Corky Elwell looked to be happy last New Year’s when the town of Brattleboro honored his son Peter’s retirement from the same municipal manager post he once held.
Appearances can deceive.
The 94-year-old, smiling outwardly, was missing his wife, who had moved to a memory care unit, and their longtime home, which he had emptied and sold to relocate to an assisted living facility.
Elwell seemingly had more to reflect back on than to look forward to. Then again, appearances can deceive. When his son suggested they share some retirement time, Elwell proposed an overflowing bucket list trip: How about blowing through the “Windy City” of Chicago? Marching into New Orleans for Mardi Gras? Capitalizing on the history of Washington, D.C.?
Elwell didn’t know he’d cap it all by scoring tickets to a Boston Celtics’ NBA playoff game just three weeks before his death this past June.
Corwin Silas “Corky” Elwell was born at his family’s Bennington home Sept. 28, 1927. Raised during the Great Depression, he graduated from high school to a two-year Army stint at the end of World War II.
Elwell’s house-painting father and homemaking mother wanted their son to come back and, like five previous generations of family, stay put. But Elwell, listening to the late Bennington lawyer and mentor Leonard Morrison, instead enrolled at Middlebury College.
There, Elwell met a fellow student named Frances “Babs” Bostelmann. The two married in 1949, graduated in 1950 and moved to Philadelphia, where he earned a master’s degree in government administration at the University of Pennsylvania.
Elwell fathered four children as he climbed the career ladder as a Vermont municipal manager in Bethel, where he collected trash with the road crew every Saturday; in Essex, where he refereed squabbling town and village leaders; and finally in Brattleboro, where he helped found the local Housing Authority, Windham Regional Commission and Vermont League of Cities and Towns.
Elwell had plans to travel when he retired in 1989. Then his 63-year-old wife died of a stroke in 1993. Losing his life partner of 44 years, he persevered, “but it was stoicism, not recovery,” his son recalls.
Enter Betty Lolatte. Marrying in 1995, the two enjoyed an expanded family of seven children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren until 2021, when she moved to the memory care unit and he, seeking solace, turned his attention to his son and their trip.
Elwell no sooner had circled the Feb. 24 start date on his newly hung 2022 calendar when severe dehydration landed him in the hospital for days and a rehabilitation facility for weeks. But that didn’t stop him from rolling out, in a wheelchair, on schedule.
Elwell and son boarded Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited to Chicago — although the Midwest metropolis was more of a pit stop on their way to the City of New Orleans train and Mardi Gras. French for “Fat Tuesday,” the day marks the eve of the Ash Wednesday start of the Lenten season of religious fasting. But in “The Big Easy,” the beaded string of parades and parties begins weeks earlier.
Booking a French Quarter hotel, Elwell arrived to find all the restaurant reservations swallowed up. Undaunted, he sipped the city’s legendary Sazerac cocktail of whiskey, sugar, bitters and absinthe; soaked up jazz at Preservation Hall; and stayed up and out well into the night to watch bands and floats march through everyone else’s bedtime.
“The parade just goes on and on and on,” confirms son Peter, who was joined by his wife, newly elected Windham County State Sen. Wendy Harrison. “We had multiple occasions when Wendy and I were getting exhausted and Dad was ready for more.”
Father and son eventually traded Bourbon Street for the Crescent train to Washington, D.C. There, Elwell toured the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial that chronicles the president of his childhood. Yet, amid the smorgasbord of museums and monuments, he hungered for something more.
“He hadn’t been eating like himself,” his son recalls. “He would just have a bowl of soup at dinner.”
Then on their last night in the capital, father and son dined at the Old Ebbitt Grill, a century-and-a-half-old institution just steps from the White House. There, Elwell ordered a steak as large as the restaurant’s presidential clientele, which featured the likes of Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt.
“Boy, did he love it,” says his son, still in disbelief. “He ate every bite.”
Elwell’s appetite for life continued after the Vermonter train transported him home. His son figured the trip had checked every box on the bucket list. Then Elwell, seeing his favored Boston Celtics slotted in the NBA playoffs against the Milwaukee Bucks, bounced off another idea.
“Do you think we could go to one of the games?” his son remembers him asking. “We really should see them now.”
The sense of urgency in Elwell’s voice gave his son pause. Was this the beginning of the end?
Not in Elwell’s mind: “They might not make the playoffs next year,” he explained.
And so father and son traveled to Boston last May 11 for game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The home team, ahead by 14 points with 10 minutes left, ultimately lost by three. But that didn’t stop Elwell from daydreaming about more adventures.
He didn’t know he’d return to a hospital bed within days and die two weeks later, on June 4, 2022.
“The trip did not take on a sense of a last hurrah, but in retrospect, that’s exactly what it was,” his son says today. “Dad always talked about the importance of approaching life with optimism, especially when facing moments of adversity. Even though he was in some degree of pain and probably a little scared, he found joy. It has made accepting his passing easier, knowing he left it all on the field.”
Peter recounted the trip in his father’s eulogy before referring to a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better …
After the service, family and friends gathered outside on the grass, remembering how Elwell loved to mow his lawn while proclaiming, “I see the benefit of my labor immediately!” They then chewed over memories and a menu of Elwell’s favorite foods, including popcorn and strawberry ice cream.
“This,” everyone concurred of Emerson’s conclusion, “is to have succeeded.”
