Tag Archives: Janet Hall

Bird Drama

A Bluebird Update

A recent newspaper article told about the removal of a popular “bird-cam” from an osprey nest. Viewers were outraged when the mother bird didn’t seem to be doing proper mothering. They demanded that someone take those baby birds away from the unfit mother and “raise them right.”

Interfering with Mother Nature is a hard call. Here in Alaska we had a governor who said, “You can’t just let nature run wild.” (This was not the same governor who could see Russia from her house.)

Nature did run a bit wild on my recent visit to Whirlwind Hill. My brother had put up some new bluebird houses, cleaned up the old ones, and was excited to tell me that the bluebirds had arrived. But when I looked through my binoculars, I saw he was mistaken. The birds on the house were tree swallows. Tree swallows have shiny blue backs, but the color blue does not necessarily a bluebird make. The male bluebird has a reddish breast, where the swallow’s is white. A swallow’s flight pattern is swooping and diving, and the bluebird’s is fluttering and dipping.

For the next week of my visit, my brother and I enjoyed monitoring the birds (swallows, sparrows, starlings, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, finches, and one huge wild turkey) and their ongoing kerfuffles over feeder access and home ownership. We could see three equally occupation-ready birdhouses from the kitchen window, but all the birds wanted possession of the same one – the old house in the middle.

“Bluebird Houses,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2016

There was not a bluebird in sight. One morning, my mother’s sworn enemy, the English sparrow, ravaged the swallow’s nest in the popular house and then sat on top guarding his new property. A male sparrow will bond with a house before it bonds with a mate, and this particular sparrow had fallen in love with the swallow’s house and was not about to give it up. The next day some big starlings tried to drive away the little sparrow, only to be chased by red-winged blackbirds. A starling tried to squeeze into one of the new boxes, but after a while he lost interest. My brother chased away the sparrow. The swallows moved back in. Another sparrow showed up, but was routed by a larger group of swallows.

“Bird Drama,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2016

Then, one evening, I saw a bluebird. He sat on a limb of the dogwood tree in the puffy, peaceful way of a bluebird. And two days later we noticed that while our attention had been on the drama we could see from the window, the bluebird had quietly built a nest and installed his wife in a house far removed from the action. My brother confirmed that there were indeed eggs in the nest, and just yesterday told me that all was still going well for the bluebirds. We’re hopeful that the turf wars settle down, and that the bluebird and swallow babies will hatch and come back next spring to raise their own families.

“Bluebird on a Fence,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2015

Chair Drawings

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On a 1985 visit to Whirlwind Hill, I needed a calming focus while I spent two weeks with my two young children and my wonderful, but very talkative mother. I decided to draw all the chairs in my parents’ house. I made a good start of it, but I didn’t get very far. Still, it was a good exercise in looking, and I came to appreciate the intricacy and the beauty and the history of this furniture.

The farmhouse living room was a hodgepodge of chairs, sofas, lamps, and tables – some antique, and some not. Above all, the space was comfortable and light – a perfect multi-purpose room. My parents’ living room was also spacious and bright, and some of the furniture in it came from the farm. Chairs were moved around to meet the demands of guests, Christmas trees, pets, and playing children. Below is a photo of the farmhouse living room in the 1950’s.

The farmhouse living room in the 1940’s

Here are a few of the chairs I drew on that 1985 visit. My drawings were too big to scan, so I apologize for the quality of the photos.

The Fancy Chair

With their low pink seats and straight backs, this chair and its mate are rarely used for sitting. They flank the living room fireplace in a rather useless, but decorative manner.

“The Fancy Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

A Wooden Chair

This little wooden chair is also uncomfortable, but it holds a special place in Whirlwind Hill lore because it is very, very old. At least I think it is.

“The Little Wooden Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

The Low Rocking Chair

Now that I look at this drawing, I’m trying to place the chair but can’t remember seeing it lately. I’ll have to look next time I’m back on Whirlwind Hill.

“The Low Rocking Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

The Upholstered Rocker

I like to picture my mother rocking me in this chair when I was a baby on the farm. Did this really happen? I have a vague memory of her telling me that it did.

“The Upholstered Rocker,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

Me as a baby on the farm with my Grandma Crump, my mother, and my Great-grandma Barton

The Chair with the Velvet Seat

For a long time this chair sat at the end of a long hallway leading to the bedrooms in my parents’ house. There was an oval mirror hanging above it and a long patterned runner on the floor. I did a linocut of this scene, and it’s now hanging in that same hallway.

