The Cavendish Historical Society (CHS) Museum is open on
Sundays from 2-4 pm until Columbus weekend. The Museum can be open at other
times by request. Contact information is above.
• Sept. 12: Visit
the CHS booth at the VT Golden Honey Festival, where we will be teaching a
beeswax candle making workshop. The Festival takes place at the Golden Stage
Inn, intersection of Depot and route 103 in Proctorsville, from 10-4.
Pick Blueberries to Benefit CHS
We are fortunate that CHS
board member Bruce McEnaney, better known on Facebook as Bruce’s Berries, has
the best blueberries in Vermont (100% organic) and they’re ripe for the
picking.
As Bruce notes, The picking procedure is the same as last year...scale on the porch...honor
system...blah, blah, blah. Half of the proceeds will go to the Cavendish
Historical Society to supplement the funds that the good citizens of Cavendish
voted to give the Society. The money will go into a fund to repair and paint
the former Cavendish Baptist Church that is now the museum. Pick delicious,
healthy, never any sprays (except water) blueberries and help refurbish one of
the towns beautiful buildings. And remember Bruce's Berries are the freshest
and tastiest because YOU PICK THEM YOURSELVES!!!
Plant
Sale Then and Now
In the early days of his sale, Craig had to transplant thousands of plants,
as it wasn’t uncommon for him to make $3,000 at a sale where most plants were
$1. This was one of his price lists as photographed by his daughter Nancy
McMillan.
With
Craig's passing in 2008, his legacy of the plant sale continues.
Many thanks to all those who made this year’s sale a great success-Pieter van Schaik and his team (Norma Randall and Brian Pelkey); Steine van Schaik; Kem and Svetlana Phillips; Bruce McEnaney; Lou Choinere; Jen Leak; Gloria Leven; the Tings and Moonlite Meadows Farm (best compost ever); Anna Shapiro; Bob Naess; Cooper Naess; and Margo Caulfield.
Even though it’s August, we’ve already started plants for the 2016 sale.
Summer Visitors
With many people on vacation, the Museum has had a number of
visitors from all over the world, the farthest being from Siberia, Russia.
In June, we heard from the Johnson family who lives in
California, but were originally from Illinois. Going through a family
photograph album, they found a number of pictures from Cavendish circa 1925.
They e-mailed CHS asking, “did we know the Kingsbury family?”
They also sent a number of photographs wondering if we knew where they were
taken.
It turned out that
Emma Johnson Kingsbury, came to Vermont as part of a Christian group from
Chicago to hold revival meetings. She married Bradley Kingsbury in 1908 and
lived with him on East Road-the white farmhouse that was moved. In 1925 various
members of her Chicago family came for a visit and the photographs included
familiar landscapes, as well as a visit to the Coolidge store, all the more
interesting because Calvin was president at the time.
Many of the photographs supplied by the Johnson family have
been posted to the Cavendish VT Facebook page. They
also brought more photographs with them when they visited Olive Kingsbury.
In true welcoming fashion, the first thing Olive said to the
Johnsons was, “how nice of Emma’s family to come all this way to visit her.”
Olive was able to provide names of various people in the
photographs and talked about how much she loved her Aunt Emma, “who was a
wonderful person.” Since Emma died in the 1950s, Olive provided an escort to
the Cavendish Cemetery so they could pay their respects.
The Original Door to the Museum
The initial assessment is that the doors can be restored.
However, it’s like many preservation projects, you start thinking it’s just a
matter of making a few changes and then discover much more is involved. Since
the goal is to have new doors hung before the “snow flies,” (by Thanksgiving),
we have a set of back up doors in case we can’t reuse the original ones.
Solzhenitsyn Project
CHS was pleased to receive a grant from Jeld-Wen Foundation
to help with the preservation of the Cavendish Stone Church, which will be the
permanent home of the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exhibit. These funds will be used
to help restore the belfry and cupola area. Unlike other projects, where a good
carpenter can do the work, we need to hire a steeplejack and so requests for
proposal are underway.
In the spring, we were fortunate to receive the donation of
a book collection that included biographies and essays about Solzhenitsyn, as
well as a number of copies of his books that have been translated into English.
You can stop by the Museum, pull up a chair and enjoy reading some of his prose
poems, plays as well as biographies.
The CHS children’s book, “The Writer Who Changed History:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” is due to be published this fall. All proceeds from
the sale of the book will go to the CHS Solzhenitsyn project. Written for
students in grades 4-7, the biography includes many photographs and excerpts
from his writing.
A website is now on-line and includes a study
guide for teachers and others to use. Also available on-line are a Pinterestsite and a Facebook page. It is through the latter social medium that
students can discussion their impressions of the book and
related topics with other students from around the world. This will be a
monitored site.
Cavendish Historical Society
Board: Dan Churchill,
Jen Harper, Bruce McEnaney, Kem Phillips, Gail Woods. Coordinator: Margo
Caulfield
Cleaning Gravestones: Orange Lichen
Algae, lichen, fungi -- that may be green,
black, gray, yellow, red, orange, brown, or blue -- can be hazardous to
gravestones because they trap moisture on and under the surface of the stone.
They also secrete acids that can dissolve limestone, marble, sandstone,
concrete, and mortar and can insert their "roots" into the pores of
the stone. These growths will swell and shrink in response to moisture, leading
to cracking and “spalling” of the stone.
Limestone and marble headstones become weathered because the elements
slowly dissolve them. This is a natural process as the calcium carbonate they
are made of is slightly soluble in water. “Acid rain” speeds weathering,
resulting in stones being permanently damaged, as it leaves a rough, pitted
surface, making writing and art harder to distinguish.
The openness of the Cavendish Cemetery, combined with the position, type
and age of the stone all contribute to a number of headstones that are heavily
damaged. Unfortunately, once the marble is "spalling,” the recommendation
is to replace the stone as it's almost impossible to repair.
We’ve tried various techniques, all recommendations of the National Park
Service’s guidelines for cleaning monuments, and it doesn’t seem to make a
difference. Once the orange lichen is on it, the stone beneath turns a reddish
color, some of it being worse than others.
While many of the graves we clean have no descendants that can maintain the
stones, many “modern” headstones are not cared for. Please know that if you pay
for “perpetual care” that only refers to the grounds and not to the individual
stone. So the next time you leave flowers on a loved one’s grave, make sure you
check the condition of the marker. If you need assistance in cleaning a
gravestone in one of the town’s cemeteries, please contact CHS.
BECOME A MEMBER, RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP, DONATE If you have not joined the Cavendish Historical Society, need to renew your membership, and/or would like to be a volunteer, please complete the form below and sending a check, payable to CHS, to CHS, PO Box 472, Cavendish, VT 05142. All contributions are tax deductible.
Name: _______________________________________
Address: _______________________________________________
Phone Number: _____________________ E-Mail:
____________________________
Membership
Level
__
Individual Member $10 ___ Senior
Member 65+ $5 ___ Sustaining Member $500
__
Household Member $15 ___ Contributing
Member $250
Volunteer
___
I would be interested in serving, as a volunteer .I would be interested in
serving on the following committee(s):__ Program Planning __ Fundraising __ Building (Museum)
__Archives _ Budget –– Cemetery __ Hands on History
Donations are always welcome and can be
designated as follows:
__ For
general purposes __ Educational Programs __Publications
__
Archeological Activities _
Museum & Archival __
Special Events
__
Rankin Fund __
Williams Fund __ Hands on History
__
Other (please specify) __ Cemetery Restoration
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