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04/13/2016 08:30 AMLast Monday, as bursts of April snow blanketed the lawns and iced up the roads, Lyle Cubberly dressed in full military uniform, drove to Middletown, and fired a rifle salute at two graveside services. He’s one of nine members of the Clinton and Madison American Legion who form the honor guard detail when local veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces are buried.
“Sometimes there have been a couple of hundred people at a service, all the way down to just a funeral director, a member of the clergy, and us. It’s so sad to see someone who has died and there is no one there other than the five or six people present to honor their life and their service to this great country of ours.”
The following morning, the meteorologist, retired Air Force major, and Ph.D. historian guest-lectured in his grandson’s kindergarten classroom, surrounded by low tables, tiny chairs, and curious five- and six-year-olds.
“I will be talking to them about water: the three forms that water takes, how old water is, and how water moves between the three forms.”
Days earlier, Lyle visited Peregrine’s Landing, an assisted living facility in Clinton where he conducts weekly religious services for elderly residents of every faith.
“I’ve been doing that for about a year now,” he says. “Since most of the people there have memory problems of one kind or another, I try and incorporate into my service things they can remember from their past, such as the 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, some of the old hymns, a short Bible passage, and a short message.”
A lay minister and adult Sunday school teacher at the United Methodist Church in Clinton, he occasionally steps into the pulpit and conducts services when the pastor is away.
Lyle wears many hats—literally. For the Madison Historical Society, he’ll dress in 18th-century period attire and lead walks through the town’s smallpox cemetery. For Habitat for Humanity, he and a group of men from his church help raise the roof for working families in New Haven. He’s been a drug and alcohol counselor (15 years), an antiques dealer (20 years), and a member of the Air Force (27 years), and he’s been married 46 years and counting.
“My wife, Barbara, and I have moved 24 times over the course of our marriage, and we always made the best of the places we lived in,” he says.
Home addresses have included include Tokyo, Louisiana, Nebraska, Texas, North and South Dakota, Maine, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts (where he was stationed at Westover and met Barbara at a Methodist church in her native Chicopee), Lyle’s home state of Michigan, and the couple’s home for the last seven years: Clinton.
“I always tell our daughter, Laura, that she’s in charge of my next move,” he jokes, insisting that the only place he’s headed from here is a cemetery plot or a nursing home.
Active Duty
Lyle was born in Tecumseh, Michigan, but grew up in the bedroom community of Milan, about seven miles south of Ann Arbor. His mother was a stay-at-home mom, and his father a machinist.
“I was the overachieving eldest of six kids,” he says.
While his brothers and sisters mostly stayed in southeast Michigan, taking jobs in one of the many factories in the area, Lyle decided to hit the road.
“Home life wasn’t the best, so just as soon as I graduated from high school, I wanted to get away and travel. There wasn’t any money for college, so the Air Force seemed like the best option.”
Lyle finished high school on June 6, 1963, and enlisted in the Air Force a month later, almost to the day, on July 5.
“My first job was working on the Hound Dog missile on the B-52. Then I became a computer repairman.”
All the while, he took night courses and worked toward his bachelor’s degree. While many of the college credits he earned were portable, moving around meant some of the credits didn’t transfer and had to be earned again. After more than 10 years, Lyle left the Air Force, enrolled in Eastern Michigan University, and graduated with a B.S. in geography a year later. He has since earned four more degrees—including a bachelor’s in meteorology, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate in history.
“I wanted to teach,” he recalls, “but I got a call from an Air Force recruiter saying they needed prior-service sergeants. So I enlisted again. This time, because I scored high enough on aptitude tests, I cross-trained to the weather career field. I was first an observer, then a forecaster. After forecasting school, I learned the Air Force was looking for enlisted men with college degrees who had the necessary math and physics classes to become officer meteorologists.”
The Air Force, he says, encouraged advanced education for enlisted members.
“I applied, went to Officer Training School at Medina Annex, Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and graduated second in my class of 250.”
That was December 1978.
In his military career, Lyle spent most of his time supporting the Strategic Air Command, which was responsible for land-based strategic bomber aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles. He was a staff officer at Headquarters Air Weather Service and a commander of weather units, first at Loring Air Force Base in Maine, then at Ellsworth, in South Dakota. The last assignment was his biggest, he says.
“The base had B-1 bombers, KC-135 Tankers, and Minute Man II missiles.”
After 27 years of service, Lyle retired from the Air Force, with the rank of major.
Settling Down
“We moved to Connecticut in the summer of 2009,” he says. “Our daughter, who lives in Madison, had just had our first grandson, and she needed family support. Laura was working at Yale, and her husband, Craig, owned his own business. So we settled in Clinton and became full-time grandparents.”
Lyle and Barbara now have four grandchildren, ages three through nine. Two are in Connecticut and two near St. Louis, Missouri, where their son, Benjamin, and his wife, Rebecca, make their home.
For the Cubberlys, settling down hasn’t meant slowing down, and Lyle wasted no time immersing himself in the community—learning its history; getting to know who lives, studies, and works here; and figuring out how to get active.
A trustee of the Madison Historical Society, he moderates the monthly gathering of the MHS History Book Group and helps manage the annual Madison Historical Society Antiques Fair (celebrating its 45th year this summer) and the biennial antique appraisal fair.
“I really enjoy working with the folks at the Madison Historical Society,” he says. “What a great bunch of people.”
Lyle also participates in historical programs for elementary school groups.
“For 5th-graders I developed a question-and-answer session on probably Madison’s most well-known person, Cornelius Bushnell.”
Bushnell was a 19th century railroad executive and shipbuilder with considerable political influence.
“Cornelius sat on the board of directors of the Shore Line Railroad, the Union Pacific Railroad while the transcontinental railroad was being built, and during the American Civil War he proposed and built the ironclad Monitor, using his own funds.”
The USS Monitor is widely considered the most famous fighting vessel of the Civil War.
“For the 2nd-graders, I give a brief history of Madison and get them involved by using a metal map of the town and having them place magnets on the backs of pictures of what I am talking about. At times it’s like herding cats,” Lyle admits, “but it’s fun.”
Lyle also gives tours of the Madison Historical Society’s Allis-Bushnell House and Smallpox Burying Ground, a secluded quarter-acre parcel in the woods of Guilford that contains the remains of Captain Ichabod Scranton, who died of smallpox in 1760. Captain Scranton had traveled earlier that year to Albany, New York in service of the British Crown, where he was in command of a company of 74 officers in campaigns against the French and their Native American allies.
“I tell the story of Ichabod, the French and Indian War, and the smallpox quarantine.”
While historic figures and places are dear to Lyle’s heart, so are more contemporary spaces (and the folks who occupy them) in need of a little TLC.
“I’m president of our church’s Methodist Men, and we’re involved with Habitat for Humanity. I help organize the men two or three times a year, and we go into New Haven to help build their houses. We also help with Home Front. The first Saturday in May this year we’ll be do a one-day blitz to help a family repair their home, which was damaged in Superstorm Sandy. We’ve done this three times in the past—painting, fixing decks and stairs, putting up sheds.”
When he’s not rolling up his sleeves and volunteering, Lyle is usually…well, rolling up his sleeves anyway. His hobbies include gardening, golf, reading, antiquing, traveling, and something called 18th century camping.
“We dress in the clothing of the time period,” he explains, “and camp at historic forts: The Fort at #4, near Charlestown, New Hampshire; Crown Point, Fort Ticonderoga, and Fort Niagara in New York; and Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, to name a few. Barbara makes most of our clothes. We sleep in canvas tents of the period, cook over open fires, and have a great time.”