Bucks
Ann Hadfield
Dear Friends,
Good morning. There’s an elderly, loyal, and very spry Bucks County woman who attended the Obama inauguration last week. Friends, meet Ann Hadfield, a 10-year resident of the Pine Run Community near Doylestown. One of Mighty Betsy’s and my pals, Sandy Fickes, suggested that I write a column about Ann. Sandy was right, as usual.
“I’m 82 and proud of it,” Ann began. She has excellent posture and looks 20 years younger. Well-connected politicians of both parties recognize the Hadfield name. She lived in Bedminster Township for 42 years and helped Attorney William Heefner who was a Democratic Committeeman at the time.
Ann and Sandy met on the political battlefield of the first Edward G. “Pete” Biester campaign for Congress. Although Biester won the contest handily, Ann and Sandy were on opposite sides at the time. “But we’ve never had a cross word with each other,” Sandy laughed.
They reminisced about the voting place in Bedminster West [voting district]. “It was in the converted chicken coup on the Saltzman farm,” they said. Warren Kulp, Sr. was the Republican Committeeman.
Ann’s first venture into politics was in 1936 at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia for Franklin Roosevelt. She was about nine and her father dressed her in a Quaker costume…pretty funny considering that her parents were Jewish. Ann’s father was from Hungary; her mother from Russia.
She showed me a card from her father’s 1934 campaign for the Delaware state legislature. “A vote for Sigmund Schorr is a vote for Roosevelt and a New Deal for the State of Delaware,” it read. Incidentally, he won.
The Schorr’s were from Wilmington. “Our family was very political,” Ann continued. She spoke about the importance of ethical behavior as she said, “My father was a shining beacon of hope. We need more people in government like him.”
Sandy told me that she enjoys reading Ann’s letters to the editor. “She sets people straight in Bucks County,” Sandy quipped. “Ann loves the environment and Native Americans.”
“If I believed in reincarnation,” Ann added, “I’d be a Native American…but not a poor one.”
Ann writes an annual letter to family and friends, which she shared with me. She discussed being a delegate to the Democratic Convention last August. That’s where she met President Obama’s wife.
“Michelle Obama couldn’t have been warmer,” Ann reported. “I got a warm hug from her and we spoke very briefly. Her children and her mother were there as well. It was a day I will never forget and I felt so privileged to have been selected.”
“The Obama campaign continues,” Ann said. She and Sandy receive emails from Obama headquarters asking for opinions about Habitat for Humanity, women’s shelters, food banks and improving communities. “It wasn’t just an election,” they continued, “it’s a movement.”
“Yes We Can,” was Obama’s slogan,” Sandy said. “It’s so positive. It’s about hope.”
“We Americans will have to show considerable patience,” Ann told me. “The country is in crisis.”
She pointed to an unusual Obama memento. It’s a four-year Obama calendar. And her son Alan made a jigsaw puzzle of her Obama campaign buttons.
Ann is very proud of her husband, Kenneth who died in 2002. For four years, he flew combat missions for the Canadian Air Force during World War II. Ken loved flying and wanted to get into the war against the Nazis before America declared war. So he obtained permission from Washington to join the Canadian Air Force.
Piloting a Dakota C-47, he towed gliders during the Normandy invasion. Friends, that is harrowing, very risky work. Flying slowly at low altitude over landing sites made transport towing planes easy targets for German anti-aircraft gunners.
Sandy pointed to a picture of Ken on the living room wall. “He was Hollywood handsome,” Sandy observed.
Ann Hadfield has many talents. A former research bacteriologist for Merck, Ann is also very musical. She continues to play flute and piccolo in the Delaware Valley College Community Band…and the Doylestown Lion’s Club band too. She often does solo work and practices daily.
Ann’s Christmas letter signed off with an appropriate message. “I leave you with a quote I just love,” she wrote. “Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there.”
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith