The George W. Bush Presidential Library, which opened in April, includes a complete recreation of the Oval Office, and in it is the work of a Waterford Fair artisan.   

 

In July of 2012, Peter Miller (P. H. Miller Studio, Woodbury, Connecticut) was asked to recreate five of the fine art frames that were hanging on the walls of the Oval Office during President Bush's terms.

 

Detail of the reproduction frame for the portrait of George Washington.

Miller traveled to the White House to do the research on the frames for the portal portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale and the portrait of Abraham Lincoln by George H. Story, and to San Antonio to research the frames of the three other paintings (by Julian Onderdonk), which were chosen by the Bushes when President and Mrs Bush first came to the White House.

 

The frames involved carving, ornament application, specialized gilding and finishing techniques to closely match the originals.

 

The Waterford Homes Tour & Crafts Exhibit is proud to bring you some of the nation's finest craftspeople for our 70th Fair on October 4, 5, and 6. 

 

The reproduction frame for Julian Onderdonk's Cactus Flowers.

 

 

The extended family of the late Anne Stabler Parsons (1923-2010, a direct descendant of Thomas Moore Sr., who renamed "Janney's Mill" "Waterford" and a daughter of founding members of the Waterford Foundation) stopped by the Old School last month after interring the ashes of father/grandfather/great grandfather O. Wayne Parsons at the  Society of Friends burial ground. They gathered here from North Carolina, Oklahoma, and California.

The family has  already given many of their papers and artifacts to our Local History Collection--it is currently being catalogued. Their roots date back to the 1700s with the Moore, Stabler, and other early families.   

The medicine cabinet for Old School students.

In addition to reminiscences about the Old School, Anne's daughter Shari with husband Carlo, and Anne's son Wayne David Parsons with wife Nancy showed their respective children and grandchildren where they sat in each classroom at the Old School. They told us that the small mirrored cabinet on the landing of the stairway was the First Aid Kit--holding Band-Aids, Mercurochrome, and Pepto Bismol.  

 

Executive Director Ken Rosenfeld's office was not only the principal's office but that of the school secretary as well. The hall wall of the office was lined with books (the library), and a cot was against another wall, in case some child was under the weather.

 

The building's last year as an elementary school was 1965; the Waterford Foundation purchased it in 1970.  

 

We hope we might see all the families back at the Fair in October, where a special welcome will be offered to Waterford descendants.