Visible along the route -- in this area where granite quarries dominated the landscape -- were granite sheds that in these wartime years made ship parts for the US Navy. With her, Merry carried the Book of Hours that Pete Lafitte had sent her from the Italian Front. At home, in the woodstove heated kitchen, when ragout bowls were washed and put away, Merry unpacked the Book of Hours and opened it on the kitchen table.
Reverently, her Father moved from ancient image to ancient image. "Carlo would have wanted to see this." he said. It was Milan-born sculptor Carlo Abate, who -- in this town where sculptors from Italy, Spain, and French Canada had gathered drawn by the access to granite -- had founded the art school where Merry's father taught.
There
was fresh snow on the road from the dairy farm, where she served as a land girl, to Merry Joliat's home between Montpelier and Barre, Vermont. Her Father, a stone carver and a teacher of stone carving, was driving. Her mother, who had worked for many years in the textile mills at Winooski, was waiting at home.