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Hats Horses And Missions Sharing Memories With Lois Huizenga-Higbee

photo by Photo Provided Making hats for others with her trusty pup at her side is just one way Lois measures happiness.

photo by Photo Provided Still horsing around with the family, Lois Huizenga-Higbee sits on her sister’s horse just shy of her own 80th birthday

photo provided Watermelon, summer and fun! What more could three year old Lois want than to spend time in Connors, Georgia on her uncle’s cotton plantation.

photo provided On her mission trip to Mozambique, Lois worked with young mothers and their children. All the labor was done by hand and even the bricks were made by hand.

Wednesday December 31, 1969

By Cookie Steponaitis

Lois Huizenga-Higbee was in her senior year of school in New Jersey when her parents presented her with a life changing announcement. She was going to have a sibling! Lois left school that year to care for her mother who had difficulties with the pregnancy and was on hand to welcome her only sibling, a baby sister Betty Ann seventeen years her junior.  After graduation,plans were to go to college for becoming a nurse, Lois found that realities and responsibilities of the time had other directions in mind. Lois worked in the banking world for a time but found it not her cup of tea although it did cement her love of talking and interacting with people. Marrying and moving to the Green Mountain State in 1973, Lois and husband Peter moved to the Monkton Road farm that would become their family headquarters and home of what Lois affectionately calls the, “backyard horse years. I always told my parents growing up that my dream was to have a hundred acres and a house smack dab in the middle of it.” While the farm did not quite fit the dream it was the center for the family and a continuation of the family farm lifestyle that she had growing up.    “Today the horse world has grown much more competitive,” reflected Lois. “It seems that people have thousands in horses, gear and that to be successful the cost is high.  I look at our horse farm as more of the backyard experience. We all rode and the times we spent were memorable. It was less about pedigree and more about personality of the horse and all the kids who came over because we had a backyard of horses. It was simple at dinner time, take how many you would normally feed and add five more.  She no longer rides but proudly shared some stories of her grandchildren and great grandchildren who have continued the family love of horses. In fact, patiently listing all the different members of the generations to make sure she did not leave anyone out, Lois came up with a total of seven children; biological, step and adopted; twelve grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren.
    Lois attends the senior meetings and meals put on by the Champlain Valley Agency on the Aging two days a week and openly shares that it is the people she comes to see.  In fact, sharing memories for Lois includes recollections of powerful experiences she had as a member of a mission group with the Ferrisburgh Methodist Church. During 2003-2004 she traveled as part of a group to volunteer in Mozambique. “We were located in a little village Chicuque near a hospital,” reminisced Lois. “We actually went there to help build a building that would be used as a diagnostic center and treatment place for AIDS. It was incredible to see. Outside the hospital, people had no running water, no electricity and oddly enough many had cell phones. I never learned how they serviced them or who they called, but cell phones were becoming a part of the culture. We simply had to communicate without language because they spoke no English and there were few translators. To form friendships and communicate without the safety of the structure takes you to a different place personally.
    Another aspect of her mission work that stood out for Lois was the ability of the people and children to be genuinely happy with literally nothing. She witnessed children taking paper or parts of plants and rolling them up into balls to play with or to have games simply based on imagination. Singing, dancing and joy were apparent in the day and infectious. “I was extremely annoyed when I came home,” explained Lois. “People all around me were complaining I don’t like this and I don’t have that and nothing was ever good enough. I had just spent three weeks with a people who had on American terms nothing and yet they had in many ways more contentment and joy than all of the material things we could possibly pile up in a lifetime.”  Today Lois Huizenga-Higbee spends her time continuing to help with programs related to missions and making her hats in just about every size, shape and color that are donated to the grade schools, the Children’s Hospital in Butlington, or to people she meets to provide joy to others. And she cannot count the number of conversations that have started with other people simply because of the hats.
    Happiness for Lois Huizenga-Higbee is not something that comes packaged and it is not stationary. And like Lois and many of the Addison County seniors, joy comes from family, outings, gatherings with people, gatherings with purpose and opportunists to share at many levels with different groups.  While Vermont continues to grow and change from the small tight knit agrarian community that she moved here to join in the 1970’s, Lois finds that much of the essence of what makes Addison County home is still here. “My Peter used to joke that this was the only place in the world where four cars made a traffic jam,” grinned Lois. “While there is a lot more traffic, you still probably know one out of every four drivers.” The Valley Voice salutes not only Lois Huizenga-Higbee but all of her generation who move with the times but never lose sight of the qualities of life that continue in the lives of each generation of Addison County; a love of people, nature and the ability to change and adapt to new things while holding fast to links to the past.

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