 Good morning and welcome to Moments with Melinda. I'm so glad you joined me today. My guest is Lindsay Halpt-Varner. Hi Lindsay, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. I'm so glad that you agreed to be on my show. I'm so excited to learn about you in the Rokeby Museum. Yeah, I'm excited as well. So for my viewers out there, let me tell you who Lindsay is. Lindsay is the first full-time director at the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburg, Vermont, and the museum is dedicated to preserving the story of the Underground Railroad and exploring modern-day issues of race and social justice. Right, Lindsay? Yeah, we do all those things. We're busy here at the museum. And you do a lot more. So we're going to get into that in detail in this interview. So Lindsay, let's start at the beginning and talk a little bit about your young years growing up, where you grew up, where you went to school, a little bit what influenced you to move into the work that you do today. Yeah, I grew up in central Pennsylvania in a town called Carlisle, and I was interested in history from a really young age. Through middle school, high school, I participated in history day. I took all the history classes I could. And so when I decided to go to college, I double-majored in government and history. I was unsure if I was going to be a lawyer or pursue history as a career. And in the end, I decided to pursue history, and it's been a love of mine for decades. So talk to us. I'm from Pennsylvania, too, by the way. Now, you're from central Pennsylvania, right? Yes, yeah. I'm from the Western Pennsylvania. So let's talk a little bit about who had the greatest influence in your life growing up to motivate you to move into historic preservation, because you did it as a child. I'm assuming you were a great student. You're probably a very good student. In the classes that I liked. Yeah, I had a history teacher in high school, Mrs. Hines, who would just after class would sit and talk to me about history. I'd be reading books and she would recommend books. And we would just sit and talk about historical themes and how it impacted the world around us. And that really left an impact on me. When I went to college, I ended up interning at the Cumberland County Historical Society in my hometown. And I had some fantastic mentors there. In particular, the photo archivist, Richard Tritz, and he really showed me how history can have an impact on the community around you. It's not just dates and facts, but it's really a way to engage the community. And it's a way for people to find love in the place that they're living or place that they're visiting. And he really fostered that in me throughout the internship. And I took that with me throughout my grad school career. And even today, this idea that history plays a much bigger role in our communities. Are you still in touch with those folks who inspired you? I am. Yeah. So I haven't seen Mrs. Hines in many years, but I ended up just a complete coincidence. When I ended grad school, I ended up back at the Cumberland County Historical Society. I was hired to administer a grant, and they were the fiscal sponsors. And Richard was still there. He's still the photo archivist. So it was wonderful to connect with him and actually work with him again. Yeah. He must be so proud of you and your career. So what is your favorite historical time? Yeah. So my expertise is actually in British history, early modern British history. I love learning about the Reformation. My PhD really focused on Quakers and how they developed as a community and they interacted with their towns. So I've always had this interest in community culture and religion and the Reformation. So living in England for six years, I got a chance to really experience British history. And so that's always been a huge interest of mine. So where did you live in England? I lived in Durham. It's where I did my grad degree at Durham University. So I lived it northeast England, not too far from the Scottish Quarter. So your thesis was on British history? It was, yeah. So it was on the rise of Quakerism in County Durham. Now did this position at the Rokeby bring you to Vermont? It did, yes. Had you been to Vermont? Had you ever experienced New England? Yeah, I had been to Vermont. I'd driven through Vermont to get to Canada before. And the year that I actually applied for the job, I came to Vermont for a training. I was in Burlington in February of 2020. And I had been working with Community Heart and Soul, which is part of the Orton Family Foundation, based out of Shelburne. And they brought me to Burlington for training. And I got an opportunity to experience the area. And I had heard staff talk about how wonderful Vermont was. And I finally got a chance to visit. And I just I fell in love with the area, which just seemed like a great place to live. I wanted to let you know that I served on the board of the Orton Family Foundation. And I was the whole Community Heart and Soul event that was sponsored by the Vermont Arts Council. And it was such an extraordinary event. And the foundation does a lot of great work. So that's interesting to know that that brought you into that training. Talk to us a little bit about your work at the Cumberland County Historical Society and what you did when you were there. Yeah, I was hired to administer Community Heart and