“We are very much a traditional village,” she said. “The families along Melrose Road — some of them have been here for six generations.”

Although the parade as it’s known today has been going on since the 1940s, Smigel, who has studied the history of the town broadly and Melrose in particular, said she has reviewed diaries from the 1870s to the 1890s showing that the ceremonies could date back about 150 years, when the holiday was still known as Decoration Day.

In her journal, Laura Pease, an ancestor of some Melrose residents, “made reference to going down on Decoration Day, cleaning the graves, and putting flowers down.”

Melrose residents still engage in that practice today, along with singing patriotic songs and reading the entire list of soldiers buried in Melrose Cemetery beginning with those who died in the American Revolution.

A widow named Margaret Thompson founded Melrose in 1720 with her nine children after receiving a land grant from the king of England.

Fannie Thompson, one of Margaret Thompson’s daughters, was a prominent figure in town for her involvement with the schoolhouse, which Smigel called “the center of this little village.”

Fannie Thompson, whom Smigel characterized as an “old maid,” would go to the schoolhouse to hand out magazines and books. She helped set up the library and build the kitchen in the back.

While classes have not been held in the tiny, one-room building for many years, it is now used as a meeting room for local events and town boards.

Although the churches in other four villages of East Windsor have historically served as the centers, Melrose doesn’t have a church, and Smigel said the schoolhouse has functioned “a little secular church” where residents gather.

Another one of Margaret Thompson’s children, William H. Thompson, maintained the farmstead where Smigel now lives.

A farrmer, tax collector, and town selectman, Thompson was the center of controversy during the Civil War when he became a conscriptor for the Lincoln administration.

Although a group of vigilantes from East Windsor and Ellington targeted Thompson for getting community members to join the bloody war, Smigel said that, despite engaging in an “early form of terrorism” by burning down Thompson’s barns, they left his home untouched.

Thompson rebuilt the barns and lived in town until he died in his 90s. In his last years, he was cared for by neighbors.

“There was that sense of community that we all helped each other and we all did for each other,” Smigel said. “I really would like to see this property continue to give that as an example.”

To that end, Smigel worked to place the property on the National Register of Historic Places. According to its website, the National Reigster is “an official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation” that’s maintained by the federal government.

Smigel also has kept both the interior and exterior of the Victorian home as historically accurate as possible, and recently used it to entertain the Board of Selectmen and their spouses through a traditional luncheon to commemorate the town’s 250th anniversary.

Currently, Smigel, who grows cigar tobacco on the land, is giving private tours of the home by appointment, but she said she is taking steps to open it as a sort of public museum.

“I would like to use it as a way to educate people about history and old homes, and how important it is to take care of them,” she said, calling the home “a piece of Americana.”

Smigel said teaching residents about the history of the town, an opportunity which is particularly strong with the current nine-month stretch of events celebrating the town’s 250th anniversary, is an important effort, particularly in such a small, tight-knit community.

“I think this is something that modern life has lost, and that’s this sense of family and community, that we all belong to a particular place with particular people and we all support each other and know where we came from,” she said.

For a tour of the farmstead, call 860-623-0662.