Summer Art Enrichment 2018

Summer Art Enrichment Program 2018

The Kent Historical Society will offer five weeks of Art Enrichment Programs for children this summer. There will be opportunities for young artists from ages 5 to 12 to explore their artistic talents. This year will feature new classes in a variety of mediums and new instructor

The Historical Society wants to foster arts education for young people in our area to honor the memory of George Laurence Nelson, a pre-eminent 20th Century artist known for his portraits, landscapes and florals, who lived at Seven Hearths for many years and bequeathed his 18th century home to the Kent Historical Society to operate as a museum.

Some comments from parents: “The instructor was great and the projects were so creative.” “She enjoyed the group creation of comics. The creative interaction was fun for her.” “She enjoyed the chance to immerse herself in painting.”

KHS believes that arts education and other forms of cultural enrichment are essential to a young person’s whole and healthy development. The Society offers Summer Arts Enrichment to encourage children’s innate creativity and boost creative thinking and problem solving, while expanding their experience and appreciation of the arts.

Classes take place in the Kent Historical Society’s “Art Barn,” an indoor/outdoor space on the campus of the Historical Society’s Seven Hearths property, facing gardens and a woodland that will be used as extended classroom space. At the culmination of each class there will be an exhibition to allow parents and family to see all of the creations completed through the week.

Registration is not complete until payment is received, either by check or online. Space is limited in each class. Fees are $110 for non-members and $100 for members per session. Join as a Family member for $50. There is no discount for partial week attendance.

Final registration deadline is June 12. Checks to Kent Historical Society may be mailed to KHS, Art Enrichment Program, PO Box 651, Kent, CT 06757.

Cancellation Policy

Refunds for Summer Art Enrichment will only be made up until 30 days before the child’s class begins, if we are able to fill the space with another applicant, less a $30 deposit/administrative fee. Membership fees are not refundable.

Week 1 Sessions Cancelled (due to low enrollment)

Week 2 Sessions Cancelled (due to low enrollment)

 

Week 3 What the Art? for ages 5-7, mornings 9 am to noon, July 16-20

Children will explore interesting ways to create something new, like torn paper, collage, shapes and colors, everyday items, photos, and other alternative mediums. We’ll use picture books as inspiration from celebrated illustrators such as Eric Carle and Leo Lionni. Then, expand to other methods, and create artwork based on our own stories. Combining different styles will allow students to create a look of their own. This class is led by Wendy Clery, who has a love of exploring her own creativity and is the owner of Illuminate Life CT, which offers creative-based coaching through classes and workshops. She previously taught art to local veterans at the Danbury Veteran’s Center.

Week 3 Homes of the Wee Folk for ages 8-12, afternoons 1-4 pm, July 16-20

Learning aspects of architecture and sculpture, students will imagine a tiny woodland creature and build a home based on its needs and likes. We will plan out the structure by sketching ideas, then use clay, sticks, stone, plants, and/or found objects to make it come to life. Students will include accessories and plants to create a piece of their creature’s world. If weather permits, we will use the garden for a fun photo shoot. Students will use their sketchbooks all week long to imagine what the structure could be and transform their ideas into reality. This class is also led by Wendy Clery. She is modeling this session on a workshop that she’s offered to children in the New Milford area.

Week 4 Transforming Paper Into Art for ages 5-8, mornings 9 am to noon, July 23-27

Joy Gaiser is a retired music and special education teacher and was honored to be chosen the Teacher of the Year in New Milford for the 2010-11 school year.  She also was the president of the New Milford Historical Society for 7 years and ran the summer colonial crafts program at their one-room schoolhouse with a fellow teacher.  She will teach the children to make paper from recycled paper, learn about color utilizing a variety of mediums such as crayons, markers, and watercolors and techniques such as mosaic resist. They will also do some creative paper folding activities and have a chance to embroider one of their own drawings or sew a catnip mouse if they prefer.  Each child will be given a sketchbook to explore their own creative ideas.

