Gardner B. Cullinan
Class of 1931

Patton's Third Army was hell-bent for leather, charging across Germany toward the Mulde River for a link-up with the Russians.

Gardner Cullinan was a 25-year-old Captain assigned to HQ, 417th Regt., the 76th Division. Cullinan, asst. S-3 (Plans and Operations), Cpl. Bailiff and a handful of wire stringers were awaiting word that a forward command post had been established so they could close shop and leap frog ahead to keep up with the fast-moving mechanized infantry.

The Third Reich was collapsing and the race was on to prevent the Soviet armies from over-running and later claiming all of Germany.

It was as if they were in the eye of a hurricane, quiet and a little spooky. They were between pursuing elements of the Third Army. The Allies were not taking time to "mop up". Cullinan knew that there were German troops in the woods around them.

It was late afternoon. A communications tank pulled up in front of the house they had commandeered as a headquarters. As ranking officer, Cullinan went out to speak with the commander, who popped the top and climbed down to stand beside him.

As Cullinan stood beside the tank, exchanging intelligence with the Commander he heard a familiar sound. It harkened back to his boyhood in Old Cambridge. It was the sound a woodchuck made when he shot it with his hunting rifle.

The tank commander fell dead at Cullinan's feet, killed by a German sniping from the woods. Perhaps there were others.

The surviving tank crew buttoned up and roared away. Cullinan scuttled back into the headquarters building. Cpl. Bailiff got on the field telephone, but there was no one to come to their aid. Everyone else in the regiment had moved forward.

It was the first time in the war that Capt. Cullinan got to apply his experience as an infantry weapons platoon leader. He had an M-1 Carbine and a .45 caliber automatic pistol. The five wire stringers assigned to him had pistols. They found a case of concussion grenades.

In the growing dusk, they spread out and advanced upon the woods. When within range, they lobbed in concussion grenades. They would advance l0 steps and lob more grenades.

Their efforts were rewarded with the sight of the German sniper flying through the air, blown from his hiding place by the grenades.

The wounded sniper said that there was a platoon of his comrades further in. Cullinan advanced his troops, using the same pattern, ten steps and a broadside of grenades, until they killed one and captured the other four.

By the time they had marched the captured Germans back to the command shack, the communications tank had returned. The acting commander wanted to kill them all for their having killed his friend. But Cullinan was the senior officer and wouldn't allow it.

"No," he said. "There will be no killing."

However, Cullinan's headquarters group were obligated to move forward right away in the next leap frog maneuver; otherwise, they would be left hopelessly behind. The Capt. was in a quandary, fearful to leave the German prisoners at the mercy of the bloodthirsty tankers.

He had to trust that military discipline would prevail. He formally transferred command of the prisoners to the ranking tanker, took his dog-tag number and told him he would be held accountable for the prisoners. Then Capt. Cullinan, Cpl. Bailiff and the five wire stringers leap-frogged after the racing Third Army.

It was a strange predicament for a young man who but a few short months before had been manager of a super market in the Green Mountains of Vermont. But perhaps no stranger than the tale of any one of the million man army of "citizen soldiers" who destroyed the mighty forces of Germany and Japan on the way to victory in World War II.

This is the story of one of those Old Cambridge boys who saw their duty clear and whose names have been permanently inscribed on the Cambridge community permanent Honor Roll.

For Gardner Cullinan, the experience began innocently in 1940, when he joined the Vermont National Guard. At that time, every able-bodied young man was required to under-go a year of military training.

Gardner was manager of the Empire Market in Bennington, located where Greenburg's Hardware is today. It was the first self-service store in the area and drew trade in droves from throughout the area. Gardner wanted to put in his year and get it over with, so that he could resume his career in the grocery business.

His "year" ended December 18, 1945.

Gardner recalls that his Guard unit was training at Camp Blanding, Fla. when they received word that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. They were celebrating the birthday of Andy Webb, lst sgt., from Arlington. After the announcement, they were issued live ammunition and "then they really had a party!"

