Sheep Exhibit
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
Powder Puffs and Exhibit Accommodations
While we were there we stayed overnight at a private home; she took in guests on occasions of that type; She had a daughter who was taking toe dancing lessons and when she found out that I had wool, clipped wool from making the powder puffs, she asked me if she could have some of it, that that was what they used in the tors of the toe dancers slippers. She was tickled to death; I gave her quite a bag--all I had on hand with me there. Of course wherever we were on these trips I was spending most of my time making powder puffs.
when i was at the Worcester Armory with the sheep exhibit in the booth next to me was a man named X. Allen Reid from Belmont, Mass. who had a honey exhibit--bees and so forth--and we got acquainted. I got to telling him about New Ipswich; he had friends in New Ipswich he new pretty well, and do you know, he is the first boarder I had at the Lodge. The State wanted Frank to put on a sheep exhibit at the fairs thruout the State in the coming year and so we spent a little time getting things together. We had to write to the Armour Company to ask them if they could give us an exhibit of sheep products. They did. They gave us a glassed-in case of the by-products of sheep. There were fiddle strings. lanolin, wood suiting samples and yarns from wool. Alice and I had the first privilege of putting on that exhibit. She helped me a good deal in getting things ready for it. Frank went with us far as Manchester. We were to go over to Durham for Old Home Week and put on an exhibit there. We went on from Manchester and when we got to Durham we were to make contact with Professor Rissman. He was the one in charge of sheep at the University. We drove into the yard there, and I saw 2 men leaning up against the door casing of one of the buildings so I walked over to them and said, "Can you tell me where I can find Professor Rissman. He said, "Well, I'm him. This is my assistant here aside of me". I said, "Well, I'm Mr. Robins' niece and we've come to put on the exhibit of the sheep products that you asked for." He said You'll have to go into one of the dormitories", and I said, "We don't want to. We've brought our camping equipment. We have a tent, we have a collapsible sheet-metal stove. We've done a lot of this camping out; we know how to take care of a fire and we'd like to camp if we could. Mr. Robins suggested over near the sheep barns you might allow us to go." "Well, " he said, "this is very unusual; I'll have to find out if they will allow anything of that sort". So he disappeared for a little while; pretty soon he came back and he said to his assistant, "You take those ladies over near the sheep pens and they can pick out where they'd like to set up." So he did. We got all set up nicely. That was about noontime.
Photo Archives
Unidentified woman with neck and hand warmers
James Roger diary entry & pullet count
18th December 1912
Drizzly day, wind northeast. David choring round. Got papers from Hingham. Pullets 7.
God bless Marion for giving the ballet student’s mother a big bag of sheep wool. It probably helped a lot of girls. Stuffing the toes of pointe shoes with wool was the best way in those days to mitigate the pain of being en pointe.
Amazing woman. All those activities, the amount of ground she covered, the bundle of skills she had, and the energy she exuded, were impressive.