Greenville & Hockessin Life Winter 2015

Winter 2015

Greenville & Hockessin

LIFE

Magazine

Behind the scenes at Winterthur's Yuletide

- Page 20

INSIDE

Helping Delaware’s children Open-ended artwork

by Linda Ford www.ghlifemagazine.com

A Chester County Press Publication

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Table of Contents Greenville & Hockessin Life • Winter 2015 8 8

20

20

Bringing the magic of Christmas to Winterthur

32

Linda Ford explores where art can take you

40 56

40

56

Thomas Hanna and the Delaware KIDS Fund

66

Driving Desire: Automobile Advertising & the American Dream

The Weekday Skiers Club

The Delaware Nature Society’s Bird Banding Project

78

Photo essay: The Hockessin Steeple Chase

84

The quietest healers

96

Last walk of autumn, toward winter

66 Cover design: Tricia Hoadley Cover photo: Courtesy of Winterthur Museum, Montmorenci Stair Hall V, image by Carlos Alejandro, Studio A 6

Greenville & Hockessin Life | Winter 2015 | www.ghlifemagazine.com

Celebrating the season in every sense Letter from the Editor: Welcome to the winter edition of Greenville & Hockessin Life.

In this issue, we talk to Debbie Harper about the year-long effort to plan Yuletide at Winterthur, which is a tradition for so many Delaware families.

We also talk to Thomas Hanna, the chief operating officer of Harvey Hanna & Associates, which created The Delaware KIDS Fund in 2008 as an in-house charitable organization to help Delaware youngsters who are in distressed situations. The current focus is now on helping youngsters who regularly go without food—an alarming percentage of Delaware children don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Writer Richard Gaw takes readers along for a walk in the stunning woods and fields of the Mt. Cuba Center in his essay, “Last Walk of Autumn, toward Winter.”

We talk to members of the Weekday Skiers Club, a group that hits the slopes each Tuesday during the winter. For more than 40 years, members of the Weekday Skiers Club have been bonding over their shared love of skiing.

We explore the Delaware Nature Society’s Bird Banding Project, and we visit the new, year-long exhibit at Hagley Museum called “Driving Desire: Automobile Advertising & The American Dream” that explores the history and evolution of automobile advertising.

The photo essay by Carla Lucas spotlights Hockessin’s places of worship. Can you recognize the area’s houses of worship from their details, such as steeples, entrances or ornaments?

We hope that you enjoy the stories in this issue of Greenville & Hockessin Life as much as the writers and photographers enjoyed preparing them. We welcome your comments and suggestions for future stories, and we are already looking forward to bringing you our next issue, which will arrive in the spring of 2016.

Sincerely, Randy Lieberman, Publisher randyl@chestercounty.com, 610-869-5553 Steven Hoffman, Editor editor@chestercounty.com, 610-869-5553, ext. 13

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——|Greenville & Hockessin Spotlight|——

Greenville entrepreneur goes about the business of helping Delaware’s children The Delaware

KIDS

Fund

By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer

I

t’s a Friday morning in early November and the PureBread cafe in Greenville is crowded with a few retirees reading the newspaper, some artists enjoying a cup of coffee or tea before they head out to whatever the day will bring them, and some business-types who are getting some work done away from the office. Thomas J. Hanna is right at home here in the midst of this activity.

Hanna is the chief operating officer of Harvey, Hanna & Associates, a third-generation business that ranks among Delaware’s largest real estate

Courtesy photo

Thomas Hanna and the team at Harvey Hanna & Associates created The Delaware KIDS Fund in 2008 as an in-house charitable organization that focuses on helping children in Delaware who are living through distressful situations.

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The Delaware

KIDS

Fund

Courtesy photo

The annual 5K, which takes place on the first Saturday in August, is held in Newport and has evolved into one of the more popular 5K’s in the area.

development companies. Harvey, Hanna & Associates has a portfolio of more than three million square feet of space—everything from office parks to shopping centers to a spectacular luxury condominium project that is ongoing at Dewey Beach. Today, Hanna is talking about one of the things that he is most passionate about—the non-profit called The Delaware KIDS Fund that aims to help Delaware children in need.

Hanna and the team at Harvey Hanna & Associates created The Delaware KIDS Fund in 2008 as an in-house charitable organization. The “KIDS” in the name stands for Kids In Distressed Situations. The fund was designed to help at-risk children in Delaware who may face violence, abuse, family financial troubles, or other distressing situations. In the last few years, the focus has shifted primarily to the issue of childhood hunger in Delaware.

One of the biggest goals for The Delaware

KIDS Fund is also one of its biggest challenges: How do you make people aware that so many children in the First State face hunger each and every day?

Hanna explained that you could ask every single person in PureBread how many Delaware children regularly go without food and not one would know that it’s as high as one in every 4.5 children. And this is a well-educated crowd.

“We’re not in some third world country,” Hanna said. “We’re in one of the wealthiest communities in the region.”

Hanna has now made it his purpose to use resources available to him to help at-risk youngsters.

“It’s admirable what Tom is doing—and what he has done with this program,” said Ryan Kennedy, the director of marketing for Harvey, Hanna & Associates. “He’s a successful entrepreneur paying it forward and helping to make Continued on Page 10 www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

9

Thomas J. Hanna...

Continued from Page 9

our community a better place to live and work for many generations ahead.”

Giving back to the community is something that Hanna learned from his grandfather, uncle, and other family members.

“Philanthropy is important to my family,” Hanna explained.

His grandfather, E. Thomas Harvey Jr., exposed him to the Our Lady of Grace Orphanage near Newark. It was a learning experience to see the struggles that other children were facing.

“My grandfather showed me how little gestures, like the annual carnival and dressing up as Santa Claus during the holiday season for these children, could help,” he explained.

E. Thomas Harvey Jr. lived during the Great Depression and started his own trash-hauling business before he was old enough to graduate from high school. During that hard-scrabble time, he slowly built up the business month after month, year after year. By the 1970s, Hanna’s uncle, E. Thomas Harvey, III had graduated

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from The University of Delaware, and the company was propelled under his uncle’s leadership towards becoming the 19th largest solid waste company in the U.S. ultimately leading to the sale of the company in 1997.

E. Thomas Harvey Jr. always emphasized the need to give back, and Hanna’s uncle, E. Thomas Harvey III, the longtime president of Harvey, Hanna & Associates, accelerated the family’s efforts at giving back by quietly assisting as many as 50 or 60 underprivileged children attend college.

Through the years, the family and the company have combined to give back $1 million to organizations that benefit youngsters. Most of the family’s giving has been focused on Delaware’s communities. Hanna himself was born and raised in Wilmington. His dad worked for General Motors, and they moved to the Midwest for about five years before moving back to the First State to reestablish their roots.

“I consider myself a Delawarean through and through,” Hanna explained. “What’s core to our cause is helping our Delaware community.”

When Hanna graduated from the University of Delaware School of Business & Economics in 1996, he joined the family business in a management capacity, having

grown up working for the family hauling business for most of his adolescence.

By then, the company, under the guidance of E. Thomas Harvey III, had moved into commercial real estate development.

In 1996, the company’s portfolio included 30,000 square feet of total space.

They now manage more than three million square feet of space.

Despite the demands that come with each workday, Continued on Page 12

Courtesy photo

Hanna with some of the sponsors at The KIDS Fund’s 2012 Holiday Food Drive, as well as Riley Cooper, the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver.

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Thomas J. Hanna...

Continued from Page 11

Hanna is on a mission to help children who don’t have the advantages that some other children have. The cause is personal to him.

“If I had to choose the experiences in my life that furthered this commitment, it would be the threat of losing two of my own children due to unanticipated and potentially fatal health issues,” Hanna explained.

As two of his children spent time in area pediatric hospitals, the Hanna family witnessed several different instances where children in the area were living in unbearable situations. One child, for instance, was hospitalized in ICU next to Hanna’s son for several days without a single visitor to help comfort or care for the child. The child was apparently the victim of physical abuse.

