On Sunday, June 19, friends and family of Dick Walsh gathered at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury to honor one of our own.
Walsh was not a native of either Newbury or Newburyport, but if anyone put his blood, sweat and tears into the soil here, it was Dick Walsh.
The 85-year-old died on July 4, a date that was particularly significant considering how independent the man was. He did not die on the land that he loved at the farm, but he will be remembered there as long as his friends remain to share their memories.
“In the 60s and 70s,” said Bethany Groff, North Shore Regional Site Manager for Historic New England, “I think every teenager who was willing, in both Newbury and Newburyport, worked on this farm weeding, planting, picking, harvesting hay, and shooting groundhogs. Everyone has their own memories of him.”
Walsh first came to Newbury in 1944 as a 20-year-old to work for the Suffolk Packing Company, a company that rented fields from the Little family to grow spinach for the war effort. After the company left, the family invited him to stay and after Amelia Little died in 1986, Walsh continued to farm with Historic New England.
In his later years, Walsh grew flowers “dahlias and sunflowers” which he sold wholesale.
On April 25, the farm honored Walsh during the 14th annual Draft Horse Plow Match at the farm. It was his official retirement from farming. Many people who knew and/or worked for him over 65 years of farming at the historic farm turned up.
He even got a letter of congratulation from U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, perhaps a tip of the hat for the work Walsh did on John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign.
“During those [65] years, you have served as teacher, mentor, and friend to countless individuals who have benefitted greatly from your kind and generous spirit and who hold you in the highest regard as Spencer-Peirce-Little’s farmer par excellence,” Kennedy wrote.”You should take much pride in all you have achieved and in the knowledge that your efforts have helped the Farm realize its mission of educating visitors of all ages about farm life over the centuries.”
