2

When it was all over and the crowd was melting away, a young guy shuffled up to me and looked at my open reporter's pad. "You know, there is something not quite right about the way they got the land," he said. "You ought to look into it for your readers." People around this town know me by now, and can play me like a flute. Hint that there's funny business afoot to Kirby and his ears perk up. Meet me out in the alley, fella, and I'll give you the lowdown.

As it all worked out, this guy was just telling me what a lot of people in the neighborhood already knew. There was something not quite right about how the people associated with this development acquired their land. So here is the lowdown, as I know it now.

The story of the Beaver Brook Estates development starts with Fred Whitburn and his wife, Mabel, who for more than 40 years lived in a modest green and white ranch house at 80 Leonard St. in Leeds, just off Route 9. Their property consisted not only of the house and lot but some 37 acres of forest which stretched from behind their home all the way south and west to Beaver Brook which flows under Route 9 and cuts through St. Mary's Church cemetery on the south side of Route 9.

Fred was 96 years old when he died three years ago. The late Lyman Merriam delivered newspapers to him when he was a kid and said Fred was an old man even way back then. His wife Mabel held an upper level position in procurement at Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee where Fred was a painter. When Mabel Whitburn passed away, Fred grew more isolated. Toward the end, Fred Whitburn more or less lived in his recliner chair in front of his picture window.

People who knew him said that Fred didn't love humans too much, but he was a good neighbor and loyal to his friends. He loved his horses, and at one time or another judged horse shows for the Smith College program. All his animals are buried out there behind his house. When his old Doberman died, his next door neighbor, Dan Keith, dug a hole for the dog, built a box to bury him in and waited all afternoon while the old man wrapped up the body in six layers of plastic, bawling like a baby. Fred hated the idea of more development in his neighborhood and showed up for the hearing in 1988 when they were putting in the Yankee Hill condos on nearby Evergreen Street, which abuts his property. He knew everyone wanted his land, and regularly hung up and cursed real estate agents when they called him. He said no to a relative when she wanted to buy a house lot from him, even though she would have been right there to look after him. He didn't want help from anyone.

Fred Whitburn grew a little paranoid toward the end, and had quite a few guns in the house, including a matched set of two Browning automatic pump shotguns with gold triggers, a sawed-off shotgun, and two 38 magnum caliber revolvers that he kept tucked down in his recliner. He passed away most of his days sleeping or reading gun and outdoor life magazines, waiting for trouble to break out, for gangs of Indians or blacks or real estate agents to come out of the woods. One of the people from Grove Avenue used to jog by his house every day and there he would always be, in his recliner. One of the few people to visit was Father Vincent O'Connor of St. Catherine's, the Catholic church in Leeds. Father O'Connor would drop by every month after Fred got his pension checks and pick up the church's stack of offering envelopes in which Fred regularly tucked cash.

For a long time, Fred's brother-in-law, Bob Dostal, looked after the old man and did his shopping for him. Bob had a power of attorney and handled Fred's checkbook for him, and Bob's wife would help Fred with the housecleaning. It drove them crazy the way he handled cash. Bob estimated that there might have been $5,000 or more in envelopes scattered all over the house. Dan Keith said that sometimes Bob was there almost every day, getting him stuff, and dealing with crises. read more>>>