He was a $21 a month buck private, but soldiers of maturity and experience were quickly promoted at that time, to make room for and to help train the million recruits who would be placed under arms.

Suddenly Gardner was a staff Sgt. weapons platoon leader and "having the time of my life" in Co. I, 172nd Infantry Regt., of the 43rd Div.

However, logistics, particularly in the distribution of food, became a headache for the rapidly expanding army. Gardner's experience in grocery management did not go over-looked. To his chagrin, he lost his weapons platoon. His commanding officer called him in and asked him how he would like to become the unit mess Sgt. Gardner said it was the job he would least like to have.

Fine, replied the Commander. You are now a technical sgt. and our mess sgt. His job was to feed the men on 42 cents per day per man.

He bought the food, arranged transport, planned the menus and supervised the cooks.

He based his book keeping on his chain store experience. As his was the only company which did not over-spend, he was soon setting up books for the entire regt.

Finally, when he and the CO got together at a particularly boozie party while on maneuvers in the swamps of Louisiana, Gardner lobbied for and received a return to his first love, a weapons platoon.

Shortly thereafter, he was assigned to the llth class of a new Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga.

It was the early days, when West Pointers ran OCS. One third of his class was "gigged" out. He was not.

When he graduated with his gold bar signifying the inglorious rank of 2nd lt., he was assigned to Ft. Meade, Maryland in time for the June 15, 1942 reactivation of an old WW I Division, the 76th. It was with that Division that he would serve for the duration of the war.

He was given his beloved weapons platoon in a rifle company, but two weeks later the company executive officer was shipped over-seas. Gardner became the new exec. With the job went a silver bar. Soon after, the Company commander was transferred and Cullinan took command of Co. K, 417th Infantry Regt.

After less than two years of military service, Gardner had gone from a buck private in the National Guard to a 1st Lt. in the regular army. As a "veteran" soldier, he was a part of the cadre of officers and non-coms of the 76th who were to train the thousands of raw recruits drafted and enlisted into their division.

Lt. Cullinan was 24, older and more mature by the standards of the civilian army that was growing around him. In addition to his experience in the grocery business, he was president of Cambridge Hinge Tube and Chaplet Works, which was on S. Park St. where the dressmakers are today. It was a business his father had started in 1935. As it was receiving government war contracts at that time, Gardner had a few extra dollars in his pocket.

In accordance with the American Way, excellence in training was achieved by competition among the companies, and nowhere was this keener than on the rifle range. Gardner quickly established a reputation as a crack shot.

He badly wanted his company to win the Division competition. There was a bar and grill that the men frequented in their off hours. Gardner told them that if they would bear down and win the rifle competition, he would pick up the tab for the entire company for one night at the grill.

Discipline was strict. The instructors were veterans of the lst Div. Lights out was at 9 o'clock. But Gardner's non-coms stretched blankets over the barracks windows and, until the wee hours of the morning, had the recruits on the floor dry-firing their rifles from the various positions.

Co. K "won by quite a little". And the boys got their free night at the bar and grill. Every man was standing in line when the bugle blew in the morning, but he recalled that they weren't a very handsome sight.

"You never saw such a bedraggled bunch," Gardner said. "But every man was there."

In the Division-wide competition, which was fiercely contested by 15,000 men, Gardner himself was leading with l0 minutes to go. But a friend, Capt. Barrett, beat him out of the title by a single bulls-eye. The winner got a Division Review by the full massed troops.

Ironically, this Capt. stepped on a land mine and was killed before he ever fired a shot in combat.

The performance of his men in training secured for Cullinan the permanent command of a rifle company. Suddenly, three months out of OCS, he was a Captain.

Gardner was achieving very well for an Old Cambridge boy whose only advanced formal education at the time of his enlistment was a post graduate year at CHS. "It was the depression," he explained. "College then was for the elite."

In the meantime, he was sent to advanced officers training at the Army Infantry School. In his class of 160 officers, Cullinan graduated no. 1.

