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06/23/2021 08:30 AMYou can’t say it often enough: Everybody loves a parade, and especially when COVID-19 forced the cancellation of last year’s Fourth of July Parade in Ivoryton and the Essex Memorial Day parade earlier this year.
But no more cancellations! The Ivoryton Fourth of July parade is on and Judy McCauley will be an important part of it. She is one of the Ivoryton Gardeners, who as a group are the grand marshals this year.
“It’s really an honor; I was surprised,” Judy says.
In summer, the gardeners regularly spruce up the Ivoryton Green, tending its shrubs and watering the flowers in the barrels at its edge. For the holiday season, they decorate the barrels with evergreens.
The Independence Day Parade steps off om Sunday, July 4 at 10 a.m. and proceeds down Ivoryton Main Street to the Ivoryton Green for Fourth of July ceremonies, with Ivoryton resident Laura Copland serving as master of ceremonies. Essex First Selectman Norm Needleman will welcome the crowd and Norm Rutty, in Colonial costume, he will read from the Declaration of Independence. The New Horizons Band of the Community Music School, under the direction of Patricia Hurley, will play a selection of patriotic music.
Along with the groups in the line of march, cyclists with decorated bicycles are encouraged to participate as are drivers of classic cars and trucks. Marcher and bicycles meet at 9:30 a.m. at the bottom of the Mill Race Preserve and Walnut Street. Vehicles meet at the bottom of Cheyney Street, also at 9:30.
The Ivoryton gardeners will ride at the head of the parade as the honorees for the day. Judy is one of the original members of the group, which started in 1983. It was never a formal organization; rather it was a group of friends who often gathered for coffee at Aggie’s, the coffee shop that was once a fixture at the center of Ivoryton. Some of the gardeners are still having coffee together—now that Aggie’s is gone, they have moved down the street to Savour.
Ivoryton Gardeners President Sue Anne Podalski has also moved—to New Hampshire in her case, though she remains the group’s titular leader. Other members of the gardeners include Polly Johnson, Joan Hill, Val Washburn, Sara Ballek, Susan Kaufmann, and Doris Simoneau. Members take turns, a week each, on watering duties.
The ragged state of the Ivoryton Green was stimulus for their gardening work. Originally there was a school on the green, the Ivoryton Elementary School, which Judy, like some of the other gardeners, attended. When they started their gardening work, the school had already been torn down but the green still looked like a schoolyard.
“It was scruffy, gravelly,” Judy recalls. “The Town of Essex was a wonderful help in fixing up the park.”
Nearly 40 years later, the group still has no formal meetings though, Judy says, they do have T-shirts that say Ivoryton Gardeners.
“We have them, but they might not fit anymore,” she adds.
Judy has spent her whole life in Ivoryton. She grew up in the area around Pond Meadow Road, which she says in her youth was regularly referred to as Little Italy.
“I’m half Italian,” she notes.
Her father ran a plumbing business, Ivoryton Plumbing, which her brother and now his son, operate.
She went outside of town to marry, but not far. Her husband Jim came from Deep River. They were at Valley Regional High School at the same time, but didn’t know each other. Instead, after both had graduated, they met at a duckpin bowling alley that was once in Essex.
For some 30 years, Judy was a school bus driver, not in Essex but in Deep River. She didn’t want to be the driver for her own children, Kathleen and Patrick, who attended Essex schools. The two, now grown, still live in the area and Judy and Jim have 4 grandchildren.
Judy drove all ages, elementary, middle, and high school, on the bus. She says elementary school children were often the most challenging.
“The older kids were sleeping,” she recalls.
If there was a disturbance with her school-age riders, she couldn’t get out of her seat to see what was going on. The rule was that once the driver sat down, that person had to stay seated throughout the whole bus route.
The problem, Judy explains, was that if the driver got out of the seat, there was a fear that one of the young riders would slip into it and either inadvertently or purposefully, set the bus in motion. If a challenging situation developed, the driver was instructed pull over, turn on the lights, radio ahead, and drive back to school. Judy remembers that happening just a few times in all her years of driving
In her driving days, Judy used to send those who were graduating from high school cards. Now retired, she still sees some of the people she once drove around town.
“They say, ‘Hello.’ They know who I am. It makes me feel so good,” she says.
According to Judy, the Ivoryton Gardeners would welcome new members.
“We’d love to have new members, younger people with good knees,” she says.
To become a member of the Ivoryton Gardeners, call Judy McCauley at 860-510-3316
The Ivoryton Fourth of July Parade starts at 10 a.m. on Ivoryton Main Street. Fourth of July Ceremonies follow on the Ivoryton Green. Vehicles meet at 9:30 a.m. on Cheney Street. Marchers and bicycles meet at 9:30 a.m. at the bottom of the Mill Race Preserve and Walnut Street.