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Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

bin Laden photo

The photo above, taken by James Cummings in northern, rural, New Hampshire in 2001, just about sums up the defiant feeling of citizens, right after 9-11.

Blindly, we believed the promise that bin Laden would be “brought to justice” for his mastermind plan that resulted in the deaths of Americans who were just going about their daily tasks and were cut down in an instant, without notice, in some cases.

In 2001, we were a wounded nation, a country united against a common threat, sharing the same purpose: to find and destroy the person responsible for inflicting such national grief upon us. An even greater loss than the dead was the feeling that we had lost something precious and irretrievable: our collective innocence. Yes, our feeling of invincibility, as Americans, was shattered forever.

I post the picture above as it calls to mind what seemed to be a common resolve: to “get” bin Laden. Today, his whereabouts are unknown and he still may be plotting further attacks. We don’t know. He is quickly fading into the woodwork of history and is barely on the lips of Americans these days. Yet, he is “at large.”

In the meantime, we have spent ourselves into a dangerous deficit, lost many more American lives in military casualties, and have been engaged in war in two countries as well as in disputes with their neighbors.

Like a child of divorced parents who paints an idyllic picture in school of a house with a Mom and Dad standing in front of it, along with a cat and a dog, the photo shared here represents a wishful moment in time, when life seemed to have simple answers and a goal that could be fulfilled. Now, many dollars later, that goal is still not accomplished for reasons unknown to most Americans.

Whether you agree with people from New Hampshire or don’t, just realize that we are a plain spoken and outspoken population. Many of us are opinionated. All of us care. My goal in posting the photo shown here is for your awareness, only, not for “shock and awe,” and not for political reasons, nor for the purpose of being offensive. The photo represents one New Hampshire’s native’s spin on things at a time that we all needed to make a positive statement, in the face of disaster, and feel that somehow, our voices would be heard. I asked Jim to take this photo as I felt it marked a moment in time that needed to be captured. And now, I am sharing it with you, nine years later. God bless the U.S.A.

Patricia Cummings

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Sunday, July 5th, 2009

When I heard about the lecture, “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn,” I was reminded of the farm where I lived as a teen. Thomas Hubka, a University of Wisconsin professor, presented a talk in Boscawen, NH last week, and will again deliver his slide lecture at two separate NH locations this week, Temple and Chatham (pronounced “Chat-ham”). This is yet another event sponsored by the . Click on this link, for a list of places and times of meetings.

aerial view-1964

Aerial view of the Grace family farm in Deerfield, NH in 1964. There are about 40 acres of cleared land to the left of the house, divided partially by a line of trees. The property extends backwards, through woods, and a wetland swamp, all the way to the Candia, NH line: 89 acres, in all. I used to ride my horse on some of the trails through the woods, although the deer flies were brutally vicious, taking chunks out of the skin of the unwary.

The place before my parents bought it

Don’t you just love the coon skins hanging on the barn?

My parents did not necessarily buy this place for the quality of home that sat on the acreage. For $12,000.00, it was an investment. My father, , had hoped to work a lot more on improving the house, but got the news that he had kidney cancer, shortly after purchasing the property. Pronounced “cured,” he started a tree nursery, in addition to working at his “day job” in Manchester.

Deerfield farm layout

The layout of the Deerfield farm when my parents purchased it in 1963.

It would have been difficult to make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear, but before he could accomplish his dream of making this property a “show place,” my father died of a spinal tumor in 1974. My mother continued to live in the home until she was hauled off to a hospital with a heart attack, and never returned. The farm sold in 1999, if I remember correctly.

Previously a dairy farm, the property my parents purchased was a sprawling affair of outbuildings. The old farmhouse was attached to an unfinished “shed” under the same roof, featuring visible, hand-hewn beams.

What one’s eye could not miss was a huge meat freezer that no one dared to move, lest it disturb the upright supports in the cellar underneath it, thus causing the floor to collapse.

At the end of the “shed,” as we called it, there was a chicken coop with laying boxes for the hens, enclosed with chicken wire. This was a good way to be able to collect eggs in the dead of winter, without going outside.

There was a loft above the chicken coop where old items were stored, such as a broken rocking chair. To the right of the loft was a room with a roughly cut out entrance. This was situated above the kitchen and had been used as a room by hired help, at some point, before the mice romped freely, leaving their trail.

Downstairs again, to the left of the chicken coop was an area that went right into the barn, again, sheltering barn entrants from exposure to the weather. My father disassembled that connector, so that the cost of fire insurance would decrease.

Previously, when one passed through that corridor, overhead was a straw-covered wooden platform where “the old drunk who worked there” slept.