There were other stories about families calling the HHA offices that had so little money that children didn’t know where the next meal was coming from.

Food insecurity is a major issue in Delaware, impacting more than 20 percent of children in Delaware.

Hanna started the Delaware KIDS Fund as a response to the needs that he saw in the community.

“Seeing my son, along with so many other children, confront challenges in area pediatric hospitals certainly launched an emotional journey for me. Developing The Delaware KIDS Fund was an opportunity to combine the philanthropic messages that I learned from my grandfather and uncle Continued on Page 14

Courtesy photo

Hanna poses with Lucien McKean, one of the Delaware KIDS Fund Ambassador of the Year recipients. Every year, Lucien collects money for the year-end appeal. He has helped collect $6,500 since 2010.

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Thomas J. Hanna...

Continued from Page 12

and channel our emotional energies toward a goal of helping children,” he explained. “Adults, generally speaking, have the ability to make decisions and live by those decisions. These kids can’t make life-altering decisions for themselves. It’s almost an obligation for us to do this.”

The staff at Harvey, Hanna & Associates is fully committed to growing The Delaware KIDS Fund. Hanna is quick to point out that the HHA staff deserves the credit for the work that gets done.

“My name often gets attached to the effort, but the whole Harvey Hanna staff

The Delaware

KIDS

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Continued on Page 16 Courtesy photo

Hanna speaking to a class of Tower Hill students.

They held a fundraiser at their school a few years ago, collecting clothes and food on behalf of the KIDS Fund for inner-city kids in need.

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volunteers their time towards seeing that the Delaware KIDS Fund thrives,” Hanna explained. “There are a lot of people involved in this effort who don’t get enough credit. Ryan [Kennedy] is like the general manager or director of the charitable fund, and he runs 90 percent of the marketing and fund raising for The Delaware KIDS Fund. If you see what the staff does, it’s really quite remarkable. They are the ones doing the heavy lifting.”

Murray Dingwall, the chief financial officer for Harvey, Hanna & Associates, did all the work to file the application for the 501c3 non-profit status himself—a time-consuming task that probably would have cost tens of thousands of dollars if someone were hired to do it.

The Delaware KIDS Fund works closely with health and human service agencies, the Food Bank of Delaware, and area faith based food pantries to provide support to those who need it.

“There are a lot of food organizations that do a wonderful job,” Hanna explained. “But they can’t do it alone.”

Bill Lower, the HHA Environmental Director, helps coordinate targets of opportunity with civic leaders and elected officials. “Children cannot attain their potential without adequate nourishment,” Lower stated. While the staff at Harvey, Hanna & Associates wants to raise money and awareness for the cause, that’s not the limit to their involvement. Kennedy might be working on a project related to the commercial real estate development business when a call will come to The Delaware KIDS Fund from someone seeking help. It’s not unusual for Hanna or Kennedy to take a telephone call from a family facing an immediate crisis situation.

“We’ll get calls from single moms or grandmothers who are desperate for help,” Kennedy explained.

One recent illustration is a call for help that came in from a grandmother who took in her daughter’s three children as a result of the daughter’s drug problem. All of a sudden, the grandmother had three extra people to care for, certainly a daunting challenge.

“She lived on government assistance and was never anticipating taking care of those three kids,” Kennedy explained. “She needed money for food, school supplies and clothes. That’s a heart-wrenching story.”

The Delaware KIDS Fund was able to step in and take care of a few utility bills that the grandmother couldn’t pay.

Harvey, Hanna & Associates absorbs all the

The Delaware

overhead for the Delaware KIDS Fund’s operations.

“It’s a one hundred percent volunteer organization,” Hanna explained. “Every dollar we raise goes directly to our partner organizations. We make every dollar count.”

One of the initiatives started six years ago to boost awareness about the issue of food insecurity was a 5K run/walk that now takes place each August to raise funding and awareness for The Delaware KIDS Fund.

Kennedy noted that food insecurity is a year-round issue, and the August event is timed specifically for when food pantries are running low on supplies.

“We hold the 5K in August when people are busy with summer and back to school needs,” Kennedy explained, “and yet too many children are struggling hard to get a consistent meal.”

That struggle, if the children don’t receive help, too often leads in the wrong direction. Children who don’t

KIDS Fund

have enough food tend not to do well in school. Not doing well in school can lead them to get in trouble, maybe even turn to crime.

Sounding like anything but the typical chief operating officer of a major business, Hanna explained: “The community works like a piece of fabric. If you have threads that are weak or frayed, the whole fabric of the community will fall apart.”

Kennedy said that he’s proud to work for a company that is willing to dedicate itself to a cause.

“I think it’s a great example that is being set,” he said.

“Our bottom line is, it’s all about helping our community and the next generation.”

Being involved in this initiative makes Kennedy realize how important—and easy—it is to make a difference in the lives of children who need help.

“If you give a kid any type of confidence, it’s going to make a huge difference,” Kennedy said. “A meal can Continued on Page 18

www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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Thomas J. Hanna...

Continued from Page 17

provide confidence. A hug can provide confidence. It doesn’t take a lot.”

Hanna said that The Delaware KIDS Fund is still in its infancy stage, and as such, it is still evolving. The HHA team and Kennedy like to think about some initiatives that they might be able to undertake in the future.

Kennedy explained that a few years ago, they did something they called the 25 Days of Giving where they visited 25 youth-based non-profits over 25 days and gave each one a modest donation.

“To this day, it’s one of the most powerful things that we’ve done,” Kennedy explained.

He would like to replicate that idea and establish the Twelve Days of Giving where they would visit 12 different families who are struggling and offer some assistance.

“I’d also love to develop a mentoring program,” Kennedy explained.

The Delaware KIDS Fund has a presence in all three counties in the state, but Hanna would like to broaden that presence. In the near future, he would like to have a 5K event at the beach for that part of the state.

Another ongoing goal is to raise awareness about the needs of Delaware youngsters to the rest of the business community.

“We have a pretty wide reach in the business community,” Hanna explained. “There’s no shortage of need, and that’s what keeps us going. That’s what keeps us grounded, motivated, and inspired. I see great opportunities to grow The Delaware KIDS Fund. I see great things to come.”

The food organizations in Delaware, Hanna noted, can provide a meal to a child for about $1.

“You say to yourself, can we help? The answer is yes,” Hanna explained. “This is Delaware. It doesn’t take millions of dollars to have an impact. In Delaware, the smallest gesture can make the biggest impact. That motivates me. There is no explanation that I will accept for one out of every 4.5 children not to know where their next meal is coming from. Maybe, over time, we bring that number down to one out of 6, or maybe we move it to one out of every 10. But one in 4.5 is not acceptable.”

For more information about The Delaware KIDS Fund and how you can help, visit dekidsfund.org or email info@dekidsfund.com.

To contact Staff Writer Steven Hoffman, email editor@ chestercounty.com.

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Greenville & Hockessin Life | Winter 2015 | www.ghlifemagazine.com

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www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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——|Around Greenville & Hockessin|——

Bringing the magic of Christmas to Winterthur is a full-time job

By John Chambless Staff Writer

F

or many families, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without seeing Yuletide at Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. And Yuletide at Winterthur wouldn’t happen without many willing workers, under the direction of Debbie Harper.

During an interview in an elegant sitting room at Winterthur last month, Harper had a few minutes to talk about how she guides the installation of Yuletide every year.

“I first came to Winterthur in my senior year of college,” she said. “I was a music major, and I had taken a history course, and the professor was enamored with Winterthur, and I wanted an A. So I came along on the voluntary field trip and fell in love with Winterthur.

Continued on Page 22

Photo by John Chambless

Debbie Harper, the curator for the Yuletide exhibition, with Winty, the newest addition to the Winterthur holiday display.

All photos courtesy of Winterthur (9) www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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Winterthur...

