May 28, 2009 - ChaddsFordLive.com

Traditions galore over Memorial Day weekend

The Memorial Day weekend, from Friday to Monday, saw a variety of traditions for the Chadds Ford area, one of which celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Students at Chadds Ford Elementary School had part two of their May Fair, Friday, May 22. The fair portion was held a week earlier, but last Friday the school held the traditional May Pole dance.

That activity, said Principal Mark Ransford, was first held 60 years to the day earlier.

The dance was followed by the Parachute party, a newer tradition. Interspersed between the two were songs sung by students from the different grades.

Later that evening the Brandywine River Museum held its 38th annual antiques show. More than 30 antiques dealers from as far away as Alabama and New Hampshire were on hand offering their treasures for sale. Proceeds from the three-day event benefit the museum’s Volunteers’ Art Purchase Fund.

One of the more notable pieces on display came from the collection of Ed Weissman, a dealer from Portsmouth, N.H. Weissman brought with him a whalebone model of a three-masted sailing ship. The model, built sometime in the mid 1800s by an unknown artist measures 54 inches long, 18 inches wide and 42 inches high. The figure on the price tag was $125,000.

Throughout the weekend was the jazz festival at the Chaddsford Winery. The winery has been holding such open-air events for years on Memorial, Independence Day and Labor Day.

On Memorial Day itself, Brandywine Baptist Church held its traditional Memorial Day ceremony featuring veterans as guest speakers, an honor guard offering a gun salute to now deceased veterans buried at the church cemetery. The tradition also includes Boy Scouts placing flowers at those graves.

Farther south along Route 1, Kennett Square held its traditional parade. Taking part this year was state Sen. Dominic Pileggi, R-9, of Chester.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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Longwood reopens renovated Terrace Restaurant

Local News

Longwood Gardens has always been a treat for the eyes, and now Longwood aims to be a treat for the palate as well.

The botanical garden on Route 1 fully reopened its Terrace Restaurant last month, but held a special reception Wednesday for the press.

Work on the $2 million project began in January with just parts of the restaurant being closed at any one time so people could still use other areas for dining.

The restaurant now has themed rooms, the rustic Lodge with a fireplace, the Gallery with art work from the continuing education classes at Longwood, the Founders Room, a more formal dining area called the 1906 room and the central cafeteria.

Along with the face lift, however, comes a change in the caterer, Restaurant Associates. This is the second time Restaurant Associates has been at Longwood. The company also provides foodservice at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Winterthur Museum & Country Estate.

Longwood Director Paul Redman said the update was long overdue, but that the change is already bringing music to his ears.

“It’s been a great experience in partnering with RA” Redman said. “In the last two months that they’ve been here at Longwood I have received so many compliments about the quality of the food, the quality of the service which is very nice for someone sitting in my position. You always want to hear the good things.”

Ed Sirhal, president of Restaurant Associates, said the menu has been revamped from the cafeteria to the restaurant.

“We’ve really focused on fresh, seasonal, locally grown ingredients,” Sirhal said. “Our goal is to make the food program, the dining program as good as the garden itself, to reflect that level of excellence.”

In addition to the facility renovation and the updated menu, the restaurant is also providing another service for Longwood.

“We have a philosophy that anything that is organic or has carbon never leaves the property,” Redman said.

All food waste from the dining facility is composted on site as are most of the utensils, plates and cups from the cafeteria, he said.

Another area of recycling is that stools that go around a large table in one of the new rooms, the Lodge, have seats made from recycled seat belts, according to Communications manager Patricia Evans.

Lighting is also energy efficient with T5 lamps and metal halide fixtures consuming less energy and having longer life than incandescent lamps.

The full-service dining room, 1906, is named in honor of the year Pierre du Pont purchased the original property that he developed into Longwood Gardens. The completely redesigned fine dining restaurant offers fresh fare and beautiful décor for a sophisticated dining experience. The new menu highlights fruits, vegetable and meats, bringing the freshest ingredients to our guests and features local specialties like the Longwood Gardens Mushroom Soup and the Shellbark Hollow Farms goat cheese omelet.

