Cavendish Christmas Memories: Carmine Guica WWII

Carmine autographing copies of his book.

The following is from "The Story of My Life" by Carmine Guica, who died in 2016 at the age of 95.  This excerpt describes his holiday after the war ended and he was on his way back to Cavendish.

I left Okinawa on the 1^st of December of ’45 and it took just 12 days when we landed at Fort Ord in California. On all the ships that I ever was on I would always volunteer to work in the galley (kitchen). It made time go by faster and I was always treated good by the Navy personal.

We stayed in Fort Ord either 10 or 12 days and we sure did have a great time and then a day or two before Christmas we boarded a troop train that took us to our nearest place to home. I did go to Fort Devens, Mass as that is where I started from.

The trip on the Troop Train was so much different to when we went over. We were on first rate Pullman Cars and we had the best of service including food and we have regular bunks in sleep on and the Porter would make our bunks in the mornings and we lived in style. On Christmas Day we were not forgotten, as I said in some of my other writings. It was the best Christmas I ever had. I got at least 8 or 10 presents from the high schools and colleges and different organizations. They were all useful gifts. In fact, I still have a small hand case that is real leather, nothing like that junk you get now-a-days from China or Japan. And then of coarse with the thought of going home after nearly four years was something to make us happy. The thing when we stopped through  a town we didn’t see the crowds as when we were headed to war. It was cold and we didn’t open the windows to talk.

Carmine on the farm in Cavendish 

 

After three or four days we pulled into Fort Devens, my starting point, and we were greeting by German Prisoners of War. They carried the duffel bag and every thing that had to be carried. They sure were helpful to us and always good natured. In Fort evens we were briefed more on the changes of civilian life and what to expect. The meals were fit for a king.

It was New Year’s Day of ’46 when I started for home a free man and as I was getting all my stuff together once more the German prisoners came and helped me pack my stuff for home and they even carried the duffel bag and everything I had to carry with me to the train. The German prisoners of war seemed even happier than we were that the war was over. After a train ride of 4 or 5 hours I finally hit Cavendish Depot.

Cavendish Christmas Memories: Tiemann

Windy Hill

Philip Tiemann was born in New Jersey in 1900. He moved to Brook Road in Cavendish, VT from Chatham, New Jersey with his wife Isabel (Carr), and three children Wyeth, Ann and Joyce in 1933. Naming the property Windy Hill Farm, Tiemann wrote of the family’s early years in Cavendish in “Memoirs of Coming into Vermont (Cavendish) in the Depression.” The memoir was written in 1966, after his wife had died (1958) and just a few years before his own death in 1969.

In 2015, CHS serialized the Memoirs over a 30 week period, which can be read on line starting with the Prelude. Below is an excerpt pertaining to how they celebrated Christmas.

1930s Christmas card

Having the big room ready in time for Christmas was a "must." We always have made that day a very special one. While in 1933 there was little to spend, we tried to get a few of the things the children wanted most, and interesting packages were arriving from our families. Everyone was excited at the prospect of cutting our own tree, and a couple of Sun­days ahead of time we spent most of the day in the woods. By good for­tune we came across a small group of balsam firs, which are superior for the purpose, so got a nice tree and greens as well, and then more greens and small trees to send away. Red pine is our second favorite, used as sprays or made up into wreathes. All such things had to be Government-inspected before they could be sent out of the state, but on request the inspectors used to come around (before it got to be big business, and a very nice chap looked over our things and issued tags to be attached. Then it was quite a job bundling them up. But they made nice and rather unusual presents for the people "at home."

The tree that year (and a good many years since) was set in the embrasure at the southeast corner of the kitchen. I put it up the afternoon before Christmas-a chore which sometimes tried my temper considerably. It had to be uniform and nicely balanced in the stand: a mechanical contrivance, which after being wound up, caused the tree to revolve slowly while a music-box played alternately "Holy Night" and "Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing." Mother had found it about 1907 at Schwartze's in New York, and every generation has enjoyed "the dancing tree."

Our celebration began on Christmas Eve, altho it was impractical to-attend church (which in future years we did when we could.) The children eagerly hung their stockings (large ones, provided for the purpose!) by the living-room fireplace; then there was singing of carols and reading of "The Night Before Christmas." After they had reluctantly gone to bed, Isabel and. I filled the stockings and trimmed the tree. We also set out a Crèche, with candles. Altho it was late when we retired, we felt assured that we would not be allowed to oversleep!

