New England Review

Autumn in New England

Because of the lack of  WI-FI that we have had at some of our recent campgrounds, quite some time has passed since I last wrote. Meantime, we've continued our travels and are now in Rhode Island, with plans to journey on to Connecticut tomorrow. We've seen some things and places we really liked. Here's a sample.

• Daniel Webster birthplace--a small log cabin site with a great docent and tons of information about Webster.
• Calvin Coolidge homestead--This little park has the entire small village where the former president grew up, restored and full of information about him. While vice president and then president, he used to come home whenever possible and help his father during haying season
  
                                             Boyhood home of President Calvin Coolidge
•  Roger Williams Memorial: Americans owe a lot to the founder of Rhode Island and his radical (now perfectly accepted and constitutional) ideas regarding church, state, and freedom.
•  John Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum--We arrived at 9 am and were chased out at 5 pm--an amazing place, very interactive and full of information & attractions.
• Billings-Marsh-Rockefeller National Historic Park--3 families owned this glorious mansion and farm--all of them nature lovers and unexpectedly influential in the conservation and preservation movements of today. 
  
                   The Home Farm at the Billings-Marsh-Rockefeller National Historic Park
  
  
•  Visited Joseph Smith birthplace, more for the interest of our Latter Day Saints Friends than for our own. .While we don't share the same belief system, this was one of the best kept and best landscaped little parks we've visited.
  
• Plymouth Rock--the whole town of Plymouth, actually, especially the Pilgrim Museum and the rock itself (which has become rather small over the years but is still impressive).
  
                                Headquarters for the Mayflower Descendants in Plymouth
• Cape Cod--we genuinely fell in love with it, especially the Cape Cod National Seashore, set aside at the urging of President Kennedy, who loved the area, too.
•  A visit with Hollie and Aaron Schaub, former parishioners at the Lutheran Church of Guam--We have had such a nice time exchanging dinners and visits with them and their now four children.
•  Yesterday, we went to Salem, MA, which was probably not the right timing, as the whole town is full of seances, psychics, Satanic practitioners, and macabre decorations during the run up to Halloween, not exactly our favorite things. Hope folks realize what they're fooling around with there!
• We've enjoyed our weekly worship experiences. One Sunday it was a Calvary Bible church, others were Assembly of God, LCMS, Queechee Community Church with a Reformed heritage and others. We miss our own former congregation at Peace in Holbrook, but have found most of the churches we've attended very friendly and welcoming. 

We'll be hoping for better internet service at the next few parks. We look forward to visiting Cristel, Ben, and Barnabas Boedecker for the first few days of November--so good to see people we love.

Serendipity and Norman Rockwell

One of the things you find out when you are traveling is that some of the best sights are found where you don't expect them. Yesterday turned out to be a good example. The morning  dawned rainy with another 100% likelihood of precipitation all day. We looked for something to visit that would not require us to be outside and I spotted an advertisement for a little gift shop in Arlington, Vermont that claimed to have a display of Norman Rockwell illustrations and information about his models. The ad mentioned quite honestly that the illustrations were reproductions rather than originals, but it also pointed out that the models for many of his illustrations had lived in Arlington and we could read their comments about having Rockwell for a neighbor and being painted by him.

It turned out to be one of the most interesting stops on our trip so far. We thought we were fairly familiar with his work, but there were dozens of illustrations we'd never seen before, all of them displaying his extraordinary talent and humor. His neighbors, who had been interviewed for the little gallery, shared wonderful insights and their photos hung side by side with the illustrations or paintings in which they appeared. Jeff and I both loved it. They also had a good movie playing that  showed Rockwell's own family history, too. I am aware that Rockwell is considered by some to be simply a commercial painter rather than an artist, and it's true, he created Saturday Evening Post covers, advertisements, posters for the Federal government Bond Sales, etc. I suppose a "real" artist (like the ones in museums) would scorn such work. But Rockwell's paintings are accessible, funny, touching, inspirational and highly interesting. We had a great time.

Jeff is looking at a series of pictures Rockwell painted that featured the Boy Scouts of America.

The Shakers of Canterbury

The Shakers

Some of you may be familiar with the Shakers, a religious group of the 19th and very early 20th century in the US. They built probably the most successful communal colonies in the history of our country. They're remembered for their ecstatic worship, their simple, beautiful architecture, and their hard work. In dress, they looked somewhat like the Old Order Mennonite or Amish communities with which we are more familiar today, but the similarities actually end there, as their beliefs were quite different. We spent the day on the grounds of the Shaker Community at Canterbury, New Hampshire. At this time, only two Shaker sisters are still alive and they live in Maine at the Sabbathday Lake site.

This is the dwelling house, where the colonists lived a celibate and gender-separated life. It was a large and attractive building. The yellow house below, called the Ministry House, was home to  the two elders and two eldresses who supervised the community.

Inside, the buildings were models of simplicity and order.

The Shakers did charitable work in their own communities, especially in the area of care for orphans or other abandoned or impoverished children. When the children reached adulthood, about 20% remained to practice the Shaker lifestyle, but the majority did not. When the 20th century's new adoption laws prohibited the type of adoption that the Shakers practiced, the colonies realized their time was coming to an end, particularly because of their celibate tradition. We watched an interesting movie in which the last living Shaker-raised woman talked about the loving and free life she enjoyed growing up. Despite being an extremely happy child, she did not remain in the colony. By that time, most of the remaining Shakers were elderly and they urged her not to stay, saying that she would wind up nursing them in their twilight years instead of finding a life for herself. She reluctantly agreed, but was always grateful for their love and care. She returned often to visit them.