On her 80th birthday, a Danville Artist Shares her Story

By Sharon Lakey

I’ve been kind of a maverick. I feel as if I’ve washed along, fitting in here and there…”

Robin Rothman

 

Robin at home in her living room in Danville.
Robin at home in her liv­ing room in Danville.

Robin Roth­man has always been a bit of an enig­ma. She is a lone walk­er on the streets and roads around Danville; she is that small woman stand­ing among the few at the St. Johns­bury post office, hold­ing signs pro­mot­ing world peace; she is the woman who draws our atten­tion to the details in our sur­round­ings through the thread of a fine-line ink drawing.

Robin's front door
Robin’s front door

Robin lives in the for­mer Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church par­son­age, pur­chased by Emma Lou Roth­man, her moth­er, in 1986. The home is locat­ed on the end of Moun­tain View Dri­ve, just before the curve up toward Brain­erd St. It is a small ranch, obvi­ous­ly cared for, with a sin­gle car garage. Robin’s eye in land­scape is per­fect; a sun­burst locust tree that does not dwarf the size of the house grows at the entrance to the prop­er­ty. The front door is cov­ered with artis­ti­cal­ly arranged polit­i­cal mes­sages in which Robin believes; her car, a peren­ni­al elder­ly Saab, is, too.

The liv­ing room, where we con­duct­ed our inter­view, fea­tures a large pic­ture win­dow over­look­ing a lush back­yard gar­den; Robin sits framed in the fore­ground; her shy tuxe­do cat flits ghost-like through a dark­ened hall­way. Robin explains that when her moth­er and she moved in, the yard was a blank slate.

Robin Rothman's garden
Robin’s gar­den, far from a blank slate now.

Early Years

Robin riding her pretend horses in front of the family's home in Detroit.
Robin rid­ing her pre­tend hors­es in front of the fam­i­ly’s home in Detroit.

Robin was born in 1936 in Mount Clemens, Michi­gan, just out­side of Detroit. Six years lat­er, her sis­ter Emi­ly came into the world. Her father, Robert Roth­man, was born in New York, a son of immi­grant par­ents. In Robert’s col­lege years, he became a stu­dent of John Dewey, the edu­ca­tion­al “pro­gres­sive.” He first became a high school teacher, teach­ing jour­nal­ism, then lat­er, after earn­ing his Master’s and doc­tor­ate degree in phi­los­o­phy, he became a pro­fes­sor at Wayne Uni­ver­si­ty dur­ing the Great Depres­sion. He mar­ried Emma Lou Lamb, who was a high school Eng­lish teacher. Lat­er, she earned her Master’s in edu­ca­tion but remained at the high school lev­el. Robin remem­bers, “She was so frus­trat­ed by the sys­tem that she vent­ed by writ­ing lit­tle pam­phlets fea­tur­ing ‘Del­la, the Dou­ble-Breast­ed Dowager,’–a fic­tion­al teacher with brisk opinions.”

 

Emma Lou and Robert’s cir­cle of friends were pro­fes­sors, artists and jour­nal­ists. As Robin

Emily, Emma Lou, Robin and Robert Rothman
Emi­ly, Emma Lou, Robin and Robert Rothman

calls it, “they asso­ci­at­ed with a sort of Bohemi­an crowd. “Even though my par­ents’ close friends were intel­lec­tu­als, they always got along with and appre­ci­at­ed the work­ing man,” said Robin. Dur­ing the McCarthy era, her par­ents had a nar­row escape at being black­balled. Emma Lou’s father, Fred S. Lamb, was a cir­cuit court judge in Detroit. The sto­ry has it that a clerk from his office, rid­ing in a city bus, sat behind a man who boast­ed to his seat­mate that, “I’m going to get that pinko Roth­man, him and his wife, who’s tarred with the same brush.” Upon hear­ing the sto­ry from the clerk, the judge put an end to the plan. “For­tu­nate­ly,” said Robin, “my grand­fa­ther could pull a few strings.”

The Rothman’s were athe­ists, but Robin says her moth­er want­ed the girls to enjoy and recall the pleas­ant ele­ments of Christ­mas. On a fam­i­ly car ride to Cadil­lac, MI, dur­ing the hol­i­days, they drove by a Christ­mas tree lot. She remem­bers her father rolling down the win­dow and loud­ly pro­nounc­ing, “Ho, Ho, Ho,” to the bell-ring­ing San­ta. “We always went to the Christ­mas pro­gram in Cadil­lac with our grand­par­ents and fam­i­ly there.” And both chil­dren, Robin and Emi­ly, still trea­sure the holiday.

