credit class for inept or desperate students, so I’m shocked at how challenging and fun it is. Flo is a skilled teacher and I’m jealous of the time she spends helping other students, wanting her assistance all to myself. I become a Basket Case. I start taking classes in willow basketry, too, with visiting teachers from different European countries. Each has unique techniques and a long history of traditional basketry essential to farming and daily life before we had cardboard, plastic, or even paper bags. Making them makes me feel connected to the daily rhythm of my rural ancestors, and there’s a magic in taking a bunch of branches and turning them into useful items of naturally beautiful wood hues. There are interesting old words to learn such as skeining, waling, the upset, slewing, bodkin, rapper, on the plank…. I plant new gardens of basketry willow to support this craft and it becomes another source of pleasure and income for us. My interest in historical basketry leads me to view a huge, 10-bushel basket in an attic in Poland, NY that was once used
locally for harvests. It is in the home of Helen Schermerhorn who, in 1993, is 103 years of age, (1890-1996). She still has an excellent memory with an extremely broad perspective. In fact, her father told her that when he was a boy, he saw Abraham Lincoln campaigning for president from the back of a train stopped in Whitesboro, NY. I was hired to tune her piano and found her so charming that I often re-visit and play music for her on this cherished instrument that made Helen and her sister weep for joy when they first got it as children, almost 100 years ago. Occasionally, she would weep again for no apparent reason. “I’m sorry,” she’d apologize. “I just have to cry, sometimes. There are so many dear ones that I have lost.” The dignified 19th-century home where she spent her entire life is well-appointed but simple and uncluttered. She explains why. “Instead of always giving new things to each for holidays, we’d sometimes repair or refinish a treasured item we already had.” One day, Helen is brought to see us at
Shawangunk. She is delighted to experience our simple woodland cottage, but the kerosene lamps and root cellar are nothing new to her. We show her a replica of an 1890 Sears catalog and she says, “Oh, yes. I remember that.” The highest point of our visit with this delightful centenarian is the total joy we see on her face when a chickadee lands on her hand to take a sunflower seed. This is the first time in 103 years that she has had a chickadee hold hands with her. •
Look for more from Peggy’s memoirs next month. The Shawangunk Nature Preserve is a deep ecology, forever wild, 501©(3), learning and cultural center. Tim and Peggy still live there and can be contacted through their website.
www.shawangunknaturepreserve.com
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