The new café opens at 10 a.m. with breakfast muffins and pastries, and also offers a full lunch. Each station has a reference to nature: Pressed for Thyme has quick pick items; Harvest Cuisine has daily-rotating main courses and sides; Field of Greens allows guests to choose their ingredients for a freshly tossed salad; and Four Seasons of Flavor includes pizza and flatbreads as well as specialty sandwiches. A selection of soups, kids’ meals and desserts are also available.

About Rich Schwartzman

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Local vet helps Delco Kennel Club

Local News

Veterinarian Rose DiLeva, of Animal Wellness on Route 202 in Concord Township, for the second time in the past four years helped the Delaware County Kennel Club by donating a case of sterile water to be added to the 17 K-9 first aid kits that the Delaware County Kennel Club is donating to all the K-9 police officers in Delaware County.

DiLeva first helped the club a few years ago when she donated 15 K-9 oxygen masks to the club’s project of distributing these masks to the Delaware County EMT’s and Fire fighters. As of now, there are 70 masks in the hands of the EMTs and soon every K-9 police officer’s partner in Delaware County will also have an oxygen mask to carry in his police car with his K-9 first aid kit. Providing these K-9 oxygen masks is an on going project of the Delaware Kennel Club.

DiLeva is a great friend of the kennel club and we thank her a million times over for being with us in our projects to help any and all K-9s.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

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Pennsbury residents to vote on open space tax

Local News

Pennsbury Township supervisors voted 3-0 during their May 20 meeting to authorize a referendum on open space taxes for the November general election. The question will ask voters if they approve a property tax of 0.79 mills for open space preservation.

A mill is a tax of $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value.

The current property tax for open space is 0.45 mills. According to Supervisors’ Chairman Charles “Scotty” Scottoline, the millage rate would increase taxes by $34 per year on a home assessed at $100,000.

With the referendum, however, the earned income tax portion of open space revenue would go away. Scottoline said that would result in a savings of $188 per year for people making $100,000 per year.

The township has had both a property tax and an earned income tax for open space since the 2003 board adopted such taxes. Those taxes were enacted by the supervisors, not by referendum. They went into effect in 2004, but they also carried a sunset clause that would retire the taxes at the end of 2008.

Last year’s board wanted a referendum, but did not meet the deadline to get the question on the ballot. The board extended the sunset clause until the end of 2009 to keep the taxes going through the end of the year.

About Rich Schwartzman

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Saving the park must be done properly

Opinion

It would be a sorry state of affairs for the Brandywine Battlefield Park in Chadds Ford Township to shut down and no longer provide an interpretive role in educating the public about the Sept. 11, 1777 Battle of Brandywine. For years the park has been a place where visitors could get a feel for the battle, both about it’s military significance as wells as it’s effect on the civilian population.

Indeed, it may have been the only place where people could get that education. Textbooks have been lacking in explaining the battle and more space is given to the winter at Valley Forge and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware than to the largest land battle of the American War for Independence.

The education at the park has come from a handful of Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission employees and members of a volunteer group, The Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates.

Now the state – which acquired the property for a park in the late 1940s – wants to stop funding the operation and turn it over to Chadds Ford Township for use as a municipal park and open space – and this, after condemning private property to establish the park, all the while knowing that the battle didn’t happen there. It seems the state just wanted a park along Route 1.

With money now tight and politicians playing games with the state budget, Brandywine and other historic sites in the state face possible closure, though we currently doubt the park in Chadds Ford will close. Perhaps, though, that is wishful thinking.

The park should stay open in its current role, as many people want and understand. And the township wants to take a lead in preserving the park even though Chadds Ford doesn’t have the $350,000 per year to operate the park.

