Broadacres Legacy

This is a story about a place and its people, located in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The place was, for many decades, simply called "the farm" by its series of owners, which included the Hayneses, a well-known name in town and a family who had settled in Sudbury in the 1600s (but were not directly related to the subject of this book). In the 1920s, Finnish settlers worked this land, and it was their name on the title of the land that Honora Haynes—the focus of this story—purchased: a 70-acre parcel of fields, barns, and a farmer's cottage. From our vantage today, Honora exemplifies the scholar-entrepreneur. She was also an incredibly strong woman and a model of the good teacher (leading by supporting), good neighbor (honest, fair, giving), and good friend. Her half-century of success is encapsulated in a half-century of friendship that continues in all of us who knew her.

The place and its people—Honora, her immediate family and her extended family (students, friends, neighbors, etc.)—have become a community asset of Sudbury. Why? The place is, at its simplest, land. But, this place also embodies the vision of its owner, the spirit of those who worked there, and the heart of a community. As you will read, Honora and her siblings were raised by a fiercely intelligent woman who was born in Maine and graduated from Smith College in 1904. As a single mother in her forties, she adopted three unrelated children and imbued in them those virtues and characteristics that were most important to her. When Honora was in her thirties, single, and also a college graduate (at a time when few women matriculated), she became determined to create a business. Almost wholly on their own, she and her sister worked the "Maenpaa Farm," turning it into a small equine breeding and training operation, and achieving a half-century of success that ultimately developed into Broadacres Farm, complete with boarding and growing to encompass several equestrian disciplines. More importantly for our story, though, is Honora's influence. From her, children learned independence and responsibility; adults (mostly professional women) braved the physical risks associated with equine sports and gained life lessons: all who had contact with Broadacres experienced the joy and satisfaction of doing something they loved in an environment of unwavering support. "Knowing Honora changed my life," was said often and earnestly.

Introduced to Honora Haynes in the early 1980s, Alice rode at Broadacres for two more decades. She was one of the numerous professional women (doctor, lawyer, professor, accountant) who learned from Honora and--equally important--had fun. Time at the barn with Honora and horses provided a respite from the stresses and strains of professional careers, and the physical challenge was a great balance to the intellectual focus of jobs. If you did not want to fall off, you concentrated on nothing but your equine partner! As a now-retired emeritus professor, Alice considers it a remarkable privilege to have become so well acquainted with the Haynes family and to have appreciated first-hand the Broadacres legacy.