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Eddie English, of Woodstock, Vt., during a trip to Kittery, Maine, in October 2023. A lifelong bachelor, English willed his home to the nearby Thompson Senior Center on his death in September 2024. (Courtesy photograph) -
Dennis Wright, right, and others honored classmate Eddie English in a basketball team photo on their float in the 2025 alumni parade. English died in September 2024. (Courtesy photograph) -
Liz Sauchelli. Copyright (c) Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
WEST WOODSTOCK — Nearly every weekday for more than 15 years, Edwin English left his home and walked the .2 miles to the Thompson Senior Center.
There, he’d greet friends (staff among them), eat lunch and play bingo, often calling games.
“If you met him, he was a friend,” Thompson executive director Deanna Jones said.
More than five years ago, English — who was known as Eddie or Ed — told Jones he was going to will the three-bedroom home on 2.29-acres where he’d spent most of his life to the senior center.
“I can still see his face when he told me,” Jones said. “He was so pleased to be able to do something like this for us.”
After English, an only child and lifelong bachelor, died at age 80 of complications from diabetes on Sept. 14, 2024, the property transferred to the Thompson, which is in the process of selling it. The asking price for the Route 4 home is $375,000 and Jones said the proceeds will go toward supporting the senior center’s ongoing renovation and other programs.
“To say I’m going to do it and doing it are two different things for some people. We who knew Eddie knew that he meant it,” said English’s cousin, Ralph English, of Grantham. “If Eddie said it, Eddie meant it and he wasn’t going to back out of it. It was very important to him.”
As a child in the 1950s and ’60s, Ralph English and his family would travel up from Washington, D.C., to spend Christmas in Woodstock with his cousin’s family.
They kept in touch over the years and when Ralph English and his wife moved to Grantham after retiring, they made sure to reserve a bedroom for his cousin. At least once a month, the couple would travel up to the Thompson to eat lunch with English.
“Woodstock was his life,” Ralph English said.
English was a seventh-generation Vermonter, his cousin said. He graduated from Woodstock Union High School in 1963, then went on to work for the Woodstock Inn and Resort for more than 40 years.
He kept in touch with his classmates and was an active member of the alumni association, to which he bequeathed about $80,000. The money will support the association’s scholarship fund, said member Dennis Wright.
That English included the alumni association in his giving didn’t surprise Wright, but the amount did. “Nobody’s ever done that that we know of,” Wright said.
Wright and English met when they were both in third grade and they became fast friends. When they got to high school, English took on the role of manager for the football, basketball and baseball teams.
“He was the guy who made sure there was water and Band-Aids and ice for injuries,” Wright, of Woodstock, said.
English also served as the unofficial class photographer.
“He was always taking pictures of things that went on at school,” Wright recalled. “Everyone was always ducking so they wouldn’t be in the picture.”
Now that members of the class of 1963 are older, they appreciate the hundreds of photos English took when they were young, Wright said.
English attended alumni association meetings and regularly contributed his point of view, including at a meeting last August. He wanted to make sure that alumni leadership would still publish meeting dates in the newspaper.
“He was worried those folks who were older and did not have internet would not find out what was going on with alumni,” Wright said.
If there was a meeting or gathering, classmates were sure to call English’s landline and offer him a ride.
“People always kind of kept an eye out for Ed and included him in things,” Wright said.
English attended Town Meeting every year and read the town report in advance so he’d be prepared.
“People have often said they were glad Eddie asked questions, as they might not have, and the answers were important,” according to the 2025 Woodstock Town Report, which was dedicated to English. “All future Town Meetings will have a void due to Eddie’s absence.”
English’s absence also will be noticed at Christmastime. For decades, he sent more than 200 Christmas cards annually.
English often used a ruler and pencil to draw a line so that his handwriting would be straight, and used green and red pens “alternating sometimes every other letter to say ‘Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,” Wright said. He’d also include the name of his current cat and sign off with either “Love, Ed,” or “Your friend, Eddie.”
Jones and other Thompson staff were frequent recipients of those cards.
His presence is missed, but his legacy will live on.
“He’s just a really special man who loved the senior center and loved this community,” she said. “He was so dear, really, really dear.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
