I worried off and on this year that I was spending too much time in the past with my long ago relatives. But now that I’m stepping away from it for a while I feel even closer to the farm on Whirlwind Hill and to all the ghosts that kept me company while I wrote, painted, and researched.
Distance, as painters know, can make a painting come together. When you step back to take a look at what you’ve done, all those individual brush strokes suddenly coalesce and the image takes on its own life. What you thought were many little pieces become a complete view.
But there are many different views of the farm on Whirlwind Hill. I’ve written about happy times, good memories, tragedies, and successes. I’ve deliberately left out family quarrels, hard feelings, crop failures, and the stormy times that are an integral part of a long family history. I prefer a more cheerful slant, and chose the moments that worked to carry history into the present and give it an encouraging future.
Because this is my last regular post I’ll close with some painted views of the farm. The farm lives on for me as a feeling – a feeling and a memory of a place that embraced me and still connects me and my brother and cousins to the ancestors who loved and sheltered and protected us. I send out a huge thanks to all of you who followed my musings and encouraged me this year. I’ve enjoyed every minute of this project and every chance I’ve had to learn more about my readers.
Here is the painting of the farm by Mary E. Hart that hung in the farmhouse parlor. It was probably done around 1860-1870.
Oil painting of the Hall farm done by Mary E. Hart around 1860 as it hung in the farmhouse parlor in 1932.
A hundred years later, my mother, Janet Hall Crump, made a copy of Mary’s painting and passed the copy on to me.
“The Hall Farm,” Janet Hall Crump, oil on canvas board, around 1960, after a painting by Mary E. Hart
She – my mother – was my touchstone for farm memories and the source of endless stories about the family. She gave me not only her love for her childhood home, but also her sense of humor and her appreciation of painting and art. Thanks Mom!
Carol and Janet Crump on Whirlwind Hill, 1947
In 1998, for my brother Kirt’s birthday, I made him a copy of my mother’s copy of Mary E. Hart’s painting. It always pleases me that the Hall barns were once painted yellow and the house and picket fence a classic white.
“The Hall Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1998, after a painting by Janet Hall Crump
In 1985 I painted my own view of the farm, as I knew it during my childhood when the house had brown shingles and the barn had two silos. Because this is a monoprint, the image is backwards, but no less real to me.
“A View of the Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint, 1985
In the end it doesn’t matter which is the “true” memory or the “real” view, because when I’m on Whirlwind Hill, I’m always home.
What a wonderful adventure this has been. A wonderful family, thriving like redwood in grove of farm, stewardship’s traditions and technologies colored in loyalty and love, presented in paintings, photographs, and words. This random stranger thoroughly enjoyed the journey, and thinks you’re terrific. Well done! Thank you.
Thank you for reading, Allen. It’s been quite an adventure for me too, and you don’t really seem like a random stranger anymore. That’s the joy of doing a project like this.
Congratulations on a terrific accomplishment, on a year well-done. You have had the joy of doing and now leave a gift for YOUR descendants!
Thanks Katy for all your help and support this year on my project. The doing was certainly a joy, and the giving no less so.
This has been such a special year for us to share these vivid memories of Whirlwind Hill. Mike has come from next door each week to share the blog and it has been fun to have the intergenerational take on your writing.
With great love and admiration,
A & P
I’m so happy that Mike came to share the blog with you every week. I still feel like you are an important part of the Whirlwind Hill neighborhood. Love to all of you, and thanks for your kind thoughts and comments this year.
Love,
Carol
Thanks Carol. I especially liked your grandmothers reference to the Bible and her private prayers that we have been privileged to read from her diaries you have so kindly posted for so many to enjoy. Yes there are times of sorrow, but it is through our prayers to Almighty God that He shows us that we need Him and how He will work through our earthly troubles in ways we would never think of, and grow us to an ever more mature faith in Christ alone.
I think you would really have liked great-grandmother Lydia, Becky. Thanks for keeping me company this year, and hope to see you in Maine one of these days. xoxoxo
I’ve lived your Whirlwind Hill blog and will miss it! Your paintings, photo collection, journals brought such life to the memories. I hope to see it all in book for. What a treasure for your family.