The 76th Div. was assigned to train incoming soldiers. It was a role they would continue until 1945. The Division sent over-seas thousands of trained soldiers as replacements in front line units.

Gardner remained in command of Co. K through three training camps. Then went with his Division to Upper Michigan for training with experimental cold weather gear. Ironically, when they needed it in Germany the winter of 1945, they would receive none.

In the middle of winter in Michigan, while living in a tent at 40 below and eating dehydrated food, Gardner was air lifted out to attend a special course in logistics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. He arrived in his parka.

Afraid that this would lock him into a rear echelon situation, Gardner volunteered for the Ranger course. For 13 weeks, he endured the most vigorous combat preparation the armed forces offered at that time, until he took a bayonet thrust in the elbow.

Shortly afterwards he was assigned assistant Regt. S-3, in charge of preparing plans and operations for 3,500 men, plus attached troops. His command of a weapons platoon "went a glimmering". He would be asst. S-3 all through his service in Europe.

For a while it seemed that the 76th would spend the entire war in the US as a training Division. Then the German army staged its massive break-through at what is known to historians as "The Battle of the Bulge".

The 76th deployed in Europe at LeHavre. It was winter. The temperature hung at zero. Naturally, the cold weather gear they had tested in Michigan wouldn't arrive until spring.

In the mean time, they stood around and froze their feet, waiting for orders to move. The order that came down authorized the 76th to build small fires for warmth. There were no woods, but there was a large, wood-frame house nearby.

In a few minutes the house had completely disappeared. The Frenchman living inside at the time was mollified with the promise that "Uncle Sam would pay" which he did, many times over under the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe.

Marching orders were not long in coming, for they had been assigned to Gen. George Patton's Third Army.

They were ordered to go up and cut off the "bulge" which the German Army had pushed into the Allied line.

Under Patton they kept moving forward, by "40 & 8" boxcar, by truck and on foot through the snow, ice and cold, until they had eliminated the "bulge". Then Patton sent them to relieve the 87th Division at the Sauer River.

The river was swollen with run-off and full of ice chunks. On the far shore loomed The Wall, the Siegfried Line, a vaunted German defense that stretched for miles in either direction. The mountain in front of the 76th's 417th Infantry Combat Team was pockmarked with concrete pillboxes.

It was an impossible task. The river was ice cold. The Germans were zeroed in on the crossing site. Even a near miss swamped the small boats and sent the heavily laden soldiers to their deaths in the icy waters. Gardner lost many comrades in the crossing of the Sauer, but the 417th did it in eight days of intense, costly fighting.

For this the 417th Combat Team received a Presidential Citation.

Then, as they paused to savor their victory, General Patton arrived on the scene with his riding breeches and pearl-handled revolvers.

"I want this (blasphemy) Division down to Trier by tomorrow afternoon", he barked.

It was another impossible order. Patton expected the 76th to fight "the length" of the Siegfried line and then at Trier to hold out of the main battle a large segment of German troops.

The 417th Regt. was decimated in that Drive. Desperate, Regt. Commander, Col. George E. Bruner, sent Gardner to secure the help of a tank outfit, which was in a rest area "having a helluva time".

The Col. commanding, out of uniform and relaxing on a couch in one of the houses, would not identify himself to Gardner.

"I said, 'You get off your (expletive) and talk to me like a man should!" The Col. promised to bring his unit forward to help.

The jeep trip back to his unit was "hairy", as Gardner then had "yesterday’s" passwords. In addition, the Germans were shelling the road. One round landed so close in front of him his driver couldn't stop and drove them into the crater, from which they walked the rest of the way.

The 76th crossed the Rhine at Bufford. Once across they took one German town after another, Patton pushing his Army night and day. They wasted little time "mopping up". If they encountered a building with snipers, they leveled it with anti-tank weapons.

They reached the Mulde River first, at Harzmandorf, but were not allowed to cross and link up with the Russians. That historic moment was reserved for the 69th Division.

The great Army ground to a halt. It soaked in that the war in Europe was ending. Horror also soaked in, as Division liberated concentration camps.

