Tiverton/Blithewold

Saturday, June 21—Tiverton, RI

Saturday morning, Phil and Sarah and I walked a couple of beaches while Lois had a tennis lesson.

We ate make-your -own Dagwood sandwiches for lunch; then Phil and I ran to Clements Grocery store and Cimarron arrived, prepared to spend the night.

After lunch we five went to Blithewold Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum. My little guide book tells me that Blithewold was originally purchased by Augustus Van Wickle and his wife Bessie in the mid-1890s. The original shingle-style house burned in 1906 and was replaced with the present mansion. After Augustus’s death in 1898, the mansion was brilliantly appointed and the grounds creatively landscaped by Bessie and her second husband, William McKee. Bessie’s oldest daughter bequeathed Blithewold and its amazing 33 acres to the public in 1976.

The grounds are amazing, containing numerous gardens and some spectacular trees: Giant Sequoia, Japanese Cedar (a tree related to the Sequoias and the primary lumber tree of Japan), Dawn Redwood, and both a Weeping Beech (planted in 1900) and a huge Weeping Hemlock among many others. 

Each Christmas there is a two-story Christmas tree in the mansion’s main foyer. I remember visiting Margie one year when she, nearly blind with macular degeneration, volunteered at Blithewold. Her job was to show visitors the tree, which she described in detail as though she could see it perfectly!

That evening we enjoyed wine and Murgh Kari (curried chicken) on the new Indian tablecloth. For dessert: ice cream and raspberries. Then the cloth was whisked off to be washed (we’d spilled a bit of wine on it) and we played several rounds of Quiddler, a game Phil and Lois introduced Jeff to in 2008, and that Jeff and I introduced the rest of the clan to at the Hungry Mother family reunion in 2010. Since then all of us word lovers have played the letters off our cards.

After dinner, Cimarron went to a friend’s house and we four watched The Intouchables, a touching, comic movie.