Emma Lou sitting by two stacked TVs at her brother's house in Cadillac, MI
Emma Lou sit­ting by two stacked TVs at her broth­er’s house in Cadil­lac, MI

Their father didn’t approve of tele­vi­sion and would nev­er allow it in the down­stairs of the house. “The din­ing and liv­ing room is for con­ver­sa­tion,” he would say. Emma Lou’s rich uncle in Cadil­lac had one before there was even a sta­tion in his area. “All he could get was snow!” she exclaims with a laugh. The Rothman’s did final­ly get a hand-me-down set, but it was rel­e­gat­ed to the upstairs. She remem­bers the whole fam­i­ly going upstairs to watch the show “Twen­ty Questions.”

Her wealthy uncles sub­scribed to the music series at the Mason­ic Tem­ple and Robin’s father wished to take his young teenaged daugh­ter to one such event. He went to the opera house to buy tick­ets to La Travi­a­ta. After pur­chas­ing them, he strolled into the emp­ty audi­to­ri­um to see where they were going to be seat­ed. It was a dis­ap­point­ment. “These are lousy seats,” he com­plained, “right behind a pole.” He looked around for bet­ter ones, and when he went back to the tick­et office, he was informed that those seats were not avail­able. Back home, he called the box office, iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as Dr. Roth­man (his two broth­ers were med­ical Dr. Rothman’s who sub­scribed to the musi­cal events) and asked for the seats he wanted.

Yes, Dr. Roth­man. The tick­ets are available.”

I will send the boy around to pick them up,” he answered.

Well,” says Robin with a twin­kle, he was a doc­tor!” They enjoyed the opera, she said, “But they didn’t have sub­ti­tles in those days. I only got the gist of the sto­ry.” Today she enjoys the Cata­mount pre­sen­ta­tions of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera in St. Johns­bury. “I espe­cial­ly love the Wag­n­er, Ring Cycle!”

Of her own school­ing, she relates that ele­men­tary was pret­ty stan­dard. “I’m not sure I could pass school now with all the things kids have to do. I do remem­ber hav­ing to stand in the cor­ner when this big, broad Teu­ton­ic-type teacher didn’t like an answer I gave.” High school was near­ly the same. “The cur­ricu­lum was much more watered down. Sci­ence was bare bones; math was worse. My father had to help me with Alge­bra. I just couldn’t think in equa­tions.” Geom­e­try, on the oth­er hand, came much eas­i­er. “I real­ly appre­ci­at­ed the very strict Eng­lish teach­ers I had. We learned how to speak and write cor­rect­ly. Today edu­ca­tion­al cur­ric­u­la have become more exact­ing, what with devel­op­ments in knowl­edge and tech­nol­o­gy. Alas,” she adds, “the ‘moth­er tongue’ has dete­ri­o­rat­ed in the process.”

Robin remem­bers that she drew a lot. “I was always draw­ing hors­es, and I remem­ber my gruff uncle telling me I need­ed to study anato­my. I had a good mem­o­ry, and I found I was good at line draw­ing.” Her father’s best friend was Zoltan Sepeshy, who was a well-known artist him­self and Direc­tor of the Cran­brook Art Acad­e­my, locat­ed in Bloom­field Hills MI, 26 miles from Detroit. Robin describes the cam­pus as a “feu­dal estate,” and she loved roam­ing over it when her father took her on his vis­its to see his friend. The 319 acre cam­pus is now a Nation­al His­toric Land­mark. Accord­ing to Wiki it “is renowned for its archi­tec­ture in the Arts and Crafts and Art Deco Styles.” What a boon it was for this young, artis­tic woman.

Cranbrook Academy of Art Campus
Cran­brook Acad­e­my of Art Campus

She describes her polit­i­cal lean­ings as “very left, prob­a­bly relat­ed to my upbring­ing.” She remem­bers her first les­son in social­ism very well, giv­en to her by her father. “Pup thought I need­ed a work expe­ri­ence and led me through the process of find­ing work and being inter­viewed. I was not exact­ly what you’d call a go-get em’ kind of kid. When I received my first check, he added it to what might be termed ‘the gen­er­al fam­i­ly fund,’ explain­ing against my protests that food, clothes, vaca­tions and even­tu­al­ly col­lege were all derived from the same source. It final­ly occurred to me that he was right. And, actu­al­ly, the stock-girl job wasn’t so dis­agree­able, though I came with­in mil­lime­ters of being open­ly rude to a few cus­tomers and the boss, who insist­ed upon my using an unsta­ble alu­minum 14’ lad­der instead of climb­ing the shelves.”

