My friend Ruthi from Maine-ly Dolls club http://www.mainelydollsclub.org/ and I, along with our Hittys and displays, boarded the mail boat from Northeast Harbor on Tuesday evening. We arrived on GCI and were met by Wini Smart Quackenbush and her husband Fred who were gracious enough to allow us to spend the night on the island in their guest cottage.
We awoke in the morning to a foggy harbor and slight drizzle.
After a quick walk along the shore we were ready to set up our displays.
My display included my favorite travel Hittys - Hitty Grace carved by Maria Wilkes from over a century old wood salvaged from her "Grandpappy's" cabin and Hityy Rachel a fabric Hitty made by Margie Schaber using a photo of the real Hitty.
In chapter XVI Hitty tells us that Miss Pamela dressed her in a dress copied after one that she made as a child and that she became one of Miss Pamela's favorite of all her collection. "She kept me in a little old yellow rocker on her own writing desk." Although this scene is not illustrated in the book, I like the vision of Hitty sitting on the desk in her rocker so I created this simple scene. My Michael Langton Hitty was painted by me, she poses in her new dress made by my sister Dawn, her yellow rocker I found at a yard sale.
I also took my favorite Hitty scene that I created from the February 1930 issue of The Horn Book, titled "How Hitty Happened." When describing how the book Hitty Her First Hundred Years happened Rachel Field tells readers that Hitty was taken to the smallest of the Cranberry Islands. "Here she had a special room on a shelf and a cane-seated chair and painted settle to sit in, besides a braided rug, a china cupboard and a small dog to complete her outfit."
My Michael Langton perfume Hitty sits in this scene. The settle was made by my husband and me from a Julie DeGroat pattern. Hitty's dress was made by me using one of Julie DeGroat's online classes. Pillow by Julie DeGroat. Braided rug by Julie Vernon. Cupboard and dishes purchased from Hobby Builder's Supply. Pin cushion doll, unknown.
Ruthi's displays included scenes from the book. Participants also had the opportunity of having a photo op with their Hitty dressed in the wedding dress or the Dickens outfit or in the doll scene.
Hitty Ruth of the Plymouth Hittys in Maine and Hitty Iris Raikes of the Ashgrove Hittys were excited about being the first photographed in Ruthi's scenes.
After the displays were set up it was time for me and my Hittys to do a some walking around on our own. Although we missed the gardens we shopped at the church craft fair where the Hittys purchased chocolate purses. A trip to The Whales Rib found a cozy, soft blanket for me to wrap up in on the couch during the upcoming winter months. We met the Turner Hitty cousins from New Hampshire and adopted a Hitty from Nathalie Turner. At the Preble home there were photo ops available to take in the parlor mentioned in the book along with other rooms on the main floor of the home.
Hitty Grace and Hitty Rachel discuss the adoption of the Hitty Cousin in the middle, she hasn't told us her name yet.
In addition to the parlor fireplace there are three other fireplaces on the ground floor of the Preble Home. Hitty Grace loved the decorations on this mantel.
This was one of our favorite fireplaces located in a small room at the front of the home.
We returned to the museum to have our picture taken with Big Hitty made by Michelle DelValle.
We saw a portrait of Adelina Patti
And we wondered who created this Hitty.
The morning went by quickly and it was time for my talk.
I read Hitty Her First Hundred Years in 1999, I remember this because I inscribed in the front of the book "A gift to myself, March 1999." I must have bought it for as a birthday gift to myself as I enjoy reading children's books especially ones with dolls or dollshouses as the theme.
I first learned about Hitty when my sister gave our mother a gift of a Raikes Hitty by Robert Raikes sold through the Americn Kit Company for Christmas 2003. My mother named her Hitty Ruth.
I thought she was adorable and immediately ordered one for myself, I named her Hitty-Sue.
I soon learned about and joined the online group Hittygirls.com, the owner/moderator of the group is Julie DeGroat and the Ashgrove Hittys. Hitty Iris Raikes is visiting and attending Hitty Hoopla.
When I learned that The Cranberry Isles laid claim to being Hitty's home I was confused. I had been to Portland many times, my father had lived there. My children lived there, even at one time I joked that our daughter who lived in a renovated Carriage House on Congress Street that it was Uncle Robinson's where Charlie (the Preble's horse) and the gig were left when the family set out for Boston. I could see in my mind's eye all of the places mentioned in the book.
I also had been to The Cranberry Isles as my step father kept a boat at Northeast Harbor in the 1980's. We took many trips back then to the Isles and I couldn't figure out the connection - GCI vs Portland. I felt if I was confused then others might be as well so during the summer of 2007 I visited both places and made those connections.
Rachel Field wrote in the February 1930 issue of The Horn Book after the purchase of Hitty that the following summer Dorothy (the illustrator) brought Hitty to the smallest of the Cranberry Islands. Later she tells readers that her [Hitty's] joint owners and a friend were working on Hitty's memoirs. For an entire week they thought of nothing else from breakfast until sunset.
Rachel also writes in The Horn Book that "No one in the antique shop [where Hitty was purchased] knew a thing about her [Hitty] so there was no one to dispute them." With that being said one could conclude that she fictionalized Hitty to have been carved from a piece of mountain ash wood by an old peddler in Maine. She again mentions the Island when she writes, "It was on the Island, too, that they discovered that "going into camphor" is a familiar process to most old dolls."
There are resembalances to people and places on Great Cranberry Island which inspired Rachel, among them are the real life Prebles and their home on Cranberry Road, Duck Island, the church on the hill (also known as meeting house), the Passamaquoddy Indians gathering berries, and Preble Cove to name a few.
I have wondered why Rachel chose to set the story in Portland vs Cranberry Island but imagine since Portland Harbor was more widely known she may have chosen that port to bring the people and places of the Cranberry Isles to Portland.
Places in Portland mentioned in the book:
Portland Harbor, The Back Cove, Cow Island, Congress Street, Meeting House Hill, Falmouth Road, all very similar to the places on Great Cranberry Island.
Portland Cranberry Isles
Portland Harbor Cranberry Dock
The Back Cove Preble Cove
Cow Island Duck Island
Falmouth Road The Cranberry Road
Meeting House Hill Cranberry Island Church is on a hill down Cranberry Road
Hitty was carved 100 years before the friends purchased her and it is unknown where Hitty-the doll- was carved. However I would not dispute the idea that the Fictional Hitty was 'born' on the Cranberry Isles. Field appears to use her artistic license and takes the reader to the setting of Portland, Maine. And I am no longer confused.
Other speakers at the event were:
Robin Clifford Wood did a very interesting talk on Rachel Field. Robin owns Rachel's Sutton Island home. She has been researching Rachel Field and is writing a book. She also writes for the Bangor Daily News. Her article on Rachel Field was published in the August 5th BDN. http://bangordailynews.com/2011/08/04/living/conversations-with-maine-lifestyle/rachel-field-%e2%80%94-poet-writer-daughter-of-maine/
Sam King who lives on GCI read Field poetry. I don't understand poetry but when read well, as Sam did, it was rather nice.
We ended our day on the 5:15 mail boat back to Northeast Harbor, in the pouring rain. My feelings about that is; a rainy day on the mail boat and GCI is still better than a sunny day at work.
1 comment:
Loved this, Sue! Thanks for sharing!!
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