Capt. Cullinan and four other officers were awarded a trip to study geo-politics and French at City University, Paris. They loaded into a command car filled with jerry cans of gasoline and tinned rations and started on their way.

They were so anxious to reach Paris, they traveled a direct route, which took them near remnants of the German army.

On the first day they came upon an intact platoon of German soldiers, who leaped out of the woods in front of the Command car.

They were cut off from their lines and very hungry. Instead of attacking, they tried to surrender. But Gardner and colleagues had other things on their minds. They weren't interested in taking prisoners. They gave them the tinned rations, formed them up on the road and sent them "forward" along the road the command car had just traversed.

Gardner's luck was definitely holding. In Luxembourg they found a place that was still making ice cream and French pastries.

In Paris, they found further civilization in the form of the Red Cross. As Gardner stood at the counter, munching a hot donut and drinking real coffee, he heard a voice behind him say, "Hello, Gardner".

He turned around and met face to face a fellow Old Cambridge boy, Art Center Sr. A premier trumpeter, Art had served throughout the war in the U.S. Army Band, and was at that time assigned to Paris.

After Paris, he returned to the 417th, where Col. Bruner gave Gardner his first newspaper experience. He said, Capt. you are going to start a newspaper for the Regt. and you have two weeks to organize your staff and get out the first edition.

Using the logistical and procurement skills that had served him so well in the war, Gardner found a relatively intact German press.

In the Regt. files he found men with civilian experience in journalism. With them he published a weekly newspaper in war-riddled Germany. And from them, he learned skills that would shortly launch him on his first post-war career, as editor and publisher of the Old Washington County Post.

Gardner Cullinan, who died in 2005, was 79 years old at the time of this interview. He had a career peculiarly cast in the mould of the American Dream, which holds that by hard work and sharp wit, a boy can rise to heights of success.

He was born in Shushan, where his father, a tool and die man, had moved from Utica to work for Fred Lovejoy in his chaplet works. At 13, Gardner, a full-time student at the Union School (CHS) in Cambridge, was up at 4 a.m. to deliver milk door to door for Robert Fisher. Before attending class, he washed the bottles and the truck.

Then he worked for Jimmy Estramonte in his confectionary store that stood on the corner of Park and Main where the Rite Aid parking lot is today.

These were the days of The Great Depression, but young Cullinan had plenty of jobs. "When I began to work," he recalled, "I never quit."

At about the time Gardner graduated from high school, that work ethic caught the eye of Bill Graham, who ran the local A & P. Gardner worked for Graham a short time, then was given his own store in Saratoga.

In addition to his work habits, he had another big advantage over his colleagues: He had an exceptional mind. At that time, all stores did hand billing. There were no computerized cash registers, etc. A typical A&P store stocked 3,600 individual items. Instead of referring to the book, as everyone else did, Cullinan memorized all of the items and their prices. [This "exceptional mind" made Gardner, until his death, THE most reliable source of historical data on Old Cambridge. dt]

When word of this feat reached the regional manager, Cullinan was launched on a new career, a "specialty man". It was Depression times. Consequently, it was often necessary to close and consolidate stores. When this action was planned, Cullinan would be sent into the failing store to inventory the stock from his prodigious memory and to transfer it to other stores.

Business was ruthless in those days. There were few unions, none in the A&P chain, no severance pay, etc. A man might have 20 years as manager of a store and the next day find himself in the bread line.

Gardner soon had enough of being the "axe" for the A&P. Sanderson of Empire Markets ran a more compassionate operation. He had for some time urged Cullinan to come with his company. One day Cullinan said, "I'm ready" and switched allegiance.

With Empire Markets, he was given management of the first self-service store ever established in this area.

When he took over the store in Bennington, Cullinan, like all young men, faced one year of mandatory military training. He decided to get it in the Vermont National Guard, which would allow him to continue his career in the grocery business.

Right after he joined, the Guard was federalized. A few months later, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. Gardner Cullinan would never return to his grocery career.

