The Spectacle
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National Park Service Arlington House U.S. Department of the Interior The Robert E. Lee Memorial The Spectacle Fall Open House - A Special Message for those Volunteering Thank you so much for your desire and dedication in making this year’s open house a success. As you may know, we are doing some different things this year. It will be very exciting but, perhaps, just a little confusing. Included in this message are instructions that will hopefully make it all make sense. Please plan to arrive by 6:00pm. You may come earlier if you wish to eat your dinner here in the OAB but don’t come later. Because of the lecture starting at 7:00pm we need to be dressed and ready a little earlier than in past years. There has been some difficulty getting the necessary car passes from the cemetery. So, we are providing the guards at the main gate with a list of all the volunteers who will be coming on October 10. If you Arlington House at night do not have a valid pass you will need to give your name to the guard as you enter. be at your scheduled station before the Please review the historical information visitors arrive there. For that reason, about your assigned location and prepare The lecture, by Dr. Thomas Battle, is an you should leave the lecture no later than accordingly. exciting addition to this year’s event. 7:20 (or 7:25 if you can walk quickly!). Because of this we want to give all our See you Friday! volunteers an opportunity to hear as We will rotate positions this year. Staff much of the lecture as possible. There members will relieve volunteers during will be two lectures, both at the Old rotation, if the volunteer is rotating to Amphitheater. One will be at 7:00pm and another area of the house. At 9:30pm we New Cemetery Guards one at 8:00pm. The first has been timed will start letting volunteers leave BUT before the first group of visitors enters you must wait for an Arlington House Arlington National Cemetery has hired a the house. It will last approximately staff person to give you the okay—we new security company to staff the cemetery thirty minutes. As soon as the lecture don’t want visitors left to wander guard force. The new guards are very strict ends, an announcement will be made to unsupervised in the House. about cemetery access. If you do not have a the visitors that they may then begin current cemetery access pass the guards will making their way through the garden to Keep in mind that it may be necessary to call Arlington House to confirm that you are the house. If you would like to attend the alter this schedule so please remain as a volunteer and then require you to pick up a 7:00pm lecture you may do so. Be flexible as possible. We will try to limit temporary pass at the Visitor Center. Please careful of your time though. You must the inconvenience as much as possible. call Delphine if you need a cemetery pass. Volunteer’s Monthly Newsletter - Volume IV, Number 10 - October 2003 Furniture Volunteer Schedule - 2003 Evening Open House Arrangement Station 7:20 - 9:30 8:15 - End Front of House Walt DeGroot Staff Some of the furniture in the rooms at Arling- Front Door Staff Staff ton House has been rearranged. In May 2003 Arlington House employed a team to write a Center Hall Delia Rios Judy Volonoski Jim Pearson Walt DeGroot Collections Management Plan. As a result of this study and with the help of Oscar White Parlor Nona Wartella Jo Schoolfield Fitzgerald, PhD., Director of the Navy Mu- seum (retired) and furnishings expert, we are Morning Room Jo Schoolfield Nona Wartella implementing the Furnishings Plan. Second Floor CharlotteNeedham Lisa Kittinger Elaine Street Delia Rios Movement of the objects serves different purposes. Our first priority is the Pantry Rebecca Jones Charlotte Needham preservation of the resource – the museum collection. Objects need to be rotated Schoolroom Karen Kinzey Rebecca Jones throughout the year to minimize damage caused by visible light, UV, heat, humidity North Wing Hall Lisa Kittinger Elaine Street and visitors. The couch that was in the Winter Kitchen Judy Volonoski Staff Center Hall is at the Harpers Ferry Conservation Center because of damage caused by visitors. This is the second time in four years. Hurricane Isabel Because some of the furniture is reproduc- tion or outside our scope of collection it has Hurricane Isabel passed through the been moved out of direct view of the visitor. Washington DC area on Thursday and This gives the house a more authentic feel, as Friday, September 18 and 19, bringing strong does the current location of objects like the winds and rain, knocking down trees and foot stools in the bedrooms, the set up in the cutting off electricity throughout the area. White