 Flanders was born oldest of nine children in Barnet , a town in Caledonia County in northeastern Vermont , and spent much of his childhood in Rhode Island . In his autobiography , Senator from Vermont , Flanders described life on his family ’ s subsistence farms in Vermont and Rhode Island , before he left to work in the machine tool industry for most of his career . In his first years as a machinist and draftsman , he spent his vacations traveling by bicycle over country roads between Rhode Island and Vermont and New Hampshire . Later , he lived for a time in New York City where he edited a machine tool magazine , but after five years decided to move back to Vermont . In 1911 , he married Helen Edith Hartness , daughter of inventor and industrialist James Hartness . They made their home in Springfield , Vermont , where Flanders became president of the Jones & Lamson Machine Company . Flanders and his wife had three children : Elizabeth ( born 1912 ) , Anna ( also known as Nancy — born 1918 ) , and James ( born 1923 ) . 
