New Hampshire
‘No way in hell, wild animal, you’re not disrupting my engagement!’ – The Boston Globe
They returned one cool November evening in 2023, and the former colleagues-turned-couple were dressed for a ’70s disco — Hillary in a hot pink jumpsuit, Henry in embellished bellbottoms. They had just returned to their Merrimack, N.H., home after celebrating Hillary’s 37th birthday at the Gimme Gimme Disco — a roving ABBA-inspired dance night — when Henry began putting her pink polka-dot rainboots on her feet and shuffling her toward his car.
“We need eggs,” he remembers fibbing, when Hillary was baffled by the sudden change in plans.
But in Henry’s car’s glove compartment was an engagement ring. He had considered waiting to propose on an upcoming trip, but under the disco ball in the Hampton Ballroom, “we had so much fun and she looked so beautiful…and I brought her boots because I knew where it had to happen.” Once Hillary recognized the 10-minute trip’s destination, the pieces began to click into place.
Instead of driving to the store, Henry drove to Benedictine Park. There, they emerged through the darkness in sequins and spandex — startling some loitering teens — and began the five-minute hike up the hill. As they walked, Henry started narrating the steps he’d taken to get to this day.
Months before, he told Hillary as they walked, he’d asked her twin teenage sons, Conner and Dylan, for their blessings.
“I talk to you about this because I’m not just marrying your mom, I’m also marrying you guys,” he remembers telling them over a boys’ night dinner. The twins happily agreed, and continue to hold him accountable — “Remember, you’re also married to me so you better give me good Christmas presents this year,” one recently quipped.
Not long after, Henry spoke to her parents, who live in Merrimack, where Hillary grew up. (Henry spent his childhood in Managua, Nicaragua, and moved to Merrimack in 2016.) Her mother helped Henry design an engagement ring inspired by a cocktail ring Hillary owned and longed to wear on a daily, forever basis.
As Henry finished his story and they approached the peak, they both heard an animal-like growl.
“It was a deer,” he says.
“I think it was a cougar-ish, apex predator type,” Hillary says. “So, we could have died.”
Empowered by the moment’s adrenaline and her pink faux fur jacket, she made herself as “big as possible” (she’s about 5′3″ to his 6′), raising her arms above her head and roaring aloud in response to the creature they estimate was “maybe 40 yards” away. She remembers thinking, “No way in hell, wild animal, you’re not disrupting my engagement!”
As Henry shone his phone’s flashlight into the surrounding woods, Hillary noticed a shooting star in the sky above them. When he missed it, he took it as a sign to propose, already.
They assumed the growling creature moved on as they spent the next 15 minutes crying and hugging after Hillary had answered, “Yes.”
On the trek back to the car, Henry saw a second shooting star: “What are the odds?” he says.
Henry and Hillary met by accident. She was working as a scrum master — a type of project team coach/facilitator — for Fidelity Investments’ Merrimack campus in 2017 when she signed up for what she thought was an open learning session on deployment strategies. But when she arrived at the meeting, she realized it was meant to be a small team training.
Crossed wires had led to Henry’s meeting with his direct reports being published on a companywide events calendar.
“[It was] a little awkward, but also kind of funny,” Hillary remembers. “I’m a very social person, so I was like ‘Great, I get to network and meet all these new people.’”
Henry, though, identifies as “reserved” — “I don’t smile at people. I don’t wave unless they wave me at first,” he says (with a smile). But he “wasn’t angry that she crashed my meeting,” he says. “I was more amused.”
Hillary was married at the time; her friendship with Henry began months later after he noticed Hillary’s copy of Randall Munroe’s “What if?,” a book that answers hypothetical questions using scientific evidence. “That book definitely opened him up and warmed him to me,” she remembers. “He became part of my social circle in the office.”
Hillary, who is now a strategy consultant, left Fidelity toward the end of 2019. She and her then-husband, with whom she shares twin boys, separated in spring 2020. Co-parenting through pandemic restrictions and lockdowns elongated and complicated the process, and when Henry texted that December, asking how his former colleague and friend was doing, Hillary filled him in.
Henry was instantly sympathetic. He offered to listen, asked how she was coping, and how the boys were doing. Soon they were texting memes and music and movie suggestions, making plans to hang out as friends.
Their first kiss came months later at Mel’s Funway Park in Litchfield, N.H. Henry remembers Hillary’s hugs had begun to feel different around that time: “It felt like we were two pieces of a puzzle that are meant to go together.”
Hillary, now 38, and Henry, 35, married on July 26 at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Dover, N.H., with 85 guests.
She walked down the aisle to a live strings arrangement of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” with her parents on each arm. Her sons, now 15, swapped with their grandparents at the aisle midpoint to join their mom on her path to the altar.
Henry had asked that they forgo the popular trend of a “first look” — when the photographer helps stage a private pre-ceremony moment for the couple see each other in their wedding attire for the first time. So Hillary’s ceremony entrance was the first time they saw each other on their wedding day.
“She looked so beautiful, and that’s when I stopped being nervous,” Henry remembers. “She looked so happy. She couldn’t stop smiling.”
“I felt like a kid on Christmas morning … I was grinning from ear-to-ear,” Hillary confirms. ”I had practiced all those very demure smiles — but no, I was just a grinning goofball.”
Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at rachel.raczka@globe.com.