CHAPLET WORKS

In 1935, Fred Lovejoy moved the Patent Specialty Supply Co. from Shushan to the old Lovejoy foundry east of the Village of Cambridge. Moving with Lovejoy was Edward Cullinan, Gardner's father.

Edward managed the business for the Lovejoy's widow. When she died, the company was purchased by Hoosick Falls interests and moved there.

Edward Cullinan did not want to move with the business, so he and his son Stuart, also a tool and die maker, designed and built their own machines and started the Cambridge Hinge Tube and Chaplet Works, Inc.

The Hoosick Falls co. didn't like the competition and began buying up the stock of the Cambridge company at inflated prices, with a view to putting them out of business.

Edward had used so much of his own money in making the machinery that he hadn't enough to compete with the Hoosick Falls men for the outstanding stock. They got to within $l,000 of controlling the company, when it was saved by Norris Baker.

Baker was an old-time employee of the venerable Washington County Post and something of a legend in the local community. Baker held the remaining outstanding stock. Because he wanted the business to stay in Cambridge, he turned down the big bucks offered by the Hoosick Falls interests and sold the stock to Gardner Cullinan for just what he had paid for it, $l,000. The Cullinans were able to retain control. The business flourished during the war and after. But it eventually passed into other hands and died.

As a boy, Gardner was a part of the great tradition of athletics at CHS. At the age of 79, he observed, "I remember every game, but I don't remember much Latin".

There was the game against Bennington when the regular quarterback was injured. Cullinan had graduated the previous year, but eligibility rules were pretty slack. Floyd Smith, his boss and the district manager of the A&P chain, was a Cambridge man.

The coach then was Arch Petras. Petras went to Cullinan and then to his boss to get Gardner to play quarterback for Cambridge. CHS won the big game, and Petras went on to become a successful college coach.

CHS football players of the '30s saw a fleeting reflection of the greatness of the '20s teams when "The Galloping Ghost" himself, John Galloway of Cambridge and Colgate Univ. fame, began his coaching career at his alma mater before moving into the college ranks.

In those days, athletes were expected to also be scholars. Galloway held study sessions for his team nights in the Cullinan's big barn, rigged out complete with blackboard.

Both Gardner and his brother Stuart were outstanding runners. Until those records were lost in the great school fire of 1947, Stuart held the record for the 440. Stuart, Gardner, George McInerney and Jack Harmon broke the relay record set by Galloway, Nick Canzeri, Arthur McWhorter and Tom Tellier.

Gardner also had the distinction of playing for the immortal coach Jerome E. Wright. Gardner was Wright's fullback at 128 lb.

There were no weight rooms in those days. In fact, the Union School locker room had a single showerhead. The girls were worse off. They dressed in what was used as the cafeteria and had NO shower.

Uniforms were poor. If you had a pair of cleated shoes within two sizes of what you were supposed to wear you were lucky. The first team was furnished one jersey for the season. All else the boys improvised. Their mothers' cast off corsets made excellent thigh guards, Gardner recalled. Boosters drove the boys to games in private cars.

Gardner played CHS football the years 1928, 29, 30, 31 and 32.

The basketball team was sectional champions. That team was comprised of Gardner and Leo Fairbanks at forward, Carleton Pierce and Ben Flannigan at guard and Roscoe Burch center.

He also won the school tennis tournament (He has a tiny loving cup to prove it).

Gardner should not have been competing in athletics at all, much less fighting World War II. Friend Ed King inadvertently provided Gardner with an exemption he never used.

One day at fifth grade recess, Eddie decided to practice the discus throw. Before the big, bronze "frisbee" got away from him, it had achieved sufficient altitude to "bean" Gardner and enough momentum to give him a depressed fracture of the skull.

They drove him up the hill to the recently completed Mary McClellan Hospital, where family members gathered, soon expecting to attend his funeral. But the doctors performed a miracle. A steel plate was installed and Gardner survived. Not only survived, but played five years of varsity football, wearing a helmet with special padding.