“The Chair with the Velvet Seat,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

“Hallway,” Carol Crump Bryner, linocut print, 1975

The Queen Anne Chair

My mother was proud of this chair. It had a long history on the farm. My great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall, was photographed sitting elegantly on its seat. No one sits in it now, (it, too, is uncomfortable) but maybe someday one of my great-grandchildren will look at this photo of me and my great-aunt Hattie sitting on the chair and say, “That’s my great-grandmother Carol sitting in the Queen Anne Chair.”

“The Queen Anne Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

Lydia Jane Hall, around 1900

Aunt Hattie and Carol, Christmas, 1946

Drawing is way to explore and learn and really, really look. Painting seems to me to be a medium that brings objects and scenes to life. In my next post I’ll share a few of the many (I count close to one hundred) paintings I’ve done of chairs.

The Ground Shakes and the Sky Opens

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Five years ago my husband Alex and I were in Connecticut to visit my father and brother. I was desperate to get to Portland, Oregon because my daughter was expecting baby number two within a week. The day we were to drive to the Hartford airport, the sky opened and dumped nearly two feet of drifting snow. My brother and my husband, both heroes, spent the morning snow blowing and shoveling the long driveway so we could get out to the road. In my haste to get going I slammed my husband’s finger in the car door. He good-naturedly gathered a baggie of snow, stuck his poor mangled finger in it and told my brother to drive on. We made our flight. The plane took off. The baby was born a week later.

Now we’re in Portland again, waiting for baby number three. In Connecticut this weekend the skies opened again, and although the thoughts of being snowed in with a cozy fire and a nice tumbler of scotch are appealing, I’m glad I’m here in Portland where we have had neither a blizzard nor an earthquake.

My phone was awake with messages this morning about the large and scary earthquake in Alaska. Everyone – even a neighbor who lived through the 1964 earthquake – said it was the scariest one ever. At least it had that effect in Anchorage. Snow seems tame and benign compared to rolling floors and swaying light fixtures. Our house sitter reported that all the pictures and paintings on our walls were askew. And, she said, “You have so many pictures!!”

I remember certain snowfalls and snowstorms from my childhood. Some memories are vague and some so vivid. Before I-91 went in, my mother and I walked one winter day from our house on East Center Street through the snow to the farm on Whirlwind Hill. The road was quiet and without passing cars. I picture the snow forts and snowmen we made in our yard on the days school was cancelled. My mother always said that the best thing ever was to ride in a horse-driven sleigh over snowy fields. And I’ve always loved seeing the dark branches of elms and oaks and the long sinews of stone walls etched against a stark white New England landscape.

So here are a few photos of snow in and around Wallingford and Whirlwind Hill. I’ve written this in haste, so excuse any typos or bad grammar. My mind is on snow as I write, and my memories wanted to be woken up. Hope all of you are safe and cozy. Remember – it’s still winter!!

Newspaper clipping about the 1888 blizzard.

The barnyard of the Hall farm on Whirlwind Hill after a snowstorm

Cows in snow, Hall farm on Whirlwind Hill

After a snowstorm on Whirlwind Hill near the Hall barn.

Sue Collins and Carol Crump on a Radio Flyer.

Chris Heilman, Kirt Crump, and Francis Hall on Whirlwind Hill with coon dogs.

Twelve Treats of Christmas – Day Seven

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Popcorn Balls

My mother told us how they used to make popcorn “in the good old days.” They put the corn kernals into a mesh basket with a long handle, something like a “Jiffy-Pop” set-up. The cook then shook the basket over the fireplace fire until the corn exploded and filled up the popper.

Winter Sunday afternoons were popcorn time at the farm on Whirlwind Hill. My grandmother popped a huge pot of corn, buttered and salted it, and left it on the kitchen table. When we came in from sledding we filled our little green melmac bowls with the salty snack and brought it with us to the living room to eat while we listened to the grown-ups engage in their Sunday chat.

Sledding down the hill toward the farmhouse, 1950’s

We saved some of the popcorn for my Grandpa Hall’s popcorn balls. He was a slow eater, and one popcorn ball might last him several evenings. This was ok, because popcorn balls seem to get better over time, especially if you wrap them in green or red cellophane tied with ribbon. My mother made these for him, knowing that on cold winter nights his favorite pastime was to sit by the wood stove in the kitchen and nibble on a popcorn ball and some hickory nuts.

Janet Hall Crump and her daddy, Ellsworth Hall, sitting on the lounge in the dining room where he took his daily after-lunch nap.

