Our Artist Vacation - Day 5

Day 5 and we wake up in the lower level of my brother's and his wife's house in Cheshire, CT.  Their cat, Lucky, has been inadvertently shut in with us and has made his bed next to my hip all night.  I'm hoping his name is a portend of what our day will be like.  After Ken drives me the 45 minutes to Danbury he's going to call the dealer in Massachusetts to see what's happening with the minivan.  He had planned to do his own sightseeing in the area while I spend the day at the Friends of Gladys Taber (FOGT) Reunion at the Crown Plaza.  We already had a room here for the night rather than going back to my brothers because it puts us 45 minutes closer to home.  We planned to get home by mid-afternoon so we could celebrate a couple family birthdays and Father's Day.  I joined FOGT just so I could attend their reunion because Susan Branch was their slated speaker.  I have read bits of Gladys Taber's books and enjoyed them, but it is for Susan that I'm here.  When Ken drops me off the A Fine Romance van is parked along the curb and Joe Hall is speaking with a gentleman....

I walk past them unnoticed into the hotel....

I'm directed where to wait and find my two Tasha Tudor friends!  I'm so glad because I don't know a soul here.  Soon we are in the line to get our name tags so we can go find good seats in the conference room.  It is set up with round tables and we are able to find seats open at a table in the front off to the side.  Susan Turnley, the FOGT newsletter editor, makes a few announcements about things we needed to know about the buses we'd be taking to Stillmeadow and then she told us how she'd come to find out about Susan Branch....

Meanwhile I am checking my phone to see if there are any messages from Ken about the car.  I'm wondering if we're going to be able to get home the next day.  This is when I notice that despite the fact I'd had my phone plugged in all night charging it was about to run out of battery!  To add to my dismay I only had one signal bar.  Soon Susan T. brought Susan B. up on the stage....

I think Susan noticed my camera.  She keeps looking in my direction.  I hope she doesn't mind that I'm videotaping her....

She spoke about how Gladys Taber had affected her life.  You can read a little about it here on her Blog.  I wrote her and asked permission to share the part about why Gladys Taber meant so much to her, but she implored me not to use it because she was putting it in her new book and wanted it to appear there first.  You know Susan--she felt bad for asking me not to use it on my blog.   I wrote back, "No, no, no.  Don't feel bad....Your friendship is more important to me than any "scoops" I might have."  She had explained that sharing the details of how she discovered Gladys with the audience was her way of thanking us for coming.  I do have a little clip, though, that I can show you.  It is when Susan Turnley presented her with the thank-you gift she showed everyone on her blog....
                     

Susan had spoken for about 45 minutes then went on to answer questions from the audience for another 45 minutes.  During this time someone asked her if she had a Bucket List what would be on it.  Again, she revealed a surprise that only WE, the audience, know now, and she asked me to keep it a secret.  In the next video she shares the second thing on her Bucket List.  It is safe to share since we already know about the book she's in the process of writing....
                    

All too soon it was 11:00 which meant that if we were all to make the buses on time Susan had to stop talking and start signing books.  Part of the audience was told to eat and the rest of us were to get in the book-signing line.  That was my group so I got in the line to buy a book from Joe first.  We were asked in advance to only bring one book to be autographed and since I already have an autographed book by Susan I offered to buy one for my neighbor (the one watching Poetry for me) who planned to give it to her mother who dearly loves England.  My friend's father had been a pilot for Pan-Am and they'd made several trips to England during her childhood.

The line was getting so long at Joe's table that they started another line was for cash only.  It was shorter and because Susan's line was getting so long I decided to get in the cash line.  Therefore, I never did get to actually meet him....