College Years

Though Robin didn’t know the direc­tion she was head­ing then, it must have been pret­ty clear to her par­ents. “They guid­ed me toward the human­i­ties and to Anti­och Col­lege in Ohio. I became a stu­dent there in 1954 where only about 1500 stu­dents attend­ed. I knew I want­ed to focus in the arts. It was a basic cur­ricu­lum where I learned the ele­ments of draw­ing and design. As my art pro­fes­sor said, ‘You need to learn to draw before you can paint,’ and I did.” Anti­och was, at the time, the first work-study col­lege offer­ing a diver­si­ty of expe­ri­ences in off-cam­pus liv­ing and work­ing. “My choic­es were to work at muse­ums of nat­ur­al his­to­ry,” said Robin.

Her first choice was the Field Muse­um in Chica­go. A large sec­tion of Penn­syl­van­ian black shale had been trans­port­ed to the museum–four lay­ers of quar­ry floor. Stu­dents were instruct­ed to look for and record fos­sils. Robin remem­bers they found and record­ed extra­or­di­nary rem­nants of sea life hid­den in the eas­i­ly split rock, like bumps from shark skin, fish bones and inver­te­brates.  “And we all came out every night look­ing like coal min­ers.” She liked the expe­ri­ence so much that she want­ed to go out in the field to do more. “I think this is when I start­ed to become a fem­i­nist. I couldn’t go on field trips because I was a woman. And I would have been good at it!” She grad­u­at­ed from Anti­och in 1959.

Schroeder preparing an exhibition, 1956. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
Schroed­er prepar­ing an exhi­bi­tion, 1956. Cour­tesy Cran­brook Archives.

The sec­ond muse­um work expe­ri­ence was at Cran­brook, and she was the first stu­dent from Anti­och to work there. Dur­ing her expe­ri­ence she met and learned from expert jew­el­ry design­er Luel­la Schroed­er. She and her moth­er took a lap­idary course with her. Lat­er, first Emma Lou, then Robin would fol­low Luel­la to Vermont

The third muse­um work expe­ri­ence was at the Carnegie Muse­um in Pitts­burg. Again, she ran into the wall of not being able to go out into the field because she was a woman. “They did run a ‘Woman’s Day’,” she said, “but it was noth­ing, tru­ly dumb­ed down. I want­ed to go out into the field for long peri­ods of time.” At the Carnegie, she worked with an artist and learned to use a spe­cial tool–the Leroy let­ter­ing set. She gained skills there in let­ter spac­ing and still has an old Leroy tucked away in her house. Many local cit­i­zens know how she has put her let­ter­ing skills to use. While in Pitts­burg, she lived in what was called a Set­tle­ment House, an insti­tu­tion in an inner-city area pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al, recre­ation­al, and oth­er social ser­vices to the com­mu­ni­ty. She remem­bers sparse rooms, impec­ca­bly kept, and the ten­ants shar­ing a com­mu­ni­ty kitchen.

On her arrival back home for Thanks­giv­ing in 1960, she was greet­ed with shock­ing news. Her father had died of a heart attack at 56 years of age. With Robert gone, her moth­er no longer felt much of a con­nec­tion to her work and the area. Sug­ges­tions that she move back to her home­town of Cadil­lac didn’t sit well either. “She con­sid­ered that a kiss of death,” said Robin.  “She was more drawn to the country.”

Moving to Vermont

One night, while Emma-Lou was read­ing the Sat­ur­day Review of Lit­er­a­ture, she checked out the real estate sec­tion at the end of the mag­a­zine and was intrigued by a list­ing in North Danville, Ver­mont. “My moth­er was the adven­tur­er in the fam­i­ly,” said Robin. “She liked to make big, wide trips with­out accom­mo­da­tions.” The only peo­ple she knew in Ver­mont were Luel­la Schroed­er and Martha Price, who now owned a house in East Mont­pe­lier and would lat­er open the Molly’s Pond Craft Shop. By coin­ci­dence, John Dewey, Robert’s for­mer teacher, was from Vermont.

The new old house in North Danville purchased by Emma Lou.
The new old house in North Danville pur­chased by Emma Lou.

She and the girls vis­it­ed the place. It was the for­mer Shat­tuck house, the last house in Danville on the McDow­ell Road before it becomes part of the Town of Whee­lock. She bought it from Scud­der Park­er, four-acres and a pond for $3,000. Local car­pen­ter, Reg­gie LaMothe, was hired to gut and ren­o­vate the old farm­house. Before he did so, he first built a very small house on the prop­er­ty where Emma Lou could live while the house was being renovated.

Need­ing a job before her pen­sion kicked in, she land­ed one, teach­ing Eng­lish at Lyndon

Emma Lou coming out of the little house that Reg Lamothe built for her.
Emma Lou com­ing out of the lit­tle house that Reg Lamothe built for her.

Insti­tute. “That was hard for her,” says Robin, “she didn’t fit in, and kids were rude.” In Emma Lou’s diary, Robin shares that her moth­er wrote of a depres­sion, liken­ing it to “a cloud.” She quit the teach­ing posi­tion and took oth­er jobs that she could find: cashier for Albert May’s auc­tion (paid $5 a week), a clerk job at Hatch’s, the first Nat­ur­al Food Store in Ver­mont, locat­ed on Pine Street in St. Johns­bury. “Soon­er or lat­er, you learn to roll with the punch­es,” was Emma Lou’s line when peo­ple asked how she man­aged. Lat­er, she became friends with Vir­ginia Bent­ley, who became famous for her folksy cook­books. She edit­ed Virginia’s first cook­book while the author worked upstairs in the yel­low bed­room at Emma Lou’s house.

Robin’s last job at a muse­um before mov­ing to Ver­mont per­ma­nent­ly was at the State Muse­um in Albany, NY. It is a nat­ur­al his­to­ry muse­um and Robin worked on the exhibits –rocks, mastodon and mam­moth come to mind when she talks of her work there. Her moth­er came to vis­it from Ver­mont and Emi­ly stayed there while study­ing library sci­ence. Robin joined the Adiron­dack Club dur­ing that time and devel­oped her life­long love of the out­doors. She had an apart­ment on Man­ning Boule­vard and made trips to Ver­mont in her lit­tle red Volk­swa­gen bee­tle named Rufus to vis­it her mother.

A young artist discovering North Danville
Robin, a young artist dis­cov­er­ing North Danville

Robin worked at the Albany Muse­um for 12 years, but when it moved to a fac­to­ry-like build­ing, she began to feel rest­less for Ver­mont. “About 35, I think women tend to run,” she said. She made her move to Ver­mont in 1971, just on the ear­ly cusp of the “hip­pie” move­ment into the state. By that time, her moth­er had moved into the main house, and Robin took up res­i­dence in the lit­tle one. With­out a job, she began walk­ing the back roads of North Danville, sketch­book in hand. This same sketch­book is a trea­sure trove of draw­ings from that time peri­od, fea­tur­ing peo­ple, ani­mals and build­ings that no longer exist. The curi­ous, artis­tic woman, with a lux­u­ry of time on her hands, saw the area through fresh eyes. She once climbed a tree and sat for an hour draw­ing sleep­ing rac­coon babies.

Through the years, Robin held a vari­ety of jobs and began shar­ing her artis­tic tal­ents wher­ev­er it led her. She has done yard work and mowed lawns, worked at Elliot’s Green­house, and milked cows. But by far, the largest gift of her time involved work­ing with the Fair­banks Muse­um in St. Johns­bury. Orig­i­nal­ly she was hired by Fred Mold to “sit the desk” on week­ends. It prob­a­bly didn’t take him long to real­ize what he had on hand. She worked for that orga­ni­za­tion, on and off, for 30 years.

One of her first art expe­ri­ences there was “fix­ing the beaver group,” where she teamed-up with Bill Chris­tiansen. Robin would come up with an idea–in this case, it was to make snow in the dis­play. She knew that pow­dered glass would look like snow, but it was up to the inge­nious efforts of Chris­tiansen on how to make glass powdered.