Week 4 The Art of Paper: Creating, Using, Folding for ages 8-12, afternoons 1-4 pm, July 23-27

Joy Gaiser will also lead these students in paper making from recycled paper, petals, glitter, grass, etc. She will show the children how to turn this paper into greeting cards and thank you notes.  Calligraphy will be introduced, and each child will receive a calligraphy pen. The class will make an agamograph with premade pictures or pictures that they created themselves which will require careful measuring, folding, and cutting. They will learn to draw some 3-D shapes and designs which will include a review of the color wheel and how to use it.  A variety of mediums will be used throughout the week and ways to use each.  Each child will design a simple stencil to use on a papier mache item they decorate, and each will be given a sketchbook to make notes and for their own ideas and sketches.

Week 5 Session Cancelled (due to low enrollment)

Online Registration Here

Colonial religion explored through Sunday Series

Colonial religion explored through Sunday Series

A glimpse into the religious life of colonists in Connecticut prior to the Revolutionary War was provided by Thomas Key of Salisbury during the Sept. 17 Sunday Series. He shared how the First Great Awakening shook up the religious foundation in the 1730s and disrupted the life of those living in Connecticut and other New England states. Traveling “itinerant” preachers stirred up local residents and caused younger generations to question long-held beliefs.

Key is an instructor for the Taconic Learning Center and vice president of the Salisbury Association. He is also a speaker at the Scoville Library and has given over 75 lectures on a number of historical topics.

He led participants through a timeline of history of “British North America,” which is how he referred to the Colonies. Key highlighted the wars that were fought in the 1600s and 1700s and said that this constant state of unrest impacted the colonists.

“Death was right at their door all the time,” Key said.

The Great Awakening began in 1734 and continued until 1745. It was about religion, but it was also about a changing society.

They were operating a “young capitalistic society” and men and women were marrying later, with young men staying at home much longer than before. The lived under a strict moral code in a what Key called a “pressurized society.” There were three generations since the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 and it was getting harder and harder for younger people to accept the strict rules being imposed by religious leaders.

Jonathan Edwards, who was living and working in North Hampton, Mass., stimulated his congregation and started challenging people to think in different ways. A young man died suddenly in town and it got people thinking about life and death.

“Jonathan Edwards was a really devout person,” Key said. “He was a good preacher.”

His sermons got people so worked up that they became hysterical, Key said. Eventually, he was asked to leave the church and took a position in Stockbridge, Mass. He ultimately ended up as the president of Princeton.

 

Foods of our Founders


Sunday Series will focus on “Foods of our Founders”

In what promises to be a lively afternoon, self-proclaimed foodie Lola Chen will examine colonial cooking from the ground to the kitchen in mid-18th century Kent. She’ll examine what food was available in Kent in the founders’ era, what foods might have been borrowed from the Native Americans, and how everything would have been prepared. Salted cod, anyone?

“Foods of Our Founders” will be presented by the Kent Historical Society as part of its Sunday Series lectures in the Kent Town Hall Sunday, May 21 at 2:00 p.m.

Chen brings a global perspective to the subject. Educated in the UK and Hong Kong, Chen has traveled the globe and examined foodways and their history wherever she’s gone. She’s a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, and also the Museum Educator at the Wilton Historical Society. She brings an unusual blend of food and cooking excellence, along with a deep historical awareness of how cooking evolved over the years.

The lecture, as well as future Sunday Series events in 2017, helps give context to the Kent Historical Society’s upcoming exhibit in the summer of 2017, “The Founders of Kent,” on the emergence of one New England town in the 18th century. The 2017 Sunday Series events are sponsored by the Kent Barns and the Kent Lions Club.

The Kent Historical Society sponsors the Sunday Series every other month September through May. Free admission for members; $5 suggested donation for non-members.

For more information please call 860.927.4587

Who Saved Otto Klug? Investigating a 75-year-old mystery

Who Saved Otto Klug?
Investigating a 75-year-old mystery

By Peter M. Heimlich, copyright@2017

So-called “alternative facts” are nothing new. Here’s an intriguing example tied to a dramatic, high-profile event that happened about 75 years ago in Litchfield County.

It starts with an August 29, 1941 front page New York Times article, Children Escape in Train Wreck; 2 of Crew Killed, about a massive train wreck in Kent. Six cars carrying hundreds of campers derailed into Hatch Pond. Two trainmen were killed and a third had a leg amputated.

