Residents of a small New Hampshire town caught in political and cultural divisions work their way back to harmony.

By Kathie Ragsdale, Granite State News Collaborative

Eaton, New Hampshire, looks like the quintessential American town, with its steepled white church, combination diner/country store and centerpiece inn overlooking the aptly named Crystal Lake.

It’s a place where a town official agrees to talk about a local controversy but insists on making eggplant parmesan for the occasion, where a reticent citizen who doesn’t want to be interviewed does so by “respectfully declining,” and where visitors to the Little White Church are reminded to check their politics at the door.

But it’s also a place where longtime friends have ceased speaking to one another, where name-calling attacks appear in the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper, and where, within blocks or even doors of one another, a Confederate flag, a gay pride flag, a Black Lives Matter flag, a middle finger flag and other banners compete, flapping idly like the remnants of a recent war. 

And in some ways, that’s exactly what they are.

Because Eaton is America writ small, with the same political divisions, confusion, battle fatigue and yearnings that have afflicted families, friendships, neighborhoods and the nation following back-to-back contentious elections and more than two years of pandemic stress – all the more obvious here because Eaton has only 400 residents.

The hostilities have lessened, to be sure. Far fewer political flags fly than did a year and a half or two years ago. The White House has changed hands. Combatants have grown weary. Still, resentments linger, and a question hangs over Eaton, like much of the nation: What now?

How can the lens be refocused on day-to-day matters worthy of both celebration and concern? 

An eager young couple, Bill and Rose Valle, have taken over ownership of the Eaton Village Store, pouring “their heart and soul into creating a store the whole town will be proud of,” as one of their followers on Facebook says. The local paper, the Conway Daily Sun, is partnering with Memorial Hospital in a “get vaccinated” campaign. And there are continuing civic issues to be addressed – traffic and road maintenance, the high cost of sending Eaton’s children to be educated in Conway schools because the town itself has none.

Experts in facilitating communication say the path to harmony involves activities many in Eaton are already undertaking – talking and, more importantly, listening – while not ignoring the origins of the conflicts.

Many in Eaton trace the dissension's roots to political differences amplified by the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the news coverage that came along with it, and the continuing pandemic.

“The biggest problem in this town stems from the difference in politics between Democrats and Republicans,” says John Hartman, a semi-retired high tech worker, former president of the Little White Church and active member of the Conservative Group, a loose coalition of conservative-minded area residents with a particular interest in public safety. 

“We believe in secure borders, funding the police, lower taxes, legal immigration and all lives matter,” he says of his group. “We want to keep our guns. They want to take away our guns. There’s a lot of difference in the way we think.”

Hartman is also an associate of Roy Alley, who flies a Confederate flag at his home on Eaton’s main thoroughfare, Route 153, and whose phone number is unlisted. Through Hartman, he declined an interview.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum is Quddus Snyder, whose family has been in Eaton for generations and who famously mooned Donald Trump Jr. during a 2020 campaign appearance in nearby Conway. 

He put up about 100 gay pride flags throughout town in 2020, most of them since removed, and rowed a “love boat” decorated with American and pride flags into the middle of Crystal Lake on the Fourth of July, 2020. He says that former President Trump fueled his activism.

“Trump just brought out the worst in people,” says Snyder, a former political science professor who now runs his late father’s chimney sweep and repair business in Eaton. “Anyone who doesn’t take a stand isn’t doing his civic duty.”

Hartman and Snyder have exchanged hostile words in the letters to the editor section of the Conway Daily Sun, where Snyder is now a columnist. Hartman has called Snyder’s middle initial, Z., a reference to his “zero I.Q.,” and Snyder dismissed Hartman’s Conservative Group as “a goofy assemblage of local octogenarians.”

For Stephen Larson, chair of Eaton’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, such exchanges are emblematic of a broader conflict.

“You have different teams in the country right now and people are using their speech to claim which side they’re on,” he says. “It has nothing to do with town politics… Many people are declaring their teams and our political leaders are teaching us to despise the opponent and here we are. If we could see some respectable conduct from our national leaders, maybe that would trickle down.”

Larson himself became the target of criticism when the ZBA turned down a special exception request of Robert Barker and Timothy Ostendorf, owners of the Inn at Crystal Lake. It would have allowed them to use the barn across from their home, 10 minutes away from the inn, as a wedding venue.

The two men have been partnered 25 years, bought the inn 20 years ago and transformed it into a thriving enterprise that, until COVID, offered not only lodging but gourmet meals and occasional opera performances. Now in their 50s, they have put the inn up for sale and thought the addition of a wedding venue would be attractive to a potential buyer. “That was sort of our retirement plan,” says Ostendorf.

Following the denial, the couple took the matter to court, and the judge returned the case to the ZBA, which reaffirmed its original decision. Barker and Ostendorf saw anti-gay overtones in the denial – especially after Larson made a cryptic reference to the possibility of “chamber music” being played at the venue during a discussion on noise potential. 

“There was a lilt to that,” he says of Larson’s comment. “There’s a very common stereotype that gay men like opera and chamber music and it fit into that stereotype.”

“There’s no hard evidence they specifically turned us down because we’re gay,” he adds. “But being an out person for a very long time, you can kind of sense hostility coming from people. To me, it’s unmistakable… We thought we had roots here and we’re finding out those roots are not as deep as we thought they were.”

Larson defends the board’s decision, saying, “They did not conform to the zoning ordinance. The zoning ordinance allows Joe the plumber to have a business at his house and they wanted to invite 100 people to an event and it’s just not permitted. It has absolutely nothing to do with gay people.”