As Supervisors’ Vice Chairman Deborah F. Love said, the township will take the lead but is looking for partners, partners with resources, to keep the park a functional site, more than merely open space. That partnership, she said, could involve both Chester and Delaware counties as well as other entities.

During a recent public hearing on the park, a rhetorical question was raised: Is the state the best entity to run Brandywine Battlefield Park?

While a rhetorical question, there does appear to be an answer, and that answer is no. Further, any level of government may be the wrong operator.

Private businesses should be involved. The park is a tourist attraction and, as such, the hospitality industry has a stake in the park’s fate. And herein lies what could be the strongest link in the partnership referred to by Ms. Love. Private industry, not just government and nonprofit organizations should be involved in maintaining a park.

As Ms. Love said, a solid business model must be developed to keep the park running, and that model, at least under the current economic climate, may require a public/private partnership. Including profit-making people in that partnership would go a long way to keeping the park viable. It may even be best for the park to be under private ownership completely.

Yet all of this may be moot. PHMC members are scheduled to vote on the park issue next month. Perhaps this is all a tempest in a teapot. We will all find out sometime in June.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

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Blogging Along the Brandywine: A series of disjointed ramblings

Along the Ford

On the second floor of Chadds Ford’s Sanderson Museum, is an autographed photo and letter from America’s March King, John Philip Sousa to Chris Sanderson. Dated Sept. 9, 1919, it says in part, “If we get down near Chadds Ford, it will give me great pleasure to visit you.”

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), was no stranger to the Brandywine Valley. In fact he died just north of here in Reading. Not only did he perform at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and the old Willow Grove Park in Abington Township, but in June 1921 performed at Longwood Gardens on the outdoor stage.

As director of the 70-member Upper Darby Sousa Band, Thomas J. Hoey recently brought that Longwood performance to life on the same Longwood stage. A graduate of the School of Music at West Chester University, Hoey is former Band Director in the Garnet Valley District and a born showman.

A few weeks ago, Hoey contacted the Sanderson Museum to view the museum’s archival material on Sousa. Sanderson was a huge Sousa fan and went to all of his Philadelphia area concerts for more than 20 years – even met and spoke with the March King.

After attending a Sousa concert in 1900, Sanderson wrote home to his mother, ”Well, such music I have never heard. It was grand – and such motions as he goes through! My how I wish you might hear him.”

So I decided to attend Hoey’s concert last Saturday in the outdoor theater at Longwood Gardens, the very stage where Sousa had performed in 1921!

It was a spectacular performance from the first to the last note, but not until Longwood had a rather wet surprise in store for the band – and I don’t mean a passing spring shower.

In 1927, Pierre DuPont had set fountains into the floor of the stage of the outdoor theater. And yes, you guessed it, about 10 seconds into the opening number, “National Emblem”, a fountain right in the middle of the woodwind section went off.

At first it looked like the display was just a part of the evening’s magic, even though Longwood’s version of “Old Faithful” seemed to be erupting from the middle of the band.

But when some of the musicians started to scramble it became evident that this was totally unrehearsed, especially when Hoey halted the number and calmly asked for the fountain to be turned off.

“That was a refreshing march”, he ad-libbed.

A Longwood technician sprinted down the center aisle of the theater, turned off the gusher and returned with a stack of towels.

According to one band member, “The bass clarinets got soaked”.

Finally after 10 minutes, Hoey said “Take two” and they were off again.

Hoey interspersed the band numbers with pieces of trivia. For instance, Meredith Wilson, composer of “Seventy-Six Trombones” had played 1st Flute in Sousa’s band and had performed with Sousa’s band on the Longwood stage.

The evening’s finale was Sousa’s masterpiece, “Stars and Stripes Forever”.

So sing a long with me…“Be kind to your web-footed friend, for a duck may be somebody’s mo-ther, be kind to your friends in the swamp, where the weather is very, very damp.”

The Upper Darby Sousa Band will perform again at Rose Tree Park, near Media on July 4th. Be there.

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”

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