Twelve Treats of Christmas – Day Six

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Taffy

Have you ever pulled taffy? A successful “Taffy Pull” might go like this:

Your mother cooks some stuff in a pot on the wood stove in the farmhouse kitchen. The pot has corn syrup and butter and vanilla in it. All the little girlfriends you’ve invited to the farm for your birthday party gather around the kitchen table and rub butter on their hands and pair off two by two. When the taffy is cool enough, but still warm, you and your partner choose a ball of goo. Your partner holds the sticky ball, while you reach for some of it and slowly pull it toward you. It should form a long string. Then your partner does the same. You do this over and over. And over. Don’t break the thread. Don’t cry when the taffy sticks to your blouse. Don’t stop to get a drink of water. Keep pulling until it becomes whitish and smooth and looks like the taffy you watched your mother make.

I had a taffy pull at one of my pre-teenage year birthday parties. It was an adventure, but the taffy never “taffyed.” Maybe our little hands were dirty. Maybe we just weren’t patient enough. Maybe we were laughing too hard. But it was great fun, and the mess of candy tasted good anyway, even though we were totally full of birthday cake.

Farm birthday party where there might have been a taffy pull, and maybe a blob of taffy on the photo.

Twelve Treats of Christmas – Day One

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Heart-Shaped Ginger Cookies

A prized cookie cutter from our house on Whirlwind Hill is shaped like a heart. It comes from a set of four – heart, club, spade, and diamond. For many, many years I used these cutters to make ginger cookies at Christmas. Eventually I just used the heart. The shape was so pleasing, and when frosted with pink butter-cream icing, they reminded me of every picture I had ever seen of the iconic gingerbread man. I always used the gingerbread man recipe from the New York Times cookbook, and added a little almond extract to the frosting, just like my mother would have done.

“Heart Cookies,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2015

Bluebirds

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The colorful and cheerful bluebird is often called the “Bluebird of Happiness.” Hearing their first spring song or seeing their bright blue bodies coming to land on a fence post is as joyful to me as having one land on my shoulder. They bring life to a landscape, and that’s the truth.

My mother’s “Bluebird of Happiness,” made by Ron Ray, 1994

When I talked to my brother recently, he was sitting on the front steps of our house on Whirlwind Hill drinking a glass of wine and looking over the front yard to the reservoir. I asked why he wasn’t sitting out back on the deck, which is the usual place to relax on a late spring evening. He told me it was because of the bluebirds. They had returned, and he didn’t want to disturb them.

“View of the Reservoir,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 1992

My mother, Janet Hall Crump, kept a pair of binoculars close by in winter when she sat at the kitchen table looking at the bird feeder and in summer as she enjoyed the peaceful view over the fields toward the ponds. She grew up watching birds and learning their habits, songs, and nesting patterns. In her later years she got more and more involved in the fluttering and tweeting world of her back yard. I know she was lonely much of the time, and for her the birds were cheerful, entertaining, and often dramatic neighbors.

Cousin Sue and Janet Crump sitting on the deck, spring, 2006

In the 1980’s, when an effort to bring bluebirds back to the New England countryside caught her fancy, she joined the crusade. Because these birds like to nest near open fields, experts advised building nesting boxes to certain specifications in order to encourage the “good” bluebirds and discourage the “bad” imports – European starlings and English sparrows.

“Bluebird House without Bluebirds – Whirlwind Hill,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 1991

My mother had birdhouses built out in the fields along the fence line and around the horse ring. She read books, followed the directions for maintaining the nesting sites, and spent hours behind her binoculars watching and waiting. Her obsession led to many years of her giving and receiving bluebird-related greeting cards, gifts, and trinkets.

Bluebird book – gift from Janet Crump to Carol and Mara Bryner – paper cover made by Carol and Mara

On a June day in 1992, my mom, my daughter Mara, and I drove to Cheshire, Connecticut to watch a “bluebird banding.” In a letter to a friend I wrote about that event:

June 23, 1992 – “I had wanted to draw a bluebird house. But the day got away from me. We were busy all day. Went at 12:30 to see a man band baby bluebirds – they are trying to bring bluebirds back to this area. We each held one (5 altogether) until he put them back into the nest. What a beautiful spot it was.” – Carol Crump Bryner

Bluebird banding, summer 1992

Determined to raise as many bluebird families as possible, my mother waged a one-woman war against the English sparrows. She was unabashedly anti-immigration as far as this bird species was concerned. Through her we got excited about the nest building, suffered through the waiting and hoping and watching, and then all too often received sad news about the dramatic destruction of the bluebirds’ nest, eggs, and babies.

