An Invitation and Two Announcements

AN INVITATION AND TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS

PLEASE JOIN ME FOR AN IN-PERSON PANEL IN SCOTCH PLAINS

I hope you can join me for a panel on Roberto de la Selva, the Nicaraguan artist who painted murals at the Deserted Village of Feltville in the late 1920s. The panel includes Roberto’s biggest fan, Ron Burkard, who owns dozens of his works and met and interviewed his nephews. Also featured are Dr. Alejandro Anreus, expert on Latin American art, Daniel Bernier, who has worked tirelessly to raise the funding to save the murals (see the announcement below), and myself, who was lucky enough to discover de la Selva’s identity, when we were all still guessing who the artist was.

We are all joined in our desire to save the murals and restore the fame of the artist. It promises to be a fascinating event, on Monday, January 8, at 7 p.m. at the Scotch Plains Public Library.

Details can be found at https://www.scotlib.org/event/delaselva/.

Hope to see you there!

DAN BERNIER IS HONORED FOR HIS WORK AT THE DESERTED VILLAGE OF FELTVILLE

On November 30, 2023, Daniel Bernier received the Sarah Fiske Award for Lifetime Achievement from Preservation New Jersey. I was pleased to be able to be at the event, to celebrate this well-deserved honor. Both Dan and I were even more pleased that the event was held at Masker’s Barn, one of the ten remaining buildings at the Deserted Village.

The award was meant to “celebrate Dan for his decades of work to preserve one of New Jersey’s most beloved historic sites, Feltville, aka The Deserted Village, an industrial town turned Victorian resort community nestled in the Watchung Reservation.”¹

Preservation New Jersey describes itself as follows:

Founded in 1978, Preservation New Jersey is a statewide nonprofit organization that promotes the economic vitality, sustainability, and heritage of New Jersey’s diverse communities through advocacy and education. Preservation New Jersey produces an annual list of New Jersey’s 10 most endangered historic places in addition to other advocacy programs; provides educational workshops; publishes an interactive website; serves as a resource for technical assistance and general advice for the public; and addresses legislation and public policies that impact New Jersey’s historic places and communities.²

It is especially fitting that the award took place at the village, since House 7, the cottage where Roberto de la Selva’s murals are located, was on Preservation New Jersey’s list of the “10 Most Endangered Historic Places in New Jersey” exactly 10 years ago, in 2013. While this may seem like a dubious honor, placement on this list has often served to jumpstart the efforts needed to save the building or site in question. Since that time, the County of Union has secured funding to make a major rehabilitation of the exterior of the cottage. Visitors to Four Centuries in a Weekend were treated to being able to spend time with a Roberto de la Selva reenactor on the beautiful porch of the building.

In accepting the award, Dan celebrated the new energy and interest at the County of Union in pushing ahead with restoration at the Village. Commissioner Bette Jane Kowalski and Vice-Chair Kimberly Palmieri-Mouded of the County Board of Commissioners presented Dan with a Resolution from that Board recognizing his work and the award he was receiving and their desire to see him continue his work.

A related shout out also goes to Suzanne Bottelli, a poet and educator who submitted the nomination for the 10 Most Endangered list after Dan Bernier and I had hosted her for a visit to the Deserted Village. Suzanne would go on to complete her first poetry chapbook, The Feltville Formation, at the end of the next year. It is available online at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Feltville-Formation-Suzanne-Bottelli/dp/1622298632.

WE SUFFER A LOSS

On November 4, 2023, Laird M. Willcox III passed away in Olathe, Kansas. Laird was a direct descendant of Levi Wilcox, Junior, who was himself the grandson of William Willcocks, one of the original European settlers of the land which would become Feltville. I never got to meet Laird, but I am indebted to him for pointing me to many valuable research materials.

Levi Jr. married Huldah Crane, daughter of John and Betsey Mulford Crane. Betsey left us an amazing trove of documents that I have drawn on in previous posts—both her journal and letters to and from her brother Daniel Mulford. I might never have found my way to Betsey were it not for Laird. He had contacted libraries and other sources near the Deserted Village, probably in the early 1990s, and left written notes there about sources he had found, perhaps with requests that copies be made for him. Betsey’s journal, not surprisingly, contains lots of day-to-day entries about Huldah and Levi Jr. and their children, from the period of time when they were still living in New Jersey. Sometime after Betsey’s death, Levi Jr. and Huldah moved their family west, to either Indiana or Illinois³

Betsey remains one of my favorite Feltville/near Feltville personalities, and I thank Laird for leading me to her.

Laird’s obituary can be found at https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/kansascity/name/laird-wilcox-obituary?id=53542302. Pages on his many other activities can be found at https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/2775, https://propagandaanalyst.wpcomstaging.com/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Wilcox.

My gratitude to his wife Cheryl and daughter Carrie Lynn Wilcox for permission to use the photograph seen here.

That’s all for this month, while I write my presentation on Roberto de la Selva. Hope to see you in Scotch Plains!