And of course the children were down early next morning, investigating their stockings while I did chores end Isabel got-breakfast. This was a "party" meal, with. pancakes and sausages to supplement the usual fruit, cereal and milk, and bread and butter. Housework and necessary chores came next. Then Isabel said "Well, are we ready?" and the kids stampeded in' to see the tree,- not but that they had doubtless peeked earlier! Wyeth throu the switch to start the stand turning and playing and then the three handed around the gifts piled under the tree while Isabel and. I relaxed. Soon the floor was strewn with remnants of gay wrappings, as we all opened and displayed our things with happy ex­clamations. The only thing, which could. have made it more enjoyable would have been the presence of other members of the family.

The day we marked by drifting snow,- "five feet deep at the barn doors,”  and a contribution of eight eggs from the new hens. Also, despite the weather, company came for a very pleasant supper. After this very successful day, all hands were glad enough to turn in, and found it especially comforting to stretch out between cotton blankets with which we had replaced the linen sheets; they were much warmer.

Ignat Solzhenitsyn Interview on NPR

Ignat Solzhenitsyn Returns To Vermont To Honor Piano Teacher Who Launched His Career

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  Ignat Solzhenitsyn, seen here as a child with his piano teacher Chongyo Shin, will return to Vermont to perform in honor of Shin in Brattleboro on Saturday, Dec. 9.

  Chongyo Shin, Courtesy

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This weekend, a one-time Vermonter returns to the state to perform in honor of the woman who helped launch his career as a pianist and conductor.
Ignat Solzhenitsyn now teaches and conducts with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He's also the principal guest conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, and conducts and performs all around North America and Europe.
And his last name might sound familiar — he's the son of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author who was pushed out of the Soviet Union for his writing, which was seen as critical of the Soviet government.
The elder Solzhenitsyn became an international figure after he left the Soviet Union. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, but didn't claim it until after he was exiled in 1974. Soon after, seeking a respite from the crush of attention, he ended up settling with his young family in Cavendish, Vermont. That's where his son Ignat discovered music.
Excerpts from VPR's conversation with Ignat Solzhenitsyn below. Listen to the conversation above.
A teacher's influence
As a child in Cavendish, Ignat Solzhenitsyn studied piano with Chongyo Shin of the Brattleboro Music Center. On Saturday, he returns to perform a recital in Brattleboro in honor of Shin. Solzhenitsyn says Shin provided him with a springboard for his musical career.
"I think the biggest thing was attention to detail," Solzhenitsyn says of what he learned from Shin, "reading the text with attention and understanding that anything the composer writes is there for a reason."
That has influenced how Solzhenitsyn approaches music. He says that he chooses to examine the historical context of a piece when he plays it, something he adds is hotly debated in the classical music world.
"If a composer is writing in exile or if he's writing on his deathbed, how can that not matter? And how can it not affect his state of mind?" Solzhenitsyn says. "On the other hand, the reason we want to be careful not to overstate that is simply that if it's art, in this case music, worth playing five years later and certainly 200 years later, it must be because it's more universal than simply reflecting a given circumstance, no matter how serious."
His relationship with Russia
Solzhenitsyn now regularly travels back and forth between the United States and Russia, something he says was utterly impossible when he was a child.
"I'm still pinching myself after all these years in that I'm able to go back and forth freely. This was an utter impossibility during my childhood because of the general circumstances of the Cold War and the specific circumstances of my family," Solzhenitsyn says. "And so for me, it's still just a great joy to be able to have that part of my heritage and of my life restored to me, no matter what the political environment is."
Of course, the political environment between the U.S. and Russia is tense right now. When asked what he thinks of the way Russia is currently discussed in the United States, Solzhenitsyn says he's not impressed with what he sees in the press.
"I actually find that regular folks, just people I talk to — whether it's after concerts, whether it's, you know, on the subway or whatever, something comes up — I find people have a much kind of a more realistic and a more normal sense of what's going on than I find really in the kind of most sophisticated press of the U.S.," Solzhenitsyn says.
In his view, both the U.S. and Russia are pursuing their own interests, and those interests will not always line up, which, he says, is to be expected.
"In a broad picture, it's normal, but it's kind of a bumpy ride right now, and certainly I very much hope that this will improve as this next foreseeable period of time unfold[s]," he says.
Music and politics
Though his writer father was swept into the world of international politics, Ignat Solzhenitsyn says his work as a musician is not overtly political. But he does try to live his life in a way he says his father would approve of, by living "not by lies."
"Even if we can't be heroic, or life doesn't call upon us to be heroic, at least do not participate in lies,"  Solzhenitsyn continues. "At least do not let your actions help that side, wherever one sees it. And so I certainly try to make sure that there is no concert I perform or program that I develop or agree to or participate in that somehow might lead to supporting the wrong, the wrong side, as I see it."
Disclosure: VPR is a media sponsor of Ignat Solzhenitsyn's performance at the Brattleboro Music Center on Saturday, Dec. 9.

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