The article concluded with information provided by “Henry Heimlich, 21, of 30 West Ninetieth Street, a sailing counselor at Camp Mah-kee-nac and a pre-medical student at Cornell University, who was… the ‘hero’ of the accident.”

“I was riding in the next-to-the-last coach.” Heimlich related, “when suddenly there was a lurch…I ran forward and jumped out. I saw that the engine and the first car were almost submerged and that the fireman’s leg was caught under the steps of the second car which had overturned. He was lying in about four feet of water.

“He was floundering around, hysterical, and I ran toward him and held his head above the water…”

“He was all black and he was crying that he was afraid he’d lose his leg. Another counselor, Jack Handelsman, who is also a pre-medical student jumped into a boat nearby and rowed out to help me. Then a lot of people came and while I held the fireman up they started digging underneath with their hands, and later with shovels, to free his leg.”

A few months later, the Times published a follow-up item with a photo of the handsome 21-year-old pre-med student receiving an award for bravely saving the life of the train fireman.

The sailing counselor and apparent hero was my father, Henry J. Heimlich MD, who died a couple of months ago. If the name rings a bell, it’s probably because of a choking rescue treatment he first called “the Heimlich method” in the June 1974 medical journal Emergency Medicine. Only two years later, what had been re-named “the Heimlich maneuver” was incorporated into national first aid guidelines. Since then my family name became a household word and my father’s namesake treatment has been credited with saving the lives of thousands of choking victims.

Fast forward to Spring 2002 when my wife Karen and I began researching my father’s career. To our astonishment, we uncovered an unseen history of fraud throughout my father’s career. Most shocking, he’d used nonexistent or fraudulent data in order to promote a string of crackpot medical claims that resulted in serious injuries and deaths.

In order to prevent more harm, we decided to bring the information public attention via the press. Since 2003, our work has been the basis for a couple hundred mainstream media reports that exposed what one medical journal called my father’s “overreach and quackery.”

hjh-press-photo-med
Dr. Henry Heimlich, from Peter Heimlich’s files: A fabulator’s career started in South Kent.

My dad was no slouch when it came to singing his own praises to anyone in earshot and I was no exception.  Most of our time together consisted of him telling me about his achievements and awards, especially after he became famous.

And that was my first problem with the train wreck story – over the decades he never mentioned it to me. I only learned about in the early months of our research when Karen and I happened upon the 1941 New York Times articles.

My interest was piqued, so about 14 years ago, I decided to take a closer look.

Via public libraries in Connecticut, I obtained copies of every article I could find about the headline-making disaster. I also contacted Marge Smith at the Kent Historical Society who sent me some paperwork from their files and put me in touch with Emily Krizan, whose husband, Joseph Krizan Jr., reportedly participated in rescue efforts at the train wreck including helping the trapped fireman, whose name was Otto Klug.

Interestingly, none of the articles and none of the people with whom I communicated said anything about any camp counselor (or my father by name) being involved in the rescue.

Instead, they near-unanimously identified a local resident named Jack Bartovic as the person responsible for holding Klug’s head above water for hours. Local residents Charles Durcher Edwards and Philip Camp were also identified as participants in the rescue.

The most compelling telling was a lengthy August 29, 1941 Waterbury Republican article consisting of detailed interviews with Bartovic and Emily’s husband:

“Joseph Krizan, Jr., had seen the locomotive and cars topple off the track into Hatch Pond at South Kent yesterday as he was mowing the grass in front of his mother’s house, just off the South Kent Road.

He and a friend, Jack Bartovic, ran toward the accident as fast as they could…Krizan was the first person to reach the scene. Bartovic didn’t get into the car, because he saw a man half in and half out of the water, a short distance away at the other end of the car. It was the fireman, Otto Klug, of Seymour.

Bartovic waded in and held Klug’s head above water, for his leg was caught. Later they found it had been almost severed and a doctor wanted to cut it off and get Klug out of there, but Klug said, ‘My leg isn’t bad. I won’t let you cut if off. I’ll wait until the crane gets here and they lift the car off me.’