And I will miss this connection to all of you kind readers. I’ll let you know if a book is in the future. Right now it’s time to reflect on the past year and gather my wits a bit before committing to another big project. Thanks, Patsy!
Thank you so much, Carol, for sharing your glorious farm, family, and art with us. A bit of Whirlwind Farm lives in all of us now too.
What a treat it’s been for me to know that you have stuck with me since the Workroom. I love that you have enjoyed this year. It’s been great fun for me, especially knowing that I had such an appreciative audience. Thanks, Carol!
I agree with Patsy about the book. This has been an intimate glimpse and a joyful journey for those outside the family. Thanks for your generosity, Carol.
I know I will go back and reread now and then. As good as a book on the shelf.
Fondly, Bonny
And you have been so generous to share your own stories with me Bonny. You’ve been such a great support. I think you should start your own blog about your adventures next year. I would be a loyal reader for sure.
Love,
Carol
Thanks so much for sharing Whirlwind Hill with us Carol! I’ve enjoyed reading your blog and I’m certain your family will treasure these memories and will be grateful for your thoughtful recording of them. Well done! I’ll be eager to see what’s next!
Thanks, Michelle. I always enjoy your own thoughtful comments. It was fun to know that you were reading along. I will for sure let you know what’s next. We need to have tea some day soon and talk about life and springtime. xoxo
Dear Carol,
Thank you so much for for sharing your memories and the experiences of your forebears on Whirlwind Hill. I have looked forward to your postings all year and they have affected me in many ways. I have seen the farm through the eyes of many Halls, have heard new stories from my parents and retold old ones, and have had many memories of my own revived. The Hill is such a special place and is at the core of me that I take with me wherever I go. I am very happy to hear that the blog will remain up and I will enjoy going back over the posts and comments.
The offer stands for an exploration of Tri Mountain and a search for those initials.
Mike
Thank you so much Mike for your very loyal following and your always thoughtful comments. I’ve so enjoyed all the stories that you and your parents have shared with me. I’ll keep you posted about the Three Notches. So very glad you’re a part of the Whirlwind Hill story.
Dear Carol,
Thank you so much for sharing your memories, photos, and paintings. it has been so special to be able to “re-visit” Whirlwind Hill this way. I am always grateful that I grew up there and your blog helped me remember exactly why the place and the people are so special.
Thanks Sue. It’s been so nice for me having your family along for this journey of mine. It’s still a special place. I never tire of that view from the top of the hill where you lived and where your mom’s beautiful daffodils showed their bright faces every spring.
Carol, what a gift this blog has been! I secretly hoped it might go on forever as it truly became part of the rhythm of my week. You were so faithful and never missed a post! For our family and others who lived on Whirlwind Hill you have created a wonderful historical document filled with images that help us connect to and imagine life on the farm. I’m so grateful to have this as a record to pass on to my children. Thank you again!!!
I’ve been so happy to do it Patti, and so very glad you kept me company. I’m so glad to have so many cousins who shared the same childhood experiences with me, and who could add their own memories into the mix. Thanks! xoxo
Dear Carol,
It has been an amazing experience, sharing this vicarious journey of Whirlwind Hill through your blog this year. We will miss it a lot! How lucky you are to have all of those journals, letters, pictures, and paintings to document the history of your family, along with your own wonderful paintings, drawings and prints. Such a magic window into the past…how lucky you are to have this special connection to your family and ancestral home (something I envy). Thanks for all your time and energy in making us part of your world. (A book would be fantastic!)
Love, Carol and Dave
It’s so good to hear from you Carol and Dave. Thanks so much for being loyal readers. I’m probably going to do a post sometime next week as an update, since I’ve been in Connecticut for a week and finally climbed Three Notches. It’s been such fun to share all this with you.
Love, Carol
Carol,
I want to thank you for your blog about Whirlwind Hill, I so enjoyed traveling back in time with you. I live next door to Dean and Jean and I love this hill and all of it’s history. As a child my parents always took us for a ride up Whirlwind Hill, it was like heaven to me. I feel blessed to live on this hill with all it’s beauty.
You are so lucky to live on the hill. It really is a wonderful place. Thanks so much for your kind words and for traveling back in time with me!