Mary Mitchell’s Gift To Newtown Meeting House

Will Benefit Many Others For Years To Come

By Shannon Hicks

A special concert being offered at Newtown Meeting House this weekend will be one of the first public events held to raise funds for a recently created Heritage Preservation Handicapped Access Fund. The concert is taking place in large part — although she does not like to admit it — thanks to a recent gift to The Heritage Preservation Trust from longtime Newtown resident Mary Mitchell.

The trust is the 501(c)(3) organization responsible for the maintenance, preservation, and upkeep of the historic meeting house at 31 Main Street, and Mrs Mitchell’s gift of $5,000 will serve as the seed money for this new fund. Mrs Mitchell specifically requested that her gift be used to being fundraising for construction of a handicapped entry to the meeting house sanctuary.

The gift was something that had been percolating in Mrs Mitchell’s mind for many years.

“My granddaughter Sarah was married at the meeting house in 2000. I was able to get up the steps [inside the front entrance] but when I went to go down them after the ceremony I was terrified I would fall,” Mrs Mitchell said last week. “It’s quite a steep grade.

“There have been times when I’ve gone to events, but it’s so difficult for me to get up and down those interior stairs,” she said. “And the outside entrance, with that huge slab and no railing, it’s very difficult to navigate.

“For years I was able to get in and around and manage perfectly well with that meeting house,” Mrs Mitchell continued. “I did just fine until that wedding in 2000.”

Mrs Mitchell began thinking about her will a few months ago.

“I’m 95, it’s time to think about what I could leave Newtown,” she said. That’s when she recalled the work of the late Harriet Ford Griswold. A resident of Washington, D.C., and a friend of Mrs Mitchell, Harriet Griswold contracted polio in August 1939 and was unable to walk without the aid of braces and crutches for the remainder of her life — another 60 years. Mrs Griswold worked hard to publicize the need of the aged and the disabled, and soon became an advocate of the need to provide access to public buildings for the handicapped.

The National Gallery of Art and The British Museum were two of the hundreds of buildings that were renovated thanks to Mrs Griswold’s efforts.

“It was a wonderful thing that she did, and it has always stayed with me,” Mrs Mitchell said. “That was a stamp; it was in the back of my mind all along.”

So when she began reworking her will earlier this year and she recalled her difficulties in recent years with the meeting house, it did not take long for Mrs Mitchell to put the two pieces together. She contacted Donald Studley, the president of Heritage Preservation Trust of Newtown, Inc, and told him of her intended gift.

“That was the end of it as far as I was concerned,” said Mrs Mitchell. “I figured it would eventually build into a fund that would some day benefit others.

“Sherry Paisley took the ball, though, and began running with it. They’re bringing in all these opera singers now.”

Sunday’s concert, says Meeting House Events Organizer Sherry Paisley, will celebrate Mrs Mitchell’s gift. Proceeds will contribute to the ongoing effort. Following the performance, concertgoers will be invited to a reception where they can meet Mrs Mitchell and the performers.

The performance, which is being called “Music for a Spring Afternoon,” will include instrumental and vocal selections by Alfredo Catalani, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns, Robert and Clara Schuman, Richard Trunk, Ned Rorem, and Gioacchino Rossini. Tickets are $15 in advance or $18 at the door.

Performers will be concert pianist Margarita Nuller, lyric soprano Elizabeth Norton Lasley, mezzo soprano Ann Martindale, dramatic soprano Gwynne E. Wittmann, and accompanist Susan Anthony Klein.

The meeting house has been at the heart of the Newtown community almost since its construction in 1720. Originally built in the middle of what is now Main Street, the building was moved to its current location at the top of West Street in June 1792 by men and horses.

The building was the religious, political, and social center of Newtown during Colonial times. Today, says Mrs Paisley, the meeting house still occupies Newtown’s geographical center and is a living part of our past.

“It is one of the very few venues open to the public which can host a variety of cultural and political events, as well as private functions,” she points out in program notes she prepared for this weekend’s concert.

A Pressing Need

Recent additions and updates to the building — including air conditioning and a Yamaha concert grand piano — have made the meeting house fully equipped to comfortably host concerts by professional-level performers. And the building is no newcomer to having great music performed within its walls. In addition to the live wedding music performed year-round, the building regularly hosts traditional Irish music concerts presented by The Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Society, it welcomes recitals of students of all ages, and it is the performance space for Newtown Choral Society, among other groups.

“The building has always been attractive for these kinds of events,” wrote Mrs Paisley. “The size is ideal and the ambience is intimate.”

The lack of a handicapped access, however, means that some people have been left out of concerts and other public events because they cannoy get into the building.

“Handicapped accessibility is a pressing need and one we hope others will find worthy of their charitable contributions,” said Mrs Paisley.

“When we did renovations to the building’s lower level a few years ago we made that accessible, but we didn’t do substantial renovations to the upstairs interior and haven’t addressed access for the handicapped,” Heritage Preservation Trust President Donald Studley said this week. “It was never an absolute requirement, but it’s been a desire.”

Mr Studley says the need for handicapped access is something he and the other trustees know is a necessity, but they have not had the money for the needed work.

“You’re not required to make [an existing] building handicapped accessible,” he pointed out. “We’re a historic building, and so by law there isn’t a mandate that says we have to make these changes. It’s going to be a very expensive project, but it’s something we really want to do.”

One of the biggest problems, according to Mr Studley, is that there is not much that can be done about the building’s front entrance, so the plans may have to create an entry at another point. The meeting house has a fire escape that might be renovated, or a brand-new entryway may have to be constructed from the back of the building.

“We’re thinking we may even have to do some kind of motorized lift in the back,” Mr Studley said. “There’s a room in the back that would be easily accessible for someone. Then once inside there are three steps up, and then three steps down, and all of that has to be navigated by someone who is handicapped before they can get into the main room.

“We’re just really in the preliminary stages of investigating what’s possible,” he said. “We have no solid plans, but we have plenty of ideas.”

Another issue is that Newtown Meeting House is on the state and national Register of Historic Places. Too many alterations to a building on either registry can nullify its historic status.

“We have to be very careful in how we satisfy requirements, but I do believe there are standards that we can work with that will allow us to create this handicapped entrance and still remain on the registries,” Mr Studley said. “What ever we do, we want to make it as aesthetically appropriate as possible.”

The plan now, he said, is to create a pool of funds and then go from there.

“Until we get a substantial fund of money we won’t be able to do anything,” Mr Studley said.

Anyone who is interested in supporting the Heritage Preservation Handicapped Access Fund is welcome to send a check to Heritage Preservation Trust, Inc, PO Box 3082, Newtown CT 06470.

“Designate it for the handicapped fund that we’re maintaining, and we’d be happy to accept it on those grounds,” said Mr Studley.

For additional information about the fund or to make reservations for Sunday’s “Music for a Spring Afternoon,” contact Sherry Paisley at 270-8293.