Today I want to tell you about my personal history with Chautauqua. It began in the summer of 1990 or thereabouts, when two fellow teachers from Woodbridge were getting married in the northern part of Pennsylvania. Tim and I decided to go to their wedding, which was scheduled for something like 4:00 pm. It was a long drive from Fairfax, where we were living at the time, and we decided to go up the day before so that we wouldn’t have to worry about traffic or anything.
We got to our hotel without any problem, and as we were walking through the lobby of the hotel, we ran into the happy couple and chatted with them a bit. We told them we were wondering what we could do to kill some time the next day before the wedding, and they suggested we drive up to Chautauqua, which was only about an hours drive away. We asked “What’s a Chautauqua,” and they proceeded to describe it to us. It sounded interesting, so that’s where we went the next morning.
We had no idea what to expect. When we got there, we had to buy our day passes (which I don’t recall as being very expensive), and then walk into this lovely village that looked like it had been pulled from a Currier and Ives painting. Shrubbery and flowers were everywhere, and the quaint houses all seemed to have front porches just made for sitting on and watching the world go by. We wandered down to the square, where we encountered people walking around as itinerant musicians played on various street corners. We came across a big performance hall (which I now know to be the Amphitheater), and watched a rehearsal of some kind. A couple of blocks away we passed another open-air lecture hall where some sort of presentation was happening. We weren’t quite sure what this was all about, but it was a lovely place to spend a few hours before the wedding.
Long story short: the wedding didn’t “take;” the couple who got married divorced within a few years. But Chautauqua “took.” I still love Chautauqua, almost 35 years later.
I can’t recall exactly what thought process led me to propose the idea, but in the summer of 1993, my mother and I spent a week together in Chautauqua. We rented a basement studio apartment a few blocks off the plaza and thoroughly enjoyed our week there. We attended lectures and concerts, and (individually as well as together) explored the things that Chautauqua offered. We each took a couple of classes that year. I took tap dancing and tai-chi, as one does. She took American Sign Language and one other course, although I can’t remember now what it was.
As we drove away from Chautauqua after our week, I remember my mother commenting “It’s like Brigadoon.” You remember the story – Brigadoon was a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years and then goes away. That’s what Chautauqua felt like to my mother – it was a place out of time. When you’re there, you don’t remember being anywhere else. When you’re not there, you can’t really believe it exists on the same plane as your normal life.
Now that I’ve written this, it seems more than a little over-the-top. But it’s the only way to express the impact this place had on my mother – and on me.
A few years later, Mom and her sister Mary decided to go to Chautauqua together. Unfortunately, that trip didn’t work out so well. They were in a studio apartment, and Aunt Mary suffered from insomnia. To avoid waking Mom up, she went out and walked around at night. It was very safe, and Aunt Mary said she made friends with the various security guards around. If you ever knew Aunt Mary, you will totally believe this. But she didn’t feel well. She was beginning to experience a lot of back pain, and it became almost unbearable as they were driving home. She ended up in Culpeper Hospital with a diagnosis of “Internal Shingles.” Now, we’ve all heard of Shingles, and both Tim and I have experienced relative minor bouts with the disease. But Mary’s case was serious and painful, and recovery took a long time. That experience overcame any positive stories Mom may have had about that trip to Chautauqua.
I do remember one story Mom told about that trip. She went on a flight on a glider plane over Lake Chautauqua. She said she had always wanted to go, so she did. That reminds me of another story about Mom. Before my Dad died in 2001, he gave her a gift certificate to a place in Virginia that offered them I don’t remember the name of the place, but I know she was excited about the prospect of going ballooning. She never redeemed that gift certificate – at least, not as far as I know. Dad died, and then Mom began to lose mobility. She broke her hip and never quite got back to the place she had been before.
Anyway.
The next time I encountered Chautauqua was in the early 2000s. I don’t remember the exact year. The story about how this happened is a little convoluted, but I’m going to try to outline it.
I had a good friend in Fairfax (I’ll call her Rita) who had started going to Chautauqua every summer, and she always enjoyed it.
Rita was the choir director for the church I attended. (this becomes an important part of the story)
One year, Rita organized a choir workshop on a Saturday. She invited a vocal coach and people from nearby churches to attend. A teacher colleague of mine (I’ll call her Patty) attended the workshop and got to know Rita.
Later, Patty and I sang Messiah together as part of a joint venture among several choirs in the area.
Patty and I were, I would say, casual acquaintances at school. We got to know each other better through these shared experiences. She’s the only former colleague who is still a personal friend. Patty and Rita are part of my “posse” — the women I would call on for help in an emergency.
Then the magic happened. I don’t really recall how this came about, but Patty and I decided to go to Chautauqua together sometime around 2003 or so I think.
So that’s what we did. Rita helped us become a part of the Chautauqua UCC Society, which manages a couple of residential houses at Chautauqua. The accommodations are bare-bones – kind of like a dormitory, with some single and double rooms and a shared bath in the hall. There’s a communal kitchen where many people staying in the houses make their meals. These facilities are very inexpensive, which is always a good thing.
So Patty and I arranged to share a room in one of these houses, and we both had just a wonderful time.
One interesting thing happened during the week we were there. I’m a member of the International Cody Family Association. FYI, my 3rd great-grandmother was Melinda Cody, cousin of William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill). They have an annual reunion, and in 2014 the event was held in Jamestown, NY – just a few miles up the road from Chautauqua. I drove over there one afternoon and met a bunch of cousins. I didn’t attend any of the scheduled events, but I felt that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to drop by. You know, since I was already in the area.
Here is a story about this reunion. The attendees went to Chautauqua as part of their activities. http://cody-family.org/reunions/reunion2014/reunion2014.html.
Five years later (2019), we all began to talk about going to Chautauqua again. This time, I wanted to include my friend who lived in Williamsburg (I’ll call her Hannah). Patty, Hannah, and I put our collective heads together and planned our week. Hannah and I shared a room and Patty had a single. Again, Rita was there for the entire summer. However, we didn’t get a chance to hang out with her as much. She had become more involved in the Chautauqua music program (she is an accomplished pianist, organist, and singer) and didn’t have as much time as before.
However, we introduced a new wrinkle this trip. Rita encouraged us to sing with the Chautauqua choir during the week we were there. Patty and I had sung with Rita earlier, as I mentioned above, and Hannah and I first connected through our church choir. Hannah is also an accomplished pianist with a wonderful voice.
So that’s what we did last time we were there. Although it was a fun and interesting experience, we’re not doing this again this year. There were some mandatory rehearsals (as you would imagine), and it tied up our time a bit more than we wanted.
Fast forward to this summer. About this time last year, Hannah and I began to talk about going to Chautauqua again. Hannah lives by herself (her children are all grown and her husband died years ago), so she is always up for an adventure. So I began talking to Patty about this, and we decided to go for it again.
Our plans were well underway when Hannah told us (in January of this year) that she had decided to move closer to where her children live, near Detroit. Her life was going to be too complicated to plan a Chautauqua trip at the same time. But Patty and I have decided to go anyway. Patty’s husband (I’ll call him Ron) will be with us this time. They will be staying in a lovely corner room and I’ll have the same single room I had in 2014
Next week I’ll tell you about what we’ll be doing while we’re at Chautauqua when we’re there in a few weeks.
Sweet! Very sweet!!!
Patty, Rita, Hannah, Ron. 😂😂😂