Darrow School - Shaker Post Yearbook (New Lebanon, NY)

Page 8 text:

Acknowledgements OR ASSISTANCE in preparing this Shaker number the Peg Board wishes to make grateful acknowledgement to the following: Sisters Emma J. Neale and Sadie Neale of the Church Family of Shakers, Eldresses Rosetta Stephens and Ella Winship, of the North Family of Shakers, Miss Olive Hand of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mrs. Charles Hodge Jones and Miss Dorothea Hendricks of the Lebanon School, Mr. H. E. Palfrey, Chairman of the Governors of King Edwardls School, Stourbridge, England, Mr. E. A. F. Keen, Librarian and Secretary ofthe Public Library, Art Gallery, and Hastings Museum, Victoria Institute, Worcester, England, the Editor of the Birmingham Post, Birmingham, England, the Mayor of Worcester, Worcester, England, Dr. Edward D. Andrews of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mr. Charles S. Haight of New York, President of the Board of Trustees of the Lebanon School, Mr. Austin D. Haight of West Lebanon, New York, Mr. Charles H. Jones, Headmaster of the Lebanon School, Mr. Richard Randolph Miller, Mr. P. W. Downing, and Mr. Sam- uel P. Cowardin Jr. of the Lebanon School faculty, and Mosley and Stoll, Troy, New York.

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Ulu gnu, nur trienhs, tnhether in the flesh or in the spirit, who ante Iibeh here aah nom have gone forth, ine, the haps of The lebanon bthoul, behitate this little hunk, a plehge of nur affection anb esteem.

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Volume 4 New Lebanon, N. Y., June, 1936 Number 3 A Word from the President of the Board of Trustees DURING the depression of 1873, which followed the Civil War, my father's firm failed and he turned over everything that he had to his creditors and started life anew. The first thing that he did was to come to New Lebanon and rent from the Shakers the little white house which still stands opposite the residence of Mr. H. Cox. There my mother, my two older brothers and I lived for about three years, and it was due to that fact that my acquaintance with the Shakers, and especially with Sister Emma, began at the early age of three. My mother and Sister Emma had been friends, almost from girlhood, and in spite of the busy life which Sister Emma then lived, she used to find the time to come down and spend an afternoon with my mother, every once in a while. In that way it happened that I cannot remember the time when her Shaker garb and her serious mien were not familiar sights to me, but they were always tempered by her bright red cheeks and her .sparkling eyes and her slow and infectious smile. During my boyhood it was still my mother who kept me in constant touch with Sister Emma and the Shaker Store. Many a time I drove Mother up there to call. But later I began to go on my own account, for there was an atmosphere and an attraction about the whole Shaker village which appealed to me. You could not go among the Shakers without being conscious of the fact that they were different from other people. There was a tranquillity in their demeanor, an unhurried but sure precision in their movements, a certainty underlying their faith when they spoke of it and a love for perfection in their handiwork which set them quite apart from any other people whom I have ever known. Of course they were human and I suppose that some of them must have had short tempers, like the rest of us, but during the sixty years that I have known them I have never heard one of them speak a hasty word. Perhaps the most striking picture which stands out in my memory of the Shakers of fifty years ago is that of their Sunday services in the Shaker Meeting House of which we are still so proud. It was a thrilling sight to see the brothers and sisters from the different families march to the Meeting House, two by two-hundreds of them. Their ideas were different from ours and we knew it, but they were to be respected as one would have respected the early Pilgrims. During the 1 50 years that the Shakers have lived on the slopes of the Lebanon Valley they have been good citizens of the nation and a striking example to the community. I wish that every one who reads this number of the Peg Board might have known Benjamin Gates and Mary Hazard and many another Shaker of the earlier days, but most of you have known Sister Emma and Sister Sadie and they are true to the earlier traditions. It is fitting that we should have a Shaker number of our School paper, fitting that we should preserve the records of Shaker history and everything else which will keep alive the Shaker ideals of simplicity, industry, honesty, temperance, and clean living-ideals which have endured, for they were responsible for the founding of The Lebanon School. I like to think that it was Abner Hitchcock who penned our School hymn. He had known the Shakers much longer than I have, and he was himself hardly convinced of the spiritual truthsg and yet it was he who wrote: Those cloistered halls which knew of old The silence of the prophets' thought- Let not our tramplings overbold Efface the symbols that they wrought. O, Master, keep our wayward feet True to the paths thy servants trod, While we their votive pledge repeat Of Hands to Work and Hearts to God. C. S. H. 5