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“That first visit was during December,” she said. “But because I was with a college group, we didn’t take the Yuletide tour. I had never heard of the Yuletide tour, or been to Delaware. We were up on the seventh floor and were able to look down the Montmorenci staircase and there, down at the bottom, was this table with a massive bowl of punch and greenery, and I said to my guide, ‘What’s going on down there?’ And she said, ‘That’s our Yuletide tour. You must come back and see it sometime.’”

Harper did come back, and became the assistant to the Yuletide coordinator in 1989. She has been in charge of the event since 1997. The work, she said, “is constant. It’s a big part of my job.

We’re already talking about Christmas 2016. Some part of every work week is devoted to Yuletide in some way or another.”

With a world-class collection of furnishings and decorative arts to work with, the exhibition strives to recreate the elegant holidays of the past. There is always some emphasis on how Henry Francis du Pont and his family marked Christmas in what was once their home, but the exhibition has grown to be much more spectacular than any real family party would have been.

“We have some displays that are centered on the du Pont

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DISCOUNT PICTURE family, we have some displays that are centered on the collection to interpret how people historically celebrated Christmas, and then we have some displays that are just purely decorative – some of the Christmas trees, for instance,” Harper said. “We have people who come here for different reasons.

Some are really history buffs, and they want to know about that early American component. Some people are coming to see a wealthy man’s home, and they want to see how his family celebrated Christmas.

And some people just want decorating ideas. So we try to hit all three.

“So yes, the du Ponts were always here for Christmas.

Did they decorate one room after another? No, of

Continued on Page 24

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Winterthur...

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course not,” Harper said. “Their celebration was scattered throughout the house.”

The trick each year is to give Winterthur visitors the favorites they remember, while adding something new and special, Harper said. “There’s always a part that’s new, and a certain part that’s repeated,” she said. “One thing seen every year is the dried flower tree. It originated in 1985, out in the Conservatory. But the Conservatory was not a great environment for a dried flower tree, because it was too humid. So over the past 10 years, we’ve had the tree inside, in one of the rooms. This year, because it’s the 30th anniversary, we’re putting it back in the Conservatory.

“It’s prepared throughout the entire year,” Harper explained. “We start with the earliest spring bulbs that are blooming. We work all year to dry the flowers. Of course, when you take the flowers off the tree, they shatter. So we have to start over again every spring.”

This year, the Courtyard area on the Yuletide tour will spotlight Winty, a new snowman created by the museum staff, based on snowmen of the past.

Having researched every nook and cranny of Christmas celebrations for three decades, Harper has an extensive knowledge of how families marked the holidays in centuries past. And if she doesn’t know right away, she can find the information.

“There’s a lot of misunderstandings,” she said.

“People will ask how they decorated in the 18th century, and the answer is that they didn’t. Decorating for Christmas is a 20th-century thing. It went on a little bit, in certain settings, but primarily if there was any decorating going on, it was because people were having a dinner and they would set a beautiful table.

“Even the Christmas tree, when it was first introduced in this country in the 19th century, wasn’t a decoration. It was an event,” Harper said. “I often equate it to a pinata. It’s this great, colorful thing and the children come in, and it’s holding all their presents and candy and apples. The children would tear it apart, and you’d be done with it. It wasn’t a decoration that you kept up for days or weeks. The idea of decorating for Christmas and leaving the Continued on Page 26

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decorations up, whether somebody’s coming over for a party or not – that’s a 20th century concept.”

At Winterthur, set-up for Yuletide begins on the Monday after the Delaware Antiques Show, which Winterthur sponsors. It is an all-hands-on-deck situation for about 60 people, Harper said. Putting things in place takes three days. “Every department is involved, to a greater or lesser extent,” she said. “Some rooms are completely emptied and we bring in different furniture. Other rooms keep the furniture that’s there and we add some decorative elements to it. And every year, the lighting has to change,” since rooms have to be spotlighted in different ways each year.

Decorated trees go up after the rooms are

26

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finished, along with outdoor decorations.

Interpreters are trained in the specifics of each room so they can give tours. The 2015 display features some items loaned by the Delaware Museum of Natural History. “Mr. DuPont got started as a kid by collecting rocks and shells and bird’s eggs, and we wanted to spotlight that,” Harper said. “And we don’t have those kinds of things here, so we got them from the museum.”

Sometimes, finding just the right item for Yuletide requires a bit of sleuthing.

“For things that we don’t have, we put out a call to the staff and say, ‘Who has circa 1920 cocktail shakers?’ or what have you,” Harper said. “They Continued on Page 28

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Winterthur...

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For that moment when time stands still

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Greenville & Hockessin Life | Winter 2015 | www.ghlifemagazine.com

bring them in and we choose. We do that kind of borrowing to flesh out the displays.”

Then there’s the delicious-looking fake food put out on the tables each year. There are companies that specialize in creating things like plastic cookies or roast turkeys that are historically accurate. One of the concerns, Harper said, is the composition of the items.

“When we’re making or acquiring the food, we have a process called off-gassing,” she said. “These things are made of artificial materials. We’re only allowed to use museum-safe materials. When we get something new, we have to take it over to Conservation so they can look at the component materials to make sure they are safe in a collection environment. If you get something plastic and you open it and get this odor of plastic, that’s off-gassing. We get the things well in advance, and we put them out for months, just sitting someplace. We put out dishes of candy and we have to put out signs for the staff, saying, ‘Don’t eat the candy – It’s not real, it’s just off-gassing!’” she said, laughing.

And some visitors can be sticklers.

“We find people who are experts in absolutely everything,” Harper said. “A number of years ago, we put some apples out in a display. We got a letter back because the apples were Delicious apples, and they had not been propagated at the time period the display was supposed to represent. Well, they were right. We’d never thought about it.

“But I always tell people, whether we’re doing the du Ponts in their home, or doing something from the 1780s, it’s an interpretation. I would be the last to tell you, ‘This is what it was like, and you are stepping into the past and seeing something that’s exactly the way it was.’ It’s not. We’re taking elements, and it’s well-researched, but this is our interpretation of it.”

Harper will visit Yuletide throughout its run to gauge what’s working and what needs tweaking.

And she’ll jump in as a guide as well, to see firsthand what visitors respond to, or what they have questions about.

“We have people who have come for decades,” she said. “A couple of years ago, I was walking through the Yuletide tour and a guide was

coming along with her group, and introduced me to a woman and her adult daughter. The daughter said, ‘Twentyfive years. Every single year. Mom likes getting together with the family on Dec. 25, but her Christmas is to come and see Yuletide at Winterthur.’ For some people, it’s part of their tradition. It’s what they do every year.”

Yuletide started in the mid-1970s as a small, members-only event, but it sold out so Continued on Page 30

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Winterthur...

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quickly that it was clear people wanted more. Each year, it’s gotten bigger and more spectacular. It’s been a regular public tour since 1977.

“People often say, ‘You must get sick of Christmas,’” Harper said with a smile. “But I really don’t. I do know museum professionals who don’t celebrate privately anymore because they are so overwhelmed by it in their museum. That’s unfortunate. People need to make a distinction between their job and their private life. Yuletide at Winterthur is my job. My personal Christmas has nothing to do with that. They don’t overlap.”

Harper’s daughters – now 19 and 22 – grew up with Yuletide and still volunteer at the museum. Her husband is an accountant and doesn’t get too involved each year, she said, which gives them a chance to talk about something besides Yuletide at home.

Harper is quick to credit the designers and teams under her guidance, and she’s happy to let people take an idea and run with it. “It’s lovely to be able to turn things over to people,” she said, “because I know it’s

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Greenville & Hockessin Life | Winter 2015 | www.ghlifemagazine.com

going to be absolutely fabulous, and I don’t need to see it in advance. That’s what makes it fun for me. I get to be surprised.

“My feedback is being down in the reception area as people are coming off the tour and seeing the smiles on their faces,” she said. “I like to see how it’s working and what the responses are.”

