Sussex County History Today: My Rockwell tie

Several years ago, we were invited to the wedding of the daughter of our neighbors, our dear friends. The location was in a rustic and mountainous region in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

The town was historic Stockbridge, and the place was a beautiful setting outside of a museum on a long green slope leading down to the calm and meandering Housatonic River amongst lush summer greenery.

The museum was the Norman Rockwell Museum.

This is a history column. In regard to history, and that of Sussex County in particular, I have some thoughts.

As a lifelong resident of the county and local history buff, I feel I can describe some of our history at a deeper level than just artifacts and factual depiction of what we have had here.

Consider, a society has underlying beliefs and sentiments that evolve. Many times in history, those people in a particular area have shared values, common traditions, and are indeed communities of interest and practice.

These shared values are often built from similar attitudes, such as those people who were displaced or simply looking for a new home. In our area’s past, there were the Baptists from Connecticut in the mid-1700s; French Huguenots; and the Dutch from along the Hudson and Wallkill rivers.

Along with my readings and experiences, I have had associations with many people here. I have interviewed older people who have conveyed their ways from the 1800s to the 1980s.

Others, more my age, have had common experiences and preferences. This theme seems to go back to the early 1800s and enthusiasm for President Andrew Jackson, a man who held a popular persona as a rough backwoodsman and his heroism in battle and advocacy for the ordinary American.

I believe that our Sussex County retains a similar notion, a Thoreau type of self-reliance and a strong spirit of freedom.

In 1941, the world was ensconced in the horrific destruction now known as World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt announced a proposal that there are four fundamental freedoms that people everywhere in the world should be able to enjoy:

• Freedom of speech.

• Freedom of worship.

• Freedom from want.

• Freedom from fear.

Norman Rockwell, in my opinion, captured wonderfully these abstract concepts in his paintings.

Rockwell was an illustrator during the 1930s and ’40s and his highly popular work often showed up on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine.

To me, he represents, as no other, our American society and culture during that time and, in many ways, the present time.

For me, Rockwell’s paintings are a big part of my image of America. They provide me with a tangible and colorful rendition of how life here ideally is.

The Thanksgiving dinner with the full family happily together and ready to eat on a cold late autumn day warms my heart.

The “Freedom from Fear” painting of a father and mother putting their son to bed in a cozy room makes me comforted.

A fellow worker, now gone, who was one of the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s told me that he held that painting dearly as symbolic of what his new life in America represented.

So, when at the Rockwell Museum, I picked up a tie with the Four Freedoms on it.

I proudly wear the tie whenever appropriate and am ready to tell all about the great country that we have and the Sussex County legacy that conforms to freedom and independence.

Bill Truran, Sussex County’s historian, may be contacted at billt1425@gmail.com