ZBA member Carol Mayhofer, a 40-year resident of town, seconds that. “There was nothing anti-gay about the decision,” she says. “The town voted on these regulations. It’s up to us to make sure they’re followed… Our job on the ZBA has nothing to do with how nice the people are coming before us.”

For a while, Barker and Ostendorf displayed a 20-foot pride flag on the side of their barn as a protest, though it was taken down in advance of a windstorm and not replaced. Through their lawyer, the two are now investigating the possibility of using their property as an agritourism site.

Eaton stone mason Michael Callis, a 30-year resident and a former unsuccessful Republican candidate for seats in the U.S. Congress, New Hampshire House of Representatives and U.S. presidency, also took down a sign, for different reasons.

After he put up a Black Lives Matter sign at the request of acquaintances, “I couldn’t believe the responses I was getting from my Republican friends,” he says. “They were freaking out; they were so upset. I decided, this is divisive. We’ve got one flag in this country and it’s the American flag.”

COVID has only heightened tensions in town, many residents say.

“During the pandemic, everything got magnified and intensified,” says Ostendorf. “People felt they could say whatever they wanted.”

Changing demographics also play a role. While Eaton’s is an aging population, like that of the rest of the state, more and more newcomers are arriving from other states. Some are seeking retirement homes and others vacation getaways that they occupy only part of the year. In 2019 alone, 6.5 percent of the residents came from another state within the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The town has no African-American residents, according to the Census Bureau.

“There are a lot of new people moving in,” says Hartman. “The whole area has gotten a little more to the Democratic side.” Both Obama and Biden carried Eaton handily in the presidential elections of 2008, 2012 and 2020, a source of frustration to Yankee Republicans who once held sway.

Despite the continuing presence of opposing flags and the ongoing enmity expressed in letters to the editor, some in town feel the hostilities are basically over.

Eleanor Border is president of the Little White Church, the 140-year-old, non-denominational institution – now used primarily for weddings and other functions – that is “the soul of Eaton,” as its website proclaims. 

“I really believe the vast majority of the town has put that behind them and there is complete harmony,” she says. “It’s really just a couple people who couldn’t let it go.”

Border took over the church’s presidency during what came to be called “the flag wars” and “the situation was resolved very quickly by having sit-down discussions with all parties involved,” she says. She invited Snyder to her home and “we sat on my porch and we talked for two hours,” says Border, who told Snyder she admired his passion but not his methods.

“I’m not the only one who did that,” she adds. “After that, the flag wars in Eaton calmed down.”

“My takeaway is, when things start getting challenging in a community, the way to address it is, you have to talk to each other face to face,” Border advises. “It’s a very different conversation than writing a letter or posting on social media. Even if they’re formal meetings, there needs to be dialogue.”

That’s exactly the kind of remedy advocated by Michele Holt-Shannon, director of New Hampshire Listens, a civic engagement initiative of the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, whose mission is to help state residents talk and work together to build strong communities.

“If people with those local ties get a chance to interact in person in a way that’s constructive, whether it’s a community dialogue or whatever, that neighbor-to-neighbor opportunity can be one of the most powerful,” she says. “It means slowing down, listening and creating an environment where people get a chance to talk and feel they’re heard… For the most part, the people we know and interact with, if they are activated, they’re worried about something. It helps if someone will take the time to try and figure out what that is.”

“Understanding,” she adds, “is no small thing.”

Border and others in town also criticize the Conway Daily Sun for fanning the flames of what they see as old controversies by continuing to print hostile exchanges, chiefly between Hartman and Snyder, in its letters to the editor section.

The newspaper’s approach stands in contrast to that of its sister publication, the Laconia Daily Sun, which decided its letters policy was “no longer advancing a healthy dialogue among readers, if it ever had,” the paper’s digital editor, Julie Hart, wrote in an essay earlier this year. The paper invited frequent letter-writers to a virtual roundtable discussion in May, with the goal of “improving the quality of civil discourse.”

But Conway Daily Sun Editor Mark Guerringue, a former 15-year resident of Eaton, takes “a very liberal view” concerning publishing letters, saying, “The paper is a mirror to the community, which is reflected in the letters, and we’re an open forum to the community to express their views.”

He sees that approach as contributing to the town’s wellbeing. “The newspaper, by allowing people to air their opinions, creates harmony and sparks discussion,” Guerringue says.

And what of the future? How can Eaton – or any place – restore mutual respect and regard among all its members? How can it put aside its differences?

Border emphasizes the importance of making sure doors remain open between groups of people. “It can be something as simple as saying hello to someone at the post office,” she says.

“It helps if the community has some kind of tradition, whether it’s putting lights up on Main Street or whatever,” adds Holt-Shannon. “And some things just take some time.”

With Eaton’s culture wars now more than two years old, time has helped shift perspectives for some.

Snyder says his earlier political efforts were “exhausting for me, emotionally consuming, and probably not super-healthy at the end of the day for the town itself.”

“I think there’s a healthy New England ethos of ‘live and let live,’ tolerating differences but when you’re at war with your neighbors and things are that divisive, it takes a toll on everyone, not just the ones at each other’s throats,” he adds.

Whether such realizations are enough to restore ties between individuals remains to be seen.

Hartman, who worked with Snyder on the Little White Church’s steeple project for two or three years before their falling-out, says he’s not sure if their friendship could be renewed. “Right now, we’re no longer talking to each other,” he says.

Snyder says he would be open to meeting with Hartman but doesn’t know when the time for that might come.

“I don’t hate him,” he says of Hartman. “I think he’s a good man. It’s just a sign of the times, I guess.”

“At the end of the day,” he adds, “you can’t stay at war forever.”

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.