Soul grants. The Orton Family Foundation had partnered with the Pennsylvania Humanities Council to pilot three communities in the state of Pennsylvania with the Heart and Soul model. And I was hired to do one of the towns. So I looked at the Greater Carlisle area. And it was kind of this mixture of my love of the humanities and community redevelopments. And so it was housed in the Cumberland County Historical Society. And then through the process of Heart and Soul, we learned the importance of preservation and history within the communities. And it ended up becoming a full time job for me as their Community Outreach Director at the Historical Society. So what is the history of Carlisle and Cumberland County? What was the history that you unveiled there? Yeah, the big thing that we unveiled was in a small town Mount Holly Springs just out of Carlisle was a African-American community that had essentially been written out of the town's history. And we were interviewing families about what they loved about their community, what they would hate to lose. And one of the families, the Gumbies, had said to us that they would hate to lose the African-American history after they had passed. They were all in their 80s and their 90s. And they wanted to make sure that the legacy of their family survived. They had a multi-generational family that had lived in this town since just after the Civil War. And they said that they wanted to make sure that the church that their family had been a part of was preserved. And this church was completely overgrown and hidden by weeds. And when we finally had a chance to get into it, it's a circa late 1870s log cabin church that hadn't been used since the 1970s. And the story that they told led to this whole preservation effort to uncover the history of the family as we ended up finding former congregants who worshiped in the church as late as the 1960s. And this all started this major preservation project that I'm still lucky enough to be a part of today, even from Vermont I'm on the board of the nonprofit that was created to preserve this site. And this just became the start of a much larger effort to start to preserve African-American history in Cumberland County. How fascinating. I would love to see pictures of that church at some point. So Lindsay, you studied Quakerism. Tell us about what Quakerism is for my viewers who might not be familiar with that. Yeah, Quakerism started in the 17th century with the English Civil Wars. And it started with the gentleman George Fox. It is a religious group that came out of many religious denominations that grew out of the 17th century Baptists. You have the rise of Presbyterianism just before that. And so it comes out of a much larger Reformation tradition. Quakers believe in the most believe at the time, at least in the 17th, 18th century, in the inner light and the idea that you can directly commune with God. They believed in simplicity and plainness. And at some place like Brokeby, you can see that throughout the house. The family here were Quakers. And so their religious beliefs really played a large part in their daily lives. And their moral upbringing and their education, it all came back to their belief as a Quaker. Well, I'm from Pennsylvania too, as I mentioned, and we have the Amish there as well. But Quakerism is very big in Pennsylvania. So are you a Quaker? I am not, no. Well, the other thing about Quakerism that I think is really valuable is that there's a there's a peacefulness about them and a kindness where they come from a position of peace and kindness in everything that they do. Would that be fair? Yeah, they were throughout history, every major warrior, their conscientious objectors. There is, like you said, that peacefulness. And there's also it, there's very strong moral integrity among Quakers. And that's certainly something that we talk a lot about here at Brokeby with our first two generations, a particular abolitionist generation, that their strong beliefs really were rooted in their beliefs as Quakers. Fascinating. And we do have a group, there's a church in Burlington. And there's quite a few Quakers in Vermont. So now let's segue, fascinating upbringing and education and work that you've done in your life. Lindsay, now let's focus on the Rokeby Museum, because you are the first full time director. Tell us more about the museum. How long has it been there? Give us a little bit of history about the Rokeby. Yeah, the museum has been here in some form since the 1960s. The last Robinson to live in the house, Elizabeth Robinson, willed the site to what was then called the Rowland Evans Robinson Memorial Association, which had been in existence since the 1930s to honor one of our third generation residents in the home. And the site was intended to tell the story of the family when Elizabeth willed the property. She said that they would not be allowed to auction off any of the items inside the museum. So we have this fabulous collection that spans four generations of the family. They lived here from 1793 till 1961. So you can imagine just all of the types of things that we have in our collection here. And so the museum has always told the story of the family. And then they've also used the family's lives through those four generations to tell a much broader story of American history as well as Vermont history. So we initially started out