Betty Nickerson documents 26 years of the North Country Chorus
By Sharon Lakey
If you frequent Marty’s, you may have noticed Betty Nickerson. She is a stately, 84-year-old woman with a kind and interesting face. If it was winter, she was likely wearing a plaid tam-o’-shanter with a red pom-pom on top. That, and her quick eye, possibly piqued your interest.
She lives a few miles out of Peacham, on one of the tree-lined back roads. Her house is nestled above a rolling pasture, an old cape built in 1805. Betty is an artist, a writer, an archivist, and a singer. I came to interview her about her work with the North Country Chorus, an organization for which she served as historian for 26 of its 61-year (and counting) span.
I was greeted on the lawn in front and guided through the former carriage shed and into her studio. There, in every nook and cranny and hung from every wall, are pieces of her art world. On the worktable are pages of her newest project: an album of her own life history.
She described her art medium as “cut-out, collage and montage.” In passing, she shared one of her new album’s pages. On it is glued a little Betty, holding a ball and giving the photographer who captured the moment a look at her serious side. The page resembles the scrapbooking craze that was revived in the 80s. The difference is that Betty’s is more organic; she is working from no manufactured scrapbooking materials.
We moved into her kitchen where she served mint tea. She shared that she lost her husband, Hal, a number of years ago. “That was rough,” she said, and then showed me a picture of the two of them in younger times, sitting on a beach at the Cape. They stare out at the camera, all smiles in grainy black and white. “It lifts my spirits every time I look at it,” she said.
The couple moved to Vermont in 1970. Hal taught agronomy at Blue Mountain and Betty was an art teacher in the St. Johnsbury schools. She retired from teaching in 1983, after a 30-year career in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont. From her experiences, she wrote and published a book entitled Does a Stone Grow? She describes it as “…not a textbook, but a book in which I hope to share…the many ideas that prompt Art lessons.”
Hal (a tenor) and Betty (a second alto) loved singing with the North Country Chorus. But Mary Rowe, the beloved director of 50 years, recognized that she had more than a singer in Betty when she asked her to be the group’s historian. It was easy to see that on the way through the dining room, when Betty pointed to a stack of albums representing the Chorus’s history.
We sat to drink our tea in the living room, and, as we chatted, Betty moved about the house to gather things about which she was speaking. She set up a display rack that was made expressly for the albums. Because the albums are heavy, this rack allows them to be viewed more easily. Most of the albums are loaded with 24 pages. “The new Chorus board has talked about putting them on computer,” said Betty. Showing her generation’s comfort level with computers, she added seriously, “but I don’t know how they do that.”
Each page is made of illustration board cut to 15” x 20” at Ross Business Center in Wells River. The design space for each page is actually 15” x 17”, leaving the three-inch blank space if the left for binding. “I use principles of design, color and shape when planning each page,” she explained. Upon the pages she has glued photos, news clippings, images that she created or clipped, and other memorabilia. After completion, both front and back, the pages are taken to Sharon Reimer at the Framing Format in St. Johnsbury, where they are encased in protective plastic. Noreen Crane makes the cloth outside covers according to Betty’s direction, and the finished album is assembled by punching two holes in the binding and tied with string or ribbon to hold it all together.
In these albums resides a remarkable history of a remarkable organization. The North Country Chorus was formally established in 1948 by a group of music lovers in Littleton, New Hampshire. They set the precedent for the type of commitment they expected from their members from the beginning. At a meeting of the board on September 13, 1949, it is stated, “…The necessity of perfect attendance at rehearsals was discussed and the responsibility of each member of the Chorus to learn his notes was felt to be of the greatest importance.”
A few years later, in 1951, Mary Rowe of Wells River, VT, became the director. Her husband, Dr. Harry Rowe (a bass) joined the Chorus, too. It was more than a bit of good fortune for the group. Throughout the years, members have practiced once a week and given local performances during Christmas, spring and fall. A Madrigal Dinner was added in 1982, and, beginning with a trip to Ireland in 1977, the Chorus has made trips abroad about every four years.
In a memorandum to the Chorus before their trip to Austria and Hungary in 1986, Mary wrote: “…and we must be ready for spontaneous outbursts of song, but always remembering that we are representing America in the best possible way. Sing with joy and good feeling, communicating friendship and respect… Through our music and through our contacts with the people we will meet, we can create a positive image that could have important influences on events in the future.”
Betty reflects on that trip to Hungary. “When we went there, the country was still under Russian rule. As we sang their national anthem in their language, tears streamed down their faces. We felt the emotion of the moment.” Later, in 1990, Betty remembers singing in Poland in the Church Slavonic, which houses Poland’s most holy relic: the Black Madonna. “There had to be a special dispensation from the Pope enabling Mary to direct the chorus with her back to the icon,” said Betty.
Knowing that I was coming for the interview, Betty had searched through the albums and found an article I had written about the Chorus for the North Star in 1991. As I read through it, I vividly recalled the first time I heard the Chorus--Mary, so small in stature but supremely focused, directed the many voices into one beautiful sound. In the article, I described that sound as “holy.” Betty understands that description. “There is a tremendous sense of comradeship in the group. It is bigger than each of us, a celebration of the blending of many voices into a single voice. It is a spiritual experience,” she said. She attributes much of this to the character of Mary herself. “She had a deep concern for each of us and the creation of beautiful music together.”
Mary passed away in 2002. As with all long-lived organizations, the reins of leadership have passed to others to carry on the tradition. Alan Rowe, Mary’s son, is now the able director, and Betty has turned over the historian’s duty to Cindy Mitchell. A new round of rehearsals are set to begin on September 1.
And, by the way, Dr. Rowe is still singing bass at 95 and Betty’s singing second alto this coming season.
For more information on the North Country Chorus, including information on joining and performance schedules, go to http://www.northcountrychorus.org/index.html
This article was first published in the August 2009 issue of The North Star Monthly.
To see the photo album related to this article click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment