An Article for the Chester County Day newspaper

For the past dozen years, I have written articles for a local charity.  Chester County Day is, perhaps, the oldest house tour in the entire USA.  (This tour was not held every year in its early days, so some other tours organizers argue that they have the oldest, continuously-held tour.)  Profits from the tour benefit the Chester County Hospital, which is in southeast Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.

To publicize the tour, the organizers distribute an annual newspaper.  This is where the following article appeared.  However, due to space considerations, this article was truncated.  Worse, several typos were added when it was edited down.

This year's Chester County Day was held on Saturday 3 October.  Hurricane Joaquin made it a damp day for a house tour, but it went on nonetheless.  And, for anyone who is interested, here is the full article I wrote for the event.

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The People Behind Chester County Day

by Tony Conaway

We anticipate that between 3,000 and 4,000 people will purchase tickets for the 75^th Annual Chester County Day. It takes hundreds more to put on this event, the oldest and longest-running house tour in the country.

The revenue from Chester County Day is donated to the Chester County Hospital. This year it is earmarked for the Hospital’s Cardiac program. Appropriately, The Day is run by the Women’s Auxiliary to the Hospital.

Each year, the first Women’s Auxiliary group to begin preparations for The Day is the House Committee. The House Committee is responsible for contacting the owners of the sites you visit. The members of this committee start searching for suitable houses in January of each year.

The criterion for selecting a house for the tour has never changed. A house on the tour should be:

·      An early structure furnished with antiques

·      An historic home (either by use or by association)

·      Or, a newer structure with significant architectural features or collections

Of course, a selected house must also be accessible and have sufficient parking nearby.

Once potential houses are identified, a formal tour request letter is sent to each homeowner, inviting them to participate. If the homeowner is willing, a visit is then set up. “That’s the fun part,” says House Committee Chair Debbie Hess. “Meeting the homeowners, marveling at the uniqueness and charm of their homes and then getting to know them as we work together towards the first Saturday in October. We add public landmarks, lunch stops, rest stops, and covered bridges nearby to complete the tour.”

Once the houses on the tour are selected, several other committees can begin their work. One such is the committee that produces the newspaper that you are reading. The Chester County Day newspaper has been edited by Eric Chandlee Wilson for the past 25 years. The proofreader and assistant editor, Michael Pillagalli, has worked on many Chester County Day committees, so he knows The Day well.  He is ably assisted by Robin Young. Not only are there may logistical challenges in putting together the newspaper, each article must be assigned to a volunteer writer.

It may surprise you that the money paid for Chester County Day tickets does not cover all the expenses. The Sponsorship Committee has an important job, convincing businesses and individuals to donate (either cash or with needed goods or services).

Many people make their donation by buying advertisements in the Chester County Day paper. In this way, they publically demonstrate their support for the Hospital. The donations and advertisements allow the full cost of the Chester County Day tickets to go to the hospital. All expenses for The Day come from these sponsors.

The current Sponsorship Committee chair, Marie Robinson, notes that “I have learned that there are many loyal sponsors who happily return each year, but others need to receive some personal contact. My job is to follow us with everyone who had been there for us in the past and to recruit new sponsors.” Among her new initiatives is the House Sponsors program, which includes “two builders who had worked on some of the homes on this year’s tour. The have special promotions letting people know that they have worked on a particular house featured on Chester County Day.”

Once the houses have been selected, someone has to figure out how to direct visitors to and from each house.  Lon Pritchard has handled this job for years, along with the heads of the Parking and Marking Committees. He also serves as our Cartographer, creating the all-important map that visitors use on The Day. Each year, he does his best to select a route that “shares the ambience of Chester County in as relaxing, natural mood as possible. Some less traveled (but safe) roads are used to achieve this task.” The continued growth of houses and business in Chester County makes this more difficult every year.

While the tour is a lot of fun, its ultimate purpose is to earn money for the Hospital. Naturally, the event has to be publicized. That is the job of Kathleen Malloy and Jeanne Reith.

One of the most effective forms of publicity is the slide lecture. Held at multiple locations throughout the county, this allows hundreds of people to preview the tour. To facilitate this, Photographer Jeff Dippel takes the slides.

