Robert and Olive "Oggy" Butman
55 Holdenwood Rd.
Interviewed on November 20, 1992
Both ages 72
Concord Oral History Program
Renee Garrelick, Interviewer.
Click here for audio in .mp3 format
The Butmans are original residents of Conantum which last year commemorated 40 years since its beginning.
-- The development of Conantum
Bankruptcy
Life within the Conantum community
Acceptance by town
-- As candidate for Selectman, 1964 (Olive)
-- Service on school committee
Population enrollment and change
Bob -- I was working in Philadelphia and had a job offer to come to
the Boston area to work at MIT's Lincoln Lab, and I guess we
just barely landed in town when we got two letters from friends
in Concord, Lucy Richardson and Ann Brigham. Lucy Richardson
was Oggy's minister's wife in Medford before we were married and
Ann Brigham was a classmate of Oggy's. They said there was this
funny new place, come look at it if you want a house, which we
did. One thing led to another and here we are.
I think I came out here alone the first time in September
1951, but it was a pretty mixed up place. The roads were mud,
there were building materials all over the place, half finished
foundations - it looked in disarray and in fact, I think it was.
It was Rupert MacLaurin's dream but we don't know exactly
when he dreamed it. I often wondered when he woke up at 3:00 in
the morning and said, I have this great idea. I think he gets
pretty much full credit for starting the ball rolling. He was
an economics professor at MIT. I think he felt that the pay the
lower level of professors, the assistant professors, were
getting was not adequate to pay for a typical house. I think it
was his view that by building a number of houses together, by
getting a good buy on the land, by pooling resources, he could
create a community that was not only affordable but unique. In
the sense that it would bring a group of people together who
were compatible, and who in fact, became more compatible because
of the experience of moving in, and also a neighborhood with
common land and the comforts of life that you didn't find in an
ordinary neighborhood.
MacLaurin along with architect Carl Koch and builder James
Kelly put the Conantum plan together. But the Conantum Realty
Trust - put together to do the building - went into overload. While all of the houses were of the same basic design, there
were dozens of variations available. The houses were started at
different times so keeping track was a nightmare. The watchman
stole building materials. The houses were underpriced. The
roads were bogs or frozen ruts. It was winter time and pouring
concrete was difficult. Hay spread on newly poured foundations
to prevent freezing was eaten by deer.
The cost of our house was $11,660. We had an expensive lot,
it was $4,300, and the mortgage was a 20-year 4% mortgage. Our
monthly payments were about $90 and that covered taxes. It
makes you laugh now.
After I had seen this place and said never mind the mud and
confusion, it looks great, I had to go back to Philadelphia, so
Oggy said she would put $10 down as a down payment.
Oggy -- I thought you were going to say that we didn't have a big
amount of money to put down because my aunt had given us land in
Nantucket, my family has been there for a long time, and we had
just built a summer house the year before, so we didn't have a
big amount to put down. But $10 we had, and my father loaned us
some money.
Bob -- $10 kept us going until January when we signed a formal
agreement.
Oggy -- So we sat with that $10 for about four months. He said,
"Well, I've been around looking with you at places where I know
you want to have a house, and I think this will be a fine
project but I do think it will go bankrupt." He certainly was
right.
Bob -- When we first came out here in September, there was a
financial pinch. We didn't know it at the time. The land by
bought by MacLaurin and Horace Bright. I don't know anything
about Bright but he had put in some money, $13,000, I believe.
In September he said he wanted his money back. So MacLaurin
gave him his money back and that made a cash tight situation
worse. MacLaurin went to some of the members and said, "Help me
out." Brown, Adler, Levinson, and one other put in $16,000 and
MacLaurin matched it with a loan of his own, but it wasn't enough. So by late April of 1952, Conantum as such became
bankrupt. MacLaurin then bought it out of bankruptcy, I believe
he paid $50,000 for the assets. At that time Conantum still
owed something like $74,000 for the land, and I think he ended
up with a loss of a hundred thousand dollars or more that he had
put in of his own money.