It was a little after 12:00 by the time I reached Susan.  When I told her I was Cathy from Maryland, the name I use when I comment on her Blog and pointed to my little painting of Poetry the Calico Cat, my Twitter avatar that I had attached to my FOSB name tag, which I had attached to my FOGT name tag, she looked at my name tag and said "Oh, Cathy Schultz!"  She promptly raised her arms to hug me.  I don't think she realized just how much I needed that hug.  I was tired from standing for over an hour, hungry, and wondering if Ken had tried to reach me concerning the car.  If I was feeling tired and hungry I figured Susan was too, although she never let on if she was.....but I just could not impose any further and ask for my photo to be taken with her.  Instead I took a photo of her signing my the book for my friend's mother....

I then hurried out to the front desk of the hotel to see if Ken had checked in or left me a message.  Nothing.  I went back in to finally eat and found there was no food left....just scraps.  At that point I was ready to cry.  But I pulled myself together--I had my inspiration just across the room after all--and found someone to ask about more food.  More arrived promptly.  I ate, tidied myself up and went to find the last bus before it left.  As I climbed on the bus (my two friends had already left on Bus 2) I looked for my minivan in the parking lot, hoping Ken might have just arrived to check in.  If I saw him, I was going to jump off the bus to finally find out what was going on.  Wait!  He'd be driving the Nissan SUV,  and I had no idea what it looked like.  I settled into my seat and kept checking my phone instead for a signal, or a message, or something!  As we drove along the Interstate I finally gave up and just looked out at the New England scenery and finally remembered to pray the three little prayers--Lord have mercy--Thee I adore--In Thy Hands.  Low and behold about half-way into the 30-minute trip to Southbury where we were to tour Stillmeadow I got a signal....and four messages came all at once from Ken:  "Villager ready at noon.  I am leaving soon $650.00.....I have Villager.  Coming back.....Villager and I at hotel room 821." Yay!  We can go home tomorrow!  My little minivan is fixed!  And for much less than I'd feared.  All that worrying for nothing!

Whew!  That's taken care of.  Now I can enjoy the rest of my day.  It seems my looking for the Villager in the parking lot was not a mistake.  At that point Ken was about half an hour from the hotel--it had been a 90-minute-drive to and from the dealer.  When he got back around 1:45ish he said he saw Joe and Susan carrying things out to their van.  Just as we pulled up to Stillmeadow I was able to reach him by phone and ask what had been wrong with it.  It seems it was the electronic distributor!

Susan Branch has some wonderful photos here of the tour she was given the day before, if you'd like to check those out, too.  As I walked through the house and around the yard I was listening to all of Gladys' devotees expressing how thrilled they were to see all the things Gladys had written about.  Because I'm not in that category I kept reminding myself that I was the same way about Tasha Tudor's house.  It was a good reminder for me that my enthusiasm about the things I love is not necessarily understood and appreciated by others.  As I took my photos I was looking at the room and its' objects from a photographer's eye.  I think that's why Susan's photos are more appealing to me.  She was looking at the room and its' objects with her heart.

We were given floor plans and maps  and I thought I'd include them here.  I know that if you have read and loved Gladys Taber's books about Stillmeadow, you will want to see how the rooms are laid out and what the property looks like.  If you need to, just click on the photo to enlarge it....

I was quite surprised to find the house so small.  I imagined it to be a large, rambling house from Gladys' description.  I suppose, compared to her tiny New York apartment it was large.  When Gladys bought the house in 1933 she was told it was built in 1690, but research in the 1990's by the Southbury Historical Society showed it was circa 1785....

The door that is open in the above photo is actually a side door.  This is the actual front door that they never used....

This is the view from the other side of the house.  The actual front door can be seen on the left....

If we go back around to that side door that was used as the front door you can look down the walk to the gate....

This is just to the left of that side front door.  The bump-out was "Jill's" room....

I walked away from the house to the left and took a picture from this angle of the well....

You enter into this room through the side door.  That is the type of typewriter Gladys used to write her columns and books....

The next room you enter is the den/dining room.  This is the fireplace they would sometimes cook in....

Gladys' bedroom was just off the dining room.  Gladys' granddaughter, Anne, who lives in the house part-time, put the hospital bed (on the right) in this room for her ailing mother, Connie.  I believe she said her mother is in an assisted care facility now and brings her up to Stillmeadow for visits from time-to-time.  The bed is where Gladys' desk used to be....

