REMEMBERING TOPSMEAD

Conversations with
Bob Orintas


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​​​Some Lifelong Friends

​ Miss Edith had some lifelong friendships, a few of which began during her years at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington from 1907 to 1910.
 
DOROTHY WETHERALD
She attended Miss Porter’s. She lived in NYC with her mother. After her mother’s death, she moved to Beach Bay, Mass., then later to Marblehead Mass. She would stay at Topsmead for about one week each summer, usually came around the time when Miss Porter’s School would be holding their annual reunions. Later in life, Miss Wetherald adopted a daughter and would also bring her to Topsmead. She was about the same age as my brother and Barbara Abramson, my future sister–in–law whose family rented the Buell cottage at the farm; she would be a playmate of ours during her stay.
 
Miss Edith, Miss Lucy, and Miss Mary would also travel to Massachusetts each summer to visit Miss Wetherald and tour the area.    
 
KYLLIKKI POHJALA
She also attended Miss Porter’s and came from Helsinki, Finland. During their 1935 tour of Europe, the ladies stayed with her for about a week before they visited Russia and then again on their return to Helsinki. Miss Pohjala was interested in health care and social politics in Finland.  She was called the mother of the Finish Health Insurance Act. She started out as a newspaper reporter but then received a nursing degree and served in the 1918 Finish Civil war and the Estonian war of independence of 1918-1920.
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by Margaret Hunt

Making Tracks | March 2023
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Photos by Margaret Hunt

Trying to make up for our tame winter, March roared in like a lion on the heels of a winter storm and dropped eight to ten inches of snow across our northwestern CT landscape.  Two days after the storm, I made tracks over to Topsmead to play in the snow.  No such luck.   March, with its moody temperatures and increasing hours of sunlight, was already warming things up. The snow was disappearing fast.  Blame it on the approaching vernal (fresh/new) equinox (equal night) that arrives March 20 and marks the turning point when daylight hours equal darkness hours. 
 
When I arrived at Topsmead, the dirt surfaces of Chase Road and the parking lot were already snowless and softening in the midday sunshine.  Clearly this wasn’t going to be a glorious afternoon of tromping through the snow.  Nevertheless, I struck out across the fields en route to the butterfly garden to look for tracks that would tell the story of who had been traversing the Topsmead landscape.
 -read complete Musings essay-
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Topsmead in winter photo by Tom Holzel