Day # 7

There I was, nearly ready to step into the camp ground shower, when I saw the sign: “Insert 2 American Quarters.” I couldn’t believe it. Fortunately I keep quarters in the truck for parking in Milwaukee when I give student walking tours.

Mental note: Ask for campground spots near the bathroom so Kaylyn and I are not hiking 12 miles from our camper – generally the only one in the campground that does NOT have plumbing – to the bathroom!

 Living in the Marshmallow is quite different from the lifestyle represented by the homes we visited today. We moved Miss Marshmallow to a campground near Newport, Rhode Island. This is both Kaylyn and Miss Marshmallow’s first visit to Rhode Island. We bought a transit ticket for the local bus/trolley system. Our first stop was Touro Synagogue – the oldest synagogue still located in its original building in the United States. Oddly, the land the building stands on is owned by a synagogue in New York City, and they won’t relinquish the land to Touro, who owns the building.  The Torah, encased in an honored location, is over 500 years old. Another interesting factoid involves the design.  Touro was designed by a self-taught architect (this is before architecture was a university study) who had never seen a synagogue in his life. Completed in 1762, it is a testimony to the early Jewish story in America. 


The picture of me in front of the synagogue is for my writing group leader, Diane, who told me Touro was a “must see” in Newport. I had already placed it on my list after reading an article about it in my Historic Preservation Magazine.

Our next trolley stop was The Elms, constructed in 1901 by Edward Berwin, who earned all of his money owning coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It was the Berwin family’s summer cottage, the home they occupied to escape the heat of New York City. When they moved into their summer cottage, 40 servants moved with them, as well as wardrobes of clothing and all their silver, packed in trunks. At summer’s end, the house was emptied and the entourage returned to the city.

Kaylyn and I took the servant’s tour, which skipped the main part of the house and covered the servants' bedrooms and cellar. The third floor had 15 bedrooms and three bathrooms designated for the help. It also had a large room with two gigantic water tanks – this is the attic, now – in case the wells could not keep up with the water usage. You didn’t want to ever run out of water when giving a party for 300 people! In the cellar we saw the room where the coal was brought in through a tunnel over 100 feet long, in coal carts. It was piled in the storage room, then fed into the huge furnaces which heated the water and made steam used to generate electricity. The Elms was the first house to be fully electrified in Newport. It also had a system to make ice!

Presiding over the kitchen was a French chef who was paid the unbelievable sum of $10,000 a year. This is in the early years of 1900! My starting salary in 1975 was $5,325. What was yours – or your parents?

We boarded the trolley again and got off at the Breakers, the grandest of the mansions. There we donned headphones and toured the elaborate summer party ‘cottage.’ We stopped at the Newport Creamery for a sandwich, then took a walk along the ocean on the Cliff Walk, which runs along the back edge of many of the mansions. On the way back to the campground, Kaylyn was singing the praises of Newport. She loved the character, the convenient transportation system,  and the energy of a college town mixed with the ascetic appeal of a town which celebrates its history.