The barn seemed to have been built in sections, with the main part being built first, and then a long extension that featured stanchions for milking dairy cows, and closed in pens for heifers. At the back, my Dad assembled two pens for my horses.

Lucky and Red - May 1964

“Lucky,” a half-Arabian gelding, and “Montana Red,” a retired Standardbred racehorse graze in three acre pasture to the left of the house in this May 1964 photo.

At the back and to the right side of the back barn was a milk-processing room. I remember its soapstone sink. Perhaps, the soapstone came from Francestown, NH, well-known for its soapstone manufacturing. Another free-standing room abutted the milk-processing room, but there was no point of entry between the two. The door opening was on the other side of the building. Someone had stored old paintings in there.

A separate barn with a cement floor was on site. Without enough upright beams, it collapsed during the weight of one winter’s snow. Next to that was a carriage shed, with yet another chicken coop at the end. So, as you can see, the place was a conglomeration of these many buildings. Today, only the house with the one connected shed remains. The new owner has torn down everything else.

Deerfield farmhouse 1964

This view of the farmhouse shows a roof dormer, which was removed, as well as the window awnings. The white door seen on the side of the front of the house actually led into a long mud closet for hanging coats, and then into a living room with two mismatched tin ceilings, making it appear as if the room had been two rooms at one time.

My father had a fireplace installed, as well as hardwood floors, a sheet rock ceiling and viagra walgreens wooden beams. He added wood paneling, and a French glass door between the living room and large country kitchen. With a huge braided rug, the room was a cozy place where my Dad and I played music, quite frequently. He also fixed up the front porch and added screens and a door.

Patricia Grace in Deerfield living room 1966

Me, Patricia Grace, with trophy for being named Princess of the Deerfield Bicentennial Celebration in 1966. Here, I am standing in the living room of the family home.

I have fond memories of the farm and growing up in a small town, especially being a member of 4-H. It was nice not to be able to “see” any neighbors, with open land on either side and across the street. The property consisted of 89 acres. The new owner has built a luxury home in the back field where I used to pick wild blueberries along the side of the field, and also, ride my horse. Of all the former buildings, only the main home with the attached shed remains and is rented out, as far as I know.

Times change and one can see how people tried to make do, in the past. The New Hampshire countryside is looking more prosperous these days, except for the remaining falling-down barns, previously used by dairy farmers. They simply did not have the time or money to do upkeep to the buildings.

I am posting this because I can certainly relate to the topic currently being presented by a NH Humanities Council speaker. We tried to attend the lecture last week, but alas, by the time we arrived, the crowd had already spilled into the hallway, and we couldn’t see or hear a thing, so will wait for a more propitious time.

Patricia L. (Grace) Cummings

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Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Martin Fox, professor of Art History at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, captivated a small but very interested group of listeners last night with his descriptions of the origins of Photography. With projected images to illustrate the roots of the technique, Fox highlighted the people who first used the simple principle that light travels along straight lines and can be used to project images on a wall, albeit upside down. He showed how a portable camera obscura, an antecedent of the modern camera, may have influenced the Dutch artist, Jan Vermeer, in “Young Woman with a Water Jug,” a painting with photographic qualities, rendered circa 1660-1662.

Throughout the 19th century, chemistry played a large role in developing various ways of printing images. Louis Daguerre, father of the Daguerrotype, is a pivotal figure in the History of Photography. In exchange for a lifelong pension, he allowed France to share his methods with the world. Daguerrotypes are usually small, 2 or 3″ big, and no larger than 8 or 9 inches. They are saved under glass to prevent fading, and most often have an elaborate copper frame. These are highly-collectible today, and some have been known to sell for $100,000. Each is a one-of-a-kind object.

Due to Daguerre’s processes being freely-shared, work with Daguerrotype images was more common than the Calotype processes of William Henry Fox Talbot who produced “Calotypes,” but also patented his method, making them more exclusive.

We were treated to a view of the first man whose ever photo was taken, inadvertently, as he stood in one spot for a long time on the streets of Paris, getting a shoe shine. He was there long enough for the photo process to work. Early picture-taking often took 5 to 15 minutes.

This is a simple overview. There is much more to the lecture and the topic, of course! We, obviously, have a great deal of interest in photography, as did the people who attended the talk. I was very surprised to see a photo image of Annie Fields, a woman who was Sarah Orne Jewett’s intimate associate for 30 years. She, too, was very beautiful! Just last week, I had just written about Sarah Orne Jewett and her residence in Maine, in a blog post.