During all her years of working at Winterthur, Harper said there are still a few areas of the sprawling house and grounds that she hasn’t seen. “I’ve been over most of the property, just traipsing through the fields, but my supervisor was telling me that you can go underneath the bath houses that are right by the swimming pool.

I’ve never been there!” she said, laughing.

“But I have to say, when I’m walking the 10 minutes down the drive each morning to the museum, it’s an astonishing thing to work in a place where going from your car to the office is a restorative experience. It’s just remarkable. I never get tired of it.”

To contact Staff Writer John Chambless, email jchambless@chestercounty.com.

www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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————|Greenville & Hockessin Arts|————

Exploring where art can take you Linda Ford’s abstract paintings are open-ended journeys

Photo by John Chambless

By John Chambless Staff Writer

F

or Linda Ford, the roots of artistic expression run deep. “My grandmother painted, my mother loved the arts, my parents were very encouraging. I can’t remember not being involved in art,” Ford said during an interview at her serene studio in Hockessin.

Ford grew up in the Hockessin and Yorklyn areas, went to A.I. DuPont High School, then studied at the Kansas City Art Institute. She spent 31 years as the art teacher at St. Mark’s High

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‘Sky Dancer’

School, encouraging young artists to explore their own avenues. All along, Ford was making her own art.

“I’ve never been a realist,” she said. “I’ve always been better at putting things together. I love color, so doing nonrepresentational work is much better for me. Doing a still life is so boring. I know how to draw, I have drawers full of figure drawings, but I’d rather sit here and play with bits of paper and wire and wax and my watercolors.”

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Linda Ford...

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Twenty years ago, Ford heard about working with encaustic, a waxbased medium. Four years ago, she took a workshop and has been exploring ever since. Her abstract panels are energetic, layered with colors and scratches and lines that suggest different things to each person who sees them.

There’s an ordinary hot plate in Ford’s studio where she puts cans of wax and pigment. When they’re heated, they can be brushed onto prepared boards in layers until they harden. “Once they’re hard, you can scratch them and reveal layers underneath. I can take a razor blade and scrape, and things will come up,” Ford said. “The coolest thing is that you can buff them and get this luminosity,” she said, rubbing the surface of a painting in her studio.

Encaustic is an ancient medium, and despite being wax-based, “They’re really permanent,” Ford said. “In direct sunlight they might get a little soft,” but they are not fragile or prone to dripping. “You can go ahead and touch them – it’s not going to hurt them.

“One of the basic cores of doing non-representational art is that you’re dealing with all the principles of art – composition, color, space – but it just eliminates the vase of flowers or whatever you’re depicting,” she said, laughing. “I want people to look at my paintings and be engaged. I guess in today’s world it’s hard to get people to be

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‘Loving Kindness’

engaged in anything very long.”

While her abstracts call up images to her – “this looks like wisteria blooming, here,” she said, gesturing to one of her paintings – she has a tradition of throwing a party before her exhibitions and asking her guests to come up with titles.

“This last time, three of my grandchildren titled paintings. One of them said, ‘Oh, that looks like a parrot’s tail,’” Ford said.

“To me, they’re about color, form. I just respond to the movement. Sometimes I’ll see new things in them after they’re done. If I haven’t seen one of them in a while, I’ll look at it and think, ‘Man, I don’t remember doing that,’” she said, laughing.

Ford has had a long relationship with The Station Gallery in Greenville, where she had a solo show through the end of November.

The other path of Ford’s art is collage, and there are small, delicate examples Continued on Page 36

‘Copper Canyon’

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Linda Ford...

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hanging in her studio. “I’ve been doing collage as long as I’ve been painting,” she said. “I work back and forth.”

A new series is based on Tibetan prayer flags. The square prints on paper are backed with scraps of real prayer flags that have been shredded by the wind and the elements. There are tiny details – twigs, stones, strands of wire – that function as elements of the composition but also call up themes of permanence, transcendence and faith.

Ford doesn’t try to explain their meanings. “This series is titled ‘Prayers for Nepal,’” she said. “I was in Nepal two weeks before the earthquake this year.”

Continued on Page 38

A pond in Ford’s backyard garden is home to several frogs.

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Photos by John Chambless

Above: A hot plate holds the tinted encaustic medium Ford uses in her paintings.

Right: Artist Linda Ford in her studio.

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www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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Linda Ford...

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Ford’s world travels are reflected in her work, sometimes literally. She has a pile of snapshots on her work table that show interesting textures she’s run across. There’s the rusted, pitted floor of a boat. There’s a wall in the Athens Underground. And a wall in Calcutta, she thinks. “One time, I made my friend take a picture of this side of a garbage can. It was square, and the composition of it was almost like a Rothko. She took the picture,” Ford said, smiling.

Ford’s friends are accustomed to her attention being diverted by a patch of color, a line, a shape. The photos on her table may someday be the launching point for new paintings.

“That’s where it starts,” she said. “After that, God knows where it goes.”

Ford said she can foresee a point where her two mediums will cross over – encaustic and collage. “I’ve played around with that a little bit,” she said. “I have an idea that’s where it

Photo by Richard Gaw

Ford at the opening for her latest show at the Station Gallery in November.

might go, but if I have too much of a preconceived idea, it doesn’t work.

“There’s a lot of elements to it,” she said with a smile. “But I just want to play around. It’s all play.”

To contact Staff Writer John Chambless, email jchambless@chestercounty.com.

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Greenville & Hockessin Life | Winter 2015 | www.ghlifemagazine.com

www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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——|Greenville & Hockessin Attractions|——

Driving Desire: Automobile Advertising & The American Dream

A new, year-long exhibit at Hagley Museum explores the history and evolution of automobile advertising

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I

Courtesy photo

In early 2010, the Hagley Museum & Library was the recipient of a donation of nearly 1,300 linear feet of automobile and transportation advertisements, trade catalogs, and ephemera from the personal collection of Z. Taylor Vinson. He is pictured in his “Autotorium.”

By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer

I

n early 2010, the Hagley Museum & Library was the recipient of a donation of nearly 1,300 linear feet of automobile and transportation advertisements, trade catalogs, and ephemera from the personal collection of Z. Taylor Vinson. With its 67,000 items that represent 1,900 different car manufacturers, this collection documents more than a century of automotive marketing and advertising from companies around the world.

“We knew it was an amazing collection,” explained Max Moeller, the curator of the Published Collections Department at Hagley. “There are only a few collections that are comparative in size. As far as we know, this is the largest collection with an international focus that is on display right now.

Mr. Vinson always intended to have the collection donated to a library where it could be shared with the public. We’re grateful for that.”

Moeller led the Hagley staff’s efforts to sift through the materials and assemble an exhibit of some of the most compelling materials to tell the story of automobile advertising and how it is inexorably connected to the American Dream.

Continued on Page 42

Courtesy photo

The exhibit includes brochures and other printed materials from automobile manufacturers.

Courtesy photo

This 1958 Metropolitan 1500 was purchased from a man in Springfield, Pa. specifically for the exhibit. It had to be lifted by a crane to the second floor of the building so that it could be displayed. Curator Max Moeller said that they haven’t decided what will happen to the car after the exhibit closes in October of 2016. www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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“It was a struggle at first to decide what story we were going to tell,” Moeller explained.

After several years of work, the final draft of that story is on display in “Driving Desire: Automobile Advertising and the American Dream,” which debuted on Oct. 2 and runs through Oct. 2, 2016.

According to Moeller, the exhibit explores how automobile advertising influences the buying decisions that Americans make. There are more than one hundred artifacts, rare original advertisements, and historic images included on display, many of them from the personal collection of Vinson.

“We ask visitors to consider whether they bought the car they needed, or were sold the car they wanted,” Moeller explained. “The car is the most prominent symbol of the American Century.”

Courtesy photo

A 1960 print brochure from Corvair illustrates how automobiles were marketed.