So Bartovic stayed with him for more than two hours, and the crane lifted the car and then Klug saw that his leg was hanging only by flesh.

Krizan and Bartovic told their stories as they watched the wrecking crew working on the derailed trains in the late afternoon sunlight that slated off the green quiet hills.”

In a March 25, 2003 e-mail, Marge Smith wrote me:

Emily Krizan stopped by here today with some thoughts for me to pass along to you…She got into a discussion with Marge Richards, who is sure HER husband was THE one to hold up Klug’s head. But we feel positive that several people had that task, as the poor man was in the water for many hours. Emily and her husband had a dear friend named Jack Bartovic (no longer alive), who also held up Klug’s head. Many years later, Klug knocked on Jack’s door and came in to thank him for helping to save his life. Jack said he remembered Klug begging them to save his leg because he could feel it.

At the time I also interviewed Jacob “Jack” Handelsman – the camp counselor my father told the Times reporter had “rowed out to help me.” Dr. Handelsman, then a prominent surgeon at Johns Hopkins, said he never heard anything about my father being involved in the rescue. He also didn’t remember anything about a rowboat. When I asked him about my father getting the award for bravery, he expressed surprise because my father never told him about it.

The mystery of the Hatch Pond train wreck resurfaced recently because a December 19 Wall Street Journal obituary about my father repeated the 1941 New York Times version about how my father “held up the head of one of the train workers until help was able to arrive.”

In the course of corresponding with the Journal about the apparent roles of Jack Bartovic and other area residents, I again reached out to the Kent Historical Society. That resulted in a gracious invitation to write this article which I hope generates more information from readers.

To get the ball rolling, I composed and uploaded this page to to my website that includes all articles and related information I’ve obtained: http://medfraud.info/OttoKlug.html

Do you have more documents and/or information to share? If so, please contact me and/or the Kent Historical Society.

Civilian Conservation Corps Camps

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS CAMPS BOOK TALK & SIGNING

Join the Kent Memorial Library and the Kent Historical Society as they welcome Martin Podskoch of East Hampton, Connecticut on Saturday, March 11, at 2:00 p.m. at the Kent Town Hall, 41 Kent Green Boulevard, Kent. He will discuss and sign copies of his newly published book, Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: Their History, Memories and Legacy.

Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: Their History, Memories and Legacy is the definitive book that records the CCC experience for the men who helped support their families during the Great Depression with days of hard work, Army discipline, and camaraderie.

This volume is the second state CCC project Marty has completed.  New York State was the first. He learned from the first research effort the skills needed to complete such an all-encompassing history. He interviewed many old men whose fond memories of their youth in the CCC remained vivid. In his interviews Marty found that these men felt great pride in their work with the CCC, that it was a good time in their lives – – for some, the best. Most agree they learned how to get along with many types of people. As you read what each man said you will come to know something of the time, to reach into the past and know what it was to be in the CCC!    

The CCC was a public works program that operated from 1933 to 1942, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It targeted young men and veterans in relief families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression, providing unskilled manual labor related to environmental conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands.

Volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways. In nine years, 2.5 million young men participated in restoring morale and public appreciation of the outdoors.

These young men worked in 21 Connecticut CCC camps while some traveled to Western states to do conservation projects. These interviews and hundreds of marvelous photos of camp life capture the vitality of the young men who worked so hard to improve our forests, which had been ravaged by fires, lumbering, and storms. We must not forget their labors in the woodlands and state parks that continue to be enjoyed by millions today.

Podskoch’s book describes the history and projects of the 21 camps located throughout the state. Camps were located at Housatonic Meadow in Sharon; Stones Ranch in Niantic; Natchaug State Forest (SF) in Eastford; Nipmuck SF in Union; Squantz Pond in New Fairfield; Meshomasic SF in Cobalt and Portland; Pachaug SF in Voluntown; Black Rock SP in Thomaston; Tunxis SF in East Hartland; Mohawk SF in West Goshen; Burr Pond in Paugnut SF;  American Legion SF in Barkhamsted; Salmon River SF in East Hampton; Wooster Mountain SF in Danbury; Shenipsit SF in Stafford Springs; Experiment Station Land in Poquonock; Macedonia Brook in Kent and three camps in Cockaponset SF in Killingworth, Haddam, and Madison.

