After 95 years of life, Moe Bressard has gathered a boatload of memories, and he is happy to share them with his friends and neighbors in Granby, where he spent 43 of those years.
Born in the small country town of Brookfield, Vt., in 1929 to a family of nine children, five of them boys, Bressard grew up on a 100-acre farm. “We raised milking cows and sold milk and cream, but we also had horses, chickens, pigs and vegetable gardens to tend, along with the cows,” Bressard says.
Bressard and his siblings walked to a one-room schoolhouse two miles away after completing their morning farm chores. More chores awaited them after school, but the ingenious Bressard brothers found time to tap sugar maples and boil it down to syrup in an abandoned sugar house. “We gathered wood in the summer and let it dry out so we could boil sap in winter,” he recalls. “It was hard work, but we enjoyed it and the pocket money we made selling our maple syrup.”
Bressard hitchhiked 10 miles to and from St. Michael’s High School in Montpelier. “I graduated high school in June 1946, and a month later I enlisted in the Air Force. In six months, I was overseas,” he says.
Bressard hitchhiked to Montpelier and took a train to Boston for processing before boarding another train bound for a Texas training center. “I was sent to Scott Field in Illinois, to learn radio code,” he says. “I wanted to attend flight school, but I’m color blind, so I couldn’t fly.” From there, on a week’s leave before deployment, Bressard returned home to visit his parents.
“I was only there two days because I had to hop a train and be in California in time to board a Naval ship to Hawaii to pick up supplies and more troops before heading to Guam,” Bressard says. “On board ship, we were cautioned to be careful because Japanese troops were hiding on the island.”
Trained in radio and teletype communications, Bressard joined a team that guided U.S. military traffic from the Philippines to Iwo Jima to Hawaii and provided weather reports to ensure their safe travel.
“After two years in Guam, I was sent to Otis AFB [now Air National Guard] on Cape Cod to work in air traffic control until I was discharged in July 1949. I was 20 years old.”
The Air Force wanted Bressard to re-enlist. “I would have, but my father was sick, and my mother was taking care of the younger kids and working in a woolen mill. She needed my help,” he says.
When his siblings were discharged from their military service and life on the farm had steadied, Bressard joined an older brother in Hartford. “I had a chance to work at Underwood Typewriter, and after a while I became the head engineer for American Custom Cam. I worked there for 17 years, and when they were bought out, I started my own business, National Tool and Cam in New Britain,” he says.
During this time, Bressard married and built a home on West Granby Road where he and his wife raised their three children. “When I joined, the American Legion used the cellar of the old Town Hall for their meetings. There were 10–15 legionnaires, almost all of them old World War I guys,” he says. Over time, members were able to raise enough money to purchase the old schoolhouse on North Granby Road, where Post 182 still meets today. Bressard has served as both treasurer and commander of the post.
“Other veterans are my brothers,” Bressard says. “We have a strong sense of camaraderie. In my family and in the Air Force, I learned to be accurate, careful, a good problem solver and loyal. You honor your brothers and sisters. Many legionnaires have medical problems, and we do our best to help them in any way we can.”
Three of Bressard’s older brothers and his older sister also served in World War II. All five of them returned home unharmed.
“My oldest brother Bernard was a Marine in the Pacific. My older brother Leo who was in the Navy landed on the shore of Normandy on D-Day, my youngest brother served in the Navy on an aircraft carrier and my sister was a Navy nurse,” Bressard says. “Yes, our parents had a lot to worry about, but we all survived.”
Bressard remains hale and hearty at 95. A recently developed vision problem caused him to have an accident on his way to meet a dozen fellow Legionnaires for their weekly Wednesday morning breakfast at The Gristmill, and his children advised him to stop driving. But friends pick him up bright and early on Wednesday mornings and, undaunted, Bressard gets around just fine by bicycle. “I logged 8,000 miles on my bike this past summer,” he says.
An avid gardener, his property abounds with beautiful blooms, and over the summer he planted 75 tomato plants in the community garden, which he started from seeds in his basement.
And after 95 years, Bressard retains his positive outlook and sense of humor. Twice widowed, he has a “lady friend” whom he met on a bike ride, and he still tells a story with a twinkle in his eye.
“When I first joined the Legion, Granby was a dry town,” he says. “After work one day, I bought a six-pack of beer before driving home to Granby, and I brought it to the Legion to share with the boys. One guy took one look at that beer and got so mad, he quit. I still feel a little guilty about that!”
NOTE: The men and women who fought in World War II and who served in its immediate aftermath are now in their 90s or older. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs statistics reveal that as of 2024, 66,143 of the 16.4-million Americans who served in WWII are still alive. Of these, 1,266 live in Connecticut.