Pat Mehok is the official Lecturer, who narrates the slide show.

Tickets are sold at a few sites, such as the lobby of the Chester County Hospital, where volunteers staff a table. Tickets are also sold by mail. Joan Atkins handles the mail-out tickets, and is also Business Manager for The Day. The Business Manager has a wide range of responsibilities, from seeing that the tickets are printed correctly, directing the bills to the Treasurer, answering all phone and email queries about The Day, and – after the event – writing up the final reports.

Right before The Day, signs are posted directing traffic. This is the job of the Marking Committee, chaired by Rob Miller. Of course, they must take those signs down after The Day, too!

Unless you are walking to visit the sites, everyone on The Day arrives by automobile. Naturally, all those cars need a place to park. Parking is handled by Steve Oakes and Herb Schwabe. This year, Herb is also doing the important job of notifying every municipality on the tour, some of which may assign a police officer to handle traffic. The Parking Committee is always looking for additional volunteers, who are willing to spend The Day working outside.

Finally, at each of the 30 to 40 houses on the tour, there is a greeter, plus a guide in each room that is open to the public. Arranging a greeter and multiple guides for each house is a massive undertaking. Linda Gibson has handled the job of assembling and placing the guides. Sarah Finnaren is in charge of the greeters.

As you can see, Chester County Day could not exist without the efforts of its many volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the current Co-Chairs, Louise Milewski or Karen Weber. You can do so by phoning the Business Office at (610) 431-5301.

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Four Questions for the Authors of This Year's Chester County Day Newspaper

Chester County Day is an annual charity house tour that benefits the Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. It has been going on for some time - this year will be the 73^rd time the event has been held!

To publicize the event, a newspaper is issued each year about six to eight weeks in advance of the event. Most of the stories in the paper are about homes that will be open on the tour, or about notable persons who lived in the tour area.

This is a panel discussion featuring four writers who produced some of the articles in the Chester County Day newspaper. This series of interviews was conducted via email about three weeks before the 73^rd annual Chester County Day, which will occur on Saturday October 5^th, 2013. The writers are Susannah Brody, Wayne A. Conaway, Jane E. Dorchester, and Catherine Quillman.

1)  Over the years, many different writers have contributed to the Chester County Day newspaper.  Do you consider yourself primarily a non-fiction writer or a fiction writer? Which kind of writing do you prefer to do?

Susannah Brody: I am primarily a non-fiction writer, especially if you are considering the Chester County Day Newspaper.  Often, my contributions have come directly from books that I have written on Chester County history.  But I actually consider myself more of a storyteller who accidentally became a writer.

Way      Wayne A. Conaway:  I've co-authored nine business books, so people think of me as a non-fiction writer. But I've successfully written everything – except poetry, which doesn't particularly interest me. I also ghostwrite blogs, articles and speeches for executives.

Jan        Jane E. Dorchester: I am a non-fiction writer.

Cat        Catherine Quillman: I'm a former Philadelphia Inquirer Arts reporter and so I'm primarily a non-fiction writer - but I prefer to write fiction! I have a MFA in creative writing from Temple.

2) H       2)  How did you come to write for the Chester County Day newspaper?

Quillman: Funny, but I don't remember.  (Editor) Eric Chandlee Wilson may have asked me in the early 90s because he knew I covered arts and history for the Inquirer. 

 Dorchester:  Eric Wilson asked me if I would be interested and I said “yes!”

Con      Conaway: My recollection is that I asked Eric if I could write for the paper. That's also how I got into the field of local history: I went on a nighttime Christmas tour of Church Street in West Chester. I wanted the tour data, but there wasn't a set script – it was mostly in the heads of the tour guides, with just some names and dates written down. So, if I wanted to get the data, I had to volunteer and learn the tour information from an experienced guide. I contacted the person in charge and volunteered. (This was in the early 1990s, before people started publishing walking tours of West Chester.)

Bro      Brody: Many, many years ago (I think when Beverly Sheppard was Director of Public Programs at the Chester County Historical Society) I was working on a resource book about (Coatesville ironworks pioneer) Rebecca Lukens. and was asked to write something on her for the Chester County Day newspaper.