Neither did it keep him out of the army, although it almost kept him in. When he was up for discharge, the plate was discovered. Gardner had to waive his veterans' rights before they would let him go.

"I wasn't interested in a pension," he recalled. "I just wanted out".

While Gardner Cullinan was away, Charles John Stevenson, one of the legendary figures of the Old Washington County Post, made himself the most famous editor of a country weekly in the United States. In fact, he had become so famous that he no longer had time to edit the paper.

Stevenson had signed on with the National Republican Party and was due to leave on a speaking tour.

Byron Herrington, the former CHS principal, worked for Stevenson, but Byron had just been elected supervisor of the Town of White Creek and resigned.

Charles John was desperate. He knew of Cullinan's newspaper experience in the Army.

When Cullinan was discharged Dec. 18, 1945, Stevenson approached Cullinan to manage the Old WCP for him.

Cullinan replied, "No thanks." He had taken enough orders in the past five years to last him a lifetime. He planned to work for himself.

But Stevenson was a hard man to refuse. "Under what circumstances would you do it?" Stevenson asked.

"I'll lease it from you," Gardner replied.

"It's a deal," said Stevenson.

Of course, Gardner didn't lease the paper from Stevenson. Contrary to popular belief, Stephenson never owned it. Cullinan leased it from the owner, Elizabeth Smart, another famous CHS grad, who, as an attorney, was lobbyist for the Women's Christian Temperance Union in Washington D.C.

But it was important to Stevenson and his growing national reputation in the Republican Party that he continue to be known as the publisher of "The oldest weekly newspaper in the United States."

Long after Cullinan had himself bought the paper from Miss Smart, he allowed Stevenson to keep the title of "publisher".

The original deal called for Stevenson to stay around for six weeks until Gardner learned the ropes, but in two weeks Charles John went west on his speaking tour.

Gardner was not alone, however. Employed at that time was Evelyn Pierce, an Old Cambridge girl and CHS girls basketball star, who knew everyone and everything that went on in the community.

Evelyn helped him through the early days, and then stayed with the Old WCP until it metamorphosed in the l980s as the "new" WCP and died.

Until her own death, she continued her life-long coverage of Old Cambridge with a column in The Eagle.

Evelyn was a central figure in the legacy of Old Cambridge and is featured in my story about "the greatest women’s high school basketball team in the world!"

It soon became clear to Gardner that the money was not in the newspaper business, but in the printing business. He expanded the job side, gradually acquiring several new presses.

Orville Burton, another WW II vet, came to work for him to run the presses. He married Evelyn and stayed a lifetime, continuing in the job press long after the WCP was sold off.

When Gardner took over the old WCP building, still to be seen on Main St., was heated by coal stoves. There was one linotype machine and a Hoe flat bed press that had served since the Civil War.

The building itself still stands on W. Main. St. at the Pearl St. corner opposite the firehouse. It was the first building constructed in Washington County specifically to house a newspaper printing press, and dates from the 1870s.

The old Hoe press, by that time, was so worn out they feared that one day the carriage might just sail on out the window of the Post building land in Blair Brook.

Edward Cullinan, the old tool and die man, and Walt Dunbar, the master welder, tinkered with it and rebuilt it and kept it going. Edward's advice to his son was, "If it moves, oil it".

Also in use as a proof press was a hand-cranked "Acorn" press that had served the WCP since 1798.

Because no organization in the Village was interested in preserving them, Gardner gave them to the State Museum. The last time a checked they were stored in the museum’s warehouse at Rotterdam Junction.

Gardner enjoyed his years at the helm of the Nation's oldest weekly, although he did not exactly get rich. "Everything was a benefit," he recalled. Every fund drive, Bloodmobile, United Fund, Cancer, received a full-page ad and he never charged for it.

Later, as the paper began its decline, such lavish support diminished, but there was always room for a front-page banner at no charge, in the name of a good cause.

