Does anyone know what it's called when an artist has a smash debut album and then flops on the second? Me neither, and that's going to bug me, but the good news is that the Monocacy Living Historians did not experience that. Our second event, this time at the Worthington House, was great!
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| Photo by Liz Richardson, but not at this event. |
Diane's mid-19th century wardrobe isn't ready yet, so she dressed in the park's official volunteer uniform. Tracy asked if I wanted to be upstairs or downstairs, and since I didn't realize that downstairs meant the cellar, I didn't speak up quickly enough and say, "Heck, yeah, I want the cellar!" As a result, Diane and I were on the main floor on Saturday - she in the parlor and me in the dining room.
Diane sounded like she was on a roll in the parlor. Diane has spent a lot of time as a docent for another park; she was in her element and it showed.
As for me, I enjoyed getting to talk about the dining room. There are some...er...idiosyncrasies in the dining room that are fun to talk about, but more importantly, the servant access between the cellar kitchen and the dining room was right behind me. The servant access up to the bedrooms was also right behind me, but I was most excited about access from the kitchen. It was so easy to see how the house's operating rhythm would have worked.
On Saturday, I wasn't in the house at all. Tracy offered me an opportunity to give the program on Sunday, and I had jumped at it. I had done spiels before, of course, starting with the 2014 Museums by Candlelight event, but I had never yet done a formal program.
I mentioned that we had limited time to prepare for this event, simply because the anniversary event was the weekend before, and it's all-hands-on-deck until that event is over. But during the week in between the two events, Tracy sent me a bunch of out-of-order bullet points, I organized them and added from my own research, and then she added some more points from the architectural reports, and from there we each massaged it into the story we wanted to tell. This house was a witness of war, but more than that, it was a home. It was a home long before Jubal Early marched his Confederate army through, and it was a home long after. I'm so grateful that Tracy gave me an opportunity to share that story with our visitors.
By the second program, I had lost my stage fright, and by the third one, I was really rolling. It helped that I got a lot of questions, many of them about items I had been actively researching. That told me that others are interested in the same questions I'm trying to answer, and gave me confidence about my program content. I have a lot to learn, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
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| Photo courtesy of Nicole Webb. Used with permission. |
As you can see from the photos, the Worthington Farm has some beautiful scenery. I don't bring my camera when I'm dressed out because it spoils the illusion, but the Worthington Farm is one of my favorite places to go to practice my photography. The Monocacy River runs behind the tree line, and with the foothills behind that, I can easily imagine Mrs. Worthington and her family spending many a happy hour on the back porch enjoying the view. When Mr. Worthington purchased the farm in 1862, it had been advertised as one of the most prosperous farms in the area; I can't help but think that a view like that would have helped to seal the deal!
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