Occa    Occasionally, Eric has seen a story of mine somewhere else and has asked if he could reprint it in the Chester County Day paper.

3)           3)  Has anyone ever objected to or disputed anything you wrote in your Chester County Day articles?  For example, it's not unusual for people to dispute descriptions of architecture styles - there are still arguments whether the West Chester Public Library is Romanesque or Queen Anne with Romanesque features.

Quillman: No, but I am surprised they haven't since I once tried to trace several forges and furnaces in northern Chester County. I think I also described how they worked. I have files of old literature from places like Hopewell Furnance. 

Dorchester: I hate to be boring, but as far as I know, no one has disputed anything I wrote for the Chester County Day paper.

Brody: If anyone has objected, no one has told me.

Conaway: I actually got hate mail about something I wrote in the Chester County Day paper!

Two years ago, I wrote about West Chester native Samuel Barber, a classical composer who is best remembered today for his “Adagio for Strings.” I wrote that, in just a few decades, the position of West Chester's most famous resident has gone from a composer of classical music to skateboarder/daredevil/media personality “Bam” Margera. (And I should say that, while I'm not a fan of Mr. Margera's antics, the only time I met him he was extremely polite.)

After that year's paper came out, I received an anonymous letter excoriating me for even mentioning “Bam” Margera's name in the same article as that of Samuel Barber! Truthfully, I was flattered that someone would go to the trouble of writing out an actual piece of snail mail, finding my address, and mailing it to me!

4) Fi     4)  Finally, do you have any interesting stories about doing your articles for the Chester County Day newspaper?  

Conaway: Most of the owners of the sites on Chester County Day are very pleasant.  But some of them are bosses or executives who are used to giving orders.  One year I interviewed a wealthy boss who tried to take over the interview.  He'd ignore questions, then tell me what to write. He'd even snap, "Don't write that down!"  I have a bad knee, but he led me all over his site, chiding me to keep up.  Since this whole interview took place in 95 degree heat - without air conditioning - it wasn't a pleasant experience.  But the article came out well.

Dorchester: The stories I have written for the Chester County Day paper either have been based on research that I conducted during my work or have been an extension of other writing assignments.  For example, I used to write a series of articles about the history of villages in Chester County for the Daily Local News (DLN).  I simply continued that assignment for the Chester County Day paper and for several years picked one or more villages in the given tour area to write about (I never duplicated any of the DLN articles).  I don’t have any interesting stories about specific articles.

Quillman: I believe I have to really delve back in time to answer that question - not just my own writing chronology but historically. I often wrote my pieces based on research that I gathered for one of my Philadelphia Inquirer pieces. But one time, I had a chance to visit the 18th-century mansion, Reading Furnace Farm in northern Chester County, once owned by the Pew family and restored by the famous architect Brognard Okie (the subject of this year's Chester County Day newspaper). 

Even after years of interviewing people in their homes, I rarely find that my preconceived notion of the owner is correct.  For instance, I was told that the owner of Reading Furnace  was a cosmopolitan "Ted Turner" type who owned several  radio and t.v. stations.  This was long  before the era of the big screen tv.   Still, I expected to see at least a "media" room or something else disconcerting such as a glowing red numbered digital clock sitting on a period dresser.  It turned out that none of that was true. The owner was a historian who filled the house with early furniture and even kept the 1920 look of many of the "Okie" rooms. 

The owner was first "historian"  I met who could claim the title without being a writer. Instead, he hired late Estelle Cremers, to research and publish a book on the mansion. She also helped to place not only the mansion but a tract of land straddling the French Creek (on the  boundary of East Nantmeal and Warwick Townships) on the National Register. It's now known as the Reading Furnace Historic District and includes, thanks to the owner I met, several restored and recreated 18th-century outbuildings. 

One more thing about the owner : he was not one to boast that "George Washington Slept Here."  That was partly because the Reading Furnace Farm may be the only house along the path of Washington's travels to have solid proof.  Washington wrote letters to General Anthony Wayne and to the Continental Congress, adding both the place, Reading Furnace, the date and the even time of his correspondence after the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777.  

And that concludes our panel discussion. Thank you all for participating!

