Pages

History


Some Recollections of Summer Days in the 1920's
at Dorset, Vermont's West View Farm








An artist's view of West View Farm in 1938
by Ruth M. Rasey Simpson

As a young girl in the 1920's, Ruth Rasey Simpson was employed by Henry and Vina Harwood as the hired-girl at West View Farm. Now a noted Vermont author, here she shares with you a behind the scenes glimpse of what went into keeping the Farm's frequent visitors content and comfortable.
Dorset in the 1920's, West View was a highly regarded dairy farm, owned and operated by Henry J. Harwood, a descendant of the earliest Dorset settlers in the 1760's. His wife, Vina conducted a summer guest home in the spacious white farmhouse, set well back from the road, on the tree-shaded grounds. Guests were mainly professional people, some retired, from New York or New Jersey. Most stayed two weeks, some only one, during July and August. A few others made reservations during September and October. Weekly rates were about $25 per person.

Usually eight or ten women and/or men comprised the West View maximum. Some arrived and left in their own cars, dusty from the unpaved road that passed the house. Others came by railroad to Manchester Depot, six miles away, and were transported to the house by a taxi or by Henry, if his busy farm schedule permitted.
Accommodations consisted of four bedrooms and one bathroom on the second floor, plus one with a shared bath, opening off the lower front hall. The owners bedroom was directly behind this, opening from the sitting room. A room for the "hired girl" was at the head of the back stairs. Farm helpers lived in nearby homes of their own. Vina did all of the cooking, but she was assisted in the rest of the work by one "hired girl". This also included the daily washing of over 100 glass quart-size milk bottles and numerous half pint cream bottles in the set tubs of the laundry. Her wages were $7.00 a week, plus tips, which were usually about $8.00 weekly.







West View Farm and the Mountains

The guest dining-room, with a scenic bay window, opened off the sitting-room. Behind it was the family dining-room, and behind that was the big kitchen. Its great, black, wood-burning cookstove included the firebox, a big oven for baking, a reservoir for heating water, a top with six griddles, and above, a warming-oven. Attached to this stove was a 30-gallon hot water tank. On the opposite side of the kitchen was a three-burner kerosene stove with a portable oven. This stove was usually used to prepare supper, especially on hot afternoons. A huge "ice box" (refrigerator), a marble sink, two rockers, and a table loaded with magazines and the weekly newspapers, completed the kitchen furnishings.

The family meal schedule consisted of breakfast at 6:30 or 7:00 o'clock, following the morning milking; dinner at noon; and supper at 5:00 p.m. preceding the evening chores. Guest meals were served from 8:30 to 9:00 a.m., 1:00 to 2:30 and 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Some of Vina's specialties included Vermont cheese fondue; peanut butter bread; fresh peach or berry shortcake, with thick (not whipped) cream, blueberry or apple pie; white or "gold cake with maple sugar and buttermilk frosting; angel or sponge cake with whipped cream; and roast beef with potatoes roasted in the pan, served with rich brown gravy. Favorite vegetables were Golden Bantam or Evergreen sweet corn, served within 20 minutes after being picked in the big garden behind the house; or Burpee's Long Podded peas, gathered from the same garden and served within an hour.

Perhaps the Harwoods' most famous delicacy was their maple ice-cream. For this, Vina cooked a custard of milk, eggs, cornstarch, and light amber maple syrup from the farm sugar orchard. After it was cooked, she added an equal quantity of heavy cream, "well stirred in." The mixture was then frozen in a hand turned freezer, where the custard container was set in a tub of crushed ice mixed with salt.

Sweet peas, nasturtiums, asters, poppies, and golden glow were among the flowers gathered from the posy beds for table bouquets. Each table was equipped with snowy, meticulously ironed linen damask cloth and napkins, crystal condiment containers and goblets, silver plated utensils, and gold banded white china. Every Sunday morning, the white percale sheets and pillow cases were changed. These usually retained some of the fresh fragrance from having been dried on the backyard clothesline. Laundry was done in a hand-turned washing machine, copper boiler heated on the oil stove, and two spacious "set tubs" equipped with a hand turned wringer. If Monday was rainy, wash day would be the first drying-day that followed. Water was supplied by the never-failing spring "on the hill".

Guest wrote letters, visited and rocked on the front porch, listened to Victrola records or read in the sitting-room; napped in their chambers, played croquet on the lawn, or went for walks in the fields and pasture or even up the mountainsides. The beautiful mountain vista, exhilarating fresh air, superb meals, long nights of quiet sleep, and the atmosphere of uncomplicated friendliness provided a placid, but genuinely renewing, way of life.



The watercolor paintings on this page were painted by Elsa Bley in 1938. Elsa was a New York artist who spent summers at West View Farm. After many return visits, Elsa became a Dorset resident. In 1992 Elsa died and generously left her house to the Dorset Historical Society.