Robin
Being the youngest, Robin was with us more while the other two children were away at Westtown or college. The other two had had a year in a German school, but Robin had two years while we were in Berlin. Much of what she learned she learned with a German vocabulary. For example, when we returned and she was going to high school in Harvard, Massachusetts, she looked up from her geometry homework and said to me, "Honey, what's an extension?" I replied, "It's a Verlängerung." "Oh!" she said, and went on with her work. The following year, when we had moved to Tyngsboro and were playing in the Nashua Symphony Orchestra, she played the solo part in Mendelsohn's Violin Concerto. As mentioned above she was taking violin lessons at the New England Conservatory every Saturday. She gave a recital in the Gardner Museum Sunday program and performed Beethoven's Spring Sonata, with David Bartholomew as accompanist.
Since then, she has been Fiddler of the Festival on two more occasions, and is no longer eligible to compete. In her new status as Master Fiddler, she entertains from the stage as one of the attractions of the festival.
Solo fiddlers are usually accompanied by guitar, and in the course of two decades or more she has played with dozens of guitarists. Finally, some three years ago, she started a group called Spirit Fiddle, and has been playing with guitarist Brian Clancey ever since. Spirit Fiddle has recorded two CDs and is in the process of making a third one. They perform professionally at least once a week at various locations, and their fame is spreading. A few years ago, Robin wrote a letter to Peg, and it is here below, just as she wrote it: 6 May 1997 Hi Peg, Happy Mother's Day! I think you're a pretty exceptional mother, you know. You did all the normal, expected, motherly things, like making sure I wore boots and mittens, and not wanting me to go ice fishing when the ice is thin or trout fishing when it's rainy and cold. It must seem amazing to you that your youngest child is in her late 40s, and I know you worry about me still, even though I've been a responsible (!) adult for many years. Women sometimes sit around and talk about being women and finding our way (cow sessions, we call them), and we talk about women who influenced us. I tell about a wonderful, creative, and intelligent woman who happens to be my mother. She lives gently on this earth, fixing, planting, arranging, propagating, healing, without great need for approval or acknowledgment. I'm very proud of you. Growing up, I thought (and observed) that you could do absolutely anything. Just think of the list! It was pretty intimidating to a child! You spoke fluent German. You could grow anything at all, from the best garden, with food we could really eat, to fruit-bearing citrus trees grown indoors from seeds. You could break and train and ride and show horses. You cooked, made butter, cared for the animals, and mucked out the stalls. You made clothes and knit sweaters for all of us. You restored furniture, both the wood refinishing and the upholstery. You painted and wallpapered whole houses. You built stone walls and the stone terrace off the French doors in Tyngsboro. When I left graduate school, you built furniture into my van and made curtains for it. In the Jericho Hill house, you painted scenes from our childhood all through the upstairs, from David kitty to the swing on the big tree in the front yard. One of your favorite things is learning languages for fun. I know you know German, French, Italian, and Latin. I also remember your learning Russian. And a bit of Urdu, Sanskrit, Yiddish, Romansch, and probably others. Complicated multi-color sweater instructions from Scandinavia? No problem for you! That is your favorite kind of puzzle. The most amazing thing you've made for me is my violin. In all of my travels, I've never met another fiddler who plays a fiddle made by his or her mother. It's a beautiful and warm instrument, magical still after these many years, and it brings me great happiness to play it. I love to tell the story of how my fiddle came to be, and to play Mother's Waltz. Do you remember all those Saturdays you drove me to Boston for violin lessons in high school? I can't imagine how boring that must have been for you, driving an hour each way, waiting around all day for lessons, string quartet, orchestra, and theory classes. I was pretty lucky to have you both put a priority on that kind of education, and lucky to have you there supporting and encouraging me. And then there were the concerts and recitals, the rehearsals for Actorsingers and the Nashua Symphony, and on and on. Do you remember the time Honey was away for a week and you built all those bookcases into the upstairs hall in Tyngsboro? Not just straight bookcases, but room for paintings and lighting, and shelves of different depths, all professionally finished with molding and all painted before he returned? I think you did the same thing on the porch in the Pleasantville house. The porch where we sat all day watching the Kennedy Inauguration. One time I wrote a report for school about French cathedrals, and you illustrated it by making pencil drawings of several of the cathedrals. They're little works of art. I still have them. I can't recall the report I wrote at all, but I can close my eyes and see those pictures. Unfortunately, I did not inherit your artistic talent. Do you remember playing South Pacific and Desert Song and the other shows we played for Actorsingers? Steve Norris used to put lifesavers and mints on our music stands, and make us feel important. And we used to look cross-eyed at each other when we were bored, or bug our eyes out, or share some other private joke. How about the time the lights went out all over the northeast, and I practiced by candlelight in the dining room? I think Honey was away on business that night, so we kept each other company in that big old New England colonial with its 8 fireplaces and wideboard wainscoting. Actually, that was the perfect house for sneaky candlelight, wasn't it? Or the trip with Honey to Hawaii, just the 3 of us? You and I came back together and spent a day and a half in San Francisco, ending with (most of) the Sound of Music, the late flight to Chicago, and chocolate ice cream sodas in the airport at 5:30 in the morning. So even though I'm too busy, and I don't get up to visit as often as I should, you continue to inspire me. I hope you know how important you are to me, and how much I love you. Love, Robin Continue with The Arbors |