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The exhibit is a joyride through the decades, as the print ads, brochures, magazine stories, and commercials show how cars changed through time. The exhibit is divided into six major themes that will be familiar to any car buyer—luxury, performance, safety, style, economy, and patriotism.

Moeller explained that these themes emerged as he was going through the thousands of brochures, advertisements, and other materials that were produced.

Continued on Page 44

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Driving Desire...

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“You see those same themes over and over again,” he explained. “The industry is always trying to come up with creative ways to connect with those themes.”

Here are just a few illustrations that are on display in this exhibit: ~ “Unless you go in a Mercedes-Benz you haven’t arrived,” states one of that company’s advertisements in 1971, playing up on the status of that car. ~ One ad from the 1930s explores “Why Spencer Tracy owns a DeSoto.” The ad explains that people like Tracy, Ginger Rogers, and Walt Disney drive a DeSoto...so why shouldn’t you? ~ “0-60 in 3.7 seconds. Need I say more?” reads another display, touting the performance of a car.

Courtesy photo

Women were making appearances in automobile ads as far back as the 1890s, when they were depicted in ads from the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. Women and minorities were under-represented in automobile advertisements for decades.

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~ A Chevrolet ad from the 1970s that was distributed at baseball parks reads, “If you love baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet, please signal us by standing up midway through the 7th inning....” This connects Chevrolet to America’s pastime and two foods that are beloved by Americans. One interactive station asks, “Buying American: How important is it to you?” ~ A popular 1980s campaign by Chrysler Motors declares that “The Pride is Back!”

One display in the luxury section of the exhibit focuses on DuPont Motors, Inc., which manufactured a series of luxury cars between 1919 and 1931. Moeller explained that a 1928 model G found the largest audience of any of the DuPont Motors, Inc. cars.

Moeller said that as he was working on the exhibit, one of the things that he noticed was how unfair the representations of women and minorities were in advertising.

He wanted to make sure that one section of the exhibit would explore this so that people will be aware of the shortcomings of automobile advertising that existed.

Women were making appearances as far back as the 1890s, when they were depicted in ads from the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in Springfield, Massachusetts.

But automobile ads have overwhelmingly been geared toward men, and the ones that do target women often focus on things like the color of the cars, or the compliments that friends will make about the cars.

Minorities were really under-represented in automobile advertising. For decades, the rare appearances that

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Continued on Page 46 www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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Driving Desire...

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minorities make are not as potential car purchasers, but rather as people who are watching other people—mostly white men—enjoy their vehicles.

Moeller wanted to bring attention to the fact that women and minorities were unfairly overlooked.

“I felt that this was important because it was an eyeopening revelation to me,” he explained.

The exhibit is geared toward all ages, and every effort was made to make the exhibit as interactive as possible.

There are iPads available at one station so that visitors can flip through some of the brochures and catalogs that are featured in the displays.

One station in the exhibit gives children and adults alike the chance to test their skills at identifying performance engines just by the sound that their engines make.

Another station asks visitors to match the slogan with the car company that made it famous.

Visitors can also spin a wheel and attempt to match the safety feature with the first year that it was widely used.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a 1958 Metropolitan Continued on Page 48

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Driving Desire...

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“1500” car that had to be lifted by a crane and placed on the second floor of Hagley Museum. The car was designed by Nash Motors.

“We wanted to have a car in this exhibit,” Moeller explained. “I really thought that was important. It’s a pretty cool car.”

Several years were spent putting the exhibit together. Some of the material came from Hagley’s own library.

“We already had a pretty strong collection of automotive literature in our library,” Moeller explained.

Most of the materials, however, came from the personal collection of Vinson, who spent a lifetime at work on this hobby of accumulating ephemera exploring transportation history.

“He started collecting when he was very young,” Moeller explained.

Vinson’s interest in automobile literature can be traced back to when he was just seven years old, when he was given a 1938 Ford trade catalog.

Soon, he was collecting any literature he could obtain from dealerships.

Vinson, a native of West Virginia, graduated from Princeton University and worked in advertising in New York City until he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1961. He went on to work as a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 1967, a position he held until his retirement in 2003.

As he grew older, Vinson’s collection grew to include so much material

that he had to build an addition to his Virginia home to accommodate it all.

He referred to the storage facility as his “Autotorium.” He passed away at the age of 76 in 2009, and the collection

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was donated to the Hagley Library early in the next year so that his dream of having it available to the public could come true.

Moeller, who has been with Hagley Museum for the last nine years, said that the exhibit is a natural fit for Hagley, whose 235-acre property was once the site of the gunpowder works founded by E.I. du Pont in 1802. The library documents the history of business and American enterprise. Moreover, the Du Pont Company controlled General Motors for a period of time, and also manufactured products that were used widely in the automobile industry.

He hopes that the exhibit will be an enjoyable trip through time for visitors. And while it’s not intended as a scholarly exhibit, if visitors do learn a little something about how automobile advertising works in our society, that would be good, too.

“I do hope that people walk away thinking more critically about he process they go through when buying a car,” Moeller explained.

“Driving Desire: Automobile Advertising and the American Dream” runs through

Photo by Steven Hoffman

There are interactive throughout the exhibit.

stations

Oct. 2, 2016. This exhibit is open daily at 10 a.m. A ticket to the museum is $14 for adults, $10 for senior citizens and students, and $5 for children between the ages of 6 and 14. Tickets to the exhibit only are $6 for adults and $2 for children. Visit www. hagley.org for seasonal hours.

To contact Staff Writer Steven Hoffman, email editor@chestercounty.com.

www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

49

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——|Greenville & Hockessin Recreation|——

Skiers group hits the slopes each Tuesday

For more than 40 years, members of the Weekday Skiers Club have been bonding over their shared love of skiing Courtesy photo

The Weekday Skiers Club members enjoy a day on the slopes. The club, which was formed over 40 years ago, visits various Pocono Mountain resorts in January, February, and March.

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e ay

Courtesy photo

Members of the Weekday Skiers Club say that the bus ride to and from their destination is very enjoyable.

By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer

R

ichard May is looking forward to the day in December when participants in the Weekday Skiers Club gather to talk about the upcoming skiing season. It will be a day to celebrate old friendships and to start new ones. Each Tuesday between January and mid-March, the two dozen or so club members from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and the surrounding areas board a bus and make the trek to one of the ski resorts in the Poconos. They do so for the love of skiing, but also because of the genuine camaraderie that develops among members.

“I joined the club when I retired in 2000,” May, a resident of Hockessin, Del., explained. “A friend of mine put me on to the club. It is a great group of people, a very diverse group. We have a really good time.”

Art Knechtel joined the Weekday Skiers Club about ten years ago. He, too, talked about what a pleasure Continued on Page 58 www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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Weekday Skiers...

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it is to spend winter weekdays with the people in the group.

The camaraderie is phenomenal,” explained Knechtel, a resident of Chadds Ford. “I really enjoy it.”

Knechtel started skiing about 30 years ago, developing a love for the sport. For a long time, he and some friends frequently skied together, but when several of the friends stopped skiing, he wanted to find others to ski with. He heard about the Weekday Skiers Club and gave it a try. The skiing was still great; being in the company of the other members was even better.

“It’s a great group of people,” Knechtel explained.

“The camaraderie is just awesome,” agreed Nancy Hostetter, the secretary of the Weekday Skiers Club.

She explained that the Weekday Skiers Club travels to a different venue each week, rotating between Jack Frost, Blue, Elk, Camelback, Montage, or Bear Creek.

Club members meet at one of three pick-up locations: the Smyrna Rest Area, the Boyd’s Corner Park-n-Ride, and the Brandywine Town Centre.

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While the participants are always eager to reach the destinations, the bus rides themselves are also enjoyable as members talk with old friends, share stories about family, or get to know newer members.

Knechtel said that the transportation to and from the skiing resorts is a major benefit to belonging to the club.

Continued on Page 60

Participants enjoy the opportunity for recreation outside on the beautiful slopes.

