t’s been a while since I wrote a Hilltown Postcard, stories inspired by the many years we lived in Worthington Mass. Here is one about a surprise bequest.

A person I knew who worked in the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds called to say I should check out a will recently filed in Probate Court. According to the source, Marvis “Peg” Rolland, a Worthington resident, had left a great deal of money to the town and hilltown groups.

That was in 1989 when I was the hilltown reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I so enjoyed the beat, covering stories, big and small, for rural towns. Think populations around a thousand, give or take a couple of hundred. For that, I counted on my network of reliable sources like this person, who I will not name. Breaking news with a front page story was absolutely one of the best parts of that job.

Of course, I drove straight to Probate Court. This is what I found out.

Peg Rolland, who had died Aug. 13 at age 71, did indeed leave a huge amount of money — $1.7 million — to the town, hilltown organizations and people close to her.

She designated $627,500 and the brick ranch home aka Brickhaven at Four Corners would go to the town. Of that sum, $100,000 was for planting maple trees along town roads; $25,000 for North Cemetery; $100,000 for the Worthington Historical Society; $100,000 for the Fire Department; and $100,000 for the Council on Aging.

Residents had to formally accept the conditions of the will at a Special Town Meeting, which they did. The Art and Peg Rolland Highway Fund was eventually created to buy equipment and machinery. A scholarship in their name was established for Worthington students.

Another $575,000 would go to hilltown groups, including the Worthington Health Association, Worthington Congregational Church and Huntington Lions Club.

Peg also left $515,00 to relatives and friends.

She and her husband, Arthur, who died a few months before her, did not have children. That’s a photo to the right of Peg and Arthur from the Worthington Historical Society’s Archives.

I didn’t know Peg, but those who did told me she lived a fugal and quiet life. She never spoke about her business affairs or the intentions in the will she had drawn up five years earlier.

For many years, she worked for Snyder’s Express, the transportation company owned by her father Henry Snyder. Henry was a genuine hilltown character, serving as a Worthington selectman for over 35 years and a shrewd business man. I’ve heard the stories. He certainly would make a great Hilltown Postcard.

Peg was also the office manager for Albert Farms, owned by Ben Albert, another mover and shaker in Worthington. Check out this Substack about his farm: A Potato Farm Goes Barren

She also served the town as tax collector for 20 years and was a member of local groups.

Of course, after the news broke, people had a lot to say about Peg’s generosity. Julia Sharon, who was on the Board of Selectmen when the news broke, said she fielded many phone calls about it, including from people as far away as the Midwest. Locally, some townspeople wondered if it meant they wouldn’t have to pay property taxes or the money could be used to fix up Route 143 in town. Sorry, no.

NOTE: The Hilltowns not only inspired me as a reporter and columnist, but as a novelist. Most of my books are set in the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. Here’s a link.