Quick Trip to Boston and Vermont
Stephanie and her family moved from California to Cambridge, MA,when we were 10, but they often came in the summers to see grandparents at their wonderful summer house in Brookdale in the Santa Cruz mountains. We have stayed in touch over the years.
Former and modified home of great grandparents in Dorset
Dorset congregational church and surrounding green hills
With a few exceptions, most of the homes are the traditional white clapboard with green shutters.
We visited Robert Frost's home in South Shaftsbury, just north of Bennington, Vermont, where he, his wife Elinor (high school sweethearts) and their children lived from 1920-29. He was born in San Francisco, spent his first 11 years there. He was particularly drawn to the apple orchards and wanted time to think clearly, to write poetry.
He had spent three years teaching at Amherst and lived in other New England places. By 1923 he had completed a new volume of poetry, New Hampshire, containing "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" (written on a bright summer day!), and "Fire and Ice"and other poems which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1924, the first of 4 books to do so. Along with "The Road not Taken," I loved Frost and used to have many of these poems memorized.
The Frosts added electricity, a bathroom, etc. to the home built in 1769, of massive local stones.
Children's illustrations of the entire poem were along the path
Two of the other poems inspired by the farmland with its flowers and crumbling walls, "Mending Walls, and "Nothing Gold can Stay"
Frost, then 86, became the first, invited by President John F. Kennedy, to read a poem "The Gift Outright"at an inauguration, in 1961. I was a senior in high school and remember both men with admiration. Frost died in 1963 and is buried with members of his family in the Old First Church (1805) in Bennington.
Each family had their own box. Many of my ancestors were Congregational and Presbyterian ministers in New England, so I can imagine them preaching in similar churches.
I was thrilled to visit the beautiful Manchester, Vermont summer home between 1905-1975 (rest of the year in their Chicago home which no longer exists) of Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, and only one to live to adulthood, Robert and his wife Mary and their children and descendants, called "Hildene." Robert graduated from Harvard in 1864, , assistant to General Grant in the last year of the Civil War. He was with Grant when General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and brought the news to his father in the White House on April 14, 1865, the day John Wilkes Booth shot the President. He became a lawyer, took care of his father's funeral, papers, and cared for his mother, whose mental health declined. He served as Secretary of War under Presidents Garfield and Arthur, and Minister to President Harrison to the Court of Saint James. Along with civic duties, he practiced law and served on the board of many corporations, including the Pullman Palace Car Company, founded in 1867, four years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and 2 years after the 13th Amendment legally abolished slavery in America. Pullman hired former house slaves from the South, and his company became the largest employer of African Americans . But his hiring practices were based on profit, not compassion, and his wage system was discriminatory. Pay was low and work conditions were arduous. After the death of founder George Pullman, Robert Lincoln became president. His legacy is complex. Could he have done more towards equality for the Black porters? Even today they are paid very little. It was interesting to visit the only remaining (beautifully restored wooden Pullman car, the "Sunbeam") and to see the tiny kitchen and room used by porters to serve the wealthy travelers.
The fabulous Clark Museum, opened in 1955, is one of the few institutions in the world with the dual mission as both an art museum and research center in the visual arts. Its 140 acre woodland campus has close ties to nearby Williams College in western Massachusetts. It's founder was Sterling Clark (1877-1956) whose grandfather had made his fortune as business partner with the owner of the Singer Sewing machine company. He inherited a great deal from family, both parents, settled in Paris and married his future French actress wife, Francine. The two began collecting the art which had to be hidden and carried to safety during two world wars, but which eventually found its home here. He appreciated impressionist art, particularly Auguste Renoir, even before it became so popular. The collection contains many Renoirs, but other wonderful treasures too.
It was a lovely place for me to walk!