Enrollees signed up for six months and worked a 40-hour week for $30/mo. The government sent $25 to the enrollee’s family and the enrollee received $5. The young men received good food, uniforms, and medical care. At first they lived in tents; later they lived in wooden buildings. These young men and special camps for war veterans were able to help their families and gain a sense of worth.              

There are hundreds of pictures of the boys at work and at camp, sometimes laboring mightily, other times clowning around or playing on camp teams.

There are excerpts from camp newspapers of cartoons, poems, doggerel, and songs that will delight the reader for this unique window into their lives.

Since most of the boys quit school after 8th grade to help their families, the Army organized evening classes for those who wanted to get a GED, learn vocational skills or just hobbies like photography. In precise detail the reader will see what the boys studied in the education classes, a wide variety of classes from Accounting (practical) to Drawing and Music (entertainment), and life skills.

Scores of interviews with CCC veterans tell each man’s story from early life in a large family trying to help during the hard times. Angelo Alderuccio, from Bristol, worked at the Cobalt CCC camp in 1934. He said, “I was happy joining the CCCs because my mother was going to get some money, and it took me off the streets.”

CCC enrollee, Ed Kelly of Woodbury, said: “I was interested in the CCC because there were no jobs and I had cardboard in my shoes to cover the holes. There were eight children in my family and the money I earned helped my parents.” 

You will follow boys from city and village as they learn of the CCC, enlist, travel away, and become the muscle and bone that built the state parks, water projects, planting trees, and so much more. Their stories continue, most often through WW II, a return home to begin to use what they’d learned. There are stories of their families and their professional lives. After reading one boy’s life journey it is clear how much the CCC helped each one develop the character and purpose they carried through life.  

Marty Podskoch has authored six other books: Fire Towers of the Catskills: Their History and Lore, Adirondack Fire Towers: Their History and Lore, the Southern Districts, Northern Districts and also Adirondack Stories: Historical Sketches and Adirondack Stories II: 101 More Historical Sketches. His travel book, The Adirondack 102 Club: Your Passport & Guide to the North Country, was published in 2014.

This event is free & open to public. His book Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: Their History, Memories and Legacy will be available for purchase & signing after the talk. Please register. For more information, call the Library, 860-927-3761; email kmlinfo@biblio.org; stop by the Library; or visit the Library’s online calendar at kentmemoriallibrary.org.

The Kent Historical Society’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and present the rich history of Kent as well as to provide educational and research material to enrich the public understanding of Kent’s artistic and cultural heritage. For more information, visit kenthistoricalsociety.org or call 860-927-4587.

The Kent Memorial Library’s mission is to enrich the lives of individuals and the community by providing materials, programs, and services to encourage reading, learning and imagination. The Kent Memorial Library is located at 32 North Main Street, Kent, Connecticut. Visit kentmemoriallibrary.org for more information.

 

Rods and Chains


Sunday Series focused on “Rods and Chains”
and the unsung hero who surveyed Litchfield County

Who gave the landscape of Kent and the Litchfield Hills its current outline?  According to New Milford historian Michael John Cavallaro, the towns we inhabit today were shaped by one of Connecticut’s unsung heroes — Edmund Lewis, a surveyor who laid out Kent, New Milford, Canaan, and a number of other towns.  Cavallaro spoke at our Sunday Series event on Sunday March 19, 2017.

A rod is 16.5 feet, and a chain is four rods. With these units, brave surveyors like Lewis mapped almost all of Litchfield County. In a highly visual, dramatic presentation, Cavallaro showed how and why the land was carved into its current shapes and boundaries, and explored the implications of decisions made so long ago.

Cavallaro also painted a vivid picture of the circumstances that Lewis and other surveyors endured as they traveled the undeveloped land with their equipment, keeping the records and identifying the likeliest spots for settlement. He presented maps and books for the audience to examine as he brought little-known aspects of the past to life.