really focused on Rowland Evans Robinson. He was the son of our abolitionists at Rokeby. And he was a nationally known author and the original Memorial Association had members from all across the country who just loved Rowland's books. He wrote history books. He wrote books from about fictional towns in Vermont that are written in the Vermont dialect. He wrote about conservation and the environments and industrialization. He was just a very interesting figure who cared about a lot of different topics and he wrote about them. And where was he from? So he was born and raised here at Rokeby. And where was his family from? Where did his family hail from? So they were all here. So he was third generation of the family here at Rokeby. And originally they probably came from England? The first generation, so Thomas Robinson arrives in the 1790s in Vermont and he was from Newport Rhode Island. And we have been able to trace the Robinson family in Newport and back to England. We believe they were from what's today Cumberia, but it was Cumberland England at the time. And they are multi-generational bakers going back to some of the first bakers in the 17th century in England and they moved to Newport Rhode Island and then to Vermont. And you have to wonder, because this was after Ethan Allen, you have to wonder what would bring people from Rhode Island up through the wilderness of Vermont and the cold and the harshness of Vermont. Do you have any idea what inspired them to come up here and build this beautiful home? Yeah, that's been a big question that we've been looking at at Rokeby is what brought that first generation to Vermont. We know that after the revolution, Newport was in decline. It was pretty much decimated during the revolution. Thomas Robinson and his brother William really came, were the ones who came to Vermont. They were younger sons, it's possible, there were just no opportunities in Newport. And Vermont was a new state. It was kind of like this wild new opportunity to establish yourself. So we find them purchasing mills, they're running mills. It appears that they were land speculating. So when they purchased the property at Rokeby, they're by no means poor. They seem to have a substantial amount of income already here in Vermont. Fascinating. So let's talk to our viewers a little bit about the underground railroad, because it really was not a railroad, was it? No, not at all. It's more a loose connection of people that are working to help freedom seekers self emancipate and find a place in the north out of enslavement. Our second generation were the abolitionists. So Rowland, his wife Rachel, and their good friend Anne King, were active in the anti-slavery movement. They utilized Rokeby as a stop on the underground railroad. We're not sure how many people came through the site. We probably will never know how many people came through. And we really don't know what the people we do know about. We don't know what happened to them after they left Rokeby. Sometimes they would stay at night. Sometimes they would stay for longer and work on the farm and save up money, but what happens to them afterwards, we're not entirely sure. But the family were active, not just in Vermont, not just in Farrisburg, but they were national figures in the abolitionist movements throughout the 1820s to the 1850s. Now oftentimes enslaved people who fled to the north could be recaptured. Was that the case in Vermont or not? Yeah, we don't really have a lot of documented cases of people being captured and returned south. And there are a lot of theories as to why that is. Vermont is so far north. It would be difficult to take somebody back south. We also see that after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, a lot of underground railroad work goes further west into New York and straight into Canada. It doesn't seem to be as many freedom seekers coming through Vermont. And you also just see a decline in work on the underground railroad because it becomes even more dangerous to be helping freedom seekers on the underground railroad. So as far as we know, there are very few documented cases of individuals being captured and sent back to the south. Well, Vermont didn't support slavery. Am I correct? Yes, I know. As a state, there's gradual emancipation in Vermont. But if you think about individual people in communities, not everybody is an abolitionist and actively supporting the end of enslavements. And I think Vermont fits in with a lot of other northern states. There's still racism. There are still people who are not actively supporting the end of slavery in the United States. So it's, I don't think in many ways, standing out from the rest of the north. They're very much the same as anybody else living in the 19th century. So the freedom seekers, what a journey that must have been and then to find the refuge in the Robinson House, I mean, it just must have been harrowing to make that journey up through Vermont. Very, very difficult. So since you have been in Vermont for a couple of years, have you experienced racism? And have you experienced racism? I mean, have you seen it? Do you feel it's ear? Yeah, I think that's one of the things when people come into Rokeby. We get a large, kind of a broad array of people coming into the site, whether it be locals or people from the states or tourists coming in. So we hear a lot of stories