When I was on Whirlwind Hill this spring I didn’t see a single bluebird. But after I left, my brother cleaned out one of the old nesting boxes, and shortly after that a bluebird family moved in. They built their nest, laid their eggs, and now it’s my brother’s turn to be the watcher. He tells me that Mr. Bluebird sits on top of the house all day long, guarding his potential offspring. We wish him well and hope that the children will come back year after year with their songs of happiness.

“View from the back yard – Whirlwind Hill,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and pencil, 1992

A View of the Farm

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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.

Wallpaper

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Thirty-three years ago, when we remodeled our Alaska house, I papered the bathroom walls with Laura Ashley wallpaper. I bought the rolls at the Laura Ashley store in San Francisco and carried them home on the plane in a huge green plastic bag. I’m both proud and embarrassed that I still look at this wallpaper on a regular basis – proud that it’s held up pretty well and I still like it, but also embarrassed because it hasn’t held up ALL that well, and it really should be replaced.

The Laura Ashley wallpaper I love, but really should replace.

My grandmother, Agnes Hall, definitely would have picked out and hung new paper by now. She enjoyed redecorating. Housework was not her forte, but she liked change, and moved furniture and repainted and repapered the rooms often.

Except for the whitewashed kitchen, all the downstairs rooms and some of the upstairs ones were busy with the patterns of wallpaper. I don’t know when the first sheet of paper was hung at the farm, but from 1912 to 1914, spring meant it was time to repaint and repaper the walls.

Friday, April 12, 1912 – “Pauline taking off the paper in front chambers. Getting ready for the paperhanger. Hard work scratching it off.” – Lydia Jane hall

Saturday, April 13, 1912 – “Pa scratching off paper in Ellen’s room.” – Lydia Jane Hall

And in the midst of this domestic activity my great-grandmother announced:

Sunday, April 14, 1912 – “The steamer Titanic went down. Many lives lost.” – Lydia Jane Hall

But the decorating at the Hall farm went on as usual.

Wednesday, April 17, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the two chambers upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, April 19, 1912 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, May 7, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the bathroom.” – Lydia Jane Hall

One of the upstairs chambers was the room my mother and father used after their marriage in 1943. The photo is in black and white, but I like to imagine the paper in soft pink and cream, so I added a little of my own color.

Janet Hall Crump and the bedroom wallpaper, 1943

The dining room was repapered at least three times between 1945 and 1968.

Aaron P. Hall, Ellsworth Hall, Ellen Hall Norton, Thanksgiving, around 1950

Thanksgiving, 1960, Charles Crump, Janet Crump, Ellsworth Hall

Dining room wallpaper in 1962

My grandfather, Ellsworth Hall, in addition to his duties as a farmer and a turkey carver, was also the family painter. It makes sense given his patient and methodical way of doing jobs. In another life he might have been an artist, painting pictures of rooms instead of the rooms themselves.

Wednesday, April 16, 1913 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen. Looks nice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Monday, September 22, 1913 – “Ellsworth painted upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, September 30, 1913 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering the bedroom and preparing the other two rooms.” — Lydia Jane Hall

Here is the living room wallpaper in 1942.

Charlie Crump in the farmhouse living room, 1942

And here it is in 1949.

Living room in 1949 – Carol Crump, Great-grandpa Biggs, Tuck Norton, John Norton

I wonder how the wallpaper patterns were chosen. Did someone come to the house with a book of samples? Were they ordered from a store? However it was done, it must have been fun to have fresh walls every year or so.

Tuesday, June 9, 1914 – “A nice day. Two weeks ironing. All day work, with that the paperhanger called up. Coming tomorrow to paper the bathroom. The paper to be taken off which took until bedtime, and part of the next morning. Everything all stirred up.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, June 25, 1914 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The parlor was always such a cozy room, and I love the paper on the walls in this photo of the Capable Cooks Club meeting in 1932. Later on it was replaced by a covering with wide stripes, which never seemed quite so pleasing.

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 - Lydia Hall on far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 – Lydia Hall to far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right.

I wonder why paper instead of paint? Maybe it made the rooms seem warmer. Certainly it made them more colorful. Perhaps it was just the times. The downstairs bedroom, where my grandmother slept for as long as I knew her, was a lovely room with a door leading into the backyard and flowery paper on the walls. My brother told me that when the house burned in January 1971, my Grandma’s Hall’s bedroom remained intact- the wallpaper untouched by the flames. I have no photos of that bedroom, but here’s my grandmother standing near the door to her room around 1962. I wish the door had been left open so that I could have one last glimpse of the bedroom walls.

Grandma Hall standing in the living room near her bedroom door, around 1962

On Monday: A Few Old Books

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner