By AnneMarie Donahue who teaches English/Media/Journalism at Oakmont Regional High School in Ashburnham. She is currently trying to disprove the theory that Richard III was a hunchback.
My first experience at The Old Manse was during the Eighth Annual Civil War re-enactment this year (see article elsewhere in this issue about this event here). I thought I was a history buff, but I had only scratched the surface. Then I was invited to participate in The Old Manse event as Sophia Hawthorne, wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The costume was the easy part. I found a pretty costume that promised to fit me with a very busy hat. Next came the practice. Deborah Kaiser-Francis, a staff member at The Old Manse, had scheduled a time for me and Warren Wegrzyn (also new to Living History) to meet with Jim Holister and Karen Ahearn, masters of Living History. Jim summed it up best when he said, "How do I tell them to wing it without actually saying, 'Just wing it'?"
The event came; I was starched, pressed, tucked, pinned and ready to go. Some words of caution: dress at the event; do not drive or operate heavy machinery while in your hoopskirt.
I was the first to arrive at the scene. I let myself into The Old Manse and walked through the house, trying to get a sense of what it was like to live there. Soon I was joined by John Daly, our assistant site manager. Immediately we set to work laying out breakfast foods.
The entire crowd gathered early, new faces and old. Our cast was assembled: Wendell Refior, Ralph Waldo Emerson; Richard Smith, Henry David Thoreau; D. Michael Ryan, Bronson Alcott; Hannah Slocum, May Alcott; Jim Hollister, Lt. Ezra Ripley; Deborah Kreiser-Francis, Harriet Ripley; Barbara Forman, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley; Karen Ahearn, Harriet Hayden; Devon Kurtz, Capt. George Prescott.
We were almost complete when Oliver Wilder-Smith, who played my son Julian, arrived.
Panic set in when Warren Wegrzyn called: our Hawthorne was stuck in traffic. Five minutes before we had to leave for the wreath laying ceremony Warren arrived and jumped into costume and character. Our first stop was the Civil War monument in the center of Concord; people at the Colonial Inn watched the entire procession from the comfort of breakfast. We then made our way to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Lt. Ripley and his wife Harriet were laid to rest. Deborah and Jim decorated the graves of their characters with grace and respect. As we made our way back I mentioned to Warren how I would have liked to have seen Hawthorne's grave. He chided me for not noticing that we had just walked past it. We both turned around and I felt odd standing in the presence of the real people. I suddenly felt like an imposter, someone pretending to be Sophia without having put any consideration into her feelings or thoughts.
I am not like Sophia, because I am a product of my time, just as much as she is of hers. However, I flatter myself that our spirits may be alike in a small sense. In Patricia Valenti's book on Sophia Hawthorne (Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: A Life, Vol. 1, 1809-1847) she quotes Nathaniel's journal entry stating that Sophia had, in a childish urge for freedom, thrown herself into a haystack. A small account in our present times of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ricci, but I felt such a sweet innocence about the incident. Hawthorne chided her for her abandon, however when Sophia wrote to her mother later she dropped all mock reserve and said, "What beautiful frolics we have here!" That's my kind of "wild abandon."
I walked down the hill a little quieter, standing a little taller, thinking more and talking less. Today I would put Sophia first and myself in the background.
We wended our path back to The Old Manse where people had already begun to arrive. The sight of history walking through the "two roughhewn gateposts" must have been a sight and I almost envy the crowd their view.
The day began with a meeting of the Soldier's Aid Society; we were joined by the gentlemen as Mr. Emerson read his speech on the Fugitive Slave Law. In my opinion, Wendellıs reading of this speech is the entire programhe is so fiery, so lively that you canıt help but scream and yell. I only wish that more people understood the speech so they could get really riled up!
We then watched a debate between Thoreau, Emerson, Ripley, Prescott, and Alcott. Audience members really responded to Richard's Thoreau as he argued the logic of disregarding a slave owner's life, all the while claiming all life as sacrosanct, which cannot be wasted in the pursuit of preservation of the Union.
Our day ended with an ice cream social and a living history house tour. I was happy to participate this way. I feel as though Jim's advice of "just wing it" was accurate, as there is no way to truly prepare for living history. The only advice I can offer is to research. I would encourage anyone interested in participating in living history to contact Deborah Kreiser-Francis at The Old Manse; we are always looking for characters and volunteers.
What struck me about the day's experience was how passionately everyone spoke of history, as well as the respect and dedication every last person had for literature, philosophy and nature -- from Wendell, who played Ralph Waldo Emerson so well that I wonder where Wendell stops and Waldo takes over, to staff members not even out of high school such as Hannah Slocum.
After we showed our last guest to the door we separated to shut down the house, and I was again left with some quiet time. The Old Manse will talk to you, if you listen. The clock chimes, the floors creak, and the house moans. Hawthorne would insist that the house was haunted, but I prefer to think that the house is alive. The Old Manse is a living entity with emotions and memories of its own. It breathes and sighs just like you and me, it laughs and cries, it shares our joy and shelters us in our sorrows. This house is more than a museum. It holds a universe of ideas waiting for people to come and discover them. We at the Manse don't interpret the furniture, or the walls, but the pulse and heartbeat of the house. We talk about the good times it has shared, the heart aches, the horrors and the dreams. We want all of our guests to leave knowing only one thing: History is Alive. History is a collection of IS, not WAS. History is no longer content to subtly whisper in the breeze swept off the Concord River by our boat house; she is standing on the front lawn shouting!
As Mr. Thoreau would eagerly point out, Nature often provides the best example. The Manse had a group of robins nesting in our grape vines by the kitchen window. All the interpreters watched them hatch, grow, cry, be fed, watched over, and eventually fly away. We were sad to see them go, but we know that those small birds will return somewhere next year as parents.
Some may find their way to The Old Manse by instinct, the same way we as humans find ourselves coming back to history, and to literature. We know, just as those birds knew, that The Old Manse is a safe place, a place to be meek and humble, a place to learn and grow. We learned from those birds that if we can listen to our instincts and return to a place where history is strong we can go out into the world stronger and shout, "We value humanity, we value education, we value art, music, literature and above all history, and we will not be separated from them for they are what make us human and connect us to one another throughout eternity." There is something divine in the land of The Old Manse: Hawthorne discovered it, it was planted by Thoreau, it was nurtured by Emerson, and we pass it on to you.
Find this subject interesting? Here is an earlier article we published about a living historian.
Photos: ©The Trustees of Reservations by Michael Poirier
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