The Loso / Arnholm Family
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The story

What we know about this family, told in their own words.

Verbatim excerpts from the source memoirs and interview notes, organized chronologically. Each citation points back to the page in the original.

  1. 1912 to 1922

    Charles Sr.'s first marriage, and the half-brother it gave Hope

    Before Charles Arthur Arnholm Sr. married Merena Fisher, he was married to Nellie Phileman Lascor of Proctor, Vermont. They married in 1912. Their son Charles Jr. was born in 1917. Nellie died in 1920 at age 27, leaving a two-year-old. She is buried at Saint Monica Cemetery in Barre, the Catholic cemetery, separately from her husband's later family plot in Hope Cemetery. Her parents were Stephen Lascor and Pamelia Delia (Preedom) Lascor of Proctor. Two years after Nellie's death, Charles Sr. married Merena Fisher. Hope, Merena Jr., Bernard, and Ronald are the children of that second marriage. Charles Jr. is therefore Hope's half-brother, and he was raised inside the second family alongside his four half-siblings.

    Anchored to Charles Arthur Arnholm Sr. · Place: Saint Monica Cemetery, Barre, Vermont, USASource: Find a Grave Memorial #216931354: Nellie Phileman Lascor Arnholm (1892-1920)

  2. 1944 to 2024

    Hillcrest Lot 43

    Hope Cemetery in Barre is internationally famous for granite carving. The markers there are art. Inside one lot, Hillcrest 43, three generations of Arnholms lie together with the Loso son-in-law who married into them: Charles Arthur Arnholm Sr. (d. 1944), his second wife Merena Fisher Arnholm (d. 1984), their daughter Merena M. Arnholm (d. 1999), Robert Fred Loso Sr. (d. 2012), and presumably Hope Arnholm Loso (d. 2024). Robert had his own family plot at Plainmont Cemetery in East Montpelier, where his parents and grandparents are buried. He chose Hope Cemetery to lie alongside his wife.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) Loso · Place: Hope Cemetery, Barre, Vermont, USASource: Find a Grave Memorial #87208885: Robert Fred Loso Sr. (1927-2012)

  3. 1950 to 2012

    The birthday wedding, September 9, 1950

    Robert Fred Loso, 23, and Hope A. Arnholm, 25, were married at First Presbyterian Church of Barre on September 9, 1950, Hope's twenty-fifth birthday. The marriage lasted 61 years and 6 months until Robert's death in 2012. Hope cared for Robert at home through the final seven of those years. They are buried in the same plot.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) Loso · Place: First Presbyterian Church of Barre, Barre, Vermont, USASource: Hope A. Loso obituary

  4. 1925 to 2024

    Ninety-eight years in central Vermont

    Hope A. Arnholm was born in Barre, Vermont on September 9, 1925. She died at Menig Nursing Home in Randolph VT on April 27, 2024. Ninety-eight years, central Vermont. Inside that single life: a 25th-birthday wedding at First Presbyterian Church of Barre, a 74-year membership at that same church (longest-serving member at her death), a 25-year bookkeeping career at the Granite City Creamery, and a 40-plus-year career at John R. Miles Supply Co. that she refused to fully retire from until her early eighties.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) Loso · Place: Barre, Barre, Vermont, USASource: Hope A. Loso obituary

  5. 1862 to 1925

    A Danish father and a French-Canadian mother

    Hope Arnholm Loso's two sides of family come from opposite directions. Her father, Charles Arthur Arnholm Sr., was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1891 and emigrated as a young man. The Arnholm surname is Danish, not Swedish as first guessed. Her mother, Merena Fisher, was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1903 to Joseph Fisher and Aurelia Trombly, whose maiden name is the anglicized form of the French-Canadian Tremblay. The cluster of Fisher-Trombly siblings around Burlington fits the late-nineteenth-century French-Canadian migration into the Champlain Valley. Hope's life sat between an Atlantic-crossing Danish immigration and a Lake Champlain-crossing French-Canadian one.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) LosoSource: Find a Grave Memorial #90349318: Merena Fisher Arnholm (1903-1984)

  6. 1940s to 2000s

    Granite-town work

    Across two generations the family worked every part of Barre's granite-town economy. Hope kept the books for the Granite City Creamery and then for John R. Miles Supply Co., the granite-industry equipment supplier. Her half-brother Charles Jr. ran the Barre-Montpelier Road auto body shop, and was Vermont Auto Enthusiasts president in 1961. Her husband Robert ran his own Loso's Body Shop in East Montpelier and then Blake & Loso used cars. Granite, dairy, auto body, used cars. One town's full economy, one extended family.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) Loso · Place: Barre, Barre, Vermont, USASource: Hope A. Loso obituary

  7. 1925 to 2024

    From Hope to Pearl Hope

    The line from Hope Arnholm Loso runs through her daughter Kathie Loso, who married Barry MacInnes and moved to West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Their daughter Kerrie MacInnes partnered with Jason Hindman. When their daughter was born, they named her Pearl Hope Hindman, carrying Hope's name into the fourth generation while Hope was still alive to know it.

    Anchored to Hope A. (Arnholm) LosoSource: Hope A. Loso obituary

  8. 1856 to 1927

    The Loso line across Lake Champlain

    Robert F. Loso's paternal line crosses Lake Champlain. His paternal great-grandparents Joseph R. Loso (1856-1927) and Adeline Beauval Loso (1857-1900) are the patriarch and matriarch on Find a Grave. Adeline's French-Canadian Beauval maiden name confirms the Loso surname as anglicized French-Canadian. His grandfather Silas Wilfred Loso was born in 1890 in Beekmantown, New York, the Clinton County township just north of Plattsburgh. His father Wilfred 'Pete' Loso was born in Plattsburgh in 1910 and moved with the family to central Vermont, where Robert was born in Plainfield in 1927. The Loso branch died young in this generation: Pete died at 45 in 1956 when Robert was 29. The family is buried at Plainmont Cemetery in East Montpelier, separately from Robert who chose Hope Cemetery to lie with his wife.

    Anchored to Robert Fred Loso Sr. · Place: Beekmantown, Beekmantown, New York, USASource: Find a Grave Memorial #6414919: Silas Wilfred Loso (1890-1958)

  9. 1945 to 2012

    Robert the auto-body man, the lefty champion

    Robert Loso's working life ran on cars. He started at Central Motors in Barre during World War II as an auto body repair expert, fresh out of Spaulding High School. He opened Loso's Body Shop in East Montpelier, then in 1960 went into the used car business with Dick Blake as Blake & Loso Inc. Off the lot he was a lefty golfer. He was the first left-handed champion at the Barre Country Club in 1965 and won it again in 1970 and 1977. He belonged to the Mount Sinai Shriners, the Granite Lodge Masons, and the Elks; he sat in the pews at First Presbyterian; he volunteered at the Central Vermont Medical Center across the river in Berlin.

    Anchored to Robert Fred Loso Sr. · Place: Barre Country Club, Barre area, Vermont, USASource: Robert F. Loso obituary

  10. 1939 to present

    The Arnholm typographer

    Hope's youngest brother, Ronald Fisher Arnholm, was born in Barre on January 4, 1939. He was five when their father Charles Sr. died in 1944. He left Vermont for Rhode Island School of Design (BFA), then Yale (MFA in graphic design). In the 1960s he joined the art faculty at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and never left. He is a working type designer with eponymous typefaces and a foundational American graphic design educator. He is the only Arnholm sibling named as surviving in Hope's 2024 obituary.

    Anchored to Ronald Fisher Arnholm · Place: Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USASource: Ron Arnholm faculty directory entry