This presentation by Martin Fox covers the many nineteenth century methods of translating images onto paper, as well as the relationship between good composition in both art and photography. We highly recommend this lecture that was presented in collaboration with the lecture series. As always, we welcome every opportunity to learn. Many thanks to the library in Greenland, New Hampshire for co-sponsoring this event.

One of the nicest books about photography in our collection is called, viagra walgreens by Joan Severa.

Patricia Cummings

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Thursday, March 19th, 2009

After watching the dire news, night after night, about how the U.S. economy is tanking, I woke up this morning, determined to do something to make a difference. As a result, I have not only marked down the price of our e-book about a most inspiring but little known figure in the quilt world of the 1930s, but we are also offering FREE SHIPPING to U.S. addresses.

Why? You would have to know more about Mrs. Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster to fully understand the answer to that question. She brought light to so many lives through her quilt lectures, bird talks, women’s club activities, and by being, overall, a decent and hopeful woman who loved literature, people, and life itself. Her life’s emphasis was on Education, that is, sharing what she knew with as many other people as she could, sometimes, for very little or no pay. She and I have a LOT in common. I really identified with her life and some of the directions it took her, and what was most valuable to her.

So, at tremendous savings to the potential buyer, our website is making a special, if not limited-time offer for this CD. For details, and to pay with a Paypal button, please see our home page by clicking on the link listed under our names.

Mrs. Webster lived through the Great Depression and she knew what it was to “make do” and to “go without.” She took in (family) boarders, and sometimes provided “paid” lectures that did not even cover the gas money it took to get to the lecture hall.

Like Mrs. Webster, I have shared tons of “free” information. I have done this on my website and in the (free) lectures I have provided. This e-book is truly a labor of love, and deserves to be read. It is the product of eight long months of intense research, 12-14 hrs. per day including field trips; networking; interlibrary loan requests; purchases of research materials, via the Internet and elsewhere; and input from individual historians, quilt historians, and family members, as well as a number of museums.

Don’t let the opportunity get away to familiarize yourself with this great 1930s quilt historian and her work. Her name was Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster (1867-1950). Now you can learn all about her life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, her family, her work, her education, her affiliations, her quilt “charts,” and life in New Hampshire, during her lifetime. She was particularly instrumental in the spread of information about Luminous Moss in NH, and the book covers that interest, as well.

Thanks for listening!

Patricia and James Cummings

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Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

The care of material objects is a science unto itself and there are aids to preservation of photos and quilts. I am sure that I know more about caring for quilts, after having investigated the matter as much as possible when I wrote the book, , in 2002, (now available to view in its entirety, on our website). Photos are another consideration altogether.

James and his dog in 1974

Photos, like this one of my son and his dog represent a time that will never come again. The photo is worthy of special care.

Recently, when a family member asked me to find a photo of my mother when she was four years old and still living in Georgia, I began looking through the voluminous pile of family photos, in boxes, and in photo albums. Many of these storage situations I had not visited for a long while. To my dismay, in one album, I found that many of the photos had lightened terribly due to moisture that had collected behind the plastic sleeves the photos were in.

my mother in GA - 1917

My mother, in Georgia, in 1917. (I finally found the photo!)

In addition, one of my schoolgirl photos was completely riddled with black mold. Luckily, I had a copy in another place, so I just threw away that particular one. I have removed all of the photos from that album and am storing them upright in an acid-free box for photos that I purchased at a camera supply shop. Now, I realize that I should probably do the same with all of the other photos that are in albums.

Quilts That Are Stored

Acid-free tissue is always recommended for scrunching up to place in the folds of quilts to prevent permanent creases. Has anyone ever told you that acid-free paper or even acid-free cardboard is treated superficially, to make it acid-free? Both products will regain acidic property: the paper in 1-3 years and the storage boxes in 10-15 years. Yesterday, in testing some of the so-called acid-free paper in which I’d stored and wrapped some quilts, the testing pen I was using showed them to be outdated.

How did I test the paper? Not long ago, I discovered a special pen called an Abbey ph pen. It is used by making a dot on a piece of paper or cardboard. If the dot stays purple, then the ph is fine. If the dot immediately turns yellow, the paper is now acidic and contact with it is dangerous to photos or quilts.

How can paper be dangerous? Look, paper is derived from wood pulp and that comes from trees, and trees are naturally, acidic. To make wood products not acidic, for a time, derivative products are treated chemically. However, they will revert to their natural state.

The testing pen can be found at who now has their complete catalog available online. I have no affiliation with them except for being a happy customer. I am elated to find this new product, and because of it, was able to determine the status of acid-free paper, currently in use, and consequently, threw a lot of it away and replaced it with new paper I’d just bought. (The acid-free paper may still look fine, and not yellowed, but still have an improper ph level).