Then came the Community Chest. Lyman White, manager of the local seed company, came to Gardner with a proposal to lump the dozens of annual fund drives into a single, giant drive. Chet Hoppenstedt and Robert Wells, two of White's employees; Dr. Jack Wells, the minister of the Presbyterian Church; and White and Cullinan met on the steps of the office building of the Asgrow Seed Company, where they mapped out the basic concept which services a dozen worthy causes in Old Cambridge to this day.

Cullinan was lavish with free advertising and brochures, while White was the driving force.

White and Cullinan also worked together on the local tennis club. The hospital had a single court, installed for the use of the Skidmore girls during those grand days when Mary McClellan Hospital boasted a college-certified nursing school.

Hoppenstedt and Wells also played. The four took over management of the neglected court and set to work rebuilding it. They dubbed themselves The Cambridge Racquet Club and for many years sponsored tournaments and generally amused themselves and a public that really had little interest in the sport of Tennis.

In 1947 the WW II veteran and fledgling newspaper editor was a little too critical of Village government and found himself elected mayor. He was elected to four consecutive terms. During that time, the present municipal building/fire house was constructed.

The Village had been saving $l,000 a year toward a new firehouse, but it was not drawing interest in the local bank. Gardner showed the Trustees that by using that money and not paying for private storage all over town of the various pieces of fire apparatus that they could afford to build a new firehouse right then.

Then he was elected Supervisor of the Town of White Creek. Being editor, mayor and supervisor all at once proved to be a little too much. Gardner resigned and talked friend Charley Ackley, another WW II vet, into running for mayor. Ackley was, of course, elected.

Then in 1947 the Union School burned. By so doing it resolved a big community conflict: Whether to build a new school. But it left the community with another headache: How big to build it?

Old Cambridge had produced a master architect from the Fisher clan. John Fisher, another famous CHS grad, also graduated from RPI with all kinds of honors and was a full partner in the firm of Hanson and Fishe Architects in Pittsfield, Mass.

Fisher set out to design a "cracker jack" school for his old hometown. The new CHS was to feature a pitched, slate roof that would never have needed replacing, and classrooms much larger than the shoeboxes students are bursting out of even today.

It included the grounds, a track, everything right down to the flagpole, Gardner recalled.

It included an auditorium with slanted floor and fixed seats.

"I plugged it for everything I was worth," Cullinan recalled. He even brought out a four page special addition in support, to no avail.

In the minds of half of the local taxpayers, the package had a flaw. It cost $200,000 beyond a million.

It was a bitter fight, but (no surprise in Cambridge) the curmudgeons prevailed. The community voted down the beautiful new school by 47 votes. And the impact has been felt for more than half a century, in the form of at least three building referendums and a bitter restoration battle.

The Board took out $200,000 and resubmitted the design, but by then inflation had driven the cost up by more than $200,000. The curmudgeons had cost the community a wonderful opportunity.

Gardner traced the modern school facilities problem to that one crucial vote in 1947.

Hanson and Fisher had an ironclad contract. The Board had to buy them out for approx. $30,000. A new firm was hired. It was 1950 before a new package could be brought before the voters. Ironically, the voters paid $985,000 for half the school John Fisher had offered them.

Instead of slate, the roof was composition; and it would be virtually, flat, with little pitch, so much so that puddles form. Many of us remember that not too many years ago it had to be completely replaced at great cost.

The new school was hardly built before it needed an addition, which pushed the total well beyond the cost of the Fisher design.

The taxpayers of the Cambridge Central School District are still paying for the shortsightedness of their forebears in rejecting the Fisher school.

Ironically, sealed in copper within the cornerstone of the present central school is the story of how the community chose to build the wrong school. When that cornerstone is finally opened, few who read it will disagree with the conclusions of Gardner Cullinan, who, as mayor and editor, wrote the story and placed it in the cornerstone.

Back in the days when school budgets were voted on the same night of the annual meeting, those meetings filled the gymnasium with the irate and the vocal. For 14 consecutive years it was Gardner Cullinan who chaired those meetings. It was Gardner, whose quiet charm, quirky sense of humor and brilliant mind maintained order amongst the chaos, while at the same time giving each tax-payer his right to be heard.

