WILTON — Lyn Jellison has enjoyed the townspeople she has served and the friendships she has gained over the years she has been town clerk.

She knew when she walked out the door as an employee for the last time Thursday, she would have no regrets.

Jellison, 66, of Wilton, has served as town clerk for 19 years this time around. She retired Thursday.

She initially held the appointed position from 1983 to 1987 serving under Town Manager Paul Soucie. She then left Maine to go with her husband, Bruce, when his job was transferred to Memphis, Tenn.

She returned home for Christmas in 1991 and she learned the town clerk at the time was leaving the position. She ended up back in her old position as of January 1992 and has been part of the town government team ever since.

She served under former town managers Dick Davis and Peter Nielsen and current Town Manager Rhonda Irish.

Jellison grew up in Farmington and married her husband, a “Wiltonite,” in January 1964. With two sons and two grandchildren, she looks forward to spending more time with her family.

She got her start in the position after United Timber had a fire and she lost her job. Hammond Lumber bought the company out.

Jellison said she never had a chance to collect her first unemployment check because she was offered a job at the town office.

At the time they were looking for a part-time clerk for the Wilton Water Co. She thought the position could work and accepted it. But in the meantime, then town clerk Eileen McLaughlin decide she wanted part-time work and Jellison ended up in the full-time town clerk position.

“I just enjoy the people,” Jellison said of her tenure. “I’m going to miss the people. You see everybody. You hear everything that goes on in town. I’ve always had a good relationship with office staff.”

She and her husband plan to do some traveling during retirement. He husband is the state’s first district governor of the Lion’s District 41. He travels around the state visiting different Lion’s clubs and she plans to go with him, she said.

She also has a perennial garden and a large vegetable garden that she will now have a chance to tend to more often.

One of her big winter hobbies is hooking rugs. She has been working on a punched Persian, wool rug for a while and plans to finish it.

Over the years, there have been big changes in the town clerk’s duties.

The biggest changes have come in the last four or five years because of elections and the electronic age.

She remembers in 1992 that it was a presidential election year when she, Assistant Town Manager Barbie Hall and the ballot clerks spent the Tuesday night counting ballots from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. the next day.

The next year, they had an electronic voting machine that made counting ballots a lot easier, she said.

“I was elated we got a voting machine,” she said.

The town office was reworked during her time to make it easier and safer to wait on customers. That was one of the big changes.

One of her favorite parts of being a town clerk is the genealogy. She often is asked to look up family history and she enjoyed doing it and telling the younger generations about their families, she said.

Her least favorite part of the job was sitting up front during town meeting. She enjoyed the town meeting, she said, she just didn’t like being front and center.

However in the last few years, she hasn’t had to do so because she needed to check in registered voters.

dperry@sunjournal.com