This old stove provided heat for the room....

There was a door in the bedroom that led to the old entryway.  This is looking out that old front door....

We leave the bedroom the way we came, go through the dining room where we meet Anne and her daughter, Kate....

Then it's on to the kitchen....

Gladys raised and showed dogs so she had little reminders all over the house such as the dog in the window....

And this doorstop....

After walking around the yard for a bit I took this photo of the driveway....

And the front gate from the road....

Now that I've seen the house for myself I find I'm much more interested in reading more of her works.  I will have to go back and reread the "Stillmeadow Album."  Published in 1969, it is full of photographs of the house and grounds.  If you are interested in Gladys Taber I highly recommend getting it along with "The Best of Stillmeadow," a collection of stories about how she came to buy it, divided into stories for each month of the year.  This one is hard to find at a reasonable price.  If you click on the title, you may be able to find it in a library.

Since Stillmeadow is a very old house I looked to see if there was a ghost story connected with the house.  Gladys wrote in her book about Stillmeadow that they were able to buy the house below market value because there had been a murder in the house.  She writes, "The previous owner had shot his wife and killed himself...The ghosts never bothered us...They had loved our house, that I knew.  And I felt they were happy because we were giving it life again."

We all got back into the bus.  To fill the afternoon the tour included a stop at the house that Victor Borge lived in for many years.  We also made a stop at the cemetery to visit Gladys' grave, drove past her church, and made a stop at the Southbury Historical Society Museum where several tables were set up to show more of Gladys Taber memorabilia....

It was also a refreshment stop.  This is where I met up with a wife and husband who had also been on the same Tasha Tudor tour I was on.  They were from California but had lived in the Washington, DC area for many years.  It is a small world, indeed.

We got back to the hotel at 5:30.  Ken was in the room waiting for me.  We talked about what we each did all day, then I went back downstairs to find my Tasha Tudor friends for supper while Ken headed off to a diner for his.  You may be wondering how Gladys Taber, who was a writer not an artist, was going to fit into our Artist Vacation theme.  I was, too, until I asked the gentleman sitting next to me at dinner whom I'd met on the bus earlier what he did.  He was an artist!  His specialty is painting sail boats.  When we three Tasha Tudor fans started talking about Tasha Tudor, whom he knew nothing about, it turns out he did know about her father Starling Burgess, a yacht designer, and her mother Rosamund Tudor, an artist....

After our meal Susan Turnley presented an excellent powerpoint presentation made by Dagmar Rosenberg on the life of Gladys Taber.  At least I think it was Susan Turnley.  At that point in the evening my mind was mush and I could hardly keep my eyes open.  As soon as the lights came on I told my friends goodbye and headed up to my room.  It wasn't long before I was blissfully asleep in the most comfortable hotel bed and pillow I've ever slept on.  Thank you Crown Plaza!

We were on the road by 7:00 the next morning after only having coffee in our room.  We never did stop for breakfast and were home by noon.   We were just too eager to see our family, Poetry & Gabriel and our sweet little granddaughter.  Here she is being held by her grandpapa....

When we were just a few blocks from home I started feeling excited.  Our son and daughter-in-law had brought Gabriel home and were waiting for us.  They told me that Gabriel started getting excited just before we arrived.  He must have sensed my excitement!

And now I'm excited to tell you what I found at the Quechee Gorge Village antique shops--Susan Branch's "The Summer Book" cookbook....

And because I already have one, and because this is the first week of summer, I'm making this one my giveaway for reading this post about my vacation and leaving a comment.  As I said in Day 4, if you leave a comment on Day 4 and on Day 5, you'll be entered twice to win Susan's book.  The second name I choose will receive Tasha Tudor's book.  I'll draw the name on Tuesday and announce it on my Out and About - June post.  I'll also reveal the final chapter in my Villager Minivan saga.

That's it!  The End.  Now I can put my suitcase back up into the attic.