Parlor and the Dining Room. There Many trees fell in Arlington National are now six matching chairs instead of three Cemetery but Arlington House weathered distinctly different styles of chairs. The chess the storm with very little damage. Two days set, previously located in the Lee Boys’ before the storm’s arrival maintenance staff Chamber, is now in the Office and Studio from the George Washington Memorial where it was supposed to go according to the Parkway started closing the shutters on the Furnishing Plan written by Agnes Mullins in Arlington House: South Wing windows covered house and placed plywood over the with plywood 1978. remaining windows. It became rather dark inside the house with all the windows (as was the federal government) and Once everything has been moved all staff and covered. There was talk of closing the house reopened to the public on Saturday. The volunteers will receive a list of objects with on Wednesday for visitor safety. Arlington boarded up house was shown on the local their new locations. If you have questions House was closed on Thursday and Friday television news. please contact Catherine Weinraub or Mary Troy. AN IMPORTANT REMINDER Please contact Delphine Gross no later than the 20th of each month with availability dates and times to be posted the following month (Please call by October 20th with November information). Even if you are a regularly scheduled VIP please contact Delphine to confirm your availability. Again, the contact number is (703) 235-1530 ext. 227. Please leave the dates and times you are available on the voice mail. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. 2 The Spectacle Significant Historic Events in October October, 1834 Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park.) and descend to posterity.” Lee, who was “heartily sick” of the petty bickering at Old Point Comfort, was asked by Mrs. Lee and the children rejoined Colonel October 5, 1861 General Gratiot, Chief of Engineers, to Lee in Baltimore after spending the summer Solders of the Second, Sixth, and Seventh become his assistant in Washington. at Arlington. The slaves who usually Wisconsin, and the Nineteenth Indiana Although Lee was anxious to get away from accompanied them were left at the home marched from Washington via the Hampton Roads and to have his family near because “Lee thought it unwise to expose Georgetown Aqueduct to Fort Tillinghast Arlington, he said he had no interest in office them to the influence of the abolitionists (today, part of Fort Myer) on the Arlington work. Nevertheless, Gratiot encouraged him then active in the city.” Estate. Joined by the 24th Michigan regiment, to try the position and Lee agreed. the unit became known as the Iron Brigade Freeman, 1, 127-28. October, 1851 (of the West) after the Antietam campaign. It GWP Custis was tetempting to Improve was the only all-western brigade in the Army October, 1848 Arlington. New steps were built around the of the Potomac and became the most GWP Custis was at work painting his “Battle portico, hexagonal bricks were being fired in decorated unit in the Federal army. Its most of Monmouth.” In a letter to John Spears Washington for its floor, and a new roof was notable commander, General John Gibbon, a Smith of the Maryland Historical Society he to be placed on the stable. Arlington Mill on North Carolinian by birth, is buried boasted of having “Two religions… the Four Mile Run was also being extensively immediately to the east of the Arlington Religion of Christianity and the Religion of repaired. Mrs. Custis wrote her grandson, flower garden. the Revolution!” Custis Lee, You will hardly know the old place when you get back.” The soldiers, who had joined hundreds of October, 1849 the others already occupying Arlington Sculptor Clark Mills worked at Arlington October 1, 1808 estate, went into winter quarters, and making plaster cast of the Houdon bas-relief Mary Anna Randolph Custis was born at remained until March 10, 1862. “The soldiers of Washington owned by Mr. Custis. (Mills “Annefield,” Clark County, Virginia, a felled trees and constructed their own camp sculpted the equestrian statues of Fitzhuugh estate in the upper Shenandoah from the ground up, including officers’ Washington in Washington Circle and Valley. “Annefield” was the home of a quarters, cookhouses, and stables. For cousin, Anne Meade Page, with whom Mrs. themselves they erected small log cabins Custis was visiting. roofed with canvas, with mud chimneys and National Park Service sheet-iron stoves.” U.S. Department of the Interior October 2, 1865 Robert E Lee took the oath of the office as October 10, 1856 president of Washington College, Lexington, GWP Custis traveled to Philadelphia to Arlington House was the home of Robert E.