Courtesy photo

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Weekday Skiers...

Continued from Page 58

“You don’t have to do the driving,” he pointed out, “which is nice, especially after a tiring day of skiing.”

According to Hostetter, the Weekday Skiers Club can trace its origins to 1973, which was the first time that the name of the group was formally used. However, several years before that, an attempt to regularly run a bus from this area to the Poconos was attempted. In 1972, Lav Wintzer and Sally Hawkins incorporated Skimore Tours, which offered six trips for a total of $30. The name was changed to Week Day Ski in 1973.

When Wintzer and Hawkins retired, Peg Hollstein and Joann

Continued on Page 62

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Courtesy photo

There is a real sense of camaraderie among the skiers. They partner up in groups of two, three, or four to make sure that no one skis on their own.

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Ott took over the leadership. Peggy Anderson, a resident of Dover, Del., has served as the president of the club since 1993, but has been involved longer than that since her mother also once served as president.

The annual membership fee is $350, which covers the cost of the round-trip bus to each ski resort. There are payment plans available to meet the individual needs of members. The members then pay for their own lift tickets, but they also sometimes qualify or group rates or other discounts.

May said that group members like to ski on Tuesdays, because that tends to be a day with smaller crowds on the slopes.

The Weekday Skiers Club has members who range in age from their twenties to their eighties. Tom George, a resident of Landenberg, still enjoys a day on the slopes.

“I learned to ski my freshman year in college. I am now 85 years old. I still love it,” George explained.

“The great virtue of the club is that it gets me out skiing, once a week, in the Poconos. It keeps me in practice. It’s also a very genial club—it’s people that I

Create

like. The bus rides could be boring, but there are so many interesting people.”

George said that his favorite skiing destination in the Poconos is Elk Mountain.

“Several of the resorts that we go to have their advantages,” he said. “Elk is my favorite because it Continued on Page 64

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has the nicest, longest runs.

It’s overall a fun place to go.”

Knechtel said that the members are of all different skill levels, ranging from relative beginners to very experienced skiers. The club members work together and help each other as they improve their skills week to week.

May is an intermediate level skier, and is very content with that skill level.

The group emphasizes having an enjoyable time, and there is no pressure to improve skiing skills.

Continued on Page 65

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Typically, Hostetter said, the skiers will pair up with each other in groups of two, three, or more so that no one is skiing by themselves.

There’s always a kind word or a helping hand among members, which is one of the reasons why the participants in the Weekday Skiers Club are so loyal to the group.

The members have an open-door policy for anyone who would like to become a member or join in for just a day or two during the season. Hostetter said that anyone who wants to go once or twice can simply pay per trip.

Anyone interested in trying one of the bus trips or getting more information about joining the club should visit www.weekdayskiers. org or the group’s Facebook page, or email weekdayskier@hotmail.com.

To contact Staff Writer Steven Hoffman, email editor@chestercounty.com.

The tentative schedule for 2016 Jan. 5 - Jack Frost Jan. 12 -Blue Mountain Jan. 19 - Elk Jan. 26 - Camelback Feb. 2 - Montage Feb. 9 - Camelback - Fat Tuesday Feb. 16 - Elk Feb. 23 - Jack Frost March 1 - Blue March 8 - Rain Date March 15 - Elk - Party trip

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———|Greenville & Hockessin Nature|———

The Delaware Nature Society’s Bird Banding Project, held this past fall at the Ashland Nature Center and nearby Bucktoe Creek Preserve, became a unity of fact-finding and appreciation for the birds who share their community with us Photos by Richard L. Gaw

The identification of flight

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

T

his past June, a Gray Catbird flew through the Coverdale Farm Preserve in Greenville.

As part of his research, Dr. Ian Stewart, an adjunct professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Delaware, captured the bird through the use of a loose netting that he had set up at the Preserve.

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Holding the bird delicately in his hands, Stewart saw that a tiny aluminum band had been fastened around one of the bird’s legs, indicating that it had been banded. On the band, an identification number had been imprinted.

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There are, at last count, just under ten thousand identified species of birds in the world, and hundreds of billions of individual birds that circumvent the globe, but at that moment, the only bird Stewart wanted to know about was the one he held in his palm

as if it were the gentle key to unlocking a mystery.

Stewart wrote down the identification number on the bird’s band, and let the Catbird go.

Soon after, he submitted the band number to the U.S. Geological Survey and received a certificate

from them, one that gave him all of the data he needed. The bird had been banded at the Rushton Woods Preserve near Newtown Square on Sept. 23, 2014.

Because Catbirds migrate, it flew to the southern Continued on Page 70

Photos by Richard L. Gaw

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United States, or possibly the Caribbean for the winter of 2014-15, and then flew back home to Delaware – to the Coverdale Farm Preserve.

The number on the band had solved the mystery, the miracle – and quite potentially the future – of migration, flight and survival.

Bird banding is an important tool for scientists and conservationists to determine if certain species of birds remain in the same site year-round, or in the case of longdistance migrants, where they spend their summers and winters, and the routes they take.

Banding also allows the determination of the minimum length of time that an individual bird lives, is used to estimate population numbers, and allows for the comparison of normal, wild banded birds with birds that may have had their survival altered by exposure to environmental hazards – some that humans are also capable of contracting – such as Lyme disease and encephalitis.

Thanks to the Delaware Nature Society, the study now has a local flavor.

This past summer, the Society began a local pilot program to specifically study the migrating and breeding species of birds, which took place at the Ashland Nature Center and nearby Bucktoe Creek Preserve.

From June through November, the project banded hundreds of birds from 45 species, primarily Gray Catbirds, Continued on Page 72

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

The width and height of each bird is measured, as well as its wingspan.

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Dr. Ian Stewart served as the chief coordinator of the project.

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Tufted Titmice, Northern Cardinals, Nuthatches, Brown Thrasher, Willow Flycatcher, Northern Flicker, and Hairy Woodpecker.

The study also included banding baby birds born in nest boxes that focused on the fledging times and rates of Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows. Bands were also placed on Eastern Bluebirds to determine the site fidelity of the species, and whether individual birds winter and summer at Ashland and Bucktoe Creek.

Courtesy of the Delaware Nature Society

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Courtesy of the Delaware Nature Society

“Without banding birds, we have no way of identifying individuals,” said Stewart, who helped coordinate the study with both specialists and volunteers. “For instance, if you get a Cardinal on your lawn in the wintertime and a Cardinal on your lawn in the summertime, you do not Continued on Page 74 Photo by Hank Davis

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know if it’s the same bird.

Within a species, they all look the same, so until you put a band on a bird, you have no idea what the individual birds are doing. Each band has a unique number, so if a winter Cardinal is banded here and is captured in the winter here, we know it’s the same bird.”

At Ashland, birds were caught in fine nets that were erected along trails, and then carefully removed.

On one early October morning, Stewart pulled a Continued on Page 76

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

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The Delaware Nature Society developed a bird banding pilot program this past fall at the Ashland Nature Center and Bucktoe Creek Preserve.

Photos by Richard L. Gaw

Bird bands range in size, depending on the size of the bird.

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small bird that had been captured in the net, with the delicacy of a surgeon. He held a female Cardinal in the palm of his left hand, while the bird’s head poked through his index and middle fingers. With his right, he measured the bird with a ruler, while he rattled off the bird’s various lengths to a nearby assistant.

He then gently applied a band to one of the bird’s hind legs, with the use of a small pair of pliers, and then fastened it loosely, enabling it to slide up and down the bird’s hind leg. Once measured and banded, Stewart took a photo of the bird with a handheld camera, and then quietly released the bird back into nature in a place of high vegetation, rather than an open field, where a bird of prey could easily track it down.

The baseline data from the pilot program at the Delaware Nature Society will be used to refine the approach to an official study that

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Data for each banded bird was recorded.