A New Hampshire motorcyclist who had been missing since the Fourth of July was found dead in Shelburne late Thursday night.
State police say they received a request from the Berlin Police Department just after 7:30 p.m. Thursday for help locating 41-year-old Wesley Grondin — the Berlin man was last seen riding his motorcycle on Saturday, July 4, and had been reported missing.
Troopers received a call a couple of hours later, around 10:10 p.m. Thursday, from a concerned resident who had been out looking for Grondin along Route 2 in Shelburne. The person told police they had found Grondin dead, along with his Harley Davidson.
According to state police, a preliminary investigation determined that Grondin was riding his Harley on Route 2 westbound in Shelburne when, for reasons that remain under investigation, he crossed over into the opposing lane, struck a post, and came to a final rest in the wood line.
The crash is believed to have occurred just before midnight on July 4. At this time, police say there’s no indication that another vehicle or person was involved.
All aspects of the crash remain under investigation, however. Anyone with information that may assist investigators is asked to contact Trooper Hunter Newsham at Hunter.P.Newsham@dos.nh.gov.
KEENE, N.H. — A Nashua woman who had a town clerk falsely certify a marriage that never happened so she could claim her late partner’s property has been sentenced to seven days in jail, placed on probation and ordered to repay thousands to his estate.
Attorney General John Formella said Wendy Leedberg‑Snow, 60, turned to Winchester Town Clerk Jim Tetreault after the death of her longtime partner, Eric Leedberg — who was born in Lowell — using the falsified license to pose as his spouse and lay claim to property from his estate, an effort prosecutors describe as an attempt to rewrite the couple’s history for financial gain.
“This case involved a deliberate effort to manipulate official government records and exploit the death of a loved one for personal financial gain,” Formella said in a press release announcing the sentencing. “Our vital records system depends on honesty and integrity, and those who seek to corrupt that system will be held accountable. I want to thank the investigators and prosecutors whose work ensured justice for the victim’s family.”
According to Leedberg’s obituary, he was 53 when he died on Oct. 12, 2023, following a two‑year battle with cancer.
In the obituary, Leedberg-Snow is described as his “significant other.”
Prosecutors said Leedberg‑Snow moved quickly after his death, relying on Tetreault’s signature to fabricate a marriage that never occurred and position herself as Leedberg’s surviving spouse.
Tetreault, who was a New Hampshire justice of the peace at the time, falsely signed the marriage license claiming he had officiated the couple’s wedding. He later admitted he never performed any ceremony for Leedberg‑Snow and Leedberg and had no personal knowledge of them ever being married.
Leedberg‑Snow used the fraudulent certificate to obtain property from Leedberg’s estate, including a pickup truck and trailer, and later attempted to influence a witness connected to the scheme.
Leedberg‑Snow pleaded guilty in Cheshire County Superior Court in Keene to felony counts of solicitation to commit vital records fraud, title fraud, theft by misapplication of property and witness tampering.
In addition to her seven‑day jail term, she must serve two years of probation, pay $4,600 in restitution, return the truck and trailer to Leedberg’s estate and comply with a suspended three‑and‑a‑half‑ to seven‑year prison sentence, which means the sentence only takes effect if she violates the conditions of her probation.
Tetreault, who continues to serve as Winchester’s town clerk and “fully cooperated with the State’s investigation,” according to prosecutors, pleaded guilty in April to notarial misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor. As part of a negotiated plea, prosecutors dropped a felony charge of vital records fraud. He was sentenced to 90 days in the house of corrections, all suspended for two years on good behavior, and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine plus a $240 penalty assessment.
He resigned his commissions as a justice of the peace and bail commissioner and agreed not to seek recommissioning as a justice of the peace or notary public during the two‑year suspension period.
Tetreault could not be reached for comment at his office number.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
SARGENT’S PURCHASE – On Saturday, personnel from multiple rescue crews teamed up to help an injured woman get off of Mt. Washington to seek medical treatment.
At approximately 7:45 AM, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department Conservation Officers were notified that a staff member at the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Lakes of the Clouds Hut had taken a serious fall at the hut and was left unable to walk.
Fish and Game subsequently mobilized search and rescue personnel to come and help evacuate the young woman from her remote location.
By 10:00 AM, members of the Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue Team (AVSAR), Pemigewassett Valley Search and Rescue Team (Pemi), AMC and Fish and Game had gathered at the Base Station of the Cog Rail. The Cog Railway generously donated room on their trains, and rescuers and equipment were given rides up Mt. Washington to the West Side Trail, which allowed for a shorter and less strenuous 1.6 mile hike than other routes.
By 11:20 AM rescuers were at the hut with the patient. The patient was subsequently packaged in a litter and prepared for an overland carryout back to the Cog tracks.
Rescue personnel made steady progress, and by 2:15 PM had made it back across West Side Trail and to the train tracks. A Cog Railway train picked up the whole rescue party and brought everyone back down the mountain. Once roadside, the patient was evaluated by personnel from Twin Mountain Fire and Rescue.
She was ultimately driven from the scene by a friend and went to Memorial Hospital in North Conway for further evaluation
and treatment of multiple injuries related to her fall. The patient was identified as Cali Turner, 26, of Willimantic, Maine.
Fish and Game would like to thank all of the people and organizations involved in this rescue effort. Through the help of everyone, the rescue was a great success and got done in a timely manner.
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