Evening Star Newspaper, December 23, 1934, Page 77

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 23, 1934. IR RFERERAFRREEEE NP EEL i g 8 BY ROBERT CRAWFORD. /l EAR ME, what a surprise! Up stairs, down stairs, in the lady's chamber,” is what old Santa Claus would merrily sing if he were to go searching around through the great white building which devotes itself to the business and social activities of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The building is on Seventeenth street near Con- stitution avenue, in that group of beautiful buildings including the Pan-American, the Red Cross and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Santa would doubtless go skipping through the lovely rooms furnished in drawing room style with exquisite period furniture of Colonial times and earlier, but when he arrived at the children’s attic room, on the top floor of the building, just where it should be, he would be so thrilled that he would forget that he is a twentieth century Saint Nick, and instead of bringing the boys and girls airplanes, bicycles, walking and talking dolls and eiectrical gadgets of all sorts, he would love to load his sleigh with the toys of 200 years =ago which are in this attic. HE twilight of a Winter's day was fast closing in when Miss Catherine Newton, secretary of building and grounds in the D. A. R, walked up the stairs not long ago and unlocked the door—no, it's really just a wire gate—to the attic and took some visitors for a little trip around in what is so like an attic must have been in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of course there was no cobwebs or dust on the things in the room, for the Daughters are good housekeepers, but the fading light and the cand!e-mold candelabra gave just the atmosphere which a real, honest= to-goodness old attic shouid have. It's the finest big. old room one could imagine, and all for children! No hefty old chests filled with brocades and Continental uniforms; no calash bonnets, except for dolls, and no broken furniture such as an attic usually has; but cradles, highchairs and tables for live babies and toys of the past centuries for dolls. Mrs. Charles H. Carroll of New Hampshire and Mrs., Hobart of Ohio, sometime president general of the Daughters of the American Revolution, originated the idea of setting a EEFPREEERREEEREEERREEREHNEREEERELERERERERIERXE KX Py COLONIAL CHRISTMAS IN THE CHILDREN'S ATTIC In the Daughters of the American Revo- lution Building, Here in Washington, the Twenticth Century Santa Claus Would Find a Surprising Treasure Trove. PO SE SE S S S O S S SR O N S O O N N RN N R A N MR A R O M S O O O S O O e (3 0 O o O O B O N kN O N O O o room apart for the collection of children’s toys and nursery furnishings of two centuries ago. It was a very happy thought, for the Society of the Children of the American Revolution has a membership that mounts into the thousands. These children in years to come will carry on the activities of the D. A. R. By the way, babies just a few hours old who are eligible may be admitted to membership and remain in this branch of the Daughters until they are 18 years old. Mrs. Leslie P. Snow of Rochester, N. H, widow of Judge Snow, and chairman of the New Hampshire committee, also sponsored the attic room and has had much to do with the architectural features and furnishing. While all of the 48 States Lave been interested in the “attic” and have contributed articles, the present collection came Jargely from New England. It was at Mrs. Snow's suggestion that the pine woodwork in the room was designed by Wallace Nutting, the distinguished antiquarian, artist and author. His “Old New England Pic- tures,” “Furniture of the Pilgrim Century,” “Photographic Art Secrets” end many other books of artistic and historical value are well known. Retiring from the ministry of the Congregational Church, Mr. Nutting for some years has devoted himself to pictorial representation of landscapes and of early American and European life. In designing the interior of the attic room he has made it a vertiable treasure room for children’s belong- ings of past centuries, THE corner closets with their little glass panes set in wood are true to the period which they represent and are filled with fasci- nating toys, dishes and playthings dear to the heart of every child of any century. The big fireplace has a chimney breast brought from an old house in Northern New Hampshire. This is also of pine and frames a picture of the Puritan times. Not a work of art—just interesting. The hundreds of children who visit the room are curiously interested in this unique fireplace, for the mantle swings out on hinges and dis- closes a door opening into a closet—making it easy for Santa to get down the chimney with his Christmas load. The candelabra on the wall are century-old candle molds which have been adapted to elec- tric lighting, and a quaint lighting fixture hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the room right Colonial kitchen in the