Bert Dickerson was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He moved with his family to Jericho Ctr. Vermont at the age of five when his parents both took faculty positions in the English Department at the University. Upon graduating from Mount Mansfield Union High, Bert returned to Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina to complete his education.
One fateful day after graduation, while recovering from a Dead concert on the Mall in Washington DC, Bert met Sarah.
She was a girl from Rome, educated in Athens (both in Georgia) on her way North in search of…. something else. “You ought to go to Nantucket?” Bert suggested. He had been spending summers there his whole life and was returning to work for yet another summer with no real plans for his future. Sarah thought that sounded pretty good so she drove on to Hyannis, took the noon boat and never looked back.
They got married in Siasconset a couple of years later and dove headfirst into island life. “It’s like a trade school,” Sarah said. “Anything you ever wanted to learn to do, you can learn it here.” And they did. Working a variety of jobs between them – restaurant work, carpentry, bookkeeping, house cleaning, landscaping, and event tent assembly - they even learned to make bagels.
As busy as they were they managed to have two kids, Angus and Mary Jo, and renovate their first home on Surfside. After twenty years they were exhausted. “We need a break” they both agreed. “Remember that piece of property we bought when we first got married? It’s near my Mother, and the kids will go to the same high school I went to.” reckoned Bert
So in 2001, they moved. Bert was home again. Sarah was happy and to sell the idea of leaving Nantucket to live in Vermont to the kids, they all got snowboards.
Angus and Mary Jo both graduated from MMU just like their father and moved to Boston.
They spend most of their time now working together on various projects around the farm, snowboarding in winter and gardening in summer.