Travelog 2021, part 2: Road Scholar at Chautauqua

This was our 39th Road Scholar program (47th if we count the one-day "day of discovery" field trips).  We began traveling with Road Scholar in 1996 right after they eliminated the age requirement.  We like the combination of learning and sight-seeing, the value for our money, and the interesting fellow travelers.  Click on the link in the blog header to see the complete list of our RS adventures.

Road Scholar holds weeklong programs at the Chautauqua Institution in spring and fall -- before and after the actual Chautauqua season.  They also have a programs during the season when it's a lot more crowded (and more expensive).  We stayed at the beautiful, historic Athenaeum Hotel   

(Our third-floor room had a view of an inside courtyard, not the lake, but we only used the room for sleeping.)

The 90 participants were divided into three groups.  We were all together for meals and for the evening entertainment but we were in our small groups for the lectures.  It wasn't overwhelming at all, and it made for interesting conversations since might be eating with people who'd gone to something different than we had that morning.  

Monday morning:   naturalist Jack Gulvin has been involved with purple martin conservation for many years.  The birds now depend on people to create multi-compartmented houses for their nests.  Contrary to what most of us thought, they do NOT eat mosquitoes. They do eat many other insects.  Gulvin is also fascinated by sumac so we learned a lot about the prolific shrub -- including that the berries can be steeped to make "sumac-ade," a sweet-ish beverage.  We tried some -- not bad.  

 

The view at lunch (and every meal in the hotel dining room), with time for a short walk.

 

Monday afternoon: Chautauqua’s archivist Jon Schmitz told us the history of the Chautauqua Institution and the Chautauqua movement. I took pages of notes. In short: a post Civil War educational, cultural, and moral improvement movement. Aligned with the Sunday School movement to teach religion and upright living. The Chautauqua Lake site was a campground that attracted church workers and families—20000 the first summer. Later other Chautauquas were created and also traveling tent shows. The Chautauqua Institution  today is a private nonprofit corporation that provides programming nine weeks each summer. People can stay at hotels, motels, or B&Bs, or rent houses or apartments. There are many private homes, mostly seasonal, but about 300 stay through the winter. Day/week/season passes to lectures, concerts, etc., are sold.   The meaning of Chautauqua is uncertain, but perhaps “place where the fish are taken.” 

After the presentation we had a shuttle bus tour with Allen Nelson, a sixth-generation Chautauquan. He pointed out architectural features and significant buildings. Both presenters were very informative.

Frances Willard’s summer home. At one time it was the WCTU headquarters. (From what I have learned about her, she was conducting business and advocating 365 days a year so likely the WCTU HQ moved along with her.) Her home in Evanston is a museum and research library. (For more about Frances:  here)

 

The Chautauqua Women’s Club, founded in 1889, is a GFWC affiliate. The clubhouse offers accommodations. Members live in every state. When the Chautauqua Institution was threatened with bankruptcy club president Mrs. Pennypacker leveraged her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and put on a fundraising luncheon in Washington with Eleanor. Club members eagerly sought invitations though most of them (and their husbands) were Republicans who had not voted for FDR. The club members also persuaded John D. Rockefeller (junior??) to write a check to pay off the rest of the debt.

 There's a variety of housing at Chautauqua. The first dwellings were tents on platforms. The bottom center shows one of the cottages erected on a platform base. (Those are all the same footprint and have no basement.) The bottom right shows a house closed up for the winter. There's a big business in custom-made canvas covers (with zippers in the doorways to get in and out). With 200+ inches of snow each year the summer homes need protection.

Monday evening: Frida Kahlo portrayed by Sharon Rula Backos, a Rochester-based actor. A wonderful performance! It was icing on the cake for me after seeing the Kahlo exhibit at College of DuPage last summer.

 

Tuesday morning: “The Wild Bunch: Supreme Court Justices 1937-2019”—a lively, informative, and entertaining presentation by Dr. Greg Ferro. (Look him up —he does Road Scholar , OLLI, and other courses online and in person. He’s great!)  

 Left: in good company with RBG (hotel lobby) 

Tuesday afternoon:  Nature walk with Jack Gauvin ( the purple martin expert).   There's not much "wild" at Chautauqua but the gardens are beautiful.   Upper right:  shelf fungus on a maple tree. Lower center: earthstars fungus. 

 Tuesday evening:  we enjoyed a folk music performance with two local musicians.  

 

Wednesday:  Field trip day! Morning; Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown. He grew up here though lived in Old Lyme, CT, as an adult.  (Peterson observed the effect of DDT on bird populations, particularly osprey.  (PBS/Nature on 10/27 was about osprey in Connecticut, and we felt very well-informed.)  

Lower left: a mural depicting Peterson's life and career. 

 

The gray house with yellow trim is Lucille Ball’s childhood home.  (We did not stop. My snapshot got 83 likes on FB and many comments.)

 

Field trip, part 2:  The Robert H. Jackson Center.  (A follow up to the Supreme Court lecture on Tuesday.)   Jamestown native Robert H. Jackson was Solicitor General and attorney General before being nominated to the Supreme Court by FDR. His notable decisions were WV Board of Ed vs Barnette (protecting students from compulsory Pledge of Allegiance) and Brown vs Board of Ed. He took a leave from the Supreme Court and was US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. He died in 1954.  

 

 

 

Thursday morning: Bat Chat with year-round ChautauquanCaroline Bissell. Bats are “Chautauqua butterflies” As you likely know, they are beneficial for insect control and pollination. You also know that they are threatened by white nose fungus (brought from Europe to Howe Cavern, NY, in 2006 by a cave explorer), light pollution, habitat/nesting loss, etc. Caroline was so enthusiastic!!  

 The cutouts in the railing of the Athenaeum front porch are bats. 

Thursday afternoon: “Dealing with the Dragon on Common Ground” with Phil Shull, retired from USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Interesting perspective on the differences between US/European and Chinese culture. The second half was about genetic modification in agriculture—which had gone on for decades/centuries of plant breeding. (No photos from the lecture.)     

The last evening! We had a screening of the 2017 film Marshall. It was very good. (We learned about the Supreme Court earlier this week.)

 

Last Chautauqua sunrise.  

We said good-bye to our new Road Scholar friends and were on the road mid-morning.   We stayed overnight at  a hotel outside Syracuse, chosen because it was halfway to the next destination -- and because we needed to do laundry.

Next:  a weekend in the Berkshires . . .