Fair­banks Muse­um hired her for spe­cial projects by con­tract. Howard Reed was the teacher and cura­tor. “One of the first things I did was to repair a styra­cosaurus skull mount. I repaired the plas­ter and paint­ed it so it looked like old, shel­lacked bone. It is still there, on the sec­ond floor.” She did the illus­tra­tions for a local his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum writ­ten by Peg­gy Pearl, who also worked at the Fair­banks, but is now the Direc­tor of the St. Johns­bury His­to­ry and Her­itage Center.

One of the many extraordinary pieces of work Robin created for the Fairbanks Museum.
One of the many extra­or­di­nary pieces of work Robin cre­at­ed for the Fair­banks Museum.

She was hired to do back­grounds, such as the wet­lands habi­tat dis­play, and a back­ground for “Visions, Toil and Promise,” with illus­tra­tions on Man in the Ver­mont For­est. Con­nect­ed with this project were four dif­fer­ent pan­els depict­ing how the Ver­mont changed through his­to­ry. Three of the pan­els are still on the wall in the Fair­banks class­room. Lat­er she would work through the Ver­mont Asso­ciates pro­gram to cat­a­log and sort out the min­er­al col­lec­tion and car­ry on with improv­ing exhibits.

From time to time, she took on oth­er art-relat­ed jobs. She illus­trat­ed Adele Dawson’s book, enti­tled Health, Hap­pi­ness and the Pur­suit of Herbs in 1981. Illus­tra­tions for the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Dowsers includ­ed an aer­i­al view of the pyra­mids and how to hold dows­ing tools. “I’ve drawn birds, jel­ly­fish, plank­ton, hydras and oth­er pond life, as well as Pleis­tocene mam­mals.” She also drew polit­i­cal car­toons for the North Star Monthly.

On her off-time, Robin became involved with her moth­er in Danville Woman’s Club by plan­ning and car­ry­ing out the art need­ed for floats for the Danville Fair. “In those days, peo­ple went all out on floats. Dur­ing that time I got to meet some old Danville people–Bev Bacon, George Cahoon, the Beat­ties.” She remem­bers near­ly freez­ing to death at 5:00 in the morn­ing work­ing on a His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety float.

Robin working on the set of You Can't Take it With You for Summer Singers in 1980
Robin work­ing on the set of You Can’t Take it With You for Sum­mer Singers in 1980

She is well-remem­bered for her work with the for­mer Danville Sum­mer Singers. Her sets were extra­or­di­nary, but she had fun play­ing bit parts as well. One of her favorites was play­ing a cop in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Pen­zance. She loved the liv­ing room set of You Can’t Take it With You so much that she had a hard time let­ting it go. “It was so cozy! I thought it should stay up and become an inti­mate set­ting for meet­ings.” The strangest prop she had to cre­ate was a dead cat. “I used most­ly pipe clean­ers, but when it came to the skull, I just couldn’t make it work. I found a dead cat on the road, and well, you can imagine…”

Her Danville bicen­ten­ni­al cel­e­bra­tion draw­ings include beau­ti­ful pen and ink of The Mor­gan Horse, Cross­ing Joe’s Brook and The Green. At the request of Mary Pri­or and the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety she has cre­at­ed two his­tor­i­cal draw­ings of the First Meet­ing House and The Old Stone Gaol. As there were no pho­tographs of either because of their time peri­ods, she had to do this from maps, his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments and research into build­ing mate­ri­als of the time. Framed and signed prints of these will soon grace the walls of the Danville Town Hall.

And now, just like that, this amaz­ing woman is turn­ing 80. She has no extend­ed fam­i­ly, only her sis­ter, Emi­ly, and her nephew. “But in Danville,” she reflects, “I have been for­tu­nate to have been employed in areas I’m suit­ed for and enjoy. I’ve nev­er had a dri­ving ambi­tion to make a lot of mon­ey. I think that all peo­ple need the basics–education, food, shel­ter, health­care and a gar­den, and that gov­ern­ments have the respon­si­bil­i­ty as col­lec­tives of cit­i­zens to keep every­one main­streamed by pro­vid­ing them.”

The pub­lic is invit­ed to an Open House cel­e­brat­ing Robin’s 80th birth­day on Sun­day, Octo­ber 16, 2016, from 2:00 to 5:00 at the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety. It will be an art show, fea­tur­ing her work in Ver­mont. We are look­ing for work to hang that is out in the com­mu­ni­ty at large. If you are will­ing to share it in the show, please con­tact Sharon Lakey at the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, open on Tues­days and Thurs­days from noon to 7:00. Phone: 802 684 2055.

 

 

 

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