e-Newsletter | May 27, 2022
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You ARE Invited
How many of you have never been on a tour of the Cushing House, the headquarters of the Museum of Old Newbury? It is remarkable how many neighbors, members, program participants, even volunteers, have never actually taken a tour of the museum. Of course, some of this is circumstance. The 1808 Cushing House has been closed for guided tours since the fall of 2019. And there is aversion. After all, a favorite topic at any museum conference is the ubiquitous “Are Guided Tours at Historic Houses Dead?” Many of us who were dragged through museums as children feel a specific kind of panic at the thought of being locked in a dusty old house for an unknown length of time with strangers.
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Our team of docents learning from each other on a recent practice tour. They are eager to welcome visitors - make your plan to visit today! |
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Allow me to make the case for giving it another try. Here are my top five six reasons to visit the Cushing House in 2022 on a guided tour.
- There is something here for you. We promise. Our tour explores gender, race, education, war, immigration, work, art, love, and many other aspects of the human experience. Whether you have lived here your whole life or are on your first visit to the area, we challenge you to leave here without making a connection to the people whose artifacts and stories are represented at the museum.
- Our docents are wonderful, smart, friendly, engaging, and excited to see you, and they promise not to keep you for more than an hour, unless you ask. They are your neighbors, your distant cousins perhaps, and your guides to this magical place.
- Without a guide, it’s just a lot of cool stuff. We have an amazing collection of fine and decorative arts, furniture, etc. But without a guide, you will never know which print was stolen out of the cabin of a British ship by a Newburyport privateer, which spoon is made of silver mined in Newbury, why artist Laura Coombs Hills called her house The Goldfish, or even which friend of Ernest Hemingway’s lived near the museum. The story, the context, is so important.
- We are more than local history – we are American, even world history. What happened here changed the world. Newbury(port) inventers, merchants, entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, and activists travelled the world, and the world came here as well. William Lloyd Garrison’s death mask is upstairs. George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, even Chang and Ang, the famous “Siamese” twins are represented here.
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It’s FREE. Well, it’s free to members of the museum and it’s free to residents of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury, though be warned – we will do our best to convince you to become members and join our community (join here: https://www.newburyhistory.org/membership). For non-member non-residents, it is ten dollars for an hour of romance, drama, and entertainment. How can you beat that?
- If the house is haunted, which it is not, but it might be (we’re keeping all our options open), you want to be here with someone who knows who that is floating down the hall.
You can reserve your tour date and time below or call the office at 978-462-2681. Reservations recommended but not required. Museum of Old Newbury, open Thursday-Sunday - hourly tours from 11am-4pm*, June 2 - Oct. 9, 2022. *Last tour is at 4pm.
We are looking forward to (re)acquainting you with the Museum of Old Newbury!
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Photos from this year's gardens.
43rd Annual Garden Tour - June 11 & 12, 2022, 10am-4pm
Come join us - our 43rd year!
A great way to spend the day or the weekend - your ticket is good for both days. Visit 11 separate gardens and get ideas for your own. The gardens are in Newbury, West Newbury and Newburyport. With thanks to our sponsors, Bentley's Real Estate, New England Home Magazine, and Harborside Printing. $25 for museum members, $35 general admission.
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Twilight Music in the Garden - Saturday, June 11, 7pm
Round out the Garden Tour weekend with this special offering. Join us for an exclusive after-hours musical event in the Cushing House Garden as we welcome mezzo-soprano Kathryn Tolley and members of Theater in the Open to this magical space. Enjoy a unique program of arias and art songs celebrating the natural world by Grieg, Mozart, Handel, and Hahn. Sip a glass of wine or seltzer or a local brew, courtesy of Ipswich Ale Brewery, accompanied by a selection of fine desserts, and spend the evening surrounded by music, poetry, and history in an idyllic setting.
This event is a fundraiser for the Museum of Old Newbury and Theater in the Open. Tickets are $35 members/$45 non-members and include dessert and two drink tickets.
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More upcoming events (details on our web site):
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Woman on the MOON
...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau
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Bloom Where You're Planted
On April 7, 2020, I was alone in my house. We were all alone in our houses, except for those of us who were locked in with our family members. It was too early for “bubbles” and “pods”. I thought, perhaps we all thought, that this would all be over soon, and so, while I waited, I thought I would get to know my landscape a bit better. And since what is now my yard has been my family’s farm for over two centuries, there is much in it that has been there my whole life, and I never questioned it – never asked why the peonies were pushing up through the foundation of the old barn, why there were poppies in a bramble patch next to a culvert. I never asked these questions of my landscape until I became its steward, five years ago.
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Bursting forth from the southeast corner of my house is an ancient, unruly run of old-school lilac bushes. Their blooms reached to my old bedroom window on the second floor, and in my youth, they were gathered by the armful, shoved into every pitcher and pot in my room, hauled to picnics at Maudslay with my friends and given by the fistful to my great-aunt Emily, who would exclaim over them as if we had just discovered a secret treasure, as if she had not been born next to the window that looked out on all of this beauty. Aunt Emily had an endless supply of delightedness with small, natural things brought to her by eager children. It never occurred to me that she was probably also, for her whole long life, remembering her mother. |
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Philip and Mary Dyer (Noyes) Poore, about 1905.