This took a personal toll on MacLaurin's life. I think it
broke up his marriage, I'm not sure but it was probably a
contributor. He went on to build a few more houses behind us
here and he became despondent after that and committed suicide
maybe three or four years later. I don't know how much of it
relates to what he went through here or how it was influenced by
other factors, but it was a sad ending for someone who had done
so much for Conantum.
During the bankruptcy I just had faith that it was going to
work out. I was young enough and innocent enough that I didn't
see that we could get into deep trouble, but clearly we could
have if MacLaurin hadn't done his thing.
Oggy -- We had a meeting about the bankruptcy at the First Parish and
it lasted until one or two in the morning. I don't remember
what was said then but every aspect of the situation was talked
about.
This was to be a community of 100 houses. I didn't blame the
Concord public then since we were the first development, and it
caused a big stir. I would imagine, for myself who loves the
out-of-doors, it must have been uncomfortable for them to think
of all this woods being developed. People used to hunt here and
do all kinds of things. The houses were going to be very
different. The houses didn't fit the colonial stereotype. We
were the only ones that had the big windows then and people used
to come by after we were in them to look at the windows because
obviously we didn't have curtains right away. That was one
thing that was quite interesting to people. Our deeds said no
discrimination of any kind, race, creed, color, national origin
of the people moving in. So the people of Concord didn't know
what kind of group was coming in. I suppose they were somewhat fearful of the kind of people coming in but we didn't know that
at the time. Sam Kent, Editor of the Concord Journal at the
time, felt the town was over anxious and in his editorials stood
up for Conantum. He felt it should have a chance, that we might
be an asset.
Bob -- Being the first development, the people must have thought of
it as an invasion of sorts. It was a huge group of people to
them suddenly showing up in town, about whom they knew nothing.
The town was very conservative and Republican at that time,
and this group moving in was more liberal, definitely Democrats.
We had some Jewish families and of course this town must have
been very waspy at that time, and that probably worried people a
little. Out of the 100 houses there were probably about half a
dozen Jewish families.
Mostly the town services were provided to the area with no
problems. The one thing I have in my mind was going into
Concord Lumber and he asked me if I wanted to charge it. I
said, "Yes", and that was fine with him. I felt we were well
accepted right away, though we were so busy with our families
and our own troubles here that I think our early interaction
with the town was minimal, but there was certainly no trouble.
Oggy -- One of the things that I looked up before we talked today was
that in 1953 one person from Conantum was put on a board, the
Board of Records and Archives. I thought that shows that they
were accepting us and by 1957, the number had increased to
seven, and in 1958, there were nine. Then, it kind of kept
around that mark, and the highest was 13 in 1980. I felt very
pleased that all those people were serving, and they all were
excellent people. They really knew their stuff, and I felt that
showed that the community began to accept us. They were pleased
to have us in the schools. They were worried in the beginning,
but they found that kids were kids.
Bob -- I think it is fair to say that it is a fairly bright
neighborhood in the sense of the professional mental abilities
of the people who've lived here. It was virtually 100% Harvard or MIT when we moved in. I don't mean to brag about it, but
that was just the way it was.
Oggy -- That was because MacLaurin was at MIT and that was where the
publicity was in those two schools.
We had and still do have our own neighborhood association,
actually a board of directors.
Bob -- Actually the Kalmia Woods Corporation is the governing body,
and it has a board of seven directors and a president and a
treasurer. We have a community budget to maintain the common
land and do other things that we may want to do, like have
parties now and then. It was initially very active when we were
involved with the construction, but since then it has tapered
off. Over the years the community was sort of the governance of
the board as we built tennis courts, bought a water pumper for
fire protection in the early days, we converted the corn field
into a what we call a ball field, we have community gardens.
