Edward C. Brummer

Rindge, New HampshireEdward C. Brummer, an old fashioned New England innkeeper and holder of the Boston Post Cane as the oldest resident of Rindge, New Hampshire, died peacefully on Feb. 24, at the age of 101. Ed Brummer, or Mr. B as he was known to guests and staff alike in his later years, was the proprietor of Woodbound Inn in Rindge, N.H. for 47 years from 1934 until 1981 when he sold the business to his son Jed.

Ed put a premium on entertaining the clientele, on hospitality. During the prime summer months, guests typically came for stays of one or two weeks. Their vacation would be filled with activities like square dances (which Edcalled), evening cookouts that concluded with a softball game, beach luncheons, bingo games, card parties, welcoming cocktail party, and movies in the playbarn. Ed and his family ate in the dining room, and, to his wifes chagrin, Ed got used to cold meals as he spent most of the time mingling with guests. To him good facilities and simple Yankee cooking were important, but hospitality was the key to having many guests register for the same weeks vacation, year after year for 40 years and more. Most summer weeks, and especially during the Christmas vacation week, the atmosphere at Woodbound resembled a family reunion. Ed awarded guests with personalized, hand painted wooden plates and other memorabilia every five years to recognize their loyalty.

During the time the Brummers owned the inn, Woodbound was always featured in the annual edition of Country Inns Back Roads. It helped attract guests from all over the country and internationally as well.

While hospitality was the key, the inns facilities were nonetheless very important and required plenty of attention. When Ed and Jack Bean of Jaffrey NH, his lifelong friend and fraternity brother at Dartmouth, first teamed up to buy the inn, all the guest rooms in the main house and annex had sinks, but there was only one public bath on each guest room floor. Ed joked that his first 30 years at the inn were one long quest to put private baths in all the guest rooms.

When he decided to open for the winter season, a ski hill with a rope tow became necessary. Together with another longtime friend and local skiing legend, Bill Currier of New Ipswich, they hacked a path to a bluff above the inn, drove an old Chevy pickup truck to the top of what became known as the big hill, and converted the truck into a ski tow. When Eds young twin sons were persuasive enough, the tows operator would put the truck in third gear and haul them, and select friends, uphill at more than 30 miles per hour. Shortly before he died at age 89 in July 2008, Currier, the inns first ski instructor, proclaimed in a newspaper story that Ed Brummer was likely the oldest living former ski area operator anywhere. One of Curriers early students was Channing Murdock who learned to ski at Woodbound and went on to establish the Butternut Basin ski area in Western Mass.

Ed Brummer was born January 7, 1909 in the river town of Lisbon, N.H. in the same room above the familys clothing store, George Brummer Sons, where his father was born. He got his early training in the hospitality business a few miles away as a bellhop and caddy at the Sunset Hill House in Sugar Hill. When caddying for the famous amateur golfer Francis Ouimet he stole one of his golf balls and years later admitted this as a blemish on his reputation, not that he stole the ball but that he couldnt find it to show off. Ouiment was the first American to win the U.S. Open.

Ed attended Lisbon High School where he played football for four years (the only four years Lisbon ever had a team) and captained the basketball team his senior year. He went to Camp Belknap on Lake Winnipesaukee for several years and then became a counselor. One of the oldest camps in the country, Ed gave financial support to Belknap all his life and returned in 2003 with his two sons, also Belknapers, for the 100th reunion.

Ed was graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1931 as a history major. He then spent three years in N.Y. City living at Trinity House in Brooklyn and working for Guaranty Trust Co. It was a time during which he took in many Broadway shows and also attended N.Y. Yankees games where his fraternity brother and golfing buddy, Red Rolfe of Penacook NH, played 3rd base during the Ruth/Gehrig era. Once, after a game, Ed and Red were takingthe subway downtown when a group of boys recognized Red and asked for his autograph on their program. Thinking that Ed was also a Yankee, they wanted his autograph too. Perplexed, he asked Red what to do and Red said, "oh just make them happy and sign it."
The summer before his senior year at Dartmouth, he got a job as an usher with the Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus and toured with it throughout the East. This experience together with the impact of the Depression solidified his lifelong passions for golf, the circus, Dartmouth College and progressive politics. Taken in order, his passion for golf was manifest in the pride he took in designing and building a par-3 golf course for Woodbound Inn. He was also a dedicated member of the Keene N.H. Country Club. A life long member of the Circus Fans of America and a regular attendee of the Greatest Show on Earth at the Boston Garden, he preferred the intimacy of the one ring, Big Apple Circus, the founder and ringmaster of which, not incidentally, was a Dartmouth graduate. Until his dying day, Ed served as president of his Dartmouth class and was most proud of their gift to the college library of a refrigeration system to restore water damaged books. As for progressive politics, Ed was a Roosevelt New Deal devotee and self proclaimed lifelong liberal Democrat. Asked why this was so by a grandson doing a 4th grade history project, he paused and said its because I value people over property.

Truth be told though, he did love property in the form of books and historical artifacts. Ed was a voracious reader and book collector. He read most books as though he was still a college student, underlining key passages and sticking paperclips on pages for future reference. At age 83 he decided to re-read the classics. His choices ranged from Kerouac to Tolstoy, and he kept a list of each book completed. The list had 123 entries at his death.

Ed married Margaret Sloane, daughter of Douglas and Sibyl Sloane of Rindge NH (founders of the Cathedral of the Pines and formerly of Newton MA) in 1942. Shortly thereafter he left for three years to manage a Bethlehem Steel Company operation in Hingham, MA constructing troop landing craft while Margaret managed the Inn. Despite his interest in politics, Ed never ran for public office. He was, however, very active in civic affairs. Ed was a Mason and member of the Lions Club. He served on the board of directors of the Monadnock Bank and the mutual aid Meadowbrook Fire Dept. He was a member and chair of the Rindge Board of Adjustment and served on the zoning board. He was a founding member of the Rindge Historical Society and helped write the current town history. Ed was also a member of the N.H. Historical Society. He served as treasurer of the Cathedral of the Pines. In the late 1950s he was appointed by Governor Lane Dwinell, a Republican with a Dartmouth pedigree, to chair the states Economic Development Committee. Gov. Dwinell invited Ed and Margaret to join him and his wife for a visit to meet Ed Sullivan in New York City. As a hospitality professional, Ed was a member and chair of the N.H. Hotel and Motel Association and chaired the resort committee of the New England Innkeepers Association.

Ed is survived by Margaret, his wife of 67 years, and his three children, Jed and his wife Linda of Rindge, NH; Jefferson and his wife Katherine Walker of Jamaica Plain, MA; and daughter Martha and her partner Glenis Beaven of Tynemouth, England; five grandchildren, eight great grandchildren and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.

For anyone wishing to make a donation in Edwards memory, gifts would be gratefully received by the Rindge or Lisbon, N.H. Historical Societies, the Cathedral of the Pines or Doctors Without Borders.

A joint memorial service for Margaret and Edward will be held at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge on August 15, 2010at 3:00 p.m.