Forgetting

After my father died in 2012, my friend Carey planned a comfort-me trip to the Berkshires. We stayed at the Old Inn on the Green, a historic 1760’s former inn, tavern, and stagecoach stop with double porches, wide plank floors, stenciled walls, and dining rooms lit only by candles. 

Carey is an interior designer and we both love antiques, so the inn and a visit to a museum house called Chesterwood sounded like the perfect excursion. 

It was. 

Chesterwood’s colorful gardens, Victorian furnishings, oil paintings, and sweeping vista of fields and mountains were captivating. What more could we want? Yet, at the end of the house tour, the docent asked if we’d like to see the studio. We hadn’t realized there was a studio, but why not take a peek? We strolled down a path beside the house and entered an airy, barn-like building where we froze, stunned by what we saw.  

How had we missed the identity of Chesterwood’s owner? Our guide had probably mentioned it several times while we were admiring the grandfather clock on the stairs, the oversized urn full of canes, and the painting depicting a cozy scene of a couple reading in the den. 

She might even have said the name of the gentleman in that painting, but it would have made no difference; we’d never heard of Daniel Chester French. But there in the studio, seated before us on a raised platform, was a larger than life-size study for the statue of Abraham Lincoln enshrined in Lincoln Memorial. 

Since then, Dave and I have seen French’s sculptures of the Minute Man and his Mourning Victory in Concord, MA. We have stood before his Lincoln in DC and read the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural speech inscribed on the surrounding walls, in awe of the soul behind the powerful words, the sculptor who captured his image, and the team of Italian carvers, the Piccirilli brothers, who carried out French’s vision. Dave had never been to Chesterwood, and it was time to return.

As an anniversary present to us both, I made reservations at the Old Inn where Carey and I had stayed. Given the turmoil of America in 2026, a retreat to the eighteenth century, to a comfy seat on a sun-warmed porch bedecked with scarlet geraniums, to wine and good food by the light of flickering candles, and to sleep in a snug four poster bed, was a welcome respite. 

 

There would be time for those indulgences later, but after arriving at the inn, we deposited our luggage in our room and drove straight to Chesterwood. 

Much had changed since I’d been there. I didn’t recall the expansive visitor’s center and galleries, or even the Italianesque style of the house, so we decided to take the two-hour tour. While Dave chatted with one of the docents, I filled out a registration form… or tried to. 

It was a standard form, seeking name, address, and email. I scribbled the info mindlessly, half listening to Dave’s conversation, but when I came to the line for our zip code… I couldn’t think of it.

No worries. I backed up, started from the top, and  mentally ran through name, street, and town, thinking the zip code would roll out automatically, but it didn’t. 

This had never happened before. Make no mistake, many times a word or name evaporates just when I need it, and I snap, snap, snap thumb and middle finger hoping to joggle that elusive info free. Usually whatever is missing eventually bursts triumphantly to the surface. Not this time. 

I paused, hesitant to ask, biding time, hoping the code would come, but lacking that said, “Hon? What’s our zip code?” He reeled it off, I completed the form, brushed off my unease, and we headed into the house for the tour. 

The rooms on the ground floor were as lovely as I remembered, but those upstairs had been transformed into exhibits with studies of some of French’s famous works and plaques describing their context. The piece that struck me most was not his however, but a bronze bust sculpted by his daughter, Margaret French Cresson, a staunch anti-war advocate. Entitled The Unknown Soldier, it depicts a youth, his eyes hollow, those of an old man, drooping and haunted. On the wall behind him was written, “I had youth. I had love. And mostly, I had life. And life was sweet. For you, for your better worlds, I relinquished them all.” 

Tragic it is that the commitment to peace forged by war’s horror fades with the passing of each shattered

wartime generation. During World War I, French and his family experienced painful losses which prompted the sculptor’s belief that “a war memorial should emphasize sacrifice, not glory.” 

When I was younger, my take on past events was naive; heinous things had happened, but were behind us, thank heavens. Humans had learned gruesome lessons, and they would not be repeated. Now I know better. Allies and enemies have shifted, laws and rights upended, science and medical advances questioned. Many who fought past wars “for our better worlds” have died, and their causes, courage, and miseries near forgotten. 

As for my lapse, over seventy years of memories take brain space, and I accept that some things will be deleted. It made me feel better when Dave forgot his phone number a few days ago. Like my zip code omission, a momentary blip. As we hold our collective breaths for this election and its aftermath, however, let’s hope Americans don’t forget or ignore the country’s founding principles, its aspirations, and those who sacrificed so much to uphold them.