There was a lot of community activity, has been and, though
maybe not as much now, more than average.
Oggy -- Socially, also we have a Christmas sing around the tree
that's been right from the beginning, with open houses
afterwards. On the 4th of July for many years, we had a band
made up of people who played instruments and they marched down
at the ball field, and the kids all had floats there. I
remember our three children doing the signing of the Declaration
of Independence, powdered wigs and everything. That was really
fun. But as the kids got older and we got older and maybe had
more money and a lot of us weren't around as much in the summer,
the 4th of July celebration kind of dropped. But the Christmas
tradition has always been done.
We have a women's sewing club that is still going and a
garden club. We did a lot of social family activities. We
skated on the river, cross countried all around, and hiked all
around. As new people came in as time went on, we tried to get
them involved and get to know us, and most of them did.
About 30 houses are original residents like us, but they're
beginning to move away, retire, etc.
Bob -- I think all but about 15 houses have had substantial
modifications which to me means those houses were adequate and
people didn't want to move away so they modified.
In the beginning we were not hooked to town water. We had
seven wells down by the river, a 250,000 gallon storage tank up
on the hill, the highest part of the land, the original
construction included 8-inch water mains. In 1953 it was
decided to form a water district to take over the public utility
we had established. The newly formed utility borrowed about
$50,000 to buy the assets from the members. We each got $450
out of the deal, which we of course had to pay back in fees for
water. When the town extended water mains to this area in 1956,
we shut down our wells and bought wholesale from the town.
Finally, in 1980, after somewhat rancorous negotiations with the
town, the district was dissolved and we became ordinary water
customers.
Bob -- Conantum is a wonderful place to live, we and our children
have thrived on it. It is truly an extraordinary neighborhood
of congeniality and friends. There is still a strong sense of
community here. We take on community projects of a smaller
scale but we think our early feeling of independence has been
replaced by an allegiance to the town.
Oggy -- I went on the Recreation Commission in 1959 and stayed until
1965. In my whole life, kids and the out-of-doors and
conservation have been my main things, so that was a good place
for me to be, and I really enjoyed that a lot. We had
jurisdiction over the rifle range with the Town Forest
Committee. The town dump committee looked at either the rifle
range or the site on Route 2 as possible sites for a new dump.
The Recreation Commission talked about it and said no way. We
were unanimous that it was not to be at the rifle range, and I
think it was a very smart decision because it has that swamp. A
big dump in that area would not have been very good.
When I was chairman, I got very interested in the land that
was Ben Smith's on Sudbury Road. He had a large barn and stable
and 22 1/2 acres. So I talked to Ted Nelson, the Town Manager, and told him I really wanted to buy that land for the town for
recreation and I had talked to Ben Smith. He said, "Okay, you
do this, you do this, and you do this, and then come back to
me." After working with him for a while, we finally got it
through town meeting. The Riverdale Association said they would
help do the development of it, whether they wanted to have a
skating pond or whatever. It was so exciting to me and it was
so much fun to work with a Town Manager that really made me feel
I could make something work. Many people may know that Ben
Smith had a terrific collection of Concord arrowheads.
There was no public access to Warner's Pond in West Concord
and I thought there should be. I can't remember the details but
a man named Anderson who was head of Concord Oil owned the land
that could access it. I asked him if he would be interested in
giving the land to the town and he agreed. So I felt really
good about that.
The Planning Board, the Conservation Commission and the
Recreation Commission worked hard when the Fry development went
in near Musketaquid Club on Harrington Avenue in part of Thoreau
Hills. There was a swamp there that people wanted to protect a
certain flower that was there, and we worked on that and we got
some land that the town bought there. So those were all really
interesting things.
Then in 1964 I decided I would really like to run for
selectman. My family was a political family. My father had
been a mayor and I had other members in the family in those
kinds of situations, so I decided to try it. I thought I did
very well. I was the last one of the four that ran, two made it
and two of us didn't. Roger Duncan then came to me, he was on
the School Committee for six years, I had actually run his
campaign for him, and he said he thought I would really like the
School Committee much better than being selectman. He was going
off and he wanted me to take his place. So I did and won and he
was right, it was the right thing for me. It's like graduate
school to be on a School Committee, you learn a whole lot. The
two things that I was most involved in and felt very strongly about was Metco, the Metropolitan Council for Educational
Opportunity, and collective bargaining. It just happened that
the year I went on the committee the bargaining law passed in
Massachusetts that made it mandatory. The committee said for me
to go to this course on bargaining so I would understand about
what would happen and learn about how to do it for the town. It
was a fascinating thing. It was a college course really. I
came back from it and I was just excited and I told Virginia
Biggie, who was the Assistant Superintendent of Schools then,
how exciting it was to go back and be learning. She said I
needed to go back and get my master's degree in education. She
convinced me I could do it and she told me what to do, so I
ended up at Tufts for three years part time. I got a degree in
guidance and counseling in 1968. I stayed on the School
Committee for another three years and when that was over, I got
a job as a counselor in Littleton, and I was there for 17 years.
So the School Committee was a two way street for me, I didn't
plan it that way. At times it was very hard on the committee
but I loved it. When I was on the committee, we had three
changes of superintendents and that's not always easy.
I was chairman of the Regional School Committee when Metco
was first introduced. This was in 1966. We had a huge hearing,
supposed to be one of the largest hearings ever in Concord,
about a thousand people, I think. I ran that meeting and it was
quite a meeting. It was an emotional time, people were angry,
people were concerned. Bob Coles was there and he talked very
well. The other thing that pleased me was that one of the
selectmen wrote me a letter afterward saying it was the best run
meeting he had ever been to. The meeting was held at the high
school auditorium.
The Metco program was bringing black children from the inner
city out to the suburbs as full time students to help their
education, and on the other hand to have the community see that
there is diversity. The School Committee voted to receive the
students - 20 Metco students arrived at the high school in 1967
and 25 students to Willard grades 1-5 in 1969. In the schools every child had a family that they could come to in Concord.
One of the families that lives right down here had just put a
notice on our bulletin board just this year that their Metco boy
who started with them in first grade in now married and is
working and he wants to buy a house, about $100,000, and if
anybody had any ideas to let them know. I've kept on going to
all the anniversaries, and they've been wonderful, enough to
make you cry. Kids going on to really good schools and loving
it. There were times that were difficult. I still feel very,
very strongly about it. Then as soon as I went off the board,
Bob went on it.
Bob -- In roughly 1968 I felt I was getting a little bored with what
I was doing at Lincoln Lab, and Lincoln Lab was looking for ways
to get partially out of the defense business into some civilian
projects. I managed to get a sabbatical year and went back to
MIT and took courses in psychology and government and did some
independent studying in some educational systems, did a little
computer work, with the idea that I would come back better
prepared to do some kind of a project which involved technology
in education. And in fact we did set up such a project, a
computer assisted instruction (CAI) development program at the
lab. We worked on it about seven years with no particular great
end, but never mind. At the time, the computers were not up to
the job is what it amounted to. That got me to looking at the
education business and I became an apprentice when Oggy went on
the committee, so I ran and in a field of six, came in second.
I think of that time of two terms on the School Committee as
a lot of turmoil. There were a lot of personnel changes,
Minuteman Vocational was coming on-line. Chapter 766 was just
instituted which was mandated services to the handicapped
students, mentally handicapped mostly, but physically
handicapped too. We were doing our own collective bargaining
still, we didn't have professionals. We had six different
unions to deal with within the school system. There were a lot
of experimental things going on, for example, open classrooms,
big rage. Experimental education of all sorts. Many independent projects being funded in the systems, educational
collaborative, for example. I don't think it left any great
impact on the system but they were fun at the time and I think
stimulated both students and teachers to become enthusiastic
about their teaching job which is a plus.
Life education was a big issue - we didn't call it sex.
There was one election where that was a big issue. The school
was going beyond it's duties. It stayed and people got used to
it. It wasn't that bad, and it's probably such a low level of
education compared to what is around now. I know one of the
opponents came up to me a couple of years ago and said, "Well,
my youngest kid is enrolled and it's just fine."
Minuteman Vocational was somewhat of an issue, but I don't
think it was a huge issue. I think some of us were just
questioning whether it would be all that useful to Concord,
whether or not people would go to make it worthwhile. I guess
it had been okay. I think one of the things that troubled me a
little bit about it that I was afraid that the home based
vocational stuff that we had in town would atrophy, and I think
it did. But I'm not sure if that is because of Minuteman or
because carpentry is not something people do any more anyway.
The manual skills that we had at that time became less popular
because that was the way the world was going and it had nothing
to do with Minuteman.
I was obsessed with population and enrollment projections.
It was one thing I spent a lot of time on, but I didn't have any
credentials so I was not believable. But they worked out just
about right. I thought it would go down. The highest birth
rate in town I guess was in the '50s and there were about 250
children born in the town for several years then. By the time
we had gotten to 1976 it was down to about a 100 per year. My
numbers may not be quite right but this wave was going through
and you could see it. The high school was bursting, of course.
I said it was going to 1500 and below in the '80s, and we had
big arguments about that. We added on where I thought we were
doing too much with respect with the addition. We added a new gym, a new basketball gym, and a classroom wing. I thought we
should have had a cage, no classroom wing, and a swimming pool,
but it didn't work out that way. So now we're in the high
school with 800 or so.
Oggy -- I was on the school sites committee for a long time. In 1975
the school sites committee was dissolved because the population
growth leveled off.
Bob -- The population is going up again to be sure. There were 173
children born in the town in '91, still that's down about 40%
from what it was at its peak. We hear about overcrowding now
and I guess there are some areas that are overcrowded, though I
think probably our standards are higher than they used to be.
It cannot be that the high school is overcrowded, that's for
sure.
I guess I came away from the school committee experience
feeling pretty hard for a group that works on Tuesday and that
influences an organization of 200-300 people who work all week.
The leverage that the School Committee really has is in choosing
the superintendent and the principals and whatever directors
there may be, and that's where you really have your chance to do
something that will have an impact by finding somebody who
believes whatever you believe, that you think is correct.
Oggy -- I worked with Superintendent Bob Ireland when I went on the
committee, then Sayre Uhler came in and then Ralph Sloan.
Bob -- Ralph Sloan was there for most of the time that I was on the
committee.
Oggy -- What I wanted to say that I didn't say about the collective
bargaining was one of the things that impressed me most, and
what I really worked hard at on the committee, was that you have
to be acting in good faith with everybody. There is a fine
opportunity for communication on both sides so you can
understand the roles and problems on each side. I did a lot for
that when we first started the collective bargaining. I tried
very hard to set it up so it wasn't teachers versus committee.
It really did work very well.
The other thing that I didn't bring up about schools that in
my tenure we added to a lot of the schools. We did the Willard
School addition in 1965, built Sanborn which was ready in 1966,
Ripley wing finished in September 1969.
Bob -- It felt many times that we were fighting fires instead of
thinking great thoughts. Every now and then we would say we've
got to think bigger thoughts. We went off one weekend and spent
a whole day thinking bigger thoughts and we came back and
started fighting fires again.
We influenced some change, but there were no sweeping
fundamental changes. Mostly we dealt with issues that seemed
more important to the adults than students in town; touchy
subjects like sex, open classrooms, teacher salaries, building
projects, Metco, redistricting, new construction,
regionalization, special education, managerial organization, and
setting the tone of the system by making personnel choices at
the superintendent and principal level.