Treasures of Cambridge # 37 Treasures of Cambridge # 37

Melissa Spiezio pictured in front of the vault in the former Bean Head’s Coffee House, has lived in the Village of Cambridge all of her thirty-one years.

Melissa lives with her spouse and son in her husband, Poke’s, childhood home. She says, "It is really nice to keep up the family traditions that Poke and his family started there in the house, and bring in my own family’s as well." She likes to raise her son in a village that is familiar, where she knows the people and is familiar with the kids he goes to school with, and their teachers.

She loves the safeness of the village, a place where people look out for one another and her son. "He can go to a friend’s house and I know that when he gets there I will get a phone call that he got there OK." People just care about each other here.

Much of her time is spent working as an x-ray technician at Bennington Hospital, which she loves. Her home life is also very busy, keeping up with being a homeowner and, "of course, being married to Poke (the Village Fire Chief), who is going 24/7, we spend a lot of time at the fire house doing fundraising and supporting the guys there."

In her free time, she loves getting together with friends to chat and engage in scrapbooking. Melissa’s prop is a scrapbook, a hobby she started when her son was born in 2000 to preserve her child’s first moments. She tells the story of when it was getting close to when her child was to be born, she wanted to start a scrapbook with the footprint of the baby, yet she did not want to know if it was going to be a boy or a girl. There was a woman at the hospital that sold scrapbooking materials, and, also happened to do an ultrasound of her while she was pregnant. So she knew it was going to be a boy and had a boy’s book all wrapped up and ready for Melissa when her water broke and she had other things to think about for a while!

Melissa takes scrapbooking very seriously which has become a beautiful history (the books are extremely well done, tasteful, and full of heart) that she has to share with friends; snapshots of her life as wife, mother, family member, friend and village resident.

When asked how she would like to be remembered, she responded, "I would like to be remembered as the girl who grew up in Cambridge and was sweet to the old ladies of Cambridge, and a helpful and kind Cambridge person."