The Pliny Freeman Farm - Old Sturbridge Village
I first visited Old Sturbridge Village in November 1959 with my fifth-grade class from Lincoln School in Manchester, CT. I was nine years old. As I toured the Pliny Freeman Farm, the Fitch House, the Salem Towne mansion, and other buildings, I scanned the drawings, portraits and needlework created by people who lived long before me. I examined the tools, machines, and instruments used to do the daily work of New Englanders who had lived over a century before I was born. On that raw autumn day, it seemed to me that the people of that time lived in another world, one that no longer existed.
In some ways, of course, I was right. The world was a very different place in the 1950’s compared to the 1840’s. But as I have gone through life, I have come to feel a growing connection between myself and the people portrayed at Old Sturbridge Village. They were different from me in many ways, but ultimately, we are just the same. More and more as the years pass, I see them as kith and kin with whom I will someday be united. Whether I will be conscious of their presence or they of mine is shrouded in mystery, but aware of each other or not, I know someday I’ll join them.
Visiting an historical museum like Old Sturbridge Village can be seen, among many other things, as a reminder that time not only runs out eventually for everyone else; it will someday for me too. This may sound like a dismal, pessimistic thought, but it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps it could be seen as a way of accepting life in its totality, as a holistic experience with a beginning, a middle and, what we often prefer not to consider, an end. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go through life with the thought of “time's wingèd chariot hurrying near” constantly on my mind. But, taken in moderation, it could serve to motivate me into remembering from time to time that I am alive right now. What a strange thing to say! Of course I’m still alive! Why would I have to remember that? Yes, but to what extent am I living with an awareness of the small opportunities for gratitude present to me every second of the day? Too often I’m not as grateful as I could be as this or that part of life is happening around or within me. Remembering that occasions for being thankful are finite might just spur me into being more mindful of them. It’s easy enough to do; such moments are always close at hand. They always have been throughout the living of all our days.
David James Madden