invited the MacLeays to live on the first floor of the new building, receiving a heroes’ welcome when they returned to the village in August 2008.
Longtime family friend Gordon Best recalls the occasion vividly.
“There 25 people gathered around the new house when they arrived, cheering and clapping for them,” Best said. “The fire department was there with a fire truck. It was a classic small-town scene.”
Kay returned to Cedar Hill following Gardiner’s 2009 death, but stayed involved with community activities. Best and another longtime family friend, Fern Wilder, regularly provided rides from Windsor to Meriden for church functions and other events.
Though she struggled with memory lapses during her final years, MacLeay’s curiosity and vigor remained.
“She would forget people’s names, but never forgot a face,” Wilder said. “She always enjoyed being around her friends. Even when she wasn’t as sharp, she always greeted people with a smile.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.