The participants:

Susannah Brody is a retired learning support teacher, as well as a storyteller and author. She earned a Masters of Arts in Oral Traditions from The Graduate Institute in Connecticut. She has researched, written and shared stories about local history in southeastern Pennsylvania and has developed living history portrayals of some important nineteenth century women.

Wayne A. “Tony” Conaway has written hundreds of articles for a variety of publications. He is the co-author of nine business books from such major publishers as McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, and Prentice Hall.  He also ghostwrites blogs and speeches for executives. He can be contacted at tonyconaway@yahoo.com

Jane E. Dorchester is an Architectural Historian and Historic Preservation Consultant who has been working in the preservation field and has been writing about history and the preservation thereof for nearly 30 years.

Catherine Quillman is a former Arts journalist with the Philadephia Inquirer and  has written extensively about Chester County's history and its artistic hertitage. 

She is the author of several regional books including 100 Artists of The Brandwine Valley (Schiffer) and three walking tours of West Chester detailing the lives of 19th century black entrepreneurs and former slaves. More information about her books can be found at www.Quillman-publications.com. 

A Record Month for Publishing My Work

I haven't earned much money this month, but August has been a good month for getting my work published.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how a flash fiction story I wrote called "Potemkin" went up on THE RUSTY NAIL website on July 29th. But I'll include it here because I didn't get a hard copy of THE RUSTY NAIL until mid-August.  This story always gets laughs when I read it at bookstore and library events.

The first story of mine to actually go online in August was a mystery called "Murder and the Muse" in DANSE MACABRE.  Writing this story proved to be a challenge, since it's entirely in the second person.  (Using "you" instead of "I" or "he/she," like the Jay McInerney novel Bright Lights, Big City.)  Even more challenging, I never revealed the gender of the narrator!

Next, a comedic flash fiction piece went up at a site called LINGUISTIC EROSION.  It was called "Bustles Went Out of Fashion by 1905."  For some reason the editor/founder of LINGUISTIC EROSION puts his name up beneath each story title, giving the impression that every piece is " by E.S. Wynn."  (I suppose he justifies it by putting the pencil icon before his name - so, if you read it like a child's rebus, it becomes "EDITED by E.S. Wynn."  But I know some friends who went to the site, and assumed that my story was missing because everything seemed to have been written by E.S. Wynn.) 


It was also a good month for non-fiction writing.

Our local medical center, the Chester County Hospital, has had an annual charity event for 73 years.  It's called Chester County Day.  On that day, people who buy a ticket can visit selected homes throughout a designated quadrant of Chester County.  It's an exciting event, since it's the only opportunity most folks have to see the inside of historic houses that are not usually open to visitors.  There are more houses open to visit than anyone is likely to get to each year, so you can pass by the ones where the lines are too long.  (I've waited outside for over an hour, waiting to enter a particularly popular site!)

This annual event is promoted through an annual newspaper, also called CHESTER COUNTY DAY.  Although it doesn't pay its writers (it is for charity, after all), I've enjoyed writing for it.  I get to go to some interesting sites and interview the owners long before the actual tour.  No hour long waits!

Each year, I've written one or two stories for this publication.  This has been going on for over a decade.  This year I interviewed the owners of a house on the site of a former iron forge in the northwest part of the county.  It's a fascinating site, and I enjoyed doing the interview.  I also took some photos of the site and, for the first time, posted them on Pinterest.

I had two surprises when I first saw this year's newspaper.

1)  I had not one, not two, but THREE articles in this paper.  My new story about the iron forge house was there, as well as two old ones.  Three stories in one issue of this paper is a record for me!

2)  There was no mention of the photos I took, nor was there the link to the Pinterest site!

Now, the CHESTER COUNTY DAY newspaper is a volunteer effort, and the results are unpredictable.  One year the layout made a mess of my article.  Sidebars might or might not appear.  So dropping my Pinterest note was not a big surprise.  But it was still a disappointment. 



And finally, a blog post I was paid to write for a Spa website went up.  It's called "The Perfect Entrepreneur," and it's not half bad.

All of these sites could use some more hits.  So please, if you're so inclined, go to any or all of them and post a comment.  I'd appreciate it.