By Jeff Hodges
In 2017 I shot a documentary about an 18th-century marble quarry in western Massachusetts. As teenagers my friends and I had frolicked in the quarry, diving from the high walls into the frigid water, unmindful of the number of fatalities that had occurred there over the years. This was something the town fathers never forgave nor forgot.
At some point the quarry was purchased by a local resident, who, like a lot of folks in town, had descended from the Italian miners who emigrated from Carrara to quarry the marble that was used for the construction of the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Eventually he deeded the quarry to his nephew Chicky, who became the heart and soul of the place. Chicky and his wife Sissy tried to turn the quarry into a revenue-generating resource, primarily as a recreational, educational, and historical venue, but even at one point ferrying leftover marble out on a crude tramway. The town fought them relentlessly, with ordinances, zoning changes, and summonses.
One afternoon I was revisiting the quarry—I hadn’t been there for over 40 years—when an old pickup pulled in with two guys in the front seat. There was a pit bull in the bed of the truck; it flew out and pinned me up against a tree while the guys looked me over. Then a little red car appeared and Sissy stepped out and hollered, “Jeff Hodges! Where the hell have you been?”
The dog wagged his tail, the guys gave me the glad hand, and Sissy and I sat down to catch up. When she told me about her troubles with the town, we decided to see if a documentary about the quarry might help highlight its historical value. After a year or so our film was completed, and around that time Sissy and the quarry were invited by the Massachusetts Historical Society to be included in the prestigious Massachusetts Archeology Month. Suddenly, the town fathers began to view the quarry as an historical asset instead of an attractive nuisance.
Tragically, the quarry claimed Chicky as its most unjustifiable victim. He disappeared one night while camping out with a friend. When he failed to turn up the next morning a search was initiated. On the second day of the search Chicky was found in the water, at the back end of the quarry, with a broken neck.
He’d been gone for a year when I sat down with Sissy at the quarry. She told me she had spent most of the year wondering how Chicky ended up in the water. Her bafflement and lack of closure were making it difficult for her to move on with her life.
One day, one of her neighbors showed up at her door with two sisters who asked if they could come in. The sisters were psychics, and after some small talk they said to Sissy, “OK, let’s get started.”
After an interlude, one of the ladies shouted, “I’m a dumbass!” Then they sat quietly again until the other one raised her arms over her head and hollered, “Woo! Woo!” After another interlude the first one snarled, “Bill is full of shit!”
Chicky had been sneaking over the rough ground in the dark to scare his friend. He had tripped, broken his neck on the fall, and landed in the water. “I’m a dumbass!” was his signature expression for screwing up; the “Woo Woo!” is self-explanatory; Bill was a local gossip that had been spreading the rumor that Chicky had been a victim of foul play.
Sissy got the answers she needed. And she’ll always know that Chicky’s amazing spirit will be watching over her and his beloved marble quarry.
