A gift to Clouds Hill from Mary Jane Wilkinson, this beautiful set of oblong wooden blocks covered in paper designs, is Victorian and well played with. The manufacture of blocks began in the late 18th century, although children had already played with homemade wooden blocks for centuries. Blocks have always been associated with learning and education through play – a relationship beginning in
the late 17th century with John Locke’s concept of the “alphabet” block. While children are just having fun playing, it has been proven that block activity improves eye-hand coordination and strengthens fingers and hands; encourages interaction with others; develops vocabulary, math skills, and experiences with gravity, balance and geometry; and increases imagination and creativity. That’s a lot for a little block of wood!
Adjacent to Clouds Hill to the west was Cedar Hill Farm, a full working farm providing the vegetables, eggs, meat, and fruit used at the four family houses in Cowesett, as well as the Providence houses – with surpluses sold to Calef Brothers markets in Providence and Boston. February and March were times for poring over seed catalogs, the ladies looking at flowers, while the boss farmer, Alfred and his son, Alfred Slater, looked for new and better vegetables and fruits. In America, the first seed house was Landreth’s in Philadelphia, established in 1784. By 1838, Frank G. Comstock was decorating his seed packets with pictures of the plant, quickly adopted by other seed companies. After the Civil War, mail order catalogs proliferated, with fancy illustrations of fruits, vegetables, and flowers as part of the packages. N. C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish were later artists contributing to these designs. One of the catalogs shown is from Sharpe’s Hardware of East Greenwich, whose building stands at the corner of King St. and Main St., although the hardware store closed in the mid-20th century.
“Gibe uns heute unser taglich brot” (Give us this day our daily bread) is carved around the rim of this wooden plate, while the center has a beautifully carved Lenten Rose. Made in Oberammergau, Germany, the plate is associated with the German tradition of giving bread to the poor during Lent. It is a reminder of the historical practice of giving bread to the less fortunate and is a symbol of compassion and generosity. The Lenten Rose is a hybrid Hellebore, so named because its blooming period coincides with the Christian season of Lent. In the 1880s, the Alfred A. Reed, Jr. family was traveling in Germany and other European countries, and brought it back home as a souvenir.
Berlin Woolworks was an embroidery style very similar to what we call needlepoint, usually done with wool yarn in a simple cross stitch or tent stitch on canvas. Colors were vibrant, as natural dyes were being replaced with chemical and, by the 1850s, synthetic aniline dyes; and varied hues allowed careful shading to give three-dimensional effects to the completed pieces. Most patterns were supplied by German publishers, first produced in the early 19th century in Berlin and printed on grid paper in black and white with the colors hand-painted on the pattern. In the U. S. in the 1840s, patterns were printed in women’s magazines and became “all the rage”. Besides these patterns, Clouds Hill has a framed floral piece done by Caroline van Son, and a beaded square pattern, as the patterns could be adopted for beadwork, with 1 bead per square.
A great way to pass a cold, wintry day!
