Scenes from the 62nd Wardsboro Fourth of July Parade in 2011. The parade is now celebrating its 70th year. Reformer File Photo
WARDSBORO HOSTS SOUTHERN VERMONT’S LONGEST-RUNNING FOURTH OF JULY PARADE
70 and still going strong By Anita Rafael WARDSBORO, Vt.
For 58 of the 70 years the villagers of Wardsboro have been organizing the town’s Fourth of July parade and street fair, resident Bette Allen Parsons has been part of it in one way or another — early on, as a pint-size helper serving food, and all her adult life, as an allin volunteer and committee member. To honor her, and the countless things she has done to make Wardsboro a wonderful place to be born, grow up, raise a family and retire to, she
was chosen to be grand marshal of this year’s parade. Parsons, 73, will be the red-, white- and blue-clad great-grandmother wearing mirrored sunglasses, as she cruises by the cheering, clapping crowds with one hand on the throttle of her gleaming, bright red 1800cc Honda Goldwing Trike, while waving with the other. You can’t miss Parsons, she’ll be right up front. Let’s look back, though, at the year the parade began, and Parsons was just 3 years old. On Independence Day 1949, Harry S. Truman, president of the United States, was midway
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through the first year of his first elected term in office. On that same day, a Monday, the people of the tranquil little township of Wardsboro — population at the time: 400 — held their first patriotic parade and street fair on Main Street. The parade route, along what was then an unpaved lane, passed between the two-story, Greek Revival-style Town Hall and the white-clapboarded Methodist church. The marchers went up a way, just beyond a handful of 100-year-old homes and cow barns, then turned around in a pasture and came back down.
For each of the past 70 years since then, the townspeople, under the leadership of the Fourth of July Committee and the help of dozens of steadfast volunteers, have recreated that first celebration. The parade takes place on the same quaint street [it has been paved for some time now], goes up past the Town Hall and church, same as always, by the same seven or eight old houses and now-empty cow barns, and back again. With about 100 participants, it’s not a very long parade, but the bonus is that everyone gets to see it twice. The event committee claims
