EDITOR’S NOTE
A decade or so ago, I built a stage in my backyard. My kids were all performers of some sort and we had a couple of annual musical parties each year. Plus, I guess I had a lot more time on my hands back then.
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nhmagazine.com | October 2021
T
hese days, the stage (really just an numbers dwindled to where the Village became a convalescent home for the last 8΄ x 16΄ deck with a roof) is where remaining “eldresses” (one was still alive the dog and I sit to take the evening there when I worked at the school). air and keep an eye on the squirrels and Like me, with my sturdy backyard crows. The kids are grown and gone, but stage, the staff of Canterbury Shaker Village now the grandkids are accumulating so I’ve has been looking at their marvelous acres begun viewing the edifice with new eyes. of history and enterprise with new eyes, I built it pretty well, with the help of my adding concerts and picnics and renewing son and some of his strong, young friends their outreach to neighbors in surrounding to set the pressure-treated uprights in holes towns as well as to their global network of that reach beneath the frost line and then students and lovers of Shakerism. Fortusquare them up to support the pitched roof. nately the Shakers handcrafted and adapted It’s probably good for another 50 years if the things to last the tests of time, but imagine next owner of the property doesn’t just root the present-day upkeep on the thousands it out and start caring for the lawn instead. of square feet of clapboard and wooden But, before that distant day, I have a feeling shingles and you might feel some sympathy the stage will rediscover its purpose for the for the groundskeepers and restorationists next generation of Broussardlings. of Shaker Village. You might even want to This thought has taken on a special kick in a little support in your annual giving profundity in the wake of the successful, new (visit shakers.org). and improved Best of NH Party we held at Our Best of NH Party is always the Shaker Village in Canterbury in late August coming together of so many talents, gifts and (see some photos on page 34 and 35). efforts by so many different people that it takes My first real job in New Hampshire was on a life of its own and everyone feels a part working at an independent school in the of it. And this year the party was also blessed woods named Horizon’s Edge, just a quarter by the work of the many hands that had built of a mile up the road from Shaker Village. the Village, maintained it and finally preserved The students and staff were welcome to its treasure — all so yet another generation explore the extensive grounds and ponds of could gaze in wonder at the beauty of what the Village as an open-air classroom and the the Shakers considered “simplicity.” lessons of the Shakers themselves were a part We invited Shaker Village Education of the Horizon’s Edge curriculum. The school Consultant Donna Scarlett to offer the blessing had been founded by Quakers (from whom over the dinner at our party and to that end the Shakers had emerged as a millennialist she sang three short Shaker songs. The last one should be familiar to most: the Shaker’s splinter), so it was a natural fit. famous anthem “Tis a Gift to Be Simple.” Class lessons were built around the The song’s beats seem timed to a resting heart pratical genius of the Canterbury Shakers: rate and the verses spin like a newel post on a their graceful crafts, entrepreneurial imagination and progressive worldview (including treadle-powered lathe right up to the last line: “When true simplicity is gained; To bow equality of the sexes in all spheres of life). In and to bend we shan’t be ashamed; To turn, spite of (or perhaps because of) the group’s turn will be our delight; Till by turning, turning voluntary celibacy and separation of the we come ’round right.” sexes, the joy of work and the sheer bliss And to that prayer for our dinner — and of life were built into Shaker Village like a our world — may we all offer a hopeful “Amen.” template. They relished their food, simplified their tasks with inventions, wrote and performed hundreds of songs, wore bright colors and danced ecstatically until their
PHOTO BY LYNN CROW PHOTOGRAPHY
Turning, turning ...