The lecture, as well as future Sunday Series events in 2017, helped give context to the Kent Historical Society’s upcoming exhibit in the summer of 2017, “The Founders of Kent,” on the emergence of one New England town in the 18th century. The 2017 Sunday Series events are sponsored by the Kent Barns and the Kent Lions Club.

The Kent Historical Society sponsors the Sunday Series every other month September through May. Free admission for members; $5 suggested donation for non-members.

For more information please call 860.927.4587 or email info@kenthistoricalsociety.org.

Florence Maybrick

Arsenic and Injustice ~ The Trials of Florence Maybrick
By Brian Thomas

Her tale stretched from Alabama to England, and ended on the grounds of the South Kent School. Locally known as a solitary cat lady in shaky mental health, only a few neighbors realized that she had been one of the most notorious women of the 19th century, and the victim of a galling injustice. Her name was Florence Maybrick.

Florence Elizabeth Chandler was the daughter of a banker who was once the mayor of Mobile. On a ship to England, Florence caught the eye of a wealthy cotton dealer, James Maybrick. She was 19, he was 42. They married in 1881, and settled in Liverpool, where her beauty and her husband’s wealth guaranteed their social status. They had two children, James and Gladys. But James Maybrick had many mistresses, and even fathered five children with one.  More perilously, hypochondria and an addictive streak led him to experiment with poisonous chemicals, including arsenic. At the time, arsenic was a recreational drug.

Unhappy with her husband, Florence took lovers herself. When Maybrick learned of her affairs, in a fine piece of Victorian hypocrisy he became enraged and threatened to divorce her. He tore up his will and wrote a new one that left Florence almost nothing.

James Maybrick fell ill in April 1889 after a self-administered double shot of strychnine and declined rapidly. In May, with her husband dying, Florence wrote an affectionate letter to a lover, which a disgruntled servant intercepted and passed to Maybrick’s brother, Michael. Michael loudly declared that Florence had poisoned his brother, and had her held under house arrest.

James Maybrick died at on May 11, 1889. His brothers ordered an autopsy, which revealed faint traces of arsenic, but not a fatal dose, especially not for an out-of-control user like James. Nor could they prove that Maybrick didn’t deliberately take the poison himself. Some of the specifics looked incriminating, though. Florence had bought arsenic-laden flypaper around this time to lighten her complexion, she said — also a common practice at the time.

Despite the rickety evidence, Florence Maybrick was charged with his murder and stood trial in Liverpool. The prosecutor’s summation claimed that Maybrick’s extramarital affair meant that her guilt was certain. She was convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to imprisonment for 15 years.

From a modern legal point of view, the trial was outrageously defective. The Maybrick family held Florence incommunicado. British law prevented her from mounting a defense or giving any testimony on her own behalf (though she was allowed to read a statement). She couldn’t point out that her late husband’s stingy new will gave her a strong motive for keeping him alive as long as possible. Nor were there any courts of appeal.

What’s more, the judge, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, had never really recovered from a paralyzing seizure three years before the trial. A legal observer at the Maybrick trial said that had never heard “such a pathetic exhibition of incompetence and inaccuracy” by a judge. In charging the jury, he spoke for twelve hours (over two days) about the defendant’s wickedness and immorality. But in England there was no mechanism for removing a judge, no matter how impaired.

During the 1890s, her supporters produced new evidence of James Maybrick’s prodigious recreational arsenic use, but without the possibility of an appeal, the Home Office would not relent. King Edward VII finally pardoned her in 1904, after 14 years in prison. Broke, she returned to the United States. For a while she earned a living on the lecture circuit, explaining her innocence and arguing for reforms in women’s prisons, but her spirit tottered from her ordeals. She drifted for some years. English law was eventually reformed to prevent the abuses that led to her imprisonment, too late to help her.

In 1918, Florence had to earn some money. A supporter referred her to Henrietta Banwell, who wanted a housekeeper in Gaylordsville. With funds from supporters, she bought less than an acre in South Kent and built a tiny house. She told everyone her name was Florence Chandler.

She never said a word of her past. A visitor saw a photo of a baby in her cabin. When asked, she said it was the child of an old friend of hers. In fact, it was one her own children, whom she hadn’t seen since her imprisonment.

