theo anderson
Sarah and Louisa and sons Stanley Jr., Joseph, and John Gilpin (later an aviator who served with the famed “Flying Tigers” in China during World War II) — spent a good deal of time outdoors as well, in both summer and winter. Sarah Bright noted a sandbox and bicycles were part of play. At the bottom of the hill lived Mary Reeser (now Deitrich), whose parents worked for the Brights. Her father George Reeser was a caretaker, cutting wood and tending to the asparagus the Brights grew. Her mother cleaned “the big house.” On weekends, the Brights would entertain. “The house was lovely,” Deitrich said. Outdoors, the Brights took down a barn, the foundation of which forms a walled garden. Deitrich, who was years younger than the Bright children, said she and her mother witnessed a daughter marry there. They also were present when another daughter was wed inside the home, by a fireplace. And when the Brights traveled around the world, they brought Deitrich gifts, such as Chinese and Russian dolls. On one birthday, she was given a linen handkerchief on which her name had been embroidered. “The Brights were very good people,” Deitrich said. A granddaughter, Leila Bright, of Maine, has fond memories of the weekends she spent at Cedar Hill as a child. She’d take a steam train to Reading from her home in Rosemont, and her grandfather would meet her. When she headed back home, he’d give her $1 — “a visitor’s tax” he called it. Every weekend, the Brights hosted one or two grandchildren. “They wanted us to enjoy them and the house,” Leila Bright said. And the grandchildren did — they sang “Coming ’Round the Mountain” at the piano, played “Hide the Thimble,” and rode bicycles. They found arrowheads as they walked old Indian paths to the river, where they swam and had campfires. Leila Bright said her grandmother was innovative, hands-on, a professional at running a house. She taught her grandchildren to sew and needlepoint and knit — “all of which she did all the time,” Leila Bright said. “Her hands were always busy.” Her grandfather had a good sense of humor, she said. He loved to play backgammon with friends. An early riser, he listened to orchestral music from Europe over a shortwave radio; visiting grandchildren woke to the paired sounds of music and their grandfather slurping coffee. Stanley Bright was involved in the dayto-day operation of the farmland he owned, and he’d take along his grandchildren to visit those tending the land.
26 Alvernia University Magazine pp22-34AlverniaWinter2010.indd 5
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