At this year's Bellows Falls Village Meeting, the majority voted to dissolve the memorial fund of Sarah Burr Howard, founded in her memory in 1900, in a disgraceful act of modern capitalism.
The original $10,000 trust fund has been in place in the village since 1916 ($5,000 donated in 1900, another $5,000 donated in 1916), when her husband, Luther, donated what was then a very large amount of money to be set aside in a trust fund with the interest used specifically to assist village residents, the poor.
At the meeting, I spoke for Sarah Burr Howard and said that the dissolution of a memorial trust fund is wrong and dishonorable.
The residents of Bellows Falls, without regard for this tragedy, voted to dissolve the fund and take the $10,000 (which was a trust fund never to be touched) plus the current $397.88 interest balance (which was intended to be given to the poor of the village in her memory), applying the full amount to the Greater Rockingham Area Services loan from the Rockingham Revolving Loan Fund, thus dishonoring the memory of this person.