Daughters of over a wooden side chair which belonged to President Franklin Pierce, fourteenth President of the United States, and said to be the hand- somest man ever to occupy that office until the advent of Franklin Roosevelt—and as a curious coincidence, both Franklins. President Roosevelt's grandchildren have been invited to Jjoin the Children’s Society, D. A. R. Miss Newton, who has a taste for artistic furnishing and helps to arrange those charm- ing rooms in the building, is almost reverential as well as romantic when she touches the sturdy little cradles of pine or mahogany—some with hoods at the heads which kept out the wintry drafts of New England Winter. One cradle with a wooden handle about two feet high, at- tached to the crib so that it could be carried ebout, is unusunl. This may have been Gen. Henry Dearborn’s crib. The great Indian fighter and general seems to have had some- thing to do with one of the several cribs in the attic. This one is easily moved about. But one thing is assured, and that is that Puritan babies—maybe Mayflower babies— were rocked in these very cradles, sat in the wee chairs, ate from the pewter porringers and poked their baby feet in the small foot- warmers, Children visiting the attic glue their noses to the glass.panes in Mr. Nutting's cupboard doors and feast their eyes on the blue Devon- shire dolly tea set, of generous proportions; a dolly pestle and mortar, pewter dishes, block tin toys, tiny salt and pepper stands. Every- thing in miniature like the grown-ups had, even to righteous mottoes and rewards of merit! There are no cooking stoves, for the Children’s Attic Room of the Daughters of the American Revolution Building,. the American Revolution Building. big fireplaces with their brick ovens on the side and innumerable sooty black cranes fof pots and kettles were the cooking stoves of the earlier centuries. And if one wishes to cee one of those fireplaces he can go down in the basement of the D. A. R. building and see a real Colonial kitchen. MXNIATURE drawing room—or “front room,” as they say in New England—and b>d room furniture exquisitely and completely made for either large or small dollies! Chests of drawers, dressing tables, dolly dresses, bonnes, shoes-complete outfits! But there is a joys of jovs, even for the grown-ups. Books for the children of Colonial days Dr. Rosenbach, the noted Philadelphia collector and bibliophile, would enjoy these primers and story books, with the intriguing titles such as “The Village Tattlers,” *“Friend of Youth,” a “Dress Book.” with six paper dolls, painted and dressed in real gingham or <ilk, published in the eighteenth century by Dean & Sen, Ludgate Hill, London. “Pleasant Sundays for the Young Good —= no naughty children could touch them—and the “Little Orphan!” The latter book would bring tears to the eyves of the naughtiest child. foe “Rose Merton was an orphan child, and with her aunt she dwelt. On every one she saw shg smiled. Mistrust she never felt.” Some checre ful verses! “Though I am young, yet I may die, and hasten to eternity.” The poem is loves ly. but one must hasten on to the Colonial kitchen. Now the paradoxical thing about the Colonial kitchen is that it was built by the State ok Oklahoma—away out West, where the Indiang were in residence during the Colonial periody But most of the Revolutionary Daughters of Oklahoma had New England ancestry, was natural for them to have this constructed after an authentic design of the Revolutionary period. It is an interesting room, with its great fires place and crane, which came from a farm hous® on the road to Valley Forge. Who knows buf fhat Gen. Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette ate food cooked in this very fire« place. At one side it has a brick oven, and on the mantle shelf are age-old pewter plates, cups and dishes, while over the mantle is an old rifle. The pine paneling and the brick floor are true to the time, and there are two spinning wheels, a dough trough and a lovely old settee, with rockers, with one end fenced off so that the baby could not fall out. At one side of the fireplace is something that looks very much like a loggerhead poker. It will be recalled that a loggerhead poker, when heated red hof was used to stir certain kinds of grog an} punch. Tradition is that the poker was so-callegs because often used to emphasize an argumen§ with a stubborn opponent, Peru Takes to Radio ERU is offering an excellent market for American radio sets. The favorable exe change situation affecting Peru and the excele lent return from this year's cotton crop have provided the Peruvians with the necessary money to be important factors in the market. Practically no competition from European sources is faced by the American manufac=- turers of radio sets, and the increased busines® has been encouraging. Douim'//g Thomas “But, Tommy,” said his mother, “didn't yous# conscience tell you you were doing wrong?”’ “Yes mother,” said Tommy, “but I've learned not to believe everything I hear.”