Beth Bolt retires as Concord town clerk after 30 years serving as the record watchdog

Mary E. “Beth” Bolt has been town clerk of Concord for half of her life. As of 12:01 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 30, that part of her life will be over and a new chapter has begun.

As she heads into retirement, Bolt said she has mixed feelings about leaving the basement office she has occupied for 32 years, 30 as clerk and two as a deputy.

“Sometimes I’m fine, but sometimes it just hits me,” she said. It’s sad, but it’s happy too. It’s been a terrific journey with amazing people.”

Bolt, who said she wanted to be a secretary growing up, began her career when she was 17, after she graduated from high school. Her first secretarial position was at the University at Buffalo in the School of Pharmaceuticals, where she worked until she got married and moved to Springville with her then-husband, a police officer, in 1976. She took a job as a secretary at the Concord Medical Group, where she worked until 1979 when she picked up the “PennySaver” and saw an ad for a deputy town clerk.

“Grace Gentner knew everything and knew everybody,” Bolt said of her predecessor, who served as town clerk for 23 years before passing on her seat.

“What impressed me was how much faith everyone had in her. If you didn’t know something, you asked Grace. I came in and was just getting familiar with the area, since I wasn’t from here, and she had faith in me. She must have seen something in me I didn’t see in myself.”

Bolt, who said she used to be very shy before she took over the town clerk position, said her only goal was to provide what Gentner did: the answers to people’s questions and the help they needed when they asked for it, whether the town clerk’s office had the information or not.

“We’re like the general information center for the town,” Bolt said, with a laugh. “It’s easier now with Google, but people come in and need information and I do my best to get it. I always call people back, whether I know the answer to their question or not.”

The town clerk’s office handles the official records for the town of Concord, including births, deaths, marriages, hunting licenses, dog licenses, handicapped parking spaces and tax filings.

“We used to do it all manually, with these big tax books, and now it’s all on the computer. And now I have twice the paper,” Bolt added. “That was the biggest transition, but it does make things easier.”

Darlene Schweickert, Bolt’s former deputy clerk, will take over the clerk position, with Stephanie Bacon’s filling Schweickert’s shoes as deputy clerk. Bolt said she is confident that the two women will run the clerk’s office in the same style she always has: with a friendly, personal touch.

“If I didn’t think they could do it, I wouldn’t leave,” Bolt said. “This office is my baby. I used to write ‘Hi’ on people’s tax bills, and I said to Darlene, ‘You’re going to have to write it now.’ I keep thinking I should take out an ad in the ‘PennySaver’ [with] my last hi and goodbye.”

Bolt said that the thing she is going to miss most about her job is the people, those who work in the office with her and those who stop in to do business or just to say hello.

“That’s going to be the hardest thing: not seeing everyone all the time.”

She said she gave the most credit to her family, for “putting up with going into a store with me and not getting out forever, because I had to stop and talk to everyone,” as well as “all the people who have supported and trusted me over 30 years.”

Even though she will no longer have to get up to go to work in the morning, Bolt said she will be far from bored. She said she plans to spend her time “being a better grandma” to her five grandchildren, who range in age from 15 years to 3 months old and who live in East Concord, Rochester and Massachusetts.

“It’s the best feeling in the world, when they look at you and their little eyes light up,” she said. “I pick up my Paige from day care and she just runs to me with her arms out.”

Bolt and her young granddaughter already spend many of their afternoons together, playing dolls, making finger paintings and watching Curious George on television, after Paige has her chocolate milk and cookie following her grandma’s picking her up from day care. Bolt said she looks forward to continuing to spend that time with her granddaughter, as well as traveling to see her other grandchildren farther afield.

Bolt also said she plans to help take care of her parents, who live in Tonawanda. Her father has Alzheimer’s, she explained, “and sometimes mom needs a break.

“I want to travel more, see the United States,” she added. “Then there’s my one luxury: to stay in bed and read a book.” She added that she has a stockpile of books from a teacher friend she is eager to dive into.

Bolt will also stay involved in several organizations she is currently a part of, including the Relay for Life, the Bertrand Chaffee Hospital Women’s Association, for which she serves as secretary, the Springville Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary, where she also performs secretarial duties and a craft club, which rotates throughout the members’ homes.

“I’m so busy now, I always wonder how I had time to work,” she said, with a laugh. “I’m definitely not going to be bored.”

Despite the full plate Bolt had waiting when she shuts her office door behind her for the last time, she still called the end bittersweet.

“I’ve been a part of everybody’s lives for so long. I’m signing marriage certificates for people whose birth certificates I signed,” said Bolt. “Even though I was elected, I’m not a politician. I’ve never thought of it that way. I’m a part of the community.”