(First appeared in the August 12th edition of the Vermont Standard)
By Gareth Henderson
Standard Staff
PLYMOUTH NOTCH – From its conception to the ribbon cutting, it took almost 10 years to make the Coolidge Museum and Education Center in Plymouth Notch a reality. But last Saturday, the Center finally opened its doors to over 300 people who had been waiting for months to view this latest chapter in the Coolidge legacy.
Gov. Jim Douglas, U.S. and Vermont lawmakers, and the Coolidge family were all on hand to welcome the Center’s first crowd of visitors.
Coolidge Memorial Foundation trustee and Woodstock resident Mimi Baird – who cut the ribbon with Douglas – said it was incredible feeling to open the doors. She said numerous people came together to make this happen.
“You’re doing something for a common cause, you meet wonderful people, and you become friends,” Baird said. “You can’t do that everywhere, but you can do it in Vermont.”
Among the speakers addressing Saturday’s crowd were Ed Jeter and Jerry Sayles, both sons-in-law of Florence and John Coolidge. John was the son of Calvin Coolidge, who was inaugurated as the nation’s 30th president at Plymouth Notch.
Coolidge Memorial Foundation President Robert Kirby said the impressive new Center, complete with a classroom, auditorium and library, is the perfect way to fulfill the Foundation’s principal goal.
“Our job is to open the eyes of the world to Calvin Coolidge,” Kirby said. “That’s our mission.”
Entering the building, one sees the new reception desk with the gift shop behind it, and a spacious room to the left with sofas and chairs. The largest room in the building – the Great Room – is to the right of the entrance. On Saturday, beautiful music echoed from this auditorium’s piano, making the view of East Mountain even more breathtaking.
Downstairs, visitors went through educational exhibits in the building’s classroom, which will accommodate more school groups over the years.
Plymouth School Board member Jim Rieger and his family showed up at Saturday’s opening and liked what they saw.
“We’ve been waiting for it to open,” Rieger said. “I think it will be great for the town, for the area, and definitely for the Coolidge Foundation.”
Woodstock resident Lauren Wilder’s grandparents, Lynn and Cassie Cady, were caretakers for the Coolidge family at Plymouth Notch. It was an especially meaningful day for Wilder.
“It’s great, because I get to connect more with the history of my own family,” she said.
And family history was integral to Saturday’s event. Jerry Sayles, a son-in-law of John Coolidge, recalled the president’s son as “taciturn and reticent,” much like Silent Cal himself. Sayles was married to the late Lydia Coolidge. Both Coolidge girls were told early on to be proud of their heritage, but to not use it as an excuse to carve out a place above everyone else. As a result, Sayles said, the girls had no “arrogance or pompousness” about them.
“They were of course lovely, but ordinary, people,” he said.
These were simple but strong values, and Governor Douglas mentioned Calvin Coolidge’s honesty as his greatest trait. There was also the reserved manner in which Coolidge carried out his duties. Douglas noted the words of one observer, who wrote that “the president could be silent in five languages.”
Despite that, Douglas noted Coolidge’s diligence in communicating his policies clearly and often to the American people. Coolidge held eight press conferences a month – for a total of 520. He was also the nation’s first president to use radio, and the first to give a state-of-the-union address that was broadcast from coast to coast. In addition, his fiscal restraint was sorely needed in the wake of the corrupt Harding administration. Through all this, Coolidge put the common man first.
“This combination of confidence and faith in the American people, as well as his common sense and wit, made Coolidge an extremely popular president,” Douglas said.
U.S. Congressman Peter Welch of Hartland and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders each said Coolidge’s brand of leadership is very much needed in today’s world.
“He did demonstrate that restraint does not mean passivity,” Welch said.
Sanders said fairness, simplicity and truthfulness are just a few of the common sense values Coolidge learned in his childhood at Plymouth Notch.
“[As a nation] we are losing some very important values that we can re-learn right here in the community,” Sanders said.
Former Vermont Life Editor Tom Slayton said Coolidge’s upbringing guided how he performed his duties as president.
“As high as he rose, he never forgot Plymouth or the lessons he learned here as a boy,” Slayton noted.
There were times when this approach to being president clashed with Washington culture. Coolidge often liked to wear his grandfather’s farmer smock when he returned to Plymouth Notch – and he kept it on when the press was there to snap photos. But he begrudgingly removed the smock, after some critics said it was just for a photo-op.
Slayton pointed out this classic quote from Coolidge, “In public life, it’s sometimes necessary, in order to appear natural, to be actually artificial.”
It was a fitting tribute last Saturday to the nation’s 30th president, whose heart never left Plymouth Notch.
That afternoon, Sen. Vince Illuzzi said the state started reinvesting in its historic sites in the 1990s. The “seed was planted” for the Coolidge Museum and Education Center in 2001, when Illuzzi was chair of the Senate Institutions Committee. Vermont historian Howard Coffin, who grew up in Woodstock, connected Baird with Illuzzi, who was an early supporter of the project.
“The local folks like Mimi Baird and others took the lead,” Illuzzi said. “They’re the ones that deserve the credit.”
Windsor County Sen. Alice Nitka of Ludlow praised the local workers with Wright Construction, Clearlake Furniture and other businesses who put in considerable time and effort on this endeavor. She saw some of them on-site last Saturday.
“They were all just beaming,” Nitka said.
Others who got accolades at the opening included Vermont Historic Sites Operations Chief John Dumville, Vermont Department of Buildings and Services Project Manager Merle Miller and Regional Historic Site Administrator Bill Jenney.
