(Host) Tomorrow at the town meeting in Woodstock, the citizens will be remembering Frederick Doubleday.
Frederick Doubleday died this week at ninety one, after living his entire life in Woodstock, and serving for decades in one civic job after another, usually more than one at the same time.
Along the way he compiled fifty years of perfect attendance at his Rotary Club, fifty years of blood donations, and more than fifty year as a member of the Woodstock Volunteer Fire Department.
He was also a long-time Justice of the Peace, and conducted fourteen hundred weddings.
Once a conflict between a wedding and a fire produced one of Woodstock’s favorite stories about Fred Doubleday. Friend and colleague Phil Swan remembers it this way.
(Swan) “Fred owned and operated a shoe store while he was town clerk. And the town clerk’s office was in the back of the shoe store. And we carried Plectron radios. And one day the Plectron radio went off to warn of a fire call. And Fred was in the middle of performing a wedding ceremony. And he grabbed his coat and told the couple that they’d have to wait. He’d be back for them, but he had to go tend to his needing on this fire call. I believe they did wait. And they were quiet They enjoyed it. It gave them a story they could tell for their whole life.”
(Host) In 1992 Fred Doubleday was named Woodstock’s first citizen of the year.