of what people experience when they're in the state, whether it be they're visiting and there's this noticeable lack of people of color in the state. We've heard that from visitors before the museum or people telling stories of how they felt uncomfortable or not welcomed. But you also, we get the flip side of that as well, where people say they feel very welcomed and that they're sometimes surprised at how open people are to welcoming them into their communities and to sharing about aspects of Vermont history or communities, whether it's trails or restaurants to visit. There's also almost that level of surprise that you can be such a white state and so welcoming. So we hear both sides of those stories and I think that's important for us as a museum to listen to the stories that visitors are telling us and really think about how the history within the state impacts how people experience our communities today. And basically, it's a refuge. I mean the Rokeby Museum is in a world today in a country today that is banning books and trying to hide the true history. The Rokeby's approach to racism is to discuss it and bring it out into the open and to share the history. So you do state that the museum does not shy away from the fact that Vermont is not perfect here because regardless of our history is abolitionists and the Underground Railroad, there still are racist tendencies. And you and the Rokeby have gotten involved in supporting and sponsoring social justice forums around the state. Talk a little bit about that, Lindsay. Yeah, we want to make sure that as an institution, we're not just presenting the history through exhibits, telling people that they need to come to the museum, although we really do want you to come to the museum. But we also want to make sure that we can support other organizations and the work that they are doing, that we can share our knowledge and what we know about the past and find a way for that to have an impact on the present. I think one of the most important things that we can do as historians, as professionals within the public history and the museum field, is to ensure that people really understand that the past has an impact on what is happening around us currently. And you can't ignore the things that make you uncomfortable. You can't ignore conversations that might make your ancestors or make previous community members look in a bad light. It's about learning and discussing and really understanding how we can move forward within our society and within our communities. And that's one of the most important roles that we play within the institution. And we really want to make sure that we continue to do that work in the best way that we can. And so one of those ways is working with other organizations to highlight the work that they're doing and sharing the knowledge that we have. And you have this fabulous program, ourselves and others exhibition, which is racial learning with preschoolers. Right? It's a fantastic program. Yeah, all the way starting in preschool. So this is a curriculum that we developed thanks to a grant from the Henderson Foundation. And it is really allowing us to go into preschools and start conversations at a very young age about what makes us different in our communities. And that that's okay. And so our educator Tucker Foltz has been going into several preschools. We've been partnering with them for these months long projects that are hands on education with the students. And we were very lucky, one of the classes the Bridge School last year allowed us to keep some of the students' artwork that they produced so that we can share it with the public. What they learned. We've got fabulous self portraits that they did, just really starting to start some conversations that they're going to have when they come to the museum in third, fourth or fifth grade. But starting that conversation young, because that's what experts in the field are saying we should be doing to create a more inclusive community as having these conversations with young people as soon as possible. Well, because learning is one to six years of age is when your language is created and a lot of your ideas and to be able to teach about racism at that young age has a huge impact. Share with us the project Finding Hope Within, which combines art made by incarcerated artists in Vermont, Massachusetts in Maine. And on August 20th, John Vincent, a guest curator, hosted a gallery talk. Tell us about that. This is a fantastic exhibit. John Vincent, with a revolutionary press, approached me a couple of months ago. He heard that we had an open gallery and asked if he could take it over. And when he told me what he was kind of envisioning for the space, I said, of course, it's yours. Do what you want with the space. And it goes back to a lot of work that he has been doing with reentry programs, with connecting artists, with people who are incarcerated and using art as a way as an outlet. And so he is basing this off of a previous exhibit that was done in Maine with people who are incarcerated in Maine. So we do have objects in the exhibit from Maine, Massachusetts, as well as Vermont. And they range from individuals who are currently incarcerated, who did the work while in prison, and then also individuals who are in reentry programs as well. So it's a fantastic exhibit. And the underlying theme throughout it is that idea