Trees, trees, trees

The Scarborough Garden Club celebrated the season in grand style with members decorating small, artificial trees that each brought to the November meeting.

Thanks to the scavenging and drying skills of Marjory Halacy and Marion Nielsen, there was an abundance of natural materials to use, including artemesia, ladies mantel, rose hips, hydrangea, dusty miller, tansy, astilbe, seed pods and cones. The trees varied in size, from quite small to over a foot in height, and of course, each member had a different idea as to how the tree should look.

Halacy and Nielson Marjory roamed around the room demonstrating how to tuck the dried material in between the branches of the trees as filler. They also helped with tying tiny bows for decoration.

Jeanne Lowell explained that her tree was inspired by a favorite tale from her childhood, “The Story of the Little Nut Tree” – a golden pear, gilded nuts, red berries and gold ribbons combined to make her tree. Audrey Bell used astilbe, hydrangea and dusty miller, accented by red berries and tiny pinecones. Pamela Leslie embellished her tree with cinnamon ornaments – tiny cutouts of stars, apples, bells and little children.

I decided to use items I had picked up on the beach and covered my tree with miniature sand dollars and sea urchins and small pieces of tinted sea glass. A starfish at the top completed the picture. Members marveled at how every tree was unique and agreed that this was one of our most rewarding and fun meetings.

Willowbrook visit charms

Amelia Chamberlain, curator of Willowbrook Museum, came to the November meeting of the Scarborough Historical Society to describe for us the picturesque 19th-century country village at Newfield. As it happened, my husband and I had visited the museum on a gorgeous day in October and we agreed that it is a wonderful day trip into the hills of western Maine, especially during leaf-peeper season.

The village is charming and loaded with interesting things to see and do. We especially enjoyed the Dr. Isaac Trafton Homestead, built in three stages starting in 1856 and lived in by family members until 1953, almost 100 years. We toured the front parlor (overwhelmingly Victorian), the doctor’s office and the kitchen and dining room. At the top of the house was the nursery with an enchanting sleigh bed and chest of drawers, painted white and trimmed with roses.

Also in the room were a wicker baby carriage with an attached umbrella, a rocking horse shaped like a hen, and a stuffed bear and boy and girl dolls sitting in three little chairs around a table set with child-size china, waiting patiently for their tea.

The Fenderson Schoolhouse is a reproduction of the one-room school built in South Parsonfield in 1839. On the walls are two wonderful engravings. The first is titled “Poor Richard – Illustrated 1887 – Boston” and includes 24 ovals, each containing a saying and a picture. My favorite was, “For age and want save while you may – no morning sun lasts all the day”. The second engraving honors the Centennial – 1776-1876 – with two large ovals, one containing the Emancipation Proclamation and a picture of Abraham Lincoln; the other, the Declaration of Independence and George Washington. Around the edges are smaller ovals commemorating the 38 states, and the battles of the Constitution and Guerriere, the Monitor and the Merrimac, and Gettysburg.

There are many more buildings to explore at Willowbrook, including a carriage house, a country store, a bicycle shop, a barbershop and a bank. Perhaps the showpiece of the museum and most outstanding exhibit (and most fun of all) is the 1894 Armitage-Herschell carousel. Bought by I.H. Fenderson of Saco for $2,000, the 24-horse, collapsible carousel was trundled around northern New England for 26 years for the enjoyment of adults, who paid 5 cents for a ride.

Donated to the museum by the Fenderson family in 1975, it took 14 years to restore the ornately carved and painted horses to their original condition, with glass eyes and real horsehair tails. Twice a year the museum allows visitors to ride the carousel. The horses do not go up and down on a pole as one might expect, but instead rock back and forth on springs. If you indulge in a ride, be sure you have your feet in the stirrups and a tight hold on the reins!!

Outstanding show

The Portland Museum of Art is offering an outstanding show in its main gallery until Jan. 7, “American ABC: Childhood in 19th -century America.” More than 100 paintings are on display, arranged by six different themes and including such illustrious painters as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and Eastman Johnson.

I was thrilled to see “Snap the Whip,” by Winslow Homer, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrating the theme “Country Boy.” School boys at recess, clasping hands in line from the tallest and strongest at one end to the smallest at the other, form a human chain, which falls apart and sends the youngest tumbling as the big boys run and twist. The little red schoolhouse in the background and wild flowers in the foreground complete the picture.

Homer is also represented in the theme “Children of Bondage.” Three little boys, two black and one white, sit in a field eating great long slices of watermelon. You can practically feel the juices dripping down their chins. The theme “The Ragamuffin” is wonderfully illustrated by the painting, “A Tough Story,” by John George Brown. Three grimy little boys sit on crates, listening intently to a fourth boy who is telling them a story. All are dressed in shabby clothes that have seen much better days, one is barefoot and the others have holes in their shoes. One of the lads is a bootblack – his shoe brush and open polish tin are at his feet.

The exhibition also includes children’s books, illustrated magazines and handwritten school papers. I was drawn to an ABC book that was open to “Fanny Finding Flowers” and “Grace and Gertrude Gathering Gooseberries.” A picture book was entitled “Friends and Frolics of Little Girls,” and I would love to have read a story book printed in 1873, “Pocahontas, or the Indian Princess.”.