In the spirit of the holidays, here are more candlelight pictures of Iles House interiors by Dulany Sriner. He now has a web site available to offer prints of his excellent photos.
Two local history sites have recently come online: Springfield Rewind by Russ Friedewald and New Springfield by Larry Stevens, a great-grandson of Latham and Lyna Souther, former owners of the Elijah Iles House. Russ features changes in town architecture and Larry's interests include genealogy and Vachel Lindsay.
I am including permanent links to their sites on the right and to my SHS '58 blog, which often includes items on Springfield history. It's great to see so much interest in preserving our town's long and lively past.
6 comments:
Will
The pictures of the Iles House in candle light are wonderful. Thanks to the photographer Dulaney Sriner and Will for posting them.
Dick Hart
Glad to link you to my blog, Will.
It's great to trade posts with a professor of literature at Princeton and a fellow SHS grad.
I suppose you're familiar with Ralph Adams Cram, the gothic revivalist architect who designed many of the buildings on your campus. Cram's book, Walled Towns, is an important read for anybody trying to make sense of Vachel Lindsay's, The Golden Book of Springfield.
I "discovered" a copy of Walled Towns filled with critical annotations by Vachel Lindsay and inscribed to my great-grandmother, Lyna Souther. He probably presented the book to her at the Iles House -- we know he visited her there -- sometime around 1920.
See here and here for the details.
There are more connections between the Lindsays and the Southers, and thus between the Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site and the Elijah Iles House. Latham Souther was the trust officer for the estate of Lindsay's father and played an intimate role in the family's financial affairs.
Edgar Lee Masters, who broke the news of Lindsay's suicide in his biography, blamed Springfield's Philistines for Lindsay's death and identified the "trust officer" as the chief Philistine.
Fascinating stuff (to me). I was already serving on the board of directors for the Vachel Lindsay Association when I discovered all this.
Larry,
It's equally an honor to converse with a Lindsay scholar. I first encountered VL's writings in my sophomore year at SHS, when Margaret Wilson allowed me to write an essay on TGB of Springfield. I barely understood it then, but thought it was cool that a published book would mention streets and parks that I had visited. Now I will have to go find Cram's book to know all. Have you ever considered doing an annotated edition of TGBS? Probably could be done as a web hypertext edition.
Will
An annotated version of TGB? What a great idea!
Actually, a new edition of TGBOS came out in '99 by Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company. It has a long introduction by Ron Sakolsky that is very good for the most part.
I'm comptemplating organizing a centenary commemoration of TGB in 2018 (the millenial year). I'm considering doing readings at the sites mentioned in the book on the dates specified in the book, probably starting at Lindsay's grave site on March 1, 2018. How's that for thinking ahead?
Iles House will be open Friday and Saturday nights 7-9p.m. December 16 & 17 and on Saturday and
Sunday December 17 & 18 afternoons 12-4p.m. Hope you can stop by!
Iles House will be open
Friday and Saturday nights 7-9p.m. December 16 & 17 and
on Saturday and Sunday afternoons 12-4p.m. December 17 & 18
Hope you can stop by!
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