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will begin next year, to test a hypothesis about breeding and migratory bird use of different habitats in the Red Clay Valley. A three-year plan has been drafted that will enable the Society to continue the study through 2018, as well as hire a full-time bird bander.

“Through the banding project, we have been able to combine education with research,” Stewart said. “It’s open to the public, and it allows summer campers and adults to enjoy being a part of the project. Seeing birds in the hand is a great experience for anyone.”

To learn more about the Bird Banding Project at the Delaware Nature Society, visit www.delnature.org.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, e-mail rgaw@ chestercounty.com.

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Fine netting, nearly undetectable to the human eye, were set up along nature trails at the Ashland Nature Society in order to capture birds for banding.

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The Hockessin steeple chase

—|Greenville & Hockessin Photo Essay|—

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Photo Essay by Carla Lucas Hockessin’s places of worship are varied and showcase the area’s rich diversity. Each church has its own style and architecture. Can you recognize the area’s houses of worship from their details, such as steeples, entrances or ornaments?

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Photo Essay by Carla Lucas

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Grace Lutheran Church Located at: 2033 Graves Rd. Learn more at: www.glcde.org

1 Berea Presbyterian Church

Hindu Temple of Delaware

Located at: 957 Old Lancaster Pike Learn more at: www.bereapca.org

Located at: 760 Yorklyn Rd. Learn more at: www.hindutemplede.com

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Photo Essay by Carla Lucas

Methodist Chapel Located on Old Lancaster Pike, near the Hockessin United Methodist Church The Methodist Chapel is part of Hockessin United Methodist Church. It was built in 1882.

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St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church Located at: 7200 Lancaster Pike Learn more at: www.stmaryoftheassumption.com

Chippey African United Methodist Church Located at: 4272 Millcreek Rd. Learn more at: www.chippeyaumchurch.org

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Hockessin Friends Meetinghouse Located at: 1501 Old Wilmington Rd., Hockessin Learn more at: www.hockessinquakermeeting.org

Hockessin United Methodist Church

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First Alliance Church

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Located at: 7250 Lancaster Pike, Hockessin, Learn more at: www.hockessinumc.org

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Located at: 2145 Graves Rd. Learn more at: www.cmachurch. com

Wilmington Community Evangelical Church Located at: 1512 Brackenville Rd. Learn more at: www.wcec-home.org Services in English and Korean

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——|Greenville & Hockessin Health|—— Healing With Horses, Inc., located at nearby Carousel Park & Equestrian Center, is helping people address their life’s largest issues, all within the confines of a riding arena, and through the assistance of...

The quietest healers Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Marlena Awitan, left, and Sabina Carbaugh, along with Guy, one of the horses used during therapy sessions at Healing with Horses, Inc., at Carousel Park Equestrian Center.

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Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Equine therapist Maryellen Carbaugh, along with equine specialist Leah Awitan, at the riding arena at Healing with Horses, Inc.

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer There is a young girl.

Let’s call her Sarah.

She is 14 years old.

She has lived her entire life in the dividing line between Greenville and Hockessin.

When Sarah’s mother died recently, the once secure walls of her life began to collapse at her feet, dissolving into fine and heavy layers of sand, and the more the walls around her fell down, the more the sand began to appear.

Now, the sand has become too high to navigate, and while the world floats past her with effortless ease – faces and happiness and joy – Sarah has become immovable. There are no more secure walls still standing.

She has been to see therapists. With every one, she

sits in their offices, and admires the degrees on their walls, and in every office, there is a box of tissues on a table near her, but there is very little of revelation. She has folded the 14 years of happiness she had with her mother into a small box of private memory. This person who sits across from her will not get anything out of me, Sarah thinks.

She has to remain strong, for her father, for her little sister.

She has chosen to build new walls. They are stark and gray, and her life has become the complicated act of attempting to disappear behind them, into a sort of living cocoon.

A friend of her father’s has heard about a program called Healing with Horses, an equine-based therapeutic program staffed by licensed clinical social workers and therapists. He tells Sarah’s father that through this program, individuals actually work with horses in order Continued on Page 86 www.ghlifemagazine.com | Winter 2015 | Greenville & Hockessin Life

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to help articulate their emotions, whether it be grieving, coping with violence, parenting issues, the need for personal empowerment, and a myriad of other life issues common to all of us.

The best news of all, he tells Sarah’s father, is that there is a Healing With Horses location at nearby Carousel Park Equestrian Center.

At first, both Sarah and her father are skeptical of this form of therapy, but they have also run out of choices.

Sarah is introduced to her equine specialist and her licensed therapist, but instead of meeting in an office with tissues, she is led to an outdoor riding arena.

There, she meets Sam, a chestnut-brown horse. She runs her fingers through Sam’s soft mane. The therapists then ask Sarah to arrange some kind of obstacle in the riding arena, that represents all of the trappings of her grief. Using the foam blocks, she constructs a wide circle in the middle of the arena. Sarah is asked to take Sam wherever she wants to go.

Sarah wants to avoid the circle she has made. It’s sloppy in there, she thinks. It’s small. It stands for sad

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Adrienne Pankowski, left and Shauna Sullivan are currently pursuing their education to become certified equine specialists.

things. But she finds that the horse, for some reason, is guiding her to the center of the circle, and soon, they are both there, silent, for what seems like minutes.

And slowly, it overtakes Sarah, in the middle of this makeshift circle she made, on a beautiful morning, beside a horse named Sam, in the center of a riding

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arena. This is where my mother is, and it is not a place for sad things, but merely somewhere I am free to go for strength, comfort and listening, whenever I want. It will always be here.

Sarah leans against Sam, and in the bountiful softness of his mane, she mourns her mother for the first time.

In all this time, Sam has made no sound. * * * * Healing with Horses, Inc., founded in February by New Castle County Police Sergeant Mary Devine of the department’s Mounted Patrol unit, who has more than a decade of experience with riding and training horses and riders. The program takes its mission and guidelines from the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association [EAGALA], the leading non profit association for mental health professionals using horses to address mental health and development needs. Founded in 1999, the EAGALA Model provides a standard and structure for providing Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and Equine Assisted Learning sessions, with focus on: • The Team Approach – An Equine Specialist, a Mental Health professional, and horses work together

with clients in all EAGALA sessions.

• Non-riding-based therapy – No horseback riding is involved. Instead, effective and deliberate techniques are utilized where the horses are metaphors in specific ground-based experiences.

• Solution-Oriented – The basis of the EAGALA Model is a belief that all clients have the best solutions for themselves when given the opportunity to discover them. Rather than instructing or directing solutions, clients are allowed to experiment, problem-solve, take risks, employ creativity, and find their own solutions that work best for them.

• Code of Ethics – EAGALA has high standards of practice and ethics and an ethics committee and protocol for upholding these standards, ensuring best practices and the highest level of care.

For each individual session, EAGALA teams are made up of a mental health professional, an equine specialist; and the horse. Maryellen Carbaugh, a licensed professional counselor of mental health, has not only devoted her professional life to healing others, but is herself an equestrian, where she can often be found on Continued on Page 88

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her 38-acre farm downstate, teaching riding. She has been involved with Healing with Horses since the spring.

“In our model, we look at horses as part of our team,” Carbaugh said.

“When we identify our team, it’s the mental health professional, the equine specialist, and the horses. We include them in the process, just like they are another human along with us.”

The horses aren’t just included in therapy sessions as pretty animals. They have a serious job to do in equine therapy, which is made possible by their innate ability to sense fear, sadness and the many other emotions that individuals are feeling when they enter into the riding arena.

“We have seen horses that are running around, and then all of a sudden, when a person enters the arena, we see the horse settle and adapt, and begin to read what that person is going through,” Carbaugh said. “They react to emotions, but in terms of empathy, they can also sense that something is not right. They will adjust, and sometimes, they will just sit quietly with the people who go to the horses for healing.”

“Horses live in the moment,” Devine said. “They have no agenda. They don’t try to project anything. There is no judgment. The playing field is even, and the horses respond to the emotions and energy of the client.

