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Box 212 Monroe, CT 06468
Our annual Tag Sale will take place on Saturday, June 19 and Saturday, June 26 from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. at the Old Schoolhouse on Wheeler Road. We have had many wonderful donations already and are still taking donations for this year's sale. Please call 268-5511 or 261-8554 to arrange for delivery or pick up of sale items. To get ready for the sale we need: Help with moving things to the Schoolhouse: We are going to try to schedule this for one day the weekend of June 12-13. Let us know if you can help and/if you have a van or truck to transport LOTS OF STUFF. Help with setting up: We will be able to get into the Schoolhouse after June 10 (the last day a class is scheduled.) After that, we will be setting up inside the schoolhouse. Let us know when you can help. Our schedule for this is flexible, but we will be working most days from 9 a.m. - about 12:a.m. the week of June 14. Working on the day of the sale: This is the most fun part. We need people from 8 - 2 on both days. Let us know if you can come for an hour, two hours, or the whole time. Taking down: We have a really tight schedule this year. We need to have the schoolhouse back in order by July 1 for a summer class visit. We also have Hands-on-History June 28 - 30. We look at this as an opportunity to motivate us to do a really FAST cleanup. Please help us with this on Saturday afternoon (June 26) and Sunday, June 27. This sale has become a major fundraiser for the Society. Please support us with your donations, your time, or your presence as a buyer! The Civil War program, presented by Dale Call of Monroe, on Sunday, March 28th at the Meetinghouse was enjoyed by a standing room only crowd.. Mr. Call presented his research done on the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry at the Battle of Chancellorsville. He emphasized the experience of Monroe's Private Ira Penfield, who belonged to a company raised primarily in Bridgeport, based on letters written home to his wife shortly before and after the battle. Dale owns several letters that Private Penfield wrote to his wife. Dale is the webmaster of the award-winning 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry website, http://home.att.net/~DogSgt/Seventeenth.html. Professor C.O. Scope II and his Traveling Magic Lantern Show, a Scintillating, Stupendous, Stimulating Historic Visit to Victorian Entertainment, was held at the Rexford House on May 22 and was seen by a large audience. Magic Lanterns probably originated about 1650, although its exact origins are lost in history. It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century, and the Victorian period that it came into its own in the technology forefront. The breakthrough was the result of the invention of "limelight." Limelight is created when oxygen and hydrogen jets are played on to lime and ignited. This produces a powerful enough light so that an image from a glass slide could be projected on a screen. Richard Moore of Guilford, CT presented a humorous lantern show with his 120 year old lantern and equally vintage hand painted glass slides. His lantern has been electrified luckily as limelight was very explosive! This spring we have had several 2nd grade classes from Bethel Public Schools visit our 1790 schoolhouse. In addition, a 3rd grade class from St. James School in Stratford spent a day back in time. Many thanks to our docents: Jean Weicker, Chris Ehlers and Gretchen Davison who have taken turns welcoming the classes and sharing our schoolhouse with the children and their teachers. We are getting ready for our annual hands on history program for children ages 8-14 on the last three days of June. We are booked to capacity with many new and returning participants. We couldn't offer this popular program without the wonderful volunteers who come back year after year because it's so much fun. In addition to Judy Standerford and Nancy Zorena, the creators of the program , the following volunteers have helped for many years: Millie Ohm, Chris Ehlers, Jean Weicker, Joan Verniero, Rachel and Carly Wolfe, Brenda, Amanda and Abigail Schultz, Katie Zorena, Ed, Marcia, and Jennifer Coffey and Barbara Waite. Congratulations to Elisabeth and Philip Jones who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on June 3rd. Philip and Elisabeth have been members of the Society for 45 years! Philip has served on the Board of Directors for decades and recently donated cedar wood from his saw mill for our newly restored side porch at Beardsley House. Our annual textile sale was held on April 17, 18, 24, and 25. We had a wonderful turnout for both the sale and the exhibits in the house. The Monroe Historical Society has a wonderful collection of beaded bags and we had these on display in the Beardsley House. Several paintings by the Burr sisters were on display as well as an early 19th century autograph quilt. The textile sale is becoming a major fundraiser for us and this year had a profit of over $1,000. We couldn't have achieved this without the wonderful donations from Society members and friends. Special thanks to friends Pamela Arguelles of Mystic, Nancy Manger of Bethany, Rosalie Bruno of Westport, Doreen Hoyt of Monroe and Zaida June of Shelton. Thank you to members Millie Ohm, Elma Jean Wiacek, Diane DiCamello, Madelyn Marshall, Gail Cullinan and many others that sent their donations with others or dropped them off when I wasn't there to get their name. You helped make this sale a huge success! We have a few vacancies on our Board of Directors for next year. Please call Nancy at 261-8554 if you would be interested in serving. As mentioned earlier, Philip Jones has been a Board member for decades! Recently, we were discussing all of his years of service to the Society and he meekly said that he didn't really do that much. Au contraire, he has always done so much for the Society. I will mention a few things. Phil has for the last 30 years provided Christmas trees and garland for the annual Christmas fair as well as trees to decorate the Beardsley House and the Meetinghouse. He helped select photographs from our collection for calendars produced, he encouraged us to buy Burr diaries on Ebay for the Society's collection, he has put in place our building signs, and is supplying fine native timber for our table in the Society's room in the new public library. Phil has always helped to make important decisions that will affect the future of the Society and our town. Fanfare Concerts, LTD and the Society will partner in a unique project at the East Village Meetinghouse to provide an exceptional Baroque musical program for 4th graders during the 2004-2005 school year. Plans are in the works to have Fanfare Concerts present a Baroque concert for the Society and guests as well. |
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