ORANGE — Although the seasonal reopening of the Orange Historical Society is not due until June, its first floor, on a recent gray morning, became unseasonably illuminated by vintage lamplight and memories of Addie.
On Thursday, April 7, three Historical Society members received, by appointment, four out-of-town visitors delivering recollections of Addie Whitman Robbins in a flurry of anecdotes and donation of biographical artifacts.
Addie, who grew up in Orange, died of a postpartum infection in 1909, at age 28, leaving behind a heartbroken husband and their 20-day-old only child, Eunice. Eunice’s daughters, Jean Hodgdon, 83, and Phyllis Cameron, 80, along with their husbands Bud and Al, arrived bearing the special collection set to be curated in time for the museum’s summertime reopening.
Addie’s “friendship quilt,” unfolded and held suspended by a dozen hands Thursday, initially served as the center of attention during the hour-long visit, as a leftover winter chill lingering within the 41 North Main St. museum could be felt to subside. The quilt features the self-embroidered signatures of numerous Edwardian-era friends and relatives to whom Addie had mailed fabric squares for their completion and return. The individuality of the signees charmingly manifests in varying thread color choices and penmanship styles, which range from exemplary cursive to unapologetic chicken scratch.
As part of the donated collection, a glossy 61-page hardcover tome titled “Addie’s Friendship Quilt, 1902 to 1907,” by Bud and Jean Hodgdon, features an array of color pictures, vintage photographs and a meticulously compiled family history woven within the context of Orange history. Addie grew up within the residential environs of the town center, near the southern bank of the Millers River, in the 116 Prentiss St. house her father and brothers had built. That house, noted Jean, remained in the family until 2014.
Like quilt remnants, memories of Addie have been pieced together with great care by the faithful pair of descendants, with the remarkable participation of their spouses — none of them having ever met the forebear who’d died tragically young and so long ago. Jean recalled a portrait of her grandmother Addie that her mother Eunice faithfully displayed in Jean’s and Phyllis’s childhood home. The Hodgdons’ book provides satisfying detail about how Addie’s baby Eunice fared, having been left motherless at not quite three weeks of age.
Grinning at the cuteness of a blouse and skirt of Addie’s that Phyllis and sister Jean held up for all to see, Phyllis commented, “She was tiny.” The diminutive-waisted ivory-colored outfit they say had been worn by Addie in adulthood seems sized for a petite and lean pre-teen girl of today. Addie and her husband Harrie were “creative,” said Bud, pointing to a photo, from the book he’d coauthored, of a white table the couple had fashioned from mountain laurel branches. The furniture design is striking in its avant-garde quality. In another photo, which, at first glance, may appear to be that of two Victorian lads, an apparently teenaged Addie and sister Della sport pant suits detailed with tiny lapels, and topped off with hats — Addie’s fedora-like and Della’s newsboy-style — while “on holiday in Manchester, Vt.,” reads the simple description. Addie is smiling and holding a spherical object in her right hand.
The Hodgdons had travelled from their Hampden residence, and the Camerons, from Warrensburg, New York, to deposit the biographical collection at a place where their own great gift to Addie can last — the gift of being remembered.
The Orange Historical Society maintains an informational website at http://www.orangehistoricalsocietyma.org.
Ann Reed is a freelance writer residing in Orange and, with husband Terry, enjoys active membership in the Orange Historical Society.