Rye Stories

Recently, interns from Rye High School put together educational videos about people integral to the history of Rye and the Square House. Here is a video, created by Maelin, about widow Tamara Haviland, the mid-18th century proprietor of the inn and tap room at this historic building on the Boston Post Road.

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Recently, interns from Rye High School created informational videos about key citizens in the history of Rye and the Square House. Here is a video, produced by Ella, about Gilbert Budd and the Budd family, the one-time owner of the Rye Square House.

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Recently, interns from Rye High School put together educational videos about people integral to the history of Rye and the Square House. Here is a video, created by Lily, about Doctor Ebenezer Haviland, the mid-18th century owner of the Square House in Rye.

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As we honor the contributions of women in Rye, women who built organizations and made lasting contributions to the community, we would like to highlight the work of a well-known woman with deep roots in our town. Barbara Pierce Bush’s legacy goes beyond the borders of Rye into classrooms and libraries throughout the nation. With Women’s History Month now coming to a close and Poetry Month just beginning, it is fitting that we recognize the “First Lady of Literacy,” Barbara Bush.

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Many African American women made major contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and their stories are rarely told. Patricia A. Montgomery’s structured swing coats are story quilts telling their stories, created with African American traditional quilting designs and construction techniques.

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In the words of Margaret Atwood, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” In parallel stories from different eras in Rye, the rhyming, cyclical nature of history reveals itself. As we honor National Human Rights Month, this collaborative piece ties the past to the present, profiling a Civil Rights activist from 1960s Rye alongside two leaders of recent social justice initiatives. Thank you to Amanda Yannett, Cristiana Villani, Peter Sterling and Lili Waters for helping to capture this significant time in history.

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Our next Rye Story is written by Olivia Quinn, a Rye High School student, who worked with the Rye Historical Society education team to research slavery in the North and specifically in Rye. During this internship, Olivia worked with researcher Pamela McGuire and relied on primary and secondary sources in McGuire’s Hidden History: The Story of Slavery in Rye, New York to inform her own writing. Thank you to Olivia and Pam for your dedication to Rye Historical Society.

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With spring turning to summer, the typical transitions in school and life have been anything but typical this year. For the graduating classes of 2020, the rights of passage that many of us remember looking forward to as we moved from one school building to the next are impossible to recreate, and in their void, new traditions are emerging. Rye did not say good-bye to its seniors without a special farewell, for the first time relying on the participation of the entire community. We answered the call and filled the streets on May 31, and the first-ever Senior Caravan was a huge success. Parading from Playland parking lot around town and back, passing all three elementary schools, the caravan of smiling seniors and their families filled our town with Garnet pride.

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Julie Corbalis is a 7th Grade Social Studies Teacher at Rye Middle School and a Rye Historical Society board member. Julie serves on our education committee and helps us develop programming and strengthen ties to the local schools. During the pandemic, she has also been entertaining many of us with her weekly live concerts, word jumbles and connections to history. Here, we talk with Julie about the intersection of history, music and life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In a moment when we are acutely aware of all that we take for granted, no tool has proven more powerful in creating connections, calming nerves and sustaining us than nature. In Rye, NY, when we look around at the incredible natural environments that our City has, over time, preserved from development, the name of one visionary woman and dedicated environmentalist comes to mind: Edith Read. Yet many of us who are now outdoors on our daily family outings, meandering through the parking lot of Playland to the trails of Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary, did not live here when Edith Read was alive. Her name, particularly with its homophone connection to the wetlands grass, conjures up a place for many of us more than the woman herself. With time on our hands and an ever-deepening appreciation for nature, there is no time like the present to learn more about Edith Read.

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Two weeks ago, to celebrate the launch of the new film adaptation of Little Women, we held a Little Women Tea at the Square House for families in the community. While we were planning the tea, I was overcome with Little Women nostalgia, with my three children now approaching the age I was when I first read the classic book. I had not thrown many tea parties in my life, keeping them in the category of old-fashioned activities from my grandmother’s generation, along with knitting and cross-stitch. As we planned for the party, my excitement grew with each mismatched tea set and vintage-looking tablecloth we found. Watching the two dozen children dressed in period clothing bake and socialize in the Square House, I quickly realized how important it is, particularly with our busy schedules, to make time to gather, and having a tea party is a perfect way to do this. It is a path to learn about history and make connections to our lives today, just as the film, Little Women, helps us connect to life long ago and relive classic literature.

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A bunch of Rye residents braved the rain on Tuesday evening and gathered at Barley Beach House to watch the Lawn Chair Theatre’s production of scenes from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After the show, I overheard one of the actors say, “That was so much fun, we should do it every year!” Perhaps this will become the next Rye holiday tradition. In a town where traditions are strong but the origins are sometimes mysterious, we thought it would be fun to take a Scrooge-like approach and look at Rye’s holiday traditions past, present and future. If there is one thing that binds our holiday traditions together over the decades, it is the sense of community they foster and the volunteerism that makes these events possible.

