Tag Archives: memorials

George Alfred Townsend: A Gap(land) in our Knowledge

Nature and some largely forgotten history converged on a little post-Thanksgiving jaunt we took this weekend.  The Appalachian Trail intersects with a small park called Gathland in rural Washington, County, Maryland.   I wish I could say we went on a hike, but since the light was failing when we finally got there, we just explored the mute, stone testimonies to the man who was George Alfred Townsend, AKA “Gath.”

One of the two interpretive signs that deal directly with this enigma of a war correspondent and author of several novels includes the quote, “Mankind is always interesting, but is also fatiguing.”  As a successful writer, with it would seem substantial financial means, Gath and his beloved wife Bessie built a country estate to escape mankind and Washington, DC.

As most of the other ten or so signs describe various aspects of Civil War campaigns in the area, one does not learn much more about Gath, his life, and work from the site.  Bessie gets even shorter shrift.  The buildings remaining in the park, constructed from an attractive local stone, include Gath’s “empty tomb” – highly creepy, even if his mortal remains did not end up there – and the ruins of what appears to have been a very large barn.  There are also two houses intact, and the park web site promises a museum in one of them, open in the tourist season.

The central attraction of the property is a massive and curious memorial to war correspondents, planned and perhaps financed by Gath.  It towered over the peaceful late fall landscape like the sole remaining wall of a castle, with arches and crenelations, statuary and niches.  And a weather vane.

Perhaps we will return to visit the museum if/when it is open. Perhaps we will acquire a copy of one of Gath’s novels, such as The Entailed Hat, or Patty Cannon’s Times (as you see from this link, it is available on Amazon) and read it to better understand this contemporary of Mark Twain’s.  Perhaps not.  Meanwhile, visiting what remains of Gath’s country estate and trying to decipher his life from the meager outdoor interpretation available in the park made for an interesting afternoon.

Makeshift Memories

What’s makeshift is not the memories, actually, but the method of delivering them.  In the past week, I have encountered two memory projects of interest – one at our local library and the other at a memorial service.  I was most closely involved w
ith #2, but #1 caught my fancy as well.  Let’s start there.

This, in case you can’t tell from the photo, is a listening station of World War II memories from local20160402_131302 citizens.  It is almost retro in its simplicity.  I couldn’t resist trying it out.  There’s a boom box, and you pick one of four thematic edited recordings.  I picked one on victory gardens.  The sound was fine, and the story was well edited, and the directions (just put on the headphones and pick the track) were clear.  There was also a transcript of the story.  In this world of everything online and high(er) tech, the hands-on quality of this method of delivery was refreshing.   Bravo, Arlington County Public Library!

The second example was at a very moving memorial for recently passed Smithsonian Under Secretary for Education, Claudine Brown.  My friend Diana recruited me (very willingly of course) and her interns to help with the crafting of a participatory memory quilt made from paper.  The premise was, again, very simple and even lower tech than the listening station:  attach 20160404_172631heart-shaped post it notes to attractive squares of craft paper and let anyone so moved write/draw a message or symbol or some combination in honor of Claudine.  The squares were hole-punched in the middle of each of the four sides, and then connected to each other with pipe cleaner pieces.  As you can see, the display method was also simple:  we borrowed a yellow (Claudine’s favorite color) tablecloth from the caterers of the event, and covered a big sheet of alligator board (from a sign left over from the 2004 World War II Memorial opening event, which was hanging around in our office, somehow very fitting!)  and balanced it on several chairs.  It was a little curvy, a little funky, but still very beautiful in its own way.

The only trick was getting the table cloth out from under in order to return it to the caterers.  But we managed, and hopefully the quilt will have an afterlife.  I am sure Claudine would have liked the ingenuity and simplicity.  She probably would have approved of the library listening station too.