Etta's camera. Her suitcase.

Pages from life, then and now.

A family, a farm, the community connections documented. Dogs. Horses. Cats. Chickens. Cattle. Gardens. Plowing. Play. Ice house. Weddings. Babies. Cars. Sleds. Snow.

Focus.
You see, Etta wrote information on the back of the prints. Invaluable and uncommon.

Etta's suitcase (no image yet, but vivid in my mind's eye as seen on the second floor of the homestead). Packed, ready. Then life intervened and that path that involved two people no longer existed. Gone forever.

Yet her love would be channeled and flow again. Thank you, John Russell. Her love for you shines; she is remembered.

Thank you also to Amy DeCosta Foster, Ernest DeCosta, James DeCosta for sharing so many stories and your time. Andy Sistrand is the catalyst, to bring a meeting of people together. Found and met because of Simon Donato, whose book Sistrand as editor brought into being. (Source for opening a door to Bethany and Woodbridge, farms, history, land, recommedations? Peter La Tronica. One conversation branched out into so many wonderful people met, much learned along the way. Forward. And thank you.)

“The farm was left to Etta and she left it to my father Ernest when she passed,” explained John Russell in an email. “My dad had a great upbringing and was sentimentally attached to the farm and the way of life. The property was able to be used for commercial endeavors which meant the demolition of the property so he decided, with the support of the surviving siblings, to donate it to the town.”

Children. As many stories as the family tree has branches and then some — and there were many people born here, raised here. A first floor room for birthing. That tall pine off to the side was once a tabletop Christmas tree. A recent marriage here, vows said as the pine boughs whispered overhead. Coal and wood. A stove pipe that radiated heat for upstairs. Laughter, celebrations large and small, times together recorded. A gift to see and be welcomed into this home, now part of Bethany Historical Society. Images of the greenhouse at the corner of Amity Road and Round Hill. New insight.

A spiral-bound work in progress book to be about the Russell family, farm, land. (Note that Etta's full first name is Henrietta.)

Inside looking out. Outside looking in.

Objects that serve as touchstones. A towering pine outside that whispers in the breeze as pines do. From the second floor a window frames a portion of the tree which can be seen as a table-top Christmas tree in family photos. Imagining the summers with the window open. Winters with blasts of snow, cold, wind whistling around this home.

Sleep, eat, work. Rules. Games, cards, gatherings. A front door that was moved from the center. (Was it used? No, the family members gathered here today chime in. As most front doors in many homes are not used. Everyone knows to come around the back.)

The vibrancy and life chapters of the Russell family can be felt here. Andrew “Andy” Sistrand of Bethany Historical Society is the catalyst connecting questions to people. (Sistrand's writings about the town's industrial past linked here.)

After seeing the horses that summered in Bethany (from Yale) as a black-and-white image on a screen while in a conversation at Lock, Stock & Barrel Farm and Feed Store earlier this year, questions arose. Why here? How has the land changed. Seeing the cheery red farmhouse on Round Hill Road for the first time; slowed down and pulled over. Outbuildings and a truck, then wearing a festive wreath. Russell Farm. Bethany Historical Society.

From Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office, Department of Economic and Community Development Historic Resources Inventory Building and Structures: “The Russell Farmstead is significant because of its history of ownership by a single family for more than 200 years. The configuration of the buildings still represents the lifestyle of a small family farm and is being preserved by the stewardship of the Bethany Historical Society. The house is substantially intact. The barn has the historic core of an English barn, and reflects the modifications typically made to adapt to early 20th-century dairy requirements. An unusual feature of this farmstead is the school-bus garage and the history of Olive Russell’s service to the town as the school-bus driver as the transportation system changed from horse-drawn to motorized.

Historical background: “The farmstead has been traced back as far as 1832 in Bethany tax records, with Daniel Russell (1776-1843) as the owner. Records prior to 1832 are yet to be searched elsewhere, as Bethany separated from Woodbridge in that year. The property passed to Daniel’s son, Daniel W. Russell and then to his sister Nancy Russell (1810-1889). In 1889 ownership passed to Amos Russell (1820-1891), Nancy’s brother and subsequently to Harriet E. Russell (1840-1916), wife of a nephew Wright L. Russell (1846-1939). Their son, Arthur E. Russell (1884-1948), inherited the property with his wife Olive. Historic aerial photography shows substantially the same buildings as are extant now, with the surrounding landscape including an orchard to the northwest of the barn complex and open fields to the west, north, and east where today woodlands, housing, and commercial businesses exist.

“Olive (1891-1984) and Arthur had 12 children, Lena, Charles, Henrietta (“Etta”), Ruby, Edna, Alice, Merritt, Dorothy, Loris, Sidney, Ernest, and Robert. Olive was also the town school bus driver, first driving a series of horse-drawn vehicles, later a Ford station wagon, and finally a green school bus.

“During Arthur and Olive’s ownership, the central chimney mass was removed and the front door moved from the center to the present location. The original windows in the house were apparently replaced after 1900, as indicated
by a historic photograph (Bunton). The replacement two-over-two sash are typically Italianate style 19th-century materials, and since some of the same windows appear in the bus garage bay of the barn, perhaps the Russells
‘modernized' with recycled second-hand windows, re-using them for the house and barn.”

This story began tracking down the horses from Yale University that summered in Bethany, then unexpectedly veered in a different direction because of stories heard, changes seen. (Editor's note: The Yale horses are another story, to be told another day.)

Editor's note: The book The Russell Family Homestead Bethany, Connecticut by Linda J. Wooster and Rachel Nevolis is not yet available. For more information or to place an order, contact the Bethany Historical Society. Also see Historic Barns of Connecticut, linked here.

Later the same day, a visit to welcome “In The Time of Whisper Yelling” by Simon Donato. More about this book, a new app for exploration in development and a former dairy farm that has been in the same family for nine generations. Kriz Farm and farriers too.