Submitted by R. Thurston Clark, Haddam Neck.
Harry William Nilsen will be 95 on Thursday April 21, 2022. He was born in 1927 and has lived his whole life in Haddam Neck.
The family lived at 36 Ben Clark Hill Road. When the Depression hit, they all needed to participate in growing everything they needed, e.g., cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, plus a big garden and lots of hay and other grains to feed all the animals. Meanwhile Harry’s dad, Harry Severen Nilsen, took on any odd jobs that he could find in the neighborhood to bring in a little cash, including carpentry, landscaping, Fire Warden and caretaker of the cemetery. In addition, there was the annual wood-cutting effort to keep the family warm over the winter.
Harry was First Sergeant in the U.S. Army and during a tour in the Korean War, he was wounded by a small grenade. He still carries some of the shrapnel in his back. He married a local girl, Mary Louise Haidet, in 1954. His father gave the newly married Harry & Mary a one-acre mowing lot. That summer, Harry Senior (with some help from my teenage self, his oldest grandchild) built the house at 119 Injun Hollow Road. Harry Junior helped on the weekends. Harry still resides there today. In 1956, the couple brought a son, H. Russell, into the world.
Harry worked for many years at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford. The carpentry skills his father taught him were put to work in their shipping department where he made the wooden shipping crates. Harry has been involved with the Haddam Neck Fair, the church at the base of School House Hill Road and caretaking of the Haddam Neck Cemetery.
At 95, he has some mobility issues with his old bones, and has had a pacemaker for several years, but Sundays you’ll find him at the Haddam Neck Congregational Church, and on nice days you’ll see him out on his lawn tractor in the yard. The car comes out of the garage for short trips occasionally, but most of his shopping or trips to doctors are handled by his niece Vicky or local friends.
Photos provided by R. Thurston Clark.
