YCBCNEWS02

A Letter from the Editor

Our February meeting was held at Mary Markley's house in Hollis.

Those attending were: Clayton and Dotty Locke, Mary and John Markley, Susan and David Brown, Evelyn Waterhouse, Judy Hurst, Frieda Earle, Gail Domin, Betty Gilbert, Jackie Neuts, Ruth Leipold, and Em Bently.

Thanks to everybody for the extra food and buttons in the Valentine motif!

As promised, here is more information about the Northeast Regional Button Association (NERBA) show.

Date: June 9-11, 2006

Place: The Hilton Hotel in Southbury, Connecticut

Theme: This year NERBA welcomes you aboard the Orient Express, with the theme of grand adventure, luxury travel, and exotic destinations. This should provide a challenge to those button collectors who intend to compete in any of the classification divisions.

If you plan to attend the weekend event, hotel rates are $91 plus tax, single or double occupancy. Reserve your room early by calling the Hilton Hotel at 203-598-7600. Be sure to mention that you are attending the NERBA button convention.

For more information you may contact me or Ruth Harju, who is our Maine representative.

The Orient Express

A Brief History

Here is a partial history of the Orient Express, as it appeared in the NERBA newsletter.

George Nagelmackers began building luxury railway carriages for travel across continental Europe in the early 1880s. In 1881 he introduced the first restaurant car aboard a continental train. On October 4, 1883, the first Orient Express train service was inaugurated.

The legendary Orient Express was at its heyday from the 1920s to 1930s when royalty, celebrities, spies, courtesans, and other notables intermingled as they traveled in opulence throughout Europe.The Orient Express was known for its elaborate meals and fine wines. It often took several days to reach its destinations, which included France, Germany, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Switzerland, Egypt, Italy, Great Britain, and India.

The Orient Express was the inspiration for Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, and was featured in the film Around the World in 80 Days.

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The Story of Ole Bull

Last the Musician, as he stood

Illumined by that fire of wood;

Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,

His figure tall and straight and lithe,

And every feature of his face

Revealing his Norwegian race;

A radiance, streaming from within,

Around his eyes and forehead beamed,

The Angel with the violin,

Painted by Raphael, he seemed

He lived in that ideal world

Whose language is not speech, but song;

Around him evermore the throng

Of elves and sprites their dances whirled;....

From Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn

Liberty is more than a word...it's a need...as strong in man as the needs for food, or drink, or shelter. Among all men, he who most loves and needs liberty is the artist; for recreation without freedom cannot exist. Through all history, poets, painters, and masters of music have been found in the vanguard of fighters for the freedom dream.

On a green Pennsylvania hillside, northwest of Williamsport, there stands a half- forgotten monument to a man who once, bravely, dared to have this dream. By the year 1852, his music had enchanted the courts and the capitols of all Europe...the notes of his violin had sounded at the coronations of Kings. Ole Bull had heard "bravos" from the entire world.

Yet, his thoughts were always on his native Norway, a little nation at the mercy of every political whim of large and greedy neighbors.

He dreamt of a "new" Norway....

A concert tour brought him to the United States and into north-western Pennsylvania. And here, he conceived his great plan...to found a new colony in this region that was not unlike his homeland...protected by strong hills, shaded by giant pines, and watered with the singing music of quick streams....a "new" Norway, consecrated to liberty, baptized with independence, and protected by America's flag.

Three hundred of his countrymen came with him. They built a settlement and named it for their leader--"Oleana". They raised a single flagpole bearing the flags of two countries--America and Norway, there joined into one.

Ole Bull stood on the hilltop and surveyed the grandeur of the valley of his "little Norway" and he drew his bow across the strings of his violin with an inspiration no audience in Paris or Vienna had ever heard.

But his new world was not to be. For suddenly word came that the man from whom he had purchased the land had not held clear title...so Ole Bull saw his life-long dream crumble into an empty vision. In vain he enlisted the aid of influential friends, but he could not save what he had worked so hard to build.

In the end, a weary, defeated, heart-broken man returned to Norway...never again, until the day of his death, to touch his violin.

Now all that is left of the memory of his dream is a single monument: the lone flagpole, still bravely flying the flags of Norway and America.

And sometimes, when the wind blows across the hills of Oleana, they say there is the echo of a magic violin, singing its music of the birds, the rustling trees, and the clear swift waters...a music ceaseless and forever free.

Thanks to Ruth Harju (who credits Just Buttons, Vol XL, No 2, November 1952) for sharing this information with us.

Ruth also mentioned that she learned the following song in Girl Scouts:

O to be in Oleana,

That's where I'd rather be,

Than be bound in Norway

And drag the chains of slavery.

In Oleana, land is free.

The wheat and corn just plant themselves.

They grow four feet a day.

While on our beds we rest ourselves.

Ole Bornemann Bull, Norwegian violinist, was born in Bergen, Norway, on February 5, 1810. His father opposed his musical bent and he suffered extreme privation during his early years. But when success came, it was in full measure, and at twenty-eight he had earned a fortune. He visited the U.S. five times between 1843 and 1870, taking up his residence here in 1869. He died in Norway, on August 17, 1880.

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Next month, Egyptian Buttons