It was the purest form of democracy and also one of the most entertaining social events on the annual calendar. There are many who blame present school problems on the School Board's decision to move the vote to the day after the annual meeting.

Annual meetings became virtually unattended and attendance at budget votes declined.

In 1949, Mrs. Edwin McClellan died and Gardner took her place on the Hospital Board. It was the beginning of his second, post-war career. For the next 3l years he would be deeply involved in the fortunes of Mary McClellan Hospital.

On the Board he served as secretary, secretary-treasurer and finally a long span as president.

In 1966 Robert Betts, hospital administrator, resigned to take over Leonard Hospital in Troy. Cullinan resigned from the Board to be hired as chief administrator, a position he held for l3 years, the last two as executive director. [Note: Mary McClellan Hospital closed permanently in 2004 --- many years beyond Gardner’s tenure.]

In 1961, Cullinan sold publishing rights of the WCP to Nicholas Mahoney, retaining the printing business. Gardner retained a 15-year editing contract with the WCP, but was pleased to give that up and take over the hospital.

It was during his years as administrator that Mary McClellan entered the modern era. The west wing was added. It contained 24 semi-private rooms, as well as the operating room, a new lab and an x-ray suite. He also built a records management room.

The Nursing program was maintained, as was the now-derelict school building.

He helped secure the financing for the Skilled Nursing Facility and was its first administrator.

He recalled that during his years the doctors and nurses were consistently outstanding.

But there were also many challenges. Ten days after he was appointed administrator Medicare came in. One year later came Medicaid. The programs, however beneficial, turned hospital management into a nightmare; and likely led indirectly to its eventual demise.

In addition to the school of nursing, there was a training program for x-ray technicians.

"We ran a terrific LPN school and a very good school for x-ray technology and had a baby-sitting center", Gardner recalled.

The nursing school went out because the State director of nursing wanted all teachers in nursing schools to hold masters degrees, regardless of experience.

The State required that an elevator be installed in the nurses' school, that the fire escapes be covered, lighted and heated 24 hours a day, and that an attic to basement fire sprinkler system be installed.

The State demanded that a full-time psychiatrist be employed for the school, although the county psychiatrist at that time had his office in the main hospital building a few short yards away.

Cullinan estimated that the mandated changes would have cost about $l million. The hospital simply couldn't afford it and the State would not relent.

It was a shame, he thought, because graduates of the Mary McClellan School of Nursing always had employers waiting to hire them. But the State director wanted to do away with LPNs and Aides. Her blueprint for nursing was that every nurse was to be an RN with a master’s degree.

Gardner asked her, "Who will carry the bedpans?"

It was in his early days at the helm of the Old WCP that Gardner met his life's companion. Connie Moseley worked across the brook at Asgrow, the company that had bought out the failing Jerome B. Rice Seed Co. They were in the crowd of young people who gathered for lunch in Dennis' confectionary in the Frisbie Building just west of the Cambridge Hotel.

Spaghetti was then an unfamiliar commodity in Upstate New York, but Gardner had developed a taste for it while in the service. The nearest Italian restaurant was in North Adams.

One Friday during lunch, Gardner announced to the crowd that he was going that evening to North Adams for spaghetti. He wondered out loud if anyone would like to go.

Connie said, "Yes, I'd like to go." They had their spaghetti and a movie after. It was the beginning of a life-long romance.

"I still like spaghetti very much," Gardner mused.

They were married in 1949 in the brick Presbyterian Church. In l95l, son John was born; in l953 Robert was born. Five years later came daughter Pam.

They are all grown now, long graduated from Cambridge High School. They were regular visitors to the home Connie and Gardner at the old Fowler place on the Turnpike below the Village. In the old days the little lake on the property was known as "Crystal Lake". Its clean, clear ice was shipped to Troy and beyond.

Beyond doubt, Gardner Cullinan has been one of the most dedicated servants of Old Cambridge in its 250-plus year history. It is appropriate that he be remembered on the web site of the Alumni Assoc. of his alma mater.

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