Sometime in the 1920s, she gave a black lace dress to her Kent neighbor Genevieve Austin and her sister-in-law Alvy Austin. They noticed a drycleaners ticket for “Florence Maybrick.” Austin wrote to a cousin who was a librarian, who wrote back with the piping hot news from over 30 years earlier. Austin told her husband, Tom, and her cousin Connie Kissam. Out of kindness, they chose to reveal nothing. They protected Florence’s privacy, which was almost the only thing she had left.

maybrick-late-p1_edited-1By 1926, nobody was allowed in the cabin except her cats, and she didn’t make eye contact or pay bills. She was seen around town occasionally, but she kept to herself. Boys from South Kent School would bring her firewood. Her neighbors helped her through the Depression years. Pop Conkrite looked in on when she fell ill, and discovered her body in October, 1941.

Once she died, the Austins revealed her identity, and a flurry of press interest rehashed how her life had been poisoned by Victorian sexism, and how the case changed English law. The press emphasized every aspect of her life except the final one — as a tragic neighbor in Kent.

 

The Howling Wilderness

“The Howling Wilderness: Western Connecticut in the 18th Century”

howling-wilderness-1-22-17-and-rods-and-chains-3-19-17This video is the entire talk from Jan. 22

Michael Everett, the President of the Kent Historical Society and an Emeritus Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, discussed the conditions in Western Connecticut at the beginning of the 18th century, during a Sunday Series talk on Sunday January 22 at the Kent Town Hall.

The Revolutionary period is often viewed as the starting point of Kent’s history, but the town was founded well before that. Through the entire period, the Puritan view of the countryside as a “howling wilderness” had theological and cultural consequences, which Everett will explore as he examines the natives and settlers, changing agricultural and ownership ideas, and more.

The lecture, as well as future Sunday Series events in 2017, helps give context to the Kent Historical Society’s upcoming exhibit in the summer of 2017, “The Founders of Kent,” on the emergence of one New England town in the 18th century.

This year’s Sunday Series lectures are sponsored by Kent Barns and the Kent Lions Club. The Society extends its thanks for their generosity to make this program possible.

The Kent Historical Society sponsors the Sunday Series every other month September through May. Free admission for members; $5 suggested donation for non-members.

 

Whittle A Walking Stick

Whittle a Walking Stick with Noted Educator and Woodworker Joe Brien

One of life’s great satisfactions for any child (or adult, for that matter), is tramping along a path with a well-balanced walking stick, using it to lean on, or swat weeds, or push aside sticker bushes. The feeling is even more gratifying for walkers who whittled the stick with their own hands.

During the Region 1 schools’ Spring Break on Saturday, April 11, 2015, educator Joe Brien of the Lost Art Workshops will lead a whittling session at the Kent Historical Society’s Art Barn, located on the flagship Seven Hearths Museum property at 4 Studio Hill Road in Kent, Connecticut. Participants will learn how to choose the right sapling and transform it into a rugged hiking staff that can help propel the walker up steep hills and across rushing streams. It is designed for children aged 8 and above, accompanied by an adult family member.

All tools, materials and workstations provided. No pixels are involved–it’s far more real than a video game. Building a meaningful object with a family member is a warm reminder of a day spent together. This will be tremendous fun while learning important, practical, useful skills.

Perhaps the singer Leon Redbone captured it best in his droll song, “My Walking Stick”:
Without my walking stick, I’d go insane…
I can’t look my best, I feel undressed, without my cane.
Must have my walking stick ’cause it may rain
When it pours can’t be outdoors without my cane….”

The program is free, and pre-registration is necessary — be sure to sign up early. Online registration is at www.hysb.org/fyi-sign-up.html.

The program is underwritten and co-sponsored by Housatonic Youth Services Bureau. The Art Barn at Seven Hearths is the site of several art and enrichment programs during the summer.

The Kent Historical Society’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and present the rich history of Kent as well as to provide educational and research material to enrich the public understanding of Kent’s artistic and cultural heritage. For more information, contact: Brian Thomas, Executive Director, 860-927-4587, info@kenthistoricalsociety.org