Spring Greetings! When it snowed last week, I sighed. Heavily. “It’s May! Would spring ever be here?” I asked aloud as I looked out the window at blooming yellow daffodils. At that moment they seemed to sigh, too, looking downward, shrugging their snow-laden shoulders. Yet the snow quickly disappeared—Mother Nature…
In the very first year of Enfield Shaker Museum’s existence, when then-director Carolyn Smith’s desk was a folding table in the Great Stone Dwelling’s front hall, a young historian walked in to introduce himself. That young historian was Greg Schwarz, and the Museum is all the richer for his friendship…
What we’ve been up to this past week on social media and our website: Having a little fun with memes and mini-museums Exploring stereoviews, including an 1872-73 image of Joseph Joslin standing in the Enfield Shakers’ parsnips field and a jigsaw puzzle of the Great Stone Dwelling’s veranda Preserving “small…
Dear Friends, Of the many duties I have, this is one of the best. THANK YOU! We are grateful that you have enthusiastically volunteered your talents and your energy to Enfield Shaker Museum. Your devotion ensures that the Museum continues and increases its successes in telling the historically and culturally…
In January of 2019 the Enfield Shaker Museum received a donation that funded the purchase of one of the original Enfield dining room tables at auction at Sotheby’s in New York City. It is very exciting to have this unique artifact, one of only three remaining Enfield dining tables, returned…
Restoration of built-ins in the Great Stone Dwelling has been ongoing the last few years. Visitors enjoy seeing our woodworkers working to restore the unique features of the building, repairing original components, and recreating missing features where necessary. But in addition to all the woodwork there are hardware issues to…
Dear Friends, Take a turn around Twitter or Facebook, or catch the news, and you will find evidence of a rapid rise in yeast buying. Raising bread dough is lowering anxiety during our quarantine. Experts tell us that breadmaking offers us a sense of control and accomplishment, even if the…
Dear Friends, The Shakers lived by the three C’s: celibacy, community, and confession. In 1894, Mount Lebanon Shaker Ernest Pick humorously played on these three C’s in his advice published in the Shakers’ newspaper, The Manifesto. Those who attended the “school of life,” he wrote, earned the degree of “C.C.C.”…