of finding hope. And it ranges from poems to knitting to collages. It's a beautiful exhibit. John did a wonderful job curating it. And it's up right now, right at the Rokeby Museum. Yes, it's up until October 14. And the Rokeby is in Ferrisburg, right off of Route 7. You can't miss it. It's right after, on the way to Ferrisburg, right after the Teddy Bear factory, right? Yes. Yeah, you can miss us. So also you, you, the Rokeby has hiking trails that the public is invited to, to use. And the Rokeby provides on site in classroom and virtual learning experiences for students pre K through 12th college and homeschool groups, and for adult groups as well, right? Yeah, we'll do private tours for adults. We get a lot of businesses who want to come to do different types of outings with their employees. And we welcome anybody who wants to come and have a tour of the museum or the house. We love showing people around and sharing the history of the site. Well, it certainly helps if you're doing diversity training and any of my viewers who have a company, if you want to do diversity training, one of the places to start is at the Rokeby, I would say. Now much of your, I want to just let people know that the website that you have is very, very good. It's excellent. It's Rokeby, R-O-K-E-B-Y dot org. And I suggest you visit it. Most of your funding comes from donations. There is a donation button on the site and we encourage our viewers to, to donate to the Rokeby Museum and this great work and no donation is too small. Also, there are many folks who volunteer at the Rokeby. You can get involved with tours, collections, work, trail maintenance, and there's a section on your website for folks to sign up. Now, on September 16th at 8.30 p.m., there's a free exhibit, Astronomy at the Rokeby with the Vermont Astronomical Society. You want to talk a little bit about that, Lindsey? Yeah, that's, we're going to be at Rokeby. We're going to find a spot on site and hopefully we'll have clear skies and we'll have telescopes out and the Astronomical Society is going to be walking people through using the telescopes and showing what's in the night sky that evening. How fun is that? Yeah, I'm really excited. It's the first time we've done this program so I'm very excited to be able to host it at the museum. Well, I encourage my viewers to go and I'm sure they could just walk in and on September 16th, it's coming up at 8.30 p.m. That's when the sun will be going down around that time and it's a free exhibit, Astronomy at the Rokeby with the Vermont Astronomical Society. So go on and check that out. I also wanted to mention and give a big shout out to Bob Standard and Paul Asbell. They held a music fundraiser which we were out of town, we couldn't make it for the museum and I think they raised quite a bit of money for the museum. Yeah, we raised $10,000 that evening. It was a phenomenal night, absolutely amazing and everybody who came out to support the museum and our exhibitions, it was just wonderful. We were raising money for a matching grant to help us with our revamp of our main exhibition, our underground railroad exhibition, that'll be happening this winter. So thanks to them, we met our match and we'll be getting underway to update that exhibit. So it was a great evening. It's outstanding. So Lindsay, what words of wisdom can you offer our society on helping to heal the world we live in? Any words of wisdom? Oh, I think I'm looking for words of wisdom on any given day. But for what I tell people, I mean as a historian, be read, just constantly be reading what is out there, learn about the past, learn about your community and also be thinking about what stories in your community might be missing. One of the most impactful parts of not just my career, but I think in my life was that aha moment where I realized there were hidden and missing voices in my community, that there were people who society and culture deemed their history not to be important enough and it is missing. And at Rokeby, we can't tell certain stories because of that. So look around your community and think about who is missing and start digging into that history and bringing it to light, because it'll tell you a lot about your community and it could start helping with some healing that might need to happen. So beautiful, Lindsay, beautiful. Talk about how our folks can sign up for your newsletter. You have a newsletter they go on your website. Yeah, if you go to our website, you can sign up for our newsletter that goes out every week, every week or two weeks. And you can stay up to date. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. You can stay up to date with all of our programming through our website as well. Well, Lindsay Hopdvarner, I got to tell you, it is just a joy to have you in Vermont and leading this extraordinary museum. And I want to thank you for all your hard work and the work of your staff and your extraordinary board of trustees, too, that are doing a great job. I look forward to your new exhibit coming up in May. And I encourage all of my viewers to get down. Route 7, it's in Ferrisburg, right on the left. You can't miss it. And spend a day at the Rokeme Museum. I promise you it'll be time well spent. So Lindsay, thank you for being on my show. I deeply appreciate it. Thank you, Melinda. I hope to get to know you better, my friend. Bye-bye. Bye, thanks.