made it look like a cloth quilt and one that would have been fun to create. The block overlooks several garden plots where sunflowers and herbs proliferate.
Diana said that the building has had many incarnations. It was originally a church and then a firehouse, and later an upholstery shop. When Diana looked at the vacant building and saw the big wall between the windows, she thought it was perfect for a mural, and she wanted to move in. “My family thought I was nuts,” she said. “The place was a wreck—needed new everything.” The finished interior includes Diana’s downstairs studio, with living space upstairs and husband Steve’s shop in the basement. Diana showed us one of her quilts, which included half a dozen fabrics of intricate patterns. I could see why the complex barn quilt design appealed to the talented artist.
I admitted to Ginny that I did not know much about Hurricane Irene, the storm that had recently devastated the area, so she filled me in. First priority had been to get people back into their homes. Some had their houses damaged or torn down; some had oil in their basements that mixed with their water. People needed furnaces and hot water heaters and kitchens ripped out, and some buildings were condemned. Ginny said, “I never realized how much I use the local grocery store. When it was gone, I couldn’t get any fresh produce.”
Garden Party
Ginny and Bill live on a mountain so they were not directly affected by the catastrophe, so as soon as they could make it to town, they worked with local churches, delivering food and bottled water to anyone who needed it. “The quilt trail is phase two of the recovery,” Ginny said. “It’s a happy phase to bring people back into the community.” Ginny’s partner in the endeavor, Sharon Aitchison, grew up in the area and was invaluable. As Ginny said, “She just knows this infinite number of people.”
Stitched and painted crazy quilts
I adore crazy quilts, so the opportunity to meet a renowned designer was especially exciting. Betty Pillsbury’s quilt block is an exact replica of one of her sewn creations. Betty explained how she became a crazy quilter. “Adjective on the quilt, not the quilter,” she laughed. Betty taught herself to embroider when she was eight and learned new stitches from magazines. She practiced on jean legs and pillowcases and said, “I bugged my mother for floss and needles.” Betty saw an article about crazy quilts about thirty years ago and has been sewing them ever since, eventually winning numerous awards and teaching the art to others.
The quilt that served as the model for Betty’s painted quilt originated as a line drawing in a book of 1880s Victorian quilts. Betty stitched and embellished the quilt and when a barn quilt was suggested, she wanted to paint the design as well. Betty also helped to create a community crazy quilt, another way to bring together those who were devastated by Irene. She pieced the blocks and residents could come by the library or Betty’s home to add their own flair to the embroidery.
Betty is an herbalist and she took us out back to see her garden. I was fascinated by the mushrooms sprouting from logs lying on the ground. Betty explained that the hardwood logs are drilled and then dowels of sawdust and mushroom spawn inserted, and before long the rewards pop forth. Betty offered me some mushrooms for dinner, but of course I didn’t plan on cooking anytime soon. I thought they were beautiful, though, so I accepted one to show to Glen. Months later, it still rode with us, dried and hard, a reminder of our time in Schoharie.
As Ginny, Sharon, and I approached our next stop, I exclaimed, “Oh, what a cool house!” The green-shuttered Victorian home with intricately designed woodwork grabbed my attention. Ginny was eager to visit the barn, which not only displayed a barn quilt but also housed a couple of historic carriages. After surveying the iconic vehicles, we ventured into the Best House to meet its director, historian Bobbi Ryan.
“It’s like leather and lace,” Bobbi said of the barn quilt. “The paint on the barn is worn, and you feel the history and richness that’s in it. Then you have a piece of something new that ties in. I love this movement.” The house itself was both the home and medical office of Dr. Christopher Best, a physician who practiced medicine from 1877 until just before his death in 1934. His son, Dr. Duncan Best, also had his office in the home where his unmarried sister, Emma, lived. The house was given to the area library, to be kept as a historical and medical museum.
The ornate house was impressive, with wooden fretwork in many of the rooms and original chair rails still in place. Dozens of photos are scattered throughout, from oval-shaped family portraits to local scenes of hops growers in the nearby fields. I looked around at the carved wooden furniture and horsehair cushions and could not imagine that a modern family had lived among it all.
I had seen homes restored and furnished with period pieces, but the collection of personal items here was astounding, and all had been in the house when it was turned over to the library. The family saved everything, from furniture to Victorian-era dresses, capes, and hats. “You could lock yourself in and stay for days and days,” Bobbi said. “They never threw anything away, and I am so thankful for that.”
The collection also includes quilts, hundreds of them. There is no documentation as to the quilters; some may have been produced by the women of the house and some perhaps given as payment for medical services. As we studied a couple of the quilts, Ginny and I agreed that hand quilting is by far our favorite. The blue and white quilt that is reproduced in the quilt block on the property was a fine example.
Dr. Best House Photo by Bobbi Ryan
The house was built to accommodate the Best family. One side of the house served as the medical offices, which could be closed off from the living area. “The doctor could practice on one side of the house and you could be in your jammies on the other,” Bobbi said.
Medical records of everyone who saw the doctor are still intact, including Bobbi’s grandmother, who was delivered by Christopher Best, and her mother, who remembers that it was a bit scary visiting as a child. “If you lived around here, this was your practitioner,” Bobbi said. Christopher Best was no simple country doctor. He stayed abreast of medical journals and was always cutting edge.
A rather unusual artifact was the electrostatic machine, where a patient would sit with a sort of crown on his head and be treated for any number of things. Bobbi said that the machine was used to treat old age, abscessed teeth, gray hair, and alcoholism. The machine could also generate X-rays, and turn-of-the-century images were found on the premises.
The doctors served as their own apothecaries and filled prescriptions in a room off the examining area. A handwritten prescription for Lysol surprised us, as I had always thought it a modern name brand. Dozens of glass bottles lined a shelf, and Bobbi told me that thousands more were stored on the property. “I guess he knew recycling would be big someday,” she smiled.
The kitchen fascinated me the most. A surgical table was situated near the double sink, and a cast-iron stove was used for cooking meals, for sterilization, and also to heat the upstairs through vents above. The tins and bottles that lined the wooden shelves looked nothing like their more modern counterparts but held many of the same staples—spices, cornstarch, coffee, honey, and corn syrup. Except for that table, the kitchen looked very much like the set for a 1920s movie.
As we exited into a hallway, we heard Sharon exclaim, from upstairs, “Wait a minute, this is hair?” Bobbi explained that she must be looking at a hair loom. We needed to get going, but curiosity got the best of me. The woven hair was kind of creepy but a beautifully intricate work of art. We wondered whether the piece was created from just one person’s hair or from that of several people. Ginny mentioned that she had a hair loom as well, so I supposed they were not that unusual.
Bobbi was right in that I could have locked myself in that house and wandered for a full day, but others were waiting for us. With some reluctance and with the promise of a return visit to the Dr. Best House and Medical Exhibit,