They will meet anger with anger, and trust with trust. They sense it much Continued on Page 90

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Healing with Horses, Inc. also used young horses and donkeys in therapy sessions.

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more intuitively than we do.”

The original impetus to bring the program to Delaware came out of a need Devine saw as part of her position as a detective in the New Castle County Police Special Victims, Domestic Violence and Homicide units.

“I was finding that there weren’t enough options for therapy for kids, to handle some of the incidents that these young people were involved in,” she said. “I spent many days going out to houses, and finding out that the children weren’t necessarily committing crimes, but had behavioral issues. Because we had no other options for them, we left, telling them to listen to their parents. We would return over and over, until finally one day we would be there to make an arrest.”

Twelve years ago, Devine handled a case through the Detectives Unit that dealt with the abuse of a then young girl who, was placed in an inpatient therapy facility in Arizona. After the suspect was identified and arrested and the case adjudicated, the victim, now a grown adult and married mother, reached out to thank the officers who helped her. In her e-mail, she mentioned that she had undergone and benefited from equine therapy.

“I had to find out more about the program,” Devine said.

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Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Shauna Sullivan, with Guy.

“I then visited them everywhere I could throughout the country.”

Healing with Horses, Inc. is currently one of more than 600 EAGALA-approved equine therapy centers in nearly 50 countries throughout the world.

In addition to group and individual sessions for children and young adults, Healing with Horses, Inc. has recently begun to offer Continued on Page 92

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one-day workshops – targeted to adults – that address a wide spectrum of issues: dating safety, leadership and empowering sessions for women, that combine horse exercises with open discussions between attendees and equine specialists. While the horses freely roam the arena, equine specialists assign attendees with specific tasks – all related to working with the horses – that require teamwork and negotiation skills.

In less than a year, the breakthroughs that equine leaders at Healing with Horses, Inc. have reported seeing in the attendees have been startling. Individual by individual, the moments of clarity and understanding have arrived slowly, by way of the physical exercise in working with horses, in the quiet of an outdoor arena beneath an open sky – not in a therapist’s office.

One such breakthrough happened recently, at a workshop held with five girls and one boy.

“We asked them to go into the ring and create something that represented an incident in their life where they had a challenge,” said equine specialist Leah Awitan. “They were asked to move the horse that was

in the arena and move it either over the structure or around or in the structure, to give them a sense of moving forward or coming to terms with that incident.

They built their structure and before they got their horses, one participant came up to us and told us that he knew what his obstacle structure represented.

“He could have sat on a couch for two years in a therapy and what he revealed to us in metaphor may not have ever come out in that environment, but here, it just came out so easily,” Awitan said. “In these workshops, they’re not just sitting there and having to talk about their issues. They’re doing what they feel, and what they feel comes out in powerful metaphors. They say to us, ‘That horse represents this, and this horse represents that, in my life.’”

“When I see a youngster in my office, that child may be in my office for months, and it may take him or her a month of weekly sessions, just to get them to trust me,” Carbaugh said. “Kids, however, inherently trust horses, and I think it breaks down barriers and allows them to break through their issues much more quickly than standard talk therapy. A child is much more likely Continued on Page 94

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to choose to come here and be with horses, than to sit in an office and stare at an adult.”

Although Healing with Horses, Inc. is less than a year old, Devine has already begin to paint what she feels will be a bright future. Her ultimate dream is to create an inpatient therapeutic center that allows children seeking equine therapy to live “on campus” for up to 90 days, in an intensified program that properly balances therapy with the chance to clean out stalls, bathe the horses and get involved with other equestrian activities.

For Devine, the best moments of Healing with Horses, Inc. happen when she and her colleagues begin to see the walls break down.

“Some kids have never seen a horse in their lives, and interacting with them can be frightening that first few times,” she said. “Fear is what drives most of us, and being able to overcome fear can be what drives us.

One of the best things I’ve seen so far is to see a child go from sullen and withdrawn to see their eyes filled with joy – to see that there is this horse who wants to

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have a shared experience.”

The Carousel Park & Equestrian Center is located on 3700 Limestone Road, Wilmington, DE 19808. To learn more about Healing with Horses at Carousel Park, visit healingwithhorsesinc.org, or write to: Healing With Horses, P.O. Box 310, Hockessin, DE 19707.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, e-mail rgaw@ chestercounty.com.

Healing with Horses offers equine programs on: Women’s Empowerment Leadership for Business Professionals Parenting Anger Management Coping with Grief Mindfulness Conflict Resolution Strategies Dating Violence Prevention Personal Safety/Self-Defense Bullying/Cyberbullying Effective Communication

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—————|Greenville & Hockessin Essay|————— Just as the fiery bursts of autumn were slowly giving way to the coming winter, a writer and his wife went walking in the stunning woods and fields of the Mt. Cuba Center, as if to absorb – and count off – the last, precious days of the season that brings us the largest gift of color, and the promise of winter

Last walk of autumn, toward winter Story and photographs by Richard L. Gaw

A

lthough I have no solid record of it anywhere, I believe I have begun reading T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” more than two dozen times. I have never finished it.

While it may not be a Herculean effort to do so – I’ve picked up and put down “Ulysses” more times than Continued on Page 98

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I can count, which truly deserves a pat on the back – I look at these failed attempts to complete the poem with all of the aplomb of the old college try. As readers, we are led to the literary joyrides that seem to spring from the writer’s imagination, much the way frightened children are led by the hand to the circle-whirl of the playground Calliope.

And yet, each time Eliot opens the door to his massive poem with “The Burial of the Dead,” I walk out after Continued on Page 100

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the first stanza, for the simple reason that I am in love with the month of April.

“April is the cruellest month/lilacs out of the dead land/mixing memory and desire/stirring dull roots with spring rain...” Eliot writes. While a poignant photograph of seasonal rebirth, Eliot’s description portrays the arrival of spring as if it were one of embarrassed apology, like it was entering through the back door. So with apologies to Thomas Stearns Eliot, no single month should have to carry the weight of the writer’s pen, in being compared with the topsy-turvy spin of a human life. Like April, there is one other month in our calendar year that no less a hand than William Butler Yeats – and Dylan Thomas and Robert Frost like him– have burdened with the responsibility of ushering us from one season of our lives to the next, the go-to pause on the calendar that reflects the passage of time, the shortening of the days, the reflective whisper of life in its last great hour before the winter of our life comes.

It is the month of October.

Lighten up, fellas.

On the last Sunday in October, my wife and I visited the Mt. Cuba Center on a crisp morning. At stations throughout the pathways that circled around the grounds, docents gave us brief tutorials on We encourage local organizations, schools, civic and fraternal groups and churches to submit news releases.

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the many educational programs the Center has – or will be – involved in. Tour guides gave descriptive lessons to visitors who padded softly along rust-colored pathways.

The entirety of the Center seemed like it had been dipped in the colors of heat.

We walked from the Trillium Garden to the Dogwood Path and through the meadow, to where we then followed the sound of running water, and found the stream and the ponds that connected to them. I have always arrived at seasons and end with them, carrying with me – in a little satchel – an optimistic resonance of the hope they are intended to impart.

There are, really, no rough edges to our seasons, no Continued on Page 102

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rigid dividing lines, except invented ones.

As I walked with my wife through the Mt. Cuba Center, I saw the overhead burnish of leaves, dotted with the spraying sun. There will be Thanksgiving tables soon for us to sit around, I thought, and then holidays that rest like pillows at the end and the beginning of each year. There will be fireplaces to light and thick books to open that have rested on nightstands since the summer. One season arrives so that it may eventually usher in the season that follows it, in a continuance of movement, as the leaves fall into the pond and become yellow and red reflections, as autumn becomes winter...as we wait for April.

I may never finish “The Waste Land.�

To learn more about the Mt. Cuba Center, visit www.mtcubacenter.org.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, e-mail rgaw@chestercounty.com.

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