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As our celebration of veterans comes to a close, we would like to honor the memory of our local hero and former Mayor, John Carey. Rye Historical Society and our dedicated eighth graders were fortunate to interview John Carey last Memorial Day and capture his firsthand account of World War II. Our Rye Veteran Stories are recorded as oral histories. We transcribed this one to share John Carey's words with a wider audience. It is with immense respect for John Carey's life of service, as a leader in Rye and beyond, that we bring you his Rye Story. We would like to thank Doug Carey for his help telling this story.

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Our next Rye Story is a behind-the-scenes look at the historic Rye-Harrison rivalry, researched and written by three Rye Historical Society interns, Lili Waters (Rye High School), Phoebe Streeter (Harrison High School) and Freddie Clarke (Rye High School #9). These students curated a pop-up exhibit at the Rye-Harrison game on Saturday, displaying items from our collection connected to past match-ups, from game balls to cheerleader scrapbooks. In addition to mining the Rye Historical Society collection, Freddie, Lili and Phoebe researched various legends and traditions and shared their knowledge with fans on Saturday. We are now sharing that writing with all of you! 

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For this month's Rye Story, we are highlighting the importance of shopping local by honoring the memory of an iconic Rye business. On the eve of our annual Sidewalk Sale, we bring you the history of the Smoke Shop, written by Gretchen Snyder for the Rye Record. Please come shop July 25-27 at the Sidewalk Sale. Our museum will be open and air conditioned, and we have stroller parking outside.

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Last week, we sent out a message via our Facebook page, promoting the first-ever Pride Day at Playland Park and reminding readers that this is the 50thanniversary of Stonewall in New York City. We could have stopped there, let the significance of this historic moment pass, and gone on to celebrating more Rye-specific events, but the researcher in me decided to look a bit deeper, beyond the Rye we see on the surface, and connect some dots I’ve been collecting in recent months. 

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Next week, in celebration of Pride Month and the 50thanniversary of the Stonewall uprisings, we will bring you stories of individuals in our community, both past and present, who work with passion and purpose to help achieve a more inclusive society. These three women are connected by a shared dedication to work that challenges gender norms and stereotypes. One lived and worked in Rye about a century ago, one grew up in Rye in the 1950s and 1960s, and one is a current Rye resident. All three have had helped to promote social equality by shaping what identity means. 

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As usual, the Historical Society played an integral part in Rye’s annual Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony. Watch the video here as we honor local citizens who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

"When I woke up on Memorial Day morning to get ready for this event, I didn’t think much of it. I simply thought it was going to be a regular day. I interviewed John Carey and Margot Clark-Junkins. Hearing their stories would’ve been a very easy task but I decided to listen. I listened to the pain in John's voice as he spoke of his brother's death on D-Day and the emotion that Margot conveyed when she spoke of her heroic grandfather. These people have touched me in ways I didn’t think was possible. I am so grateful to have had this experience and can’t thank Margot and John enough for opening up to me." - Mari, eighth grader

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As April’s Earth Day celebrations come to a close, we chose to honor the nature and history of Rye Town Park for this month’s Rye Story. When I came to Rye for the first time in 1995, I was eighteen years old. I spent one night here with my friend Maria’s family on the front end of Spring Break, a stop on the way to JFK airport. On that very short but formative visit, I remember three things about Rye: sidewalks, a store called Rags, and a park that leads to a beach that leads to the sea. The sidewalks stood out because I love going for long walks. My childhood in Pennsylvania lacked very little, but my town had few sidewalks. The sidewalks in Rye connected everyone in town in a way that was more small city than suburb. This is a place where people can travel on foot and where houses are close together, not a sprawling suburb with subdivisions of homes set on a half-acre or more. Maria and I walked on one of those sidewalks to arrive at the most adorable town center, Purchase Street.

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A few weeks ago, I led a group of fifteen elementary and middle school boys across Rye’s village green to look at the war memorial outside City Hall. We were hosting a War History camp at the Rye Historical Society, and we gave the boys five names to find on the World War II plaque. Four were names of veterans who were interviewed as part of a local documentary. The other was the name Gloria Donen. Her name, no bigger or brighter than any of the others, stands out to me as a story untold, a life that unfolded here in Rye and overseas over decades and generations. It is a story of many stories, of family, of literature, of military service, of immigration, of Jewish history, and of Rye. Hers is a name that, had I not happened upon one piece of paper piled in with old issues of the Synagogue’s Community News in our archives, I might never have known and had a chance to share.

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