StoryCorps brings loved ones together for meaningful conversations about the things that matter most. The StoryCorps mobile tour visited Brattleboro this summer, and recorded conversations with folks from across Vermont and beyond. Today, we hear from a mother and daughter — Janet Bailey and Erica Breen — about life growing up on the farm. Janet shares her memories about growing up in an intentional faith community in Paraguay, and then moving to the states, to a farm in Brattleboro.

Janet Bailey: It was a very different growing up, but my most favorite memories of growing up there was the natural world and growing up with so much agriculture. My dad was one of the main farmers there, and we learned with him all about growing things, harvesting things. My favorite thing to harvest was oranges from the wild orange trees. Wild orange trees in the jungles grow very, very tall, and they are always inhabited by monkeys who like to take bites out of oranges and throw them at people. And so my dad taught us how to climb a tree head up. You go up with your head first, but you don’t come down with your head first, you come down with your feet first.

Erica Breen: So, you’re up in a tree. Do you have a sack to fill, or are you throwing them down to someone?

Janet Bailey: Toss them down to Mom and Dad. Mom would catch them in her apron, and Dad would catch them in his hands. And then my dad was also the dairy farmer, and I remember he always used to milk on Sunday mornings, and I would go and watch him, and he’d be milking the native cows who tended to kick and thrash around a lot because they were used to running out in the prairies not being milked.

Erica Breen: So he was sitting on a stool milking by hand.

Janet Bailey: A three-legged stool. Milking by hand. And they were probably 25 to 30 cows. He was going down the row.

It was in my fingers, it was in myself to grow things. We had been looking for a farm in northern Vermont, thinking that we really wanted to be further away from population, and this farm was on the edge of Brattleboro and in the very southern part of Vermont. The issue for us was that we didn’t have any money. We had $1,000 to our name, and we were looking at farms. It was ridiculous, but we were young and enthusiastic and a little naive, but very full of energy and really passionate about wanting to farm.

And we heard of this opportunity that there was a farmer who wanted to donate his farm and house to the Earth Bridge Community Land Trust, with the stipulation that he be able to stay there and be cared for until he died.

Erica Breen: And he wanted the land to stay in farming.

Janet Bailey: And he wanted the land to stay in farming. And so we were asked if we would like to go visit him and see what that opportunity was like. So we went. It was the fall, and you could hardly see the house, but we found our way up the driveway and through this back door that we had to duck to get under and into a very dark house, old house, and there was Claude, who was in his mid 80s, I believe. Wonderful, wonderful smile, and somebody with a very, very sweet bit and just an old Vermonter, very caring.

The farm was very well cared for. The fields had been very carefully mowed every year. There was no overgrowth pasture taking over the land, and there were flat areas that were good for gardening. And so, of course, we were just really blown away by it. A few days later, we got a call from David and Crystal, who ran the Earth Bridge, and they said, “Claude wants you! Claude wants you to come and be here!” So that was amazing, because he’d interviewed other people, and he had turned them down.

What are your memories of the farmhouse?

Erica Breen: The screen door. The banging screen door. I can picture it, I can hear it, and I can picture it — thick, green with that square screen. And it was pretty saggy. And then that stone doorstep. And then the inside — that was the vertical green boards of that thin door that we would only close when it was really windy in the winter. And then inside that was the regular, thick exterior door with the knob that was falling out of it. And I remember the soapstone sink vaguely.

Janet Bailey: Do you remember the cold, how cold it was at night?

Erica Breen: I know it was cold, but I don’t have a real memory.

Janet Bailey: Dad and I used to have glasses of water that would freeze on the nightstand.

And what are thy memories of growing up on the farm? How did it affect your life?

Erica Breen: It made me.

Janet Bailey: You know that know, but as a child how did you feel?

Erica Breen: I felt lucky. I felt secure. I felt grounded. As I matured, I could see that many of the kids I was in school with did not feel that way, because I knew how to be healthy and how to be involved with the earth, and it was so obvious to me how important that was. So I felt lucky and strong.

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The U.S. Department of Labor has approved federal disaster unemployment assistance for Vermonters who lost work because of the flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl on July 9 and 10, the state Labor Department said Monday.

Last week, President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration for parts of the state that were hit by the flooding, including individual assistance disaster, which covers unemployment assistance, for residents in Addison, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Lamoille, Orleans and Washington counties, the state said. People living in those areas may be eligible for the unemployment assistance if they were injured during the disaster and are unable to work; if their workplace was damaged or destroyed; if their transportation to work is not available or if they cannot get to their job because they must travel through a damaged area, the department said.

Gov. Phil Scott has made a separate disaster declaration request for flood damage caused by storms on July 30.

Heavy rains washed out roads in Vermont in the latest round of flooding to hit the state.

Beryl’s remnants dumped more than 6 inches of rain in just a few hours on parts of Vermont, destroying and damaging homes, knocking out bridges, cutting off towns and retraumatizing a state where some people are still awaiting assistance after catastrophic floods that hit exactly a year earlier. Two people were killed by the floodwaters in early July.

“Vermonters across the State have found their lives, homes, and businesses impacted again by this recent disaster,” Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington said in a statement. “Our immediate priority is to ensure that individuals whose employment was impacted by the flooding can receive the benefits they desperately need.” 

Individuals must first file for regular unemployment benefits and indicate if they lost work due to the flooding, the state said. The Labor Department will determine if the individual is eligible for regular unemployment or should apply for the federal benefit.

Earlier this year, Montpelier firefighter Jake Larrabee says a colleague was looking through Vermont’s database of unclaimed property when he discovered a surprise.

“One of our members was looking online, checked himself in the unclaimed property search, and then said, ‘I wonder if there’s anyone else,’” the lieutenant firefighter said. “And then he went through his family and then he put in the association for whatever reason — I don’t know what prompted him to do that — and found it.”

The association in question was the decades-old Montpelier Firefighters Association. For years, the non-profit raised and distributed funds for Montpelier firefighters and their families in need of assistance. But as members retired, Larrabee said, the association fell dormant, with only a scholarship fund remaining active.

The organization had a bank account — under the names of some of the inactive members — and Larrabee assumed the money would still be accessible if they chose to reactivate the association.

As it turns out, that was not the case. At some point, the $33,000 in that account was handed over to the state, as required by law.

Modern life is full of financial assets: bank accounts, insurance payouts, paychecks, investment funds. Most of them are correctly tied to their owners, but inevitably some will fall through the cracks. People move, people die, people lose track of property tied to their name.

But that property is still theirs, even if they haven’t claimed it yet. In every state and territory in the country, property holders must make an effort to return unclaimed property to its owner for a period of time before turning it over to the state, a process known as escheatment.

From there, it’s the state’s responsibility to return it. In Vermont, it falls under the authority of the Office of the Treasurer’s Unclaimed Property Division.

It isn’t just financial assets, either: the department also holds personal documents, coins and even family heirlooms.

“We always say that anybody can have unclaimed property,” said State Treasurer Mike Pieciak. “I think what most people think about is individuals, but when you look through the unclaimed property rolls, you find that there are a lot of pieces of property for small businesses, very large recognizable businesses, a lot of nonprofits. Municipalities have unclaimed property. The state of Vermont has unclaimed property.”

And the numbers continue to grow. This past fiscal year, the Treasurer’s Office returned a record 19,010 properties, totaling $5.8 million — but it also received a record level of new properties, at $18.14 million.

In an effort to increase the amount of reclaimed property, the office has taken a proactive approach, with a pilot program earlier this year targeting 350 Vermonters with unclaimed property achieving a 99% success rate, Pieciak said. A separate pilot program saw $150,000 returned to 250 nonprofits. From the division’s perspective, it can be easier to verify organizations than people.

“You know a business is that particular business. You know a hospital is that particular hospital,” Pieciak said. “When you get a claim that says John Doe or David Smith that lives in Brattleboro, and there’s five other people by that same name, it just becomes more complicated to determine who is the rightful owner of the funds.”

In the case of the firefighters association, Larrabee applied for the funds and, because his name was on one of the signature cards, was able to reclaim the money without too much hassle.

While the association is defunct, Larrabee said the money will be used to help members and their families just as it had in the past, only under an account held by the union, which remains active. He recommended others check the database, too.

“Take a couple minutes to check every so often: check your name, check your family, your friends, the process is really quite easy. And everybody at the unclaimed property division and the state of Vermont and the treasurer’s office has been very helpful and accommodating,” Larrabee said. “This was a significant amount of money that we’re very, very fortunate that we were able to get back.”

Not all unclaimed property is lost or inaccessible. Don and Bernadette Pierson learned that when they recovered $24,000 from their foundation’s PayPal account.

The Piersons run The Stefan Pierson Wish Foundation; a charity created in honor of their son Stefan, who died of cancer in 2015.

Stefan wanted to attend the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but was slightly too old to qualify for Make-A-Wish, his mother, Bernadette, said. A high school friend crowdsourced the funds, allowing him to attend. In his honor, the foundation provides similar wish-fulfilling services for young adults.

To raise money, the foundation ran soccer tournaments every summer. Part of the money was held in a PayPal account, Don said. During the pandemic, the Piersons had to cut back on foundation work to care for another one of their children, Ian, and the threat of COVID meant the tournaments had to be put on hold, as well.

The Piersons did not lose access to the account, but they didn’t touch it, believing they could use the money once the pandemic was over. At some point, though, PayPal remitted the funds to the state, as it’s required to do by law for any unclaimed property.

“They may have sent something to us, but I’ll tell you, I wasn’t watching my [foundation] email because we were kind of on hold.” Don said. Bernadette added, “We were staying up around the clock to take care of our son with just very few people, our kids basically, and us, and I was still working, so we just had heads to the ground trying to get our son through each day.”

A friend of the family who works in the unclaimed property office recognized the Pierson name in the state database of unclaimed property and put the family in contact with the state treasurer. The Piersons had nothing but praise for the treasurer’s office.

The news was bittersweet. Ian died shortly before the family learned of the funds. The family said they will use the money the same way it had been used in the past: to grant the wishes of young adults with cancer like Stefan.

While the state’s unclaimed property holdings are available to be reclaimed by their rightful owners, the state doesn’t just sit on the money. The treasurer’s office estimates the excess amount of money the unclaimed property division receives versus how much it will return to Vermonters and injects that into the general fund. In fiscal year 2024, that was $9.3 million. A reserve fund is available to ensure the Treasurer’s Office is able to pay out claims.

Vermont’s unclaimed property database can be searched at vermont.unclaimedproperty.com, while a national database can be found at missingmoney.com.

Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message. Or contact the reporter directly at corey.dockser@vermontpublic.org.