Mary Dyer Noyes, my great-grandmother, was born in Byfield in 1886. Her own mother died when she was six, and she was raised by her bachelor uncle, the much-loved George Washington Noyes. I do not know how she and Philip Poore met – the families are so intertwined it is likely that they had known each other their whole lives, but when she married my great-grandfather in 1905, his pinched face was brightened and softened by her company. Philip was also a motherless child – his own mother died giving birth to him. Perhaps because of this shared loss or because of the steadfast, lifelong love of her uncle, Mary Dyer Noyes Poore was a tender wife and a joyful mother. She was also a fellow breadwinner on a farm that was barely able to feed her growing family, let alone turn a profit. These are the things I know about her from the memories of her six children. She worked all day and often all night, planting, weeding, harvesting, and canning vegetables, caring for six children, and doing all the washing, cooking, and cleaning of a busy, dusty farm. She was always laughing, and she gave her children tricycles and let them ride through the house, and they had an indoor see-saw. She cared more than anything about their education, and she caned chairs late into the night to make a few extra dollars that she could save for her children. And somehow, she read voraciously and was part of an old-fashioned reading club and helped to establish an Episcopal church with the Emery sisters (four sisters who were well-known West Newbury philanthropists), and even more extraordinarily, from where I’m sitting, she planted flowers.
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The lilac at the corner of the Poore house, 1910s. |
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My great-grandmother died in 1934, just 47 years old. Though the cause of death was pneumonia, Aunt Emily told me that her mother “worked herself to death”. I can only imagine how exhausted she was, what a heavy burden her life must have seemed at times, and yet, she planted flowers. The run of lilacs appears in nearly every posed photograph of her young children in the 1910’s and 1920’s. |
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The six Poore children and cousin Evelyn Rogers in 1920 in front of the lilacs. |
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The poppies and peonies in the briar patch by the culvert? She planted those, and every spring, when the plate-size poppies unfurled their papery petals, it felt like a visitation to her children. I never met her, of course, and neither did my mother, and so her poppies remind me of Aunt Emily, the last person I knew who understood deeply what planting these flowers meant to her mother, how they reflected her belief that life and hope would always return. |
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In April 2020, as I explored my landscape, I was determined to rejuvenate the lilac bushes, a task that I did not complete. The original bushes are over twenty feet tall, woody and gnarled. Suckers spread from its base in waves. I started to dig up the suckers and cut them away as I had been told this would give more energy to the base plant, but with all the sadness and fear in the world, killing something with such a will to live was hard for me. And so, I put out the call. No-contact lilac pick-up, bring your own shovel. And they came, friends and friends of friends and strangers. One such visitor, a woman who grew up nearby on Chase Street, came by. My mom popped out to say hello, and mentioned that our visitor’s great-grandmother Mary, and my great-grandmother Mary, were best friends. "When they finally got telephones, they talked every day", she said. The two great-granddaughters of best friends from a century ago now share this lilac bush.
I love my town, and my house, and the benevolent whisper of the past when you least expect it. And as the lilac blooms fade for another year, I am reminded that hope, and memories, and love, can outlive you. Plant carefully.
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1918 West Newbury directory listings for Mary Knowles and Mary D. Poore - a prolific lilac bush would lead their great-granddaughters to meet during the COVID19 pandemic. |
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Volunteer at the Garden Tour
Job description: Sit in a beautiful garden for three hours. Greet visitors. Check tickets. If this sounds like a job for you, we need a few more people to sit in gardens during the tour, especially on Sunday, June 12. The shifts are just three hours, 10-1pm or 1-4pm . In return, you'll get a ticket to the garden tour - and our gratitude! Sign up for an open slot here or call the office - 978-462-2681.
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Something is Always Cooking at the Museum |
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Pinky-up Party Cucumber Sandwiches
Note: I wish I could say that this was an old family recipe, but it is just a pretty excuse to eat my two favorite things – cream cheese and cucumbers – together. Pairs perfectly with a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon. -Bethany Groff Dorau
To reduce sogginess, spread the cream-cheese mixture on both sides of the bread. Salt the sliced cucumbers and let them sit on a paper towel for a half hour or so before assembling.
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24 slices thin white bread
2 English cucumbers
16 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
4 tablespoons fresh dill, minced
2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Black pepper to taste
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Instructions
Mix softened cream cheese, mayonnaise, lemon juice, dill, garlic powder, and ¼ tsp. salt. Mix well. Peel and cut the cucumbers into thin slices with a sharp knife. Sprinkle with remaining salt and spread on a paper towel. Remove the crust from the bread.
Spread the cream cheese mixture onto both sides of the bread slices. Add cucumbers, sprinkle with black pepper, and add additional dill or other fresh herbs such as chopped chives. Cut the bread into triangles (my favorite), squares, or strips and refrigerate until serving. This makes 48 small sandwiches, so plenty for a crowd.
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Click on image above to play the puzzle |
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Flowering Quince
Cushing House garden
Museum of Old Newbury
Flowering Quince, a native to southeast Asia, blooms here in the shadow of the Cushing House. The quince, often used as a hedging, was popular in New England in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is now considered an heirloom plant. Click the image above to play the puzzle.
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Museum e-Newsletter made possible through the
generosity of our sponsors:
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Museum of Old Newbury
98 High Street
Newburyport, MA 01950
978-462-2681
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