There are a number of companies that sell archival products but Gaylord is one of my favorites. Testfabrics sells de-sized muslin, which is another helpful product.

Quilts and photos are worth being preserved. Take a lot at those old paper mats and backings, too. I found two portrait photos in my collection in which the acid from those products has actually leached into the pictures. I was able to scan the photos and doctor them up a bit in Photoshop to preserve the visual information on the surface. Check your collections and make sure you are caring for everything in a proper way. You’ll be glad you did.

Patricia Cummings

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Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

The Manchester Union Leader reports in March 1936 deemed the flood there as the worst since 1896. This essay features photos taken by my father, (the late) (1911-1974) who was out and about in the aftermath of the storm, probably because he was an Auxiliary Policeman. Residents were urged to stay home. One good reason for that was the escape of Manchester’s zoo animals. After the rains stopped, only two of the city’s bridges remained standing. My dad took 13 photos. Here, I am sharing some of them.

2nd photo of Manchester, NH flood

3rd photo of Manchester, NH flood, 1936

view of the river

1936 flood ruins

1936 flood damage

If you “Google” “Flood of 1936 Manchester NH,” you will see various links to other sites with photos and newspaper accounts, one of which is the following:

The flood must have been a very memorable event because I remember my parents discussing it, years later. Funny, they did not mention the famous “Hurricane of 1938,” about which, books have been written. Manchester was very much affected by that storm, as well.

John Edward Grace in 1972 - hotel near La Guardia

This is a photo of John Edward Grace, looking relaxed in a hotel room near La Guardia Airport, from which I departed for Spain in 1972.

I hope you have been enjoying the old photos that I have been scanning from many “pieces of the past” in the family album. I especially like the ones with historic ties.

Best wishes,

Patricia Cummings

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Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Narrow street in Spain

I have been searching for a week now for a specific photo requested by a family member and have yet to find it. What I am seeing, in looking through old photo albums, are images that I have been compelled to scan and add to our website. That task has been partially occupying my days.

I did come across the photo, seen above, that I took in Spain. My memory of taking the picture is non-existent, although I would have to say that it is representative of some of the streets in the older section of Pamplona. The first thing I considered when viewing this photo was the “vanishing point.” That is an art term that usually refers to the distant point at which lines converge. The second consideration was the recollection of the wonderful overlays, the ghost layers, that are the mark of Katie Pasquini-Masopust’s work.

The street is so close, that if across the street neighbors stood on their balconies, they could almost reach out and shake hands. I find the photo to be charming, rustic, and as well as a point to ponder. To me, the photo could represent the narrow viewpoints of individuals. At some point, in the distance, their thoughts may converge. To be simplistic in my thinking, perhaps all it would take would be a handshake. I continue to hope for peace in the world, and try to keep reminding myself that peace begins with me, and you, too. Have a great Sunday!

Patricia Cummings

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Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

John A. Grace

Since readers of this blog seem to enjoy old photos, today I decided to share one more. Knowing just a little about the man on the left, to me, this moment captured in time speaks volumes.

Even though John Augustine Grace was my grandfather, I realize now that I never knew much about him, and I certainly never had the chance to meet him. All of my grandparents had died by the time I arrived.

From family accounts, I know that John was quiet, dutiful, and Irish. On his World War I draft card, he describes himself as having a “medium build,” “gray eyes,” and “dark hair.” From the photo, we can visually verify that he worked as a conductor on the trolley cars, in Manchester, New Hampshire.

If one can extrapolate a profile of an entire portion of Manchester’s population by assessing the virtues of one man, I would state that my grandfather, like many men of Irish descent, had his mind set on providing for his (seven) children, bringing them up “in the faith,” and giving them the core roots of dignity and values so that they could attain a better life. He spent his days working, and little else is known of him.

Perhaps, ultimately, that is all we need to know. In this life, there is little of lasting worth that can compete with love of family and provision for them. John A. Grace rose to the call of duty, and was ready to serve his country in 1918, although he was not asked to do so. He lived, he loved, he died. That is really the essence of what most of us do.

Patricia Cummings

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Sunday, May 6th, 2007

I have just posted a new music file that has three songs that were popular within the first two decades of the twentieth century. I was feeling very nostalgic this afternoon, thinking about my mother and what a character she truly was. So, I have added an old photo to the music file I recorded. It is a picture of Dad and Mother when they were dating and it is quite a quaint image because of the outfits they are both wearing. Even if you can’t access the sound files, the is worth viewing.
Enjoy!

Pat